#& it’s weird that it’s happened at the end of my period rather than pre/at the beginning

[vro0m]

vro0m’s rewatch - 168/332

2016 Australian GP

Alright. After these few months of hiatus on my side it is time to get back to our project and watch the 2016 season. As always, let’s set some context before we start.

Team changes :

Surprisingly we are back to 11 teams? Ohhhh Haas is joining the competition! Tbh I didn’t even notice they weren’t there until now lol.

RBR and Toro Rosso stopped working with Renault (remember the drama at the beginning of the 2015 season? no surprise there) but they actually… are still… using Renault engines? except they’re called TAG heuer? Very confused. Anyway Toro Rosso is back on a Ferrari engine so that’s also weird.

Renault is however back as a team as they purchased Lotus

Marussia is now called Manor Racing and are now using Mercedes PUs

Driver changes :

So Haas is joining with Grosjean and Gutierrez. In 2015 Grosjean was with Lotus and Gutierrez was a reserve driver.

Renault hired Joylon Palmer as a new F1 driver and originally he was supposed to race alongside Maldonado who had a contract with Lotus. But in the end, his sponsors were “unable to fulfil their contractual obligations to the team” and he was replaced by Magnussen who had a contract with McLaren in 2015, as a reserve driver I believe.

Marussia/Manor also changed their line-up and started with two rookies which is a bold move : Pascal Wehrlein and Rio Haryanto (literally never heard his name).

There was also mid-season stuff but we’ll talk about it as it happens.

So all in all here’s how we’re starting the season :

Ferrari : Seb + Raikkonen

Force India : Perez + Hulkenberrg

Haas : Grosjean + Gutierrez

McLaren : Alonso + Jenson

Mercedes : Nico + Lewis

Manor : Haryanto + Wehrlein

RedBull : Ricciardo + Kvyat

Renault : Magnussen + Palmer

Sauber : Ericsson + Nasr

Toro Rosso : Verstappen + Sainz

Williams : Massa + Valtteri

Calendar changes :

We are in for no less than 21 races this time. Watching these seasons is obviously gonna get longer and longer, I hope you are patient.

The European GP is back on the calendar but is now happening in Baku rather than Valencia. 

The German GP is back on the calendar. 

The order is also changed with the Russian GP happening earlier in the year and the Malaysian GP happening later in the year which feels weird but makes sense. 

Rule changes :

From Monaco onward the drivers are allowed to change helmet designs for one weekend per season

Some ridiculous change was implemented to artificially make the car louder because idiotic fans at the time criticised the new engines for not being noisy enough apparently

The teams now have more tokens to develop the PUs 

The pre-season tests were reduced from 3 to 2

New “ultrasoft” tyres for street circuits, and Pirelli is now bringing 3 different dry tyres instead of 2 : the third one (the softest available for the weekend) is only given to the teams reaching Q3 and then the drivers have to choose what 10 tyre sets they want for the race and have to use 2 different compounds during the race

The stewards have more power to enforce track limits 

Any driver that causes an aborted start has to start from the pit lane

The gearbox penalties are now applied in the order in which they were given

The VSC is now also used during FPs

The drivers are now able to use DRS as soon as the VSC period is ended rather than having to wait 2 laps for it to be activated again

The quali format was revised just 2 weeks before the season began! However the new format was abandoned just 2 GP in because it was heavily criticised. I don’t exactly know what it was, we will learn about it as we go.

The stewards have more power to monitor radio comms in an attempt to end coded messages and driver coaching. There was apparently a controversy about it during the season though and it was later relaxed a bit but we will also see that as we go.

The superlicence was also made more difficult to apply for because of the controversial way Max got his at 16 after only 1 F3 season.

And that’s it for preseason context. Let’s get started!

Oh funny! I can see Lewis doing that thing that surprised everyone in the 2023 Canadian GP in the skysports opening, you know, the head shaking?

They are taking the 2016 class photo. And already they are saying that the new quali format was scrapped after one race. The team principals were unanimous about it. But it still needs to be voted by the commission. Renault still thinks they can tweak it to make it work. Hill says the first session was the most interesting when it should be the other way around. Lewis is on pole though ! Hill says it immediately puts to rest any rumour, like he was spreading, that Nico might have the upper hand after the end of the last season. Let's see exactly what this new format was about with the quali report.

So after 7 minutes in Q1 the slowest driver was eliminated. Nico went wide, but after 7 minutes Wehrlein was the one at the bottom. Then Kvyat was also sent away. People are shaking their heads in the garages. Q2. Magnussen was the next one out, followed by Jenson, and Alonso. Apparently there was a lot of time with no cars on track. Q3, Seb got provisional pole but Lewis did better. We hear a radio message saying "we are not planning to go out" with 4 minutes to go. Zero cars on track. The drivers are walking around in the pit lane. Nobody is happy with this. It makes no sense. 

Then we hear all the TPs saying it's shit. Then Lewis, with a gorgeous pair of clear glasses, says "Let's find out what the fans want. Has anyone asked?" 

In the end, the starting grid goes Lewis, Nico, Seb, Raikkonen, Max, Massa, Sainz, Ricciardo, Perez, Hulkenberg. 

Horner says himself the TPs are a "pretty dysfunctional group" but for once they were unanimous about it. They decided to go back to what it was the previous years. He says the problem is not the quali format. But Ted wonders if they know what it is the fans want, which is closer racing. Horner, in a rare good moment, says the issue is each team is trying to protect their own competitiveness when they need to look at the bigger picture. And so he thinks it should be taken out of the teams' hands and someone else should be deciding. But basically, as Hill explains, what he's rooting for is Bernie making the decisions, and Bernie is his friend. So. Yeah. 

Hill says Nico has been defensive in his interviews. (But I'm wary of his opinions because he's an idiot.) And AGAIN they mention Lewis spending maybe too much time on catwalks or red carpets but AGAIN they admit he proved them wrong already this weekend. Istg. Like I said the other day about the 2023 season they've been saying this for decades and they just keep going even though he's shown them otherwise time and time again. 

Lewis says getting pole was incredible and thanks the crowd. He says he hopes the race will be more exciting for them than it was yesterday. Johnny asks if he's worried about any car behind him but he says he's only looking forward. 

There's a segment about Mercedes' filming day.

Johnny is there. He finds Lewis. "There he is! Having fun?" he asks. There's a pause. "Does it look like it?" Lewis says with a smile. It's not his favourite time of the year I think. Johnny asks him what it is he needs to drive a car fast. "I'm surprised you're asking me that question," he says. He then answers he thinks it's because he's willing to go further than most. 

The filming is happening in the W07, so the 2016 car. "It's dancing about all the time," Lewis says from the cockpit. "It's just like targeting, like with a gun." I have zero idea what that means. When he's asked if he's happy to be in the car, he says it's amazing. 

As we see Lewis and Nico side by side in the background talking with someone during the car reveal, Simon says things seem pretty relaxed here. Mercedes again seems competitive although the question of how Ferrari will fare against them remains. 

Lewis was asked if anything less than winning a WDC would be a failure to him now. He says it's not all about winning although naturally that's their goal. "It's about the journey as well." We see him chatting, smiling, with Nico.

"How much do you enjoy the psychological games with your teammate and how much is mischief?" Simon asked Nico during their shared interview. "Physically harder and harder," Nico says. Lewis agrees. "We're getting older," Nico continues. "Crazy, yeah," Lewis adds. "I've seen some grey hairs on you. So yeah, you know how it is." Nico smiles wide, Toto is standing between them. "You're only 6 months behind me, man." Nico and Toto are still smiling while Lewis is deadpan. They want it to be fun and relaxed but that's not really how it feels. Back to the part of the interview where Lewis is alone. Simon asks if he enjoys bickering with someone he's known and raced against for so long. Lewis reiterates that ever since he was young he's honestly never tried to play any games. He's dead serious throughout these snippets btw. Not smiling. Not warm. Not friendly. Dead serious. Again with the "do your talking on the track" from Anthony. He says of course they have to do these interviews and things are being taken literally and twisted. He says there are pictures of him smiling in press conferences while Nico is thinking about something and has a straight face (they illustrate it with a moment from the 2015 US GP press conf) "and they say there's something going on, you know… [...] People like 'oh this is mind games'." 

Meanwhile Nico is smiling and teasing. Everybody has strengths and weaknesses he says, and of course he knows Lewis very well now. But, he adds, the most important thing is for him to get the job done and perform at his best. 

Lewis on his side says he has mount everest to climb this year. People are gonna be pulling to make him slip and get ahead. He says he'll have to work harder than he's ever worked in his life to stay ahead because every year they get stronger. He talks about these "youngins" coming while he's getting older.

Now he cracks a smile while we cut to a serious Nico. Lewis has beaten him in the past few years so, he admits, the odds are in his favour. "And it's gonna be tough to beat him, he's done better, you know, recently." But that's the kind of challenge he loves. They're already asking Lewis if the championship is his, they haven't even started racing yet. Lewis shuts it down. "The championship is never yours until you've actually got it and taken it home." 

On the grid, Brundle asks Niki if his boys are allowed to fight even if it means they end up in the boonies. Niki says they are not allowed to end up "anywhere", they can fight each other (I think? I don't understand what he's saying very well) but they have to watch Sebastian and their tyres. Brundle says they are now allowed to talk about strategy over the radio. Niki basically says they already fucked up with the quali change so it's good they quickly went back on their decision about that. Brundle asks if he's concerned about the Ferraris. "You never know." The tyres are new, it's hot, it's an open race. 

It's time for the first race of the season. 

Formation lap. They changed the starting procedure from two clutches to one clutch. I have no idea what it means but it might be relevant to some botched start so let's mention it. 

And while they're lining up on the grid once again one RedBull is stopped right in the middle of it. It's Kyvat. He's stranded behind the safety car. What now? Yep. The lights are flashing on and off. It's a second formation lap. The marshals run to Kvyat. He's confused about the procedure. He's out of the car running around in the garage, unsure what he's supposed to do. 

Here we go. 

They are racing! 

OH MY GOD. SEB IMMEDIATELY GETS HIMSELF BETWEEN THE TWO MERCS! AND HE TAKES THE LEAD WHILE RAIKKONEN FINDS HIMSELF IN P2 IN THE FIRST CORNER! Ohhhhh the Ferraris are HERE. Let's go! Lewis has fallen down though. It's Nico in P3. Lewis is battling a Williams. Unbelievable! As Brundle notes though, the problem is probably mostly due to the start procedure change. The mercs struggled to get away. Magnussen has a puncture. And that's lap one. The order now goes Seb, Raikkonen, Nico, Max, Massa, Lewis, Sainz, Hulkenberg, Ricciardo and Alonso. 

Gutierrez, P20, reports problems with his engine. Lewis is just half a second away from Massa now but Sainz is also less than a second behind him. Lewis attacks! And he overtakes Massa from the outside! And we get the start replay. Seb's start was really outstanding and then Lewis got caught between Nico and the side of the track (not by Nico's fault, just racing) and that's how he fell further back. Nico is closing on Raikkonen now. Meanwhile Lewis is half a second away from Max. He takes a look but the straight isn't long enough to attack yet. 0.3. But he's stuck behind him! The tyres are graining.

It's lap 10. Ricciardo overtakes Massa right in front of the grandstands, the crowd is loving it. Lewis : "I can't get past the guy". Nico is also still behind Raikkonen. Lewis is told on the radio to extend this stint. Some pitting in the midfield. Valtteri overtakes Palmer for P11. And Nico pits! Ricciardo and Alonso are also in the pits. Nico is out in front of Hulkenberg. And Lewis is heard on the radio saying there must be another strategy as he can't stay stuck behind Max and Bono says, again, they're trying to go longer. But now if he pits, or if Max pits, they'd end up behind Hulkenberg. Seb pits from the lead. He's out in front of Nico but it's so close and Nico attacks! Seb defends! Damn that's RACING. Raikkonen is asking to be boxed. Max has pitted. He overtakes Valtteri for P9. Nico sets the fastest lap. Verstappen overtakes Jenson for P8. And Seb is catching Lewis now. And he overtakes him for P2. Now what. They went long and they are a full pit stop down on them. Nico is getting close as well. They are on different strategies but Lewis is making no move to let him go, of course. Eventually he pits. Raikkonen is also there. Raikkonen gets the supersoft so you wonder why they made him go longer. Lewis, on the other hand, gets the medium as we expected. He's gonna hope to get to the end. He's out in front of Massa in P– oh it's a crash! Gutierrez is in the gravel. OH GOD THERE'S A CAR UPSIDE DOWN?! It's Alonso! He's out. But he's not okay. He's limping and then he folds over himself with his hands on his knees, as Gutierrez exits his car. Gutierrez jogs to him as Alonso starts to walk again. They shake hands. The marshals check on him as he leaves the gravel. Oh my god. The car is. I don't know how to describe that. Shredded. You wouldn't be able to tell it was a car if it wasn't for the wheels sticking out at weird angles. Seriously. I think it's missing the front part? Unbelievable. How did Alonso walk away from that? Loads of debris on track as well, of course the safety car has been deployed. Several cars pit, expectedly. Here's the replay of the crash. Holy shit. I don't even know how to paint that picture. Alonso is coming up behind Gutierrez. He decided to switch sides. His front right catches on Gutierrez rear left. The axle immediately breaks which sends him violently into the barriers while Gutierrez gets a rear puncture that sends him spinning. All the other wheels of Alonso's car break in the crash. The car is sent sliding into the gravel trap. The sudden deceleration sends the car spinning upon it's axis. Full barrel roll and a half in the air above the gravel trap. It lands kind of halfway upside down on the rear part of the cockpit (thankfully not the front part, I mean he'd have. Lost his head. Possibly.) It bounces back up and finds itself almost upright and then I can't see anymore because there's so much debris, gravel, dust and smoke in the way. The race is redflagged. 

So it's lap 19. Seb is in the lead, followed by Nico, Raikkonen, Daniel, Verstappen, Sainz, Lewis, Massa, Grosjean and Hulkenberg for the top 10. It's terrible for Merc's strategy : they kept Lewis out for nothing. He pitted, found himself down the field, and now everybody can change tyres and it will have been for nothing. We won't know how that strategy would have played out. We see Alonso walking back past his wreck of a car. He's taken the helmet off and is giving thumbs up to the crowd that applauds him. It's unbelievable that he's okay. Really. Lewis is out of the car. Walking away with his helmet on. We hear Gutierrez confirm on radio he is okay and immediately asking "is he okay?" The wreck is on the crane now and the only wheels left are folded and dangling beneath it, and the left side pod is entirely missing. Vaporised upon impact. 

They change Lewis' front wing. Now Lewis is on the pit wall talking with his engineers. We have a restart time. They're getting ready to go again. 

The accident prompts talk of the halo. Crofty wonders if it would have trapped Alonso in the car. It would have saved his head if he'd landed on the front part of his car rather than the rear, man. Brundle says when he crashed he found himself in a similar position as Alonso and it would have been an issue especially if the car had been on fire. 

Lewis is still on mediums. So they intend to go on with this strategy. Nico has been put on the mediums. The Ferraris are on supersofts… They will have to stop again. Mmh. Interesting. 

And they go again, under safety car for a lap. Seb backs them up. Here we go. Verstappen overtakes Ricciardo. Seb is already getting away, 1.3 ahead after 1 lap. Raikkonen is in the pits?! On the radio we hear him say he broke something. Oh yeah, it's smoking. As soon as he slows down it catches on fire. It's over for him. Lewis is closing on Sainz. But he's 10 seconds behind Nico. He needs to get moving. At the front, Seb is trying to get a gap big enough to pit. Ericsson gets a drive through because his team was working on his car too late after the restart signal. 

It's lap 30. Seb is 3.1 seconds in the lead. Nico, Daniel, Verstappen, Sainz, Lewis still P6, Massa, Grosjean, Hulkenberg and Valtteri for the top 10. Jenson pits. Crofty notes he's the first one of supersofts to do so. Lewis is wheel to wheel with Sainz but he’s on the outside and can't overtake him still. Sainz says he needs to stop. He pits. He goes again. He's out in P12. People are switching to the medium as the track temperature goes down. Ted says Nico is winning this race. Verstappen pits as well, but nobody was ready and it's a loooong one. He's down in P12. Crofty thinks he might have made the call himself. Anyway Lewis up in P4. Max : "How many times do I have to say I’ve got problems with my tyres? I wanted to pit first." Apparently he'd been asking for a tyre change for a while and possibly he just went for it as they wouldn't pit him? Ballsy. Ferrari need to pit Seb. Because the Mercs don't necessarily need to stop again. And Nico is only 1.1 behind Seb. And here we go, he pits. It's the softs and ohhh they struggle to put them on! That's bad for Seb! 5.6 stop! He's out ahead of Massa in P4. It means he's chasing Lewis now. Sainz and Verstappen are basically on Palmer trying to overtake for P9. "Can I try to get past?" Max asks. "Yes," is the answer. Ohhh my god I would be so stressed if I was them because now they're chasing each other and it's very close. In a very amused voice, Crofty notes we've already heard Max's colourful language this race and he expects more over the radio now. "Let me try because this takes too long," he says. "Let's do it," the engineer answers. But Sainz isn't told to move aside. Meanwhile Lewis is gaining over Ricciardo. 

Lap 40. Nico is 9 seconds ahead of Daniel, himself just 1.2 ahead of Lewis. Then come Seb, 8 seconds down, Massa, Grosjean, Hulkenberg, Valtteri, Palmer, and it's the two Toro Rossos still fighting each other. Verstappen : "Come on we have to do something." Sainz is told to push. "I am pushing. Don't tell me to push." He's told otherwise they will swap next lap. Oh and Ericsson is really slow on track now, as we cut to images of Alonso, all smiles, walking around the paddock. Max attacks, Sainz locks up. The positions don't change. Sainz is actively defending against Max. Franz Tost shakes his head as he watches on. And now, Lewis has DRS over Daniel. Let's go. 0.4. 0.2. And it's done. 10 seconds to catch Nico. And Sainz FINALLY overtakes Palmer. Verstappen tries to follow and he's wheel to wheel with him down the straight. He just about makes it. Daniel pits from P3, out in P5. Verstappen chases Sainz. Ricciardo overtakes Massa for P4. Lewis is not closing on Nico… Verstappen : "Always when I’m in front I’m pulling away, now you don’t let me pass, it’s a fucking joke, really." 

Lap 50. Lewis is still 10 seconds off Nico, Seb 3.7 off him. Then Daniel, Massa, Grosjean, Hulkenberg, Valtteri, Sainz, and Verstappen. But suddenly, less than a lap later, Lewis is 8.2 away and Seb 2.8 behind him. Perez is told his brake wear is critical and he won't be able to make it to the end if he keeps it up. And Lewis makes a mistake, he outbrakes himself, and Seb is right behind him. 0.6. 0.5. Phew. Oh. Verstappen spun. Ohhh they made contact. Yeah well. Not surprised. Sainz locked up and Max hit him. Back to the front. Seb is half a second behind still. 3 laps to go. OH AND SEB LOCKED UP AND GOES DEEP! He went on the grass and that ends the chase. Lewis is 5 seconds away now. He apologises over radio. 

And it's the end of the race! 

Nico, Lewis, Seb. 

Lewis and Nico briefly hug as they get out of their cars. Ohhh. Seb goes to Lewis as he dries his hair. He talks to him. Then Lewis takes a step away with a big grin as Seb throws his cap at him. Cheeky.

They walk away talking, while Nico is left behind.

They talk on the way to the podium. Seb elbows him. 

Nico for some reason hugs Mark Webber who's doing the podium interviews. Lewis dumps champagne on him as he talks to the crowd.

And Seb dumps his on Mark.

Lewis says the team has done a great job but it was tricky out there. He loves that they had to come back from "far behind". Glad that no one was injured in the crash as well. He says it's impossible to follow around here. But a great result for the team. Seb asks Webber if he wants more champagne. Webber says he gets drunk really fast these days and Seb says "I know, I know you do, and then you start singing summer '69, remember?" Nico and Lewis are talking during his interview. 

Niki says they wanted competition but that's too much competition! But he's happy with the result. He doesn't know what would have happened without the red flag, if it was in their favour or not. He refuses to speculate. He thinks the bad start was indeed due to the new procedure. 

Also noteworthy : Haas managed to score points in their first ever race. 

Oh okay so they've already decided to introduce the halo in 2017 so that's why they're talking about it so much (no they didn't? i don't know why i wrote that? was it supposed to be the case and in the end they didn't or did i get that wrong?) The ex-drivers seem to mostly think it's a bad idea but Jenson says it's a good thing. 

Alonso is not blaming anyone for the crash and he's just happy to be here. 

Lewis is happy with his damage limitation. He doesn't think the issue at the start was due to the procedure but possibly wheelspin. He says the start itself wasn't "shocking, wasn't the worst" but then he got pushed off by Nico into turn 1 and then he lost ground and he's grateful he was able to recover. The journalist says Mercedes did an awful lot of work on the medium tyres over the winter and did that win them the race? He nods.

He says the hard thing is to know how long and how hard you can lean on your tyres. He says when he had 20 laps left he thought he wouldn't make it because they started sliding but they kept going. Then he locked up at some point and Sebastian was "on his tail" and after that it was so slippery. He tells about it all with the most childlike smile and enjoyment.

He says the team did a great job with the strategy. He says they did expect Ferrari to be close, but he says Nico doesn't seem to think he had trouble following them so it'll be interesting. He interrupts himself. "You know once Sebastian was behind me," his eyes crinkle, "I was excited because I was having a race with Sebastian you know but unfortunately this track doesn't allow you to have serious battles”. 

Nico says he had a good start but Seb had a flying start. He also says he never looked behind him, didn't know someone was there, didn't feel contact with Lewis and apologises for anything he might have been a part of there. 

They also talk about the fight between Max and Sainz and finally the journalists are a bit critical in that they say it shows that Max is young because he lost his head a bit and if he'd been cooler he might have gotten further. 

Absolutely losing it at Ted mentioning Iñaki Rueda seen holding his head on the pit wall after the race realising he'd fucked up their strategy.

#f1 #lewis hamilton #vro0m's race reviews #2016 #2016 australian gp

[dupliciti]

commentary first and then theory that i can expand on just a tiny bit more. before you click open on that read more, know that i finished all of the 2.0 missions out including sparkle's. this got longer than i intended it to be

yes, sa.mpo's english voice is still off even if not as deep as those newer lines that got added a couple patches ago ( which has since been "corrected" ) and evidently it's not just because it's sparkle pretending to be him in the main mission line. even the delivery on certain lines strays from how he's done things in patches before. it's just meh

edit: after talking with someone i came to the conclusion that he used to sound more lively over all and less gruff on certain deliveries

okay trailblaze mission:

like i had said, you're meant to know from the start that something is off with him. gait isn't as obvious in the in-game scenes, but speech is slightly off. normally he introduces himself with first and last name. and then mistakes firefly for march

the way firefly describes him though implies that sparkle had practiced being sa.mpo to an extent. the description is rather spot on, however him being 5'9 then looking at the rest of the cast's heights makes me feel weird so i'm keeping my headcanon height aksdjgh

hearing aha referred to as The Laughter was rather neat. i'm eatin that up

the only time we see a pre-rendered scene with sa.mpo is when the reveal happens. we clearly see sparkle's gait here

sparkle's perception of sa.mpo is rather interesting compared to what we have seen of him. enough to trick the trailblazer and perhaps someone who doesn't pay super close attention to his mannerisms. though, his use of "my dear" and related terms isn't frequent in the english VO. he's a bit more suggestive and "flirty" if you wanna go there. that and he apparently lied a bit about what happened on jarilo to sparkle, she says this herself.

world of adults, adult entertainment. listen. the implications of sa.mpo having his own VIP card and the things he frequents in pen.acony cannot be because sparkle has spent a lot of time as him. i wholeheartedly believe she's borrowing his stuff and status while masquerading as him. which HONESTLY, man someone needs to come have a drink with sa.mpo ajksdhg

the amount of out of context stuff and red herrings regarding sa.mpo being on pen.acony was amusing to see thru the trailers. because yeah the tat.alov thing was such a small section. going back to my previous statements though, it seems as if that dreamscape/dream was sparkle's own based on what sa.mpo might've lied about/embellished. which... is interesting that he would've said outlandish stuff rather than the truth. sparkle wasn't in on his reasonings for going nor what the bel.obog catastrophe might've been. giovanni might have been

i still think that at least based on what i have heard, the reveal scene in chinese is more sinister than what we get in english. maybe that's just me but i've always seen english sa.mpo more goofy, but this newer direction for his english VA is even goofier

i was DYING at the dialogue options you had to combat "sa.mpo's" antics.

"since when did i acknowledge you as my friend?" "the garbage king? you're the real garbage king!"

sparkle's companion mission:

once again we are met with sa.mpo. though this is a dream available to us so, how much is real and what portion in memory is this maintained properly?

we are led to believe that sa.mpo on penacony isn't actually him. and with good enough reason

in terms of helping sparkle to fake her own death and play along with the investigation. i'm wondering what kind of importance his own mask is considering he didn't have it for some time? based on their conversation at the end

my smol theory is just placing when this takes place. i've always thought it to be in the past, but from the sounds of things it's not in a FAR distant past, it's rather recent. at first i reckoned this happened during the period of time when the astral express was on the xia.nzhou or something like that. but it seems to be a bit before but not TOO long before

BECAUSE sparkle and black swan are there for the festivities and bl.ack swan also mentioning that sparkle mixed her up with another memokeeper. the invitations were sent right before the trailblazer mc being a part of the crew. in addition to this sparkle says "a show of unprecedented splendor is about to be staged in penacony" implying that the main story stuff hadn't yet unfolded in any way and considering how sparkle trails the MC rather quickly, i'd have to assume we aren't in the picture just yet.

secondly, sa.mpo when having that memory lapse mentions that their surroundings don't look like be.lobog. implying he's already spent time in belobog. it's implied that he's spent quite a while on jarilo just doing his thing, and since sparkle is here on penacony "early" i have to assume sam.po was on jarilo "early" on purpose as well, scoping out the planet and getting acclimated to then have an easier time befriending the astral express crew.

third, the reason i think this takes place just slightly before in-game events, before the MC is introduced and playable, is because sparkle asks sa.mpo if him needing his mask has to due with the be.lobog catastrophe. which based on the surrounding information shared in dialogue, MUST be related to the ste.llaron and the astral express showing up... not the IPC showing up ( at least not on their own, but sa.mpo isn't even really in that story line once that time comes until aetherium wars )

plus sa.mpo literally applies sparkle's line to the ja.rilo talk: "if you're too late to take the stage, you can work behind the scenes." and guess what sa.mpo said to an unknown person while on jar.ilo during the 4th wall break ? "aw, it was a close thing alright! good thing it dawned on me: hey sa.mpo doesn't have to be a protagonist, right? the likes o f us are better suited to... shadowy comic relief, huh?"

so the mas.ked fo.ols seem to be partaking in things that don't necessarily concern them for fun but then there's some underlying ulterior motive. bla.ck sw.an points this out about sparkle specifically, not sa.mpo on penacony

sa.mpo being able to admit that he likes to take the stage and make a fool out of himself to me implies that he doesn't mind wilder stuff, but it still depends on what he's doin. but he makes it clear that he doesn't like sparkle's methods/aesthetics "after all, the Elation that Miss Sparkle seeks... isn't something ol' Sa.mpo can stand by". and even told her to stay away from be.lobog in the same breath.

considering the aeth.erium wars convo between sa.mpo and giovanni... it's unclear what exactly giovanni knew about sa.mpo's involvement in anything. after all, sa.mpo does tell sparkle to tell him hi which implies they would've all known where sa.mpo was spending his time and what task he more or less did for sparkle...

though that brings me to my other point. why did sa.mpo trust sparkle with his mask? and is it actually his mask? did her having his mask have anything to do with her being able to disguise herself as him? sparkle's masks and such evidently have their own power/deal about them so i'm not gonna try and say that sa.mpo's mask would be like her's in the dreamscape without more evidence.

that's all i got for now. i'll probably write stuff associated with headcanon when i've got more time

#i don't know if this'll esscape search but man that was longer than i meant for it to be #( spoilers; ) #( ◇ ᵐʸ ᵈᵉᵃʳ ᵃᵘᵈⁱᵉⁿᶜᵉ┊ ooc; )

[max1461]

So I've talked before about how there's something about the aesthetic sensibilities of the 50s, 60s, and 70s (in the US at least; not sure about elsewhere) that really turns me off. And how I think it might have something to do with mass-produced plastic goods.

Like, the 50s were when mass-produced plastic goods first really became a thing, and I think it took some time for the culture to metabolize this and settle on an interpretation of what plastic goods were going to Mean. In the early days plastics were marketed as something high-end, an atomic age wonder material that was superior to everything that had come before. Plastic was durable, it was high-quality, it was fancy. And, you know, it took a few decades before people realized that the ultimate defining feature of plastics, culturally, was going to be that they were cheap. Mass market consumer goods from the 50s and 60s really feel dissonant to a modern sensibility, because it feels like they're totally unaware how trashy they now appear.

I think the 70s was sort of a transitional time, and then by the 80s we had sort of, you know, figured out what mass-produced plastics were gonna be, culturally. We'd devised a cultural niche for plastic goods, rather than trying to slot them into a pre-existing cultural niche for which they were an ill fit. Or something. And so I kind of look back on 80s aesthetics as, you know, trashy, but trashy in a fun way, a way that feels consonant to my modern sensibilities. Whereas the 50s, 60s, and 70s feel trashy and unaware of it. Trashy while genuinely thinking they're high class. Or something. It's dissonant.

At least that's my perspective, as someone who didn't live through any of these periods. And I don't know how widespread the perspective of plastics as "high quality" really was at the time, or if that's just based on a garbled understanding of the culture that's been successively misremembered by several generations at this point. But, you know, this feels like a reasonable explanation. Maybes it's a little bit bullshit.

Anyway, I've said all this before. What's new to this post is that I kind of have the feeling that where they were in the 60s or so with regard to plastic, we are with the internet. Maybe it's not exactly isomorphic, but, you know, it's close.

So, I don't think the internet has ever been culturally understood as high class. But it was understood, in its early phases, as something else that we admire: subversive. The internet was wild, scary, the domain of hackers and anonymous weirdos doing who-knows-what. This is the terminology the internet was understood in when I was growing up, and I think to a certain degree people still talk about it that way (though much less so). And the increasing corporatization of the internet has been talked about a lot, but something that really strikes about the internet as it currently exists (you know, like, clickbait and youtube thumbnails and instagram influencers and all that) is that it's... well, kinda trashy. It's a bunch of cheap nonsense. It isn't just the corporatization, though probably that's part of it. It's that the internet is to media what plastic was to manufacturing: a cheap substrate on which to put anything that you think might have a chance in hell of selling. You can churn out a bunch of mostly empty, but sort of eye-grabbing or momentarily appealing crap, and you know, it might just turn out to be worth the extremely low cost of entry.

And I want to be clear that I don't think this is bad, inherently. Having low barriers to entry for things, being able to make things cheaply, is great for creativity and for encouraging the existence of weird and interesting stuff. I think it's basically good, at it's core. In fact, mass-produced plastics, if they didn't happen to be so bad for the environment, would be good in this way too. Being able easily and cheaply execute any random idea that comes to you is kind of great, actually. But you have to understand that it is going to result in a lot of crap. Probably far more crap than it results in hidden gyms. And cultural has to like, metabolize that crap somehow.

So, the people who were initially thinking of plastic as the fancy space age material back in the early 50s, I don't really blame them. It seems naive now, but it's almost charming. How could they have known better? When it was first invented, it was kind of a crazy space age material. I think something similar about the first generation of internet users. Like, for that brief moment, it really was kind of a wild west. But I think at this point we're well into the phase where it's clear that the internet is mostly going to exist as a vector for trashy bullshit, that, you know, that was maybe always its destiny, and the culture just has to catch up. We have to develop an idea of "internet trash" the way we've developed an idea of "injection molded plastic crap", and like, really internalize it. And maybe then we'll get to the 80s, where the proper cultural framing has allowed the stuff to become charming in its own right, unabashed in what it is. Or something.

Or, again, maybe this is total bullshit. I don't know. I think the average person has access to a lot of stuff online that isn't trash, if they go looking for it, stuff that could really only exist online. This feels different than cheap plastics, in the sense that there are relatively few uses of plastic that an everyman is going to encounter that rely on some property of the material other than that it's cheap. Like there are legitimate cases in, I guess, chemistry and stuff where plastic is the best choice of material no matter how much money you have, just because of its inherent properties (acid resistance or whatever, etc.). But in most cases in everyday life, the only reason something is made of plastic is that it's cheaper than any other material, and maybe also more light-weight. If you felt like spending the money the same thing made with a different material, you'd probably feel that it was "higher quality". With the internet, not so. There's a lot of stuff online that really does need to be online, inherently, for it to work. Stuff that's not crap. So that gives me the sense that maybe things will go a little differently for the internet.

But I still think most stuff online is trash, and that's probably how it's going to be from now on. Unless the barriers to entry get higher, which is, unfortunately, also a possibility. And it's worth noting that I say "trash" in kind of a loving way here. A lot of the stuff I like most is trash, in one sense or another. I mean sometimes trash is bad. But anyway, its all more complicate than some simple value judgement.

I don't know, those are just some thoughts I've been having.

#navel gazing

[shoppncarticles]

Mewthree

Y’know, in writing all these reviews, I’ve had quite a few people call me a Pokemon MASTER. I know, I know, I’m extremely modest and humble and so on, but what’s more important here is that I keep seeing mention of a Mewthree when researching for these articles. But the strange thing is, I can’t find any consistent information on what exactly it’s supposed to be! I mean, there’s an original Mew, and there’s a Mewtwo, surely there COULD be a Mewthree, right? If that’s the case, why haven’t I been able to find any solid leads on what exactly it is, huh? Alright, look, since time’s getting a bit tight on this I’ll have to cut things short and just delve into all the information I could find on Mewthree - but I can’t guarantee you that I’ve found the real thing. Not yet.

This was the first lead I got, and it seemed promising for a minute. After all, I found all these forum posts and news headlines about a supposed new Mewtwo-like Pokemon that was revealed for the Pokemon X and Y games during their pre-release period, but then I looked closer and saw that it was just Mega Mewtwo Y. Yeah, yeah, egg on my face, but EVERYONE was thinking this was Mewthree for a while after it was shown off. Cut me some slack.

This... thing also came up when I searched online for Mewthree information, and while the name is literally right there, I am sad to say that this is actually just a Clefairy using Transform to look like Mewtwo. It comes from the Pokemon Pocket Monster manga which- hey, wait a second! Get out of here, Pokemon Pocket Monsters! I’ve talked about you more than enough times on this blog! Your weird, uncouth humor and off-model style aren’t welcome in a serious post like this!

Yeah, that’s right. Scram.

Anyways, back on track. Where were we? Oh, right. There was this picture of a Pokedex entry that seemed pretty promising, after all this is supposedly another clone of Mew, more successful in that it better resembles the original. Problem is, though, that it’s number 290 in the Pokedex rather than, say, 152. What’s worse, it’s labeled as a PokeGod. I just discussed this earlier, but there’s no such thing as a PokeGod, those things are all just baseless playground rumors. Looks like this is a dead end too.

The next one I came across was a few pictures of the anime featuring a Mewtwo-like creature clad in slick robotic armor. Could this be Mewthree, another humanoid clone of Mew, only this time upgraded to cyborg status? I was hopeful, but sadly this is only the real Mewtwo wearing said armor for training purposes in the first anime movie.

A similar thing happened with this design, which was actually added to Pokemon Go as a catchable monster a while ago. Now, don’t be fooled by how different the design is this time around, this too is just Mewtwo in some training armor, but this time for the CGI REMAKE of the first Pokemon movie. A bit of a shame, since the weird spikes extending from its back would’ve made for a cool step up from the previous potential Mewthree design, but I digress.

Okay, okay, let’s tone it back a bit here. This is just getting silly. This isn’t even close to Mewthree, it’s just Shadow Mewtwo. From Pokken Tournament. I mean, the weird crystal protruding from its shoulder is cool and all, but all that we’ve got here is a dark Mewtwo. That would’ve been lame as a real Mewthree.

Alright, now I’m really confused. This isn’t even close to being Mewthree. This thing’s name is... uh... MechaMew2. It comes from Pokemon’s extremely short-lived and horribly unsuccessful stageplay adaptation, Pokemon Live. Yes, that was a real thing. In it, MechaMew2 serves as the ultimate weapon that no Pokemon can beat, like real Mewtwo before it, but gets defeated with, uh... the power of love. Which then causes it to self destruct because it wasn’t given any love by its creator, apparently. Okay.

Look, we’re real far off from what really could be a Mewthree at this point. I’m sorry, I’ll try and get back on track in a minute here.

Ah, there we go, that’s better. I finally found the actual name again! And it’s level 3 to boot! I was really sold when I saw this screenshot, I mean it’s from the GBA games and everything! You can imagine how quickly my hopes were dashed, though, when I discovered this was just a fake image someone made to prank a bunch of gamers online. A real shame too, since this definitely looks like it could’ve been the real deal... look at that polished head! Clearly this is a more refined, more perfectly engineered Mew clone.

Okay, well, how about this? Mewthree X! It’s much more angular and sleek than any of the Mews before it, even more closely resembling Frieza Dragon Ball with its orbular head. Could THIS be the Mewthree we’ve been looking for?? Unfortunately, it seems to only be yet another fake.

I mean, I was really hopeful when it turned out there was video proof of the thing appearing in-game, being fought and caught by an average player... but then I come to realize that it’s just a ROM Hack, meaning all this Mewthree X malarkey has been for naught!

Maybe it’s better to just throw in the towel at this point. This one isn’t even close. Mewtrance? Where’d you get that name from? This thing’s almost in as worse a state as Ditto is, being reduced to weird psychic globules. I don’t know how I would feel is the whole Mewthree mystery ended up with this thing being the answer. Thankfully, I know better than to trust it this time.

I’m sorry to say that my list of potential leads ends here, though. I just couldn’t find any other solid leads on what Mewthree could possibly be. Every one I managed to turn up ended up being fraudulent in some fashion. Is it possible that... Mewthree doesn’t actually exist at all? I mean, that can’t happen, can it? People all over the internet keep mentioning Mewthree and how it ties into the series in some way, they can’t all be mistaken, can they? Surely someone has the answers I’m looking for. But I can’t find them, at least not before this article needs to go up. So, sadly I’ll have to wrap things up for now. If I manage to find any more Mewthrees in the future... I’ll let you know. Until then...

#pokemon #pokemon review #mewthree #april fools #mewtwo

[datestart]

MY EDD DESIGN!!!! Did I go overboard on this ref? Yes zhkshdkfn some hcs under the cut cause I have. Way too many thoughts JSKJF

OK FIRST OFF a lot of my ideas regarding powers and stuff are inspired by @/actuallyunreal's grimsworld au, so PLEASE check them out, I just love their Edd so so much

Pre-Green Leader:

NOT pre-powers cause he does still have powers from the weird magic radiation shit here!!! His eye turns light green permanently tho cause of side effects I'll talk about later

After getting infected, Edd HAS to maintain some level of his powers or else he gets lethargic and can even start negatively impacting his health if he goes long enough, so he mixes the radiation shit into his cola to ensure that doesn't happen (also prevents the others from stealing it lmao)

His powers respond to his emotions but during this period that isn't a Huge issue, he's still able to live relatively normally (besides benign stuff like unconsciously floating)

Anyway besides powers- Edd is indeed wearing 3 layers (jacket, track suit top, gray t-shirt underneath) and nobody knows how he isn't incredibly warm all the time

He likes giving his friends his jackets when they're cold tho!!! Matt and Tom I imagine are especially susceptible to being cold so it's pretty common to see them with Edd's jackets in wintertime

Tom did the stitching on his pants :] pants had holes in them so Tom fixed them up and then added some extra flair

Shows the most affection (openly) of the main four!! He also shows affection by being a dick tho

Green Leader:

This isn't a swap, Red Leader exists too/The End happens/all that fun stuff! However after The End, Edd eventually goes "if Tord is the leader of an army I should make my own, to stop him or whatever"

So he's trying to do what Tord is doing, with the supposed purpose of stopping him, but he doesn't even truly know what Tord is actually doing?? Cause the Red Army is more just a vigilante group rather than an actual army, it's like... six people lmao

So Edd tries being this serious leader of an army and stuff but he can't... do it JSKJD he'll call Tom to his office to give orders or something and before Tom can even get there he's already left and blasting shit at random somewhere

But rewinding a bit- directly after The End, Edd is VERY distraught and hurt and it causes his powers to go haywire (since they're emotion based)

He's in "strong powers mode" like all the time, and eventually it starts taking a toll on his body, including permanently affecting one of his eyes (the now-light green one)

He can still see through it and stuff, but it causes him stabbing pain and migraines a lot of the time

All this continues pretty much through his entire reign as Green Leader until he and Tord finally make up and he disbands his army/it unofficially merges with the Red Army cause Edd... doesn't like running it

After that he becomes basically Tord's second in command but he's practically never around cause he just prefers blasting stuff lmao

Very chaotic neutral I think!! Was always chaotic neutral, but it's especially obvious during this period

#eddsworld #ew edd #I dont... know how to tag shit #green leader #<my art> #the other 3 are mentioned a bit in the hcs but since theyre not in the art I wont tag them #[edd] #[tord] #< however I will cc tag him lmao #also these are just some of my hcs!! I didnt even include anything with a self insert LMAO #(would very much appreciate rbs cause this took..... forever :"D)

[howdytherepardner]

feelings within

in which one goes nowhere, a lot of places, fast

~

1. there is a sensation in the body when there are needles in major veins in both of one’s arms (if applicable).

it might be easy, or even natural, to expect that this is pain of a certain degree. i imagine the visual, splayed out and propped up like a turkey pre-roast and subbing an oven thermometer for tubes constantly pulling out and pushing in blood via a machine of constant whirs, is largely disquieting for some. the fear of just one needle is enough for some folks to swear off blood donations period and to dissuade from more than a few medical procedures. i’ve never been too avoidant of the situation, being Weird enough to relish the chance to look at the needle embrace the sensation as it washes over.

but having one in both arms is a new experience for me, and with it new that a new discovery. an arm must remain still when the needle is in, and when both are occupied, both must be still. i can’t say what it’s like to lose a limb, but it did make me think of a reversal of the common trope with tools as ‘an extension of the self.’

2. it would not be a stretch to say that the Smart Phone (or a connection to the internet) is very much a tool that becomes a part of us in such a way that the Severing is felt. my little refurbished friend will tend to die when i even think of using the camera in extreme temperatures; a loss when out-and-about creates a particular sense of disturbance, despite knowing that It in many ways is a disturbance.

but i digress. the jump between one arm and none arm is much larger than two to one, which was made somewhat evident by my choice of music as an intended pass time for the two hours. i was listening with wireless earbuds, and while the staff member attending was very gracious to manually insert the left one after i was already still, it was not all the way in - hanging off the pinna, rather than covering the canal entrance. much to consider beyond just the asymmetry of music, but my own hesitance to ask for it to be readjusted. like when waitstaff asks if the food’s alright, and you say that it’s Perfect, despite the fact that it’s not what you wanted (and probably isn’t the best food in the world).

3. I do wonder about that sometimes. It’s the meme that I see sometime, the girl requesting a correction on behalf of her boyfriend (the Daisy/Luigi “he asked for no pickles” remains a standout). I’m sure there’s that element of timidness, with whatever socio/psychological basis that informs it, but I also do think there’s an element of exploration, tolerance, and/or contentedness.

i did ask eventually, encouraging a staff member to not worry about applying pressure. sealed in, the waiting i expected began.

Set the scene a little more. The space is a blend of hospital and office vibes, with cubicle-esque desks on the east end of the open room, with surfaces for donors in the west. Some more simple surfaces for the standard blood donors in the middle, but west most was two rows of the more intricate set-ups. Seats facing each other (my eyes occasionally made contact with others, but only briefly), with the massive blood processing doohicky right next to them. The seats have a screen installed, with Netflix as an option recommended. Another screen on the doohicky, monitoring things like input/output pressure, blood iron content, and importantly for the experience - an estimated time remaining and a progress bar.

4. where a high fantasy element lacks literal verbal incantation, i always found it interesting to consider what it is that actually causes the magic shit to happen. avatar characters can execute bending forms without needing to actually manipulate things everytime, so what kind of ‘switch’ do they need to flip? the idea of there being some muscle-flex or mentality that allows one to opt in and out of this more freely manipulating state was always funny to ponder.

anyways, my actual time was about 5 minutes longer than my estimate at the start. i would chalk it up to less-than-optimal hydration the 24 hours prior, but in the moment with the stress ball in hand, i really believed that if i found the perfect rhythm of squeezing or breath depth and interval, that it could slice the time into nothing. some of the timing was the machine of course, presumably determined to not take my own life, but the timing Disparity is enough for me to believe that some onus was on me. reaching for straws that slipped through my fingers.

5. that said, i think the attending staff were sure to let me know that i was “almost there.” 10 minutes out, 25 minutes out, a full hour out, just under half of the way. it was this really strange thing, and i imagine medical professionals have to negotiate something a lot with how they provide comfort. since the machine would not deprive me of life after the fact, and presumably low chances of complications (the only qualifier being a minimum blood iron content, weight, and pulse), the choice to offer reassurances is not loaded with many ethical considerations.

it would have been my preference though to just have been left alone, savoring my music over the long course like i preferred - but of course, they upheld a standard of decency and care to check on me. how dare they ask if i wanted a blanket? how insulting, to make sure i was really okay without Netflix for the time! must i not have even a moment to savor any sense of discomfort?

6. because i probably would have been more comfortable if i did have a blanket covering my short sleeved self, the subtle a/c and grey skies outside enough to have a chill walk, but not run, down my spine. i didn’t feel strongly cold, but enough to notice that the blood seemed absent.

unburdened by the bounds of the vein, my self had expanded to share rent with a machine (and my platelets later, i certainly expect, well beyond the confines of the room). seldom do i get to try density like that, and indeed, one feels just a bit closer to being as light as air. it takes a second to get to that subtle high, and with the sensation grounded by the truth of cold and stillness, one recognizes the elation as something realer than a dream.

it made the music that much better. a playlist of old favorites and nothing else to do let the reflection and the feelings and memories from those days come rolling right back.

7. the little sense of pain, then, to know those days as things to remember, and not to be.

8. and roku city scrolling by right through it all. a placeholder, not made to be known or noticed for more than a few moments, known upside down and backwards, all its film references decoded before even halfway.

9. and after it’s done, and the utility of arms, motion, autonomy return, the body maintain a stony sense of numbness. and the little packet of cheez its are never quite as salty, savory as the first time.

10. oh well. the promise of a free t-shirt ft. Joe Cool seems to mean something.

[certifiablecatlady]

Medical/Life Update

Sup duders so I haven't posted a ton of personal info here in awhile but the past 6 months have been wild. Starting in December 2021 I've had a fluctuating rash on my arms, legs, and trunk that at first I thought was an allergic reaction, hence my post about having the worst "hives" ever on Christmas. After an emergency room trip on New Years Eve and month of phone tag I finally got referred to a rheumatologist in February and diagnosed with Henoch-Schonlein Purpura (HSP) also known as IgA vasculitis. Which is an autoimmune disease more common in children but super rare in adults where the blood vessels in your skin and internal organs/joints become inflamed. Usually it goes away in a few months and leaves no lasting effects which is good.

Except now it's June and it hasn't gone away. In fact, at my last rheumatology appointment 2 weeks ago they said my inflammation markers in my blood have started going up again instead of down so we may need to move on to more intense treatment. For the past few months I've been taking a steroid (prednisone) and an immunosuppressant (mycophenolate) to hopefully counteract my dumb immune system, which has made my flare ups less intense than they were in Dec-Feb pre treatment. But even as they've increased the immunosuppressant my skin has not been totally clear in over six months and every time I so much as step outside my apartment, walk around too much, or wear tight clothing I have massive flare ups. The rash itself is not painful but with friction around my feet and thighs it starts to burn and itch which is no fun at all. And unfortunately having this disease for this long could be bad news for the rest of my organs, which thankfully so far have shown up fine in tests.

So basically at my last rheumatology appointment I was put on the max dose of the mycophenolate with the idea that if this doesn't work we will have to move on to different treatment. There are two options if this happens: a similar immunosuppressant called methotrexate that would basically work like the mycophenolate but maybe magically would do better, or a strong iv infusion called rituximab. Now I have been through my share of weird medical shit but the one thing that still terrifies me is an iv. One of the worst experiences of my life was being hospitalized for a week stuck to an iv in 2012 and the whole time it felt like my arm was being broken. I've always been afraid of needles and in fact my first blood draw at the rheumatologist in Feb I fainted and threw up so now I'm famous with the phlebotomists. So just hearing iv I started to panic a little.

Then the doctor went on to describe the procedure being similar to chemotherapy/biotherapy and included the fun fact of a small risk of deadly anaphylactic shock. I ended up having a full panic attack and sitting on the floor of the office next to an open window while my lovely boyfriend fanned me and got me to drink some water. The doctor kept apologizing for freaking me out but I was just apologizing back like "I have an anxiety disorder it's fine not your fault".

So yeah I go back in on July 12th to see how the max dose and potential last hurrah of my og immunosuppressant works out and meanwhile I am firmly camped in my apartment trying desperately to avoid any flare triggers. I have a spreadsheet now where I rate the rash on each area of my body cause ya girl loves data. My boyfriend Sam has been absolutely wonderful taking care of me throughout this, running urine samples back and forth to the hospital when they kept scheduling my appointments a month apart exactly in line with my period. I am so glad this happened after we moved in together rather than before so I don't have to do this alone or move back in with my parents. My family has tried to understand what's going on but I think only recently started seeing the severity. They've at least stopped trying to guilt me into coming over. Being immunocompromised during a pandemic wasn't enough for them I guess, but minimizing flares so I don't have to do hours of ivs worked. Now we wait.

#cw medical #cw menstruation #cw needles #cw death #cw illness #cw emetophobia

[maintitle]

Getting near the end of my first-ever front-to-back watch of The Original Series, and I think my opinion is finally fully forming on the whole thing.

When sitting down for this watch, my pre-conception was that I wouldn't enjoy it because of how outdated it is, and that aspect is partially true. Still, TNG has a lot of the same problems with how women are handled so I can admit to myself that there's an aspect of rose-tinted glasses at work. Other things are unacceptable, but this is a show from 1966 so I'm not breaking ground on that.

I think the thing that ACTUALLY bugs me about the show is that there's about four kinds of episodes on repeat, and the ones that are most often returned too are the worst ones. I've mentioned previously that 'Behold, I am a person from your Earth history, and more powerful than you!' is a common trope in the show, and all of those episodes I really dislike. There's also a bunch of lesser versions of that, like going to a planet that's just Earth but in the past, and those bug me as well.

The stuff that WORKS for me almost always are episodes that deal with Trek politics, human struggles in the 23rd century, or interactions with other peoples (not Klingons). Romulans, in particular, always have really solid episodes. I think the three best episodes are Doomsday Machine, The Balance Of Terror, and City On The Edge Of Forever. Two of those are episodes are of a kind that happen very rarely, and the third is an exception to the 'temporal episodes aren't very good' rule.

The strongest point of the show, what makes it all watchable, is McCoy, Kirk and Spock's relationship. I never felt like I was getting sick of watching episodes, because those relationships were so strong. That's stating the obvious as our fanfiction forebears took those relationships and built an empire upon them, but it really is the glue that makes all these repeat ideas work. But I think that also keeps me from loving it anywhere near as much as other Trek shows I've seen. That's partially because I so desperately want episodes focused on the other bridge officers, which doesn't happen like it does on follow-up Trek shows, but that can be forgiven considering the time period and the formula still being not only new, but groundbreaking. I also don't jive with the anti-alien feel of the Enterprise, with Spock being this outsider that is constantly to be questioned. Part of this is because so many follow-up shows treat their aliens as a seperate, yet respectable lifeform, but it's also because the canon has changed so much (and rightfully so) that it's WEIRD to treat Spock like that. I LIKE my Trek aliens, and I like the crew learning FROM them rather than demanding they be LIKE them.

But that aspect still works, because they have so much chemistry. And that's good, and makes the movies stand out even more, because I do think the best version of this original cast is the movies and not the show. Ideas and characters are better explored there, unlike the opposite being true for the TNG crew. With McCoy, Kirk and Spock, giving them full movies to get their chemistry across is the best move for them. Which is good because they're absolutely constantly banging off-screen.

#one thing i will say #i don't like mccoy very much #but i stand by those three being the anchor #adding a read more to this because i wanted to get it out of my brain #but also don't want this kind of post to accidentally get 500 notes like the last few i've made

[hey-hamlet]

I posted 897 times in 2021

662 posts created (74%)

235 posts reblogged (26%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 0.4 posts.

I added 1,202 tags in 2021

#asks - 512 posts

#bnha au - 360 posts

#transmigrator au - 83 posts

#study talk - 56 posts

#dont praise the all mighty - 42 posts

#a pawns game au - 40 posts

#all but one traitor au - 38 posts

#all traitors au - 30 posts

#my art - 22 posts

#hpsc agent stain au - 19 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#izuku does save her! but they can't let her into ua because she was from an infection hotspot and the incubation period for the infection

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

BNHA AU Concept: Transmigrator

Midoriya Izuku, a normal - if rather sickly - japanese boy of 15 years old passes away just after finishing the final volume of Plus Ultra! a gritty, pre then post-apocalyptic manga about superheroes staring class 1A as their society crumbled around them following the death of the Symbol of Peace.

The whole thing was pretty bleak, with members of the class dying off pretty regularly until only 12 remained, teamed up with other heroes trying to defeat the big villain, All for One. The ending was a downer though - the heroes were all slain and it was left ambiguous at to if All for One survived that last strike or not.

Then he wakes up in the body of Midoriya Izuku, the background character with whom he, unfortunately, shared a name, right before he was killed by the sludge villain, kick-starting Bakugo Katsuki's whole tragic backstory. Not wanting to be the first person to die twice in one day, he holds on until he's saved by All Might (whom he fanboy's hopelessly about), ends up saving Bakugo Katsuki from the same villain, and getting offer All Might quirk - confirming one of the biggest fan theories of the series!

Well. Looks like he's got a chance to save some of his favourite characters and stop this whole world from ending - pretty lucky his first life gave him a great pain tolerance and total disregard for his own life, huh?

411 notes • Posted 2021-05-30 03:04:17 GMT

#4

Addams family Aizawa or adams family class 1A au

I love the idea of an Aizawa thats just a little,,, off. His smile too wide, his teeth too straight and square, his eyes never reacting to light, always a little brighter than the ambient light should allow for.

He tends to be given the powerful students, but this year he got something better: the weird ones. The ones like him, touched by something beyond the veil. A boy that sees too much, another with a living shadow, one part machine - unclear where student ends and metal begins, a girl with space in her eyes and gravity at her finger tips -

Just like him. His students.

472 notes • Posted 2021-06-26 10:24:15 GMT

#3

desperately need a fanfic where aoyama finds out izuku used to be quirkless and panics about the poor boy being in debt to all for one

,,, AU where Aoyoma does the normal thing of googling people he’s just met on line and finds Izuku recorded in a news article from 10 months ago, listed as a ‘Quirkless Middle School Student’ and starts desperately trying to work out if he and Izuku are in the same boat, with increasing worry as more and more quirks appear 

550 notes • Posted 2021-12-03 01:55:23 GMT

#2

BNHA AU Concept

Silly BNHA AU where Izuku is two years younger than the main cast and this ruins the whole plot. 

To start, Bakugo is fiercely protective of Izuku - he’s quirkless, tiny and sweet and, thankfully for Bakugo’s inferiority complex, not someone hes compaired to being a full 2 years older than the kid. There is no childhood ‘betrayal’, just Bakugo stubbornly making sure Izuku thinks he’s the worlds coolest person. 

The slime villain happens without Izuku and All Might’s conversation before hand. He hears Bakugo call Izuku a quirkless dumbass while Izuku sobs and hugs him and All Might has a “aww, sweet!” moment. He files it away.

He ends up teaching Bakugo at UA, mentions the kid who saved him. “Oh yeah, Deku? He’s like 12 and a nightmare. Self preservation of a lemming.” Izuku then proves him right by getting kidnapped by Shigaraki durring the press break in - Izuku had a day off school and wanted to see UA so he walked with Bakugo - and then, when Shigaraki tries to threatern UA with the death of a child, Izuku fucking bites Shigaraki’s finger off and jumps out the window. 

His childhood hero was Bakugo. It rubbed off on him a little.

All Might is like “hmm. i think i will have a heart attack now” but ends up giving Izuku his quirk because hes so stupudly heroic there is nothing else he can do. Bakugo is in on it and he visits UA on saturdays to train with All Might. Aizawa is convinced he’s All Might’s bastard child, as is Todoroki. They, somehow, bond over this.

552 notes • Posted 2021-04-14 07:41:40 GMT

#1

An au where stain is just someone hired by the hero commission to kill heroes who speak out against the hero commission and killing false hero’s is just a cover story

Wait this slaps, I love it. Is Stain an agent, just acting out his cover story? Is he an actual villain the commission hired to do this - do they have leverage over him or is more dead heroes exactly what he wants? Or is he the HPSC's own version of a nomu, constructed for covert assasinations, mindlessly following orders?

I really do like the idea that he was a villain they hired who disliked heroes anyway. Stain thinks he's going to betray the HPSC when they run out of targets to give him, but they already know of Stain's plans and are one step ahead of him.

oooohh!! Imagine they stage a prison break for him after he's captured by Izuku and co, and they tell him to 'do away with the kid'. Stain flips because 'dude what the fuck hes like 15, you dont pay me to kill kids' and the HPSC is like 'ah. is see we have reached an impass' and he has to rip off the armoured collar they gave him because its started to heat up ever so slightly. he throws it to the ground where it pops with a deceptively small explosion, right where his jugular vein would have been.

He then runs to UA in a half-blind panic to do the only thing he can think of - warn the kid. He's already a dead man walking if the HPSC want his head, but that poor kid has a life ahead of him. Nezu, who does not trust the commission as far as he could throw the whole building that housed them, decides to listen before letting All Might punch him into the sun, and is quickly horrified by how everything lines up.

Queue an arc where Stain is pretending to be a sidekick and teachers aid at UA for cover while they try to work out how to keep Izuku safe, all while Izuku is the only student who is like ",,,am I losing my mind or is our new teacher's aid the hero killer???"

837 notes • Posted 2021-06-12 02:21:44 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #oooh fun #!

[willowcrowned]

Okay but has anyone considered Obi-wan/Cody/Satien (is that how its spelled?) Regardless, hes got two hands for his two mandalorians, the au where this happend is gotta be top notch ridiculous ye?

Okay thank you so much for giving me a reason to think about this, because this AU contains three things I adore: polyamory, ships where everyone is frighteningly competent, and Obi-Wan

In this AU, Ventress is somehow even less well-adjusted (bear with me). What this means is that, instead of taking a gap year and finding herself after her family is brutally murdered, she decides she needs to get revenge even more now. What does this mean? In the short term, she still becomes a bounty hunter, but in the long run? She’s looking for a Sith lord team up so she can punch Dooku (with a lit lighstaber) in his stupid, elitist, backstabbing face.

So when Maul invades Mandalore, what happens? Ventress comes right along, ready to give her ‘I know we hate each other, but consider teaming up to kill someone we both hate even MORE’ space TED talk. And though Maul may be terribly annoying, a closet theater kid, always in a tits out kind of mood, and denying his gay awakening, he’s not stupid. He knows Sidious is coming for him, sooner rather than later, and he knows he needs more people on his side than his (impressively beefy) brother. He and Savage agree to the team-up.

Cue Obi-Wan showing up, ready to save his sort-of girlfriend, and finding Pre Vizsla, who got REAL sus the second ANOTHER lunatic with a red lightsaber showed up, occupied by capturing Maul, Savage, and Ventress. 

Obi-Wan saves Satie, who convinces him to call Cody for a quick evac, and they’re running away, flirting, and arguing over shooting things (as usual), when they spot Ventress, Maul, and Savage, about to be executed.

Oh, they both think, hell no. And then, because they have a stupid moral code that makes them do stupid moral things, they go save them.

A little background on Obi-Wan at this point: He has been fighting in a war for over two years. He is exhausted, close to a breakdown, and seriously questioning his place as a General. Next to him at all times, supporting him, helping him, and saving him, is Cody, who is clever, kinder than he has any right to be, and is, of course, devastatingly handsome when he does his special, unique-to-Cody half-smirk.

Obi-Wan, to put it mildly, is totally gone on him. Obi-Wan also, to put it less mildly, is his commanding officer in an army that Cody can’t leave on pain of death. To do anything— make any advance beyond the flirting that he engages in with most people— would put Cody in a very uncomfortable position, whether or not he returns Obi-Wan’s feelings. So Obi-Wan watches him from afar, hoping against hope that his affections are returned, and that one day, after the end of the war, there will be a future for both of them.

A little more background on Obi-Wan at this point: He has always respected Satine. Their correspondence fell apart just a few months after the end of his mission with Qui-Gon, but he’s been keeping up with her professional accomplishments for years. Over time, the love he bore for her faded, leaving him with good memories and an enduring appreciation for her courage, her cleverness, and her ability to deliver devastating blows to someone’s confidence with a few well-placed words.

Until he sees her again. And yes, alright, he might be angry that she’s choosing to stay out of the war— he knows what good she could do— but he understands her fears, understands the very real possibility that if Mandalore gets embroiled in yet another war, they may never recover. The thing is... well, she’s still very beautiful, especially when he’s yelling at him, and as slowly as his feelings had faded then, they come back in a rush now.

He has very much fallen in love with Cody, and he is very much still in love with Satine.

Cut back to the present— Obi-Wan and Satine rescue the three most annoying Sith in the galaxy and get the heck out of dodge. Cody, because he’s Cody, comes swooping in with a last-minute rescue.

At this point, two things are occurring.

The first: Obi-Wan is stuck in a room with four people he’s periodically flirted with over the past few years, two of whom he’s desperately in love with, one of whom he had a weird encounter with that he can never tell Anakin about when she and him got trapped in a middle school auditorium, and one of whom is definitely wearing no shirt and all that jewelry for a reason. It is Supremely awkward for him.

The second: Every single person in that room, each of which is (barring Savage) deeply attracted to Obi-Wan, is realizing that Obi-Wan is dressed in Mandalorian armor, and while Obi-Wan in three layers of tunics and a cloak is an absolute knockout, Obi-Wan in Mandalorian armor may very well kill them (and he won’t even have to touch his lightsaber to do it).

For one single moment, everything is absolutely still as they all stare at each other.

...And then Maul starts on the ‘I will rend your flesh from your bones, feel my wrath, Kenobarrgh’ spiel, and Satine stuns him. Oh, and Savage. Ventress agrees to watch the two of them if they don’t stun her, and Obi-Wan agrees.

Which then leaves him, Cody, and Satine in a room alone.

A word on Cody at this point: He has been bred from birth to be the perfect soldier— loyal, clever (but not too clever), and rigourously adherent to protocol. Yet, within three months of knowing Obi-Wan, he’s, well, calling him Obi-Wan in his head. Even just that is a gross breach of protocol, but he’s compromised in more ways than one. He talks to Obi-Wan, now, not just as a subordinate, or secondary advisor, but as a friend, as a councilor. Every time Obi-Wan touches him— never for longer than a brief second— his skin lights up under his armor. One time, Obi-Wan fell asleep on him for half an hour, and Cody’s was sure everyone would hear his heartbeat. 

What he’s doing— how he feels— he knows it’s putting Obi-Wan in danger, knows that if the Kaminoans had wanted to the clones to be equals to the Jedi, they would have told them so. And look, he knows what the natborns would call the way he’s feeling, but he can’t feel that way. He’s a clone— he’s expendable by definition. Even if, on some off-chance, he makes it out of this war alive, there’s nothing for him. Obi-Wan couldn’t care for him like that, couldn’t care for a man with the same face as millions of others, born and bred only for war. So it doesn’t matter how he feels.

A word on Satine at this point: Obi-Wan, when he left, was a gawkish, bumbling thing of red hair and freckles and the sweetest smile. Obi-Wan, when he came back, was graceful, eloquent, and very, very handsome. He is also infuriating. (This does not change how attracted she is to him in the least.)

She’s not a romantic, really, but she is a realist, and she knows she’s loved him in some form or another for over twenty years. She knows she can’t ask him to return it— knows that asking him to leave the order for her wouldn’t just be for her, it would be for Mandalore, and while the politician in her cries for her to claim him, the person in her who loves Obi-Wan could not abide tearing him away from his culture for her own purposes. She still loves him, deeply and irrevocably, and she knows he still loves her. (Maybe, she thinks, after the war... But she can’t afford to be sentimental).

What do Cody and Satine have in common? They’re both extremely competent, both instinctively ruthless, and they both love Obi-Wan. Oh, and they’re also both immediately jealous of their counterpart.

They know they shouldn’t be. They know it’s not fair, not when Obi-Wan isn’t theirs anyways, but it doesn’t change the surge of envy and dislike that happens when they see Obi-Wan use the soft voice he only uses for the people he likes best on the person across from them.

Cody knows he can never compare to the Duchess, who is beautiful and well-spoken and has held Obi-Wan’s heart since they were fifteen. Satine knows she can never compare to Cody, who has been at Obi-Wan’s side every second since the war’s beginning, who is so much closer in ideals to Obi-Wan than she is, however it might appear on the surface.

Fortunately, they don’t have to deal with it for long, because Ventress comes in with Maul and Savage and proposes a team up, at which point Maul reveals the identity of the Sith Master.

Obi-Wan swears a string of words that Cody and Satine are both very impressed by, and agrees to the team up. Cody and Satine, who are both going to Coruscant anyways, agree to it too.

What ensues is a good deal of scheming, during which Cody and Satine avoid each other like the plague, Obi-Wan is repeatedly told to get some sleep, and Ventress cuffs Maul to a door on multiple nonconsecutive occasions. When they get to Coruscant, Satine has already told Padmé, who has in turn told her group of anti-war (and anti-Palpatine) senators, Cody has given Rex a heads up, and Ventress, Maul, and Savage have been metaphorically sharpening their lightsabers for ages.

(It occurs to Obi-Wan, at one point, after he’s woken up from his enforced 25-hour nap, that Palpatine must have created the clone army for a reason— must have a failsafe in place— and he asks Ahsoka to pull all the data the Kaminoans have on the clones. They find out about the chips, and Ahsoka immediately immediately holds the Kaminoans at laser sword point until they reprogram every order into a command that dissolves the chip.)

The thing about organizing a coup together is that it makes it very hard to avoid each other. Cody and Satine are forced to work together, and, what do you know, it turns out that even with seething jealousy at work, they end up respecting each other. (Note: Obi-Wan comes into a room at one point to see them both bent over a commlink, heads together and hands nearly touching. He short circuits.)

In any case, coup, Palps dies, Republic fixed, whatever.

What’s important is that Obi-Wan gets really, really injured— so much so that he might die. Cody and Satine have dealt with him being dead before (Deception arc anyone?), but this? Watching him slowly fade, knowing there’s nothing they can do about it? That’s worse.

One night, when Anakin has fallen asleep, they have a long conversation in low voices about Obi-Wan, darting from fond to furious to devastated over and over again. If he wakes up— if, not when— they agree to say something to Obi-Wan, to let him know that they love him. It’s a meager consolation after all they’ve been through, but this is the end, in one way or another, and they deserve to be honest with him.

(Cody thinks, privately, that he will be— well, not tossed aside, because Obi-Wan isn’t the sort of person who does that, but there won’t be a place for him by Obi-Wan’s side anymore. Obi-Wan is a Jedi, a negotiator, a peacekeeper, and Cody is a soldier for a now-ended war. He is already steeling himself to accept Obi-Wan’s polite rejection with equanimity, to not cause more pain to the man. (It will be easy, he knows, to wish him every peace, every happiness. Cody has only ever wanted to see Obi-Wan happy. This does not mean it will not be painful.) Obi-Wan said once that he would have left the Order for Satine if she’d asked— she will ask, now, and Cody knows Obi-Wan will leave, can see the love written in his face, in his spine, in his hands, whenever he is around her. Satine will ask, and Obi-Wan will leave, and Cody will be left to look for a place in this new galaxy.)

(Satine thinks, privately, that Obi-Wan’s feelings for her must be long faded, replaced by his obvious ones for Cody. Obi-Wan is a warrior, a Knight, and Satine is a diplomat who foreswore violence long ago. She is already steeling herself to accept his rejection with grace. (It will be easy, she knows, to wish him well. She has only ever wanted good things for him. This does not mean it will not be painful.) He said once that he would have left the Order for her if she’d asked, and whatever he’d felt then for her pales to what he feels now for Cody. Cody will ask, and Obi-Wan will leave, and Satine will rule as she always has.)

And then Obi-Wan wakes up.

Cody and Satine let him have his long talk with Anakin first, partially because they know how important it is to him, partially because Anakin wouldn’t let them if they wanted to, and partially because they are dreading their own coming conversation. When Anakin has finished, and Obi-Wan is asleep again, they go in, hand-in-hand, and wait for him to wake up.

When he does wake up, he sees them holding hands and immediately comes to several wrong conclusions. Wrong Conclusion A: Cody and Satine are in love. Wrong Conclusion B: Cody and Satine are going to try to break the news that they’re in love to him gently. Wrong Conclusion C: This conversation is about to break his heart.

Then they speak.

At the end of it, Obi-Wan has some Thoughts. Thought One: alkdfjhskhsgjljlbhkgkjbjvnab,gkjvn;qlerghjsv?????!!!!fwbfwlkrehwogwhuwrijvhfdbhkf!!!! Thought Two: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Thought Three: Oh, we’re all idiots. Fantastic. 

He then passes out, because being on the edge of death for days and then having a shock to your system this big tends to do that to you.

When he wakes up, he is mildly more coherent. Then he sees that Satine and Cody are asleep on each other, and the coherence is lost, but he does manage to wake them up and get across three things:

Thing One: He is desperately in love with them both.

Thing Two: He’s leaving the Order for a multitude of reasons, but they are a Significant Bonus.

Thing Three: He would very much like if they both held his hand while he falls back asleep.

Cody takes Obi-Wan’s right hand, Satine takes Obi-Wan’s left hand, and the three of them stay like that, fingers intertwined, for a long, long, while.

#this is. Long #obi wan DOES have two hands #i have not checked this for grammar mistakes #asks #missstar489 #obi wan has two hands au #codywan #obitine #codyobitine #star wars #star wars au #obi wan kenobi #satine kryze #commander cody #willow's aus #god this is 2.4k #no wonder it took me so long #me: I'll just reply to this ask real quick :) #me an hour later: oh. oh no

[aristidetwain]

Wait, the War King actually IS the Man with the Rosette? I thought they have no connections other then both being ~something~ of the Master (I have presumed them to be biodata clones from the hatchling projects), I’ve seen ppl connecting them but thought it were just fans canon-welding, but you ARE a FP writer,, sooo… asking

This is a complicated question to answer. I'll do so in three parts (after the cut!).

I. The War Magistrate with the Rosette: one character

What can be confirmed with utmost solidity is that, even ignoring all the hints about either of them being the Master, there are clear connections between the War King and the Man with the Rosette within EDAs and FP lore.

To wit, in The Taking of Planet 5, the Lord President (who is the very Lord President later identified as the War King) mentions as an event from his own life something which happened to “the Magistrate” in The Infinity Doctors, namely his conversation with General Sontar about the origins of the Capitol as a military citadel. Later, Jacob Black's The Story So Far…, which can be read for free on Obverse Books' website, mentioned the Magistrate as wearing the rosette.

(The Infinity Doctors is notoriously weird, because it's kind of a mashup of several periods in the Doctor's life, all happening at once. But the period in the Master's life gestured at by “the Magistrate” is generally agreed to correspond to the not-yet-War-King's time as an advisor to the Presidency on the Homeworld immediately before the War, so that's what I'll go with here.)

As to whether these exist linearly, rather than as various alternative futures and pasts of one another… that's a more complicated question.

II. The “Conventional” Timeline of the War in Heaven Master(s)

The default reading of the Man with the Rosette in The Adventuress of Henrietta Street is that he is the Eighth Doctor's contemporary. He never fought in the War in Heaven, because the War in Heaven has been unhappened by this point by the events of The Ancestor Cell. Instead, he is the version of the Master who would have fought in the War in Heaven, had the War not been brutally erased from history by the Doctor's actions in The Ancestor Cell.

Here, then, we have a ‘fork’ in the Master's life. At the point in History when the War in Heaven is meant to start:

if the War happens, he becomes the Magistrate on Gallifrey, and later becomes the War King, ultimately being felled by Lolita.

after the War is unhappened, he instead becomes the Man with the Rosette before eventually making his way to the Needle, where he also, in an echo of the other timeline, becomes "the Magistrate".

There is, however, an alternative reading, and one which may be hinted at in the text — not so much by what is said, as by what is not said.

III. The Bolder Hypothesis: Rosette as pre-War King

In The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, the Man with the Rosette, who is as we have seen the Master caught flat-footed by the sudden disappearance of Gallifrey as part of the erasure of a War he never fought in, makes an oath to try and put things right and restore the universe to the way it ought to be. He pledges to bring a temporary end to his usual petty power-games with the Doctor for as long as it takes to put things right.

We then lose track of the post-War Master until the Needle era, when (as per The Story So Far…) he is still wearing his rosette, but has taken to calling himself the Magistrate. As per the Miranda comics, the bearded man with the Rosette then disappeared from the Needle at some point before the Emperor's assassination.

But…

The Book of the War tells us that the not-yet-War-King returned to Homeworld pretty much out of nowhere from his existence as a Renegade, with reliable yet unspecified knowledge about the Enemy and the War that was to come, and then made an uncharacteristically selfless effort to actually leverage the Homeworld's resources to save the universe.

Many of us writers, fans and assorted theorists have thus arrived at the notion that after disappearing from the Needle, the Man with the Rosette/Magistrate broke the Protocols of Linearity in the worst way imaginable, and returned to the early stages of the War, still under the guise of the Magistrate, hoping to avert it or at least help the Homeworld's chances in the conflict.

So the Master's War in Heaven timeline ends up going like this:

The Master reemerges after the events of the “TV Movie” in a Gallifreyan body. As you say, perhaps he is not really the original, but rather a hatchling created by the Homeworld in expectation of the War.

The Homeworld is destroyed before the War had properly begun, as part of the Eighth Doctor's attempt to avert the War altogether. (The Ancestor Cell)

The Man with the Rosette hangs out on Earth in the Post-War Universe, trying to piece together what happened to the Time Elementals. Having figured out enough, he pledges to try and fix things. (The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)

As “the Magistrate”, the Man with the Rosette leads the post-War Doctor and two other Surviving Elementals in an effort to retake control of History at the Needle. (The Gallifrey Chronicles, The Story So Far…)

Using the Needle's control over the Web of Time, the Magistrate returns to some decades before the War broke out. He becomes an influential politician on Gallifrey. (The Infinity Doctors, The Book of the War)

He replaces the Presidency and becomes the War King. (The Book of the War)

However, his schemes fail to give the Homeworld enough of an edge. Realising Lolita's been one step ahead of him the whole time, the War King gives up and lets Lolita absorb him. (The True History of Faction Paradox)

I like this picture an awful lot. So do @doctornolonger and @rassilon-imprimatur. It's never been made explicit — but there are hints, and without giving anything away, I will be adding one more hint to the pile in one of my upcoming FP works…

#Faction Paradox #the-sea-beast-resting #The War King #The Master #The Man With The Rosette #Canon-Welding #Jacob Black #Nate Bumber #Lawrence Miles #The Book of the War #Doctor Who #Doctor Who Expanded Universe #War in Heaven

[binniesthighs]

hello stranger | reader x changbin |

WELP here it is, my totally self indulgent reader x binsung fic that has developed into so much more than I expected!! thank you lovelies for hyping me up to write more of this story ily!! hehe we are indeed in for a spicy, angsty, and fluffy time!! You can read part 1 here

Part 2  

Paring: self insert, female reader x seo changbin, female reader x han jisung 

Genre: strangers to lovers, fluff, smut, angst, 

Tags: (of this part) college au, rapper!jisung, rapper!changbin, artist!reader, established fwb!jisung, explicit language, oral (f receiving), that good, good makin’ out,   sub!reader, cockydom!jisung, on that note, jisung being horny as hellll, the cutest bestfriend!felix there is, changbin’s flirty ass, a sprinkling of angst, ro being in her fanfic writer element uwu 

Word count: 3.1k

Chapters 

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

[00:19] 

han jisung: you like the performance? 

you looked stunning. 

where did you go? i couldn’t find you. i even stayed after. 

[00:28] 

me: oh really? just for me? 

han jisung: you left something at my place last time, I was going to give it back to you. 

me: that’s why you wanted to see me? i don’t believe you. 

[00:36] 

han jisung: are you doing anything right now? 

╚ ——————————————— ╝

Against the heat of your sweating body on the matted quilt, a winter chill seeped in through the wooden windowsill, dusty with age. Had you not been burning with heat, you would have been freezing. Fistfuls of the quilt filled up your hands, and your fingers dug into the fabric hard enough to make your nailbeds change color. You hadn’t even noticed that you had been slightly grinding into his mouth. 

“you taste so good baby,” Jisung’s breath swirled into your swollen clit.

A tiny squeak escaped your lips at the sensation.

Both of his arms had curled under your legs to pull them farther apart, lending his nails to dig lightly into your skin. He chuckled out pridefully onto your sensitive bud, the vibrations heightening your arousal. Jisung kissed gently into you with the luxurious sounds of your excitement and his saliva mixing on his lips. His eyes held a mischievous green haze as he would look up at you with his big brown eyes, flattening out his tongue to lick at you in thick, agonizing lines. At last, he would suck and on your clit, flicking his tongue around it sporadically, as if he was giving every nerve ending his complete attention.

The way that he would suck on your clit was unreal.

As if to balance yourself, you raked one of your hands instinctually through his nearly black strands.  

“Ji--” You choked out half of his name, too weak to summon the rest.

You were impossibly close. With eyes scrunched up a little, they rolled up from his taunting gaze to your ceiling.

On the shitty paint job up there, there was a crack. It was an ugly crack at that: the kind that was browning from water damage and segued into other tinier veins. Your apartment was old anyway. It wasn’t uncommon for old apartments like that to have cracks in the ceiling.  

You hadn’t really recognized it before.

Why haven’t I noticed that before?

“fuck, you’re so wet for me, aren’t you?”

“Mmhm.” You focused back on his lapping tongue, feeling the tension build once more. “ ‘M close.”

Jisung quickened his pace, sucking harder and rubbing the tip of his tongue over your mound. You could even feel the little haughty smile on his mouth when your hips jerked up toward him.

As you neared your orgasm, memories fogged your eyes, you let them roll over and over, relishing in how good it had all felt. Suddenly you wanted nothing more than to feel filled up hopelessly deep inside.

“f-fingers” Your whispers begged.

Jisung obliged, sliding his index and ring in to pump in and out of your walls.

Perhaps you had made it up to feel better than it was in your head.

You came a couple minutes after, limbs shaking under his teasing while he helped you ride out your high, tongue still circling around your clit. Shallow inhales filled up your lungs as you calmed your body.

You didn’t remember it feeling like that...you remembered it being...unreal.

Jisung lead kisses up your stomach before giving a couple fleeting kisses to your breast, smug as he always was.

“-Felt good?”

Little aftershocks still tugged at your body. “...As always Ji.”

“Mm. Good.” He beamed widely with the pearly white grin that had drawn you to him in the first place. “I’ve been thinking about this all day.” Jisung tugged his boxers down, letting free his properly hardened member, veiny and tip dripping with his eager pre-cum. “I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

Jisung prowled over your body, stretching out your legs up in front of him.

Your thighs shook in his hands.

“Jisung, wait--”

“--What is it?” Worriedly, his eyes widened looking down at you.

“...can we give it a sec? Can you give me a sec?”

His puzzled expression gave you his answer.

“I just fucking came Ji, can’t you give me a damn minute to settle down before we go at it again?”

His mouth formed a little “oh” then he slid down to lay beside you, brows crossed slightly. “...you’ve never asked for this before.”

“just shut up and kiss me alright?”

Jisung nodded, bridging the gap between your faces and the mess of pillows under your heads.

When Jisung wasn’t trying to fuck you, he was actually a decent kisser. Against your better judgement, there had been times when you would let your mind linger over these kisses that you had wished he had given you more of. His mouth was warm, and tasted slightly of your arousal from before. Jisung’s tongue asked for permission on your bottom lip, which you granted entrance. He leaned himself further into you, moaning breathily into your mouth. Just because you liked how he would whine for you, you pulled at his lip with your teeth.

You don’t know why your eyes had opened, but there it was again. The crack.

How long had it been there?

╚ ——————————————— ╝

“I just can’t believe you, Y/n.”  

Felix’s voiced echoed though the empty alley, your favored shortcut to campus. Dumpsters covered with snow lined the road riddled in potholes. In each hole, melted snow had leaked in to turn to ice once more. Felix had already slipped three times. Both of your arms linked together to make him feel better.

“How many times are you gonna make me apologize? It ended up being fine anyway.”

“When I say to text me when you get back, what are you supposed to do?”

“Text when I get ba-- “

“--Text when you get back!!!” The little puffball on Felix’s hat bounced in his frustration. “You couldn’t even text me to tell me that something had happened? Do you know how nervous I was?”

“Felix, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Does that do it?”

Your adorable companion grimaced at you, unamused. “I just think that I’m more astonished that you actually stayed over. What the hell did he offer to you? Food? Money?”

“Felix!!” You shoved him away from your body in your dramatic shock. “How dare you think that I would stoop that low!”

“...Well...”

“HEY!”

“You know how I feel about Jisung.”

“He’s not Jisung...that’s for sure.”

“You know about them Y/n. You yourself have said that they’re all the same.”

“Cocky, overzealous dickheads who know exactly what to do with their mouths?”

Felix rolled his eyes coupled with an annoyed groan under his breath. “You know that’s not what I mean.” He huffed out his breath into the freezing air. “His presence didn’t nauseate you?”

“I was tired. I honestly don’t remember falling asleep, I only remember waking up before the sun came up and leaving.”

“-Didn’t even say goodbye? See you again? Your phone number?”

“I don’t plan on seeing him again.”

“You don’t?”

“He...looked at me weird.”

Felix let out a flabbergasted pshhhh, which turned into a startled little gasp when his foot caught the ice. As always, you were there to catch his falls.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That he looked at me weird! What the hell else is it supposed to mean?”

“Care to expand?”

It had been four days. Four days that had felt much longer than four days. Four days since he had looked at you like you like you were the only person to ever live and breathe. You knew what was in his eyes. It was something you hadn’t truly felt on your body for a long time.

“You’re perfect.” He had said to you, barely knowing more than your name.

In your lusty haze that night, you had said something about being all his.

You barely knew more than his name.

In the days after when you recalled the whole night, searching for answers to why you had said what you had, no explaination pieced together. You hadn’t belonged to anyone in such a long time, and you certainly didn’t belong to him.

He had asked to know you better, but you kissed the words away on his lips before he could say any more.

Your body shivered placing the memory of his fingers tracing up and down your back as you had studied his features, the two of you still connected.

You turned to your friend, “No. Because there isn’t anything more to talk about. He looked at me weird, and I’d rather not see him again.”

“~Oookay then~” Felix nuzzled into your arm. “You working today? Can you make it Chan’s after? We’re gonna play some Smash and there’s a new DLC!”

“-Can’t make it, I’ve got some projects to work on.”

“School or the other kind?”

“Both. My new paper should be coming today.”

“Suit yourself...but we’ll miss youuuu.” The peppy blonde squeezed hard where he held onto you, only to have his feet fall out from under him on the ice.

You quickly softened his fall, holding his body up before his butt would hit the concrete. “I don’t think that I’m the one that you should be worrying about ‘lix.”

╚ ——————————————— ╝

From your favorite corner of the library, the sun would shine the brightest at sunset, and luckily, often your scheduling would let you see it. Sometimes you liked to think that you owned it in this little corner on the fourth floor. Better yet, it was situated near the stacks of old newspapers and periodicals so seldom did this corner see anyone else other than you.

The shelf was nestled near to one of the floor-length windows which overlooked the skyline. At this time of year nearest to the aftermath of Christmas, the city lights were still peppered with greens, reds, yellows and blues. You thought to yourself that there was nothing more magnificent than the way the sky would fade from the color of blood oranges to the depths of the ocean with the dawn. You had painted it nearly a hundred times, but each time you were left unsatisfied; it was impossible for your hands to recreate something so unique.

Standing this close to the glass, you could feel the winter cold emanating off of it.

“--Beautiful right?”

His voice had startled you, and for a moment you had thought that you had imagined him.

“‘Kinda thing makes me wanna write.”

He walked up right next to you, hands in his pant’s pockets. A billowy looking black hoodie wrapped around his body and his gaudy silver chain peeked from under his collar. You shouldn’t have expected him to look directly at you. He still wouldn’t give you the pleasure until you demanded it.

Silently the two of you stood watching the sun dissipate beyond the horizon for what seemed like hours. Just as you remembered, his massive aura was nearly suffocating. There was something new however: the scent of rosemary and cedarwood which hung around him.

At long last, he muttered, “You didn’t give me a chance to see you off.”

You swallowed dry. “What are you doing here?”

“You gonna answer my question first?” From the corner of his eyes, his stormy pupils teased you.

“You first.” You straightened yourself best you could.

“My roommate goes here. I was looking around for him. Your turn.”

Changbin took his hands out from his pockets to intentionally twist the silver rings around his fingers.

“I work here.” You answered, opting to finesse your way out of answering his question by answering yours.

“Huh. You’re a librarian?” He scoffed out a single laugh. “Why do I find this slightly ironic...considering where we met.”

“I just move stuff around. Ever heard of a part time job?” You clenched out the words between your teeth.

“Oh believe me, I have. Got a few myself. It’s what I get for choosing music over school.”

“How honorable.”

“I’m a man of honor...as you know.” His eyes finally cast down at you.

Frankly, your memory must’ve been shit, because he looked even more unreal than you remembered.  

“Actually, I’m kind of glad that I ran into you here. What a coincidence, huh?”

“--Sure.” You quipped.

Changbin tilted his head with a growing smirk. “Knees feeling better?”

“They’re fine.”

“Good thing that I was there to help you.”

“You don’t have to pretend like you’re talking about my knees Changbin.”

You turned to walk away, only for him to twist himself around into your path.

“You’ve got me.” He rose his arms up in defeat. “Since I didn’t get your number, I didn’t get the chance to tell you--” Changbin’s body mass leaned ever so slightly closer to you, his dark eyes glossing over with that same confidence that he held so naturally. He breathed into your ear, “I really enjoyed our time together.”

His words send a shiver down your entire body that you prayed he didn’t see. You took a hand flat to his chest to remove him from your space.

“D-don’t you have a roommate that you should be finding?”

“Libraries are big places. Plenty of places for me to get lost...”

He advanced again, cupping a hand to the side of your face and rubbing his thumb into the soft of your cheek.

There he was, looking at you again like that. Had it not been addicting, you would have been terribly annoyed by it now.

Changbin tilted his face nearer, his lips just barely grazing over yours. Something about his scent made you feel like you were enchanted.

“Have you been thinking of me as much as I have of you?”

He sucked in a sharp inhale, then sealed your lips with his. He took both sides of your face in his hands, holding on you with such a dire grip it was as if he felt like you would melt into nothing in his hands. Every run of his lips over yours was different from the last; but the way in which he poured himself into it all was the exact same. He used his full weight to push the two of you into the metal shelf, bracing the back of your head so you wouldn’t get hurt. Changbin pressed his body into you fully, nearly engulfing you with his broad chest. There was nothing else in his kisses besides pure, unadulterated desire.

Four days since he had kissed you. Four days that had felt much longer than four days.

Hesitantly, your hands twitched at your sides, deciding to hold him back. You hadn’t noticed, but his own hands had fallen from your face to cascade down your arms to wrap them around him himself. Under the fabric of his hoodie, you could feel every single curved muscle. Before you could explain it, your fingers traversed all around the expanse, drawing in all the pieces that your brain hadn’t thought to commit to memory. The second that you did, he smiled into your mouth.

“So you have.” His husky tone spilled into your ear after he gently broke from your lips.

Changbin moved to kiss at your pulse at your neck, leaving you to tremble under his fluttering movements. Your teeth bit into your lip as to not produce a sound; your fear of someone walking round the corner only made you more anxious and thrilled. He pulled the collar of your sweater down to increase the pressure of his mouth, drawing little whimpers from your throat.

“Changbin, what are you--”

Before he could do any more damage, he pulled back, putting your collar right back in place. Between the two of you, your exasperated little gasps filled the air. Slowly, he run his thumb over your slightly swollen lips.

“I meant it, I’d like to get to know you more.” He swept your hair back with a couple fingers.

“I was planning on not seeing you again.” You gathered up your will again.

Changbin tsked, “That wasn’t how you kiss someone you don’t want to see again.”

You pulled his hands from off your face. “I should be going. And you should too.”

“You’re unbelievable.” He scoffed with disbelief.

You really were. Just from kissing him, you had felt how inexplicably wet you had become. Every part of your body ached for just a little more, and you could have it. But you wouldn’t let yourself. He didn’t own you.

“Need me to show you to the stairs?”

“No.” He spat out the word. “Don’t walk away from this.”

“Who are you to tell me what to do?”

“I thought that I just made myself pretty damn clear.”

“--As did I.”

“No, you didn’t.”

Changbin strode up to you, the little thin chain on his pants swaying.

“Give me your number.” He said in earnest. For once, you saw his confidence falter.

“I said, I don’t plan on seeing you again.”

“--Then I’ll give you mine. You don’t even have to use it and I can’t reach out to you, how’s that?”

“You’re acting like I’ll want to.”

He exhaled out cooly, “Why the hell else would you kiss me like that?”

Why did you kiss him like that?

You reached out from your back pocket to slide out your phone. “Don’t expect anything. I’ll probably just delete it after long.”

He typed in the numbers, then grinned, announcing, “I doubt that.” Once done, he pulled your collar back up just a little bit higher to fix how it had become askew on your frame.

He sighed with finality, toying with his rings once more. “I think that I’ve been lost in here long enough.”

╚ ——————————————— ╝

[01:47]

han jisung: are you doing anything right now?

Your pencil clicked down to your desk with a wooden little thunk. The state of your room was a mess; not like he would have cared. Back at your desk, you glanced down at your unfinished sketch and the scattering of watercolor paintbrushes and paints. During the late hours of the night, your brain would get hazy, and your inhibitions would likely smear like the little pools of blue watercolor accidently spilled on your desktop.

Your tired fingers typed out the word “no.”

Outside of your tiny window dusty with age, you could still see a bit of the twinkling of lights on the cityscape. During the night, they looked like a rainbow of stars reflected upon the night’s ocean.

Your tired fingers deleted the word “no”, then opened a new message. For a moment, you hovered over the keyboard.

[01:49] CB

You really were unbelievable.

me: are you doing anything right now?

#ahhhh i have utterly fallen in love with this concept #and this changbin holy heck #feedback is always appreciated too 💕 #stray kids #stray kids smut #skz #skz smut #stray kids imagines #seo changbin #changbin smut #seo changbin smut #han jisung #jisung smut #han jisung smut #changbin x y/n #changbin x reader #jisung x y/n #jisung x reader #changbin x female reader #jisung x female reader #stray kids oneshots #stray kids imagine #stray kids drabbles #kpop smut #kpop imagines #kpop oneshots #kpop drabbles #lee felix #stray kids angst

[bleachbleachbleach]

Soul Society tattoo culture

These thoughts are inspired by @anza-redstar and @recurring-polynya's post about Hisana and SS’s tattoo culture, which I think is just fabulous.

I was thinking about this with Akon and like, whether the horns are something he grew into organically as a certain type of soul or whether it was a conscious body mod and if it’s the latter is Akon the guy everyone else goes to for all their body mod/fashion consults, because IF SO I am VERY into that!!

I do not know much about tattoos inside or outside of the Japanese context, but it did make me think about Okinawan hajichi and Ainu tattoo practices, which have come up in discussion at my work recently. This is something I’m still learning about, and I feel weird about bringing these topics into a headcanon about manga, even fleetingly, because the real-world conversations are very much about historical and ongoing Indigenous oppression, genocide, and cultural erasure. So I’ll just leave that at links to information, because I think the topic is important and definitely worth checking out! And say that it inspired me to think about how many tattoo cultures exist in Japan and where the contemporary taboo against tattoos/association with yakuza came from.

PRINT CULTURE

In addition to evergreen histories of violent colonization, it turns out that the Edo period was a big turning point in terms of tattooing in Japan. It was simultaneously the point at which modern tattooing developed in Japan as well as the period in which laws outlawing it started getting passed. (Of course!) Apparently the rise in modern tattooing was partially inspired by the development of woodblock printing, which showed tattooed heroes and began integrating these visuals into the popular culture, which is interesting to think about in the context of SS because I imagine these were also crucial in popularizing the practice in SS, too, since they are participants in cultural flows with the living realm (perhaps an even greater capacity back then than when Bleach takes place, given that mainstream belief in the existence of youkai in the living realm at that point would have been stronger). I would bet money on shinigami having also developed their own tattoo culture in-house, but I love the idea of there being critical interplay there, too!

WHO ENDED UP IN POWER?

Anyway, like the outlawing of most practices, in living-realm Edo it comes down to control (and a desire to "appear civilized" to other powers/to avoid their own colonization). The Tumblr post that inspired this one mentioned that most of the tattoos etc. we see are from shinigami, often noble families, rather than commoners, so it definitely seems like SS’s cultural history has unfolded as the reverse: There’s a sense of it being a high-end practice in SS/Seireitei (like it is in many cultures in our world too!), whether by birth or by virtue of high standing as a Gotei 13 officer. Perhaps the element of control exists in who is allowed to be tattooed, instead. Inasmuch as SS is modeled off the Edo period and inasmuch as its system of government reflects that, maybe it’s also a historical alternative in terms of who has ended up in power at the end of the violent pre-SS/Seireitei history that Yamamoto/Unohana/Kyouraku/Ukitake have alluded to.

It also makes me wonder whether these social mores would have been different, or would have changed, had their various dust-ups with other communities (i.e. the Quincy) gone differently. I remember like four things about TYBW, two of them are Rukia’s bankai, and none of them are about why anything happened or what the Wandenreich is, so CAN’T SAY MUCH BEYOND THAT UNTIL I FINISH MY RE-READ, but.

INDIVIDUALITY FOR WHOM?

The Seireitei seems to like order and uniformity at least to some degree (Yamamoto loves him some uniforms). But I imagine zanpakutou being so central to their society would definitely impact how they thought about these things, given how incredibly individual that relationship and its physical manifestation gets in its highest forms. (I mean, to bring in movie canon, if we’re willing to execute Kusaka because it is SACRILEGE to glitch and have the same zanpakutou as someone else, LOL, I guess individuality has to be somewhat important. Because like, my dudes, anyone who can summon shikai seems like someone you want to keep! There aren’t that many of you! You need all the help you can get!) Do you get to be individual if you’re not seated, or is that a privilege you have to earn? Do cannon fodder shinigami dream of the day they, too, might get to relish in the bold act of braiding their hair? Does Komamura still consider himself undeserving of such a privilege, hence the helmet? (Because god knows he is easily one of the most normal out of all this weirdo coworkers... Like Matsumoto implied, he needn’t have worried about standing out.)

This probably needs to be its own post, but I’m also interested in general about shinigami and their relationship to their bodies, which are clearly still important but also like… can’t possibly be the same relationship that regular humans have to theirs. Bringing reiryoku into one’s bodily conception (centering it, even) affords so many cool/interesting potentials! (As always please feel free to share your own hcs on this!)

#akon #bleach sociology #bleach headcanons #not a historian of japan #nor of tattoos #though LOL one time my sister suggested we all get a tattoo to honor the memory of my (japanese) grandmother #and i was like YOU GOOF i cannot imagine something she would be less proud of #she doesn't even like ear piercings! #both my sisters are tattooed though #just not with my grandma's handwriting #....yet

[latte-fairytaekwoon]

Ateez: GF Having PMS

PMS: Pre-menstrual syndrome. Aka, those 1-2 weeks before a girl gets her period, they have symptoms like acne, bloating, cramps, food cravings, fatigue, increased sexual libido, mood swings, tender breasts and irritability among other things. It's not actually when you are on your period, for those of you who don't know. Also girls: it's totally normal and don't feel bad about any of these symptoms or talking about them ♡♡♡♡

Kim Hongjoong:

Hongjoong didn't know what was going on with you. One minute you're happy and wanting to cuddle, and then a minute later you're mad for no reason. It was making him angry honestly. You two have been dating for almost a month, he thought you were past the push and pull game already.

"What is wrong with you Y/N?!" He blurted out one day when your mood swings were too much.

He felt really bad when you started crying though.

"I'm sorry... it's not your fault. I get like this when I'm PMSing and I don't even notice...I'm sorry." You said while wiping tears out of your face.

Now it clicked in his brain and he felt even more bad. Carefully he sat down next to you and rubbed your back.

"Hey it's ok, don't worry. I didn't mean to raise my voice at you, so I'm sorry for that."

He pulled you into a hug and just held you there till you stopped crying.

"Better now?" He asked once you calmed down to which you nodded.

"Good. Now do you wanna go get ice cream?"

He got better at dealing with your mood swings every time they happened. He learned to back off when you were irritated and to hold you when you were sad.

Park Seonghwa:

Technically you weren't on your period, but for some reason you only got cramps during PMS and they were horrible.

All Seonghwa heard was "cramps" and he was very much on it. He ran out the door to the nearest store, bought a heating pad, bought chamomile tea to make for you, ibuprofen for the pain and even picked up a cute teddy bear for you.

So then Seonghwa handed you the bear while he placed the the heating pad on your tummy and gave you a glass of water for you to take one of the pills. The tea was already being brewed in the kitchen. Making sure it wasn't too hot to burn you, he took it to you and insisted on helping you sip on it.

"Are you feeling any better?" He asked you with a lot of tenderness.

You nodded and smiled at him. "Yes I am. Thank you, you're the perfect boyfriend."

You asked him to cuddle with you, which he was happy to oblige. However he made sure not to squeeze you too hard, worried that he might accidentally put pressure on your tummy and make your cramps worse.

Jeong Yunho:

You were fatigued, just laying on your bed, blankets covering you. It was well past 11 a.m and you still didn't feel the energy to get up. Your plan was to lay in bed for the whole day, or if you had to get up, do very minimal activity.

Suddenly a loud door slamming open and a loud:

"Honey! I'm home!!"

Yunho's energetic voice resonated through the house.

"Baby?! Where are you?!" He asked loudly.

You groaned, unable to even tell him where you were.

"There you are! So I got the day off and I thought we could- is something wrong?" He was worried when he saw your low state.

"I'm just really tired that's all. I don't feel like getting out of bed." You responded.

He was really worried though, wondering if you were sick or something. That's when you explained you just had fatigue due to PMS and just wanted rest.

"I'm sorry we can't go out like you wanted to."

"No! It's ok. We can just stay indoors and watch movies all day long. I'm always in a cuddling mood you know." He said as he joined you on the bed and wrapped his arms around you.

Kang Yeosang:

Movie nights with your boyfriend were a regular occurrence. You guys rarely payed attention to the movie, you both ended up talking very comfortably to each other. This particular night, your PMS symptom of tender breasts was acting up more than normal. Usually, you could go about your day without it bothering you, tonight it was too much though. And unconsciously your hands went in your shirt, kneading at them.

"Uh.....what are you doing?" Yeosang's voice snapped you back to reality.

"Oh.....my boobs are sore." You simply answered.

Yeosang just nodded like he understood and just looked back at the tv as he sipped on his apple juice. Wanting to mess with him a bit, you asked:

"Want to help me out?"

The juice box suddenly flattened as he sucked in all of the juice, flustered at your question. He looked at you with a look that asked "seriously?" You simply pouted at him.

"Ok." He shrugged and put his juice down.

"Wait what?" It was now your turn to be flustered.

Choi San:

Days leading up to your period were super annoying. Not only did you get killer headaches randomly, but your body decides to bloat out of nowhere and so the jeans that fit you perfectly yesterday now couldn't zip up.

"Oh fuck off!" You huffed out when the zipper ended up breaking from you pulling on it so much.

"I didn't even do anything??" San's voice from the bedroom reminded you that you weren't alone.

"Not you! I was talking about my jeans!" You explained.

"Why what's wrong?" He asked.

"They don't fit and the zipper broke." You whined.

San came inside the bathroom, seeing what the problem was.

"They fit fine yesterday?" He was confused about what happened.

And so a mini lesson on your body changes during PMS ensued. San ate up all the information for next time.

"Why don't I just buy you stretchy pants so you're more comfortable?" He suggested.

"Aww that's so nice of you." You awed at his kind gesture.

"But between you and me, I'd rather have you with no pants on." He winked at you.

You grabbed a towel and threw it at him.

"Choi San! Now you fuck off!"

Song Mingi:

You were avoiding seeing your boyfriend for the past 2 days, feeling embarrassing about the tiny breakouts that popped out on your cheeks. You didn't like looking at them and hated if anyone saw you like that. But Mingi was clingy and couldn't go one day without seeing you and so one day you were startled when he tapped on your bedroom window and then proceeded to crawl his way in.

"What are you doing here?!" You screeched as you covered your face with the blanket.

"I needed to make sure you weren't dead or kidnapped!" He responded as he got up from the floor.

He looked at your weird position and asked what it was about, and you refused to answer. Mingi just strode over to you and pulled the blanket off you.

"Don't! I look horrible!" You tried reaching for something else to cover up.

"You look fine. What are you talking about?" He was genuine confused what you meant.

"No I don't! Look at this! Stupid breakouts! I hate it!" You crossed your arms and looked down.

Mingi's heart dropped at your words.

"Honey listen.." He sat down next to you and held your hand. "Those things are totally normal. Everyone gets them once in a while, so don't feel bad. You're still beautiful no matter what."

He smiled brightly at you, hoping to cheer you up. You smiled back and didn't feel so self conscious about it anymore.

Jung Wooyoung:

Wooyoung honestly loved annoying you with his love. Usually you were very patient with him, except when you were PMSing, then you were irritable almost every day and had no patience for anyone, including him. If you think that'd stop him and leave you alone, you're wrong. That's when he likes annoying you the most. He thinks you look like cute whenever you yell at him to stop or to leave you alone.

"Who's the cutest kitten here?" He said in a sing song voice as he ruffled your hair.

"Stooop!" You whined out, getting annoyed.

"Oooh feisty kitten! Maybe if I tickle your-"

"Noooo!" You moved away from him when he tried to touch your face.

"Y/N baby.." He continued.

"Go away!" You swatted his hand away and marched to the bathroom to cool off for a little bit.

Wooyoung laughed at you stomping away in annoyance.

"One day she might actually kill you." Yeosang pointed out.

"Nah she won't, she loves me too much. Besides, isn't she hot when she's angry?" Wooyoung said.

"I seriously hold onto my theory that you're a masochist and a weirdo." Yeosang shook his head.

Choi Jongho:

Honestly you felt blessed that your only PMS symptom was weird cravings that turned you into a foodie. You had heard horror stories from your friends about how their PMS was unbearable, so you considered yourself lucky. In fact, sometimes you even forgot it was a PMS symptom.

Jongho never noticed anything unusual about your cravings, thinking you were hungry or something, until you pulled out a really weird combination that seemed to last days.

"You're eating that again?" He asked as he stared at the food in front of you.

"Yeah. I've been really craving it recently."

Jongho's heart stopped for a moment, panic rushing through him.

"Oh my God! I think I got you pregnant!" He exclaimed, his hands going to his head.

You bursted out laughing at that.

"What? No you didn't you silly goose." It was so amusing to you that he came to that conclusion.

"Then how else do you explain it?!" You honestly felt bad at how he was freaking out.

Pulling out a chair, you gestured for him to sit on it.

"Make yourself comfortable Jongho. Time for a little biology lesson."

Gifs not mine, credit goes to their respective owners.

#ateez #ateez reactions #ateez hongjoong #ateez seonghwa #ateez yunho #ateez yeosang #ateez san #ateez mingi #ateez wooyoung #ateez jongho #ateez scenarios #ateez imagines

[useyourtelescope]

fic writer interview

I was tagged by @burninghoneyatdusk @andromedabennet and @mylifeiskara & @arysafics - thank you! 💕

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

I have 58 (15 of which were added this year!).

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

715692 - though about 40% of that is just from my 3 longest fics. 

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

My AO3 page lists 27 fandom tags so I’m just going to list a few, rather all 😂

The fandom I have the most AO3 fics for by far is T100/Bellarke with 22 fics posted for them. Tied in 2nd place are Brooklyn Nine Nine (Jake/Amy + some genfic) and Sanditon (Charlotte/Stringer) with 6 fics.

My current active WIP is a Polin work for Bridgerton and the fandom I most recently started writing for is the Nancy Drew CW show, as I just posted my first Nace fic last week.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Unsurprisingly these are all Bellarke, mostly older stuff with the top 3 being my longest fics.

#1 If The Right One Came Along [modern AU, celebrity!Bellamy, librarian!Clarke, old friends turned FWB, 80k]

#2 The Wonderful Mess We Made [arrowverse-esque superhero AU, superhero!Clarke, lawyer!Bellamy, WIP] 

#3 Hearts Are Only Strangers After All [historical, magic and mystery AU where Bellarke are in a marriage of convenience, 88k]

#4 Intimacy [historical regency period AU, arranged marriage, 8k]

#5 birds of a feather [modern AU, clothes sharing, 6k]

I do have to give an honourable mention to my Bridgerton-Polin fic Slow Hands though, which is in 6th place by the tiniest margin. This came as a big surprise to me since BOAF was posted way back in February 2015 and SH has only been up since March 2021!

5. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Yes, I do most of the time. I really enjoy responding to comments, especially when people have taken the time to pick out different aspects of the fic or throw out some theories to what happens next, it’s fun to discuss those things with them - without giving away spoilers of course!

There have been a couple of times in the past in between hiatuses from writing when I felt like maybe I’d left some comments so long it might seem weird to get a response so I have left some of those without responding. Otherwise it’s usually only if comments are odd or rude then I don’t respond - and if it’s very rude I just delete them.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I’m much more of an angst with a happy ending person. Delicate (a Clarke-centric/Bellarke modern AU that’s about her becoming isolated from her friend group) is probably the angstiest thing I’ve written in recent years, but that still had a positive ending. 

That said, I do remember writing a couple of fics pre-AO3, that did have angsty endings. The angistest of those is probably a little piece I wrote for the BBC Robin Hood show looking at the characters post s2 (and I fully blame the canon for the angsty feels in that one). 

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

A few years ago I wrote a crossover fic called The Sculpture, which was for Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Parks and Recreation. It was a one-shot, my idea being what if the squad at the 99 had to deal with Ron and Tammy II’s hijinks (as per the Parks and Rec 3.04 ep). The summary was this quote from the fic:

"Rosa, Jake, you’ll be taking the case. You need to discover if their apparent insatiable sexual chemistry is merely a smokescreen to distract us from the details of the theft, or if…”

“They’re just total horndogs?” Jake supplied.

“Yes, exactly.”

It has some of my lowest stats but I laughed a lot while writing that fic and it made me realise I could write more B99 shenanigans fics so no regrets. 😊

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not quite hate, but I have received some rude comments. As per #5 I tend to just delete them rather than engage, though I was quite tempted to reply to a recent particularly rude one on my current Polin WIP, If I Ever Dared. However, some nice readers had already replied and said what I was thinking so I didn’t have to.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes, though it’s a smaller percentage of my writing - on AO3 I have 8 Explicit fics and 4 Mature ones. The fics are probably evenly split between ones where the smut is more of an addition to a plot-focused story and ones where it’s just about the smut, written for kink memes and such. 

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I had the same thing as Sam in that someone took one of my Bellarke fics and changed the names to suit another fandom and posted it on asianfanfics.com. (Not a website I’d heard of before so thanks to the reader who noticed and messaged me about it!) The person had done it with a bunch of other people’s fics too but the account was removed after being reported. The thing I found most weird was that in their author notes the person was freely saying they hadn’t written it but instead claiming they had ‘converted’ the fics and therefore seemed to think what they were doing was okay! I’m hoping there aren’t a lot of people out there who have the same idea.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have not. When I get a fic idea I usually have a very specific way I want it to go so I can’t imagine feeling comfortable co-writing something like that - however, I do think it might be an interesting experiment/writing exercise with things I’m not as sure about or less attached to. (Not that I have time for experimentation until I get my prompts done lol.)

13. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Ahh honestly I can’t just pick one. If this is purely based on the quantity of stories I’ve written for a ship then there’s a clear answer, but I get different things out of writing different ships and storylines - and there’s plenty of ships that I love and have never written for as well.

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

So neither of these are posted WIPs but in 2019 & 2020 I started writing two fics: a) T100-Bellarke modern AU secret relationship/co-worker and b) Sanditon-Charlotte/Stringer regency AU take on FWB (I guess secret relationship also applies here lol). 

I had them both planned out plus a lot of key scenes written and I still really love the ideas for the fics but I don’t know that I have the energy to write fics as long as these would have been anymore. Tbh they’re both so AU from the original canons that I have been toying with the idea of reworking what I’ve already written into some shorter original pieces just for myself but that’s something to think about next year.

As for posted fics I never like to leave things unfinished if I’ve started sharing them, but I have had to start thinking about the likelihood of me finishing my Bellarke WIPs on AO3 after I’m done with my prompts and tbh I’m not sure! Some were just one short chapter so I’m not that attached to them and I don’t think anyone would notice, but I would really like to finish TWMWM as I posted so much of it already. I do have a pretty detailed outline for the rest of it as well, but the plans were made well before the last few seasons of the show soured my feelings about some of the supporting characters/dynamics in the fic, so I have to decide whether a) I follow through with the original plans and deal with writing more for characters/friendships I’m so-so about now, b) come up with a new plan for it that still works with everything that’s already happens and gets to the Bellarke ending I’m still attached to, or c) leave it unfinished. This is very definitely a problem for next year!

15. What are your writing strengths?

I like writing dialogue, that usually flows quite easily for me. And I also like to think that I’m good at comedy as well as foreshadowing the big moments in medium/longer fics.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

I’ve always struggled with description, which is why I find fanfic much easier to get started with because everyone knows what the characters and canon locations look like, their backstories, etc. I also sometimes read fics where I feel like the authors phrase things really beautifully, almost lyrically even, and I don’t know how to do that. I feel like my style/phrasing, particularly in modern fics, is quite basic.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I’ve never done it myself. I like it if the translation is included or if the lack of translation is intentional (e.g. both the reader and certain characters don’t know the information and it’s important to the story) but if you’re just supposed to know what it is/you have to go looking somewhere for what the dialogue means it can take me out of the fic. 

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

On AO3 it was a one-shot for the show Life as part of the Yuletide small fandoms exchange. In general it was for the old Roswell show, back when that was still on the air but the less said about that fic the better 😂

19. What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

This changes a lot, depending on my mood, so I’m going to pick one Bellarke and then one overall.

For Bellarke it’s my Regency slowburn/prank wars AU It Had To Be You - I had a very up and down relationship with this fic partly because I worked on it for a year and partly from lack of response, but enough time has passed now that I can be genuinely happy with what I wrote and ignore the stats.

Overall, atm I’m coming back to Borrow My Heart, my Sanditon-Charlotte/Stringer regency fake engagement fic. It was just such an indulgence of my fave tropes, which is probably why it is the fic of mine I enjoy re-reading the most. 💕

——

Tagging/saying hi: @carrieeve @bookwormforalways @excuseyouclarke @sparklyfairymira @writetheniteaway @fericita-s @jake-amy

#tag games #writer memes #useyourtelescopefic #long post

[letterboxd]

Savage Cinema.

From anarchists and adultery to milk baths and massacres, Matthew Turner shares five of the weirdest and wildest highlights of Hollywood’s pre-Code era, as #PreCodeApril comes to a close.

Pre-Code April was directly inspired by Noirvember, a month-long celebration of noir cinema instigated by Marya Gates (Oldfilmsflicker). I did Noirvember for the first time in November 2019, really enjoyed it, and thought it would be great to do the same thing for pre-Code movies. Although I’ve watched most of the classic 1930s films, I realised there were a huge number of pre-Code films I’d never seen (of my Letterboxd list of over 900 Pre-Code films, I have only seen 200).

As a sucker for a bit of wordplay, no matter how tenuous, I picked April partly because it’s six months away from Noirvember and partly because of the shared “pr” sound in April and Pre-Code. I’ve been absolutely delighted by the response—the #PreCodeApril hashtag on Twitter is a daily treasure trove of pre-Code-related joy, but I was genuinely thrilled to see the response on Letterboxd (here is my watchlist for the month). It’s been a real pleasure to see pre-Code movies constantly popping up in my ‘new from friends’ feed. My hope is that it’ll be even bigger next year—and that maybe TCM will want to get involved, the way they do with Noirvember.

Produced between 1929 and 1934, pre-Code cinema refers to films made in a brief period between the silent era, and Hollywood beginning to enforce the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines (mandatory enforcement came in from July 1934). The “Code” in question was popularly known as the Hays Code, after then MPPDA president Will H. Hays. As the depression set in and box office declined, theater owners needed fare that would drive cinema-goers to the movies. It was a wild time to be a scriptwriter; they threw everything at the page, designers added even more, and actors played out the kinds of scenes, from the suggestive to the overt, that would otherwise be banned for decades to come.

The following five films demonstrate some of Hollywood’s craziest pre-Code excesses. They’re still jaw-dropping, even by today’s standards, and notably give female characters an agency that would be later denied as the Christian morals of the Code overruled writers’ kinks.

Madam Satan (1930) Directed by Cecil B. DeMille, written by Elsie Janis, Jeanie Macpherson and Gladys Unger

A critical and commercial flop in 1930, Cecil B. DeMille’s utterly insane musical comedy stars Kay Johnson as a straight-laced wife who plots to win back her unfaithful husband (Reginald Denny) by seducing him at a costume party, disguised as a mysterious devil woman. The location of this party? Oh, nothing too fancy, just on board a giant zeppelin. (“Madam Satan or: How the Film gets Fucking Crazy on the Blimp,” as Ryan reviewed it.)

Madam Satan is not by any stretch of the imagination a good movie (the editing alone is laughably bad), but as a piece of pre-Code craziness, it really has to be seen to be believed. Co-written by a trio of women and set in just three locations, it goes from racy bedroom farce to avant-garde musical to full-on disaster movie after a bolt of lightning hits the blimp.

The film is justly celebrated (in camp classic circles, at least) for the wildly over-the-top costumes paraded in the masquerade ball sequence, but there’s weird outfit joy everywhere you look. Keep an eye out for an enterprising extra who’s come dressed as a set of triplets.

Call Her Savage (1932) Directed by John Francis Dillon, written by Tiffany Thayer and Edwin J. Burke

Adapted from a salacious novel by Tiffany Thayer, Call Her Savage was former silent star Clara Bow’s second-to-last film before her retirement at the age of 28. She plays Texas gal Nasa Springer, who’s always had a “savage” temper she can’t explain. In the space of 88 minutes she goes from wild teenager to jilted newlywed to young mother to prostitute to wealthy society girl to alcoholic before finally (it’s implied) settling down with her Native-American friend after discovering that she’s half-Native-American, something the audience has known all along.

Bow’s performance is frankly astonishing, to the point where you simply can’t believe what you’re seeing from one moment to the next. Sample scenes see her savagely whipping both a snake and her Indian friend, smashing a guitar over a musician’s head and violently wrestling her Great Dane… and that’s all in the first five minutes. She’s also frequently in a state of near undress throughout—one funny scene has her maids chasing her with a dressing gown because they’re afraid she’ll run down the street in her négligée.

The rest of the film includes alcohol, adultery, strong violence, attempted rape, murder, syphilis (not named, but heavily implied) and baby death. It’s a veritable smorgasbord of outrageous content and Bow is pure dynamite throughout. The film is also noted for being one of the first on-screen portrayals of homosexuality, when Nasa visits a gay bar in the Village frequented by “wild poets and anarchists”.

Smarty (1934) Directed by Robert Florey, written by Carl Erickson and F. Hugh Herbert

This deeply problematic sex comedy features pre-Code stars Joan Blondell and Warren William (often nicknamed ‘The King of Pre-Code’) at their absolute filthiest. Blondell plays Vicki, a capricious, happily married wife who gets an obvious kick out of taunting her husband, Tony (William). When he cracks and slaps her at a party, she divorces him and marries her lawyer, Vernon (Edward Everett Horton), whom she also goads into slapping her in a deliberate ploy to win back Tony.

Essentially, Smarty hinges on Vicki liking rough sex and it’s completely blatant about it, ending with her sighing “Hit me again” (the film’s UK title!) as they sink into a clinch on a couch, a rapturous expression on her face. It’s a controversial film because on the surface it looks like it’s condoning domestic violence, but it’s very clearly about Vicki’s openly expressed sexual desires—she wants to be punished and dominated, she just has a rather dodgy way of getting what she wants.

It might be unsophisticated, but in some ways Smarty is remarkably ahead of its time and ripe for rediscovery. To that end, it would make a fascinating double bill with Stephen Shainberg’s Secretary (2002). Oh, and it’s also chock-full of lingerie scenes (like most pre-Code films), if you like that sort of thing.

Massacre (1934) Directed by Alan Crosland, written by Sheridan Gibney, Ralph Block and Robert Gessner

Several pre-Code films (notably those made by Warner Bros) took a no-punches-pulled approach to their depiction of social issues, and star Richard Barthelmess actively sought out such projects. Here he plays Joe Thunderhorse, a Native American who’s become famous on the rodeo circuit. When he returns to his tribe to bury his father, he ends up fighting for their rights, taking on corrupt government officials and religious authorities.

Massacre is fascinating because on the one hand it’s wildly insensitive—Barthelmess and co-star Ann Dvorak are both cast as Native Americans—but on the other, it burns with a righteous fury and does more than any other Hollywood film (before or since) to champion the rights and highlight the injustices dealt out to Native Americans. That fury is encapsulated in a horrifying and rightly upsetting rape scene (it happens off-screen, but the cuts leave you in no doubt) that the film handles with surprising sensitivity.

In addition to being a passionate fight against racism and social injustice, the film also has some genuinely shocking sexual content. Most notably, Joe is seen making love to a rich white woman (Claire Dodd, who’s also in Smarty) who has an obvious sexual fetish, flaunting him in front of her friends and making a shrine in her room with Native-American paraphernalia.

The Sign of the Cross (1932) Directed by Cecil B. DeMille, written by Waldemar Young and Sidney Buchman

Yes, this is Cecil B. DeMille again, but no list of weird and wild pre-Code films would be complete without the jaw-dropping ancient Rome epic, The Sign of the Cross. Adapted from an 1895 play by Wilson Barrett, it stars Frederic March as Marcus Superbus (stop sniggering at the back there), who’s torn between his loyalty to Emperor Nero (Charles Laughton) and his love for a Christian woman (Elissa Landi), while also fending off the advances of the Emperor’s wife, Poppaea (Claudette Colbert).

The film is racy enough in its sexual content alone: highlights include the famous scene of Claudette Colbert taking a nude milk bath and an erotic “lesbian” dance sequence, where Joyzelle Joyner’s “most wicked and talented woman in Rome” does ‘The Dance of the Naked Moon’ at Frederic March’s orgy, trying to tempt Landi’s virtuous Christian, to the obvious arousal of the gathered guests.

However, it’s the climactic gladiatorial-arena sequence that will leave your jaw on the floor. Lasting around twelve minutes, it includes: someone getting eaten by a tiger, a tied-up, naked women being approached by hungry crocodiles, pygmies getting chopped up by female barbarians, elephants stomping on heads, a gorilla approaching a naked woman tied to a stake, a man getting gored by a bull, and gladiators fighting to the death, complete with blood and gory injury detail.

The whole thing is genuinely horrifying, even for 2021. Best of all, DeMille pointedly critiques the audience (ourselves included), by showing a series of reaction shots ranging from intense enjoyment to abject seen-it-all-before boredom.

Matthew Turner (FilmFan1971) is a critic, author, podcaster and lifelong film fanatic. His favorite film is ‘Vertigo’. The films in this article are also listed here: Five of the Pre-Code Era’s Most Outrageous Films.

#preCodeApril #pre code april #precode april #hays code #mppa code #cecil b demille #clara bow #matthew turner #letterboxd #1930s films #1920s films #depression films