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lycanlovebites · 6 months ago

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That’s literally their relationship towards the beginning of the story 😭😭 local love demon has one (1) crush on a fairly normal human guy (who was supposed to kill them but they don’t know that at first oops) and becomes so nervous abt making good impressions that they are abt ready to spontaneously combust. (Also I’m obsessed w the phrasing of “man (Catholic)”😭

⬇️accurate representation of Valentine’s inner turmoil when they started dating Gabriel. (They look like a little cabbage patch kid to me in this pic. My little pumpkin faced demon baby ❤️)

yippee yay! One of my favorite things to do is make silly ocs and then someone else has their silly ocs and then we put them in the same dollhouse (aka universe) and they get into situations. Having ocs feels like the grown up version of playing with dolls lol!

I’m so glad you liked the weed story omg! I kept giggling like crazy as I was writing it. Also yeah Gabriel might have the fear of god in his heart but he is NOT scared of divine horrors, especially since there’s like always a good chance that it’s actually his partner who’s unmasking their true form. Almost nine foot tall entity with lots of wings and so many eyes and halos who’s burning bright like the fucking sun? It’s all good, Gabriel is autistic and doesn’t really like eye contact anyways so it’s no biggie as long as he keeps looking down! He’s the kind of guy to see his partner (?? He actually doesn’t know if it’s them or not but he’s hopeful) reveal their true form and wave just in case it’s them because otherwise they might feel sad he didn’t see them. He would hold hands with Sol even if they’re burning bright like the sun because hey, it doesn’t actually hurt or anything it’s just bright and stuff. If he wears like three pairs of sunglasses and doesn’t look Sol in their eyes or their eyes or their eyes or their eyes or their— you get the idea — then he should be ok! It’s worth it to hang out with his dearly beloved. omg the mental image of like this utterly unearthly being -towering almost twice as tall as everyone else, radiating light with shifting halos and symbols on their many many wings and uncountable pairs of eyes, who’s speaking in a low melodic voice in words you can’t understand– and like off to their side is like a little guy in a priest cassock who’s holding their hand and talking to them about groceries they need this week and what kind of biscuits to get for tea. off to their other side is an even smaller guy who’s wearing red heart shaped sunglasses and holding the angel’s other hand and trying not to look directly up at them. (I also think it’s like a “bride and the ugly ass groom” situation where Sol is super tall and sparkly and majestic and then Gabriel is like. A normal guy who is like two-thirds Sol’s height and is deeply in love with his scary angelic partner.)

also no worries! Good luck during course work!! 🫡

@justaderivative

here’s a bit of a story I was working on involving Father Gabriel and Valentine! (Sol is also there too but he’s not really mentioned oops. He’s off doing something else I guess)

its a discarded first draft that I still like a lot even though it doesn’t work in this particular scene because it gives really good insight into Gabriel’s inner thoughts and also his Catholic guilt. It’s also UNEDITED in any way so sorry if there’s typos and the dialogue and stuff is oddly placed! (btw will anyone believe me if I said that this was the first draft for a smut fic I was writing yes or no?? I scrapped this draft because it was far too serious and angsty for the situation I wanted. Valentine is ready to fuck nasty and have a nice time and treat their boyfriend meanwhile Gabriel is struggling with Catholic guilt and paranoia. The vibe was off for him and I felt bad trying to get him into a sex scene when that man should be having a therapy session instead. Like its ok king take ur time, you and Valentine can try later when you feel better)

story below the cut! (It’s a bit long)

Father Gabriel closed the front door behind him. “I can’t believe that happened,” he said more to himself than to the cheeky demon who caused the scene, who was hanging their sparkly red blazer on the coat rack next to him. “What if people saw? No, how many people saw that? How many people saw me?” He said aloud with horror.

“Relax darling.” Valentine put a hand on his shoulder. “Believe me, no one saw my little display except you. Otherwise some old biddies would have me roasting at a stake by now.” They gave him a little grin at that last part. He was sure they found the idea of being tied up by little old ladies quite funny judging from their expression. It was meant to be reassuring but the idea of other church members burning his partner at the stake wasn’t exactly pleasant.

“That’s my point. It’s not safe for you to risk being found out by the church! If they find out you’re not human they’ll… they’ll do unspeakable things to you. I can’t risk you getting hurt, Valentine. Burning you at the stake would be the least of your worries if the wrong people get their claws on you.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “It’s not only your safety too. I also have a reputation to uphold, as horrible as it is sometimes. I’m a priest. I’m not supposed to get flustered over someone at communion. The people see me as a symbol of devotion and modesty, and I fear what might happen if they see me as anything other than that. I’m supposed to be committed to God alone, not blushing over my handsome friend from out of town.” He was so worried. Valentine seemed so confident to show off but he feared what would happen if they reveal too much. Gabriel knew what happened to demons in churches they weren’t welcomed in. He’d seen it happen with his own eyes, was forced to read the books on how to do it himself, and he knew that powerful people with hatred in their hearts for even an inkling of difference would never stop until they get what they want.

“Darling, look at me.” Valentine stood in front of him and gently took his hand in theirs. “It’s going to be alright. I promise you that no one saw my little display to you, and as far as I saw no one seemed to say anything about your blush today. I mean, if you ask me, it was quite warm in church today, and you were quite lively in today’s sermon. I wouldn’t see anything unusual about how the priest was a bit more red than usual after that rousing sermon he gave. And I feel most people know how warm it can be in your cassock with all those layers.” They assured him. Gabriel wasn’t fully convinced, but their words did help. He stared down at his hand and watched Valentine gently stroke the back of his hand with a thumb. Such a small gesture, yet it still sent a shiver through his body at the touch. They didn’t want him to worry, he knew that. It was just hard sometimes to let these things go. He was always under scrutiny, always being perceived and his actions always judged by someone. If not by God then by the townspeople who looked up to him. At least that’s what he felt. Maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe there wasn’t actually anyone who cared about these things besides him. He was just so worried all of the time lately. Maybe since he was a child. First about being good, following all the rules and being a faithful servant to the church. Then he worried about being sinful. Always ashamed of the way his heart beat against his chest when he saw Brother Marcus in the vestry, of the way he laid awake so many nights consumed with thoughts of him and Marcus doing terrible, lustful things. Now he was worried for Valentine and their safety. Of them being found out and torn away from the safety of his protection and killed. Soleil had to disguise themself as well, but for Valentine their disguise was a matter of life or death. Sol would be worshiped and adored if the townspeople knew what they were. But Valentine would be hunted down and killed before Gabriel’s feet if they were ever found out.

Gabriel was also worried about his reputation as a perfect chaste little servant of god. Someone pure, someone who was completely devoted to their god and had no room in their heart for any sinful thoughts of other people. The people saw him as one of them. No, better than them. They put him on a pedestal. They listened to his words and came to him for guidance, and he overheard how they spoke of him. With reverence, a deep respect. As if he was truly holy. But Gabriel knew he wasn’t. He was impure, tainted, guilty. His god did not answer his prayers and he knew he was dishonest to the townspeople when he pretended to be that man everyone saw him as.

He yearned for respite from the terror and guilt that plagued him for most of his life. He just wanted to let them all go.

He let out a sigh, trying to let go of his worries with it. “You’re probably right. No one came up to me about anything today after the service so I suppose no one saw anything unusual.” He focused his attention on his hand being gently held in Valentine’s. He took another deep breath and forced the worries out of him along with it. In. It will be okay. Out. No one saw what happened today. In. We’re safe.

[@justaderivative hope you don’t mind me tagging you in this! This has a good bit of lore/info abt Gabriel in it so instead of making an info post about him (I mean I still probably will but yknow) this is some good info for him and his less fun and whimsical stuff ]

#pookieposting #catholicsonas

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bcalrights · 2 years ago

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✿ * · ( kennedy walsh , cisfemale , she/they ) a little birdy told me soleil marcus just moved to sunset hills . have you met them yet ? they look somewhere around twenty-two , if i had to guess ! pretty sure i heard them driving down the street playing kool girl by seasalt , they sounded a little pitchy but they had the spirit ! must be their favorite ��or something . hey … it looks like they just moved into midnight park . have you heard about what they do for a living ? someone told me they’re a music production major , but who knows if that’s even true . guess we’re just gonna have to wait and see . nervous ? maybe you should be . sunset speaks just posted about them … apparently they're resident id 11 ? between you and me , i think that might spark some things in the community … but what do i know ! you guys might get along just fine !

howdy howdy !! name’s ryan (they/them), and this is my little french menace, soleil. you guys are welcome to plot with me either here or on discy !! let’s boogey

s t a t i s t i c s

full name , nicknames : soleil claudia marcus , sol, so-so

age , dob , zodiac : twenty-two , october 28 , scorpio

hometown : lyon , france

gender , pronouns : cisfemale , she / they

orientation : bisexual , biromantic

height : 5′7″

relationship status : single

occupation : music production major

positive traits : bubbly , spontaneous , outgoing , kind-hearted , brave .

negative traits : naive , emotional , manipulative , talkative , impulsive .

language(s) spoken : english - fluent , french - fluent

similar characters : satine ( moulin rouge ) , carrie bradshaw ( sex & the city ) , sloane peterson ( ferris bueller’s day off ) , serena van der woodsen ( gossip girl ) , sarah cameron ( outer banks ) , audrey horne ( twin peaks )

aesthetics : being wrapped in the comforting scent of lavender, purple under eyes giving away yet another sleepless night, the hum of a bass guitar, paint stained sneakers, the sound of rollerskates on pavement, the bitterest and hottest cup of black coffee you can find, hating your mom but also missing your mom, perpetual eye rolling, ordering a strawberry milkshake at any diner no matter what

TLDR: soleil marcus moved to the states about nine years ago thanks to a nosy neighbor realizing her parents skipped town and had been ‘neglecting’ her. she lived with her stupidly rich aunt up until her move to sunset hills, ca. has a band called peachshift who she’d kill for.

a b o u t (tw: childhood neglect ig)

soleil was born to cora dupont and jean marcus in lyon, france, and is the result of two teenagers who’d apparently missed the memo on birth control. neither sets of their parents were willing to house the new family, causing them to move out into their own one bedroom apartment.

she doesn’t remember her childhood, but from what she’s heard from aunt charlotte.. it was never pretty. neither her mother or her father knew what they were doing, and that was from an outsider’s perspective. the fact she doesn’t have a clear memory of a single moment of it makes it all the more worrying. what happened to her first twelve years of existence?

it doesn’t matter, that’s what she tells herself at least. what matters is that one day, soleil had accidentally locked herself out of her apartment. when a neighbor helped her get inside, curiosity of their seemingly reclusive neighbors turned into disgust and worry— she’d been left to fend for herself for months.

if it weren’t for her aunt charlotte, soleil would surely have been pushed into the foster system. charlotte, a corporate bigwig in manhattan, managed to pull some strings and have soleil relocated to new york city to live with her.

her first official memory was at the age of thirteen. it was the taste of champagne at the met, if that’s any indication of her upbringing following the move to the united states.

she didn’t like talking about france, and not just because she couldn’t remember it. soleil was always worried that talking about it would bring back memories of her childhood. and honestly, she doesn’t want to fucking know.

throughout her teen years is where she fell in love with music. listening, playing, and eventually writing her own songs. falling in love with the rush of a concert, and what it would be like to be the one on stage, to have people sing along to the words you’d written.

and off to sunset hills she went! she majors in music production, and even has a band called peachshift (would love some bandmates for soleil please and thank you), where she plays guitar and sings. they sound similar to mitski, the regrettes, & the beths.

she’s bright, bubbly and can be a little bit spoiled sometimes, but at the end of the day soleil’s a pretty loyal friend. just.. don’t expect her to open up too much about her personal life.

#sunsetintro

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livefordrama · 4 years ago

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Reviewing Dramas I Have Watched Part 6

It’s been a while; I haven’t been able to watch a lot between school and just life. Not to mention the time I do have is spent doing buddy watches of kdramas I have already seen with my friends and family (On teleparty of course.) Again, here is my rating system: 1- Did not like, 2- Enjoyed but probably wouldn’t watch again, 3- Enjoyed and would watch some episodes again (or for movies may watch again), 4- Enjoyed and would watch again, 5- Loved

Korean Drama

Melting Me Softly: 3/5

Melting Me Softly is about a guy and s girl who get cryogenically frozen for an experiment for what was meant to be only a day. Unfortunately, something happens, and the 24-hour experiment turns into 20 years. Now they have to deal with the changes of not only their family and friends but the world and society as a whole all while trying to uncover the darker secrets behind the experiments.

I gave this a 3 because while the earlier and later episodes were amazing and hilarious, the episodes in the middle of the season bored me. I am not much of a romance person unless it is either subtle or played out a specific way and the romance in this wasn’t my personal cup of tea so it just got boring for me. On its good episodes though, it was funny, sad, and cute. I really did like the dynamic between the two main characters and the romance is pretty good, just a little slower in the middle of the series. The relationships with the family members of the two were so cute and so sad, I loved the all the scenes where the mains got to interact with their families. I did feel awkward and weird about the second-lead, I’m not sure if he counts as a second lead but for lack of a better term that’s what I’m calling him. I love Choi Bo-Min as an actor, and it had nothing to do with his acting, just the whole situation was uncomfortable to me. That other guy who doesn’t even deserve to be the second-lead, if you watch it you know, the stalker one, I despise that man. Not once during the entire show did I like one of his scenes. That could be why I didn’t enjoy the middle scenes as much cause he found a way to worm his way into almost every scene and I would get so annoyed with him. This show does have its good points and bad points, so I would recommend it for those who like romance with a little bit of suspense and humor.

Welcome to Waikiki (season 1): 3/5

Welcome to Waikiki is about a group of friends who own and attempt to run a guesthouse together. When they find a baby left behind in one of their rooms, they have to find out how to take care of her and find her mother. This becomes even more complicated when the mother returns in tears saying she had no where else to go and didn’t want her baby to suffer. After hearing about her troubles, they decide to take the two in, in exchange for help working at the guesthouse. It follows the group and mother as they try to figure out how to take care of a baby, save their failing guesthouse, and achieve their own dreams, all while falling in love.

This show was hilarious, I watched it because everyone was talking about how funny it was and I agree. I especially love how it focused on all the characters instead of picking just one or two and focusing on them. I love when shows really work on all their characters and this show played it out so well. Not one was neglected and I didn’t feel like any of them were underdeveloped by the end, and Sol was super cute! I loved every single one of her scenes, she was so funny and sassy and I know she is just a baby but she is amazing. I watched some episodes on the tv and my sisters even made comments on how cute she was when they looked up at the TV, even though they didn’t watch it. I enjoyed the ending and how it all played out and tied together nicely.

It was a delight for the first two thirds of the season. However, yet again that romance hit and the humor kinda dissipated to be replaced by the romance for a good few episodes. While it was admittedly cute, and I adored the romance scenes in the last few episodes, most romance scenes gave me such second-hand embarrassment I had to pause the show for a while and gain the courage to restart it. I did enjoy it but would probably only ever rewatch the first two thirds and maybe the last two or so episodes. It reminds me of Love With Flaws in the second-hand embarrassment romance scenes, so if you enjoyed that show, definitely give this one a chance. If you like romance, humor, and can handle the second-hand embarrassment stuff I highly recommend this one! It’s super cute and hilarious!

Missing Nine: 5/5

Trigger Warning: Plane crash, Blood, Injuries, Suicide attempts, Murder

Missing Nine is about a girl who gets hired as a stylist for an arrogant and cold idol. On her first day, the plane they are all riding on to an event crashes on a vacant island. Only nine of them survive the crash and must now fight to survive and be found all while struggling with the betrayal of one of their friends who began to murder them one by one.

I really enjoyed this one, it was my perfect type of show; angst, suspense, subtle romance, crime, found family. The only issue I had with it was the unrealistic ending, I just don’t understand how it is possible and don’t know how I even personally feel about it. I am also probably one of the very few people who didn’t watch it for Chanyeol, don’t get me wrong I am an Exol too, but like really new Exol. You can skip this parenthesis if you want, it’s a kpop tangent. (I am a huge multistan. I love all the kpop groups I have listened to so far and have all the dalcomsoft games minus Gfriend even though I love them, cause I feel like it’s going to be a BTS superstar and get deleted so it’s not worth my time or efforts. Feel free to talk to me about any group and any member. If I don’t know them, I would be happy to find new ones so even if they are not well known or new, don’t feel worried about squealing to me about them, I would love to make kpop/kdrama loving friends.) I watched for Jung Kyung-ho and only when I started did I see Chanyeol which was cool to find. This also means POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT I wasn’t disappointed or biased after a certain episode like many of the people I saw raging in the Tvtime comments, not saying this in a bad way just stating that since I am neutral on certain events, I will be focusing on specifically the plot and how I felt about said plot versus how I feel about characters. SPOILER ALERT OVER

Overall I really loved this show, it was certainly an emotional roller coaster. I felt that it could have had a second season or a spin off to tie up that last little cliffhanger but I personally and satisfied with how the main issue wrapped up, other than that one weird ending scene. If you like angst, suspense, crime, and a little romance seen in an enemies to lover type of trope then I highly recommend this show. I gave it a 5 cause I personally loved it and am already planning on rewatching it with my friend. It does have a lot of blood and injuries so if you are sensitive to that, I wouldn’t recommend it to you.

Because this is my first life: 5/5

Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault, Attempted R@pe (but it didn’t get far at all, just be careful)

Because this is my first life is about a woman (Ji-ho) who has to find a new place to live as her brother is getting married and her parents gave the son the apartment that they had bought for both their children. Because of many misunderstandings and coincidences, she accidentally rents a new apartment with a very strict and stoic man (Se-hee). Due to more problems, the two come to an agreement that they should get married since they both can gain something from it. The woman gains a place to stay and the man gains a tenant to help pay the bills, no more, no less.

Okay, so while I said that I didn’t like romance this is the exception, much like Shopping King Louie, it was just a really cute slow burn that I thoroughly enjoyed watching. Many people in the fandom, on TV time at least, were giving Se-hee a hard time and saying he was using and manipulating Ji-ho but I didn’t see it that way. She consented and never voiced anything other than that and the deal was for her to stay in the apartment since she needed a place to live and he needed someone to help pay bills. He didn’t ask for anything more, she was already following his schedule before the marriage issue and was just fine and accepting when they decided to get married. Neither had any expectations of falling in love, they just both needed something that marriage would help them gain and both consented to it. Later on, Se-hee even asked her if any advances were okay and backed off when they weren’t with no questions asked which I find admirable. Okay, rant over. It was cute and at times annoying cause you just want them to get together already. I laughed so hard in so many episodes and cried in a few too. The cat was so adorable and I love the interactions the main’s had with the little fluff. The best, and sometimes most painful, bonding moments between the main’s were the ones that dealt with the cat. I wasn’t too fond of the love triangle but was pleased with how it actually played out with the two women actually accepting each others presence instead of being horrible to each other for the most part. Highly recommend it to any romance lovers, and especially to those who are fans of shows like Shopping King Louie as mentioned above.

Flower boy next door: 3/5

Trigger Warning: Stalking, Panic Attacks, Sensory overload, Bullying, Teacher Crushes and Manipulation of Such

Flower boy next door follows Dok-mi, a young woman with crippling social anxiety to the point she never leaves her apartment. From her window she watches her across the street male neighbor every day, taking note of his entire schedule. This all comes back to bite her when her neighbor’s brother comes to visit from Spain and catches her. What starts as an attempt to make her stop stalking her brother, quickly progresses into a mission to help her overcome her past, anxiety, and to get out of the house and adapt back to a healthy social life. As this mission goes on the two begins to realize they have feelings for each other, but Dok-mi’s own next-door neighbor has his own mission of getting her to stay inside and fall in love with him. He has been writing a web comic about her being a modern Rapunzel and has been in love with her for many years.

I enjoyed this one, I watched it cause the actor from Psychopath Diary starred in it and it was really cute. The romance was adorable, and the whole telepathy thing was a great addition that made me laugh. I love the whole adorable dork male with quiet cold girl trope so much. I didn’t like the whole stalking situation very much, it’s just kinda weird and was something that made me really uncomfortable during the first few episodes. I wasn’t a huge fan of the next-door neighbor, he just seemed like an enabler to me and I found myself angry through most of his scenes, as well as through most of Dok-mi’s childhood friend’s scenes. Other than those two characters, I enjoyed it well enough. I know some people can get annoyed by each characters flaws but I usually am good with morally grey characters as long as they learn from their mistakes. Some did in this show and there was a lot of character development and some didn’t which is realistic but makes me kind of sad. I recommend it to people who like a cute romance show with some angst and don’t mind morally grey characters.

Web-drama/Mini-series

Ghost Vros: 4/5

Trigger Warning: Suicide, Death, Some gore, Jump scares.

Ghost Vros follows two young men who are trying to start up a business where they hunt ghosts using virtual reality software. The main character is able to sense the ghost through his ears turning red and his friend programs the virtual realty to make sure the main has everything he needs to catch the ghosts.

I liked this one, it was fast like many web dramas are, but really interesting. I did attempt to translate it myself with my, admittedly little, Korean knowledge before finding the English subs (which you won’t be able to find now that Youtube has rudely removed community subs, unless it’s uploaded somewhere else. If someone finds it please let me know.) I was always engaged during the show and wasn’t bored at any point. It did have some confusing points and I wish we got more backstory as there was mentions of some interesting things that was never explored further, but it is a web drama, so that is more than likely too much to ask for. Recommend to anyone who enjoys a quick comedy ghost story.

Cats Taste and Cat Bartender: 5/5

Cat’s Taste and Cat Bartender follow three cat gods who run a bar at night to make money for their injured owner. At this bar, they give upset humans cocktails which enable them to either posses said human or go into a dream world, this isn’t really clear, and correct the issue in exchange for items the cats find interesting on top of the alcohol cost.

This show was so cute, I absolutely loved and couldn’t stop smiling. I got the first season, Cat’s Taste, on my youtube recommend and decided to watch it since I was bored. I am so glad I did, I got super excited when I saw that there is a second season as well and spent forever trying to hunt it down before a kind person on MyDramaList put a link to the English subs in a comment (if anyone needs it, I will be happy to send it.) Both seasons were amazing, and I am hoping for a season three as the ending looks like it might be set up for one. The way they showed the bartending moves was so pretty and satisfying and I liked how all three cats got to show their moves instead of just the one. I don’t like alcohol, have tried many kinds many times to but just don’t, however this show makes me want to drink the mixed drinks even though I know I would hate the taste.

Also, is it just me or does Ms. Hana remind anyone of Johnny from NCT? I don’t know if she looks like him or what, sometimes someone reminds me of someone else and the two look nothing alike. Don’t know what that’s all about but let me know because I could not shake the feeling that she reminded me of Mr. Johnny from Chicago. Anyway, tangent aside, I highly recommend to someone who like a quick but cute drama.

Korean Movies

Beautiful Vampire: 3/5

Beautiful Vampire is about a female vampire who tries to avoid people due to her nature, but has all that shattered when she runs into her landlady’s son one night and begins to fall in love.

This movie was pretty good, but a little confusing. I couldn’t even write a proper plot explanation cause I was just so confused. I honestly felt like a fever dream, though a relatively interesting fever dream. I wish we had more information and backstory cause it just kinda felt like a rollercoaster ride of pining. It ended okay; I mean I was bored at the time, so it was something to do. If I am bored in the future, I might watch it again. I agree with most on TvTime when they say, it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good, it was just something to do. I feel like the story line needed more work done and that it ended too fast and progressed in such a way that it was hard to follow. If you are bored or have nothing to do, give it a try, you might like it more than I did.

Chinese Drama

Take My Brother Away: 3/5

Trigger Warning: Alcohol Abuse

Take My Brother Away is based on a web comic about two siblings living with their alcoholic, debtor father in China, after their mom filed for a divorce and left. It follows the two as they go to school, work, and try to live a normal life. The sister hates her brother for being lazy and not being able to help her get what she wants, and the brother gets annoyed at the sister for always getting violent with him and nagging him.

I loved this one, it was really interesting to see the dynamic between the family. I felt that the brother should have been given more credit in the beginning for all he does for his sister and I felt really sorry for the sister because she just wanted to be like the other students who could afford to read web comics or go on trips. Some episodes were hilarious, some were heartbreaking, some were admittedly annoying, some gave me secondhand embarrassment. I just love it all, the only reason I give it a three is because I wouldn’t watch all 50 episodes again, I loved it but some were more on the boring side like filler episodes and I just, don’t think I’ll ever watch the whole series again. I can defiantly say however, I will probably watch most of the episodes again. I enjoyed the ending though it was admittedly on the strange side, and felt it was wrapped up nicely. There was a lot of character development too which is always great. I recommend this to those who enjoy some dysfunctional family humor and some angst and who are able to commit to long seasons.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

#kdrama #kdrama review #review #melting me softly #welcome to waikiki season 1 #welcome to waikiki #missing nine #because this is my first life #flower boy next door #ghost vros #ghost bros #cats taste #cat bartender #beautiful vampire #take my brother away #shopping king louie #nct #johnny suh

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sol-futura-est · 4 years ago

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Sol was always smug when he talked, but when you found him, he was looking off into the distance wild eyed. As if you were right next to a tiger still in the grass looking down on prey mere yards away. As if he was seeing things he couldn’t move out of his visage.

“What happens next? After I’m in Suceava.”

“Not for me to say. More than you at play, my friend. More situations than you will know. Just be well behaved, and do what you think is right, just as you’ve done.”

This man, this being, was rigid. Rules were rules, and they did not bend for him or I. At least now, there didn’t seem to be much to say, but he sat smiling, as if seeing me was a delight, a reality he was happy in.

“There’s not much to tell me then, now that the ball’s rolling.”

“Not much, no. Besides reminding you that you’re not just an anomaly. People don’t remain mystical for long. Before man found the narwhal, the unicorn was an anomaly. Albeit one that didn’t exist.”

Sol always made good points, but there was no sense in talking. I simply nodded, before walking away. Laughter rang out as I passed, and when I turned, his glinting, shining eyes stared me down.

“This won’t be our last meeting, Octa. Trust me.”

Feet didn’t stop for him. Nor for his amusement. As soon as I lent my hand on the door, it ceased, and the guards greeted me all the same. Each stretch of hallway was as pristine as it was the first time I came in. As I entered the apartment, Mortimer was still there, sat on a stool where he was standing just a few hours ago, thinking.

“So what happened?”

“Send a letter to Pescariu. I’ll be there for the winter.”

“Just like that?”

“I don’t think there’s a single choice here that will lead to anything bigger than any other. At least here, I’ll end up learning to ride a horse, and I can spend some time in a new place, learning something valuable.”

“It’s not a bad idea, kid, but I’ll talk to him about it first thing tomorrow. Are you gonna head off to bed?”

“Not for a few more hours.”

“Marcus told me to give this to you.”

When Mortimer reached across the kitchen island, he gripped an old notebook, a date written on the front in old marker, laminated over by hand with clear packing tape.

September 2199 to January 2204

“Is this Marcus’ Journal?”

“He said it was from his time in Damascus as a military attache to local militia, he actually was with Julian when this happened. The consul.”

“He mentioned some earlier.”

Morty winced, clear with disgust.

“He doesn’t skimp on details when you ask him in person, but he doesn’t in there either.”

Nodding softly, I turned to Mortimer, smiling, patting his shoulder before going off to my room. At first I set it on my desk, and didn’t read it. Part of me was scared to read an account of the great peace, only to see it be painted in a brutal light. Part of me knew, at least when I read a history book, that there were details missing. This was much different; this was Marcus’ life.

"March 9th, 2202

I have no words beyond rigid facts. Neither does Julian, who even for a skilled member of the espionage corps. I never figured the world would wind up this backward, this amoral, again. I thought we left this behind. I thought it wasn’t possible with our republic holding the reigns of hegemon.

This warlord, who my interpreter will not utter the Arabic name for, calls himself the Sandstone Demon. Harun will not elaborate much, but the context of the word demon here isn’t exactly a djinn, but something different. Phonetics aside, we call him the Nomad. Not a bedouin, or a pilgrim, or even a caravaner, but a nomad. Without context, simply a wanderer. He bore us gifts of gold inlaid human skulls, that we identified were like Ethiopian, from some thirty or forty years off. Our scouts previously reported every major town in Ethiopia and Somalia to be deserted, desecrated by corpses. Much like the rest of Africa, those who lived after the civil wars retreated to the jungles or the oases.

He brought us slaves. Amputees who were supposedly ritually chopped up, and consumed. Those who were quadruple amputees were strapped onto the sides of camels like trophies, some were apparently great warriors who the Nomad defeated or defiled.

Our sentries at first repelled skirmishers, but later were offered slaves.

Whatever is to the south, if anything, has to contend with this man who has made a cult of himself, no doubt from the cesspit of morality that the past was. Formless people striving only toward what is stable, even if barbaric. Malaise was what one of my team leaders said was his first feeling.

When I told Julian we can’t risk contact, and that we should shoot on sight any who come within five hundred yards, he shook his head, saying that the senate won’t report this. They’ll just declare the zone uncontested sand, worthless. Our outposts will always remain, but there would be no way the new guys would try to let the image be squandered.

It came down to optics? What if there’s a would be explorer wanting to see the sand buried city of Mecca, and is instead eaten alive? What then? This is the fact of point, that these creatures lie to the south and they are to be blacklisted?

I even saw the Nomad face to face. He was deformed by something, as if his eyelids were melted into some kind of artistic menagerie of lines and swirls. At first he simply sat on his camel, under mounds of white cloth, accented in gold and turquoise, but he told me about how in the deserts both here and in the Horn, the ruins sometimes are filled with places rotten to all life.

Could be chemical weapons that went sour, probably not nuclear. Or maybe he simply tried using mustard gas on some unsuspecting village people and was on the other side of the breeze. If it was my discretion, I would’ve killed him, but it’s not under my jurisdiction to do that. Even if I can’t get that girl out of my head, the one who cradled herself on the side of a camel, carved from hip down.

Each eye was pallid, sunken behind the ridges of the bone. More than mere starvation, it was like her body was decaying whilst alive. As if her soul was bleeding, and each drop of life came down into the veins and sundered everything her creator had deigned hers.

If I find an excuse, I’m taking it. What good is this senate if justice is unanswered? Perhaps it’s my own discretion that must be requited tenfold. Maybe good men must break the rules."

Rarely did I let myself be unnerved, disgusted, like I did imagining Marcus in this situation. Marcus had been in his forties here, but before the special treatments that I’m told made him so fierce, full of zeal and eager to see enemies. Was it the treatments? How would enhanced adrenaline, lengthened bones, hyperstrength, and extreme intelligence and reactivity do that? If anything, they would make you arrogant, feeling like a superhuman. What if this was why? Seeing the aftermath of things that were once human, scarred from things normalcy would never allow. Almost viscerally I can see the Nomad in front of my face, the reek of sweat and blood mixed into the sight of a clay figurine disfigured, laid out into the sun where the cracks could fill with grime. Draped in rippling linen, like a bust covered for fear of retribution in the disgust, the shock, of seeing it. Brown eyes eternally made rouge, a single struck hawk perched against the cliff, blush and blank stone marbling behind him. Each breath from under the veil filling you with flustered disgust, knowing behind it was once the same life within you. That your blood could be an object of greed to him. That he would reduce you down to that, despite looking in the mirror and seeing himself. Does he look at himself, imaging his own sweetness, or does he realize, for a moment, that he desecrates one of nature’s greatest works, perhaps for some her magnum opus? That, if we believe there to be a soul within one’s chest, that by defiling their body, he defiles his own soul?

Shaking my head with vigor, I sat still for a moment, realizing the same shock came over me that Marcus may have been under for weeks, months. What did it all mean to him?

As I held the journal between my fingers, I looked at my right hand. One of the pages was singled out, like someone had turned to it over and over. I turned to it slowly, flattening out the page and breathing slowly.

"November 24th, 2203.

Julian hasn’t been able to talk to me for hours. I don’t care. No reason to now. I asked nine men from my personal section to join me, the ones I already knew had proven their loyalty to me in combat. Career men who had quashed bigger bugs for less.

We tracked across the desert through the long night until we found his camp. As grand as the display was, it wasn’t defensible. Not for camel riders who, frankly, couldn’t see in the dark. Even if they could see us, it was fighting a bear with fists. Our plasma against their rifles older than any ruin you could find. Decorated pieces of fashion more than weapons.

As we parsed through the wreckage, the fires were a welcome break from the frigid, flowing sand. When we found him, naked, covered in boils scarred over, his face spouting blood from the burning hole in his stomach, he just looked at me. When you take him off the horse, he doesn’t stand half as tall. A glorified cripple who would’ve died to another tribe in ten years time.

But seeing his lifeless corpse after I stood on his neck, it was worth it. The only question was the amputees. After we piled the bodies up, some asked for us to take them back with us. The question was where. So of course, we promised we would return, with trucks, and bring them back.

Julian stonewalled the order for my drivers, and drug me into a room once I got back. We hadn’t spoken once, but he arrived just in time to belay the order. When I told him to not speak over a tribune of the republic, he told me to hush, that he could have me subject to a war council and imprisoned for what I did. For killing cultist cannibal raiders. But for what he said next it was hot air.

The senate still wants no word of this, so we agreed to keep the raid under wraps. When We got the camp to see about the amputees, some had died from suicide. Only a few remained, mostly those who could not, but they asked us to kill them anyway. Julian nor I wanted to, but we did. This was pure injustice. Unadulterated madness.

We’re both leaving the desert come January. Not to attest anything before the senate, but instead because our time here is up. The sector is stable enough for the consul.

This world will not break me yet. But I don’t intend to deny myself justice."

I wasn’t surprised at the cut short ending or the details within, but I realized in the final words that this wasn’t knowledge to most anyone else. I had to question if Marcus intended this journal for me, or another. Was this world he saw, the world that was beyond the borders of the known and civilized places, where human culture was warped against the circus mirror, then painted against the canvas with the blood of an innocent man? Or was it Marcus just getting unlucky? Seeing the worst there was to see.

Part of me didn’t want to believe I had even half the details. Or even if Marcus had changed or not. All I knew was this man was beginning to make some sense, here and there

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incorrectly-quoted-queers · 5 years ago

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Drunk Punch Love: INTERMISSION ARCHANGEL

Pairing: FemShep and Garrus Vakarian (Shakarian)

Rating: PG-13 (with some tossed F-bombs)

Summary: Their awkward, badass journey through saving the galaxy and accidentally falling in love

INTERMISSION ARCHANGEL: The End.

Shepard had been dead 232 days.

Garrus had been going over their new security measures when the apartment's front door pinged. It wasn't a sound he heard often, since all the crew had their own codes to the back door. But the Via siblings were new, and Butler's wife did sometimes stop by, so he figured it was just one of them.

What he didn't expect was a female turian with blue markings to have her arms crossed, looking at him like he just committed a crime. Before he could react, the glare faded and she smiled at him. Garrus' head still wasn't fully straight when she pulled him into her arms.

It only clicked together that this wasn't some damn fever dream when she started talking. "Happy birthday, baby brother!"

Oh. It was that day.

"I'd ask if I surprised you, but I already know I did." The second he shut his door behind him, closing off his vigilante world from his family, that damned brain of hers caught on and she peered at him. "I know you wouldn't have anything planned for your birthday, so what are you hiding?"

If it was his father, he could lie and say a woman and the man would happily walk away from the shut door, uninterested. But Solana was a different beast. She was curious, intrusive, and interested in damn near anything. It would be hard to keep her out of his apartment, lined with guns, gear, and a krogan casing the joint.

Also, she definitely would give him shit for his undecorated bedroom and that was a blast from the past he never wanted to deal with again.

So, his best shot was to go truth adjacent. "There was a break-in on my block. I have a consultant in there retrofitting my place with more security."

"You caring about your own well-being and safety is... new, but I won't complain." Solana snorted and shook her head at him, in her normal well-meaning but condescending way. "Only you would schedule a security consultation on your birthday. Were you going to do anything at all?"

Garrus leaned against his door and tried not to look too pissed off, because Solana knew the answer to that and was really just trying to push his buttons. Sure, that would be a stretch for anyone else, but his big sister? He knew how she operated. Probe for intel and then use that intel to make whatever point she was making infallible. He stuck with, "You know the answer to that."

"Doesn't the fact I know the answer to that speak volumes to the issue at hand?" Dammit. And he thought he said something neutral. Before he could spike back, she added, "It's been three years, Garrus, you're not dancing on mother's grave just because you dare to enjoy your birthday."

Now that one was a funny answer. "Really Sol? That's easy for you to say when she didn't die on yours."

"I've never liked the guilt games you and father play. Just yesterday he was messaging me about how it's his fault you react poorly to death and rebel. But do either of you do anything with that guilt? Because that's progress I'd like to see." Garrus almost laughed, because the one thing close to progress was also the one thing he really didn't want her to see. "Life happens. Death happens. Now, if I remember correctly, I begged for a sibling. So if not for yourself, let's celebrate the happiest day of my four year old life, meeting my little brother."

He wanted to stay mad and indignant, maybe even scare her off. But dammit, he cared too much about Solana for that. Groaning, he pushed off the door and conceded. "Fine, let's go get some food and see a flick or something. You did come all this way to see me."

"You're right, I did, so thank you for appreciating it." She walked forward first and he took the opportunity to cover his tracks. With a flick of his wrist he typed out a quick message to Jawth and Sidonis, asking them to hide the guns and clean up the place before he got back; that his sister came for a surprise visit.

They agreed without asking a single question. Which was good, because he'd rather off himself than tell those assholes what day it was.

Now the real landmine was keeping Solana from looking too deeply into the Archangel rumors. If that caught her interest, he was sure she could figure it out. He didn't expect her to snitch to their father, who would objectively hate what he was doing, but he also didn't know how she'd react.

Garrus just wanted his sister to remain his annoying, inordinately supportive sister. He didn't want that to get complicated.

Somehow, he managed to dodge all Archangel talk the entire time. His most impressive save was pretending to choke on something to be louder than and scare off a guy at the cafe who wouldn't stop talking about his crew and their latest hit. Solana definitely didn't need to hear about "That blue-ass sniper turian."

That was more than enough to get her curious.

When they got to his apartment door, he almost breathed a sigh of relief. They'd made it, all the way back to his place, and she still didn't know. She could spend the night here and then he could send her back off to her life on Palaven, no harm no foul.

But for all his attempts, he'd forgotten one small, terrible little factor.

Sidonis knew who he was, and that man had a lot of contacts.

The second the metal panels slid open, every single one of his team was there, grinning like mad, with a garrish looking cake stuffed with candles. And right in front of his sister, the fuckers yelled, "Happy birthday, Archangel."

There were a lot of times with Shepard he wished to kill a man, but this time, he wanted to kill nine.

Solana just glared at him with a knowing smirk. "I fucking knew you were hiding something!"

Garrus grabbed her arm and took her outside, where all his idiot team wasn't watching. He started talking, fast. "Sol, I-"

"If you say you're sorry, I'll know you're lying." She shook her head. "So you're the infamous merc-killer? Honestly, I should've known. It was probably just wishful thinking." He was too overwhelmed to know what to say to that, but luckily Sol was happy to fill in the blanks. "I won't tell father. He would hate you for doing this. Just don't keep secrets from me, okay? I love you."

"I can give you that."

"Good. Now, why don't we enjoy your party that your team set up?" Before she walked through the door, she squeezed his arm and frowned. A classic Sol look of distaste; last time he saw it, it was when a co-worker of hers tried to ask her on a date because "she had to say yes to someone eventually". If Solana was less composed, he was sure she would've punched him. "I'm not eating that cake, though."

"Don't worry. I would have told you not to."

Shepard had been dead 365 days.

All he could see were her eyes. Soft green, always laughing at something. Until she wasn't. But wherever things were good, she was laughing, and hard. Garrus couldn't quite get his head straight, but he hoped he said something funny. More than likely, what actually happened was that he did something awkward and dumb, but that was almost just as good.

When he started scanning the room, he realized they were by one of the observation windows on the Normandy. Despite all the chaos in their lives, they'd taken a moment to look at the stars. He always liked it here. Why'd he never bring her here?

Even when she stopped laughing, she kept smiling. Like she always did after a long day, she pulled her hair out of that tight bun thing and kept on shaking it with her fingers. Sometimes he wondered what it felt like, and not like when he accidently touched it during movie night. Like how she was doing, hands all in.

But it was safe to say that was a bit more than a CO and an ex C-sec officer should be doing.

He wasn't quite sure what he was saying, or why he was saying it, but he told her, "When I look at the stars, I think of you." Garrus wasn't really sure when he got all bold. Maybe it was this haziness he was feeling.

Shepard raised one of her hairy eyebrows at him. "We live in space. On a spaceship. We see stars almost constantly."

Garrus took a step closer to her, sometimes wondering how she got anywhere with how oblivious she could be. And god knows he normally wasn't this smooth but this time, right here, he said what he wanted to. "Exactly my point."

Blinking, it took her a few seconds to register what he said, and she even turned to look up at him. But when their eyes did meet? Hers softened like for once, she finally got it. Her cheeks even did that little blush thing when she was embarrassed. "Oh."

With that look, was like all of his normal discomfort came rushing back, all those feelings that always told him not to say stupid shit like that. He shouldn't have said that, right? All those things she said she felt were byproducts of a lonely, drunk night where he got too close and she was alone enough to get stuck on it. She didn't like it, she couldn't, and it was weird, he was ruining the whole friendship thing... "Shepard, forget I said that-"

But then, she did that human thing they always saw in movies. She got on her toes and pressed her lips against his. It was weird, soft skin against his plates, but it was her skin, and that was what mattered.

Maybe he hadn't ruined everything.

Shepard said, "I won't forget-"

Everything seemed so right, but just then the wall blew open and Shepard was being sucked out into space. Again. He tried to grab onto her arms, legs, anything to keep her there. No matter what he reached for, she slipped through his goddamn fingers.

When he woke up, his body was shaking and he wrapped his arms around his legs. He hated to admit this wasn't the first time he had a dream like that, one where Shepard wasn't gone.

Garrus had tried so hard to keep her at bay. One year later, but she was always still there.

As long as he could help it, though, his nightmares would be the only place she had left to live. Elsewhere, he had work to do. And as much as he felt for her, pined for her, his life didn't have place for stubborn, Russian spectres.

Garrus had a station to protect.

Shepard had been dead for 728 days.

He never should've left the apartment. Garrus figured his team could cover the last of the security measures while he helped Sidonis. It should've been easy.

But when he got there, Sidonis never showed up. And when he got back, there was blood everywhere.

He trusted Sidonis, from the first day he met him. The damned turian seemed honest about wanting to save people. But here they were, and Lantar fucked them.

They were all going to die here, weren't they?

Most everyone was down already. Their corpses were strewn all over the place, their faces locked in horror or dull emptiness. The only ones left alive were Ryel, Gibbon, and Butler.

But from the looks of it, Butler didn't have much longer.

He yelled at the crippled leftovers of his team and asked, "How's it looking?"

Gibbon answered, "Understandably terrible. We have a vantage point, but they have many waves of mercs."

Ryel added, "This balcony view is not as pretty with bullets and brains flying everywhere."

Before he could respond, Butler grabbed Garrus' arm. His abdomen was covered in blood and he could see his stomach lining. The guy normally wore gray pants, but they looked like they'd been dyed red. "I'm not gonna make it, huh?"

"Butler-"

"Nah, I know." He coughed. Garrus couldn't lie to him. "As much as I'd like to go screaming out Nalah's name, I want to hear about something that doesn't break my heart. Tell me about your Russian girl, Garrus. And for real this time."

For all the times Garrus shoved her away, maybe Butler was right. If he was going to die, he'd rather hear about her one last time. He said to the other two, "Hold the line and be careful."

Then, he sat down next to Butler and held his hand. After all this time, nearly two years, he just started talking about Shepard like she really was. "Her name was Anya. She was competitive to a fault and loved saying quotes while she watched movies. She loved to dance, but just by herself. She was a brave leader, but what mattered more was that she was... She was a beautiful, squishy human."

"A human? Never woulda guessed." He knew he already told Butler she was human, but it wasn't really the time to contradict him. Blood loss never helped make the brain a stronger machine.

Instead, Garrus just kept talking, his grip on Butler's hand getting tighter as the memories and feelings wound around his chest. "Me neither, but from all your stories, you didn't sound like you expected to fall in love with an Asari either."

"You're right. I didn't. Tell me more?"

"She was a classic soldier, until she wasn't. An infiltrator class, great with a pistol, terrifying, even. But sometimes she'd walk into debriefings with sweatpants and her hair a mess, swearing about something the pilot did to her toothpaste. And I wondered how that person was the same one that inspired a whole ship, every day. But she did."

"And?" Butler looked at him knowingly, deliberately.

Today, Garrus let the dying man win. "And you were right, Butler. I loved her."

With one final smirk, his hand fell.

When Butler stopped breathing, Garrus picked up his gun, got behind cover like Ryel and Gibbon, and started shooting.

If he was going to go down, he was gonna go down fighting. And this time, he wouldn't stop thinking about her. This time, if he was gonna die, she'd be the last thing on his mind.

No matter where he went, he was stuck with her. Forever.

///

After a little interlude into Garrus' two years without Shepard, we can finally start getting Anya awake and moving in his direction. I am SO ready.

I read on tumblr a couple weeks ago that apparently a lot of people write their own version of 4 things: their first meeting, the rocket-to-the-face, the night before the suicide mission, and "this is the best spot on the citadel.

I know it's stupid, but I honestly feel kinda proud that I ignored their first meeting entirely. And also that my suicide mission night will be VERY different. Is it a stupid thing to be proud of? Yes, but at my core I'm kinda a trash hipster and I can feel pride and shame in that.

Anyway, thank you so much for reading! And extra thanks to my lovely patrons:

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#Drunk Punch Love #Shakarian #Intermission: Archangel #femshep x garrus #Garrus Vakarian #Anya Shepard #Lantar Sidonis #Archangel #Mass Effect 2 #mass effect fanfiction #fanfiction #Omega #Blue Suns

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thehappyspaceman · 5 years ago

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Assorted Thoughts on The Dragon Prince Book Three

Hey guys, TheHappySpaceman here. The Dragon Prince. What more do I need to say about it other than what I’ve already covered in my first two reviews? Well, a lot actually.

I was impressed with the show’s improvement from Book One to Book Two and was super excited for where it was set to go in the future. Since then, I have joined the TDP fanbase and supported the show by making memes, reactions, AMVs, oneshots, and plenty of fanart. However, when info dropped last month about Aaron Ehasz and the workplace environment at Wonderstorm potentially not being so good, I didn’t know what to make of it, and as more and more info came out, I became even more confused. Though the fanbase was becoming incredibly toxic due to the near-constant infighting, I promised myself that I would still stick around for Book Three, seeing how excited I had been for it before the controversy, but I almost wondered if it would be worth it.

So, after so many accusations and hollow words thrown around, and after nine months of anticipation… how does it hold up?

…Oh! Okay, wow, this season was a ton of fun. And yes, it’s exactly as good as I figured it would be after seeing Book Two. Everything I could have hoped for from this series really goes full-force here and it rarely if ever lets off the brakes.

The Story

After a brief intro as exposition, the plot starts immediately after the events of the Book Two finale where Callum and Rayla have entered Xadia and have to face many challenges along the way, including archdragon Sol Regem, Rayla’s hometown, and a rogueish elf thief. All the while, Ezran arrives back to Katolis and has to face the challenges of dealing with being king of a country that he finds in chaos, being pressured to enter war and be the king that Harrow was, while Soren and Claudia are confronted with the decision between helping their own father wage war against Xadia or joining their friends.

The Characters

This season introduced a number of interesting new characters. We got to meet some more dragons, for one thing, and while hearing them speak was pretty jarring at first (they talk normal English, which is strange since we’ve never heard them speak before), it turned out to be pretty awesome in establishing the characters. Most notably, we meet Sol Regem, the dragon who appeared in the opening of the series and was on many of the posters, and I’m surprised how he kind of turns out to be a major dick. Since was on so much of the promo materials for the show, I wasn’t figuring this, but he wound up being a racist jackass who was willing to kill our protagonists, including the young dragon prince Zym, all because of his hatred of humans.

He’s not the only dragon we meet. We also meet Avizandum, otherwise known as Thunder, the late King of the dragons, in flashbacks, and we get to see just how he died. As well, we get Zubeia, Zym’s mom, and Pyrrha, a dragon who Ezran had met in the prior season and befriends. My favorite one might be a nameless dragon who is unchained by Soren and nuzzles him. That’s a really cute scene.

We also meet a lot of new elves this season. Of particular note is Ethari, the Moonshadow elf blacksmith who had been seen in the end credits for Book One and had previously been given the fan name “Tinker.” There was a lot of fan speculation that Ethari was Runaan’s boyfriend and that the two of them raised Rayla together while her parents were gone. Well, this season proves that theory entirely false. No, Ethari is Runaan’s husband. Again, way to go with LGBT+ rep, Wonderstorm (especially since the episode that introduces Ethari was written by a woman in the LGBT+ community)! Ethari’s dynamic with Rayla is also very interesting and shows that he truly does care about her even after her town essentially banished her.

This season officially introduces us to Janai, the Sunfire elf that Amaya was battling in Book Two. I find it interesting how, in many ways, the two characters perfectly mirror each other: Both women are highly dedicated to their duty of their respective countries, and both of them are sisters of royalty, with Janai’s elder sister being the Sunfire Queen. This gives them an interesting dynamic with their interactions. Also of note is Kazi, Amaya’s translator this season who kind of gives off C-3PO vibes. Every scene with them is very funny.

Additionally, this season introduces us to a whole new race of elf: Skywing elves! It only makes sense, since we’ve already met Moonshadow, Sunfire, and Startouch elves; that only leaves two more to go. The two Skywing elves we meet are Ibis, a mage who works directly for the dragon queen Zubeia; and my personal favorite, Nyx, a loveable rogue type of character who our heroes meet when crossing the midnight desert. Man, I love Nyx, and yet, I feel like this season doesn’t do enough with her. I mean, they introduce her in episode four, and then she just kind of disappears after episode six. I was hoping that she’d play a bigger role, especially seeing how hyped up she was in the trailers for this season. Still, maybe she’ll appear again. She played an interesting part as an antagonist and I’d like to see her come back.

Speaking of antagonists, how about this guy? Prince Kasef. Man, the writers wanted to make a real jerk type of character and they succeeded. He’s the warmongering son of King Ahling who takes over after his dad’s injuries from last season. Outside of a cool design, there is nothing redeemable about this character. I’m not faulting the show for this, for the record. It seems like it was the writers’ intention to make him a complete asshole, very comparable to Viren in a lot of ways. Kasef is taken down in a pretty spectacular way, for the record, and it’s hard to say he’ll be missed.

But of all the new characters introduced, to me the real standout character of the season is one of the main leads from all the way back in Book One. Man… Soren is just great this season. After breaking his spine in Book Two, we get to see him go through so much character development beyond just being the dumb comic relief. He starts to question what is right, what side he should be on, and he is put through so much hell in the process, but he comes out better for it in the end. Leave it to the head writer of Avatar: The Last Airbender to make me feel sympathetic for a character like this.

The Animation

Holy crap, the animation in this season is so damn impressive! Bardel Entertainment already fixed the animation in a major way between Book One and Book Two, but this season gives us some seriously amazing moments that I never would have expected from this show after watching Book One. Everything feels so much more fluid this season, even more improved than Book Two in that respect. The backgrounds are downright stunning, too. They feel so real, like you could actually be there with the characters. One of the major gripes I did have with the first two seasons was the facial animation, and how the mouths kind of looked derpy and unexpressive, perhaps due to the CGI medium the characters were animated in. But here, everyone is so emotive and expressive that you can watch the season without audio and still understand what’s going on. There’s a particular scene with Amaya and Janai that I’ll get into later that perfectly shows this. This isn’t only in the mouths, either; we also see little details like characters’ pupils dilating, or the elves’ ears slumping down or perking up depending on the mood. These were little touches that they didn’t have to include, but the fact that they did makes it so much more of an enjoyable watch, because you notice new little details each time you watch it.

The Relationships

I don’t usually have a separate section in my previous season reviews about this, but this season was heavily based on character relationships as much as individual characters, whether they be relationships between family members, friends, comrades in battle, or romantic partners. Just a warning: This section will get into spoiler territory. If you have not watched the season before reading this, I strongly advise you to stop reading and go do that.

The first relationship I’d like to talk about returns to Soren. During the course of this season, he starts to question the morals of his father, Viren, and Soren has to struggle between his duties to his father and his duties to his country as a member of the crownguard. We get the sense that Claudia has always been Viren’s favorite, and that the abuse and gaslighting Soren has to deal with in this season is nothing new and Viren’s contempt for his son has been building up a long time. Soren’s relationship with Claudia strains in this season until, when not wanting to make his sister choose between him or Viren, Soren cuts ties with her. The scene where he says goodbye and leaves is genuinely a heartbreaking one, and in general, you can feel the emotions all the characters are going through.

With Amaya and Janai, the two form a mutual respect over the course of the season. Amaya defeats Janai at the breach, but when seeing that the Sunfire general is hanging for her life, she ultimately saves Janai from dying. As the days go on and Amaya becomes a prisoner, Janai defends her against the Sunfire queen and they soon form a friendship that hints that it might lead to something more. But the scene that really increases the characters’ development is when Aaravos straight-up murders the Sunfire Queen. This sends Janai into a rage and she runs in, willing to risk her own life to avenge the death of her sister, but Amaya tackles her to the ground and gives her a solemn look of understanding, of knowing how it feels to lose her own sister. This little exchange is very powerful. I’ve always said that a scene is effective if it manages to give you chills without any dialogue, just letting the music and animation speak on its own, and, well, this scene passes that test. (Major shout-out to Frederik Wiedmann’s score, by the way; it really shines in this entire season.)

And… well, okay, there’s no use dodging it anymore. Let’s talk about these two.

Rayla and Callum. Oh boy. So, remember in my last review how I said it was likely that Rayla and Callum were going to get together by the end of the show? Well, since this show has a planned seven-season run, I was expecting it to happen way later, like in Book Six, or more likely for them to pull the Last Minute Hookup thing where they confess their love and finally kiss at the end of the last season. That trope always frustrates me, but it’s a good way of stretching out the romantic tension for as long as possible to keep fans interested, so I figured that’s what was going to happen, right? Well…

Yeah, I went into this season expecting a slow burn, but instead we got a freaking forest fire. Holy crap, I was not expecting them to hook up this early in the show. And it didn’t happen in the last episode, either; no, they shared their first kiss in episode four, smack in the middle of the season. And you know what? I’m all for that. The writers handled their relationship really well and it felt surprisingly believable and not rushed despite happening so soon. It hasn’t been confirmed how long Callum and Rayla have known each other for, but I’ve calculated that it’s been anywhere between 20-30 days since they first met, which is more than enough time to fall in love. Part of why it works is that the dynamic didn’t really change much. They already had a beautiful friendship, and the only thing that has changed between them is that there’s now more kissing. I wouldn’t have depicted their relationship any other way if I had made it canon. This does open up the question of where they’re going to go with it in future seasons, but as usual, I trust the writers not to screw it up. I may honestly dedicate a whole post to why Rayla and Callum’s relationship works, but we’ll see if I have time for that.

Other Stuff (incl. spoilers)

For the most part, the humor in this season is on point. With the exception of an oddly-placed fart joke in episode two, I found myself laughing at most of the scenes where I was supposed to laugh. Highlights include Soren putting stacking three pieces of bread to make a “bread sandwich,” Callum seeing a boomerang and finding it “oddly familiar” (hi, Sokka), and Nyx taking the dragang (Callum, Rayla, and Zym) past a magical forcefield protecting an oasis, saying, “Anyway, here’s the wonderwall.” I had to do a double take with that because I was laughing so hard. Though I think my personal favorite may be when Ibis laughs at Callum because “humans can’t do magic” and Callum does this.

Just, the look on his face. He’s so done and it’s hilarious.

One thing I was surprised by in this season was the sheer amount of violence. This one really does feel like an all-out war. Apparently, the violence was enough to get it rated TV 13 in some countries (though it’s still listed as TV Y-7 here) and honestly, I can see why. There’s an all-out battle scene in the last episode that could be compared to the climax of Return of the King. Everyone is fighting each other; even the Baker from Book One gets a few punches in there! Not only that, but there are a huge number of onscreen deaths in this season. As previously mentioned, we get to see the Sunfire Queen be Thanos’d. Prince Kasef gets a pretty spectacular death when Queen Aanya has a Big Damn Heroes moment and shoots an arrow through his head. Not to mention that we get to see Viren die not once, but twice! Even though Claudia resurrects him using dark magic, it’s still pretty great to see because he’s a turd. (No offense to Jason Simpson, though—love ya.)

By far the hardest death scene to watch, however, is the death of Avizandum, the Dragon King. In the flashbacks, we get to see how Harrow and Viren killed him, and, well… it’s really painful. The death, by way of petrification, is shown to be slow and agonizing, and Avizandum is shown tearing off his wings in a futile attempt to survive just to make it back to Zubeia. Even Harrow is mortified, with a look of “Oh god, what have I done?” on his face. In his last moments, Avizandum sheds a tear knowing that he will never be able to see his son grow up, and we as the audience are given a grim reminder that everyone… is a person. Even our enemies have families they care about. Avizandum may have been a gigantic, powerful dragon who hated humans, but at the end of the day he was still a dad who wanted to protect his son.

My One Complaint

Okay, so I’ve talked about everything I love about this season, and how it has significantly increased the show’s potential. With all that said, why can’t I give this season my full props? Well… I’ll be honest, it’s because of the pacing. Remember how I said this season rarely if ever lets off the brakes? Yeah, that’s both a blessing and a curse. There are a lot of people online who believe that Rayla and Callum’s relationship was rushed, and I somewhat agree with them, but only to the same end that everything in this season felt rushed. Nine episodes just isn’t enough time for each season. This has been a problem I’ve had with previous seasons, too, but here, it felt especially rushed because so much happened in this season that it felt like we couldn’t dedicate enough time to everything. I’m not saying that every season needs to be twenty episodes long like Avatar—especially since, with four more proposed seasons, we’re already supposed to be getting more episodes than Avatar if all goes according to plan—but 10-13 episodes per season would probably be beneficial for future ones, especially since future arcs of the show are overall going to be shorter (only two seasons each instead of three). Or hell, maybe make the episodes longer. Of course, if that’s my biggest gripe with this season, then we still have it pretty good, let’s be honest.

Where Do We Go from Here?

So, the question remains, where does the show go from here? There are supposed to be four more seasons, but the final episode of Book Three, titled “The Final Battle,” honestly feels like a series finale in a lot of ways: There’s a big epic climax, Rayla and Callum are together, Zym is reunited with his mom, and the elves and humans have formed an alliance, if only temporary. It all seems too easy, doesn’t it? My guess is that this was meant as a pseudo-series finale just in case Netflix doesn’t renew the show for a fourth season.

However, as I’ve rewatched the season, I noticed that they still leave a lot of loose ends. Most notably, Aaravos is seeming to metamorphize and grow outside of his mirror. Judging by how Aaravos really let loose in this series, I can’t wait to see more of him as a villain and find out about his backstory. Also, Rayla was ghosted—or banished—from her hometown after failing her mission in Book One. Will she ever be able to go home again? On a related note, what did happen to her parents? Are we to assume they were trapped in coins like Runaan (and speaking of which, will Runaan ever get out)? There are also other unresolved plot points, like Claudia’s path down the road of dark magic, Viren’s ex-wife, and Callum’s dad. The last one is especially interesting to me, since it would be cool to know if Callum is secretly half-elf, which is why he knows how to do primal magic. Oh, and my question from last season about whether Harrow’s soul is in Pip’s body still remains. So it seems like they left enough open-ended so that they could continue with a new season.

I do hope to see how Rayla and Callum’s relationship develops in the future, though that may just be the shipper in me talking. But in all seriousness, this does open up some potential. As far as we know, Rayla and Callum are the first human/elf couple, so how is that received? Will they be judged by others? Will certain problems arise from this? I hope the upcoming seasons explore this and don’t just pull the usual romance clichés, though the writers have been pretty good at avoiding those so far.

I also have to wonder: When interviewed, the creators of The Dragon Prince said that there would be a time skip between Book Three and Book Four, since each of them is part of a separate story arc. How much of a time skip will it be? I can’t imagine that it will be over a year, but if it is, I hope they don’t do one of those things where since the main cast is too old now, they replace all the main characters with new ones and expect the audience to get invested in them. I highly doubt they will do that, though. It would be too jarring.

Conclusion

If you have been sleeping on The Dragon Prince, I highly urge you to check it out. Book Three is everything I had hoped the first two seasons would be, and more. With fantastic animation, likable characters that go through unique development, and a downright beautiful score (seriously, major props to Frederik Wiedmann), it wonderfully wraps up the first major arc of this series. I hope Netflix renews the show for all seven seasons, because this one has left me wanting more.

~Spaceman

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beatriceinmessina · 5 years ago

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Halloween Terrorfest, Day XIII: ‘This is Halloween’

(A note: This one is just pure nonsense I wrote to amuse myself.)

31 October 2019

“What are you supposed to be?” asked James, looking up and down as Thomas and Edward came in through the door.

Thomas gave him a surprised look. “You really don’t know?” James shook his head in reply. “I love rock ‘n’ roll, so put another dime in the jukebox, baby!”

“No, that’s obvious. You,” James said, gesturing to Edward, who was dressed in a top hat and greatcoat, “who are you?”

Edward sighed. “James, don’t tell me you’ve never seen The Body Snatcher.”

“What?”

“The Body Snatcher. You know, the film where Boris Karloff gives this doctor guy bodies and is obsessed with him.”

“I don’t know that one.”

“Then you’ll have to come over to our place and see it. Next week?” asked Edward, already walking into the house. Thomas shook his head, smiling affectionately.

“Just watch it alone unless you want to hear his theory on how the two main guys are exes, which is actually pretty plausible,” he said, and tilted his head to the side. “Wait. I didn’t ask you who you are, and I’m still not sure.”

An evil grin spread across James’s face. “Surprise, bitch! I bet you thought you’d seen the last of me.”

“Oh, yeah. And I think Francis is staring at me?” Thomas’s eyes slid over to the dining room table where Francis was sitting and back again.

“No, he’s staring at me and counting down the minutes until he gets to screw me in this. He told me before we left.”

“Um. Thanks?”

“You’re welcome!” James said cheerily, stepping to the side and letting Thomas through. He had barely gotten through the living-room before there was a screeching of tires so loud that practically everyone in the room jumped. Tuunbaq hissed and stood up on the sofa’s arm, his fur standing on end.

“Oh, no,” Harry whispered, going to collect the infuriated cat before he tore a hole in the couch and looking out the window. “They’re going to crash something going like that.” Another screech as the car skidded into a parked position, and then an infuriated shriek that could probably be heard all the way in Lancashire.

“JOHN HARTNELL, IF YOU DRIVE LIKE THAT AGAIN, I SWEAR TO EVERY GOD ABOVE, I WILL CUT YOUR HANDS OFF FINGER BY FINGER!”

“It’s part of the character!” John could be heard protesting, and then Tom shouting again.

“DON’T TELL ME THAT, JONATHAN -- YOU DRIVE LIKE A FUCKING DEMON TWENTY-FOUR SEVEN -- YOU ARE GOING TO SET THIS CAR ON FIRE ONE DAY -- YOU SHOULD HAVE LET ME DRIVE--”

“One, the full name ultimatum doesn’t work when Jonathan isn’t my name. Two, you’re adorable when you yell like this.”

“Adorable? ADORABLE?! I AM NOT--”

“Come on, you know Mary Ann’s the only one who inherited Mum’s terrifying gene. Your face just gets all screwed up and cute.”

“Hey,” Harry called, opening the door and standing in the entrance, “you might want to get inside before someone reports you for being public nuisances.”

“Am I that loud?” Tom called, his voice finally dropping below a scream.

“If you were any louder they’d hear you in New York,” John groaned. “I think my eardrums almost exploded.”

“They wouldn’t be in danger of exploding if you drove like a normal person. It’s a miracle your licence hasn’t been revoked.”

“Yeah. We should--”

“WELCOME TO A SHOW ABOUT DEATH!” a gleeful voice screeched from inside, and Graham all but slid into the doorway, leaving Harry a split second to get out of the way. “If you die during this party, the festivities will not stop.”

“Yes, it will,” Harry said. “Now come inside before someone gets arrested.”

They got out of the car; Tom headed for the house, and John stayed by the car, looking at it disappointedly. “It didn’t break down.”

“Wonder of wonders, miracles of miracles. Come on.” Tom grabbed his brother’s hand and dragged him from the house. Harry stared at them when they came up the stairs.

“Tell me you were not driving with those sunglasses on.”

“I told him to take them off,” Tom said. “He said it wasn’t, and I quote, ‘in the spirit of Elwood Blues’, and he wasn’t going to disappoint him. So we almost crashed four times on a fifteen-minute drive.”

“You’re not hurt?”

“We’re fine,” John said, walking inside. “Anyone else coming?”

“No, everyone else is here -- Tuunbaq, stop trying to attack them,” Harry sighed, trying to contain the squirming, hissing cat in his arms and close the door at the same time. “We talked to you about this.”

“I told you,” Silna called from the table. “He only listens to my dad.” The door now securely locked, someone turned the music, which had been playing at a decently low volume, way up. Tuunbaq screeched and leapt out of Harry’s grasp, searching for the culprit as “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” blasted at approximately one hundred thousand million decibels and Blanky, dressed in what looked like a nineteenth-century sailor’s uniform, stood by the speakers and nodded his head as if absolutely nothing was wrong at all. Francis grabbed him and pulled him backwards whilst Silna leaned over and turned the knob way down, restoring the momentarily-dashed order.

Cornelius, for one, had somehow managed to find a perch on top of the kitchen counter and was telling some story to the group he had come with, all of whom were dressed as the Sawyer family of Texas Chainsaw fame to a disturbing degree of accuracy. (Magnus, in particular, resembled Leatherface so closely that no one was entirely sure that Leatherface hadn’t actually turned up. The chainsaw in his hands wasn’t helping.) The story seemed to involve some guy he knew and the Regent’s Canal. Charlie Des Voeux had gotten bored of said story and, true to the character of Nubbins Sawyer, was currently antagonizing whoever he could with a prop pocket knife. (Or at least it seemed like it was a prop.) Stanley, made grotesquely white by greasepaint, was occupied in eyeing the matchbox left near the stove. Francis and James had brought Neptune with them, and, while he was usually a very good boy, the dog had been growling at Tuunbaq all evening. If everyone wasn’t careful, there would be blood and fur on the floor by the end of the night.

“Hey!” Charlie seemed to pop up out of nowhere in front of John and Tom, waving the knife around in a truly irresponsible manner. “You want some head cheese?”

“Stop being a dick,” someone grumbled, and Solomon, wearing a suit that looked like it had just been found in an attic chest, appeared behind Charlie. “And put the knife down before you stab someone.”

“That’s the point,” Charlie said irritatedly. “It’s Halloween. Scary shit is the point -- what -- PUT ME DOWN!” he shrieked when Solomon lifted him into a bridal carry. “ARSEHOLE! LET ME GO -- I WILL STAB YOU--”

“Too late,” Solomon said calmly, picking the knife out of Charlie’s fingers. “This is mine now. Don’t contradict me, I’m your grandfather!” he added as a final word.

“Isn’t the grandpa in that movie over a hundred?” John asked. “He probably can’t carry anyone.”

“I’m saving you from certain death; don’t tear my case apart.”

“Isn’t that a prop, though?”

“Charlie?” Solomon asked. “Is this a prop knife?”

“Cornelius gave it to me, I don’t know! PUT ME DOWN,” Charlie howled as Solomon carried him into the kitchen, presumably to interrogate Cornelius as to the function of the knife.

The kitchen being thus commandeered, everyone else had gathered in the next two rooms, and now that all ears were safe from spontaneously combusting, the party had settled into conversation and dance, and would have gone on perfectly normally if not for a few things that turned it into a night to be remembered as long as anyone lived.

A hissing, popping sound came from the kitchen, followed by Solomon racing out into the dining area with Charlie still in his arms, some of the “Sawyers” behind him.

“The stove was on fire,” Charlie said. “I think I saw Stanley climb out the window.”

“Was?” Silna repeated. “It’s not on fire anymore?”

“It just, like… exploded for two seconds. Like a gas explosion.”

“Did we leave the stove on?” Silna turned to Harry.

“I don’t think so.” He shrugged and went in to look. “No, we didn’t. Someone would have had to light it with a match.”

“He took your matches too,” said Tommy Armitage. “I saw them in his pocket.”

“Wait.” Harry scowled. “Stanley set the stove on fire, stole our matches, and climbed out the window?” Yes, his co-worker was consistently disapproving and Harry was ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent sure he wasn’t capable of smiling, but setting things on fire? For no reason whatsoever? But sure enough, Stanley had been gone when he’d checked the stove. And the window was open. Good gods, was work going to be awkward tomorrow morning.

The spectacle being over before it even began, everyone was about to leave when someone screamed upstairs, a scream so long and loud it was amazing the screamer hadn’t run out of breath by the time Francis hurried up the stairs to investigate. He found John Irving staring into the open-doored bedroom, looking as though he had glanced into Hell itself.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. John made a mewling sound and pointed to the bedroom. Cornelius stood in front of the bed, along with Billy Gibson. Both seemed to have hastily pulled their clothing on. Francis sighed. “You couldn’t go out to your car?”

“We all came over in Sol’s,” Cornelius said. “It would be rude.”

“And this isn’t?”

“Well yeah, but it’s not illegal. You can’t hang me for it.”

“Is that your criteria for what’s appropriate to do? Whether or not you’ll get hanged?”

“Yes.” Cornelius grinned his cheeky grin. “And you can’t hang me for that either.”

“What’s all this about hanging?” Francis asked Billy, who shrugged.

“I don’t know. I just came up here to get laid.”

“Get out of Silna and Harry’s room before you traumatize anyone else.”

“Yes, sir, Captain, Dad,” Cornelius said cheerfully, and marched out pulling Billy with him. “We’ll be in the coat closet.”

“No, we won’t,” Billy contradicted. “Sorry, John,” he added to the trembling figure now curled up on the floor. “We’ll lock the door next time.”

“Lock the door next time? There shouldn’t BE a next time!” John shrieked, his eyes nearly falling out of his head. “You two are scorched on the insides of my eyelids for the REST OF MY LIFE!”

“It’s free jerk-off material, you’re welcome,” Cornelius called before Billy yanked him down the stairs. Francis followed them after seeing that John wasn’t getting up anytime soon, where everyone had dispersed save for Silna and Harry, who were talking over something clutched in Harry’s hands.

“Where did you get it?” Francis heard Silna say.

“The Budgens three streets over. The brand starts with G or something.”

“And every single piece has bits of metal in it?”

“Every piece I’ve tried.”

“How do they even get metal bits into candy? How is anyone that staggeringly incompetent? Or evil?”

“I don’t know. We just have to get rid of it.”

“Burn it,” Blanky said, appearing between them. “Burn it all.”

“Burn it?” Harry repeated.

“Sure, it’s a great bonding experience.”

“He’s right,” Francis said, remembering the Great Cornwall Beach Bonfire of 2005. (To be fair, they had all been high out of their minds, which might have had something to do with the feeling of togetherness. And the bonfire had gotten out of control and they had all almost died.) “You have a fire pit, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s burn it.”

“I mean, if everyone wants to, I don’t see why not.” She cupped her hands around mouth. “We’re going outside for a few minutes; there’s something important to do. You want to join, join.” Surprisingly, everyone (even John, who had come downstairs) headed for the back door along with them; the coat closet’s door opened and out came John and Harry, along with Billy and Cornelius, who had made it there after all. (It was a very large coat closet.)

They processed into the backyard and assembled around the fire pit, Silna holding the candy bowl solemnly. “We were going to serve this,” she explained, “but somehow there’s pieces of metal in all of it, according to Harry, so we’re going to burn it.”

“Why are we burning it?” Thomas asked, leaning on Edward’s arm.

“According to Blanky, it’s good for bonding, and it’s more fun than throwing it away.” Silna poured the candy into the pit and scanned the crowd. “Miss Montgomery,” she called, and James stepped forward. “Will you do the honors?”

“Absolutely.” James showed her the cigarette he’d been carrying all night. “Who’s got a light?”

“I do.” Tommy held a lighter above his head. “What?” he asked when Graham gave him a side-eyed glance. “I don’t smoke. I just like melting stuff.” He came around and lit the cigarette.

“On three,” Harry said. “One -- two -- three!”

James tossed the cigarette into the fire pit. And--

WHOOSH!

The candy went up in flames that shot at least halfway to the sky, burning orange and gold. For a moment, all was silent. Then, over the snap and crackle of the fire, Edward’s voice.

“Love, love, love, love,” he sang to a tune they all knew well, and Thomas joined in. Then Graham and Charlie.

“Drop out, drop out, drop out, drop out…” Now two out of three Johns, Harry Peglar, and Tom added their voices. John Hartnell added his harmonica, playing for dear life despite not knowing a note of the song on his chosen instrument.

“Be in, be in, be in, be in…” When the lyrics changed from one-word repetitions, everyone else joined the song.

“Take trips, get high; laugh, joke and goodbye; beat drum and old tin pot; I’m high on you-know-what,” they sang to the sky and the roaring flames. “Take trips, get high; laugh, joke and goodbye; beat drum and old tin pot; I’m high on you-know-what. Take trips, get high; laugh, joke and goodbye; beat drum and old tin pot; I’m high on you-know-what.” By this time a neighbor was standing on their back porch, staring.

“Are we bothering you, Mr Ross?” Silna called to him over the singing.

“No, but you’re worrying me. What is this--” -- Mr Ross shaded his eyes from the flames -- “--some sort of Halloween ritual?”

“No, sir,” James shouted, pulling Francis into a dance that seemed to combine proper waltzing with tripping over one’s own feet. “It’s a be-in!”

“A what?”

“A BE-IN!” Solomon yelled joyfully, whirling around with Edward and Thomas. “You can join us!”

“We’ll be quiet in a few minutes,” Harry said, going over the fence. “Sorry. We’ve gotten a bit carried away.”

“Make good on that,” said Mr Ross, and went back inside. On they went with the dancing and singing, until the flames died down and the candy was reduced to ashes. There now being nothing to dance around, they shuffled back inside. Blanky looked at his phone.

“Damn it,” he said. “Playlist’s run out.”

“We’ll sing!” Tom piped up brightly. “We’ve been practicing.”

“Go ahead, then.” Blanky shrugged, and the two brothers leapt up onto the table, ignoring Harry’s protests. Tom snatched Blanky’s phone, pulled something up on it, and nodded to John.

“A-five-six-seven-eight!” John counted, and country music began to play from the speakers. Blanky burst out laughing. “Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’, though the streams are swollen, keep them doggies rollin’; Rawhide! Rain and wind and weather, hell-bent for leather; wishin’ my gal was by my side. All the things I’m missin’; good vittles, love and kissin’, are waiting at the end of my ride.” He elbowed Tom. “Move ‘em on!”

“Head ‘em up!” Tom ducked as an empty soda can came flying at his head. And another. And another.

“Head ‘em up!” A fourth can whistled past John’s ear.

“Move ‘em on!”

“Move ‘em on--”

“Head ‘em up!”

“Rawhide!” By this time, at least fifteen empty soda cans were on the floor. “What the hell are you doing?” John asked.

“We don’t have beer bottles to throw at you,” Cornelius explained, tossing another can.

“But there’s no chicken wire!” Tom cried.

“Empty cans won’t knock you out,” Charlie said. “We’ll stop when you sing something doesn’t call for it.”

“Fine.” Tom fiddled with the phone, and new music played. “Come on; oh, baby, don’t you wanna go? Come on; oh, baby, don’t you wanna go? Back to that same old place -- sweet home Chicago!” A soda can hit the back wall. “Oh, come on!”

“Think of it as applause,” James said. “Now keep singing!”

And so they sang, and ducked, and a wonderful night was had by all, in spite of the massive amount of cleanup the house would require, which they would all definitely have to come over for.

#halloweenterrorfest #day 13 #the terror #the terror amc #too many characters to tag #akh's writing #akh.txt

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canvaswolfdoll · 5 years ago

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CanvasWatches: The Dragon Prince (Season 3)

And we’re back! Since the last batch of episodes… my life has changed very little. Dog’s still adorable. D&D campaigns keep stalling due to lack of time or interest of others. Not producing any of my own epic projects.

Yup.

The third season continues its trends of subverting tropes with kind of a lackluster pay off, while playing other tropes benignly straight. We finally get into Xadia, which has some interesting fauna. But even the character writing is starting to wear a bit thin. Everyone’s been settled into their roles and personalities, and few characters get to interact with others they hadn’t previously.

So, same recommendation level as last time: watch it if you have time and/or have been following it, but it’s not a major tragedy if you don’t.

We open the season with backstory for the inventor of Dark Magic, Ziard, and a former Dragon King, Sol Regem. Sol Regem wants Ziard to stop with the dark magic. Ziard is like ‘we humans don’t have naturally occurring magic, this is literally our only way to defend ourselves from you magical folk.’ to which Sol Regem responds “Stop it or I’ll raze your home city.”

So Ziard sacrifices himself and a few birds to blind Sol Regem and saved the city.

Which means the founder of Dark Magic is a good guy, and Dark Magic may not be inherently bad, and this is what I wanted and I’m sure I’ll be deprived of the conclusion once the series actually ends.

So, what are the arcs for the various teams?

Well, Team Escort lost Ezran, so it’s just Callum and Rayla making googly eyes at one another and becoming an official couple about half way through the season. I appreciate them not dragging the romantic subplot any further than necessary, and even granting us half a season to watch them be love birds, but it also smoothed out their dynamic, cutting down on the banter they once had. I miss their quips.

Team King (Ezran, Opeli, Corvus) are dealing with Ezran’s new authority and Viren being Viren. It’s nice to watch Ehran’s morals being tested, and showing that doing the right thing can be more difficult than just going to war. There’s political maneuvering that, in a more complex show, would’ve had more grey areas, but it’s mostly just Team King versus Team Viren.

Speaking of Team Viren, he picked up Aaravos and Prince Kasef, so Viren in no longer alone! He is also no longer in charge, as without King Harrow to set goals, Viren lets Aaravos call the shots. Viren is remarkably easy to lead. Viren’s actual goals also seem murkier than previous seasons. He clearly wants power, but I no longer know to what end. Is he avenging Ziard? Does he want world domination? To bring Humanity to greater heights? Or is he just a more active Lord Ozai? Regardless, his moral ambiguity is out, and I miss it.

Finally, Team Dark (Claudia and Soren). Turns out, I got their meta roles backwards in the first season review! Claudia is the loyal Azula to Viren’s Ozai, while Soren is the Zuko. I am disappointed by this arrangement, because watching Claudia’s descent into evil means she gets less funny moments, and I don’t think Soren can shoulder the full Zuko arc. Also, fear of making big changes prevents the narrative from doing anything really interesting.

The third season has a heavy case of fast travel. What took Team Escort three seasons to cover is now done by full armies in three episodes. There’s a giant sea in the way, remember? And a lava flow? Characters travel back and forth with remarkable ease for people without Rheairds.

After Viren’s rather drastic actions last season lands him in a cell after sending out magically created assassins with only the voice of a mysterious Startouch Elf named Aaravos, who is such an obvious example of what Viren would be if he were totally self-motivated that I’m astounded that Viren hasn’t ditched him, Ezran has kind of a mess to handle upon assuming the throne. The other four human kingdoms want to avenge their murdered/injured rulers, but Ezra doesn’t want to continue the cycle of violence, which is good in theory, but Prince Kasef is pushy and is willing to wage war of Ezran’s kingdom if necessary.

Also, Ezran spares Claudia and Soren from sharing their father’s fate, because that would be a jerk move. Team Dark confronts Viren about his secret missions, and Viren elects to burn his relationship with Soren to maintain the loyalty of Claudia.[1]

All this ends with Viren taking the throne (again) and Ezran taking a bird to rejoin Team Escort.

Now in charge, Viren’s like ‘I’m in charge of all the human armies now!’ and all the human armies are like “Checks out.”

But first, he needs to keep his end of the trade he made with Ezran, and lets soldiers opt out if they’d like. But they have to wear a broken chain patch to mark their cowardice. You’d think this would lead to a subplot about those who abandon the mission being shunned, but that would require more than nine episodes worth of time, so it’ll pay off at the very end instead.

What about Team Escort? Well, Callum and Rayla are finally being forced to confront their unresolved romantic tension as they keep walking towards their goal.

Initially, Rayla’s trauma of being unpersoned by her hometown acts as a nice distraction. I mean, sure, you sent a literal child to kill another younger child, and used a vague sort of magic tracking to decide she abandoned the mission as opposed to unforeseen events transpiring, but, sure, Night Elf knock-offs, make her a ghost in her own home town. You jerks.

Rayla eventually gets to talk with her Uncle’s husband, who only offers to send an advance message to the Dragon Queen and not, you know, telling the rest of town Rayla’s on an even better and less murdery mission and maybe we should reperson her?

Does anyone think of ways to resolve more than one problem at a time? Or think laterally? Is… is that why this fictional history is the way it is? Literally only three kids are able to conceive of consequences of their actions? That should be the adults jobs!

Mirroring the inland sea from last season, Xadia has a giant black sand desert with deadly zombifying snakes and hot sand. So that’s fun.

Luckily, a Skywing elf named Nyx has a giant lumbering camel to transport them over two days. She’s here to kidnap Zym under the theory of a reward, but I love her design and character so she better come back!

Maybe throw her into the Teen Girl Rogue Squad I want. She’d play off Amaya well.

Anyways, the trip is enough for Callum and Rayla to finally decide to be an item. So they’re an item with half the season to go.

Which, cool, we get to actually watch a relationship develop beyond the ‘We’re dating now’ point, but there isn’t actually down time to dig into that, so instead Callum and Rayla bicker less and it’s lame.

But Ezran took a moon phoenix, so he’s caught up. Time to climb a mountain!

Oh, by the way, Amaya got taken prisoner by Sunfire elves, acquires an elf girlfriend abruptly, and escapes with her to join Team Escort. Whoo.[2]

Team Viren plus Dark lead their army to the Sunfire Capital so Viren can steal a staff to forcibly upgrade his forces, and Soren finally decides enough is enough, and flees to join Team Escort while Claudia converts fully to Team Viren. Now, Claudia doubling down on her loyalty to her father is disappointing for a number of reasons, but, again, a later thought.

Anyways, Team Escort has gotten to the Dragon Queen, but she’s in a despair coma, and they get information an army is coming, so guess it’s time to prepare for war?

War ensues. It looks bad for our heroes for a bit, but then reinforcements bearing the banner of the broken link appears to flip off Viren specifically.

Good guys win the battle. During clean up, Ezra stumbles upon Viren, who threatens to kill him, but Soren shows up to defend Ezra. Then Cluaida shows up to make this tragedy even more Shakespearan.

Soren stabs his father, but it’s just an illusion.

Which is the first major missed opportunity. Yes, Viren[3] has a confrontation to have with Rayla and Callum in the Dragon Queen’s lair, but I think this confrontation didn’t add much. Having Soren kill his own father and having to face the emotional consequences of that instead of disappointing Claudia…

Actually, what was the point of illusion Viren? Could it have killed Ezran? Why would Claudia be okay with killing Ezran? Why kill Ezran at this point?

Anyways, Soren should’ve killed Viren, and Claudia could’ve still necromancied him back to life.

Instead, Viren falls off a mountain. It’s meh.

With all that done, the Dragon Queen wakes up and is pleased to have her son back (reasonable) and there’s two human/elf couples present (weird). I mean, she’s the first dragon shown not to be deeply anti-human, and I’m not sure that tracks? Shouldn’t she be in favor of the separation, or were there a bunch of bedroom arguments between her and her husband about racial politics?

Anyways, if we didn’t have three more schools of magic to get through, this would be the point we get the ‘where are they now’ epilogue, as all conflicts are resolved.

Except Claudia resurrects her father, and…

Wait. Viren had an elf prisoner. He could’ve resurrected Harrow. What is his deal? What are his motivations.

Anyways, the grub that was acting as the speakerphone between Viren and Aaravos went to pupate and it’s scary to our dark mages.

Which finally brings me to what I really wanted to see happen: Aaravos should’ve traded puppets. What would’ve been a better power move than him setting Viren up for failure so he could use the more gullible (and powerful?) Claudia instead. They’ve been slow rolling his deal, but what better way to firmly plant Aaravos as the most Machevallian Jerk than to out ‘for the greater good’ Viren himself? There’s an inevitable conflict between the two, as Viren hates elves despite being too trusting of Aaravos, so why not have Aaravos shrug off Viren getting stabbed by Soren and send his grub to Claudia’s ear?

Heck, why not have him teach her the wrong spell and use Viren’s body as a vessel?

Come on, this is one of the few times I’m actually advocating killing someone off. I never do that. But the story potential we’re now missing is tremendous!

Anyways, despite my snark and notes, I did enjoy the season. Not as much as the second season, as it got too locked into the myth arc to have as much fun as the last season, but the show’s maintaining what strengths it does have. However, I can easily predict it falling from grace sooner than later. Story-heavy shows struggle to maintain momentum past three seasons, and research indicates there’s four more planned.

Still, I’m excited to see what happens now the main quest has been completed.

If you enjoyed this review and what more, please use the tags below to explore my other writings, as well supporting my patreon (for early access and regular support) or my ko-fi (for a quick tip). I want to do more fun things.

Kataal kataal.

[1] Which had the potential for a much, much better pay off than we got. [2] Just once, I want the person whose confident the other is too stubborn to admit their crush to be wrong. I would love that dynamic. [3] Wearing some nice pajamas.

#CanvasWatches #the dragon prince #CanvasReviews #netflix

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seungsols · 8 years ago

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[F] Northern Lights

Title: Northern Lights Pairing: Soonseok (Soonyoung x Seokmin) Length: 2,247 words Summary: Maybe Seokmin’s just about mad at how dangerous it is to follow Soonyoung across the rooftops. Or maybe he’s just mad about Soonyoung. A/N: Based on “Cave Me In” by Gallant x Tablo x Eric Nam. (WHICH YOU GUYS SHOULD REALLY LISTEN TO, PLEASE SUPPORT!)

Seokmin was already out of breath even though they were only on the sixth flight of stairs of the building. His hands were already feeling clammy from gripping onto the railing for dear life. He looked up and saw how Soonyoung was ahead of him by a landslide, clearly in better shape. “How much longer?” he managed to heave out, his voice echoing throughout the stairwell.

Soonyoung stopped in his tracks and looked down from the railing about a story higher than Seokmin’s position. “I’d say about five more,” he replied before his head disappeared from Seokmin’s vision and the continuous sound of footsteps filled the atmosphere as well as Seokmin’s ear canal.

He honestly can’t believe he was still following Soonyoung when he could just take the elevator like a practical person. But he also can believe his current actions. Who else would hopelessly trail behind a night owl who practically parkours around the city skyline at ungodly hours? Nobody. Only fools would.

Seokmin is a fool.

A fool for Soonyoung.

He reaches the eighth floor when his knees are practically wobbling and begging to be amputated from the amount of pressure Seokmin put on them. He wants to apologize, but he also doesn’t have the lung capacity to do so as he was still exhaling heavily. He paused as he reached the nine floor and leaned against the wall. The only thing in his head were footsteps and doubt.

It wasn’t long before he saw a pair of running shoes in front of his converse on the ground. Looking up, he jumped a bit and leaned back against the wall slowly once more when he saw Soonyoung smiling in front of him. Soonyoung grabbed Seokmin’s hand and led him up the flight of stairs. Seokmin squeezed the older one’s hand, as if his life depended on it. He wasn’t exactly sure how long he’s been trying to catch his breath, but he felt breathless whenever Soonyoung pulled that stunt.

(So did Seokmin purposely stop in hopes Soonyoung would come by and take him by the hand to the rooftop? Maybe. Maybe not.)

It was about half past two when they finally reached the rooftop. Soonyoung opened the door to the outside world and inhaled it all: the mixed smell of gasoline, street food, alcohol and smoke; the view of the sky lit with gleaming stars and neon lights near the streets below; and the sound of the drunk people yelling and laughing, the cars rushing and beeping, and the wind blowing gently across the scenery. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Soonyoung sighed as he untangled his fingers with Seokmin’s and moved closer to the edge of the railing.

The younger one weakly followed behind before leaning his elbows against the rail and taking in the view. “It is awfully pretty.” He side-glanced at Soonyoung before looking down at the streets below, thankful that Soonyoung was too distracted to see the blush pigment on his cheeks.

It wasn’t long before Seokmin looked up and grunted to himself how Soonyoung was already climbing down the nearby fire escape ladder down to the nearby building that was about two stories shorter than the one they were currently standing on. (Seokmin was a bit ticked off they didn’t climb that building instead in the first place, but he nudged that thought off his shoulder.)

“Seok, hurry up!” Soonyoung shouted from the rooftop below. “Hao and Sol are waiting for us about four blocks away.”

(Scratch that, why didn’t they meet at that building instead? Seokmin was never one to question Soonyoung’s antics though.)

Seokmin sighed and climbed down the ladder, practically squealing and clinging to the fifth bar as his left foot almost slipped from the dew that was already forming on the rusted iron bars. Fortunately, he managed to stick the landing on the platform before carefully climbing off the edge of it to the next building’s rooftop.

He wouldn’t consider himself a professional like Soonyoung at this, but he’s climbed, fallen, and slipped enough times to call himself more than a novice. As Seokmin caught up to Soonyoung who was leaning against the air vent of the apartment they were on top of, he couldn’t help but take a step back at how alluring Soonyoung looked in such a light setting.

“Need a break?” Soonyoung smiled as he turned his head from the horizon to Seokmin’s direction.

He tried to play it cool and hold in his breath to say that he was fine and that he was ready to jump another rooftop, but Soonyoung laughed as he saw right through that white lie. They sat down, their legs hanging off the ledge. Seokmin was internally panicking from how one slip could lead to his ultimate doom, but the fact that he was with Soonyoung made that thought a bit hazy.

Soonyoung reached into his pockets and pulled out two plastic casings of string cheese he purchased beforehand and nudged the younger one with his free hand before handing one to him.

“Cheese?”

“A bag of chips didn’t fit in my pockets,” Soonyoung joked. Seokmin caved in and took the cheese as they both started eating it while looking around, enjoying each other’s company while drowning into the city sounds.

“You’re eating it wrong.”

“Huh?” Seokmin looked over at Soonyoung baffled.

“The cheese,” Soonyoung pointed out down to the unwrapped string cheese that Seokmin was biting into. “You’re supposed to pull down the cheese into strands and eat it like that.”

“I wasn’t aware there were rules for eating cheese,” Seokmin snickered as he copied Soonyoung’s actions and pulled at the cheese and ate the straid. (To his surprise, it did make the cheese taste better.)

“As much as I love breaking rules, I think that’s the only rule people should follow,” he snickered. Seokmin admired how Soonyoung was rebellious pulling stunts like this while simultaneously being easy going and docile. The elder pulled out his phone and chuckled. “Well, shit, Hao and Sol definitely ditched us. Said we took too long.”

Seokmin pouted a bit. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Nah, don’t be,” Soonyoung smiled as he finished his last strand of cheese and shoved the plastic wrapper into his pocket to discard into a trash bin later. “Hansol has an early class tomorrow and Minghao is a sucker for Sol, so of course he’d leave early for the sake of Hansol.”

“I didn’t know they were a thing.”

“They aren’t. Minghao isn’t admitting anything. Denial, I suppose. Also, Hansol is slow with this sort of thing.”

The younger one nodded in understanding. (He totally understood what denial and oblivion felt like.) “Hm, maybe we should keep going anyway?” Seokmin suggested. “You said you wanted to see how far we could reach until four, remember?”

Soonyoung looked over surprised. “I said that two weeks ago… You still remember that?”

“Oh…” Seokmin blushed. “Yeah, kind of… I just have a good memory.” He slid back from the ledge and put his feet on the roof ground before stretching his arms and letting out a deep sigh. “Well, shall we keep going?”

“Actually,” Soonyoung began as he hopped back onto the roof flooring, “let’s take the alleyways back home… Junhui is going to scold me if I stay out past five and Mingyu usually worries about his roommate not being there when he wakes up for his night shift, right?”

Seokmin blinked before nodding slowly, following Soonyoung down the stairwell of the building, quietly enough so that they don’t disturb the residents who may call the police on them for disturbing the peace. (It’s happened once, their friends never let Soonyoung live it down for almost being jailed for arguing aggressively with an elder lady.)

They definitely scaled a few more roofs before eventually climbing down another apartment’s fire escape ladder down to an alleyway. Seokmin was a bit nervous, one with the nearby lamp post light flickering on and off in the dimly lit setting, the nearby doorway though sounds like it’s creeping open, and the rush of the automobiles that pass the by on the streets so quickly and loudly. Soonyoung elbowed Seokmin who let out a squeal at the gesture.

“Scared, Seok?” Soonyoung snickered.

Seokmin blushed. “N-no…”

“No need to lie,” the elder teased as he calmly shoved his hands into the pocket of his pants after adjusting the hood over his head and walked towards the flickering light. Seokmin trailed behind before walking next to Soonyoung. “It’s pretty down here too, don’t you think?”

The younger one looked around at the sight. It was probably almost five in the morning—meaning that Soonyoung was about to get scolded by Junhui—and saw how the atmosphere still displayed the darkly coloured sky only to be illuminated with the street lights that were still lit up. “Yeah, it is pretty.”

“Nothing beats the lights from the roofs though.”

They kept taking the back routes through small alleyways, small one-way local streets, and the occasional convenience store that was still blindly lit with a sleepless employee behind the counter. “Do you have work tomorrow?” Seokmin asked to stimulate the quiet atmosphere.

“Off tomorrow. I’m on PTO for a week. You?”

“I work from home, so I can start whenever I want.”

“Lucky,” Soonyoung chuckled. “Guess that means we can go out again tomorrow—or rather later on tonight, huh?”

“I’d like that,” Seokmin smiled. They bowed to an elder lady who walked past them. (Thankfully, not the one who almost snitched on Soonyoung or else Seokmin would be in the middle of a rock and a hard place.) The sun has still yet to rise as they were nearing Seokmin’s apartment.

Soonyoung blinked when he felt Seokmin grab his hand and squeeze it. “Seok—”

“Let’s go to a roof,” Seokmin suggested, running towards the nearest building—an office that had yet to be opened for the morning— and picked at the lock before opening the door and leading Soonyoung up the stairs.

“Seok, what are you doing? What if we get caught?” Soonyoung had never been on this side of the table as he kept his hand intertwined with Seokmin’s and followed him up the stairs of the stairwell that seemed to echo louder than any other stairwell they’ve climbed. He noticed the look on Seokmin’s face, the way his lips curved into a slight crescent while a slight hum from his lips escaped and gently decorated the atmosphere. Though unknown why, Soonyoung couldn’t help but be in awe of the sight.

They reached the top of the stairs, which was thankfully just five stories, before opening the door to the rooftop. Both gasped at the sight of lawn chairs and a coffee table in front of them before they rushed over and sat down, sighing as they both relaxed.

“What was that for?” Soonyoung asked as he folded his hands against his stomach and began twiddling his thumbs together as he observed Seokmin on the other chair. “Usually I’m the one who does that to you.”

“Guess I thought we could switch roles for a bit,” Seokmin smiled. He looked at his watch before resting his hands back behind his head. “I wanted to watch the sunrise with you,” he confessed. “It’s supposed to be in an hour.”

“Junhui’s going to go off on me when I return home.”

“We can leave if you want.”

“I didn’t say no,” Soonyoung smiled as he moved his chair over so that he was sitting next to Seokmin. He copied his younger friend’s action and grinned at him. “Maybe after this, we can get breakfast?”

“Yeah,” Seokmin nodded. “Or we can cross a few more buildings until we reach my place so that Mingyu can cook breakfast for the both of us.”

“Oh, I don’t want to intrude…”

“I’m inviting you. Plus, I already told Mingyu you’re coming over, so he already planned the ingredients before we headed out.”

They chuckled together before their conversation trailed off to talking about their roommates and deciding what to do later on tonight. The sun began to rise just in the nick of time and Seokmin used his left palm to cover the light that was aiming directly at them.

“Wow, it’s so bright,” Seokmin smiled. “Not what we’re used to, huh, Soonyoung?” He looked over to see Soonyoung passed out on the chair, tilted so that his head was facing Seokmin while his hands were hidden in the sleeves of his sweater. Seokmin leaned over and zipped up the older one’s hoodie all the way up before leaning back in his own seat sighing in relief. “Man, I cross roofs for you, put my life at risk for you, sacrifice my sleep for you—” He looked over and snickered when he heard Soonyoung inhale a large amount of air before snoring it out.

Seokmin looked around to see the birds starting to fill the sky. A few landed by the railing nearby while others settled for the telephone poles around the surrounding area. The sound of bustling cars and people greeting each other began to fill the atmosphere as well. He scooted his chair closer to Soonyoung’s until the arms touched. Daringly, he lightly rested his head on top of Soonyoung’s before smiling to himself for being so gallant.

“I’ll wake him up in ten,” he muttered to himself before he slowly started humming to himself again as he enjoyed the early worm atmosphere with his resting night owl.

#seventeen fanfics #seventeen #17writernet #fluff #soonseok #seoksoon #soonyoung #hoshi #dk #seokmin #dokyeom

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kevinbaconsleftfoot-blog · 7 years ago

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i thought this was a good idea Chapter 2

You wait in the lobby, weapons equipped, for a good thirty minutes, but none of the newly resurrected god tiers think to leave the floors they're on. There's a caucophony of voices in the atrium, and a bit of shouting. "Should we go up and meet with our, y'know, families?" John asks. "Hearing all of those joyous reunions and happy meetings is kind of bumming me out." "That's a good idea," Jade says. "I'd love to meet my alpha self." "Aren't we supposed to be managing things and mediating conflict?" Dirk asks, eyebrow raised. "If there's any fighting," Jake says. "Don't you'll suppose we'll hear it? This building echoes like nothing I've ever seen before." "Fine," Karkat says. "Go, if you want to. I'm staying down here." You, Aradia, Terezi, Vriska, Jane, John, Rose, Roxy, Dave, Dirk, Jade, and Jake all forsake your responsibilites for meeting your ancestors, guardians, and alpha selves. Kanaya joins you a minute later, as Rose and Roxy cheerfully reunite with their guardians, leaving Karkat in the lobby by himself. You've almost made it to your floor when he himself forsakes his post, abandoning the lobby for his guardians. You make it to the sixteenth floor and hop over the railing closest to your door. It's closed, but the doors marked with 1 and 3 are open. 2 is closed as well, but you can hear movement from inside, so you knock on the door. There's a series of heavy footsteps, then it flies open. "Sollux!" Mituna yells. He yanks you inside of (presumably) his block, babbling excitedly about ancestors and dream bubbles. "So, yeah," he finishes. "I got my brains and my psionics back, and some bitchin' new god tier powers, and two ancestors, and a descendant. It's totally radical!" "Yeah," you say, wondering where, exactly, your ancestors are. "C'mon," he says. "I've gotta introduce you to Psii and Sol. They'll be so psyched to meet you." You follow him into his leisureblock, where two adults are standing awkwardly. The shorter of the two gives you a slight wave. "Guys, this is Sollux," Mituna says. "He's my descendant." "Hang on," the adult that waved to you says. "If you're my decsendant, and he's your descendant, then who's the Psiioniic's descendant?" "Technically," Mituna says. "He's the Psiioniic's descendant. But since Psii's technically me, I thought we could share him." "That's not how it works," Mituna's ancestor says. "If you shared him as your descendant with the Psiioniic, then he could share you as his descendant with me, because we're technically the same person." "Aw, fine," Mituna says. "He's Psii's descendant, not mine. There, happy?" "Yes," Mituna's ancestor says. "Now, Sollux, I'm Soleil, or the Techniic if you'd like to be fancy. I'm Mituna's ancestor and your pre-scratch self. It's nice to meet you." "Uh, it's nice to meet you too," you say. Manners most definitely aren't your strong suit. Soleil turns to your ancestor. "Now, would you like to introduce yourself?" "Sure," your ancestor lisps. "I'm both the Psiioniic and the Helmsman, but you're welcome to call me Psii." You nod, unsure of how to respond. "I'm Sollux, or twinArmageddons if you have Trollian." "Nice," Mituna says. "Now how's about we play some vidya games?" "Power's out," you say. "Sorry." "Oh, yeah," Mituna says. "That was dumb." "Or, we could just talk to each other," Soleil says. "That only works if we've got something to talk about," Mituna says. "Otherwise, it's just small talk, and small talk sucks ass."

You spend about an hour an a half getting to know your 'family'. Psii was an anti-Empire rebel before the rebellion failed and he was installed as the helmsman for the Battleship Condescension, where he served for the rest of his artifically elongated life. Soleil became the Empress' chief software technician and a computer science pioneer after inventing a revolutionary programming language. Mituna played the game just like you did, but spent three sweeps in his session, and sacrificed his brains and his psionics at the very end to protect his friends against the Black King. As you're finishing up the story of how you spent three sweeps wandering the afterlife with your moirail, there's an ominous rumble from deep inside the building, then the power comes back on. "Sweet," Mituna says, glancing at the lights. "Now we can finally play vidya games." Good things, of course, don’t last, so as Mituna works on staring up his console, the lights flicker, dim considerably, then go back out. “Fuck,” Mituna says. “I have a feeling that I need to go back downstairs,” you say. “If the power’s flickering like that, something’s probably going on.” “There’s a downstairs?” Soleil asks. “Um, yeah,” you say. “We’re on the sixteenth floor. Did no one think to look over the railing?” “Holy shit,” Mituna says. “We can’t be the only trolls here.” “We aren’t,” you say. “The latest head count is 78.” “How the hell do you know this?” Psii asks. “I woke up about four hours before everyone else did,” you say. “The people who were alive at the end of the game woke up another four hours before I did.” “Wait,” Mituna says. “There are twelve of us, and we have twelve ancestors. That makes forty-eight. Where’d the other thirty come from?” “Our session brought another universe into existence,” you explain. “There were sixteen humans that were involved, and their session brought ten separate sprites into existence through retcon shenanigans. A third session linked up with ours, which added four cherubs.” “Humans? Cherubs?” Soleil asks. “Aliens, basically. Cherubs are a lot like snakes, and humans look a lot like we do now,” you say. “We were reincarnated as half-human, half-troll, and maybe a miniscule part cherub.” “I was wondering about that,” Mituna says. “I mean, I thought we were entirely human, but it’s not that much of a difference.” "Any other important information you neglected to tell us?" Psii asks. "Yeah," you say. "But I don't think you want to hear it." "Why not?" Soleil asks. "Well, think about it this way," you say. "Alternia was a violent place, and a lot of the violence was perpetrated by adults and highbloods. Guess who are currently inhabiting the bottom floors? Adult highbloods." "Shit," Psii says. "Anyone high profile?" "Orphaner Dualscar, the Grand Highblood, Mindfang, the Dolorosa, and Her Imperious motherfucking Condescension," you say. "Thank fuck we're god tier." "God tier?" Soleil asks. "It's where you get a bunch of fancy powers and wings and shit," Mituna says. "Check it." He ceases rocking back and forth on his heels to grab an apple from the fruit bowl and shrivel it up using Doom powers. Psii looks at the remnants of an apple like it's the coolest thing he's ever seen, and Soleil looks disgusted. "The powers are cool, yes," you concede. "But the best part is the conditional immortality." "Conditional immortality?" Psii and Soleil ask at the same time. "Conditional immortality," you confirm. "We can only die permanently under two circumstances; Just or Heroic. Just means that you've done so much evil that you actually deserve to die. Heroic means that you sacrificed yourself to keep someone else from dying." "What happens if we're mortally wounded but it isn't Just or Heroic?" Psii asks. "We die, but only temporarily," you say. "It takes about thirty seconds for us to either die permanently or ressurect." "So Her Imperious Fishbitch can kill us as many times as she wants, but we won't stay dead?" Psii asks. "Exactly," you say. "And because we're on a completely different planet with very little Alternian technology, it will take her sweeps of effort to elsalve us as helmsmen." "Got it," Psii says. "What happens when we get to the ends of our natural lifespans?" "God tiers stop aging at about 9 sweeps," you say. Psii nods. "I wondered how old I was." "Wait," Mituna says. "They're nine sweeps, and they're adults. I'm almost nine, am I an adult too?" "Almost," Psii says. "Cool," Mituna says. "How old is Sollux?" "Seven and a half," you say. "Half of the players from my session are, and the other half are six, because that's when they died." Mituna switches from flailing his hands excitedly to tapping on the counter. Since you started talking, he's been moving almost constantly, tapping or flailing or figeting or rocking on his heels. You wonder where he gets so much energy. Soleil seems to notice, too. "Mituna- He's cut off by the door to Mituna's block slamming open. "Sollux!" Karkat yells. "What?" you yell back, surprise evident in your voice. "What happened?" A feminine scream wrenches its way through your mind, followed by wailing. You freeze, and the wailing gets less intense, but doesn't stop. Fuck. Karkat shakes you by the shoulder. "Feminine voice, definitely older, won't regenerate, all others will," you gasp. "Fuck," he says. "The Condesce is having a regular old murder party down there, and, shit, are you sure it was only one?" You barely hear him. The wailing is loud, even after the first few seconds. The soon-to-be deceased must be very old and very powerful, psychically. "Yeah," you gasp. "Just one. Very old, very powerful, psionic, maybe telepath." "Shit, fuck, are you- can you help us keep her from killing more?" Karkat asks, an air of desperation in his voice. "I'll help," Psii says, with all the force of a command. "I'll- me too," you say. - The three of you leave Mituna's block at a full on sprint. Karkat leaps over the railing, then Psii does, then you do, then a new voice joins the caucophony, and you stutter, and your foot catches the railing, and you fall. The new voice is much weaker, but still strong, and much more masculine. Instead of screaming or wailing, it's yelling and swearing at you. You know on principle that this one's going to stay dead too. You haven't stopped falling, you realize. You go to catch yourself, but before you can, you flop bonelessly into someone's arms. Fuck. Dirk flashsteps over to the side, drops you, then rejoins the battle. You stand up, equip your shuriken, and throw yourself in with him. The Condesce has millenia of practice and training on you, so even with about fourteen of you fighting her, she's holding her own. The bodies on the floor are beginning to revive, and she can't keep them dead, meaning that the noise in your head is getting quieter and quieter, and you're able to focus. You throw shuriken after shuriken after psionic blast at her, and she dodges, but she's clearly getting tired. Roxy, Dirk, Kanaya, Rose, and Dave all attack her at the same time, and she can't block all of them at once. It's Dirk's sword that gets through, and cleaves her head off her shoulders. Everyone stops. Her Imperious Condescension's corpse falls to the floor as her voice continues wailing in your head. Threre's a beat, and it stops. Everything goes silent, except for the masculine voice that's stil yelling. "She's gone," you say. "She's not going to revive." A breath of relief echoes throughout the room. There are a few cheers and some clapping. Everyone relaxes. Someone who looks like an oldr version of Dirk steps forward from the back of the room. Dave sees him, and siffens. "Hey, Bro," he says. "Dave," Bro says. The room's gone quiet upon recognizing his presence. You heard stories of how shitty Bro was to Dave in the bubbles, and you don't doubt that everyone else has as well. "Dave," he repeats. "That was fight was fucking awful. Did you even try?"

#homestuck #fanfic #tw: violence #tw: language #tw: abuse mention

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thesims4sarah · 6 years ago

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SILVER SCREEN SIMS LEGACY CHALLENGE - 80'S MOVIES - RULES

When Get Famous came out, I wanted to play a legacy challenge that incorporated some of the new things that came with the pack. I didn't see any right away so I decided it was time to create my own. Spending some time considering a direction, it felt like Get Famous naturally followed to a cinema themed legacy. Hence, the Silver Screen Sims Legacy Challenge. Actually, I developed two different versions of this challenge. This one that is inspired by 80's Movies and another which uses Classic/Golden Ages of Hollywood movies. I put that in its own thread located HERE I worked hard to make sure there is very little overlap of career, aspirations or other tasks between the two. So, you could easily decide to play just one, play both or even have this be one big massive 20 generation legacy if you wanted and not have much repeat itself. The challenges use something from every pack from the Base Game on up to Get Famous. You could probably play around a couple things if you don't have a pack but it is going to be difficult if you have large gaps in the collection. **Edit 1/8/ 2019 ** It was requested that I add an alternative Generation 1 starting path for those that don't have vampires in their game. I think that is a fair request. Aliens felt like a fair trade off. I know that not everybody will have those too but since you have to have a good number of packs to take full advantage of this challenge, there is a good chance most people participating will have either Aliens or Vampires, if not both. So, just select which Generation One you want to use. If you go with Aliens, just note that it requires starting with TWO characters. Thank you to @SoulGal7 for helping me brainstorm! ==== Silver Screen Sims Legacy Challenge - 80's Movies Each generation of this legacy is inspired by a popular and/or cult 80's film. Basic Rules: Start with a Young Adult Sim. Either one you created especially for this or one you previously made. They should, for reasons that will play out in the challenge, human. Gender and any other appearance elements don't matter. Don't cheat unless you are told to in the rules. What's the point of that? There is no point scoring here, just the reward of the fun telling the story of your Silver Screen Sims Legacy. Using creative content is up to you as long as it isn't a cheat or it replaces an object required to complete a generation. I don't use any but that's just a personal choice. Unless otherwise stated in the rules for a generation, you can live anywhere you want. Similarly, color outside the lines all you want as long as you hit the action rules for each generation. Let's get started...... Generation One (Vampire Version): Lost Boys Where is this? It was daylight a minute ago, right? Now its dark, gloomy and that guy over there just licked his lips when you looked at him. Boy, you must have taken a REALLY wrong turn during your walk in the woods. You really should leave but something is compelling you to stay. Traits: Active, Geek, Cat Lover Aspiration: Serial Romantic Career: Culinary - Mixologist Rules: 1. Move into empty house or lot in Forgotten Hollow. 2. Master Vampire Lore and Pipe Organ skills 3. Complete Culinary (Mixologist) career and Serial Romantic aspiration 4. Make a Vampire BFF 5. Woohoo in all of the following locations: Double bed, closet, observatory, lighthouse, pile of leaves, bush and hot tub. Bonus point for coffin. 6. Fall in love with a vampire and turn them back to human before having a child with them. 7. Move to Del Sol Valley once your love is no longer a vampire & child is born. Generation One (Alien Version): My Stepmother Is An Alien Of course you miss Mom. She's been gone a while now though and you've gotten used to it being just you and Dad. Now that he's in his golden years you want to take care of him as well as he has taken care of you all these years. So, when it was time for you to move to a new town, of course you made sure he moved with you. What you didn't expect was once you got there his love life would be out of this world! Traits: Active, Geek, Cat Lover Aspiration: Serial Romantic Career: Culinary - Mixologist Rules: 1. Move yourself and your senior father into an empty house of lot in Newcrest. 2. Complete Culinary (Mixologist) career and Serial Romantic aspiration 3. Woohoo in all of the following locations: Double bed, closet, observatory, lighthouse, pile of leaves, bush and hot tub. Bonus point for Rocket Ship. 4. Have your father fall in love with and marry an alien. The happy couple can either continue to live with you or move out on their own. 7. After all that dating and good times, finally find your real love and have a child. 10. Move to Del Sol Valley shortly after your first child is born. Generation Two: Beverly Hills Cop Suspicion has been the overruling emotion of your life. Relationships? Won’t they just end up hurting you? People on the street? How do you know they didn’t just rob a bank? Your brain is always questioning reality. If you think back, it probably comes from the feeling you could never shake that your parents were hiding something about their past from you…. Traits: Creative, Noncommittal,Squeamish Aspiration: Nerd Brain Career: Detective Rules: 1. Master Comedy skill 2. Complete the Detective career and Nerd Brain aspiration 3. Invite friends over to play poker once a week 4. Only date people you meet via work - either co-workers or people you arrest or meet while investigating crimes 5. Have one child when you are a young adult and another as an adult. Generation Three: Pretty In Pink You do everything in style! Art is your love and you think of style as creating art out of your own body. It’s just a shame so many people don’t know how to dress. You’ve feel so sorry for them that you’ve decided to give your gift to the world and become a stylist. Traits: Art Lover, Neat, Kleptomaniac Aspiration: Party Animal Career: Style Influencer - Stylist Rules: 1. Master Painting and Photography skills 2. Complete Style Influencer (Stylist) career and Party Animal aspiration 3. Always take the Work From Home option 4. Only ever use the sketch pad to create art. The easel is SO yesterday. 5. Use fountain of Mirth at least once. Generation Four: Baby Boom What do you want! IT ALL! When do you want it? As soon as feasibly possible! Why do people think you need to choose between having a successful career and a great family life? You don’t and you are going to prove it! Traits: Family Oriented, Bro, Ambitious Aspiration: Super Parent Career: Business - Investor Rules: 1. Master Charisma and Cooking skills 2. Complete Business (Investor) and Super Parent aspiration 3. Adopt a child on the same day your first blood child (and therefore heir) is born. 4. Live with the partner with whom you’ve had kids but wait until your first child is a young adult to get married. 5. Make popcorn once a week 6. Build a snow pal every winter Generation Five: Raiders of the Lost Ark Phew! Finally out from the grip of your helicopter parent’s control. Of course they loved you and you love them right back. This isn’t about being ungrateful. It’s just that you want to get out and explore and they were always too protective let it happen. Now the world is your smoked oyster! Traits: Loves Outdoors, Goofball, Lazy Aspiration: Archaeology Scholar Career: Writer - Author Rules: 1. Join the scouting after school career 2. Master Selvadoradian Culture and Guitar skill 3. Complete Writer (Author) and Archaeology Scholar aspiration 4. Have one long term relationship in your normal town and one in Selvadorvia. Decide which one to marry on the birthday when you become an adult. 5. Create a holiday that has Bar-B-Que as a tradition. Generation Six: Tootsie You are the best actor the world has ever known. It’s just that the world doesn’t know it yet because you can’t pass any auditions. Could it be something about the way you look? What if you changed it. REALLY changed it? Traits: Snob, Loner,Perfectionist Aspiration: Master Actress/Actor Career: Acting Rules: 1.Join after school drama club 2. Master dancing skill 3. When you become a young adult, change your hairstyle to one originally designated for the opposite gender. At least one item of clothing should also fit that description. 4. Complete Acting career and Master Actress/Actor aspiration. 5. Make at least two wishing well wishes 6. Have a ‘squad’. Generation Seven: Heathers Revenge is best carried out when you look FAB! Everybody wants to be just like you. If they don’t they should! They can either follow your lead or pay the consequences. Either way, you'll be wearing a ...um..killer...outfit when it all goes down. Traits: Evil, Insider, Cheerful Aspiration: Leader of the Pack Career: Secret Agent - Villain Rules: 1. Create a club populated other Sims with mean or evil traits 2. Master Mischief and Fitness skills 3. Complete Secret Agent (Villain) career and Leader of the Pack aspiration 4. Try every bubble machine flavor 5. Never wear jeans 6. Marry somebody with the ‘good’ trait Generation Eight: Money Pit You are so embarrassed by your parents. You are SO much better than them. Even if it’s only you and your mirror that believes it. Everything became too much to handle and you had to flee them all and get a place of your own. It might be a dump now but it is YOUR dump. One day, it’ll be the mansion a gem like you deserves. Traits: Materialistic,Self-Absorbed,Outgoing Aspiration: Mansion Baron Career: Painter - Patron of the Arts Rules: 1. Move into a low-grade home in any neighborhood. 2. Set three trait lots. One must be “Cursed’,the other two are up to you. 3. Master Handiness and Rocket Science skills 4. Complete Painter (Patron of the Arts) and Mansion Baron aspiration 5. Always celebrate birthdays with a honey cake 6. Have a swing set Generation Nine: War Games People are okay but computers are better. You just know all that time spent in your bedroom becoming a keyboard commander will pay off one day. Who knows, maybe you’ll even use them to save the world? Traits: Genius, Good, Unflirty Aspiration: Computer Whiz Career: Tech Guru - eSport Gamer Rules: 1. Master Logic and Piano skills 2. Complete Tech Guru (eSport Gamer) career and Computer Whiz aspiration 3. Play chess at a public chess table at least once a week 4. Win Hackathon at Geekcon 5. Be good friends with Potty Mouth 2.0 6. Marry somebody that you beat in chess Generation Ten: Desperately Seeking Susan Fame is everything. You want it. You want to be around it as much as possible. Stalker? Never! No matter what the police say. Devoted fan? You’ll always be that! Traits: Music Lover, Erratic, Vegetarian Aspiration: World-Famous Celebrity Career: Critic - Arts Critic Rules: 1. Master Singing and Flower Arranging skills 2. Complete Critic (Arts Critic) career and World-Famous Celebrity aspiration 3. Collect at least five proper celebrity (or above) autographs 4. Complete festival t-shirt collection 5. Go on dates with three celebrities 6. Have a kid with a celebrity Have fun! I can't wait to see what stories plat out. Share as much as possible! Use #SilverScreenSims in the Gallery and on social media so we can follow each other's progress there too. I plan on streaming a lot of my legacy play on Twitch. I'm Sims4Sarah everywhere.

#silverscreensims #sims4sarah #the sims 4 #the sims #sims 4 legacy #sims 4 challenge #sims legacy #sims challenge

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