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soul-dwelling · 1 year

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Man, maybe its just confirmation bias because I heard this take many times, but yeah, rereading the manga fully for the first time really makes it seem that after the baba yaga arc the whole thing kinda lost steam, with chapters just meandering about, charachters getting introduced while being boring, established charachters just turning into evil caricatures (Justin, Crona) and the good guys just being kinda anoying and acting like unlikable brats.

I mean, if you’re re-engaging with the same work more than once, you’re bound to find details that you scrutinize more. I hope my negativity isn’t leading to confirmation bias, and I hope on re-reading you find details that you appreciate more that can balance out what new stuff you’re finding that you’re scrutinizing more.

The post-Baba Yaga era is a bit of a story reboot--without going far enough. We start strong with showing Soul’s new power set, setting up an opponent in Gopher, teasing out the mystery of why Justin turned and what Noah is up to and why he wants Giriko. We show what the other students are up to, including Black Star looking for Crona, and the Thompsons and Team B looking for Medusa…

…and then things kind of feel like missed opportunities.

It’s not all bad, but some things fall apart.

Soul is a Death Scythe, he and Maka have to learn a new balance in their relationship when it comes to the form of the Grigori wings. And while flying is cool, how many times did we really see it between the Gopher fight and the Moon arc? Flying wasn’t as integral to, say, the Book of Eibon arc or the Black Blood Bubbles arc. It’s not that these arcs needed to have flight--but we don’t even get just action panels showing Maka flying to destinations?

(The revelation that Maka has a Grigori soul and what that means going down the line also feels like it is swept away. It’s neat trivia and worldbuilding, but it isn’t explored much. It feels like a logical tie-in to finally bring Maka’s mother into the story--except, first, it doesn’t seem like Maka’s mother had the Grigori soul either, so, second, she would just end up repeating the info dump we already got from Spirit and others.)

The mystery of what Noah is up to collapses once you learn he is an extension of the Book of Eibon. I think it could have been saved if the Book had a bigger victory over Asura at some point in the final arc, but it didn’t pan out that way.

Giriko’s story ends in a fitting way.

Justin’s story collapses on its own, until you put it into context with Fire Force to read Justin’s character arc as much as an indictment against organized religion and fanaticism as it within Soul Eater a reflection on how isolation and unquestioning faith are bad things.

(This is a whole other tangent as to how Justin’s story does and doesn’t work, seeing as we don’t get a sense that anyone really cared to intervene in Justin’s isolation--perhaps because they didn’t notice?--and not even some regret on the part of others for not seeing the signs earlier--you would think, with how smart Azusa and Stein are presented to be, that you’d hear far louder regret from one of them at this screw up.)

Black Star and the others finds Crona and Medusa’s clowns…and then they disappear again. Cool action scenes, new powers unlocked--but just kind of happens. It makes me think you could have combined this part with the last arc of the manga and have a faster pace that would make the developments more impactful on the reader. Instead, you wait until the Black Blood Blood arc to get back to Crona and Medusa, just to have Crona kill Medusa and wrap up this narrative.

Maybe I’d push back against saying the new characters introduced are a bit boring, or that the good guys become annoying and unlikable.

I think there is lacking potential in some new characters. Tezca and Enrique should be hilarious--but we rarely get to see them outside of some brief interactions. Show us some weirdness, like how the DWMA reacts to Enrique running around; we got some of that with Free commenting on him to Eruka, but that’s about it. Tezca is a fan favorite because of his design and limited background information on him--and he’s funny, but we get so little of him. Does anyone remember the name of the person who made the airship to the Moon, Gen? He was here for a corny pun on “ecchi” and that was about it.

And I actually like the good guys being a little annoying and unlikable. There’s the debate about whether what Lord Death is doing is right--it’s underdeveloped, but it’s a worthwhile question, one that should have been explored more so that his death and his faith in Kid hits harder. Maka being indecisive about what to do about Crona is earned and is a legitimate debate, one that opens up her teammates to debate as well, finally giving some of them some personality, including making Harvar a hardass and, yeah, unlikable, which is the point, to add some conflict to the story. It’s a little late to do more with Harvar (he and Jackie are sidelined in Baba Yaga, and that arc also reduces Ox and Kim’s conflict to a love confession--not bad, especially how Ox sees good in Kim, but kind of limited).

#long post

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amplesalty · 2 years

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Halloween 2022 - Day 11 - The Greasy Strangler (2016)

Grease me up, woman!

Well, we’re into another ‘The’ cycle already but I felt obliged to do this as a sort of partner piece following C.H.U.D yesterday. This right here is a goddamn evocative name that leaps off the screen and demands you watch it. How could you possibly not want to watch a movie called The Greasy Strangler? It’s just such a fanstastic adjective, especially in this context. Normally killer names are very boring, it’s always just [INSERT PLACE NAME HERE] Killer, like The Boston Strangler. But The Greasy Strangler? Why, that’s one of the best names I’ve ever heard. It inspires all these images in your head and raises so many questions. Why are they considered greasy? Is it a hair thing, like a 1950’s throwback? Do they use the grease in some way to kill their victims? Or are they covered in grease themselves? Wouldn’t grease be counterproductive to the act of strangling someone?

Unfortunately, this is very much a case of not judging a book by its cover but in sort of the opposite way. Normally that phrase means to underestimate something this is a case of overestimating. It strikes me very much as a ‘Marmite’ kind of film; either you love it or hate it, where I’m in the latter. It’s one of those comedies that revels in the awkward, pushing a joke to its timing peak and then lingering on the joke, sticking it with it long past the point where they could have cut away and just letting it carry on. In my head I had the comparison in mind of something like Napoleon Dynamite, only like 10x weirder.

And it’s not just limited to the dialogue, the majority of the movie seems to play out with the these two older dudes just hanging out in their underpants or even nothing at all meaning you get multiple views of fake dongs in extreme sizes, either anatomically correct horse schlongs or micro phalluses. At least the female love interest for our main character, Brayden, gets her muff out which has a big, bushy merkin thing going on so at least there’s some parity on display and both male and female viewers get some titillation. Probably not anything I can show on this website though, they weren’t happy that one time I tried to show Buffalo Bill’s mangina so I can’t imagine they’ll be too thrilled with Big Ronnie’s meat and two veg on display.

Outside of the prosthetics, the movie certainly has a vibe going for it visually with lots of exaggerated practical effects you’d expect from a Troma movie, eyeballs popping and the like. It gives it a very cartoony feel at times, like something out of Tom and Jerry or Loony Tunes, like near the start where a guy gets his face punched in. And Michael St. Michaels is a revelation as Big Ronnie with her various mannerisms, colourful language and appetite for greasy food. Like, not just bacon or hot dogs, but stuff like grapefruits with grease poured on like gravy.

The movie does have it’s moments and some of the dialogue did catch me off guard at times and got a laugh out of me the whole thing wears thin pretty quickly and, even though it’s only 90 minutes long, it feels like it just drags on for way longer than that.

Like I said, I’m sure if you’re into weird, quirky dark comedies like this you’d probably love it but it just grated on me. Maybe if it’d been a short I could have coped with it but not a feature length movie.

#Halloween 2022 #The Greasy Strangler

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teyvattherapist · 3 years

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Hi! Do you remember the headcanons of the god of fate request you had?

Can I request the same but with Kaeya, Venti and Childe.

Still male reader :)

This is a part two to this piece >God of Fate< So for more context, go check that one out first!

Thank you for the request, this whole idea comes somewhat easy to me, then I immediately get nervous it isn't what you want haha! Oh well! I hope you enjoy<3

Tags: m!reader/Kaeya, m!reader/Venti, m!reader/Tartaglia, Khaenri'ah spoilers, Kaeya spoilers, Tartaglia's real name, Venti's real name, God!Reader, angst if you squint, canon typical violence.

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Khaenri’ah wouldn’t have had any survivors if it hadn’t been for a particular man that seemed unfazed by the battlefield the once prosperous nation of humanity became. Neither Khaenri’ahn nor from Celestia, simply an outlander. Despite showing great fighting prowess and strategic skill, Khaenri’ah had still fallen under the watchful gaze of the man. Of course, this was just a legend, a small rumour only known by the most curious of historians or academics. And even then, it’s debated. With the legacy of Khaenri’ah long gone, all that was left was anecdotal evidence.

Kaeya Alberich

-His biological father told stories of a man dressed in the silk of the Gods that drew steel against steel in the war of Khaenri’ah.

-He didn’t really believe in that though, to him, it was just that. A story. Just a fairytale to explain what time had lost.

-Kaeya had almost completely forgotten these fairytales, his childhood a hazy blip he did his best to forget. But the oddest stranger arriving in Mondstadt made it hard to forget certain aspects of those stories.

Kaeya slid into the seat across from you, sliding a wine glass to you. You raise an eyebrow at the suddenness of the situation, eyes flicking to the glass of glorified grape product. “You’re new to Mondstadt right? I’m the Cavalry Captain, Kaeya, I’d be happy to show you around.” His voice was smooth, suave as if he were hiding something. You picked up the wine glass, sniffing the wine. Mortal food and drink always smelled so weird. Tasted weird too. Kaeya watched you with a curious eye and you hummed, setting the wine glass back down.

"Kaeya Alberich right? I knew your father."

"Master Cr-"

"The other one." You smile at him, sliding the wine glass back. "I don't drink this stuff. Thank you though." You pulled your sleeve up, checking one of the watches on your wrist. Kaeya seemed taken back and you wondered if you perhaps misjudged his ability to lie. He seemed to recover quickly enough, eye narrowing at you. "Do you have questions, Captain? Or may I return to my work?" Work. Yes. That was one way to describe the recording of history and fate itself. A job.

"So it is you. You're real." Kaeya dropped his voice as you picked your book back up. You give him a short nod and he sits back, processing the turn of events. Fascinating, how many people you've run into who know of you. A stark difference to the last time you had been in Teyvat, recording the fall of a nation. "Tell me why you're in Mondstadt." Kaeya dropped his pretense, much preferable to you. You merely shake your head, it isn't your place to discuss the fate of Teyvat and the endless routes that will lead to it.

Venti

-Much like Morax, Barbatos had fought you in the war. Unlike Morax, Barbatos didn’t let his surprise stop him. Barbatos recognised your divinity, but elected to ignore it in favour of drawing the bowstring back.

-What was more surprising was his arrow being deflected by something he hadn’t seen before, that was when he realised you weren’t a rogue from Celestia but an outlander from somewhere else entirely.

-That was years ago though, he didn’t talk about the war, and he wished desperately to forget it. Barbatos opted to up the persona of Venti the Bard instead, but upon his return to Mondstadt, his past would follow.

Venti’s eyes widened when he pushed the tavern door open, his eyes immediately drawn to one of the visible tables, the cavalry captain sitting with a strange and far too familiar man. Feeling eyes on you, you lifted your head, making eye contact with the teal eyed bard. Kaeya turned his head to look over his shoulder at the bard. Venti drew closer when Kaeya beckoned him to do so. You watched as the God of Freedom sat down beside the Khaenri'ahn captain. So many familiar faces indeed.

"Hello Bar-"

"Venti, actually. Long time no see."

"Venti, alright. Yes I believe the last we saw of each other you tried to kill me." You tapped your pen against the leather bound book on the table, a small smile on your face. "No hard feelings, of course. I had stepped out of line anyway." Your revelation surprised the God, the sight somewhat satisfying. Venti swallowed thickly, grabbing the abandoned wine glass, he downed the beverage. "Well fate waits for no one, I have to go." You stood with the book in hand. Venti watched you intently as you left the tavern, the bard gesturing to Charles for more wine.

"Have a bad history?"

"He deflected a flying arrow in the middle of a battlefield, he's terrifying." Venti shuddered, shaking his head. While his Geo counterpart may have been curious of the God's appearance in the warning letter he had sent to Venti. Venti was anything but curious. He didn't want to know why a God from a different world was once more patrolling the land of Teyvat. Especially now that his gnosis was gone, he didn't want to know what it meant or what it could possibly imply.

Tartaglia

-Tartaglia knew the Gods were around, he served one. But regarding Khaenri’ah or that cataclysm he wasn't entirely sure. His time in the Abyss was spent solely focused on surviving.

-He was never really in a position to learn about any of that, living life blissfully aware of worlds outside of his own.

-Then the Traveler showed up and he heard whispers of them being from beyond, then they were followed by a man in a cloak made of material he had never seen before.

-And well the Traveler was a good opponent, why not this other stranger?

You lifted your head, eyes curiously looking ahead. There was a rustling above you and you slipped off the rock just as an arrow hit where you had been sitting. A tall ginger jumped from the tree, drawing his bowstring back once more. You clicked your pen, the item turning into a sword that was then used to skillfully cut the flying arrow in half. "Your form is sloppy.." You sighed, flipping the sword in your hand as he readied another arrow. "I'm not going to fight a human, is there something you need or are you just suicidal?" Another arrow flew by your head, embedding itself into a nearby tree.

Your words seemed to dawn on Tartaglia who lowered his bow slightly. "Human? You're a God? That'll just make this win more rewarding!" The ginger readied his bow once more. You just wanted to take a nice rest in the Snezhnayan forest, but of course it wouldn't be that easy. Before he could knock another arrow something invisible wrapped around his wrists, tightening until he had no choice but to drop his weapon into the snow. When the occasional ray of sun hit the clearing they were in, the invisible thread around his wrists shimmered an ethereal gold.

"I'm just.. a keeper of records. There are more enjoyable Gods to fight. Now if you don't mind." You flicked your wrist and the ginger was brought to his knees much to his chagrin at the turn of events. Your pen returned and you tucked it securely into your pocket. For a moment you just stared at him and he stared back, dull blue eyes boring into your very soul, or perhaps lack of. "Well. Nice meeting you in person, Ajax. You should keep up the work on the anger issues." You turned to leave, listening to him struggle against the binds.

"How do you know my name?"

Oops.

"I know everything and nothing!" You wave over your shoulder, snow crunching underfoot as you leave him in the clearing alone. Tartaglia watched your retreating form until he couldn't see you anymore. And it was then that the invisible threads retracted, allowing him to gather his weapon and give his wrists a quick rub to ease the sudden stiffness.

In your multiple times to Teyvat, it would always be the world that proved most in need of intervention. Though that wasn't part of your job description, you couldn't help it. Even the sky above warned of the brewing storm that would take the continent by storm. Most recently it had been the Cataclysm, this time? You weren't sure which way Teyvat would lean. Too many possibilities, too many options, and none were yours to make.

#Kaeya x reader #Venti x reader #Tartaglia x reader #Childe x reader #m!reader #asks #Anonymous #Lane Writes #Kaeya Alberich #Tartaglia #Venti #Genshin Impact #Genshin Impact x reader #i suck at tags help #kept the intro from the last one since its just easiest #God of Fate

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moonchildridden · 3 years

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PuthKaeng, the green&red couple: Daddy&Papi, mysterious man and lots of dots, everywhere

Hello, beautiful people! It’s moonchild here and I hope none of you are tire of having to read the things I write because here I am, again, to talk about the only thing that gives me strength and energy to leave my bed in the morning, and the only couple that matters: PuthKaeng.

Being honest, I had hopes that those two long ass analysis would be the last thing I would do related to them and would final begin to think about writing a fanfiction about them (yes, your resident analyst is a writer) but then, because they can’t seem to leave me alone and let me breath for five minutes, a special episode came out and my brain went back to work in overdrive and started analyzing everything. I hate my brain sometimes.

Anyways. I would like to say that this won’t (hopefully) be a long analysis just like the others, only a commentary of the episode in general, me connecting the revelations we had about the “mysterious man” and what were presented to us in the main arc of their story and me rambling in between, just because I can. Granted, the main focus of this post is to talk about the main focus of the special, which was to know who the mysterious man was, but that doesn’t stop us from talking about other things in the episode as well.

When it was announced that we would have something about PuthKaeng again, it was in the guise of being an extra scene and I rushed to finish my main analysis because I was afraid that whatever was in said extra scene would throw a lot of monkey wrenches on my theories that I was writing but unfortunately that didn’t happened, because the universe hates me sometimes. However, the universe also loves me because what we all thought would be a simple extra scene became a fucking 10 MINUTE SPECIAL EPISODE! Not only that, it gave me everything I wanted to see with them, and an opportunity to see them again in new things (P’Chewin, I know you have a series of them ready, give it to me).

The special episode was just beautiful and amazing, cute, pillow-biting, intense, sensual and perfect, all in once. Their chemistry was point, their acting skills were on point, the deliverance of feelings and usage of body language was on point, a solid 10/10 in my book. I would give those 10 minutes an award if I could, but because I can’t, I’m gonna talk about it the best I can.

A small disclaimer before I start: because the episode didn’t came with official subtitles (Ais Play/Copy A hates us, for sure), I had to search on YouTube for translations and found two, one of the entire episode and other of the first two and a half minutes. I’ll go back and forth between those two translations, especially when talking about the first minutes, because the translations are a bit different and convey different things, even if the context is the same. Just so you guys don’t find it weird having screenshots with different fonts.

1. I’m addicted, I’m addicted only…

The episode opens with PuthKaeng in the same room, Kaeng busy doing something on his working table (probably something school related) and Puth playing videogames.

The fact that they seem so comfortable being in the same space, each one doing something on their own, shows that they’ve established some sort of routine and just by being in the same geographic space is enough for them. Puth then receives a phone call and Kaeng at first didn’t seem to pay attention but turned around as soon as he heard the person on the other side of the call ask Puth “where he was?”, to what Puth answered that he was in “his boyfriend’s room” while looking at Kaeng. The caller asks Puth to “hang out/meet up”, making Kaeng arch an eyebrow, and Puth, while still looking at Kaeng, says that “he’s not going, because he wants to be with his boyfriend” and after that ends the call.

The fact that he didn’t said Kaeng’s name and simply said “my boyfriend’s room” and “stay with my boyfriend” and the other person didn’t asked who said boyfriend was or made a big thing out of that, considering Puth’s past reputation, means that the person that called him knows exactly who that boyfriend was and that PuthKaeng’s relationship is not a secret to anyone. Also, the way the word “boyfriend” rolled out of Puth’s tongue, so easily, it shows that he’s proud to have someone to call boyfriend and have the opportunity to spend time with his boyfriend. Just…the happiness energy he pours in those 30 seconds-ish of call is overwhelming.

After Puth puts down his phone and looks back at Kaeng, who is looking at Puth with a weird expression on his face, he get up his chair and goes to him, asking “what’s wrong, papi?” (I shit you not, when I heard that on the episode I blushed and almost screamed because it was so cute it gave diabetes) and Kaeng asked “why you (daddy) didn’t go?” (Puth calling Kaeng “papi” was one thing I was not ready to go through but Kaeng calling Puth “daddy” and find out those are the pet names they use with each other was the death of me. God, please receive my soul in heaven), receiving a “how can I go, I wanna stay here with you” as answer from Puth.

Kaeng says to Puth that his explanation is a “lie” and that “Puth wants to go, he can see it/he knows Puth very well” and Puth admits that, with a “sometimes, because he used to hang out a lot” but Kaeng says a soft, and jokingly, “I’m sulking now”, and after Puth asks Kaeng if he “isn’t bored of staying in the room?” because he “used to hang out a lot too”, Kaeng makes the CUTEST FACE EVER (pause to see how Kaeng’s eyes GLOW when he’s looking at Puth. Seriously, how much love can that guy keep in his eyes, for them to shine like that?) and says that “he’s not used like Puth but he’s never bored of Puth” and then they kiss.

This exchange makes me think that they are in the first weeks of dating and still trying to get used to the idea of being a couple (not that the way they were acting with each other before had any difference except the fact that they were not official but whatever), finding a common ground and a safe/comfort zone where they could stand and feel stable. New relationships are always that, new, and it takes time to get fully accustomed with them, let alone feel stable; it helps the fact that they are friends and knew basic things about each other, so now what they need to do is try to know about each other not as friends but as significant others. That’s why they like to spend time with each other and enjoy all the time they have together, to get to know what the other is like, as a boyfriend.

(Before I continue, please appreciate Kaeng being totally baby. Thank you)

After the kiss, Puth ask Kaeng if they “should find something to do?”, Kaeng, having understood something else with his question (I don’t blame him, the way Puth was touching his arm, I would’ve thought the same too) asks “here?” and after Puth said “yes”, Kaeng hits him lightly on the chest and complains that “he’s still sore” (not that I needed it that but PuthKaeng versatile confirmed in only one sentence). Puth then says that Kaeng “is thinking too much” and that he meant “go and find something fun to do”. Kaeng seems uncertain about that but, as we see next, he obliged.

And the date…guys, the date! Do you guys remember that Puth that didn’t wanted to anyone to know that he and Kaeng were sleeping together? That Puth that denied vehemently that he was dating Kaeng (at the time, he was right), made shitty excuses to Mon so he couldn’t pry for more details about what Kaeng had done to him in the night he went to their room? That Puth that didn’t even wanted to be see publically with Kaeng? Well, that Puth is now walking on the streets, holding his boyfriend’s hands and oozing happiness. Seriously, the way he smiles every time he looks at Kaeng, his body language showing that he’s totally relaxed with Kaeng on his side, the way they are having fun together, even with a simple thing as an ice cream cone that they can’t hold, is so fullfiling to watch because it shows that they are happy together. And Kaeng’s eye smile…he looks so cute and happy at the same time, it hurts seeing him so happy. They are soft with each other, feel happy with each other, feel good having each other as someone to spend time with, it just screams domesticity. They are that couple, people.

And look how Puth just throw his head back while laughing. I remember seeing somewhere, years ago, that when someone laughs that way while they are with you, it means they are really having fun. And remembering that made this scene 100x better.

2. My entire heart, all of it that I have inside is for you

Fast forward, we have PuthKaeng in a hotel room and the first thing I noticed is that they were holding hands (remember what I said about them always holding in intimate moments, back when they were only friends and how I always liked to think that it was something theirs, that they only did that with each other and how it sounded too…hum…how do I put this…not something that people that were not dating, especially players, would do? Yeah) and looking at each other (always the eye contact, people. This bitches been acting like a couple since the beginning), acting like the world were theirs and theirs alone.

Kaeng looked at Puth from head to toe while Puth takes off the robe Kaeng was wearing and then Kaeng took off Puth’s robe but did that while he was doing that he started to kneel down and was ready to give Puth a blowjob but Puth stopped him before Kaeng could even do something about it. The way Kaeng didn’t disconnected his hands from Puth’s body shows that he enjoys feeling physically connected with the other man, in every opportunity he could get (I think that his behavior on episode 9 made that pretty clear but is never wrong to bring that fact back); Puth then asked why Kaeng was rushing things and Kaeng said that he was just warming up, before sharing a nose kiss and Kaeng kiss Puth’s nose (bringing back all the kisses from the main arc back and my thoughts about them being confirmed. Coming full circle here, people. Coming full circle!).

Kaeng’s statement about “being happy today” was something that even if he hadn’t told Puth, I’m pretty sure Puth could see that written all over his face, because the man was glowing with happiness like a Christmas tree in the middle of a shopping mall. After the Puth’s teasing about Kaeng being happy because he could “eat”, Kaeng asking if he could “eat tonight”, Puth saying that “tonight, he could only taste a little” and Kaeng pretending to “bite” Puth (they are talking about sex, people, nothing extraordinary here), Puth says that he would be back in a minute and then leaves the small bathroom (?) they were and this is where things start to get interesting.

[A bit of a backstory about this: when the announcement of the “extra scene” came and people were excited to know who the “mysterious man” was, I became confused because I had no idea of what people were talking about. Even after someone commented about the mysterious man being about the man who sent that message to Kaeng on episode 9, I was still confused because for me a friend of his had sent the message but brushed aside, for the perspective of having an extra scene of PuthKaeng was above any confusion.]

Puth grabs his phone, goes to site on the border of the bathtub and is then revealed that he is the mysterious man! Mind you, we all had that revelation in an episode without subtitles, but the fact that he was sending messages to a guy that was in the same room as he was and there was no names displayed on top of the messages to identify the people in the conversation was enough for us to understand what was happening. Remember when I said that they were still getting used to the idea of being a couple and that new relationships take time to become stable? Well, Puth may be super-duper happy and see that Kaeng is happy with him but is normal to have doubts if the person next to you is actually happy or pretending just to make you happy, so Puth had to have that extra confirmation, so he used something that seemingly would make Kaeng be 100% honest (notice that Puth only does that after Kaeng said that he was happy).

It had been a total twist receiving that information but then we had to have a double twist when after Kaeng said “I think we should stop talking” and the “mysterious man” asked “why?”, Kaeng comes out of the bathroom, walks rather sensually towards Puth and after sitting next to him answers the question with a “because I have a boyfriend now” and then shows his tongue to Puth. Puth, understandable surprised with that turn of events, asks Kaeng if he had “always know that it was him?”, receives a nod from Kaeng, so asks “how Kaeng found out? Had he peeked on his phone?” and then Kaeng delivers a triple twist by saying that “there’s only one person he knows who likes to text dot at the end of sentences in Thai”.

At that moment I was like “there’s no way that’s how Kaeng found out about Puth being the mysterious man”, so I went back to episodes 9 and 10, look for any moments where Puth sent any messages to confirm that he had that habit and there they were, clear as water, in EVERY SINGLE MESSAGE. I’m not saying that lightly, since the FIRST message that Puth sent in episode 9, which a reply to Nong Jumbo’s message about missing him, until the LAST message he sent, which was to Kaeng to tell him that he wanted to talk to him later, ALL had dots in the end.

That made my jaw drop because it is such a small detail, something we had in front of us the entire time, but never actually stopped to pay attention and it was that fucking small detail that made Kaeng caught him as soon as he sent a message, pretending to be someone else.

And the fact that Kaeng knew since the beginning that it was Puth brings forward two situations:

It is established that we started their main arc with Kaeng already liking Puth. And I said in the final part of my theory, in the timeline of events, that both of them had cut off contact with any potential sexual partners, so Kaeng only continued talking to the mysterious man because he knew it was Puth. If it weren’t for the inability of Puth for using fakes (seriously, that’s hilarious to be honest, being discovered because you like to use dots in the end of sentences. It’s like people knowing it’s me just because I never use abbreviations when I write messages. True story), Kaeng would’ve blocked him as soon the first message got in his Line account. Knowing that, no wonder he smiled after reading the message;

Puth sent the message, put down his phone and got back to the room whistling “Dear Friend”, a song that talks about someone having feelings for their friend, a situation they didn’t intended to happen. So, now we have a guy that receives a message from the other guy he likes, using a fake account, seeing said guy he likes, whom he just had two rounds, or possible more, of sex, getting back to the room whistling a song about a friend liking another friend. And considering that, in that scene, it was the first time we were introduced to that song in their story, it gives another meaning to everything, doesn’t?

Now, we need to understand why Puth resorted to such “extreme” measures to talk to Kaeng, if they were already talking normally and it’s not like any other person had access to his phone. If I hadn’t un-hold it the theory of Puth also liking Kaeng from the beginning, that specific scene of the revelation of him being the mysterious man would’ve make me do that on the spot. Taking in consideration that at the time of the unfolding of the events from episode 9 Puth thought that Kaeng was still sleeping around (even if he was suspecting of Kaeng having feelings for him), his own feelings had to be well hidden. However, feelings are sneaky little bitches that the longer you try to suppress them, stronger and hard to hide they become and Puth is an affectionate person with those he likes, so he needed to find a way of getting close to Kaeng without actually getting close to him and what better way of doing that than with a fake profile? That way Puth could’ve be a friend to Kaeng, probably even drop some hints about liking him and see how Kaeng would react to them, establish a connection with him and at the same time avoiding the possibility of getting his feelings rejected in real life, after all if Kaeng was still talking to other potential partners it wasn’t a good omen to him; like I said before, feelings made Puth really dirty.

So, the cat is out of the bag. Puth knows that Kaeng knows that he’s the mysterious man sending him messages and don’t know how to feel about that, so he says that “now Kaeng knows it all, how much he loves him” (adding credibility to my idea of Puth having using the fake account to show that he liked Kaeng) and Kaeng tells Puth that he “doesn’t need to be embarrassed, because it’s cute”, that “he likes it” and then to Puth to “try to speak like in the text” aka being romantic. After this, we had the single most emotionally devastating moment of the entire episode and the perfect way of ending a special episode: Puth looked at Kaeng like the man in front of him was the most precious treasure he had encounter in his life and it is possible to see how he also has Kaeng in his eyes, just like Kaeng have him in his eyes. He takes a deep breath, open and closes his mouth once before saying “Kaeng, I love you”, his eyes shining with love just like Kaeng’s eyes were shining with love in the beginning of the episode, and Kaeng reply with a “I love you too” before they kiss and the episode ends.

I highlighted Kaeng’s name in the love declaration because in this episode, this name had a special weight. Throughout the entirety of the episode, PuthKaeng always used “daddy” and “papi” to refer to themselves, a fact that made me feel more single than I already feel in a daily basis, but when the subject was to tell Kaeng how he feel about him, Puth preferred to use his name, in an almost reverent tone, and tell Kaeng that he loved him. And the way Kaeng’s eyes also shined after listening those words and the soft tone he used to answer Puth…honestly, I can’t deal with them anymore, I’m done.

PuthKaeng has a story more complex than we could’ve ever predict. They are men with complex personalities, insecurities even with their appearances of people secure of what they want, don’t know how to express their feelings but when they do, you know is not something superficial, is the reality. It took them a long time to be together, they almost lost the opportunity to experience the love they have for each other, cried, made mistakes and misunderstood a lot of things. But now that they are together, I am sure that they will make everything in their power to make it work, will solve their problems the best way they can, will continue to support each other, be their best partners, their safe zones and each other’s hearts. After all, the love the have is forever; and even beyond that.

#puth x kaeng #kaeng x puth #y destiny #theory #megapost

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wisteria-lodge · 3 years

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snake primary + snake secondary (bird model)

Hello! I recently discovered your blog and really love the thought you’ve put into the nuances of the SHC system. I’m super into these kinds of personality analysis systems (I’ve probably been through them all at this point) because I think it’s interesting to know how people tick - I also think self-awareness is important so that you know why you do what you do, essentially. I took the SHC quiz and it told me I was a Snake Primary with a Bird Model, and a Bird Secondary with a Snake Model. I agree that I’m probably a (somewhat petrified) Snake Primary with a strong Bird Model, but I’m not sure which is my true secondary and which is the model. Maybe you can help?

I can sure try :)

Some things about me: I’m an oldest daughter, and I’m almost 100% sure my dad is a Bird Snake and I *idolized* him as a child - I thought he had it all figured out. He was the Zeus to my Athena in my child’s eyes, and I think I got my Bird primary model very early from copying him.

I mean, I know what you mean in a “sole creator” sense, but there is no *way* Athena thought Zeus had it all figured out.

My two younger brothers are a Lion Snake and a Lion Badger, and my mother is possibly a Double Badger, though I’m not as sure about her - maybe she just thinks that she *should* be a Double Badger. I think all that is important to help illustrate that I didn’t really feel *at home* when I was with my family, though I loved them, since I was the only Snake. My parents also had a terrible relationship and are now divorced, so there’s that as well. I think the only time I have ever been truly morally outraged was the revelation that my dad had engaged in infidelity against my mom, and then again when he started dragging his feet over a promise the he had made my youngest brother. We didn’t speak for a long time after that incident, but I was really cut up over dropping him.

Oh yeah. That’s very Snake primary. Morally outraged because your People are getting hurt.

We eventually started to reconcile, and the only reason we did was because he called and said he was driving through my city one day, and even after all of that, I said yes to meeting up because I felt sad that I had dropped him. I think this family dynamic, plus some other childhood stuff, led to me sort of “checking out” and petrifying pretty early.

Just a theory - I think it’s possible that this hit your secondary more than it hit your primary. You seem pretty strong and confident in your Snake primary so far. Even the fact that you can identify it coming from such a non-Snake environment, and don’t feel guilty about it, is big.

I had a lot of trouble making friends in school.

I’m thinking this might be more of a secondary thing.

and generally ended up with like one friend who was the other weird girl, and who I always sort of kept at arm’s length emotionally. I moved schools several times as a kid and after the first best friend (who was the daughter of my mom’s best friend and was like a sister to me until she moved away), I really didn’t try too hard to make new “best” friends.

Hmm. See, this reads like a *default* friend to me, not a friend of choice. The other weird girl. The daughter of your mom’s friend. That’s an easy friend to have… and not one that you necessarily sought out. I’m not surprised that your primary didn’t latch onto her with that Snake intensity.

Even now, though I definitely have concentric circles of loyalty and a significant other who is my “top person”, I’m not sure I have that blind Snake I-would-literally-die-for-you loyalty toward anyone - I’d kill or hide a body for my top circles

That *is* Snake loyalty. Snakes aren’t going to die for someone else, are you kidding? That’s a sucker’s game. They value themselves too much.

I would give up a lot of my own comfort for my significant other. Maybe I’m just afraid to let myself feel that unquestioning loyalty, though I want to feel it, or maybe I’m really a Bird and just want to be a Snake because that would mean I could be un-broken eventually.

Let’s talk about your secondary, I want to hear about how you think you’re broken, because so far you seem fine. Congrats on the SO!

I don’t think I’m an Idealist though - I’m surrounded by them and I know I don’t care about “principles” the way they do. Then again, maybe I’m a Bird whose truth is that moral relativism is the truth lol. Anyway, I think for my primary, I’m probably a petrified Snake with a Bird model unless I’m totally wrong about myself.

I think you’re just a Snake who… is a Snake.

(you’ve got that Birdy influence though, from your dad, and they do like to complicate things.)

As for my secondary, I loved to read (everything - all kinds of fiction, especially sci-fi/fantasy/mystery and, like, Victorian sci-fi/horror adventures, nature books, medical texts, etc. Wikipedia was a revelation when it came out), and I was smart and good at taking tests and knowing the answers in school, so at a certain point I think I just defaulted to being “the smart one” and used that as armor to help keep people from getting too close.

yep yep yep, welcome to the ‘fun Bird model’ club, we have snacks

I do genuinely love to learn, and I’ve always been known among friends and family as the one who either knows the answer or will look it up. I love pop culture trivia and nature facts. I also love and am good at debate, but not really when real feelings are involved - I more love the “battle of wits” aspect, where I can match up against a person to see if my knowledge and ability to adapt my argument on the fly can stump them.

I also would argue the unpopular point, or the point I didn’t agree with, just for sport. Fun Bird secondary model.

I developed terrible anxiety and probably some depression as well in high school.

Okay, now I’m seeing the problem.

and now that I’m older, I suspect that I may have ADHD, though I haven’t been officially assessed. I didn’t discover my executive function issues really until college, when suddenly being smart and being able to figure out the test answers through context clues and what I remembered from lectures and readings + whatever trivia I had gathered about the topic wasn’t enough anymore.

I suspect you’re right about being ADHD. Or at least being neruodivergent.

I am horrible at studying! I would plan out my study sessions and make these nice little cheat sheets (these were allowed on exams) and they didn’t work at all! I did very well in my literature minor though, because all the graded assignments were papers rather than open-answer tests, and I could get my thoughts out better and with more resources at my disposal if I forgot something and needed to go back to the book to check.

Oh ouch. Yeah, I’m not even relating this back to a secondary, because I’m reading this as a working memory thing? Like ugh tests are such a terrible way access knowledge. What is even the *point* of memorization anymore? You should have been able to have a college career that was completely writing papers, like I did.

I was at one point very jealous of my Lion Snake brother, who I felt could do “whatever he wanted” with minimal consequences, while I always felt constrained by being “good” and not rocking the boat too much with my family.

Yep. That’s being an oldest daughter.

I couldn’t understand why he didn’t seem to care about being considerate to everyone else in the household (especially my chronically overworked, can’t-say-no Badger mom lol).

It’s because he’s the youngest. Mine’s the same.

This attitude was definitely influenced by my anxiety issues at that time, since I had (and still have) a lot of trouble asking for anything - help, permission, whatever. I’d rather do things and explore on my own, without anyone watching, so I don’t have to ask and don’t have to explain.

Did you low-key raise your younger siblings? Because it sounds like you raised your siblings.

I feel better with a little bit of distance, and definitely wear masks in most situations. I’d say my masks are half conscious and half reactive - I do have some idea of how I’d like to be perceived, but it’s only kind of systematic.

That makes me think Snake or Badger secondary.

I have a few “characters” that I use as touchpoints when I’m going into a new situation, but once I’m there I mostly just act nice and funny and see what happens.

So far I’m going with Badger secondary (be nice and and assume it’ll be fine is very badger) with a fun Bird secondary model, that you can do an Actor Bird thing with. Although liking to “just see what happens” is pretty snake.

The characters are really just costumes I use to give off a certain first impression, although I do really like the costumes and find them fun. I love clothes, makeup, and perfume too, because I enjoy the idea of making multidimensional costumes for different settings. I actually enjoy the mask a lot of the time - I have tattoos that are purposefully in places that I can cover easily, because I enjoy the idea that there’s something under the professional mask that people only know about if I show them. I’m a bit socially awkward I think (I repeat myself and talk a lot), but most people tend to either like me or tolerate me, and I don’t get into a lot of interpersonal conflicts.

Hm. Either Courtier Badger or Snake secondary, fun Bird secondary model. However. Especially after talking about your Actor Bird in such fun, positive, happy language… I am going to call you out for “socially awkward” and “people tolerate me.” Which tells me you don’t have as much faith in your social skill set, and it’s *maybe* a little burnt.

(Also, not to get too armchair psychologist tell-me-about-your-mother, but if your mom has a “chronically overworked, can’t-say-no” Badger secondary… that’s going to affect how you see Badger secondaries.)

Right now I work in a very Badger/Bird workplace, and it’s really a terrible fit, even though I can squeak by enough to fool my superiors into thinking I’m doing a good job.

oh we’ve got some imposter syndrome, that can also be a burnt secondary thing.

It’s all long-term planning and daily maintenance tasks, and I really don’t like it. I change most of my plans partway through, but I’m not sure if it’s because I’m really an improvisational secondary at heart, or if I’m truly a Bird that’s just bad at planning for all of the variables.

I’m going to say you’re not a Bird. Making cheat-sheets (which is a very Bird secondary strategy) also did not work, and you feel confined by, not comforted by plans. You’re not a Lion, you enjoy keeping your true self to yourself too much. You could be either a Badger or Snake. And if you really hate daily maintenance tasks… that could be coming from a few places, but it makes me lean Snake.

I love being in situations where I can iterate on a plan, or make a new plan on the fly. I love escape rooms and am pretty good at them; I still get stumped and need hints sometimes, but when I *get* a puzzle, it sort of just clicks for me? I don’t think in a very linear way and am not a good chess player, but I also have never studied chess so perhaps I just am at a knowledge disadvantage in that game.

This is also you using Bird to have fun, and we know you *love* using Bird to have fun.

One of my proudest moments

okay this is definitely going to be helpful

was when I was on a day trip with my significant other, and we needed to find a place to buy food quickly so we wouldn’t miss a specific ferry and then a specific bus - we were on an island, and near the ferry station the restaurants were all too expensive and we were worried they would take too long anyway. He was starting to get frazzled, but I was able to think on my feet, and we just grabbed a calming beer (lol) at a creepy neighborhood bar, then got on the ferry and bought microwave meals at a 7-Eleven by the bus station. It was awesome and I was very proud of myself for staying calm and looking around myself for options.

Well that is VERY Snake secondary.

I generally take a long time making decisions when it’s not a crisis situation, because I have to *weigh all the options*, but I often end up in analysis paralysis. Crunch time is where I really shine as a decision-maker.

Snake again. From what I’m seeing, your Bird is a fantastic toy, but actually kind of makes you miserable when you have to depend on it for the important stuff. (studying, your job, making important decisions)

All of this long post is to say, I’m not sure whether my Bird secondary is a fun model that got repurposed into an executive dysfunction compensation tool and anxiety/depression soother to supplement my Snake secondary

I think you hit the nail straight on the head right there.

or if Bird is my true secondary and Snake is a model that I learned from my dad and brother + characters I admire in media

oh your favorite characters are Snake secondaries are they? That’s a big tell.

and that I use when I fail to plan adequately given my executive dysfunction.

Executive dysfunction is a whole thing, but you don’t have to “”plan adequately”” for everything.

I find both fun and both useful, but I’m not sure which is innate and which is the model!

My money is on snake secondary, Bird secondary model.

#submission #sortinghatchats #wisteria sorts #sortme #double snake #snake primary #snake secondary #bird secondary model #family dynamics

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fereldanwench · 3 years

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@gloryride I adore The Outer Worlds! Unfortunately, it came it when I was in a huge writing slump, so I never really got past the drafting/outlining stage with anything, and I've never posted any of it anywhere. But I do have a lot of rough drafts that I want to revisit at some point (and would have been very sad to lose.)

To no one's surprise, I'm sure, I love Max (grumpy old man? yes pls) and ship him with my captain, Felicity Gibson.

This is super rough, very little detail, mostly just working out the general structure and dialogue of a scene. For context: it's right after Felicity and Parvati get drinks to discuss Parvati's feelings for Junlei, and they return drunk and bother Max.

To his annoyance, Max heard giggling and crashing out in the kitchen. When he went out into the shared kitchen, he found Felicity and Parvati knocking over glasses and spilling water all over the counters.

"I didn't expect to see you two causing all this racket," he said.

"Sorry, Mr. Vicar. Sir." Parvati hiccupped and turned to Felicity. "Miss ma'am. Miss Captain, ma'am. I think I better lie down."

"I think that's a good idea, Miss Holcomb," Felicity replied, almost giggling again.

"Did you know she's never been drunk?" Felicity asked after Parvati disappeared around the hallway, as if it was a grand revelation.

"Well, not conclusively, but if I was wagering on the likelihood of it, I would put my bits--"

"--You could have just said 'no'," Felicity interrupted. "Sorry if we woke you up."

"I was reading."

"Of course you were," she teased. "Unlock any great secrets?"

"Not yet. We need to get off the Groundbreaker before I can do that." Max refrained from observing how getting drunk didn't seem to be helping him with that goal. "What were you two drinking?"

"She tried beer, hated it, so I told her to go to wine. I've been drinking whiskey. Against my better judgment. The whiskey here is not like the whiskey back on Earth." She looked wistful. "Damn, I miss Earth whiskey. Hey, Vicar?"

"Yes?"

"Can I confess something to you?"

"That is one of the many services I offered in exchange for passage on your ship."

"I think you're kind of an ass and I don't understand your religion at all. But I like you, Desoto, and I think you're probably just going to leave when you find what you're looking for and I'm kind of sad about that."

"Only kind of sad?" he asked dryly, although her drunken admission tugged at something in his chest.

"You're also a terrible priest."

Max rolled his eyes but smiled faintly. He spread his hands. "I can't tell you what will happen after I get this book translated. Perhaps my path will be to continue with you and your crew. Perhaps it won't."

Felicity brushed her hand against the top of his shoulder, appreciating the fine sapphire brocade. His breath hitched at her unexpected touch. It had been a long time since he had been touched.

"Your religion is weird, but your vestments are so pretty. And soft." She removed her hand and looked up at his face. "Blue looks good on you."

Max swallowed. "Perhaps I should get you some water."

Felicity laughed. "That is a good idea. And then I think my bunk is calling me."

#c: vicar max #oc: felicity gibson #ship: max x felicity #mine: stories #mine: wip #g: tow #s: the outer worlds

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smalltownfae · 3 years

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About Fool’s Assassin

This isn’t really a review, I just want to let my feelings out about this book that made me stop the reread of the series (I will still post the photo for the last book in the series. Don’t worry. Enjoy the worst book in the trilogy.). Spoilers for “Fool’s Assassin” by Robin Hobb.

The first time I read this book, I kind of felt sorry for Fitz and, even though I had my complains, I still gave it 4 stars. Now, I decided it’s a 3 at best and that is because of Molly, Bee and Revel. Them and only them.

I think that the fact that I read these books before also helped to make me more annoyed with it since I know that the potential I saw in this book as the start of a trilogy is never fulfilled. Lant and Shun never become fully fleshed out (even though Shun at least is a bit more interesting), Fitz, the Fool and Nettle keep acting ooc until the end, not everything is explained and the inconsistencies keep pilling up until the very end (”Assassin’s Fate” being the worst offender).

I now decided that this trilogy is a fanfic because it’s a good fic and terrible canon. Honestly, the reread only made me realize that in truth my favourite books are only the ones that are part of the Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies and not the entire series. Even if Tawny Man has an ending that I despise at least that is the only problem with it.

It is now my canon that Fitz didn’t come out unscathed from that time lost in the Skill pillar. From bribing Molly’s kids to get into her pants to mourning a child he never had while his actual child is right there and he needs to “force” himself to at least like her the man gets worse and worse. This is not the character I loved from Farseer and most of the Tawny Man trilogy. If this is who Fitz really is please make him put his memories back into Girl-on-a-Dragon because he was better before. Fitz always had flaws but he also had some relatable characteristics and good sides of him that made him a complex and for the most part likable character. I despise this one character now. This is not the Fitz I know. Besides him being super dumb (when even Web, an outsider says “yeah those guys do look weird” and you didn’t believe anyone when they said that you know you fucked up). Fitz always had his dumb moments, but those were understandable in the context of the story and he was never this stupid. But, I can excuse stupidity to some extent. What I can’t excuse is how he barelly does anything leaving all of the work around the place for Molly and Revel to manage (and complains when he finally has to do something), the way he initially treats Bee just because she isn’t like he hoped and how condescending he is to Lant! I don’t like Lant either but man did Fitz made me hate him with the “I am a better assassin than this literal child” thoughts. In short, I load him. A lot. Sorry. Oh! And now he says part of him liked the killing btw. You know. Something he never ever thought or said before. In fact, he said he hated being an assassin. But he liked it after all because this needs to be dark.

The Fool could possibly have an excuse for how he is acting but the way he says Fitz was always a good assassin is very contradictory from how he viewed Fitz in “Assassin’s Quest”. Did he change his mind or did he say that to convince Fitz to kill for him? I don’t know and I don’t care since even more ooc aspects than shown in this book appear in the next ones. Some I can see why others have no excuse. Don’t even get me started on his backstory that ends up making no sense whatsoever.

Why was that line in Tawny Man about Nettle not being into boys necessary when we enter the realm of heterosexuals again? Whatever. The worst part of Nettle is how she reacts to Bee (runs in the family it seems) and how she seems to love and trust Lant for no apparent reason. I swear she likes Lant more than Bee. Nettle in Tawny Man seemed to love her family and care a lot about all of her brothers no matter what so what changed? Also, since when is she so trusting of others (like Lant)? She really did change a lot - for the worse - like most characters it seems. Kettricken’s reaction to Bee is also not great but knowing how the customes of the Mountain people that doesn’t really surprise me and at least her reaction made sense.

But, I still gave the book a positive rating because the writing is still beautiful as always and I love Bee as a character. She is definitely the most complex and fleshed out in this trilogy which makes this her story and the name of the trilogy a joke. I love the tender moments between Bee and Molly. Molly seems to be the only character that became better. She learned to control her anger and be more understanding. I loved seeing Patience again (even if she died off page and apparently saw Chiv’s ghost which is a thing that is also never explained in the series btw). Revel is another great character and it’s a pity he died so early. He was more entertaining and complex than most new characters and he is only in 1 book! I really liked seeing Jofron again and I like that she basically sent Fitz away from her house to never come back again ahahah good riddance fake!Fitz.

So, yeah, I will definitely not reread this one as much in the future but when I do it will be because of the aspects that I liked and try to do my best to ignore the Fitz chapters.

#realm of the elderlings #rote #fool's assassin #fitz and the fool trilogy #books #I probably forgot something which is good #I want to forget #there is a lot to complain about

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sepublic · 3 years

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The Old West and Pig Baby Car!

I love Kez, she’s… SUCH a weird, chilled-out, unusually-attracted-to-anything little ding-bell! With her head constantly in the clouds and always sparkling like there’s stars obscuring her eyes… And her simplistic yet incredibly expressive design, those two beady eyes that as said, go stare into FOREVER…! And how she’s a remorseless disaster magnet and a weirdo who’s always vibing and on some weird wavelength that’s hard to understand, but once you get it, you get it!

Let me say it again, I ADORE how this show takes advantage of its premise and setting to always do something NEW with the characters, and I love how we’re building up to a conflict of Kez’s past enemies teaming up to get revenge! That seems to be a theme of this season so far, teamwork, coming together, etc., how ironic that collaboration is going to be a danger to the dynamic duo as well! Kez’s weird, clumsy, forgetful, and overall just… MOOD, and way of talk- I love her, I love her voice, she’s amazing! Also, I halfway called it with the sheriff caterpillar metamorphosizing… But into the judge, THAT I did not expect!

Also, it seems that in this world, only THREE things are constant- Death, Taxes, and Samantha the Cat! When I saw her I legit deadpanned my expression, but c’mon, we all saw it coming, and honestly she’s such a reassuring part of this show, in a sense; We know she’s always there and we can always count on her to be present, she’s SEEN some stuff and she’s a veteran in a sense! Weird thought, but could one say that Samantha is the true protagonist of the show, and the show is about her watching various passengers and their messes?

Perhaps a final book for the show would’ve had Samantha as the primary denizen, to round things up and cap it all off… Either way, I love seeing her differing roles and how she’s handled in each book- First as this unusual enemy and ally, then as a brief obstacle/cameo, then with emotional resonance and guilt and backstory… And it seems so far here, mostly just a cameo and an ally! It’s neat, I love seeing how Samantha’s story, brief as it may be sometimes, is handled in each book! Who knows, maybe Samantha is writing the books, and that’s why they’re called that! Now I’m waiting for Randall to show up…

And also, that GAG and cut to Samantha instantly flipping on a (literal) dime for money, even if she’s also collaborating with Kez, was hilarious and so wonderfully expressive of her character in a nutshell, even for veterans who’ve already SEEN her like this! Seems she hasn’t changed much, but with how she seemingly betrayed people, only with the plan to come back… Makes you wonder if that’s what she intended for her and Simon in that Cardboard Box Car with Ghom, only for Grace to inadvertently sidetrack things? Oh god, that’s dark- The idea that Grace unknowingly ruined things between Samantha and Simon, and that plays into Samantha disliking her… But at the same time, she doesn’t seem to hold things against Grace for it, so probably not.

But oof, that’d just play into Simon’s accusations of Grace ‘ruining’ him, while Grace wants to save and help others like with those kids in the Apex or Hazel, only to misunderstand… The concept of retroactive revelations to characters and thematic foreshadowing, SO GOOD, and it’s making me appreciate more this concept of a Book that takes place in the past, to establish additional context for previous and even later characters, perhaps!

Also, just… The colors, the zany hijinx and ideas, the premise for each car, the denizens- They’re all so wonderful and unique, and I applaud the crew for their creativity, for never letting things get old… Each car is such a fun place to get stuck in, well most of them… Pig Baby was unusual, and I can see what Owen was referencing with that one pig tweet! I think there’s a clever pun to be made in the way the numbers sync, almost like a duet for music… The motifs, man!

The jabs at post-war American cuisine were hilarious, and Ryan man… I’m glad to see him learn to cool down; But unfortunately, Min thinks it’s ONLY Ryan, and he doesn’t realize he has to collaborate as well! And I like that… This idea of like; Two people are both contributing to this mess equally, you can’t just pin the blame on one, and they BOTH have to make concessions and work together! It’s a contrast to Book 3, in that it seems Ryan and Min are actually slated to work things out, VS Simon and Grace… With Grace recognizing how the two of them screwed each other up, but Simon refusing to admit his fault! Duet then forms a duality with Cult of the Conductor, one about the downfall, the other about two reconciling… Hopefully, we’ll see later down the line.

It’s definitely going to be a hard pill for Min to swallow, that he also has stake in this issue- I wonder if he’s under this impression that… He’s more ‘mature’ than Ryan, and as a result, he doesn’t want to confront his part in the situation? Though to be fair, it could just be a matter of circumstance; Ryan was the first to have a puzzle dealing with his own fault, and Ryan was the one who got them on, so it makes sense that Min assumes it’s Ryan’s issue! But dang… I felt for Ryan at the end, I feel like he’s just incredibly lonely himself and desiring positive attention, to feel validated; Whilst Min sort of feels validated? At the very least, I don’t think it’s as much of an issue for him, whilst with Ryan he has to compete with his siblings…

Hopefully Ryan will be able to find that sort of positive attention, while also still respecting Min’s boundaries and his own needs as a person; Min can’t just attend to his every need, the way the Cow Creamer does for Pig Baby! Also, another random thought, but Kez’s very lax, go-with-the-flow attitude… Honestly, it kind of reminds me of like, the kind of partners that Ryan had, before he went back to Min maybe? I dunno, I recognize that Kez definitely has huge stoner vibes, and a hypothetical Human Kez in an AU seems like the type of person Ryan would’ve encountered… Hitching a ride, taking his van and thanking him, but not being THAT grateful, lol.

Nevertheless, that’s one stop- Onto the next one! And as Kez reminds us so importantly, it’s not JUST about the destination, but the journey… I’m glad to see Min be self-aware of the need to apply lessons here the way Lake was, and I bet this whole ‘journey and destination’ mentality might apply to Ryan’s whole thing of travelling around and doing performances! We’ll see… Next stop, passengers!

#infinity train #infinity train spoilers #infinity train book 4 spoilers #infinity train book 4 #infinity train duet #infinity train ryan #ryan akagi #infinity train min #min-gi park #infinity train kez #infinity train samantha #infinity train the cat #analysis #speculation

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sparklingdisneyprincess · 3 years

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Having Amber know for weeks affected fans view of her and why it was not done well.

In the tags on a reblog of one of my posts, someone mentioned that the scene where Amber tells Mark she knew he was a hero was bad writing and I low-key agree. I plan on doing an analysis on that specific scene later, but today I wanted to get into why the way the writes handled that situation just wasn’t great.

Keeping in mind the context of who the writers are can somewhat explain the thought process behind the decision. The creators of the comic book said themselves that's the comic book very often pokes fun at superhero stereotypes and tropes. One of the main stereotypes in superhero comic books is the main non-super female love interest being upset with the male superhero love interest for constantly flaking on her/being unavailable trope. In this trope the conflict is typically resolved when the female love interest is told or discovers in the moment usually by so accident that the male love interest was the superhero the whole time and the revelation is suddenly supposed to negate all the negative emotions that the female love interest was put through and everything just ends up fine.

In today's time it wouldn't matter if he was a superhero or not. He still made her feel terrible, he still lied. I do think women today wouldn’t allow that to excuse all the hero’s behavior especially when it was evident that said behavior was hurting them.

We know the writers like to poke fun at stereotypical superhero comic book tropes and plot points, and a good way to do that it to utilize trope subversion.

Trope subversion definition:

A subversion has two mandatory segments. First, the expectation is set up that something we have seen plenty of times before is coming, then that set-up is paid off with something else entirely. The set-up is a trope; the "something else" is the subversion.

Pure trope subversion vs Partial trope subversion:

Executing a “Pure trope subversion” means to follow the blueprint for “Trope subversion” to a tee. The writer sets up the story with essentially no hints that the outcome will be anything but traditional, and then proceeds to suddenly turn the outcome on it’s head in a way that was unanticipated. In the case of the “Partial trope subversion” it’s the opposite. The writer will drop subtle hints and clues teasing that the outcome will not be traditional for the trope. The hints must be subtle because the writers goal is still to trick the reader into believing that the traditional outcome will occur.

The main problem with them writing it as a pure trope subversion is that Amber ends up looking really bad and that people already didn’t like her as they wanted Eve to end up with Mark.

The set-up of the secret identity relationship trope leads us to believe that the female was mostly if not completely unaware that their male love interest is a hero. They often times are suspicious, but the dots don’t usually get the chance to connect before it’s all revealed. Going with that type of trope set-up leads the audience to believe that it’ll end like it always does. The girl will feel sorry for her actions and completely forgive the hero (even though I don’t find think that’s realistic), so instead of it going in that direction they subvert it. They have the female love interest (Amber) figure it out herself and silently not be in the dark for a period of time till it’s revealed that she knew. This is fine unless it’s written as a pure trope subversion because the traditional trope buildup includes anger over canceled plans, late arrivals, and feelings of neglect. That anger makes the female love interest look completely irrational in the case that she knew! (Though perhaps she was not truly angry over those things after she discovered the truth, but she was angry with him lying and couldn’t tell him that without saying she knew, so she expressed her anger through those situations instead of the main reason??? Hmm, I just thought of that and that’s an interesting theory for another time.) Anyways...

I found that the trope subversion making Amber look so bad to be a glaring issue that should have been weeded out in the writing room. They had to have known how it would be perceived. There’s no way they wouldn’t. The only logical reason they’d do this is if they plan to go through with what I suspected was happening at the beginning of the show, which would be that the writers are telling us that Amber is not Mark’s endgame and that she’s just taking up space until Mark and Eve eventually get together. The only problem with that theory is that they had Mark and Amber get back together at the end of the season which is another trope subversion. In the usual love triangle bait-and-switch trope the first female love interest the male superhero chooses gets booted out to make room for the second girl in the love triangle who he was apparently supposed to be with the whole time, however the writers didn’t got through with that trope. They instead subverted it (whether purposely or not) by having the original couple get back together and setting it up in a way that shows the couple potentially growing stronger, rather than him staying single and eventually ending up with female love interest number 2. The writers even took the subversion a step further by setting the outcome up in a way that showed potential for female love interests 1 and 2 to actually start a beautiful friendship instead of a rivalry.

I’m honestly confused by what the writers wanted us to perceive. If they wanted us to root for Amber and Mark why set them up like that? To prove that they can move past it? But who will support the relationship after everybody now hates Amber? It is contradictory, so I’m very confused. I did write another post speculating that though Amber knew Mark was a hero, she did not know he was Invincible. The theory does shed more light on the situation and it resolves a lot of issues, but it still doesn’t negate the fact that the use of a pure trope subversion in this instance made Amber look really bad. Especially when people would sooner find ways to cancel her, rather than attempt to understand why she did it. To understand someone does not mean to agree with or support them, but it reminds you to humanize the other person, a value we are all owed.

If the writers had not done a pure trope subversion and instead decided upon a partial trope subversion the fallout would not have been nearly as bad. If they had done a partial trope subversion they could’ve allowed Amber to be more patient in some of the later scenes, while showing that even though she’s patient, she’s also very upset. It would show more understanding on her part, however I think Amber was actually already understanding of his situation. What she did not understand was the lying and how it seemed that he didn’t even care enough to lie well. She was hurt that he didn’t trust her and during their relationship she was constantly questioning whether or not he was serious and if he actually cared about her and honestly we questioned it too as an audience! Imagine how frustrated she must’ve been those 5 months out of 6 when she didn’t know why he was lying to her.

Amber and Mark didn’t have any relationship issues that I noticed aside from his secret identity. Their dynamic was interesting to watch in my opinion because Mark wasn’t phased by Ambers weird sense of humor and her having essentially no filter, in fact he embraced it and was also snarky in return. He liked that she has strong core beliefs and clearly enjoyed spending time with her. Even though Amber is sarcastic and pokes fun at Mark she finds his enthusiasm to be endearing and often laughs with and smiles at him. Heck, she even approached him first! They’re just two teenagers dating and it’s nothing too exciting like it’s usually portrayed in media. They text, go on dates, make out, enjoy the others presence without really needing to talk, it’s just nice normal dating stuff and it’s realistic and lowkey, and I really liked seeing it. Upon my first watch of the show I liked Amber and Mark together, but I didn’t see the chemistry. I think it’s because everything about their relationship needed to happen in the span of 8 episodes, but also that the reasons why their attracted to each other are very subtle. They don’t shove it in our faces, they just place it there and if you caught then you caught it, if you didn’t then you didn’t. It took me re-watching the episodes a second time to realize why Mark and Amber enjoy being with each other. The body language speaks volumes when you also pay attention to the little things that go on between them. I’ll probably make a whole other post about it because I think it’s something to talk about, but yeah.

In conclusion either the writers truly didn’t realize the outcome of their choice, the writers knew the outcome and did it on purpose to set the audience up to root for Eve and Mark, the writers knew and set it up in order to later on grow/redeem Amber and strengthen her and Mark’s relationship by having them over come it, or they didn’t think it’d be a big deal due to assuming that the trope subversion would take everyone by surprise and that we’d like it.

(If you made it to the end, I’m impressed cause this was long. Also, shoutout to the person who first brought up this topic in the tags. I didn’t realize I felt some kind of way until I started typing and couldn’t stop. It was honestly kind of cathartic😄 I didn’t tag you cause I didn’t know if you’d like that but, thanks for unintentionally giving me the motivation to write this!)

#Aark #Amber Bennett #Mark Grayson #Mark x Amber #Invincible #SDP reviews #SDP thoughts

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aflyingcontradiction · 3 years

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The Magnus Archives Relisten: Episode 111 - Family Business

Julia: It’s not a… Trevor doesn’t like using the book. I don’t either. Makes me feel off. Dead should stay dead.

"Dead should stay dead" is a very apt statement for an avatar of the-process-of-methodically-making-things-dead but also I can't say that I disagree, exactly.

Gerard: Nice lighter. You a spider freak, then?

Jon should perhaps have at some point gone "Huh." about the mysterious lighter, shouldn't he? But then again, neither did I.

Gerard: Yeah, the world changes in horrible ways. For you. I’m a book.

This seems perfectly fair, you know!

Gerard: She travelled light. Left things behind.

Oh, ouch, the tone he says that in makes me want to give him a hug, even if he is currently a book. Yeah, she left "things" behind for sure.

Gerard: Well, Fairchild’s just a name, they’re not really family. The Lukases, though, yeah. Thing is, it’s harder than it looks. What’s out there… doesn’t care about blood. Jon: Well, I-I mean, except for the vampires…

I want to say "Oh, Jon" but I can't guarantee I wouldn't have made the exact same dumb comment.

But mum didn’t need the help, and after me she wasn’t able to have kids again, so she killed him in his sleep to practice her bookbinding. I guess she failed. I always thought he was in here, but when I eventually got hold of it, there wasn’t a page in there. - Gerard

That's because Gertrude did for him what Jon later does for Gerard. Weird sort of parallel, that, the father and son, both rescued from undeath by the Archivist of their time.

We met with things that almost made me throw up, I was so afraid, and she’d talk to them like old friends. It was awful, but I suppose in many ways, it worked. Whenever I tried to run away the ‘real’ world seemed so… ignorant I could never be a part of it. So I did my best to find my place within my mum’s world.

God, he was just so fucked up from the start, his whole life tied to the Entities - his death, too - even though he tried so hard to make his own choices.

And honestly, there was a part of me which thought a life in prison was an alright price for freedom.

Damn, that's a gut punch of a line.

Gerard: And if you’re having an omelette for lunch, not every moment is spent eating the omelette. Some things take preparation. Especially if, you know, your spatula has a bit of free will.

I love this run-away metaphor, I really do. Especially the spatula with free will.

Gerard: A lot of it’s kind of arbitrary. I mean, why are navy blue and sky blue both called blue, when pink’s an entirely different colour from red? Y’know? I don’t know, that’s just how it works.

It's kind of funny in an almost-too-perfect way that this is the example that Gerard picks because colours are one of THE go-to examples people always go to for unexpected cultural-linguistic differences and the way they change how we perceive the world. The blue thing, for instance: Russian actually DOES have two entirely separate words for dark blue and light blue (maybe other languages do too, I just happen to know some Russian). I wonder if Johnny knew that when he was writing these lines and this was perhaps deliberate.

Gerard: O-Of course, with these things it’s not a simple spectrum, y’know, it’s more like – Jon: An infinite amorphous blob of terror bleeding out in every direction at once. Gerard: Now you’re getting it. Jon: Like colours, but if colours hated me.

If I add a "Favourite quotes" segment to an episode it's mostly for things that need very little context to feel like pieces of poignant writing and this needs a lot of context but if it weren't for that, the description of "Like colours, but if colours hated me" would DEFINITELY go into the favourite quotes segment!

Gerard: Needing to know, even if your discoveries might destroy you.

An explanation of an almighty terrifying fear Entity. Also an explanation of the reason I try and mostly fail to keep out of the comment section.

Jon: Which is… spiders a-and control. Your, your will not being your own.

I've said this before but the Web always struck me as a bit funny in that way. There's that deep existential fear of being manipulated and controlled from the outside ... and also spiders. Someone needs to make one of those Marge Simpson "I just think they're neat" memes except with the labels "The Web" and "Spiders".

Jon: Yeah, I-I mean, are we really so afraid of being… eaten? Of our bodies being all twisted up, i-i-is that… I mean, some people sure, but… how is it one of the fourteen great fears? Gerard: What? You think people are so special it’s only our fear that counts?

Oh my god, the revelation that some of the fears originate from animals just left me open-mouthed when I first heard it. I'd never even considered it and it's SUCH A GENIUS IDEA! IT MAKES TOTAL SENSE! It's an animal fear and it gets extra-super-weird when it hits humans!

Jon: I suppose. And again, when an animalistic fear touches a human… Gerard: You get the Predator’s granddad out there.

Pffft. I love it. Trevor "The Predator's Granddad" Herbert.

Gerard: They… kind of ‘shift’ the world, just enough for the Power to come through. Merge with reality. Some say, or well, they guess, that it could bring other entities through with them.

Oh god, I didn't realise they seeded this idea THIS EARLY ON!

Gerard: Well, think of it this way: right now all the entities have to act like a hunter, they pick off the weak ones around the edges, the ones that wander too close, and the rest of the time they have to just graze on whatever fear we all passively give away. Jon: And if one of the rituals succeeds? Gerard: The world becomes a factory farm.

... gotta hand it to Gerard, his analogies WORK. Perhaps a little too well, that image really hits the target.

Gerard: Said she thought she’d found him. I tracked him down, but it… well, it wasn’t him. (...) It was just some pathetic old man. Couldn’t have been him.

How on earth does Jon maintain enough of a pokerface to not make Gerard suspicious right then. I mean, this is amazing. Gerard kicked the shit out ouf ACTUAL LEITNER ("Three years ago, I made the mistake of spending a full night outside my safehouses. I was almost beaten to death by an angry goth.") and concluded that he couldn't possibly be Leitner because the man responsible for filling so much of his life with fear and misery surely had to be IMPRESSIVE and POWERFUL, not just some whiny old jerk.

My impression of this episode

This episode is very info-dumpy, but somehow it bothered me a lot less than the other info-dump episode (the Leitner episode). Perhaps it's just because I enjoyed Gerard's voice (again expressed personality rather than voice-voice, I feel the need to clarify this every time because it gets confusing when you're talking about a podcast rather than a book) more and also because learning about the fear categories was genuinely a fun revelation. I mean, give me categories to play with and I will absolutely play with the categories! (Me and most of the rest of the fandom...) All in all, it was a fairly skillful info-dump actually, even though it was very clearly a bit dumpy. Aside from the infodump there's also a lot of plot development, though, and Gerard's statement is genuinely interesting. Damn, I feel bad for Gerard, he was just so fucked from the start.

#tma relisten #the magnus archives

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onekindredspirit · 4 years

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Film Endings - Blow Up

The pace of cinema from the 1960′s and ‘70′s is very different to movies of today. Film makers of that era captured what we now so desperately try to avoid - the empty and everyday mundane gaps between interest and apathy, excitement and boredom, action and the still life, between the imagined and the actual lived experience.

It was a stylistic choice and a representation of the spirit of the times. Today we are enmeshed in this ‘present’ and its instability, and though we struggle to see the wider context, the truth still leaks out. The South Korean film ‘Parasite’ is so much the zeitgeist, that if you need an overview, before the history books come out, see that film.

Back in the 1960′s and ‘70′s we also struggled to see over the mountain but directors like Michelangelo Antonioni, Wim Wenders and Monte Hellman did capture the essence for us. We, the citizens of the past, in darkened and smokey cinema houses, before video and DVD, before the internet and streaming services, when television was all blaring brass bands and canned laughter at volume 11, when all that was broadcast were the values of a previous generation ... we were ‘outside’, off someplace else discovering the beauty of personal freedom, the thrill of Utopian experimentation and yes, the cynicism of failure. Blow Up describes the era well.

This is a film I have watched many times. Besides capturing my love of photography and the style of the 1960′s, it also shows the intensity of life when it is lived in the moment. Shooting film is like that for me. But more importantly, the movie tells the story of personal transformation. The creative power one individual can bring to the moment and ignite the process of a slow but inexorable shedding of redundant attitudes and replacing them with new thoughts, transformative revelations.

Then as always there is the human problem - how do we represent ourselves for others to see? Should we attempt to be objective and of course fail but perhaps reach some halfway house along the way? Or is it better to immerse ourselves in subjectivity and leave others to debate our intentions and, for future generations, the puzzle of who we were?

Blow Up, Zabriskie Point, Two Lane Black Top, The American Friend - I am transfixed by these weird and awkward films.

Blow Up seems slow by today’s standards. I guess that’s inevitable if you make the wind a character ... or an English park. It’s full of the void begging for action or even just dialog and yet, unlike more recent films, I am drawn to the characters. My curiosity isn’t satisfied by external appearance or fast pace. I pretty much know every algorithm of modern cinema and am usually left a little empty (again, see the recent movie ‘Parasite’ for a film with nothing of the algorithm about it). So where else can my restless mind wander except inside these creations and so the mind of their director, Michelangelo Antonioni.

Thomas, the main character, is not an appealing man. Smug, exploitative and totally self centered. This movie is about his transformation. I like the use of ‘journey’ as a metaphor ... and it is exciting to find someone who is able to undergo a personal transformation ... even if that ‘person’ is just a character on a screen. But Thomas wasn’t a seeker so let’s not give him too much credit. Change was foisted on him ... so it goes. Regardless, transformation is about first accepting what you are given, no matter what, and then learning to make fire with it anyway.

We all know there is an arc to life and yet few of us consciously engage with the attention it deserves and fewer still, with grace, accept the bitter tale of the end.

Think of those 73 seconds from launch to destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger back in January 1986. The tragedy has been played out over and over again, that moment when the O-ring fails and leaking fuel ignites in a cataclysm. We are so focused on images of destruction, on risk, on failure and what others may think, that we ignore our own flight.

So, before that moment ... it was all glory and though you may not feel it, you are in your own glorious 73 seconds of moments right now.

But for Thomas ... how newborn and vulnerable is the cynic now transformed by hard experience into the believer.

This touches me because in life, the opposite is more often true, so commonplace in fact.

Don’t be commonplace. Be rare and be beautiful in the moment. Transform yourself into a believer ... or ... just wait for the hard experiences of life to do it for you ... like a fictional character in someone else’s movie.

- One Kindred Spirit

#blow up #michelangelo antonioni #original writing #for you #the associated video was of course eventually blocked

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panlight · 4 years

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Haven't been able to finish MS yet but maybe Jasper is drawn to E/B's emotions more than Em/R or C/Es because they're both newly in love, that brain-less head over heels kind of thing? You know, like how you can just inhale a bag of chips and then feel totally empty afterwards. It's very intense, but it's not good sustenance because it has way fewer important nutrients.

I think for me it’s just weird that Jasper doesn’t seem to have anything better going on in his life but following around his brother and his brother’s new girlfriend, haha. I mean it’s funny and sweet but also a little sad? Jasper, buddy, don’t you have any hobbies? Everyone orbiting around E/B is not my favorite thing personally, so Jasper literally following them around to get high off their love made me sort of roll my eyes. I kinda wanted to see more of what the Cullens were up to when they aren’t putting their lives on hold or at risk to facilitate this romance.

But again, I know it’s a YA paranormal romance and that’s all it really has to be but man, I’ve always wanted more out of it than that. That’s what fanfic and tumblr discussion is for, I guess!

ETA: I don’t know if some of the newer followers know my Origin Story as it were, but basically many years ago I was having recurring dreams about vampires, not scary, just annoying. So I decided to read Dracula in hopes of getting vampires out of my system. But it didn’t work so I kept reading vampire stories. Interview with the Vampire, Salem’s Lot, I Am Legend, The Historian, a few other vamp YA books (one called Uninvited, I think, and maybe one called Bloodlines?), some short story anthologies (I particularly remember a short story about a vampire photographer whose dream it was to capture a picture of the sunrise but that posed . . . problems. . . for obvious reasons), and yes, the Twilight series. All in the space of like, a month and a half. So I read Twilight in the context of “vampire story” and not “love story.” If you love them as love stories, great!! Enjoy! Revel in the E/B bliss of it all! But that’s not the context in which I picked them up and I think that has always colored my perception.

#asks

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teenytinystorage · 4 years

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Can you make a fanfic with Logan and Deceit only talking in memes

Hi!! so I don’t think this is exactly what you wanted... but I love them Brain Cell Bois so i hope you enjoy!!

•——•

Vocab Cards

Summary: Logan is very much Struggling with learning new slang, but who decides to actually help the Disaster Nerd but the slimy snake boy Deceit? Welp, this’ll be interesting.

Word Count: 1,291

Warnings: one (1) “not wanting to hurl” mention, implied body horror

Genre: Fluff?? Probably?

Pairings: Platonic/Romantic Loceit

“You know,” Deceit quipped, staring down at his gloved fingers as he stood in front of the camera and to the left of Logan, “you’re not very good at those.”

“At what?” Logan responded quickly, stuffing his “LOL” vocabulary card back into his jeans pocket as the other sides watched the two banter.

“Those vocabulary cards! Oh, you ‘ought to have someone teach you this stuff,” Deceit flicked his tongue at his teeth, “Who am I kidding, I’d even write some cards for you at this point,” he snickered before turning to Thomas. “But Thomas--”

So then, Deceit knows some slang, Logan thought, Deceit’s wittiness still ringing in his ears even after the video ended and the sides each dispersed into their respective rooms.

He sat at his computer, typing and retyping LOL into UrbanDictionary to make sure that, yes, his card was right, LOL was an acronym that stood for “laughing out loud” and he had his definition right on the card.

He even used it the right way too. He said, “Thomas, this is not a LOL matter.”

That’s the right usage. Sure it messed up the phrase “laughing matter” up a bit, but it was hip, so it didn’t matter too much.

So why was it so badly received? Did Deceit really know more about this whole slang deal than he did?

I’d even write some cards for you at this point, Deceit had said earlier.

Hm. Hmmm. Hm indeed.

Logan could use the outside perspective, in his opinion. He knew it wasn’t reliable to have only one source on anything, but for slang, he could never find any other “reliable sources” (HUGE air quotes on that, UrbanDictionary was in no way a college-research-paper-worthy site) but one; everything else just made no sense and was contradictory and confusing.

Maybe conferring with a knowledgeable colleague on the subject could be useful? That always helped with the scientific method. And Logan was basically going into this whole trend thing blind anyways, so it wasn’t like any conversation between them could hurt.

This line of thinking led Logan to stand from his seat, stuff a few blank index cards into his pockets and a ballpoint pen in there too for good measure. He gave one final adjustment of his glasses before sinking down into the classy snake-faced side’s room.

Deceit, sitting on his couch, engrossed in a copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray, gave a glance and then a double-take of Logan before sighing heavily and shutting his book.

“Ep ep ep--” Deceit held his pointer finger up in the air, “before you ask, yes, Remus did your little project and confirmed that we can regenerate limbs. And before you ask, no, I did not ask how he found it out because I didn’t care nor did I want to hurl today.”

“I actually came here to-- wait, really?” Logan responded, surprised, taking out an index card and quickly jotting down the findings. “Fascinating.”

“It’s ickier to me than it is fascinating, no cap,” Deceit complained as he smoothed the fringe peeking out from his hat. “But it’s your research and not mine, so go off, I suppose.”

Then Logan, upon hearing Deceit’s confusing phrases about hats and/or glacial structures and his encouragement for Logan to keep researching and/or to leave (slang was so confusing), remembered what he came here for in the first place.

“Right, Deceit,” Logan stuffed his index card of findings into his pants pocket, adding, “Earlier today I used a slang term that I believe stands for ‘laughing out loud,’ but your reaction implied to me that I may have been incorrect in the context of its usage. Would you care to elaborate on that?” Logan asked, clicking the pen in his pocket a few times as he spoke.

Deceit lounged back on the couch and held the back of his head in his hands. “Cssssertainly. You should totally use acronyms as if they’re the actual words they stand for, it definitely isn’t cringe-worthy at all.”

Logan, bewildered at the fact that Deceit even decided to answer his query (or humor him, more likely), quickly filed the information into his brain. “Oh. Oh, okay. And would you be willing to maintain your offer of assisting me with inscribing more vocabulary cards?”

“I hope you realize that was just some quick and witty charm of mine,” Deceit hummed. “You do take things very seriously though. That’s just your vibe.”

Logan’s expression faltered a bit. “Oh.”

Deceit paused, glancing his eyes up at the ceiling irritatedly before looking back at Logan. “You know what? If it keeps you from committing any other word atrocities such as the one today, then sure, I’ll help.”

“Really?” Logan replied just barely before he sank out and perused the internet for at least four hours for new slang terms on his own. “You would?”

“Sure. But I’m not a meme connoisseur by any means, I leave that to the raccoon. I’ll still try my best, though.”

It was relatively quiet in Deceit’s room after Deceit’s initial lecturings, including “never describe emojis out loud in words” and “for the love of your nonexistent mother, please never use ‘periodt’ like it’s actual punctuation.”

“So was it Lebanese or lesbian?” Logan asked, scribbling on another index card and laying stomach-down on the floor.

“It was lesbian,” Deceit said, sitting vertically and upside-down on the couch with his head almost on the floor and his hat barely hanging onto his head.

“Ah,” Logan commented, finishing the card. “Is the humor supposed to arise from the child thinking the camera-lady said Lebanese instead of lesbian, which conflicts with her allegedly American nationality?”

“No one knows,” Deceit answered.

“Ah, of course,” Logan replied, setting the card into a now growing stack of finished terms.

The two kept writing.

“Ok, here’s a test,” Deceit said a few minutes later, turning to Logan. “And they were roommates.”

Logan took a second before responding, monotonously, that is, “Oh my god, they were roommates.”

Deceit nodded his head in surprise. “You’re getting good at this.”

“You think so?” Logan asked, a small sense of accomplishment seeping into him.

“Well you’re certainly better than the LOL matter from before,” Deceit commented, chuckling.

Soon the next video had already started before Logan knew it.

“But doesn’t it seem like the right thing to do here is help?” Patton asked, twiddling his fingers together.

Thomas sighed.

“Well, I think that y’all’d’ve a bit of patience for Thomas. His vibes are a bit whack at the moment, no cap,” Logan interjected, still in his monotone voice.

The sides, and Thomas as well, stared at Logan in disbelief.

“What?” Logan peered around the room.

“Where did you learn all that?” Virgil asked, jaw hanging open and eyes wide.

“Deceit taught me a bit more about slang so I don’t inspire any more cringe-fests for you all.”

“Weird flex, but okay,” Deceit replied, rising up next to Logan.

“Agh!! Can you just leave— him—” Virgil shot a glare at Deceit, “—out of this??” Virgil pleaded, now irritated and growling under his breath. “I’ve already had my fair share of sleep-paralysis demons for today.”

“Quite uncommon for the Protohype to be so well-versed in lingo,” Roman mused. “But alas, go forth I proclaim.”

“Yeah, good work Logan, but what is Deceit doing here again?” Thomas asked, to which Patton replied: “Yeah, I think Thomas has his mind pretty well made up on this decision already!”

“Oh please,” Deceit started.

Logan couldn’t help but, for a moment, revel in his success, before, of course, going back to being the coolest cool teacher cool guy in the entire Thomas-sphere.

What a nice thing it is to learn, isn’t it?

#people really do be liking loceit after not liking it for a while huh?#(its me im people)#i love... the Boys.... 💛💙#sanders sides #deceit sanders #logan sanders #sanders sides fanfiction #sanders sides fic #sanders sides fanfic #loceit #platonic loceit #romantic loceit #patton sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #remus mention

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