Noah listens as he hears Alejandro angrily rant in spanish, while brushing his teeth.
The sarcastic assistant is covering his mouth and trying his best not to laugh, as he stood near the confessional door.
Apparently, the charmer doesn't like the sock flavored chowder that Heather made for him.
Even though Noah mostly forgives Alejandro for almost leaving Owen behind back in the Amazon, he may have been the reason Heather had gotten Owen's socks in the first place.
Alejandro opened the door to give Noah the stink eye. Did he already find out what Noah did?
"I'm glad that you find my suffering so hilarious." Alejandro grumbled.
So, he didn't.
Noah shrugs with a chuckle. "Well, you were kinda asking for it, considering that you tricked two guys into kissing fish and stole Heather's possible alliance with DJ."
"What can I say. She had a clever idea and I wanted to steal it for myself. And be honest with me Noah, would you rather kiss a fish or have someone else do it for you?" Alejandro asks smugly with a raised eyebrow.
Noah squints his eyes and purses his lips. "...Touche."
"That's what I thought, amigo." the charmer then winks playfully, wrapping an arm around the assistant and leading him to first class.
Noah leans into Alejandro's touch, the back of his head by the taller man's strong chest, as he asks a curious question. "By the way, how did you have time to paint those eyes on the fish?"
"I'm sure that you're smart enough to figure that out on your own."
"I thought you were supposed to be a gentleman."
"Come now Noah, we both know that I'm not."
As they entered first class to enjoy its comforts, Noah allowed himself to get lost in his thoughts.
Noah wishes he could hate the guy. He wishes he could hate the True Alejandro as much as the Fake Alejandro. He wants to hate that greasy eel. It'd make things so much easier. But the truth was, he didn't hate him at all. The true Alejandro was clever, crafty, cunning, a bit dorky and had a sense of humor that Noah could appreciate. The Fake Alejandro was just a Spanish Prince Charming Wannabe.
Alejandro's brain was even sexier than his body, and that was saying something. It was the thing that drew Noah in, made him want to be near him, even when he knew it was wrong. It was the one thing that made Noah feel like he wasn't the only one with a mind like this. They were two misfits who had found each other in this mess of a competition, and somehow, it worked. It was a strange, twisted sort of bond that they shared, and Noah wasn't sure if he could ever explain it to anyone else.
Although Noah acts like he's not interested, deep down he honestly wants nothing more than to drag Alejandro to the cargo bay and kiss the beautiful, brilliant evil genius all day long. It's the last thing he'd ever admit to, but it's the truth. They could give Bridgette and Geoff a run for their money.
Even though the True Alejandro is interesting and fun, at the end of the day, Alejandro is only here for the money. He doesn't care about Noah or anyone for that matter. Noah has seen with his own eyes and Alejandro himself told the assistant. Nothing and nobody else matters. Only the million dollars matter.
As much as it hurt Noah's little heart, it's the truth and the cynic can accept that.
He accepts it... if only he knew about the conflict in Alejandro's own heart.
I hope I can explain this well. You can "misgender" me (in quotes bc I don't have a gender) if it's funny. Use whatever pronouns whatever adjectives whatever label whatever is funniest in the moment. Tell me to go piss girl or slay queen. Tell me I'm just some guy. Call me a gender vacuum or whatever the fuck just make it funny. I don't want people holding back on a killer joke because the pronouns aren't in my bio, I promise you won't upset me
personally i am ignoring anything rtd said in the commentary. i choose not to believe that all the other doctors also bigenerated somehow and lived out their lives elsewhere. the only way that i am okay with the bigeneration stuff is if it was this one time thing that specifically helps the doctor heal and move on
So, here’s a question I don’t think anyone’s asked or at least it’s been a while… why is Jo your favorite?
i was trying to find the post where i explained it in depth but i'll give a tl;dr his backstory regarding masato and his implied childhood abuse recontextualizes a lot of his behaviors and actions as well as adds extra layers to his devotions to arakawa and the speculative progression of that relationship going from strictly 'transactional' (being that he's only there to see masato and arakawa just Happens to be there) to genuine respect and adoration and that makes my brain tingle. also i think hes hot
Underrated thing about going back to stories as an adult that were big for you when you were young, is finding yourself with a completely different take on characters. Not just "oh they suck" or "they did nothing wrong" but "oh holy shit you are a CHILD and you're fucking up constantly and it makes so much sense".
The nuance of "i know what this kind of messy looks like", i guess?
Once again wishing all the Tales of bloggers still following me after all these years, despite my persistent Goro Akechi brain rot, a very lovely evening.
me, thinking about myungdae and his feralness and comes to the conclusion on the bus: oh my god he's a f*cking cat
evidence:
a. cats require consistent stimulation to get excess energy out ie. play w/ them and give them toys = myungdae has his rubik cubes
b. if they like you they will give you prey they hunted = he will deliver you wanted criminals/bad ppl who need to be punished as presents
c. may scratch or hiss if petted/touched too much = he can get stabby :/
d. feral cats are not socialized and therefore will avoid humans = myungdae hates crowded places and will do everything in his power to escape said places
e. they both like birds and watching birds
f. they can be territorial, both of spaces and of people; once they know you're their human, they don't like to share = there are select spots that myungdae will only hang out, everywhere else; also if he's close to u, good luck getting rid of him u won't
I wasn’t able to run or do any type of physical exercise when I was younger,,, well I still can’t do shit so yeah I’m also very much broken worst thing is clearly the sexiest and coolest motherfucker in the planet title goes to you so now I have nothing going for me—
What I can do is talk about hollow knight nonstop yes that’s my life and my only talent no I’m not sad I’m very glad my life is going like this no I’m not joking
Fr im not joking"
I'm glad you appreciate my dramatic flair~ One day Moon will buy me the victorian fainting couch of my dreams...
We can share the sexiest and coolest motherfucker on the planet title <3 or you can tell me all about hollow knight while I kick my feet and twirl my hair and giggle!!
Also relatable I'm like yeah I'm multiply disabled and chronically ill and crazy BUT I'm having so much fun with it~ I'm living my best life!!
Learning that WB is going broke and can only afford to release two movies this year (one being DWD)… is it all starting to make sense to everyone yet or just me
i don't exactly remember which article it was but i did read somewhere that they gave miss cockburn free reign to promote this movie or whatever and i am actually laughing in their face because it's like they wanted to go bankrupt. and also looking at shia's receipts this movie seems like it was doomed from the start and yet WB okayed it so they do deserve to go bankrupt. this is soooo reminiscent of louis leaving syco and it going bankrupt hfhdkdjdhfhf
Okay I have enough fics and shit to write right now as it is, I currently have 4 in the works 🙃, but last night while I was trying to sleep I had a thought. I think I came up with a very baseline very bare bones idea for a possible OUAD 2.
A possible title for which I came up with was Once Upon A Kingdom OUAK if you will. And literally as I typed this out, Once Upon A Winter OUAW akskskskk and it would take place months after the events of OUAD, Chazz and Atticus are officially a couple now, and Atty takes him on a trip to see the Northern Kingdom or the Crystal Kingdom if ur in with the OUAD deep lore 👀 where he and Lexi are from and with Jay, Sy, and Hassleberry in tow, winter wonderland hijinks and capers ensue 👀
Now I have no idea what the actual greater plot would be but I really like the idea of visiting another kingdom since in the 'deep lore' there are 5 kingdoms that exist in the world, but since the Kingdom of the East was canonically destroyed by Slade and Jagger before the events of OUAD, there's still 3 other kingdoms outside the Golden Kingdom. The northern, western, and southern kingdoms if you will. The Golden Kingdom is the central kingdom. So we get to see more of the world, and open the door for more of the ensemble cast to get involved, I fully intend to include Jesse and Bastion at the very minimum if I wrote this I fully imagined a whole conversation with Jaden and Jesse last night, immortal magical fairy Jay gets to flirt with the cute human boy 👀 so I have thoughts happening ☺
Like I said I have no idea what an actual greater plot would look like yet and I have way too much to work on right now to put too much thought into it right now, but I promise babes. OUAD 2 may be on the back burner right now, but it is also very firmly on the table 😉
my dreams are so stupid. i dreamt that i was trying to look up the spanish word for "taxi" on wordreference but it kept failing in increasingly ridiculous ways. first it told me the word was "coney," which is clearly not a spanish word. then it sent me to the dutch dictionary instead. then it told me there's no english-spanish dictionary actually, just a spanish-english dictionary. so i wake up and look it up on real wordreference and it turns out the spanish word for taxi is "taxi." figures.
Why, as a graduate of history who really should know better, am I always surprised when I finish a novel and go read some analysis of it only to end up saying, “Hang on, people think that character might have been an unreliable narrator???”
I have been on a Willy Wonkified journey today and I need y'all to come with me
It started so innocently. Scrolling Google News I come across this article on Ars Technica:
At first glance I thought what happened was parents saw AI-generated images of an event their kids were at and became concerned, then realized it was fake. The reality? Oh so much better.
On Saturday, event organizers shut down a Glasgow-based "Willy's Chocolate Experience" after customers complained that the unofficial Wonka-inspired event, which took place in a sparsely decorated venue, did not match the lush AI-generated images listed on its official website.... According to Sky News, police were called to the event, and "advice was given."
Thing is, the people who paid to go were obviously not expecting exactly this:
But I can see how they'd be a bit pissed upon arriving to this:
It gets worse.
"Tempest, how could it possibly--"
source of this video that also includes this charming description:
Made up a villain called The Unknown — 'an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls'
There is already a meme.
Oh yes, the Wish.com Oompa Loompa:
Who has already done an interview!
As bad (and hilarious) as this all is, I got curious about the company that put on this event. Did they somehow overreach? Did the actors they hired back out at the last minute? (Or after they saw the script...) Oddly enough, it doesn't seem so!
Given what I found when poking around I'm legit surprised there was an event at all. Cuz this outfit seems to be 100% a scam.
The website for this specific event is here and it has many AI generated images on it, as stated. I don't think anyone who bought tickets looked very closely at these images, otherwise they might have been concerned about how much Catgacating their children would be exposed to.
Yes, Catgacating. You know, CATgacating!
I personally don't think anyone should serve exarserdray flavored lollipops in public spaces given how many people are allergic to it. And the sweet teats might not have been age appropriate.
Though the Twilight Tunnel looks pretty cool:
I'm not sure that Dim Tight Twdrding is safe. I've also been warned that Vivue Sounds are in that weird frequency range that makes you poop your pants upon hearing them.
Yes, Virginia, these folks used an AI image generator for everything on the website and used Chat GPT for some of the text! From the FAQ:
Q: I cannot go on the available days. Will you have more dates in the future?
A: Should there be capacity when you arrive, then you will be able to enter without any problems. In the event that this is not the case, we may ask you to wait a bit.
Fear not, for this question is asked again a few lines down and the answer makes more sense.
Curious about the events company behind this disaster, I took myself over to the homepage of House of Illuminati and I was not disappointed.
I would 100% trust these people to plan my wedding.
This abomination of a website is a badly edited WordPress blog filled with AI art and just enough blog posts to make the casual viewer think that it's a legit business for about 0.0004 seconds.
Their attention to detail is stunning, from how they left up the default first post every WP blog gets to how they didn't bother changing the name on several images, thus revealing where they came from. Like this one:
With the lovely and compact filename "DALL·E-2024-01-30-09.50.54-Imagine-a-scene-where-fantasy-and-reality-merge-seamlessly.-In-the-foreground-a-grand-interactive-gala-is-taking-place-filled-with-elegant-guests-i.png"
"Concept.png" came from the same AI generator that gets text almost, but not quiiiiiite right:
There are a suspicious number of .webp images in the uploads, which makes me think they either stole them from other sites where AI "art" was uploaded or they didn't want to pay for the hi-res versions of some and just grabbed the preview image.
The real fun came when I noticed this filename: Before-and-After-Eventologists-Transformation-Edgbaston-Cricket-Ground-1024x1024-1.jpg and decided to do a Google image search. Friends, you will be shocked to hear that the image in question, found on this post touting how they can transform a boring warehouse into a fun event space, was stolen from this actual event planner.
Even better, this weirdly grainy image?
From a post that claims to be about the preparations for a "Willy Wonka" experience (we'll get to this in a minute), is not only NOT an actual image of anyone preparing anything for Illuminati's event, it is stolen from a YouTube thumbnail that's been chopped to remove the name of the company that actually made this. Here's the video.
If you actually read the blog posts they're all copypasta or some AI generated crap. To the point where this seems like not a real business at all. There's very specific business information at the bottom, but nothing else seems real.
As I said, I'm kinda surprised they put on an event at all. This has, "And then they ran off with all our money!" written all over it. I'm perplexed.
And also wondering when the copyright lawyers are gonna start calling, because...
This post explicitly says they're putting together a "Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory Experience" complete with golden tickets.
Somewhere along the line someone must have wised up, because the actual event was called "Willys Chocolate Experience" (note the lack of apostrophe) and the script they handed to the actors about 10 minutes before they were supposed to "perform" was about a "Willy McDuff" and his chocolate factory.
As I was going through this madness with friends in a chat, one pointed out that it took very little prompting to get the free Chat GPT to spit out an event description and such very similar to all this while avoiding copyrighted phrases. But he couldn't figure out where the McDuff came from since it wasn't the type of thing GPT would usually spit out...
Until he altered the prompt to include it would be happening in Glasgow, Scotland.
You cannot make this stuff up.
But truly, honestly, I do not even understand why they didn't take the money and run. Clearly this was all set up to be a scam. A lazy, AI generated scam.
Everything from the website to the event images to the copy to the "script" to the names of things was either stolen or AI generated (aka stolen). Hell, I'd be looking for some poor Japanese visitor wandering the streets of Glasgow, confused, after being jacked for his mascot costume.