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tenpintsof-sundrop · 2 days ago

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My Top 10 Fics Of 2024

So, I have decided that I am gonna do the same thing that I did last year because I had so much fucking fun with this last time and it's a great way to look back and reflect on all the hard work I have done this year. And I am counting these down not based on statistics - not how many likes these posts have or how 'popular' they are, but based on how much I like them, and I get to really reflect on how writing these fics made me feel. And that is truly the most important part of fanfiction - how much fun I am having. So I am really happy and excited to reflect on all the awesome stuff I have written this year.

And I think a really great sign is that I had an incredibly difficult time with this year's ranking. Because I wrote so many amazing fics that I had so much fun with. Even if I had a really (not so fun) incident where I came very close to quitting fanfiction altogether, I had a lot of fun, and I wrote a lot of amazing things that I am so fucking proud of. And I'm only including fics in this ranking that I have posted (which is why I strategically waited until after certain fics were posted to write and make this ranking) - and not even including ones I have written and not yet posted, which are also fics I absolutely fucking love. So even if this year may not have been great for my mental health or my physical health, this year was a year where I felt great and comfortable and happy as an artist.

Anyway, here's the ranking!!

This year I posted 20 different fics consisting of over 250,000 words - and that is not including the fics I have not edited and the unfinished WIPs I have in my drafts.

Also keep in mind, if you randomly see this post in tags and you don't follow me, this is my main blog and not my fanfiction blog. My fanfiction blog is @sundrop-writes - you can follow me there to check out my fics and follow me for all my exciting fanfiction adventures in 2025.

Honorable Mentions:

Meddle About - Sub!Spencer Reid x Dom!Fem!Reader (6,300 words). I was slightly conflicted about if I should put this on the list or not, because currently, this is (in terms of statistics) the most popular fic on my blog right now, and usually when a fic is super popular, I am less inclined to like it. But this list is supposed to be strictly about how I feel about my fics and the experience I had while writing them. And I did really enjoy the experience of writing this fic - it was really fun to write something absolutely kinky and filthy and to write a fic that was so truly stuck in my head. I had a lot of fun with it.

The Restricted Section - Dom!Hermione Granger x Sub!Fem!Reader x (Secret Voyeur) Harry Potter (4,400 words). This is one of my absolute favourite fics that I have written this year, and it just didn't make the top ten because other fics were more my favourite. I loved writing this because it was such a fun PWP and it was one of those instances where I had the idea and then the fic was posted like a day later. It's a lot of fun.

Tongue Twister - Sub!Gar Logan x Dom!GN!Reader (2,000 words). This is one that I actually forgot that I wrote this year - it feels like so long ago lmao. But I really loved it when I wrote it, I love it now. I will always love Gar so much, and I love writing slutty fics about him.

Eager Little Puppy - Sub!Isaac Lahey x Dom!GN!Reader (2,700 words). This is by far one of my favourite things I have written this year - Isaac is one of my new favourite characters, and I have absolutely loved writing about him (and I look forward to writing more about him in the future). This is just a representation of how much I love him.

One Moment Per Episode With Dick Grayson - Dick Grayson x Fem!Reader (8,300 words). This is another one that I forgot was from this year because it feels like so long ago. I really fucking love the concept and I really, really want to continue it further in 2025 (feel free to send me messages if you are excited about it and want to see more, because I would like to set aside some specific time to work on it). Anyway - I really love the start of it and I really love what I have planned for this fic in the future.

Now, onto The Top Ten:

10. Precious Time Alone (aka The Knot Fic) - Gar Logan x Fem!Reader (11,800 words)

Even with the ability to see the future, you never would have guessed that your life would lead you to falling in love with the perfect man - someone sweet, caring, funny, cute. Someone with the passion and fire to protect the ones that he loves no matter what. A precious guy with green hair who had the ability to transform into a tiger at will. And when you finally made love to him for the first time, you never could have guessed how that unique ability affected his sex life. You weren’t exactly complaining, but you wished you had seen this coming. At the end of the day, it was just another thing about him to love. Or - Neither you nor Gar knew that he has the ability to knot, and you both find out for the first time when you have sex together. Gar Logan x Fem!Powered!Reader. Established Relationship. Smut/PWP. Set during Season 2, Episode 9.

It's such an interesting coincidence that both this year and last year, the number ten slot contains a Gar fic that is a re-make/re-post. I have a lot of fics that are only on AO3 and not on Tumblr, and I highly recommend that you check out my AO3 for that reason, but if I am transferring a fic from AO3 to Tumblr, I love to go through and do some edits on it and see how I can improve it before I post it again.

I absolutely loved this fic when I first posted it, and I love it even more with the edits - including the new scene that I added. It is such a fun idea that could be considered Crack Fic (so often, I write Crack Fic concepts but I treat them seriously) - the idea that Gar has a Knot because he is 'an animal' (or because he has animal DNA). It's such a funny idea, but it was fun and hot to write porn about it.

I love this fic, and if it is your thing and you would enjoy reading it, I hope that you enjoy it too.

9. The Way You Miss Me - Fred Weasley x Fem!Reader (18,500 words)

Fred broke up with you. He made it clear that he was going to have a new life when he opened his shop, and he didn’t need you to be a part of it. You being stuck on him was just another joke in a long line of pranks that he pulled. And life kept on laughing at you when your fear of heights was triggered by a potentially life ending mission the Order put together that had you dangling hundreds of feet over London, held up only by Fred’s strength and determination. So what does it mean when the two of you land, and he’s the only thing that can stop your shaking panic? What does it mean when he’s looking at you with nothing but love in his eyes, holding you tight like a lover would? Fred Weasley x Fem!Reader. Exes to Lovers. Emotional Angst and Smut. Set during Deathly Hallows.

This fic is one of the reasons that the ranking was so difficult. This one got moved around a lot because I had so much fun writing it and working on it. I am also super proud of this fic because originally, the idea was going to be part of a much longer fic, and I am so glad that I was able to pull off the emotions and the tone that I wanted in a much shorter word count that took me a lot less time. It makes me incredibly proud of myself - that I don't feel like I have to spend months and months on an idea in order to truly pull it off.

I fucking love this fic and I am so happy with how it turned out.

8. Why Am I The One? - Isaac Lahey x Fem!Reader (15,200 words)

Isaac loves you. He loves you more than anything else in the world - which is exactly why he has stayed away from you for so long. But when Derek kicks him out onto the street in the pouring rain with absolutely no warning and no reasoning as to why, Isaac has nowhere else to go. He could claim that he sought you out because you’re close by, because he knows that you won’t turn him away in his time of need - but deep down, it’s because he misses you. And staying away from you for so long is the hardest, stupidest thing he has ever done. Isaac Lahey x Fem!Reader. Exes to Lovers. Smut and Emotional Angst. Set during Season 3, Episode 4.

Again, this is one that made the ranking very hard. I enjoyed the process of writing this so fucking much. I was immediately inspired when I saw the episode, and as soon as I saw it, I started working on this fic - the imagery of Isaac so slutty in his white shirt sparks the temptation to write smut, but I love the emotional depth of him being a literal kicked puppy (after being kicked out by Derek) and being emotionally vulnerable and needing some place to go and someone to turn to. It is literally a perfect recipe for the kind of smut I write - super hot sex with emotional depth because one of the characters is feeling vulnerable. It's perfect.

This fic is exactly what I wanted it to be when I set out to write it, and I especially loved exploring Isaac's grief for Erica (which is by far not explored enough in the show) and I might do a continuation of it in the future, I'm not sure. Either way, I think it's fantastic, and it definitely deserves a spot on this list.

7. She Keeps Me Up - Dom!MILF!Jennifer Jareau x Sub!Fem!Reader (3,100 words)

JJ is protective of you. When you offer yourself up as ‘bait’ to lure in an UnSub who is killing women of your type, she protests endlessly about it - but ultimately she can’t stop you. She can, however, possessively lay her claim on you when you get back from the ordeal with nothing more than a tiny scratch. Dom!Jennifer Jareau x Sub!Fem!Reader. Established Dom/Sub Relationship. Smut/PWP.

Like I said, this list is all about reflecting, and I was considering wiping all Criminal Minds fics off this list because of the experience that I had - but that wouldn't be fair to my past self or fair to my art. Especially because this is one of my favourite fics I have ever written and whenever I listen to the song that I titled it for, I still have incredibly fond memories of writing this fic.

I think that MILF!JJ is my favourite version of JJ, even though - ironically - I haven't seen a lot of the later seasons. But way too many people obsess over Professor Reid and Grey Haired Prentiss (who I also love, don't get me wrong) - but I think there is not enough love for MILF!JJ. Not by far. I want to be her controversially younger girlfriend.

I actually have something in my drafts that is MILF!JJ centric, and if I finished it, it would be the only thing that could get me to stray back into the Criminal Minds fandom. I am so down bad for JJ, it's not even funny. (So - if you wanna see more of her, feel free to come in my inbox and let me know.)

6. Blood In The Water - Void!Stiles Stilinski x Fem!Reader (11,700 words)

Being Stiles’s best friend, you are incredibly worried about him when you figure out that he is quite literally not himself - and that the thing currently occupying his body could be destroying it in the process. When you approach him to show this concern, Void takes a particular interest in you. He’s not capable of love, or even fondness, but he likes you. And he likes the way your fear spikes when you talk about Stiles. So he makes you a deal - he’ll agree to take care of this fleshy, mortal host, in exchange for something more precious, more rare, and more delicious than the meal you have brought for Stiles. He wants your pain. He wants your tears. Void!Stiles Stilinski x Fem!Reader. Pining Best Friends. Extreme Emotional Angst, Hurt No Comfort. Set during Season 3 (with flashbacks to Season 1, Episode 11).

Another one that made the ranking so hard. This fic was so much fun to write, because as I said in the A/N for it - I fucking love writing villains. I love writing characters who are absolutely unambiguously evil. I do think it's a big of a shame that the recent cultural shift is to write villains as morally ambiguous or to take characters who are evil (or morally grey shifting more towards 'bad' in the canon) and soften them up so much in fanfiction to make it seem like they did nothing wrong.

A lot of people write Void as one of those "he is bad but he won't hurt me because he loves me uwu" characters and I really don't like that - because I want to write him as a character who is absolutely fucking incapable of love. He does not know love, he doesn't know what it is, and he has absolutely no softness or fondness for any person.

I really want to write a sequel to this fic - I have one drafted out that I think would be so fucking good - and I think I want to make it one of my goals for 2025 to complete and post the sequel. Anyway, just this fic as it is, I fucking love it, and I had such a fantastic time writing it.

5. Downhill - Draco Malfoy x Fem!Reader (20,100 words)

Draco knows his place in the world. He is a Malfoy, he is Pureblood. He is supposed to marry, carry on the Pureblood line. He is supposed to do everything that his parents would - including killing, if it’s what his Dark Lord wishes. Draco Malfoy is not supposed to hesitate. He is not supposed to feel fear. He is not supposed to have room in his heart for fondness, or even love. Not even when it comes to his bartered and bought fellow Pureblood fiancee. Love is nothing but a weakness. And Malfoys are not weak. Draco Malfoy x Fem!Reader. Arranged Marriage/Hesitant Lovers. Emotional Angst and Smut. Set during Half-Blood Prince.

This is one of the fics that caused me to strategically wait to make and post this whole list lmao. And I am glad that I actually got this fic posted when I wanted to, and I'm glad that I waited. I have had this fic brewing in my drafts for a long time, and I have had the general idea for it in my head for a lot longer. I've actually had the idea in my head for longer than the original fic existed (the fic that this is a prequel to) and when I figured out that I could utilise my idea here, I was so excited.

I love writing about the real consequences of Draco being a Death Eater and I fucking love writing the Arranged Marriage trope, and this was all my favourite things to write about rolled up into one. And I also loved writing the inclusion of Harry having a very shallow one-sided crush on the reader when she is too busy actually falling in love with Draco to notice. This was incredibly fun for me to write and I absolutely love how it turned out - so it is by far one of my favourite fics I have written this year.

4. Figure It Out - A Criminal Minds Casefic (18,000 words)

Since you joined the BAU, you have been keeping a terrible secret from the team. When the team takes a case in your hometown - your festering secret comes to be known with a vengeance. Fem!Reader x Gen!BAU Team (Platonic). General Casefic, modelled after a Criminal Minds episode. Angst, Mystery, Hurt and Comfort. Set during Criminal Minds Season 3.

I feel like this list would be incomplete if I did not include the fic I obsessed over as my first fic of the year. This fic really did a lot for me as an artist - for so long I have been wanting to write something with a similar concept to the music video for Figure It Out by Royal Blood (something where the story essentially goes in reverse and more details are revealed along the way, constantly changing who you believe is the villain vs who is the victim). The first time I saw that music video, it changed me and I have been so radically inspired by it ever since.

And because this idea has been sitting in my head for literal years, I am so fucking proud that I managed to do it justice. And I do think that Criminal Minds is the perfect backdrop to do this kind of idea with, and I think that this is actually a kind of radical artistic episode that they might actually do.

I would also love to use this format for other fandoms (I think it would work so well for The Walking Dead especially, and you guys know that I want to apply everything I do to Titans) - so I am so glad that I wrote this fic and gained confidence in writing something with an usual format and that I just got to have fun with it.

3. When Doves Cry - Jason Todd x Gar Logan (11,100 words)

At Dick’s insistence, Jason comes back to Wayne Manor to help the Titans end Crane’s deadly plan. Jason doesn’t want redemption or forgiveness - he’s done believing that he’s worthy of those. Once Crane is back at Arkham where he belongs, Jason plans to disappear, never to be heard from again. But Gar - someone who never stopped loving Jason and never stopped believing in his goodness - has other plans. Jason Todd x Gar Logan. Friends to Lovers/Lovers Reunited. Smut and Emotional Angst. Set during Season 3, Episode 13.

This fic is absolutely so fucking special to me. This is actually one of my only fics that has a dedication, even though most of my romance based fics should be dedicated to @nctzenkane - because he is the love of my life and he inspires most of my romance based fics in one way or another.

I wrote this fic at a time when I was really struggling as an artist. If you have been following me all year, then you will likely know about an incident where I spent months writing a longer fic, and that fic garnered some complaints and hate comments, and when I spoke up with my distaste for those comments - I was basically told to shut up, and I was told that fanfic readers have a right to be rude and treat fic authors like shit the second that we post our work to the 'public'.

And it really demotivated me and the whole incident really made me thoroughly consider quitting writing altogether, especially considering the fact that my chronic illness is getting worse each year and every single time I successfully post a fic, more and more work has gone into that fic behind the scenes (past my illness) in order to make that fic 'visible to the public'.

All of this to say that I was feeling down, disappointed and lost, and I asked Jaycen what to do - what I should write to truly make myself feel confident and good in my art again. I asked him to request something because I needed some inspiration and some artistic direction. And he requested this fic - because he usually only enjoys romances between canon character pairings (and he loves JayGar because I majorly fed him the juice on that) and he knows that Titans is my strong suit.

The fic is also incredibly special to me because the song is also incredibly special - even though I fucking love 80s music, I didn't really listen to Prince until Jaycen encouraged me to, and when I listened to this song for the first time, it really wormed its way in as one of my all time favourite songs. And it suits these characters and their dynamic so well in addition to being such a beautifully personal song to me.

So yeah - this fic is gonna go down in history as one of my top five favourite fics of all time, not just from this year. And it definitely made the ranking a lot harder.

2. Heaven's Gate - Daryl Dixon x GN!Reader (24,200 words)

Hope. Not the fragile, delicate thing that everyone mistakes it to be. Hope is stubborn, and grows inside of you long before you ever realize its purpose there. Hope can’t be crushed by a thousand pound tank or torn apart as easily as concrete walls can. Hope is balanced on the backs of songbirds, it whistles quietly in the wind, and it brings you right where you need to be (even if you don’t know it). Daryl Dixon x GN!Reader. Strangers to Lovers/Lovers Reunited. Emotional Angst, Hurt and Comfort, Fluff. Set during Seasons 1-5.

This is another fic that is so fucking special to me, and that's why it's so close to the top of the ranking. I have had this idea in mind for years probably - I fucking love the concept of any fic that involves reunions when it comes to The Walking Dead (and I could write 10,000 more fics based on this concept) because every single moment of reunion in the show just fucking gets me. Even though I don't really like Rick and Lori's relationship (and I love Lori, don't mistake me as a Lori hater - never), the moment where Rick gets out of the cube van and reunites with Carl and Lori for the first time in the first season - it gives me goosebumps every single time without fail.

So I simply aim to recreate that feeling with my fics.

Also - the bird symbolism. When I lived at my old place, I had a bird feeder right outside my window, and I used to do a lot of bird watching. And I became familiar with certain bird species and the rarity of certain types of birds, and there is just something hopeful that ignites within you when you see a particularly rare bird - and it is a myth I have heard that cardinals represent good luck (likely because of their rarity) when you see them.

And I love how the whole fic evolved to represent hope, which I think is something we all need more of in our lives. During this year of existential dread and sadness, it felt really good to write something that was purely about happiness and hope.

1. The Jaws of Life - Jason Todd x GN!Reader (19,900 words)

You and Jason don’t really hate each other - at least not anymore. Your feelings for each other are more than complicated, and before you have time to figure it all out, you have to part ways. Jason goes back to Gotham at Bruce’s behest, and you’re off to visit a long lost relative that you didn’t even know cared about you. Unfortunately, while you’re apart, the Joker makes things even more complicated with a phone call and a gun. And your world comes crashing down before you can even put names to all the stars in your sky. Jason Todd x GN!Powered!Reader. Friends With Benefits to Lovers/Lovers Reunited. Smut, Extreme Emotional Angst, Hurt and Comfort. Set during Season 3.

Here is the big number one! I am giving this one the top spot even though it's incomplete (and I am kind of biased because in my head, I am including how amazing stuff from the second part is) - and maybe it's just an excuse to include such an amazing fic in two different 'Top 10 Fics of The Year' posts lmao. Because when I post the second part in January, technically it will count for next year too.

But anyway - I love this fic so fucking much. This fic has been so long in the making, and I love every single aspect of it - the emotions, the metaphors, the length. This is one of those fics that is perfect to me because it came out exactly how I wanted it to be in my head. I am so utterly proud of this fic, and I am so glad that people are getting to read it now, even if it is just the first part.

Anyway - that's all for this year, and I am sooo looking forward to seeing what I can come up with next year.

#sundrop speaks #fanfiction #gar logan x reader #dc titans fanfiction #fred weasley x reader #harry potter fanfiction #isaac lahey x reader #teen wolf fanfiction #jennifer jareau x reader #criminal minds fanfiction #stiles stilinski x reader #void!stiles x reader #draco malfoy x reader #daryl dixon x reader #the walking dead fanfiction #jason todd x reader

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falderaletcetera · 1 year ago

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love to get partly spoiled for doctor who (this is not sarcastic; spoilers help me remember to actually go watch it) and STILL have absolutely no warning for how long he's going to spend in his underwear

#it's not that I'm a prude. it's slightly that I have minimal experience taking men in their underwear seriously when in strange contexts #and it makes my brain short-circuit #which made that section of the episode An Experience #yes I cried. yes I'm so pleased.#I dunno if it's perfect but this healed some OLD WOUNDS let me tell you #doctor who spoilers #doctor who #falderal speaks

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eudikot · 2 years ago

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I need one more second of video clips to finish the sequencing of the AMV and move onto effect editing

#This has been a great learning experience but oh boy #The pain of having an exact clip in your mind and then not being able to find it and wondering if you made it up #or don't know every second of the show as well as you thought you did #Like I was going to use a clip of Reigen smiling and just. Couldn't find it #But it's okay I think I'm pretty happy with what I have right now #Oh but if anyone knows where a clip of Reigen looking for something or inspecting something is outside of ep 1 lmk #Which episode and timestamp would be great. I have a filler clip for this section rn but I feel like there's a better one out there

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shigayokagayama · 4 months ago

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What are the biggest losses between the manga and anime? I just finished watching mp100 and I'm curious what the manga has!

ok biggest losses are kind of hard to define because like. anime and manga are two inherently different mediums and there are a good amount of cuts that improve pacing and then a good amount of cuts that people sort of argue over the merit of so im just going to go for biggest differences. i would also highly recommend reading the manga just because it is a pretty different experience tonally along with the minor plot differences and cut scenes + theres a bunch of omakes that both flesh out characters that dont get too much focus and have some really good bits in them. putting the rest of this post under a cut bc i ramble

mogami arc

this one is kind of inescapable i feel like but the anime version of the mogami arc had a LOT of things trimmed for a couple different reasons. season 2 already got an extra episode in order to do the fire scene as a cliffhanger so with the way things shook out the director had to choose between a. cutting a bunch of stuff out of separation arc to make it one episode so mogami arc couid stay three episode or b. cutting a bunch of stuff out of mogami arc so separation arc could stay two episodes. imo they made the right choice, whats even the point of adapting mob psycho if you dont get confession arc right, but some of the cuts to mogami arc will be dearly missed and others will be fought over to the end of time. cuts include:

minori being established as a brat in a video everyones shown and the video being part of how reigen deduces shes possessed (reigen deducing her possession in the manga is generally just a lot better done and after you read the manga the scene in the anime feels so awkward because you know whats missing

the psychics deciding to band together to beat this little girl to death to save themselves and shinra stepping between them to protect her and getting utterly thrashed, not by mogami, but his fellow psychics

reigen trying to convince mob to leave without him and call for help while he distracts him which leads to this

the general mogamiland section lasting a lot longer and being more brutal (notably the stray cat mob feeds getting killed in front of him)

mob getting fucking torn to pieces by spirits during the fight instead of ambiguously dying offscreen

generally would recommend if nothing else reading the manga version of this arc and confession arc because i feel like these are the only two where you lose like. a significant amount of the story and themes from the cuts. speaking of....

2. WHY THE FUCK DID THEY CUT THIS I WILL BE MAD UNTIL I DIE

maybe its just because i reread this arc on its own probably 50 times before the anime came out but this is the only arc where the cuts actively piss me off because there is absolutely no reason they had to do it. they cut a bunch of important shit, left in things that didnt need to be there, and added scenes that contribute literally nothing to the overall point. if they just did any one of those things or combo of two of those things i wouldnt be as mad but it feels like they put a bunch of filler in then speedran the actual story

cut #1 that pisses me off: HOMOPHOBIA?????

THERE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A HEART IN HIS EYE. WHY DID THEY NOT INCLUDE THIS. THIS IS THE CULMINATION OF TERUS ARC. THIS IS HIM SEEING THE PERSON HE HAS IDOLIZED AND DEIFIED IN HIS HEAD AT THEIR LOWEST AND STILL CHOOSING TO LOVE HIM, AND THROUGH THIS HE IS CAPABLE OF BEING LOVED EVEN THOUGH HES NOT PERFECT BECAUSE NO ONE IS. WHY WOULD YOU CUT THIS?

cut #2 I NEED WHOEVER CUT THE DIALOGUE FROM THE FIRST PANEL IN PRISON

the lack of inclusion of the first panels dialogue along with the cuts to the mob and shigeo conversation (WHICH WE WILL GET TO) make me think the person who adapted this arc fundamentally misunderstood what was happening. this line. is. THE POINT. THIS ISNT SOME SEPARATE SCARY THING. THIS IS MOB. HE IS CHOOSING TO DO THIS BECAUSE HE IS SCARED AND ANGRY AND HURT BUT HE IS IN CONTROL OF HIS ACTIONS AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN.

cut #3 HE DOESNT WANT TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR HIS ACTIONS

this entire conversation is so good and i was looking forward to watching it voice acted for so long and its just. gone. for me the "i am shigeo kageyama who are you" reveal felt like a gut punch because the opening being "i knew i would be needed" made me go "oh hes like possessed or his powers are sentient or something" and this conversation was the slow unraveling of my view of these as two separate people and instead as a scared, traumatized teenager who has convinced himself that the parts of himself he hates are something else outside of his control instead of an intrinsic part of who he is because if he's convinced that the parts of him that are able to feel desire and frustration and anger and malice are him then he'll lose all these relationships he's worked so hard to cultivate as his perfect, non confrontational self. and of course that isnt true. all his friends and loved ones are making their way to the center of a damn hurricane because they see he's in distress and want to help him. but he cant see that so he pushes them away. ugh. mob. protagonist of all time.

cut #4 WHY WOULD YOU CHANGE THE COMPOSITION OF THIS I CAN LITERALLY SEE HOW THIS WOULD BE ANIMATED IN MY MINDS EYE W

can you imagine how beautiful this would be in motion. just. god.

cut #5 HE WAS TALKING OUT LOUD. REIGEN HEARD ALL THIS

cut #6 the bowling arc

so the scene where reigen takes his shoes off is supposed to be a lot more solemn bc like. taking your shoes off before killing yourself is a trope in japanese media (ive heard it started in media and bled over into real life but i might have it backwards?). reigen knew he was probably going to die. anyway i cant take this scene seriously because of this edit

the bowling arc.

cut #7 WAAAAAAAAAAAA

WAAAAAAAAAAAA *sniff* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

cut #8 homophobia again

rip pensive fruity tea sip

cut #9 mob threw the cake directly in reigens face on purpose

i literally experienced every stage of grief realizing this got changed. why. its so perfect. why would you change this.

3. World Domination arc

so WD arc is in a very interesting place where it had a lot of scenes cut but unlike the other two most of the cut content youre like. yea probably best not to include that. ill start with the good content that got cut then go into the weird content

serizawa got his power drained by toichiro. i am quite sad this scene didnt make it in because its sorta heartbreaking

teru fighting off the claw assassin is shown and we see that teru can both make shadow clones AND hold a barrier while attacking, he seems to be the only esper with this ability!

the reason dimple could tell mob's family was alive is that there was no sense of grudge at the house which would have been left behind by people passing in a violent manner

mob briefly goes unconscious during the start of the toichiro fight and dimple possesses him and says "shit"

dimple possessing mob shoots shibata with a gun

we get mukai lore.

it doesnt make any sense and just raises more questions but we get it.

toichiro has a team of telepaths to recap where everyone is because this arc took an entire calender year to update

literally everyone shows up to fight shimazaki. i cannot stress enough how many people show up to fight shimazaki. it would be faster to list espers who dont show up to fight shimazaki

the middle school delinquents show up and start fighting the claw grunts literally completely out of no where and this is never brought up or referenced ever again

when mob and ritsu get home ritsu says all their stuff is in boxes and they need to hurry and redecorate the house before their parents get home which implies that shou packed the entire households worth of belongings into boxes and hid it somewhere before lighting their house on fire which is such a funny mental image that i cant even be mad at it. loony toons ass plot point.

4. other random interesting cut things

takenaka is just generally more of a bitch during alien arc. "ah i think they took him" remains one of the funniest goddamn panels in the manga

peak

alien arc overall is a lot funnier in the manga, i have a slight preference for the manga version just bc theres a lot of really good bits that didnt make it to anime but the anime version is so heartfelt and nostalgic it makes me happy

between omakes and small things that got cut or changed for the anime teru just feels way more fleshed out in the manga. like. anime teru is a completely different person. its hard to explain if youve never read it.

the all girls school part originally went right before the ghost family stuff and was the beginning of mob's existential crisis about why spirits and people get different treatment but tbh it works well where it is i just wish it werent. like that.

the scene where ritsu and teru shake hands was teru draining ritsus power which he seems to have learned to do from encountering ???%

teru.

thats all i can think of off the top of my head, im sure ill realize i forgot something some time after posting this but. yeah. read the manga its good

#mp100 #mob psycho 100

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jaspvids · 9 months ago

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The Diagnosis Of David

Disclaimer: I am by no means a mental health professional. This is just a meta-analysis.

What do we think of when we think of David?

His values of kindness. Optimism. Hope. Conviction. Passion. His drive to do his best every single day. The way he always makes an effort to reach out to others.

But also:

Attachment issues. People pleaser. Rose-colored glasses wearer. And at times, though the fandom doesn’t want to acknowledge it — Selfish. Unstable. Rude. Hypocritical. Kind of a dick.

See this video I made;

He’s complex, so let’s try to unpack him, and figure out what he’s got going on under that floof.

On David’s Childhood

David has been through a number of traumatic events in his childhood, most notably:

Witnessing Jasper fall to his near-death.

Finding Jasper, and being almost mauled by bears during the escape.

Clown school was apparently very bad, given the flashback-like reaction he had when it was mentioned. I’m unsure of his age when this occurred, however.

The fight with Jasper at the cave before they parted ways.

Losing Jasper. He says Cameron told him he was picked up by his parents, but I’m not convinced it’s not just his mind trying to erase painful memories.

As far as what we don’t necessarily see in the show, but can infer, David’s father was either not present or not great. He dreamt Cameron was his real father, as seen below.

And we all know Cameron is an awful father figure to begin with.

Yet, that’s better to David, apparently, than whatever he had at home. Which implies it was likely a pretty bad situation.

This can also be backed up by his attachment to the camp — growing up (and even now) it seems to be more of a home to him than his actual home.

That’s a home that hasn’t ever been mentioned, by the way. Contrary to Gwen, we know absolutely nothing about his family. He hasn’t talked about them once, if I recall correctly.

David is often open with emotions, if not wearing his heart on his sleeve. So why would he never mention his family and home?

We know why.

Even as an adult, he has retained this attachment to Cameron (who has in turn, continued to use this attachment to his benefit). He gets very excited about helping Cameron change in “keep the change” — because he needs to believe people who hurt him can get better. Otherwise, it’s too painful to bear.

The Loss Of Jasper

Part of his childhood, but significant enough to warrant its own section.

Jasper and David had a very interesting relationship. We’ve seen in the past that David was pessimistic, foulmouthed, and hot-tempered, directly compared to an optimistic, peppy, popular Jasper.

But then Jasper saw Cameron’s real self, and David received a modicum of praise for what was likely the first time based on his reaction. And so, they basically did somewhat of a switcheroo.

(David takes on many traits of Jasper after this experience, showing that he does admire him at the end of the day. I believe these traits are the foundation of David’s many masks.)

Despite the whole shebang, further episodes show us that they form a strong bond (or maintain one, we don’t know what happened before the first Jasper and David episode.)

What makes this friendship especially crucial in David’s development is that I believe Jasper was the first person to truly stand up for David.

David is, as we have seen, easily manipulated. Jasper picks up on this, and knowing Cameron’s just trying to use his best friend, tries to take Cameron down.

Jasper essentially died trying to protect David.

If Jasper hadn’t died, I don’t think David would have ended up as gullible and dependent as he is. If he had the more rational and realistic Jasper by his side during the rest of his developmental years, I believe things would have ended up much, much differently.

With Jasper’s death, there seems to be nobody else at camp who knows of Cameron’s crimes, or possibly, doesn’t want to speak out about them. Nobody to stand up for him. Nobody to redirect him.

So there’s nobody to stop the unhealthy-attachment-train from picking up speed.

Cameron And David’s Relationship

Cameron is manipulative and abusive towards David. This even becomes physical:

Despite this, David continues to idolize him as is seen in many cases of abuse. He works his ass off maintaining Cameron’s camp. Cameron’s approval makes or breaks him, because this is the man he sees as a father, unfortunately.

In addition, David is unable to let go of the hope that Cameron can change, because he’s convinced himself that deep down Cameron is still “good”, based on his skewed perception of him. And we all know how that ended.

But as Diane from Bojack Horseman once said —

And that is David’s problem — he wants so much for there to be a “deep down”, that there will be a day where Cameron showers him with praise and throws signed adoption forms at him, etcetera.

He judges Cameron not on who he actually is, but who he wants him to be. And so, the unhealthy attachment remains.

(Which is, of course, incredibly destructive to his mental health.)

Other Things We Know About His Mental Health, From Canon

We know he takes meds.

We know he has (sometimes dissociative) panic attacks.

We know he has been seen to suddenly snap, even to the point of violence.

My Final Conclusion: C-PTSD

(As the trauma has been not just one event, but many over the course of his life, and among other reasons, I believe CPTSD fits better than PTSD.)

David meets much of the criteria, most notably:

Lack of emotional regulation

Dissociation

Flashbacks

Anxiety

Guilt and shame

Distorted perception of abuser

Relationship difficulties

Okay this was long I’m tired good night.

#camp camp #camp camp david #cc david

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lurkingshan · 2 months ago

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My mind has been spinning and spinning around episodes 3 and 4, and I have so many feelings about them that I have been struggling to decide what I want to write about. One of @bengiyo's questions is about the different feel of this part of the story in the transition from page to screen, including the overall kdramafication effect, and I felt that most keenly where Hyung was concerned.

Let's start with the obvious: Hyung is not supposed to be this young and hot. But then, Young is not supposed to look like Nam Yoon Su, so I guess we can let that one go. More than that, though, I think episode 3 went out of its way to make Yeong Su a more appealing love interest than he ever seemed to be in the novel, and that had a clear purpose: to make the comedown in episode 4 so much worse.

Episode 3 used the familiar trappings of romance dramas to help us understand why Go Yeong was so drawn to this man despite some of his rough edges. They had interesting dates with good conversations. They shared an umbrella in the rain. They kissed sexily outside. They danced together in Yeong Su's (much nicer than described in the book) apartment. I may or may not have actually said OH MY GOD out loud when they were moving together to that old song; it was intoxicating in exactly the way early attraction is. Instead of viewing Hyung through the bitter recollections of Young's memory already knowing he's a bastard, we experienced him the way Go Yeong did when he was first catching his interest, and it was easy to see why he would latch onto this man as a balm and a distraction while he was going through a very hard time with his mother's illness.

Which means it hurt so much worse when Go Yeong emerged from that initial haze in episode 4 and realized who Yeong Su really was. He got a hard look at the deep internalized homophobia Yeong Su was carrying and projecting onto him, and it was not pleasant, nor was the way it echoed across his experiences with his mother.

Another interesting change made in the adaptation was to increase the severity of Hyung's crime; where in the novel he only searched and read articles on the evils of homosexuality, in the show he wrote the damn article while Go Yeong slept in his bed. A much larger betrayal and blow for Young. And this makes sense for the screen version, IMO; the romance is deeper and therefore so must be the fracture. Everything is just a bit bigger and more dramatic to amplify the themes of the story and to help the audience understand why this might drive Go Yeong to such a low moment without the benefit of his internal monologue to connect all the dots.

I was reflecting on these changes and how they affected the tone when I read @solitaryandwandering's thoughts, because I was intrigued by her reception of these episodes as darker, where for me, with the (much) more depressing novel version in my head, they felt lighter than expected. Which is kind of a wild thing to say about a section of the story that includes Young's suicide attempt, but context is everything! The T-aras, of course, also contribute to how different this section feels. In the book, Young is presented as so isolated and alone with this relationship, but in the show he has friends who know and care and try to help and show up for him in his low moment to make sure he is not alone. It makes such a difference to the bleakness of it all, and also makes the story feel more cohesive across the different parts in a way the book intentionally does not.

I think ultimately the adaptation choices made here were smart, and I continue to be impressed with how thoughtful Sang Young Park has been with his different visions for his story in each medium.

#love in the big city #litbc book club #korean bl #kdrama

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daechwitatamic · 6 months ago

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Vice;Grip || chapter 5 || chs

(banner by @itaeewon)

Vice;Grip (masterpost) NSFW - minors DNI Genre: angst smut fluff, fuckbuddies!au Summary: Make it not hurt, you could have asked him. Or, at least, make it hurt in a way I choose. A/N: infinite thank you's to @sailoryooons and @eoieopda for beta-ing!!

Warnings: Frequent depictions of depression, depressive episodes, panic attacks, and substance abuse (alcohol, weed, and pills referenced). PLEASE know that these characters’ relationships with drugs and alcohol are not healthy and should not be emulated. If these topics are triggering to you, please consider sitting this one out.

Section Specific Warnings: language, depictions of depression and depressive episodes, mentions of doctors' offices and medication, angst, mentions of attending therapy, recreational drinking, kissing

wc: 6.9k

Playlist: you can call me in the middle of the night / you can leave before i wake up in the morning / and it could feel so wrong / but i'll still hold on

Now - Fall

Vernon’s watching his ceiling fan when his phone chimes - a noise he isn’t fond of: incoming email.

For the last few months, his emails have all been from recruiting directors and head-hunters - either thanking him for his interest but regretfully informing him they’ve gone in a different direction, or head-hunters pretending they found him a great opportunity when it was really an underpaid, short-term position where he’d spend more on his commute into the city than he’d ever earn.

It’s been real fun. He sucked it up and finished grad school, threw his diploma behind a cheap frame, added the degree to his resume. Quit going to classes (because there weren’t any), quit spending whole nights on assignments (none of those anymore either), and still - he finds himself no happier than he’d been before, even with all the free time in the world. So maybe, he considers, grad school wasn’t the problem, and he’d done the right thing to just push through and finish.

On top of this - on top of the fact that he was still bored with life, still unenthused to be here - the break-up has sucked, just to make things even bleaker for him.

Can he even call it a break-up? You were never together. But it’s been nine days since he made you cry in his car - not that he’s counting - and all nine of them have fucking sucked. He’s wrestled with indecision for all of them - did he make a mistake? Should he try to undo the damage? Wasn’t what he had with you still better than being alone?

But he knows this will be better for him in the end. He knows that what you two were doing together wasn’t real, wasn’t a relationship. It couldn’t grow with him - it was stagnant by nature. So, even though something in his bones screams at him to take it back, in the end he doesn’t regret the decision to try and do something better.

He does regret that he can’t do something better with you. He regrets that he lost his temper and yelled, regrets that he was cold in his last moments with you.

Regrets that he spent two years walking towards a dead end.

Still misses you, despite this.

He picks up his phone and scrolls to his email, already feeling the frown take over his face in anticipation of another rejection. As expected, the email is from a company he’d interviewed with last week - he’d even gotten to a second in-person round, which was rare. Still, he hadn’t wanted to get excited about it. He knows how unlikely it is that they’ll want him.

Dear Mr. Chwe,

Our team was delighted to meet with you last week. We found your background impressive, especially your internship experience with -

Vernon’s eyes skim the page, so fast the words are a blur.

…Would like to formally offer you the position of… annual salary of… additional opportunities within the company including traveling to… working with… reporting to… expected start date of… we are looking forward to having you on our team!

Vernon’s heart thuds and he turns the screen off and stares at his ceiling again. He’ll answer it later, accept it graciously, call his eomma, probably shop online for some button-downs and maybe some ties. Later, though. Later. For now, he reaches for his lighter.

He kind of wishes he could tell you - hey, I got a job offer. hey, guess who gets to wear a suit five days a week now? hey, all that bullshit paid off in the end.

Would he have texted you any of that if he hadn’t ended things? You’d never talked about this kind of thing - that had been part of the problem.

Still. As illogical as it is, you’re the one Vernon wants to tell first. It aches a little, like sore muscles but somewhere inside him, behind his brittle ribs.

He wonders if you’re doing okay. He wonders if you care at all, or if you’re fine. He turns his lighter over and over in his fingers, and then realizes he’s just read the words contingent on... drug test…

“Fuck,” he grumbles, then picks up his phone again. Maybe he’ll call his mother first, after all.

—

You were never a big fan of autumn. A lot of your friends are - the season shifts and everyone starts posting about sweater weather and PSLs, the aesthetics suddenly revolving around pumpkins and ghosts.

You have plenty of ghosts, but not the right kind.

Your phantoms haunt your phone, mostly. You feel it buzz in your pocket, hear it vibrate on the table from the other room. Sometimes you even wake up from a dead sleep, sure you’ve heard it going off, reaching for it frantically, only to turn on the screen and see nothing.

No missed calls, no new texts.

You dream about him, too. In some of them, you’re still fighting, yelling at the top of your lungs in a way you never had in real life. In some, he isn’t even present - you just know he’s missing. In some, you’re trying to get to him, but never can - stopped by nonsense laws of dream physics.

In one of them, you tell him you love him, and he staggers backwards, breaths starting to rasp the way they had when you’d talked him through a panic attack, like he was just as scared of the admission as you had been.

Maybe he had been just as scared about it, back when it had mattered. Maybe he was just better at handling it than you are.

You never see his whole face in your dreams - only glimpses, fragments. You don’t want to examine if that means anything.

You fucking hate your brain.

You’re starting to hate your phone, too.

—

You lose November to grey - the whole month, a wash. You miss three days of work, unable to do anything - unable to cook, unable to get dressed. You feed the cat because you have to, and it’s the only reason you leave your bed except to pee.

When the grey days break as December dawns, you follow an impulse and schedule an appointment with your primary physician through their app. As you click the button to confirm the appointment, you burst into tears, loud and embarrassing. You cry with abandon, pulling your hoodie up to cover your face, to muffle the noise that you can’t stop.

You should have gone to a doctor years ago, and you know it. It feels like a big deal. It feels like a potential mistake - like opening a can of worms and now you have to deal with them. It feels like admitting something is wrong when you’ve worked so hard to look like nothing is. It feels like a farce, like nothing that bad is wrong with you, and you’re wasting everyone’s time.

But you keep the appointment anyway. You make yourself small in the chair on the other side of your doctor’s little table, and you admit, eyes on your hands, “I want to talk about my mental health. I think I’ve been dealing with depressive episodes. For… a long time, now.”

It’s so damn scary. As scary as loving and losing someone - like, yes, Vernon - had seemed. And you’re somehow surviving both.

Something to think about.

You buy yourself good job you did the scary thing ice cream on the way home. You go inside, put it away, and then scoop Nana off the couch, burying your face in his belly and cooing, “How is my favorite boy today?” He tolerates your nonsense with aplomb, as always.

Chan has never forgiven you for naming a cat “Banana Bread”, and you think that’s why Nana has never warmed up to him.

Nana loved Vernon, but you don’t want to think about that.

You kind of want to text him. You think he’d be proud of you for what you did today. You think he’d tell you good job.

(Chan would tell you good job, too, and will, when you call him later. But it doesn’t feel the same.)

You wonder if he’d answer if you told him. You wonder if he wouldn’t answer, but be proud of you anyway.

You fill the prescription, you leave your contact info with a therapist as advised by your primary physician. You don’t text Vernon.

You take your pride and your sadness, your fear and your hope and you channel them into greens and yellows. As late autumn grips the leafless trees outside, you paint something that looks like spring.

Now - Winter

Winter howls through your life like you personally pissed it off. You and Nana huddle under thick blankets with your tablet night after night.

Sometimes you close your eyes and remember Vernon’s hands slipping underneath his own hoodie on your skin; it helps you feel warmer.

Sometimes you think about the way he’d said the word wasted about the time he’d spent with you; it makes you feel cold all over again.

You click through all the tabs you’ve had open for days - different universities with decent visual arts programs, all advertising admission for the spring semester.

None of them are big name schools, not like the one you’d turned down all those years ago. But they aren’t nothing.

You’d brought it up to your therapist last week and she’d encouraged the idea - accepting that you can’t unstitch the mistakes in your tapestry, but you can control what new patterns emerge.

This was the plan: start classes. Open social media accounts to showcase your work. Network through school, look for job opportunities at galleries or for collectors. Open commissions, maybe.

On your best days, this seems like a list of goals to shoot for. On your worst days, this seems like a list of things you’ve already failed at before you’ve even started.

You text options to Chan, ask him, which school colors can you see me in?

Your best friend sends back, all of them. any of them. look at you go!!

You sit in your living room and watch snow fall lazily outside the window. You daydream about what classes might be like, if you get in. You take pictures of the snow in the park, then try to paint something similar once you’re home again.

You wonder if Vernon’s doing okay. You worry that he’s going through his hard days alone. You worry that maybe he’s not - maybe he found someone who helps him better than you did, maybe he’s so happy with them that he doesn’t have hard days at all.

(You know life doesn’t work like that.)

You paint Nana, just for shits, and post it on instagram. It gets the most engagement you’ve had so far. Someone messages you asking if you do commissions for pet portraits. You frown, looking at the message.

Maybe I do, you think.

Your apartment is cold. You burrow under blankets, rub your legs together like a cricket to warm them up, and think maybe after I’m a cicada, I could be a cricket next.

There’s no one to share the joke with who’d get it. Just another of the thousand ways you feel Vernon’s absence in your life. You hadn’t realized how much space he took up until he was gone.

—

Everywhere Vernon looks, all he sees are circles. The hands on his kitchen clock circle each other, align, move on again. They tell him he has two minutes to get out the door before he’s late.

He checks his appearance in the bathroom mirror, straightens his tie, smooths back his hair, then grabs his crossbody bag and heads for the bus.

The hands of the clock in his office mark his passage through his schedule: one circle until his 10:00 meeting will end. Two more after that and he can take a lunch break. A circle and a half until his one-on-one with his boss, to discuss his first few months here.

On his lunch break, Vernon rides with two of the guys he works with to some nature trails nearby, as they usually do. They swap suits for joggers and zip-ups, pop in airpods, and head out. Vernon didn’t run before this job - didn’t exercise much at all, really. He’d gone along with the guys the first time there had been an unseasonably warm day, just to be out, and he’d found it felt good to get fresh air and some endorphins before returning to his desk.

It’s cold today, the air brittle as he inhales, but the rest of his body feels warm as he works to keep up with the other guys. It’s not as hard as it used to be, keeping up.

The trail is a circle, too, passing a small, man-made lake before looping around back to the changing facilities. On his wrist, a fitness app closes circles to quantify his steps, his speed, his progress.

At home again, he runs his thumb around the edge of the circular joystick as he waits for Seungkwan and Wonwoo to sign in and join him for a round or two before he figures out dinner.

“Some of us were going to the bar tonight, you in?”

“Shouldn’t,” Vernon says. “But maybe this weekend?” Unfortunately, his new nine-to-five forces him to make decisions like this - better decisions. He kind of likes his job. He kind of doesn’t want to feel like shit in the morning.

His mind, a circle - always coming around back to you when it gets too quiet.

He opens his messages.

how have you been? … are you doing okay? … hey, i’m - … I think I’m sorry … what if we did it differently …

Of course he doesn’t send any of them. Instead, he searches for your instagram. You’d never followed each other in the first place, and he considers it a win that you didn’t block him when it was over. But you haven't posted anything that he can see in the last eight months.

Except - one post. It looks like your cat.

He clicks it and realizes that it’s not a photograph, but a painting, and the caption links to another account. He clicks that, too, and finds himself on a page that seems dedicated to posting paintings only.

Yours, apparently. He scrolls through slowly, rolling to his stomach so he can look more closely. He never knew you painted, let alone that you were good - great, even, to his untrained and certainly unbiased eyes.

Part of the problem, his mind chimes in.

Somehow, despite understanding each other better than anyone else in your lives, at the end of the day you hadn’t known each other at all.

Now - Spring

happy hour after lecture???

plsss can we

bestie YES!!!

The sender of the original invite - a girl close to your age called Juri - eyes you from two rows up, expectantly. Normally, you’d go straight home after class. But you’d been talking to your therapist about almost this exact situation - the way you closed people out, squandered friendships to the point that only Chan managed to hang onto you for more than a year. (Vernon had made it about two years, a sick voice in your head says, and then answers itself with, but you weren’t friends, anyway.)

So, you send the group chat, sure!

(You’d also been talking to your therapist about that last fight with Vernon. I can’t get that conversation out of my head, you told her.

I’ve been caring about you way more than I should, he’d said.

You’d been talking to her about how your brain had skipped like a flat stone right over that detail and had sunk deep on I don’t want to do this anymore.

“What did you think he meant?” she’d asked you, watching you carefully. “When he said do this, what did you think this was?”

Me, you’d whispered. Anything with me - hook up, sleep, spend time together, talk, anything.

She’d helped you see the context of the fight - that maybe by “I don’t want to do this” he’d meant “be with you but not with you”.

“Sounds fake, but okay,” you’d joked. She hadn’t laughed. Negative ten points at Therapy.

You were still working on trying to believe it.

You still weren’t sure if it fucking mattered what he meant, because instead of asking him, “what do you want, then?” you’d gone defensive, had greedily grabbed at the excuse to push him away, hard and careless. He wouldn’t want you back now, even if that’s what he’d wanted at the time. You were sure of it.)

Happy that you’ve agreed to go out, Juri flashes you a grin and then turns around in her seat to watch the board again.

The bar Juri chooses is cute, not crowded or noisy yet this early in the evening. You sip at a beer and talk with the girls about upcoming projects, about the professor you all can’t stand, about the term paper you all feel you shouldn’t have to do.

It’s nice, and honestly when you glance at the time and decide you’d better get home to feed Nana, you regret that you have to. Still, you make your way to the bar to pay for your portion.

You don’t even notice the lean, handsome man who sidles up next to you while you wait for your check until he speaks.

“What’s your drink?”

You look over at him, surprised. “Oh,” you say, which isn’t really an answer. “I’m leaving, actually.”

He gives an exaggerated frown. “It’s so early!”

You shrug. “Sorry. Places to be.”

He’s cute, you consider, as you pay your bill and head for the door. Two years ago, you probably would have picked up what he was putting down.

At home, you feed Nana, then collapse on the couch, pulling a throw blanket all the way over your head. Your stomach churns with discomfort.

You open your phone, find Vernon in your contacts.

You sit on his contact page, thumbs hovering over his number, for so long that your screen goes black twice while you stay locked in indecision.

Don’t call him don’t call him don’t call him.

But you’re lonely, and you miss him, and going out made you think of him, and you wonder what would happen if you did it, if you called. Would he even answer?

Eventually, you let reason win this time, and get up from the couch, the blanket falling from you like you’d shed a skin.

In your spare room, you eye the last painting you’d finished - mostly black but with a fractured, fragmented view of a tabletop littered with empty glasses and half-finished drinks, all the liquids a toxic, piercing neon pink. You hadn’t posted that one; it felt too much like an admission.

You stare down the empty canvas, tapping your mouth with the wooden end of a brush, deciding how to begin. You close your eyes and see the beast that’s followed you these last few years - even before Vernon. The embodiment of your shame, your regrets, your failures. It’s never left your side for long.

When you finally begin to paint it, you start with the claws.

—

you up for a 1v1?

arent you on a date???

obviously not.

you didn’t go? bro.

i went. it was just. idk.

it was just what?

idk dude.

you didn’t like her?

she was fine?? she was funny, and hot, and it was fine

so why are you home alone at 8:30 asking me to come online

Vernon rubs at his face in irritation. He doesn’t know what to say, how to explain to Seungkwan why the date had felt flat.

What could he say? It was fine. It just wasn’t… enough.

He could still remember how he’d felt the first night he met you. He wanted to feel that.

idk, he told Seungkwan. lack of chemistry, ig.

Now - Summer

You think you’ve learned a lot over the past few months - between starting classes again and beginning therapy, you’re just bursting with new knowledge.

Something you’re working on is appreciating the shadows.

In class, you work on shading, on adding darks even when you think an area should all be light. Sometimes, somehow, shadows are exactly what you need to make it right on the canvas.

You think about this concept for your whole drive home from therapy - how the shadows under trees change the way you see them, how the darks affect the lights, how the shadows in your own life are natural and maybe, in the end, not so catastrophic.

At home, you duck your head into the shadows under your bed and drag Nana out by the middle.

“Come be social,” you scold him, plopping him on the couch.

After dinner, you go back to work on what you were painting. You’d been stuck for a few days, not happy with any change you made, but today you have an idea.

You create a palette of black, grey, navy, and deep purple. For two hours, you work meticulously, adding the midnights, the bruises, the shadows. They belong here, too.

—

Chan tells you he’s proud of you, the next time he’s over, and it makes you cry even though you’re only one your second sip of wine.

“Stop it,” you scold, avoiding his gaze, burning up under the attention.

“I mean it,” he says seriously. “I’m so happy that you’re painting again, I could throw up. And going back to school? And therapy? Damn. The glow-up.”

“Ew,” you frown at him, because this feels safer than acknowledging that you have been working hard on yourself, on your life. “What year is it, 2017?”

He gives you a look to make sure you know that he sees through your bullshit.

“It’s not all perfect,” you admit quietly. You feel like it should - like you’ve done the work, and now you should get the happy ending. But it hasn’t worked that way. You’re still working at a job that feels like a waste of time, painting on the side. You’re accumulating some debt for the classes you’re taking. The grey days still come and go, though admittedly their grip is less intense.

And you still think of Vernon, near daily.

Chan shrugs. “That’s normal. Perfect isn’t real. It’s unattainable. If your therapist hasn’t told you that, then you’re wasting your money.”

You laugh. She had told you that. Another thing that was easier to say than to put into practice.

You recork the bottle after a second glass, put it in your fridge for another day. Returning to your spot by Chan’s side, you tell him, “I keep thinking about him.”

Chan cocks his head, probably unsure if you’re talking about who he thinks you are.

“The guy I was hooking up with.”

“Ah.” He inclines his head knowingly.

You recount what he already knows - that you’d been whatever you were for about two years, that it had ended. That it was your fault.

“I think,” you say, taking a deep breath mid-sentence to steel yourself for the truth, “I think I could have loved him. I don’t know… maybe I did.”

“Either you did or you didn’t,” Chan points out, which is fair.

“It’s just…” you say, thinking about it. “We kept our boundaries so tight. We didn’t talk during the day, didn’t meet each others’ friends or families… barely got to know anything about each other. But it was like… even so, I think we just understood each other. It was like a lot of it just went without saying.”

Chan considers this, face serious. “Sounds like the potential was there, at least. If nothing else.”

“Yeah,” you said sadly, tracing the bottom of your wine glass with your finger. “Potential.”

Wasted potential. You’d heard that plenty before, just not usually about your love life.

Chan reaches out and shakes your knee playfully. “It’ll happen again,” he promises.

You don’t know what would be worse - if it never did, or it did, but it wasn’t Vernon. You’d never believed in there only being one right person for you - like soulmates or shit like that. But looking back at your time together, you’re not sure anyone will ever have a hold over you the way Vernon did. The grip he had on your life was unshakable.

Before he leaves for the night, Chan hesitates by the door.

“Hey,” he says, “this weekend? A bunch of the guys are driving down to the beach for the day. Wanna join?”

Something else you would have said no to, before. You’re trying to say yes more, plus you can’t deny that the sea air and sunshine sound like heaven.

“Sure,” you say, shifting to block Nana from slipping out the front door as Chan opens it. “Text me the details.”

Later, you ask what you should have asked first. who all is coming?

Chan sends back the list - six of his friends, ending with, seungcheol-hyung and his friend hansol. i think you’ve met him once or twice at the bars? he’s a good guy.

Something in you knew this was going to be the answer. You counted your breaths, tried to talk yourself down from immediately bailing on the plan.

Sleep on it, you told yourself. See how you feel in a few days.

You followed your own directions, but for days your mind spun around the question, buzzing and frantic.

Are you ready to see Vernon? To be around him, and act normal? Is it a good idea? Will you fight? Will you fall back into old habits? Will he bring out the worst in you?

Actually, you consider, that isn’t fair. Vernon never brought out your bad habits - he just coexisted peacefully with them, never tried to kick them out.

You’re scared that seeing him will undo the work of getting over him. But that isn’t true, either - because you don’t think you moved on from him at all.

In the end, you do slip into old habits - you let yourself make a potentially bad decision. You decide to go.

A twisted, quiet part of you is kind of excited.

The louder part is scared to death.

—

The day is perfect - blue sky, barely any clouds, hot and bright. Chan drives you and two of his friends; a second car with the others is somewhere en route, will meet your group once you’re there.

Chan’s car arrives first, and you help the guys unpack the trunk. Loaded down with beach bags, chairs, and coolers, you make your way unsteadily through the sand, pausing at one point to take off your flip-flops, tired of how they slow you down in the dry, loose sand.

You pick a spot and lay the towels out, unfold the chairs, get the umbrella anchored down in the sand so it doesn’t fly away.

The whole time, you can’t stop watching the parking lot, waiting for the other group to arrive - waiting for the moment of truth. What will happen when Vernon sees you?

Once everything is set up, you lay out, trying to enjoy what is admittedly beautiful weather. It’s so bright that when you lay on your back, you want to throw an arm over your eyes to block out the light, to really relax.

It feels like forever when you hear a distant shout and sit up, blinking against the glare of the sun, returning your sunglasses to your face as you get your bearings. A group of Chan’s friends approaches, one of them - Mingyu, you think - shouting hello and waving like a fool.

You stand to greet them, waving hi when they get close enough. You bite your lip nervously and glance at Vernon. He’s near the back of the group - their car had brought four people, just like yours - and his face is absolutely unreadable as he looks at you. It reminds you of the beginning, when you noticed how hard he works to keep his expression blank.

He’d stopped doing that with you, near the end. You’d almost forgotten.

Meeting and holding his gaze, you give him a solemn nod. I can be normal if you can, you try to promise, silently.

The moment is tense; you aren’t sure how he’ll react. Then, he gives you his own tiny nod back.

Relief melts through you like butter. Seeing him aches, but it isn’t unmanageable. You can do this - you’ll both be okay. You’ll both get through the day.

You help set up a second umbrella while a few of the guys move a few yards away to set up a volleyball net.

For a few hours they play volleyball. You sit on your towel with airpods in and watch, trying not to notice Vernon, trying to keep that part of your brain locked tight in its little box. But the sunlight streams down, not half as blinding as his smile as he jokes and laughs with Chan and Seungcheol, nowhere near as glittering as his laugh when he doubles over, elbows on his knees.

The sun is almost directly overhead when you get warm enough to brave the ocean.

“I’m gonna swim for a few,” you announce, standing and brushing some loose sand from your thighs.

Chan collapses on his towel, next to yours, pushing his hair back and heaving a deep breath, exhausted from volleyball.

“Maybe in a few,” he wheezes. “I need a minute.”

“I’ll go,” Soonyoung says, tossing his sunglasses onto his towel so he doesn’t lose them in the ocean.

You head down to where the waves are breaking onto the wet sand, foamy water dancing up to your ankles before retreating into the deep sea again. It’s cold, but under the midday sun the cold is welcome. You wade until you hit the awkward point where it’s hard to stand without being constantly battered by breaking waves, and then you duck underneath the surface and swim past the breaking point.

Treading water, you turn to see if Soonyoung made it out with you. He’s still back a bit, jumping each time a wave comes through. Beside him, Mingyu splutters, having taken a wave to his face. A few feet back, the water only at their knees, Vernon and Chan laugh maniacally.

You missed those goose honks.

The guys take their time catching up to you until all five of you are treading.

“Do you think there are jellyfish?” Soonyoung asks, peering into the water behind you.

“Probably,” Vernon deadpans, and you laugh, then immediately wonder if you shouldn’t. Luckily, he grins at you appreciatively as, behind him, Chan points out that there could be sharks, too.

“I’ll probably go back in soon,” Soonyoung says, trying to sound cavalier, but his unease shines through.

“We’re fine,” you promise. “You don’t have to out-swim the shark. You just have to out-swim Chan.”

Chan curses and splashes water at you as the others laugh.

You talk and float for a little longer until you consider the goosebumps on your limbs, the growl in your stomach.

“Anyone interested in lunch?” you ask.

Mingyu raises his arm and squints at his watch. “It is one,” he says. “I could eat. What did you guys bring?”

Chan starts rattling off what’s in your coolers as you start to make your way back to shore. You reach the point where your feet touch the sand, only to get slammed in the back by an incoming wave. You stumble a little, and someone holds your elbow steady, helping you stagger through it without completely tripping.

You give Vernon a grateful smile as he retracts his hand, but your stomach is swooping and your arm is burning where he’d held you.

Rejoining the others, you plop down on your towel, suddenly exhausted. The ocean water drying on your skin under the sun makes you shiver as you dig through the cooler. You pass out drinks to the guys closest to you, toss a bag of chips at Seungkwan when he asks for them, then settle back on your own towel to eat.

After, full and happy, you flop backwards and put airpods back in. Seungkwan and Soonyoung head back to the volleyball net. Mingyu and Chan seem content to bake in the sun, like you, and beyond them the others have circled up and are playing a card game, open cans of beer in the sand beside them.

You feel truly at peace, and you take a moment to ask the universe - can I hold onto this? Can I remember, when things go grey, that these moments exist?

Once you’re warm again, you pull your shorts back on and whack Chan on the arm. He startles awake, pushing his sunglasses up to glare at you.

“I’m going to walk up the beach for a little,” you tell him, pointing, just so somewhere will know where you are. He nods, his head sinking back down to his towel, eyes closing again.

You walk where the waves flood over your feet every few minutes, never getting higher than your ankles. You search for shells as you go, carrying one or two, but mostly stopping to take pictures of them and leaving them where they are, wanting to paint them later.

There are four shells in your hand when you hear someone call your name. You turn, surprised, and your stomach swoops again; Vernon approaches, hat twisted backwards and sunglasses perched over the top of it, one hand reaching out to show you a shell he’d found.

You hold still, you let him come to you. When he’s close enough, you hold open your hand and let him drop the shell there. It’s a mostly-white spiral top.

“Thanks,” you say, looking away from the shell to meet Vernon’s eyes.

He looks down at the other four in your hands. “You gonna paint them?”

You feel yourself physically take a step back in shock. “What?”

Embarrassment darkens his face just slightly. “I’ve been following your art page,” he admits, shoving his hands into his shorts pockets. “I didn’t know.” Then, “I feel bad that I didn’t know. You’re really good.”

You shake your head. “I wasn’t painting when we… I used to. I stopped for a long time. Just started again, after…” You trail off. After you left me. After I pushed you away.

He nods, licks his lips. “Does it help?” he asks, and you know exactly what he’s asking - does it make the rocks weigh less, does it make the grey lighter?

“Yeah,” you say, nodding. “In general. It’s been… kind of cathartic.”

You both stand there, the shells on your palms between you, a decision teetering between you.

You should be the one to mend it, you think, since you were the one who’d ruined it before.

“Do you want to walk with me?” you ask, a little tentatively. “You don’t have to - I’m fine on my own -”

“I’d like to,” he says, voice quiet, and something about it makes you want to well up - that he’s willing to give you his time, that he doesn’t hate you as much as you deserve.

You walk quietly together as the sun starts to sink a little, casting everything a bit orange.

“What’s new with you?” you ask, finally.

And he tells you - new job that he actually likes despite how stuffy the nine-to-five thing sounds in theory, new mile time on his daily run, new friends through work.

“And you?”

You fill him in, telling him about taking classes part-time around your job, the commissions that aren’t enough to sustain you but aren’t nothing - you even shyly admit that you’ve been seeing a therapist.

It was the most either of you had ever talked about your real lives, you thought. It struck you how normal it felt, like it wasn’t something new or novel.

“Sounds like things are coming together for you,” he says.

“You, too,” you return.

Everything between you sits heavy, weighing the moment down, pulling towards the ocean’s depths like an anchor.

Then, at the same time, you break.

“It’s good to see you again.”

“Vernon, I’m really sorry.”

He stops walking, turns to face you, aglow as the golden hour inches closer. The sun is warm on your skin, the sand is warm beneath your feet, and you are dying to make it right with him.

“It’s good to see you, too,” you whisper. You’re scared of this moment - scared it will burst, like a bubble, like waking up from a dream that you can’t get back.

“Don’t be sorry,” he counters. “We both screwed up.”

You shake your head, feeling your throat tighten with emotion. “No,” you say emphatically. “You had every right to be mad. You were right that you were wasting time.”

He glances down, mouth pulling into a frown. “I’m sorry I said that to you. It wasn’t a waste.”

“Maybe not entirely,” you allow. “But you were right. I was never going to give you what you wanted - not back then, not with… how I was. That last fight we had… it would have been so easy for me to just let you in, and everything would have been fine. And I just… couldn’t.”

He listens seriously, watching your face carefully. You look at your feet in the sand, feeling the beginning trickles of shame down your spine. But you remember that the beast can’t get you - you’d locked him on a canvas. You don’t succumb to him in these moments anymore - you take a breath and remember that you’ve grown since then.

“And -” you swallow, take a breath, “- and I’m sorry. You deserve so much better than that.”

He nods, slowly, his eyes suddenly on the ocean. You watch his throat work, and your stomach clenches in regret. Then, he says, “I should have been clearer with you - way sooner than I was.”

“I’m not sure it would have changed anything,” you admit sadly.

He nods again, agreeing. “Still,” he says.

Still.

“I really like your paintings,” he says, and then laughs at himself before you can respond. “Sorry, that sounded so lame. I don’t know the art terms or anything. I just… like them.”

You smile despite how serious the conversation had felt only seconds ago. “Thanks,” you say shyly.

“What’s the best thing you’ve learned in your classes?” he asks, stepping a little closer.

You don’t even have to think about it. “Shadows,” you say simply, looking up at him. “Even the brightest painting is nothing without the shadows.”

His smile grows slowly, and you know he gets it. Of course he does. He’s been in the trenches right alongside you.

“I thought about you a lot,” he admits, and you realize how close you’re standing. Had you been standing this close the whole time?

“I did, too,” you murmur, heart hammering.

His fingers brush up your sun-warmed arm, and you shiver despite the heat.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks, voice low, a little unsure.

He’d never asked before.

You nod, unable to speak, lifting up to meet him halfway. He kisses you like he never had before - featherlight, gentle, like you’re the most fragile thing.

Neither of you say anything after, but as you start walking back towards the guys, you slip your hand into his, and he gives it a squeeze.

You’re still hand in hand when you reach the towels, and you watch Chan clock it out of the corner of his eyes. He doesn’t call you out, and you promise yourself that you’ll give him the conversation you owe him - later. When you’re alone.

You stay a few more hours; the guys play a little more volleyball, you sit on the towels and fill pages in your sketchbook. You draw Vernon - all angles, so sharp, so beautiful.

When the sun sinks low enough, the guys start packing things up, and you help haul everything back towards the cars.

As you slam the trunk of Chan’s car shut, you turn to find Vernon waiting.

“What about now?” he asks.

“What?”

“You said not back then,” he explains. “You said back then you couldn’t give me what I wanted. What about now?”

The question lands like a mine. “I don’t know,” you say, as honest as you can be. “Vernon, I don’t know. I’m scared - I’m scared I’ll hurt you again, mess it up again. I don’t know what I can promise you.”

He considers this. “Okay,” he says finally, in that easy way of his. “What if I don’t want a promise? What if I just want to know… what’re you doing next Saturday?”

You and him, you’d existed only at night. You’d never done this before - considered dating, considered giving him more than just the hours between midnight and three am. You’d never considered letting him be him and not just one of your many vices, one of your distractions, one of the things you used to hide from how broken you felt. But here, now, with the summer sun beating down on your shoulders, you take in his whole, unfragmented face and see how open it is, how willing he is to meet you where you are.

You’ve been missing out on so much, you think. It’s about time to stand in the light - with him. With him, you could try.

“Nothing,” you say, smiling up at him. “You got a suggestion?”

“Yeah,” he says, sending you a wink as he starts to back away, the car keys jingling in his hand. “I know a place.”

<- Prev

thank you so much for reading my veyr first svt fic!! i hope to write many more in the future :)

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louisjude · 6 months ago

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I feel like atp even if there were plans to make bvddie canon theyre gone now. if tim minear is even half as petty as I am he would see that reaction and go u know what fuck you u actually don't get what you want now cause ur acting so goddamn entitled. like when tarlos fans got mad about the deleted scenes instead of appreciating them being released and his reaction was to say "okay fine then I just won't release deleted scenes anymore" (like I'm sure it was mostly a marketing decision but part of me thinks they intentionally released a scene about bucktommy just to prove a point.) idk man it's just really upsetting as a bi man to see the absolutely vile shit bvddie stans are saying and even tho I love the ship I now never want it to go canon cause they've fuckin ruined it

hey anon, at first let me agree with the fact that i do in fact also love bvddie a lot and i still love reading fics for them, the edits of them are fantastic and the fanart is S tier. it’s a great pairing with a lot of potential there IF the writers decided to ever go there but…

huge answer below

yeah, i agree. i honestly think before tommy was introduced again in 7x03 and the kiss in 7x04 that in my brain, bvddie was the most logical endgame for buck until it wasn’t.

i came into the show shipping bvddie much like a lot of new fans to the show but instead of hopping onto the tommy anti express hate train i found myself falling in love with buck and tommy together. at first i was still on board with bvddie still being endgame but as each episode aired after 7x04 i became faced with the reality of the situation (at least the way i see it) that bvddie might always be fanon and that’s ok because fandom keeps ships alive whether they’re canon or not. some of the biggest ships EVER are non-canon (i mean, cmon spirk? one of the OG MM ships?) so it didn’t really deter me from enjoying bvddie to this day. what HAS deterred me from interacting with bvddie content is toxic bvddies. i don’t like using the lil nicknames, idc if other ppl do, whatever, but i prefer just referring to certain kinds as just toxic plain and simple.

toxic shippers have made it difficult for anyone who multiships to interact with bvddie content. while there are incredibly nice & welcoming bvddie endgamers out there, it doesn’t overshadow the hateful ones in my online experience at least. i’ve blocked so many ppl over this ship discourse, which ive never had to do with any other fandom before the extent i have with 911. everyday i still find new ppl to block, you go under almost any comment section on the 911 insta and its filled with nasty comments abt tommy and only caring abt whether bvddie will be canon in s8. people projecting their hatred of tommy/lou onto the cast/crew of the show when it’s be said and proven time and time again that it’s quite the opposite. now im certain there’s bad apples in the bucktommy side as well, but from what ive seen online so far it is not nearly to the caliber of the bvddie side. ive blocked maybe a handful of bucktommy’s for being hateful towards eddie or being toxic overall, but ive probably blocked over 100+ toxic bvddies. i can only imagine it’d be worse if i was active on 911 twt which i’m not (thank god) but i have ventured into the tags before on there and let me tell you, it’s fucking horrifying how gross ppl are over there. twt is a cesspool for fandom anyways tho, the fucking asshole of fandom, it’s a septic tank really.

now im my own opinion which could be completely untrue of course, but just basing my thoughts on what i’ve seen online and interviews and such, tim seems to be really happy about bucktommy and idk how ppl believe otherwise. tim has expressed he loves LFJ and wanted him back on the show. tim showed up on set for the kiss scene. tim posting an entire youtube vibe abt bucktommy being soulmates that touches on the invisible string theory and explains how they accidentally found buck’s perfect match. tim sharing the deleted tommy scene is also huge but im waiting to see if he releases more (because i remember seen somewhere that he said there’d be more?) and if he does then great but it’s also still pretty telling to me after the whole karaoke fiasco.

oliver has said nothing but praises towards buck’s queer storyline. he quite literally said if you dont like it then watch something else. despite ppl saying he’s never interacted with bucktommy content online, that’s a lie because he has liked fanart of them.

aisha, kenneth & tracie have all expressed how they like tommy/lou and love working with him.

jlh said she loved bvddie before but is excited to see where buck and tommy go and then on an insta live said she doesn’t think bvddie is happening and was bombarded by toxic fans to the point of ending the live early.

ppl think it’s all some ruse to make it seem like bvddie is never happening so when it does happen it’s a “surprise” ……..

the nasty hate comments are doing nothing but exposing these types of ppl for who they are and that honestly to them, 911 is just the bvddie show to them. the people who run these social media accs for 911 are looking at these comments and cringing, they aren’t running to tim and abc being like “we must give these crazies what they want!” they’re mostly likely being ignored or honestly, as you said, being looked at and just reinforcing their decision to most likely make tommy buck’s endgame so as long as his schedule is open for filming.

what gets me the most about the hate these types of shippers spew online is how they aren’t embarrassed because they are so sooo convinced they will be right one day and therefore their insane, nasty behavior online will be justified. oliver stark literally left twt because of fans like this, people act like he was joking around, that he was shooting the shit probably because “he’s british and british people just have that kind of humor” which yes to a certain extent but let me just add these posts to set an example to why if oliver were still on twt he absolutely would not be happy with the way toxic bvddies are acting right now.

oliver (and ryan&other cast too) being positive abt bvddie never meant it was going to be canon of become canon one day. they do not decide these things, whether they believe it should or not. a lot of bvddie shippers come from previous fandoms where queerbaiting was there, where they were made fun of by actors of their ships, by the creators of the show! so i understand the frustration but oliver is not queerbaiting and buck is not a queerbait character when he quite literally is now confirmed bisexual and in a relationship with a man.

he’s just not the “correct” queer to these people. despite headcanons (hell even i hc eddie as queer!!) eddie so far, in canon, is not queer. by the end s7 he is still shown to not be over shannon and ruins his relationship with his son over this. ryan has stated in interviews he sees eddie as heterosexual, possibly pushing this because of the influx of ship discourse, and he’s glad to see a vulnerable and deep friendship that buck and eddie can have as a straight man and a queer man and how important he thinks it is.

every single thing that points to bvddie never going canon is like they’re being shot point blank in the chest. i get it, your ship not becoming canon sucks, but again, that is what fandom is for! shipping has never been about how canon smth is, there is 20k fics out there for bvddie and they aren’t canon. they can turn that into 40k, 100k, 1M if they really wanted to! instead they use their time and energy posting death threats, wishing death upon a gay character, bullying ppl online for enjoying a ship.

meanwhile from what ive seen bucktommys are rolling with goofy ass spy tommy theories created by antis and making jokes for our own fun.

so yes, i agree overall. they truly don’t deserve what they think they do. we didn’t whine and scream for a deleted scene. they did. we got ours without even expecting it and are having fun.

maybe if they behaved better i wouldn’t be so petty abt it. it’s a shame because of how much potential it has, unfortunately it is just not going that way atm. and even if it does one day, it is not because they paraded online with hate, it is because that’s the story tim and the others wanted to write and abc approved it.

🫳🎤

#bucktommy #911 abc #asks #fandom discourse

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theabigailthorn · 1 year ago

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In the kindest way possible, I miss when your videos had more solid conclusions. I've been a fan of your content for years and it even got me interested in philosophy as a whole, but the past two videos especially have felt like they were building up to a powerful conclusion like many of your videos in the past have had, only to turn into a Nebula promotion before it feels like you've actually come to the thesis.

It saddens me because I think you're very good at strong ending arguments, and without even realizing it (before now) I had associated your videos with leaving off on a sort of mic-drop moment that always made me very excited and empowered. Of course, this is only my opinion, and your videos are your own and I'm incredibly happy for your play and your work on Nebula, I just can't help but notice it feels like something's missing now.

I have a lot of feelings about this feedback

Firstly, Philosophy Tube is very deliberately explorative, not conclusive. The point is to give people the concepts they need so they can go away and apply them themselves, not to tell anyone what to think. So I consciously resist firm intellectual conclusions when I'm writing because I think they risk terminating people's thought processes.

Secondly, I've been running my own experiments and I've noticed that a tiny minority of people always say this no matter how explicitly I state the conclusion. On the most recent episode I forced myself to state it very clearly - even called the final section of the video 'Conclusions' - which suggests to me that what you're after is emotional catharsis rather than intellectual resolution. When you talk about feeling "excited and empowered" those are emotional states rather than the state of having learned a new thing. And that's fine, some videos need to end on an emotional beat! But not all do or can. If I made every single one do that it would start to feel artificial. Certain ones like Identity need it, but just like not every theatre show needs a curtain call not every Philosophy Tube video needs to end on a wham line. Sometimes we're learning and we're in educationmode.

Thirdly, I would argue the most recent one ends on a note of emotional ambivalence (very deliberately so!) because that's the whole point: it's not meant to wrap everything up in a neat bow and tell you how to feel, it's supposed to present this multifaceted problem and encourage you to work through your own thoughts and feelings on it. And that is a kind of emotional conclusion in its own right, albeit a deliberately unsatisfying one.

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april-first · 5 months ago

Text

Guide to the Bravern Flower Shop Verse

Posting this for archiving purposes and for future/new fans who won't experience any of this live (or maybe ever, if Twitter breaks) just encounter it as older, out of context fanart on Pixiv or social media.

So. If you’ve ever looked up Japanese Bravern fanart (or fanfic) on either Pixiv or Twitter you must have stumbled upon a certain flowershop AU. It’s official (made and named by the staff, got referred to as such in the 2nd talkshow apparently) and it’s called 花屋バース. Details with links under the cut!

The contributors

Kamokamen, original/main character designer (Twitter @ sangsilnoh)

Oobari Masami, director (Twitter @ G1_BARI)

Ura Ryuuta, chief animation director (Twitter @ matatabeat)

The origins

"happy new episode release" bonus arts by the main character designer

and their two Yotsuba&! joke tweets:

Isami works at a flower shop called Brave Flower

Smith is the single father of the "mysterious girl" Lulu who is in kindergarten

This spiraled into a whole AU that has Actual Lore because the staff kept adding to it.

My main sources were 2 different tweet compilations made by Japanese fans and the very broken Twitter search. I got into the fandom when Episode 9 aired (before that I was just watching the show weekly and nothing else) so backsourcing all of this was not easy, and unfortunately I can’t guarantee this post has every relevant tweet. For example I found nothing about Smith’s job. It might exist, it might not, who knows. But the staff was very clear that they just wanted everyone to have fun coming up with ideas when they were tweeting about Bravern-the-character.

Isami & Bravern

- Isami and Bravern drive a motorcycle with a sidecar (ART!) called Brave Thunder

- according to the director Bravern wears a helmet

- Bravern exists in that miniature form which was designed by the director, completely unexplained (first appearance of "easy-to-draw Bravern-kun" | official plushie version which he brought to the 3rd talkshow | non-flowershop AU maid uniform update! also designed by him | "bunny day" update)

(T/N: this is not actual canon, but in the Animedia (May issue) interview’s Q&A section the director said Isami has the impression of someone who has a much older brother who passed away when he was young. JP fandom said nope this is the happy AU so he’s alive)

Smith & Lulu

- Smith and Lulu drive a "granny bike" called Spar Kaiser

- Lulu's seat is a child bike seat dubbed "co-pilot seat"

(T/N: answering a fan’s question, the character designer who designed Smith’s weird shirts once tweeted he’s probably using a translator app to scan the text on them.)

Other characters

- as far as I know there’s no "official" flowershop AU version of Superbia

- some time ago the director made a miniature design for him as well, but people usually draw Superbia in a humanoid form in this AU which was designed by the character designer

(T/N: not flowershop AU related, but Superbia speaks in Hiroshima dialect.)

- Miyu has a moped (a modified old Honda Super Cub) and she rides around town with Hibiki to get McDonald’s

(T/N: also not flowershop AU related, but Hibiki considers Isami a younger brother, according to the 3rd talkshow reports.)

- Satake was Isami's homeroom teacher and he was the one who taught him how to properly ride a motorcycle

- it was due to Satake’s influence that Isami chose an American-style Japanese bike which he bought secondhand for cheap for the fun of repairing and customizing it

(T/N: the tweet linked above is from March, but at the 3rd staff talkshow we learned that Satake’s bike in canon is a Honda CBR250RR. At the 2nd talkshow the staff said he gives off the impression of being a good cook, and the director shared he must be single because of the bike & red jacket combo.)

ADD ALT TEXT if you share this on other sites as screenshots. I genuinely can't be assed to care about credit, but I care a lot about accessibility.

I’m collecting the interviews and talkshow fan reports, and I'm also reading Lulu’s spinoff novel so eventually I’ll post summaries of those. (Unfortunately I don’t have time to do more than summaries.) In the meantime you guys could MTL this collab café report/article if you're interested! (I checked googletranslate and it’s readable)

#Bang Brave Bang Bravern #Bravern translations #I had to google wtf ジャメリカン was because idk motorbikes #I'm trying to prioritize the 3 talkshow reports because if twitter breaks those will be all gone #I was geoblocked from the Matsuri stream but it being available for only a limited time with no physical release announced made me think #media archival is so important yet both the audience and creators are at the whims of corporate

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becauseimanicequeen · 4 months ago

Text

The Timelines in 4 Minutes in Chronological-ish Order After 6 Episodes

Now that we have some more backstory after this week's episode, I will try to make an outline of the real past timeline in chronological order (I'm basing this off the 6th episode showing us the real past rather than Tyme's OOBE timeline). And then, at the end, I will make some notes about other timelines.

Before I start, I also make a note of my terminology:

4MP stands for "4-minute phenomenon", which is what Den calls it in his research. I use this for every moment that Great goes back in time to do things differently.

OOBE stands for "out-of-body-experience". I use it when I write about Great and Tyme's OOBE timelines.

GTs timelines stand for "Great and Tyme's timelines", which I use for those scenes where I think their timelines interweave and it's difficult to see where one ends and the other begins.

GKs timelines stand for "Great and Korn's timelines", which I use for those scenes where I think their timelines interweave.

(Explanations and sidenotes will be highlighted in purple.)

Now, let's get into it.

The Past-Past

These are events that took place before Great goes to school in the 1st episode. They may have happened several years in the past.

Since these events take place way before Great has his OOBE, I'm assuming (at least right now) that these events are real.

I made a note about Tyme and Great probably having met each other already in the past after watching the 6th episode (and then I found out in the tags and comments that there might be child actors playing Tyme and Great as kids), so we might get to see that this story starts a lot earlier than we've seen so far.

(Ep. 4:)

But, from what we've seen so far, I think the first point in the past-past is shown through Tonkla's memory as he's burying his cat. Korn is also there and tells him to save the red cat collar as a memento.

This is from his Uni days (I think), and that's most likely a couple of years before we see him introduced in the 1st episode.

(Ep. 4:)

We have another one of Tonkla's memories, this time of Korn and Tonkla having sex together for the first time. We also find out Tonkla and Dome are moving out of their family's home (and, most likely, into the house Korn paid for), and that Korn promised to go public with Tonkla when he's graduated and taken over his dad's company.

(Ep. 5:)

We have a flashback of Tyme reading his mom's diary, and then another flashback of Tyme treating Nan at the hospital.

Obviously, I'm unsure about when these two events actually happened since it could've been several years ago. But, I'm thinking this has something to do with what Natcha said when she broke up with Tyme, that he'd changed in the past two years. That's probably where he first read his mom's diary and then met Nan so he could plan a way to take down Chanin's company.

(Ep. 1:)

As Great wakes up from his nightmare of hitting Manee, we get a montage of Den talking to patients who've experienced cardiac arrests. It's the montage I'm referring to here.

The reason I think Den's research scenes are in the past-past is because I believe this is the research Den did before he told Tyme that the contents of his box were the information he'd kept from the patients who experienced cardiac arrest.

(Ep. 1:)

Lukwa tells Den about her experience during her cardiac arrest.

The Real Past

This is everything that happened between the past-past and up to the point where Great has a cardiac arrest and Tyme is shot (which may or may not happen at the same time, btw).

(Ep. 1:)

This section starts when Great goes to the garage and takes his white car (a Nissan?) to school.

(Ep. 1:)

At the same time, we have Korn walking into his dad's office. He gets a new position at the company. Then he passes Great's mom on his way out, and she enters the office to talk to Chanin about Great.

I think we can all agree that this scene happened in the real past. That means that every time we see the family photo standing on the left and the lion statue facing the windows (on Chanin's desk), it means this is the real past.

The reason I'm noting this is because I've seen inconsistencies in the placement of the family photo and the lion statue (which I believe is telling of whether the scene is from the real past or not).

(Ep. 1:)

Great gets a call from Title as he's driving to school. Title asks him about a calculator.

I am a little unsure about this one, but the clock on the car and Great's watch match up to 12:39 while he's alone in the car. And we all know that whenever Great is alone in his timeline, he sees 11:00 (11:01, 11:02, and 11:03) instead. His time anomaly hasn't started yet, which is why I'm leaning towards the real past for this one.

(Ep. 1 + 6:)

Great hits Manee and drives off.

(Ep. 6:)

Tyme is at the hospital, watching the news of the hit-and-run. Then Den shows up and tells Tyme about his research, but Natcha calls and interrupts them.

(Ep. 1:)

Korn arrives at the headquarters for the illegal gambling sites and gets an introduction by Samarn to how the place is run.

(Ep. 6:)

Natcha breaks up with Tyme.

The reason I put this scene after Korn's scene and not directly after Tyme and Den's scene is because it looks more like dusk when Natcha breaks up with Tyme while it looks like the middle of the day when Korn arrives at the gambling headquarters.

(Ep. 1:)

We're introduced to Tonkla, Korn arrives, they talk, they fuck, the end.

I've put the second part of this sequence (where Tonkla wants another round) in the section of the other timelines below, which I'm basing on some inconsistencies in the details in this first part compared to the second part. (Also, the second part includes Tonkla's dead cat, which might also indicate that the second part is in another timeline.)

(Ep. 6:)

Great's family dinner. Chanin is pissed at Great and storms out of the dining room.

(Ep. 1:)

Tyme comes home to his grandmother and they have dinner together while he tells her that he will soon make enough money so they can both have a better life.

(Ep. 2:)

Tyme overhears the nurses talk about him and Natcha breaking up.

This could just as well be in Tyme's OOBE timeline as here in the real past, but I'm putting it here because we actually saw Natcha break up with Tyme in the real past.

(Ep. 2:)

Dome witnesses Title and View fighting.

(Ep. 2:)

Dome tells Mod that he saw Title and View together the night before. Title disagrees, which leads to Title confronting Dome by the basketball court.

(Ep. 6:)

Great talks to Title on the phone asking him about Dome's video. Title says he's almost at Great's condo. The clock shows 10:43.

Btw, as you will notice in this post, one of the reasons I love this show so much is because there's so much attention to detail. Just look at this frame from this scene in 2nd episode:

Compared to this frame from the 6th episode:

The lights behind Great (excluding the lava lamp) are different because they're from different timelines. I love that attention to detail.

(Ep. 6:)

Title kills Dome and Great helps him throw Dome into the water.

(Ep. 6:)

Great is still awake at 04:50, thinking about how he killed Manee and then watching Title kill Dome.

(Ep. 6:)

Great goes to the hospital to pick up sleeping pills, stress relievers, and paracetamol. Tyme overhears Great saying his full name, which leads him to follow Great out of the hospital and film him as he drives away.

(Ep. 6:)

Tyme approaches Great at the bar.

(Ep. 6:)

Great and Tyme have sex and Tyme films it.

(Ep. 6:)

Tyme uploads the video of them having sex on the internet (onto a site called FourhubxXx, btw).

(Ep. 6:)

Chanin finds out about the video of Great and a man having sex and confronts Great about it.

I'm putting this scene here because of the natural flow of events from the previous scene. However, depending on the time of day, this could be after the following scene where the police find Dome's body by the lighthouse (ep. 2).

(Ep. 2:)

The police find a body by the lighthouse (which we know is Dome) and a rock with blood on it.

Btw, that rock... That rock is the only rock we've seen the police find, right? And, somehow, it ends up with Tonkla's prints on it. So, we either have a mix of timelines here. Or, Tonkla is being framed (which is possible since Win, who is investigating Dome's case, is being followed and because I still believe that Title is Police Colonel Warit's son, who will do whatever it takes to not have his son charged with murder).

(Ep. 2:)

Tonkla arrives at the forensic department to identify his brother's body.

Btw, there's something still bothering me about Tonkla saying "Why did it have to be you?" when he's crying by his brother's side. There are so many possibilities I can spin out on based on those words alone. But, for now, I'm just noting that here in the event that something will be revealed about this later on.

(Ep. 2:)

The illegal gambling sites are hacked.

(Ep. 2:)

Tonkla is sitting on the floor, crying, hugging a photo of his brother. He calls Korn, but Korn dismisses him (because he has to deal with the hacker attack). Tonkla has a breakdown.

(Ep. 2:)

Korn gets naked and kneels before Fasai.

(Ep. 2:)

Tonkla waits for Korn to call. Instead, Win shows up at his house.

(Ep. 6:)

Tyme sends his grandmother off to stay with Aunt Ging.

(Ep. 6:)

Tyme and Chanin have a chat, Chanin says Tyme's parents were the ones who started the illegal gambling sites, and then Chanin gives Tyme money to keep his mouth shut.

(Ep. 6:)

Tyme goes back to the empty house. The clock in the living room shows 9:30-ish.

(Ep. 3:)

Korn is in (what I assume to be) Fasai's bathroom, looking at the missed calls from Tonkla on his phone.

(Ep. 6:)

Great shows up at the hospital (for some reason he's picked up more meds) and asks Tyme out for dinner.

(Ep. 6:)

Great and Tyme have dinner. Afterwards, Tyme tells Great that it's best if they don't see each other again.

This is where that part with the dog is included, which had me thinking Tyme and Great had already met each other in the past.

(Ep. 3 + 6:)

Nan collects evidence, sends it to Tyme, and gets shot as she runs away.

(Ep. 3:)

Win gets taken off Dome's case.

(Ep. 3:)

Tonkla is pissed that Korn hasn't called and starts smoking. Then Win arrives to tell Tonkla he's been taken off Dome's case. They fuck. Then Tonkla asks Win if he can come by and keep him company from time to time.

(Ep. 3:)

Win approaches Mod at Uni to ask about the comment she made on Dome's social media, but she says she doesn't know anything. Then, when Win gets back to his car, there's a note saying "If you don't stop prying, I'll kill you" (which I'm pretty sure is written by Title because it sounds like him).

Btw, this is a different day since Win is wearing different clothes here than in his previous scene with Tonkla. Also, technically, Title is still alive here (if that note is from him).

(Ep. 6:)

Tyme sees Korn coming out of a building, wiping blood off his hands. Then he follows Korn by car.

The reason I've split this scene from the scene where Nan is shot is because Tyme is wearing different clothes than he did during the dinner with Great.

It's not clearly visible, but Tyme is wearing a long-sleeved shirt here, which is the same shirt he wears in the following scene...

(Ep. 3 + 6:)

Tyme attacks Korn at the bar, asking about Nan, and then has a fight with Great.

The same thing goes here as in the scene above because Great is also wearing different clothes than he did during his dinner with Tyme:

So, it's most likely a different night than the night when Nan was shot.

Also, as we all know, the difference in the fight between Great and Tyme here in the real past compared to the fight in the other timeline is that Great manages to remove Tyme's mask here rather than the other way around.

(Ep. 4 + 6:)

Great enters the hospital, asks Den where Tyme is, and then waits for Tyme outside the OR to confront him about attacking Korn. Tyme gets pissed and tells Great to get out of his face.

(Ep. 4:)

Tonkla cremates his brother. Win is there and notices he's being followed, probably because he's still looking into Dome's murder. He also mentioned the one who did it is probably an heir to a powerful family. Win offers to move in with Tonkla to keep him company and to protect him.

This scene is really interesting to me because Win said the murderer was probably an heir to a powerful family. He has also previously said that he found Mod's comment on Dome's social media, saying that they knew who really killed Dome. From there, it wouldn't have been very difficult for Tonkla to piece things together and suspect both Great and Title who were both in Dome's class as well as heirs to powerful families.

(Ep. 4:)

It's the next day, and Win moves in with Tonkla. They're about to fuck but Korn's arrival interrupts their fun. Korn is an ass, Tonkla throws him out, then Tonkla and Win fuck anyway.

(Ep. 4:)

Win is lying naked in bed while Tonkla is sitting in darkness, holding the red cat collar, and thinking about the past.

(Ep. 6:)

Great decides to investigate things on his own and spies on his brother as Korn talks to Samarn. Great follows the van Samarn drives to the warehouse.

The reason I put this scene after the sequence of scenes from Win moving into Tonkla's house to the aftermath of them having sex is because:

It's gotten dark outside when Tonkla is thinking back to his past with Korn

And Korn wears the same clothes in this scene as he did when he came by Tonkla's place earlier that day.

(Ep. 4 + 6:)

Great finds Nan and sees Samarn shoot her. He runs away.

(Ep. 6:)

Great is leaving when Tyme shows up. Tyme gets his ass kicked by Samarn and his men and is about to be shot when Great steps in to stop it.

(Ep. 6:)

Great drives away from the warehouse with Tyme in the car. Tyme gets out and they have their fight where Tyme calls Great a coward, and Great tells him to go die like the other one.

(Ep. 6:)

Police Colonel Warit is watching the news. Somehow, the news about Chanin's company being involved in illegal gambling has leaked (which 4NEWS is reporting about at 07:20 am).

(Ep. 5:)

Korn is at his dad's office, Korn lashes out at Great's mom, and Chanin slaps Korn. Korn storms out of the office.

Again, the details are telling me that this is the real past because of Chanin's desk:

The lion is facing the windows and the family portrait is on Chanin's left-hand side.

(Ep. 5:)

Korn goes to see Fasai because he needs help. She tells him that her dad (Police Colonel Warit) can help him, but he needs to marry her if he wants her help.

(Ep. 6:)

They're shredding evidence at the headquarters of the illegal gambling sites. Samarn asks Korn how much longer Police Colonel Warit (who they call a general in the subs, btw, but it said Pol.Col. Warit on MDL a couple of weeks ago when I needed to double check on another character's name, so I'm going with Police Colonel) could delay things for them, and Korn tells him to get everything done by that night. Samarn also tells Korn that Great helped the one who most likely exposed them (Tyme).

Korn clearly got the help he needed from Fasai since Warit used his power over the police force to get them to do what he wanted (delay the police raid).

(Ep. 6:)

Chanin and Great's mom (do we know her name, btw?) are talking when Great shows up. Great is pissed at them and then leaves.

Btw, the family photo is on the left side of the desk and the lion is facing the windows, which, again, highlights that this is the real past.

(Ep. 5 + 6:)

Great's mom follows him out of the building and tells him to apologize to his dad, but he doesn't want to and leaves.

(Ep. 6:)

Great steps into the elevator at his condo. Tonkla shows up and shoots him.

(Ep. 5:)

Den sees Great being rolled into the hospital.

(Ep. 5:)

Tyme is with his grandmother who asks when it will be safe to go back home. She also asks him what exactly it is he's doing. Den calls him before he answers her. Den tells him that the guy who came to find him at the hospital that day (probably the day after Tyme attacked Korn at the bar) is being rolled into the OR. Then Tyme leaves.

To be fair, Tyme doesn't have the bruises in this scene that he got from the fight with Samarn and his men. So, to be fair, this isn't entirely from the real past.

However, Den said "the guy who came to find you at the hospital that day" not "the guy who dropped you off at the hospital" or "your boyfriend" (which Den joked about in a separate timeline).

Also, as we see in the last scene of this episode, when Tyme is running and the lights go on and off... Every other time the light shines on him, the bruises appear. Pair that with the spinning camera, and I feel like his OOBE timeline (and perhaps Great's OOBE timeline as well) is interweaving with the real past in this final sequence of the 5th episode.

Is there a possibility Tyme wasn't with his grandmother in the real past when he got that call? Yes (I think we might get to see it again in the 7th episode). And, if that's the case, then I will move this scene to the section with the timelines below. But, for now, I'll keep it here.

This is where the real past is currently at an end after 6 episodes.

The Present/Future

This is from the point when Great and Tyme are having their near-death experiences (NDEs) and everything that happens after that.

At this point, there's not much to put in this category, and we might not even get any more than this. But, so far...

(Ep. 1:)

Tyme is shot in what looks like the abandoned site where the illegal gambling sites had their headquarters.

Great had a cardiac arrest at the hospital.

I still believe that the patient at the ICU is Great even though the bandages are on the same places where Tyme was injured.

Different Timelines

Now, let's look at some of the other scenes that I haven't placed in the categories above, and that's because I believe they're from different timelines.

Also, before I dive in... I believe that we've already seen parts of a possible Tyme OOBE timeline as well as Great's (in episodes 1-5). I also believe that Great and Tyme's timelines are already interweaving, which means that there are certain scenes that I think are from Tyme's timeline that include the changes Great has made in his OOBE timeline. In other words, Manee, Dome, and Nan exist in both timelines.

With that said, let's get into it.

(Ep. 1, Great's timeline:)

Great wakes up at 11:00 before Title calls to remind him about the exam.

(Ep. 1, Great's timeline:)

Great gets into the elevator and starts to feel iffy.

We now know this is a reaction of him unconsciously remembering that he was shot there in the real past.

(Ep. 1, Great's timeline:)

Great hits Manee, drives away, has his first 4MP, and sends for help when he hits Manee again.

(Ep. 1, Great's timeline:)

Then we see Den at the hospital chit-chatting with Nurse Bee in the ER before Manee comes in.

(Ep. 1, Tyme's timeline:)

Den gives Tyme the information about Manee before Tyme checks on her.

I feel like the Tyme we get in this scene is the Tyme we got to see in the real past as well, the one with the harsher bedside manners.

(Ep. 1, Tyme's timeline:)

Tyme performs surgery on (who I presume to be) Manee. Then dr. Khomsan asks Tyme about his plans after his surgical training.

This leads to a scene where Den asks Tyme how Manee's surgery went and then tells Tyme about the research he's doing with the patients who had cardiac arrests. Their conversation is interrupted by Tyme's girlfriend calling.

The interesting thing about this sequence of events is that we saw a similar sequence in the 6th episode which, again, I believe is the real past. If this is from Great's perspective, how would he know anything about how Den gets physically close to Tyme when talking about his research (which he does in both versions)? And how would he know anything about Tyme's girlfriend? How would his unconscious mind conjure up that information if they never discussed it?

So, I will mark this as being part of Tyme's timeline for now, because that makes more sense to me at this point.

I won't go too deep into my theory of why Great and Tyme's OOBE timelines are interweaving other than to say that I think they have some connection from the past that pulled them together as they get their cardiac arrests at the same time (which seems possible if we're to believe the timing in the opening of ep. 1).

(Ep. 1, a possible separate Tonkla timeline:)

The part where Tonkla wants another round with Korn.

So, we've already seen them fuck (which I put in the section of the real past above), but this second part of that same sequence (where Tonkla wants another round) has some inconsistencies in the details compared to the first part (where they fuck). This second part is also where Tonkla sees the cat (which is presumably his cat that died when he was still at Uni).

Considering he can see that cat, and knowing what we know about him sensing Dome coming home from the hospital in the 4th episode, I'm assuming someone went way back in time and prevented that cat from being killed in the first place (Tyme's OOBE timeline, which probably goes further back than Great's?).

(Ep. 1, Great's timeline:)

Then we have the family dinner, which in the 1st episode is very different from the one in the real past (ep. 6) because Manee is alive in Great's OOBE timeline.

(Ep. 1, Great's timeline:)

Korn drops Great off at his condo after the family dinner.

The reason I'm adding this scene here is because we see Great have his 11:00 time anomaly moment when he gets out of Korn's car. He also tells Korn about his 4MP. Also, Korn telling Great that he was sorry he hadn't had much time to spend with Great lately is clearly a deep-seated desire that's surfacing from Great's unconscious. This boy is clearly lonely as hell.

(Ep. 1, Great's timeline:)

Great wakes up from his nightmare of hitting Manee. The clock is 11:00.

(Ep. 1, Great's timeline:)

Great visits Manee at the hospital. She says her son is about the same age as Great. He leaves, and as he does, after bumping into Tyme, he experiences his second 4MP.

The part where Manee talks about her son is still confusing to me because I can't seem to figure out how or why Great's mind would paint this picture as he's dying. We may get an answer to this in the coming two episodes. But, anyway, I'm keeping this scene in Great's timeline for now.

(Ep. 1, Great's timeline:)

After Great's 4MP, he sees Tyme and has visions of them having sex. And then they bump into each other again.

We now know the visions were a part of Great's memories of the real past resurfacing here in his OOBE.

(Ep. 2, Tyme's timeline:)

Tyme talks to Manee as she refuses to sleep. She tells him about her son and how he committed suicide after losing everything. I'm also including the flashback Tyme had of him and Great bumping into each other here.

The reason I believe this is Tyme's OOBE timeline we're seeing is because:

There's a thunderstorm as he's talking to Manee, which I believe is his present self's reality bleeding into his OOBE.

Manee's story about her son is Tyme's personal experiences "filling in the blanks", both his experience of being poor and every piece of info he collected while investigating the illegal gambling sites.

If I'm correct with my theory that Tyme has his own OOBE and developed his own procognitive ability similar to Great's (which is a theory I've had since watching the 2nd episode), and if Tyme goes further back in time to correct his mistakes (which could be where we potentially get to see Tyme and Great as kids), and met Great before he ever hit Manee and influenced him to be a better person, there's a chance Great called the ambulance right away after hitting Manee in Tyme's OOBE timeline. That could've been how she ended up at the hospital and Tyme treating her here.

And, regarding Tyme's flashback of him and Great bumping into each other... These are one of quite a few complex moments where I think their perspectives and OOBEs are interweaving. Because we know that:

Great had visions of him and Tyme having sex (ep. 1), which we saw was from Great's perspective

But after they bumped into each other, Tyme's perspective entered as he asked the nurse about Great and then saw his name on the bouquet of flowers he left on the nurse's counter.

And, also, let's not forget that the things on the nurse's desk before Great's 4MP looked like this:

While it looked like this after the 4MP:

The time on the clock is the same, but the mirror is in a different position, 75 has turned to 74 (I'm not sure what these numbers mean), 77F has turned to 76F (which I'm guessing are Fahrenheit degrees), and the pink, blue, and yellow papers are lying on top of the folder the second time around.

If Great was sent back in time to the exact moment he was in before he went to Manee's room (or in the same timeline), the things on the desk would've been in the same place, right? So, he might not have been sent back in only his own timeline, but also in Tyme's timeline.

(Ep. 2, Great's timeline:)

Great is at school, Googling his precognitive ability and talking to Tyme about the accident and an exam.

(Ep. 2, Great's timeline:)

Great is having memory flashes of his first two 4MPs and his visions of having sex with Tyme. Then he sees the messages in the class group chat, including the video Dome filmed of Title and View. The clock is 11:00 here.

(Ep. 2, Great's timeline:)

Great's conversation with Title in Title's car.

The reason I've put this scene here is because of Title's bruise. He has a bruise on his left cheekbone in this scene:

Which he doesn't have in the real past when he kills Dome (ep. 6):

I have no idea why Great's unconscious is conjuring up this scene, btw. Not yet anyway.

(Ep. 2, Great's timeline:)

Then we have the lighthouse scene where Title (who still has the bruise on his cheek) kills Dome, Great has his third 4MP (Title still has the bruise after the 4MP), and drives off with Dome in the trunk.

(Ep. 2, Tyme's timeline?:)

Tyme is boxing and then he has a short conversation with a cleaner as he leaves the gym.

I have no idea if this is the real past or Tyme's OOBE timeline. And does this particular scene even matter other than telling us that he knows how to fight and that he works a lot? I don't know.

(Ep. 2, Great's timeline:)

Great and Dome arrive at the ER. Tyme notices Great and then treats his wound. Great then asks Tyme if he's ever met a patient who can see the future.

This scene parallels the scene in the real past where Great picks up his meds at the hospital and Tyme overhears Great's full name.

(Ep. 2, Great's timeline:)

Great is at Uni, looking at the messages he's sent to Title. Then Mod arrives and thanks him for helping View.

(Ep. 2, Great's timeline:)

Title shows up when Great parks his car. They fight. Tyme shows up and helps Great.

Title has that bruise on his left cheek that I wrote about above, which is why I've added this scene here. What's interesting, though, is that he doesn't have one single mark on the right side of his head where Great hit him with the rock after his 4MP.

I don't know what to make of this. (And I'm too tired after painting for 9 hours today to figure out what it might mean, lol.)

(Ep. 2, Great's timeline:)

Great and Tyme have their chat on the skateboard ramp. They exchange Line IDs.

(Ep. 2, Great's timeline:)

Great's clock turns from 11:00 to 11:01.

(Ep. 2, Korn's timeline?:)

Korn has a meeting with Police Colonel Warit and Fasai.

I think this might be Korn's timeline? Because I'm not sure if Great knows anything about Korn's relationship to Fasai and her dad.

Either way, the differences in the decorations on that counter behind Warit in ep. 2:

Vs ep. 6:

Has me thinking that the first time we see Warit and Fasai, it's not in the real past.

(Ep. 2, Tyme's timeline:)

Nan meets Tyme under a bridge and gives him a USB.

I have a theory that whenever Tyme is backlit the way he is under that bridge:

And at the end of the 5th episode:

There's also a scene in the teaser that includes Tyme seeing light through a doorway (which is a scene we haven't seen yet). And my theory is that this serves the same function as the clocks did in counting down the time for Great.

Also, when it comes to the actual scene under the bridge, I'm assuming the USB includes information they got while hacking the illegal gambling sites. But, it could include something entirely different as well and fall into another place in the chronology of the story. But, I'm putting it here for now.

(Ep. 3, Great's timeline:)

Dome wakes up at the hospital and Tyme says Great asked him to check in on Dome.

(Ep. 3, Tyme's timeline:)

Den is upset with Tyme for intubating the lady in bed number 4.

The reason I think this is Tyme's timeline is because Den is, once again, reminding Tyme that his patients have names (which he did after Tyme performed surgery on Manee as well). I think this might be Tyme's guilty conscious over not caring that much about other people that surfaces in his OOBE as he lies dying.

(Ep. 3, Great's timeline:)

Great sees 11:01 and calls Korn to ask what time it is. It changes to 09:31 before it changes back to 11:01 when Great hangs up.

(Ep. 3, Great's timeline:)

Great is at school where the clock on the wall works fine when everyone is around, but turns to 11:01 when he's alone.

(Ep. 3, Great's timeline:)

Mod gives Great the Thai Tea that's from Tyme and Great gets a flash of a different message on the tea.

This scene is interesting because the handwriting on the two messages is different (and I believe they're written by different people):

Also, the way Great gets that flash of the second message (which says "Can you forgive me Great?") is similar to the way he got the visions of him and Tyme having sex in the 1st episode. And since we know those visions were his present self's memories of the real past mixing in with his 4MP timeline, I'm pretty sure that the second message is another one of Great's present self's memories. This means he got this message in the real past too or, alternatively, it will show up in his past when Tyme has his OOBE timeline (which I still think will start further back in time).

Now, who that message is from, though, and in what chronological order it comes into play is up for speculation. I'm putting it here for now, though.

(Ep. 3, GTs timelines:)

Great and Tyme are having a conversation at the bleachers, Great has his fourth 4MP, Great tells Tyme about his precognitive ability, Tyme says he'll ask a friend about it, and they decide to have dinner before Tyme leaves.

This was the scene that first sold me on the idea that we saw different timelines weave together in the same scene before we ever saw Tonkla noticing Dome at the end of the 4th episode.

I've written about it before. But, to summarize: The people on the bleachers change throughout the scene. And not just before vs after Great's 4MP.

They're pretty dramatic changes during the span of their short conversation. At the same time, the bags (except for one of them) and bottles are the only things that stay consistent throughout the whole scene.

Also, this scene is paralleled to the scene from the real past where Great shows up at the hospital and asks Tyme out for dinner.

(Ep. 3, Tyme's timeline:)

Tyme asks Den if he knows any patient with precognitive abilities. Den offers to set up a meeting between Great and Lukwa.

(Ep. 3, Great's timeline:)

The gallery scene with Great and Lukwa.

(Ep. 3, Great's timeline:)

The claw machine date with Great and Tyme.

(Ep. 3, GTs timelines:)

Great drives Tyme home after their date, and they almost kiss.

I think this is a mix of both of their timelines because we get to see Great's visions of the two of them having sex again (his timeline) weaving together with Tyme's grandmother, whom Great never met in the real past (not from what we saw, anyway), coming out of the house (Tyme's timeline).

(Ep. 3, Korn's timeline?:)

Samarn and his men put Nan in a van and Korn says he sent Samarn the location of where to take her.

I think this might be Korn's timeline because he's wearing the same clothes in this scene as he did in the scene in the 6th episode where he came out of the same building and wiped his bloody hands. I don't think Great would've known what clothes Korn wore that day.

(Ep. 3, Great's timeline:)

Great sees the clock on his wall turn from 11:01 to 11:02 and then he writes down the clues around his time anomalies and 4MPs.

(Ep. 3, Great's timeline:)

Korn is at the bar, waiting for Great, and Samarn calls him about Nan. Then Great arrives and Korn suggests that Great should go see a doctor Korn knows.

Considering what they're talking about (Great's precognitive ability), Great's timeline has to be present.

(Ep. 3, Great's timeline:)

Great and Tyme struggle outside the bar after Tyme attacked Korn. In this version, Tyme pulls the mask off to reveal himself to Great.

I'm conflicted about this scene and about whether to put it in Great or Tyme's timeline because it can be either (perhaps both?). The only thing that would change would be the context of the scene, whether Tyme wanted to reveal himself to Great to stop the fight (and potentially get Great to help him) or if it's just Great's unconscious painting the picture of Tyme trusting him enough to reveal himself in that moment. Decisions, decisions... I'm putting it in Great's timeline for now.

(Ep. 4, Great's timeline:)

Korn comes out of the bar. Korn is bleeding a lot so Great tells him they should go to the hospital.

(Ep. 4, Great's timeline:)

Great shows up at the hospital, looking for Tyme. Den tells him Tyme is in the OR. Great waits outside until Tyme comes out.

(Ep. 4, GTs timelines:)

They have their conversation outside the hospital where Tyme tells Great that his parents screw people over, and then he tells Great to get the fuck out of his face.

I think Tyme and Great's timelines interweave in this scene because Tyme says Great's parents caused his parents to die. I can't remember Great finding that out in the real past (at least not that they were killed), so there's no way he would've come up with that info on his own, right? Unless there's a part from the past-past that we haven't gotten yet that might explain this.

(Ep. 4, Great's timeline:)

Great has his fifth 4MP and decides to help Tyme find Nan.

(Ep. 4, whose timeline?:)

Lukwa talks with Den again and tells him about the red gallery where she met another person (Great). Den says he's found out about another patient like her and would like to set up a meeting.

This is where things get a bit wonky again and I have no idea whose timeline this is. Perhaps Den has his own timeline? Or, it might be Tyme's timeline since he was the one who told Den about Great (whom I assume is the other patient Den talks about here). Or Great's timeline? I have no idea. Yet. But, I'm putting the scene here for the moment.

(Ep. 4, Korn's timeline?:)

Korn stops Samarn from hitting Nan. He then tries to persuade her to talk, which she doesn't.

The reason I believe this is Korn's timeline rather than the real past is because he still has that "good but conflicted guy" way of being that we've seen in Great's timeline as well.

Also, this doesn't fit into the chronology of the real past if this scene is supposed to be after Tonkla and Win fuck in the 4th episode at the same time as Korn wears these very same clothes in the 6th episode where he gives instructions to Samarn who later kills Nan that same night. So, I feel like this scene is in another timeline rather than in the real past.

(Ep. 4, GKs timelines:)

The scene starts with Korn thinking about his fight with Tonkla and drinking alone. Then Great arrives, gets Korn drunk, and snoops through Korn's phone.

I think this scene has two timelines interweaving. The part from when Great arrives, Great's timeline takes over, because I'm pretty sure he didn't get Korn plastered in the real past considering the scene where he sees Korn talking to Samarn before he finds out where Nan is (ep. 6). Korn didn't look drunk at all when he met up with Samarn. Korn's phone also shows 11:02 when Great snoops through it, which is another indicator that what we're seeing is Great's OOBE timeline.

The moment before Great comes into the bar in this scene, however, is either Korn's separate timeline or the real past. It's possible that he drank away some of his sorrow/anger after his fight with Tonkla before Great came and without getting plastered.

Another reason I don't think this scene is completely just from Great's timeline is because of the lamp behind them. It's yellow in this episode:

While it was blue-greenish in the 3rd episode, which was from Great's timeline:

The inconsistency in lamp color could be unintentional, of course, but I don't think it is. Especially not since what we see from the bar in the 6th episode when Tyme hits on Great, it has yellow lights everywhere. So, I think this scene here (with the yellow light) is anchored more in Korn's timeline/the real past rather than in Great's timeline.

(Ep. 4, Tyme's timeline:)

Tyme gets out of surgery and gets Great's message that he's found Nan's location. Tyme tries to call Great but doesn't get an answer.

(Ep. 4, Great's timeline:)

Great finds Nan, sees Samarn shoot her, runs away, has his sixth 4MP, helps Nan, and Samarn calls Korn but gets no response.

Great and Nan get caught up by Samarn and his men, and then Tyme shows up to save the day.

They drop Nan off at the hospital.

(Ep. 4, GTs timelines:)

They stop by on a bridge as they're driving away from the city.

The reason I want to highlight this scene and the reason I think their timelines are interweaving here is because of the thunder, which I've previously written about. I think the thunder is Tyme's present self's surroundings bleeding through (the thunderstorm he's in the middle of when he was shot in the 1st episode). For that reason, this could also be only his timeline, but I chose to include Great's timeline because he tells Tyme about his 4MP when he saw Nan get shot.

(Ep. 4, Great's timeline:)

Great and Tyme arrive at a glamping site and they have sex.

(Ep. 4, whose timeline?:)

Dome leaves the hospital and calls his brother when he's in a taxi on his way home.

I have no idea whose timeline this is from. Perhaps Dome has gotten his own timeline now? But one thing's for sure, it's not the real past, so I'm keeping it here.

(Ep. 4, a possible separate Tonkla timeline:)

Tonkla hears Dome come home even though Dome is dead.

(Ep. 5, GTs timelines:)

The whole sequence at the glamping site.

Perhaps this is more from Tyme's timeline since he's sharing a lot from his own background as well as Nan's. I mean, there's no way Great knows about Tyme's mother's diary and can conjure up that story on his own:

And we know that the red journal is real because we've seen it in the real past (ep 6):

(Ep. 5, Great's timeline:)

Korn finds out from Samarn that Great was behind something.

Samarn never mentions if what Great did was help Tyme or Nan, which stands in contrast to the real past where Samarn tells Korn that Great helped the person Nan sent the info to. Also, this conversation takes place in a different room than the conversation in the 6th episode, so I'm thinking this is from Great's timeline.

(Ep. 5, Great's timeline:)

Samarn runs straight to Chanin and tells him about the situation.

We already know this isn't part of the real past. But I do want to highlight the changes in the details on Chanin's desk again:

The lion is facing the wall behind the desk rather than the windows, and the family portrait is standing on Chanin's right-hand side rather than the left. It's the opposite in the scenes from the real past.

(Ep. 5, Great's timeline:)

Great drops Tyme off at the hospital.

(Ep. 5, Tyme's timeline:)

Tyme runs into Den on his way into the hospital. At the same time, he's being followed.

Just noting here that this could be from Great's timeline as well.

(Ep. 5, Great's timeline:)

Korn wants to talk to Great to find out who the guy was from last night. Korn is lowkey threatening Great and Great says "You wouldn't hurt me, would you?", but Korn doesn't answer.

I feel like this is Great's unconscious wondering if Korn was the one who got him shot or not.

(Ep. 5, Great's timeline:)

He notices the clock on his wall has turned to 11:03.

(Ep. 5, Tyme's timeline:)

Chanin is at Tyme's grandmother's house and gives Tyme money to keep his mouth shut and stay away from Great and his company.

This could be Great's timeline as well since he did find out his dad had bribed Tyme. Also, this could be Great's unconscious mind making up another version of why he and Tyme parted ways, rather than Tyme not wanting to see him anymore. But, I'm keeping this in Tyme's timeline for now.

(Ep. 5, Great's timeline:)

Tyme tells Nan to delete all the evidence she'd collected. She gets pissed and leaks the information anyway.

(Ep. 5, Great's timeline:)

Then we see the news about the leak on 4NEWS at 11:03 am.

Manee sees the news.

We get into more complex territory here again. The news channel is clearly showing 11:03, which indicates Great's timeline. Manee is alive here, which, again, indicates Great's timeline. Manee acting out her revenge, though... I have no fucking clue... Yet.

(Ep. 5, Great's timeline:)

Great goes to find Tyme at the hospital, but he doesn't answer his phone. Then he drives to Tyme's home where he sees the sign saying "House for rent".

I'm still not sure how Great knows that Tyme lives there. The only time we've seen him there was in another timeline and not the real past. Yet, we've seen in the real past that Tyme actually lived there with his grandmother. So, this might be from someone else's timeline, or Great has known Tyme from before (but forgotten it) and this is his unconscious pushing these memories to the surface.

(Ep. 5, whose timeline?:)

Manee is at a temple, hiring a hitman.

(Ep. 5, Great's timeline:)

Great storms into his dad's office and asks about Tyme. A fight breaks out, and Great storms out of the office.

(Ep. 5, Great's timeline:)

Great's mom follows him and tells him to go back and apologize to his dad, which he refuses to do. As he's about to drive away, he notices the hitman Manee hired. He gets visions of his mom being shot, then he's sent back in time and takes a bullet for his mom. But she's shot anyway.

Then we get a montage of the red gallery where Lukwa is, Den talking about his research, flashes from Great's OOBE timeline, the visions of him and Tyme having sex in the real past, his panic attack in the elevator where we now know he was shot in the real past, and flashes of a bunch of circles (including clocks) and things that spin.

Then he passes out.

This is where Great's OOBE timeline ends (at least right now).

Cold Opens:

I haven't yet decided where to put these cold opens in the chronology of the story, but I do feel like it's easy for us to see the chronology if we just look at them alone.

(Ep. 5, cold open:)

Title is drugged while partying, and Tonkla arrives.

This has to happen after Title kills Dome and after the police find the first body by the lighthouse, but before the cold open of the 2nd episode where Tonkla beats someone and before the cold open of the 3rd episode where the police find the second body by the lighthouse (probably Title).

(Ep. 2, cold open:)

Tonkla is by the lighthouse and beats the shit out of someone (probably Title).

This comes after the cold open of the 5th episode where Title gets drugged, but is most likely from the same night, and before the cold open of the 3rd episode where the police find the second body by the lighthouse (probably Title).

(Ep. 3, cold open:)

The police find another body by the lighthouse. This one also has an open wound on the head. Probably targeted for revenge (I'm assuming it's Title).

If this is Title, then this scene comes after the cold opens of the 5th and 2nd episodes.

(Ep. 4, cold open:)

Win is told that Tonkla's prints are on the rock used to kill one of the bodies they found.

The only rock we've seen them find was the one in the 2nd episode when they found the first body (which is Dome). Could it be that Tonkla is being framed?

(Ep. 6, cold open:)

The police arrive at Tonkla's house to arrest him.

This happens after the cold open in the 4th episode where Win finds out the prints on the rock belongs to Tonkla.

(Ep. 1, cold open:)

Great is flatlining in the ICU and Tyme is shot at the abandoned site.

This took me days to write as I'm in a very busy painting period right now, so I'm sure there are some inconsistencies in the timelines and chronology of the scenes. But, I am planning on adding the scenes from the coming 2 episodes as they are released (and revising my current order if needed).

Until next time, I'm out...

#ice queen holmes #4 minutes #4 minutes the series #thai ql #thai bl #thai series #my shit

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bambi-kinos · 1 year ago

Text

Beatles Reading List (Introductory)

Hi guys. So I saw a post floating around asking about "where to start" with the Beatles and how to find out more about them. Moeexyz's recommendation on it was to read fanfiction and this alarmed me a bit. Fanfiction just isn't a good source to get information about the band for one simple reason: fanfic authors change stuff for dramatic purposes all the time. It's just not a great way to get more information about them because fanfiction by necessity shifts things around for the sake of storytelling.

That Beatles iceberg is nice but the only way you're going to get a good picture of the Beatles is by doing a lot of reading of published sources. That's right. You're in for a lot of homework.

In an effort to combat misinformation, I asked the McLennon discord server to help me put together a rough list of introductory level books for Beatle fans that want to learn more about the band. These books are either a) read by me or b) read by someone I trust and I have included her quotes about the books she liked. I'll have color commentary talking about what they are and why they should be read. I do not consider this post finished! My server is constantly reading and discussing (we're looking at podcasts right now because they're the ones doing interviews with Liverpool citizens who were peers of the Beatles!) and they're being very gracious by contributing to this list. That means that this post may be updated in the future as I read more! If you want to keep up with updates then give my blog a follow, I'll post every time I update this list.

Some of these books are available on Archive.org but others can be gotten through your local library or through piracy. If you buy something, buy it used. Never pay more than $20 for a Beatle book.

The Whole Story

Anthology This is the documentary made by the band after John Lennon's death in 1980. It is both a documentary as well as a book (essentially a script of the documentary) which makes it very accessible. This is the version of the story that the band wanted to put out and includes interviews with Paul, George, and Ringo. They cover their beginning to their end. Anthology can be found on archive.org if you want to read it: https://archive.org/details/beatlesanthology0000unse_y2k8 The episodes are also available on Archive.org. If you search for "Beatles Anthology" and select "movies" option to search for videos then you will find it there. It's worth the watch and is all around the best introduction to the Beatles.

The Beatles - Hunter Davies This is the only sanctioned biography of the band. It's written in older language since it is contemporary to the 1960s but it's still very readable and a good intro. It is part of the media image that the band wanted to present at the time so you should make sure to think about what you are reading, who is saying what, and contemplate why he is saying it. It it still a great resource.

150 Glimpses of the Beatles - Craig Brown This is a short book that describes 150 anecdotes about the Beatles and what it was like to experience them. I recommend this because it demonstrates what a unique and personal experience the Beatles are while also demonstrating their global reach and how they became the most famous rock band in the world. It's a short read but a good one and there are many charming and thought provoking anecdotes in it. The story of the Beatles is just as much about their fans as it is about the band and you cannot understand one without looking at the other.

Books About Each Beatle

This particular section is a bit of a minefield. Many books written about the Beatles are of questionable veracity or just out and out wrong. (I can think of two that were written as blatant cash grabs and filled with libel that someone should have been sued over.) My recommendations on this may change so please check back from time to time! John Lennon

The John Lennon Letters - John Lennon, edited by Hunter Davies Primary source documents of the various letters and missives John wrote through his life. This may be the most important book on the list because it shows us who John really is: just another ordinary guy like us, trying to get through life. Also gives insight into his mindset as the decades pressed on.

The Making of John Lennon - Francis Kenny This is a very vital and heartbreaking read for people who want more insight into John. John Lennon is the most famous Beatle but he is also the one who's image is the most obscured and distorted. Francis Kenny is a Liverpool native who puts John in his proper context. To quote my server friend who read this one: Kenny, himself a Liverpudlian, takes into account how life in Liverpool in the first half of the 20th century shaped not only John but everyone he knew and his entire family. Mimi and Julia get a good critical view, and Uncle George gets his moment in the sun. He also lays out how class divides affected the Stanleys and then how Mimi took it out on John and Julia. He quotes a 1880s travel guide of London that said Liverpool was called "the New York of Europe," because of its economy and place on the ocean, and like in the Gilded Age New York that was happening concurrently across the ocean, Liverpool had pockets of wealth and splendor surrounded by poverty and rough living. Definitely a pro-read and a great insight into the culture and time John lived in. It does not fall into the pitfalls of hero worshipping John but Francis Kenny still treats John with sympathy and respect, hard qualities to come by when it comes to the cashgrabs written about John and his family.

John - Cynthia Lennon John's first wife, Cynthia, wrote two autobiographies about herself and John. This is one of them. It's a tough read in many places but a good one. Hers is a voice that doesn't shy away from John's flaws and actions but she also takes care to tell us why she and so many other people love him and remain loyal to him.

Paul McCartney

Many Years From Now - Barry Miles This is Paul's only sanctioned biography. It is formatted as a quasi-interview with Paul where there are interruptions of regular prose in each chapter. There are eyebrow raising moments where you can tell Paul is not quite telling the truth but it's important to read and identify these moments since Paul's habit of embroidering the truth is important to know and understand. Nonetheless it is still a lot more honest than I was expecting when I read it.

Paul McCartney: A Life - Peter Ames Carlin Probably the best Paul McCartney biography on the market. Peter Ames Carlin also did a similarly great bio of Paul Simon for people who are into that. To quote my friend Betty who read it: Paul gets to be a whole person here: the preternaturally talented boy wonder, the guy casting around for meaning, the less than attractive moments and qualities described without getting preachy or turning to [Paul Derangement Syndrome]. Carlin treats him with dignity instead of something to be gawked at and gossiped about. His (many) sources are cited at the end of the book. What I really appreciated was the ideas he put forth that I've only seen on Tumblr and not in Serious Official Biographies, which says to me he's writing as a fan and scholar and not a journalist trying to fill column inches.

George Harrison

I Me Mine - George Harrison Make sure to get the extended edition! George Harrison in his own words. There's a lot to say about this biography but it won't make much sense without context so I just encourage you to read it. George Harrison was, in my opinion, the best Beatle.

George Harrison: Behind the Locked Door - Graeme Thomson A good no bullshit biography about George Harrison. This covers his life as the material musician and the man seeking the divine. Graeme worked very hard to be respectful of George and his life, did extensive interviews with George's wife Olivia. Such a pro-read and definitely the best George biography written to date.

Ringo Starr

Photograph - Ringo Starr Ringo has stated that this book is his autobiography. In a few bumpers on the Beatles Sirius XM channel Ringo says that he doesn't want to write a biography like the others did but he was happy with putting this photobook together and essentially writing a bio through the captions. This is the closest that we will get for a biography for him as of right now. In time that may change but this is your best option. Piracy is the way to go when it comes to getting a copy of this, iirc it was a limited run and getting a physical copy might be very expensive these days.

Brian Epstein

A Cellarful of Noise - Brian Epstein/Derek Taylor This autobiography was ghostwritten by Brian's assistant Derek Taylor. It's not a tell-all but Brian talks about his youth and how he met the Beatles, including giving his own personal (and accurate) insights into each band member.

Conclusion

There are many, many books about the Beatles. Almost all of them offer something but most are about very niche periods in the Beatles history. When it comes to understanding the band I tried to put together a list where you can get an overview of the band and then read materials that either come straight from the Beatle in question or are not as biased as the competition. I am a McLennon shipper but for a post like this I did my best to recommend books that don't have that kind of bias in them so this is a list you can send to non-shipper friends haha.

In another post I will put together a history book list in the order of their timeline as a band, starting from the Quarrymen and on to the present. There is a LOT of ground to cover in a historical arrangement and it will take a while to compile. Please check back here regularly or give me a follow: whenever I update this post or make a new list, I'll make sure to post about it.

My plan is to make a website with all of this information that anyone can reference but it will take a long long time to make such a thing so put a pin in that one.

#the beatles #john lennon #paul mccartney #george harrison #ringo starr #richard starkey #brian epstein #beatles merch #beatles books #book recommendations #book recs

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