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unalivejournal · 3 years

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u mentioned only reading kripke era fic do you have a reclist 👀👀👀and if not could you link some of ur faves cuz the stuff that gets circulated the most right now is all like late late seasons fic and kripke era is my favorite too but im having trouble finding that many fics for it or even seasons 6-10 era which im fine with also. its just that like. the last five seasons were so bad that it makes fic generally worse too because people have to jump off of just Thee stupidest plot choices no matter how good their prose skills might be. but anyway yea if u have recs that would be awesome :)

hi anon i was thinking abt making a reclist and u just gave me the perfect excuse thank u

jess adamilligan’s kripke era fic recs

from making this ive learned that i never bookmark ANYTHING. sorry all of these r like….. 10k and under. i DO read longer fic but i don’t have any kripke era longfics bookmarked & tbh i prefer short oneshots

season one gen

disclaimer because it’s unfortunately needed: NONE of these are w*ncest! they’re all completely tagged as gen and i did not read them with the intent of consuming ship content.

Coaster Park by fogsrollingin, 10.4k, G, gen

Coaster Park had been experiencing an unusually high frequency of technical difficulties. Dean wouldn't have pulled a shift treating nauseated, heat-stroked, or dehydrated park-goers for that if he could've helped it, but when 'technical difficulties' were accompanied by rumors of things moving and stopping on their own in front of the operators' eyes, Dean had to throw down.

No historical tragedies or disasters in the area, ectoplasm, or EMF. Dean's only lead was a battered-looking kid that'd been coming to the park every day since it'd all started.

really interesting au fic! slightly ‘it’s a terrible life’. dean winchester is a hunter/EMT and sam wesson is a college kid destined to die on a roller coaster ride.

two basic motivating forces by sahwen, 7.8k, T, gen

He can’t cry, it’s not allowed; even as a child he was hushed into silence, whether his tears were from a long car ride or a late night or a raging fever. It’s never been an option, it’s never been an available outlet, and it’s not about to start being one just because he’s having an emotional breakdown on the bathroom floor.

Sam isn't only afraid of clowns.

BIG emetophobia tw (both for graphic depictions of nausea/vomiting and for the fact that this fic is about sam suffering from emetophobia) for this one but it’s my favorite sickfic. portrays anxiety over getting sick really well and is a fascinating examination of the different ways that sam’s fear of loss of control can manifest itself. also has lovely brothers content <3

Let’s Start at the Very Beginning (Remix of Just as Easy as 123) by nwspaprtaxis, 4k, T, gen

Dean’s functionally illiterate and Sam’s determined to remedy it...

PLEASE READ THIS ONE god it’s so sweet. dean never learned how to read properly due to his nomadic childhood and sam teaches him how.

dean/cas

Broadway Musical by Griftings, 9k, M, m/m

This is the day that marked the Holy and Blessed Union of Dean Winchester and Jo Harvelle.

The merging of prominent bloodlines is always a grand occurrence, but breeding pedigree hunter families like Winchester and Harvelle is something to be rejoiced. It is also something to be meticulously planned, which thankfully the Host is very good at.

Or, the romantic comedy where Dean Winchester and Jo Harvelle are destined to get married, Castiel is given the task of playing matchmaker and fails terribly, the entire Heavenly Host becomes a sitcom audience, God warns against male pregnancy, and Jimmy Novak is incredibly unimpressed with angels in general.

somewhat of a fandom classic and the humor holds up wonderfully. a very silly fic completed with commentary from angel radio throughout the entire thing.

Sappiest Season by dollsome, 2.7k, G, m/m

In which Dean and Cas have to stop an evil Christmas tree (like you do), and it requires a little fake couple action.

hilarious little s5ish fic. one of the first i read when getting back into spn. i don’t want to spoil anything but this is my favorite pick me up and i still giggle randomly whenever i think about it

The (Mostly Accidental) Courtship of Dean Winchester by tuesday

Angelic marriage rites were never intended to go quite like this.

another fandom classic. ik this one is recced a lot but how could i NOT include it. dean and cas get married (mostly by accident) and they’re huge cunts about it

the one thing in the galaxy god didn't have his eyes on by prufrock, 2.4k, T, gen + m/m

“Wait,” Dean says. “Let me get this right. You can fly, right—you can teleport—but you can’t drive a car?”

or, after the events of S5E03 "Free to Be You and Me," Dean teaches Cas to drive. Cas finds it stressful

im always a sucker for a good ftbyam fic. also i can’t drive so. resonation

So Says The Sword by komodobits, 85k, E, m/m

The briefing was simple: ‘Stand guard over the Michael Sword until the battle is ready to commence. Await further instructions.’

Castiel doesn’t mind working security duty; he was briefed shortly after the initial salvation of the Sword from the pit, and again before taking up his position. He knows what to do. However, it’s easy to forget that the green room isn’t real. Time moves differently there, the space ever-changing to make a prison of mountains, cathedrals, salt flats, orchards, and whatever Castiel was led to believe about Heaven’s greatest weapon—Dean Winchester is something entirely unexpected.

NO introduction neede. i think everyone on spntumblr has read this already but still. if you haven’t then i am demanding that you read it NOW. tbh i’m just adding this one so that i have at least one long fic here 😭

the weight by @myaimistrue, 3.5k, T, gen + m/m

“Do you…” Bobby sighs. “Listen, Dean, do you have something you wanna tell me?”

It’s the conversational equivalent of being punched in the stomach.

Or, Dean works through some things with Bobby's help.

WHEN I SAW THE USERNAME I GASPED I HAD NO IDEA THIS WAS U. anyway i Love coming out fics idk why i just do. the world is ending and dean comes out to bobby

canticles by 2street2car, 10.3k, T, m/m

“But you know something? If I couldn’t get you laid, at least I gave you a good first date.”

feat: footsies at a Ruby Tuesday, stargazing, the recreation of an iconic "Dirty Dancing" scene (no, not that one—the other one), and practicing for When You're With A Girl.

another ftbyam fic that skepticalfrog (i believe?) recommended a while back. made me feel at least 28 new emotions

Epilogue by JayneL, 28k, E, m/m

Bobby is here, swearing somewhere above and behind him; and Dean is here, talking about 2014 like it's a foreign country; and Sam is here, and is not Lucifer. Which means-- Bobby is here, swearing somewhere above and behind him; and Dean is here, talking about 2014 like it's a foreign country; and Sam is here, and is not Lucifer. Which means--

Cas is no longer when he was. Lucifer sent him back.

Coda to 'The End'.

2014 cas gets sent back to 2009, feelings ensue etc. i don’t remember all the details of this one bc it’s been a while but it’s really good

bonus

currently reading

Fragile As We Lie by perilously, 11k, E, f/f

Dragging Bela Talbot out of perdition isn't so much a decision as it is a frantic choice based on gut instinct. Her soul is bright, if fractured, and Anna yearns to do good again after the perversion of free will that immediately preceded her death.

Bela's no ordinary human, though; she's prickly and damaged and beautiful, and Anna doesn't want to leave her side. So maybe they can figure out how to navigate post-resurrection, post-Apocalypse-that-wasn't Earth together.

#sorry i took a few days to answer this haha #asks #anon #fic recs

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creepyleech · 3 years

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You know what I want?

For Crusade!Era Joe x Nicky to just magically show up in 2020. But this is, like, the Yusuf and Nicolo who had just started travelling together a couple of years ago, because they had nowhere to go.

Anyway so cue them watching with all levels of shock as their modern counterparts turn out to be a fucking couple?? Like??

And THEN we get scenes like the following:

-Yusuf calling Nicky all names under the sun, and saying Joe is disgusting for laying with that filthy invader. Sprinkle that with insults towards Nicolo, with little details of things Joe remember Nicky used to do. Cue Joe shoving Yusuf against a wall at some point, “You are a child. Nicky is a better man that you could ever dream to be. And if you insult him in my presence again, I’ll dump your body in bottom of the Thames.”

-Yusuf realizing that Nicky can understand him and speaks Arabic fluently, when he’s in the middle of muttering curses under his breath and Nicky casually replies to him.

-Nicolo, who had spent the past year filled with guilt re: the crusades, goes to Joe and they have a heart to heart and Nicolo cries and begs for forgiveness. Joe just holds him and says he understands. That he forgave him a long time ago. Nicky, who had come to fetch Joe for dinner, looks at them with a mixture of sadness and relief; he remembers going through that.

-Nicolo going to Nicky and talking about all his catholic guilt. Nicky telling him “I can’t tell you what to believe. But I believe in nothing but the love I feel for my family, and the love I have for Joe.”

-Yusuf telling Joe he has a weird accent. Joe saying “I’m speaking your language to you out of courtesy.” And then he just immediately switches to the Arabic/Ligurian dialect that he and Nicky use for each other, and refuses to switch back for the rest of the night. This leaves Nicolo and Yusuf to talk to each other, instead.

-Nicky cooks one of Joe’s favourite foods, which is Yusuf’s favourite. Yusuf admits, only to himself and in his head, that that is the best he’s ever had. He eats seconds and thirds. Joe eyes him with a smug smile and he just walks away in a huff.

-Joe and Nicky are in bed, talking. Joe tells him that he can’t stand Yusuf. “He’s so righteous. He thinks he knows everything. I remember that rage, I remember how cruel I was to you for so many years. Long after you stopped being cruel to me. Long after you tried your best to offer olive branch after olive branch. I just- I hate him. I hate that I hurt you so much, for so long.” And they cry and hold each other and thank the universe for who they are now. Nicky asks him to have some empathy for the man he used to be. Yusuf had lost his brothers, his family, everything he’d ever known, because of men like Nicolo. Nicolo had chosen to take up the cross and go and invade a foreign land. Yusuf’s hate was justified, and it would eventually come to an end. They cannot undo the past.

-Yusuf feels- resentment? Anger? Jealousy? Because he seems to be the odd man out. Because Joe is so kind to Nicolo, and Nicolo acts like he’s trying so hard to please Joe in return. Nicolo did that sometimes, with him. Tried to offer a truce. But Yusuf had no interest in taking Frank scum as a friend. He doesn’t know why it bothers him to see them like that. He doesn’t know why it bothers him that Nicky doesn’t try to engage him. He wishes he would, so he could yell back. Nicolo’s Arabic rivals that of a child. It’s hard to argue and yell at someone who can’t understand you. Nicky would understand him, though. He could tell Nicky in fine detail, exactly why he hates him so much.

-Nicky is cooking again, and Yusuf quietly sits and watches. Nicky doesn’t comment on it, but asks him to pass the salt, if you could.

-They read in the same room, all four of them. Joe and Nicky have no shame in lying piled on top of each other. Yusuf engages in some nice hate watching, and Nicolo is just overall uncomfortable. They leave the couple alone and share a few words in the kitchen, bonding over the strangeness of it all.

-Sparring turns into a blood bath. It’s just a lesson in sword fighting at first. With Yusuf and Nicolo genuinely interested in learning from men of such skill. And then it turns into Joe going way too hard on Yusuf after he (maybe) accidentally hurts Nicolo. After a snide comment or two (bc Yusuf has a death wish aparently) Joe loses his patience and attacks him. Nicky is the one that gets in between the two and gets hurt defending Yusuf, which Joe feels terrible about. But afterwards, it’s Yusuf who comes to Nicky and offers a begrudging apology.

-Don’t ask me how, but Yusuf or Nicolo or both get a glimpse of Joe and Nicky either having sex or starting to. If it’s on purpose or not, only I and god will ever know.

-After the sparring chaos, Yusuf and Nicky have a quiet truce where they cook together. One day, Yusuf speaks up. “I hate you,” he says and then he doesn’t stop. He gets it all out. All his feelings and his anger and how dare you come to my people and slaughter them like animals and then ask me to sit by your side, eating dinner as if we’re brothers. And once he’s done, Nicky says “You’re right.” And Yusuf deflates. Nicky tells him that the crusades were wrong, and that Yusuf is allowed his anger, and that Nicolo already knows he was wrong. It changes nothing, and yet it changes everything.

-Yusuf starts seeing Nicolo through the colours of Nicky’s words. He sees the guilt and the pain and the reluctance. He also sees the resignation. Nicolo expects nothing from Yusuf but harsh words; not only that but deep inside he feels they are deserved. And they are! But Yusuf didn’t think he knew that. But he does. He does. And maybe-

-It’s easier, somehow, to not be so cruel all the time. But it feels like betrayal in way. A betrayal to his people and his brothers. That he’d forget what the enemy’s done. That he’d see the enemy as anything other than the monsters who took what was not theirs. But it’s easier. It’s easier to ask Nicky what that spice is called. And to correct Nicolo when he pronounces a word wrong. And to get him a glass of water when he’s gotten one for himself.

-Joe doesn’t forgive him. Forgive him-? Joe doesn’t like him, is the thing. But one day, Yusuf goes to him and they sit outside, and they drink wine, and Yusuf asks him how he could look his mother in her eyes, knowing that he was walking the earth arm in arm with one of the men who killed her sons. And Joe remembers thinking that. Joe thinks of Booker and betrayal and lying in bed with one’s enemies. What Joe says is, “You cannot change what’s happened. You cannot die. Nicolo cannot die. You are bound to him, and he to you.” He pauses and looks directly at Yusuf. “Are you the same man you were yesterday? Have you never made mistakes? No one feels the guilt of the crusades as deeply as Nicolo does. You do not have to forgive him. But you need to let him show you that he can change. That he already has.”

-That night, Joe calls Booker. It’s the first time they’ve spoken in a decade.

-Months go by, and Yusuf asks Nicky to teach him some Ligurian words. Nicky doesn’t comment on the significance of it. He sits down, grabs a book, and reads to him.

-It’s about s year since they had landed in the 21st century, and Yusuf comes to Joe with a request. And that’s how Joe sits between the two of them, playing interpreter. It’s the first real conversation that Nicolo and Yusuf have ever had. Their voices raise and at one point Yusuf gets up in anger, but he comes back and sits down and tries again.

-Nicolo’s Arabic becomes passable. He speaks to Joe extensively every day. Yusuf has to admit, it’s impressive. Yusuf knows all but a couple dozen phrases in Ligurian, but every time he speaks them, Nicolo stares at him with something quiet, intense.

-They don’t mind the affections between Joe and Nicky anymore. It’s become common place. If tension grows between Nicolo and Yusuf, neither speak of it. When Yusuf and Joe are alone, Joe is unbearably smug about it. He never says it, but Yusuf can read the expression on his own face.

-Joe and Nicky leave for a mission. They’ll be gone a week. Nicolo and Yusuf now have the words to speak to each other and, without an audience, they do so freely. They argue a lot. Nicolo cries and Yusuf cries and they drink themselves into peace again. But like magnets, they find each other much as their counterparts have. It’s messy and confusing, but it just- fits.

-It’s almost as if Joe and Nicky had to be there to say goodbye. Because they come back, and they notice the shorter space between Yusuf and Nicolo. Nicky’s mouth twitches in one of his small smiles, but Joe just huffs a laugh and says something in his dialect that Yusuf cannot understand. And if they wait for Joe and Nicky to retire before they allow themselves to sit close to one another again, no one needs to know. And if they bring their cots together in the night, no one needs to know. But that’s how they rise again, back to their home. And it’s bright out and it’s quiet, and there’s no tv and no electric lights and no radio. And Yusuf and Nicolo know that the hard work starts now, but they’re gonna be ok.

Ok fuck I accidental turned this into a compete fic outline and now IM ACTUALLY CONSIDERING WRITING IT fuck it was just suppose to be a head canon. Fuuuuuck.

#kaysanova #joe x nicky #immortal husbands #the old guard #tog #my fics #Jesus fuck #now I wanna write this #also I fucking love time travel #and amnesia fics #and multiverse fics #for this exact reason #I just love chars confronting their own future #fbskrjfbrjfjekfnrjrj

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angelthebedsheet · 4 years

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hi! can i request a hxh headcannon with kurapika maybe like what it's like being a relationship with him? sorry if you can't do this or i requested this the wrong way-

- anon

a/n: it’s alright anon! i’ll try my best to write about the loml and the bad bitch himself kurapika! love hims i may have went CRAZY for this. also i write on my phone so sorry if this is so long!

lets get it!

How yall started dating

okay so yall first met at the hunter exams elevator

the main four first walked in there and were surprised to see another person there

and gon being his friendly self started to chat it up with you

“hi im gon!!”

“hi gon. i’m y/n.”

kurapika there respectfully looking at you

like you’re attractive.

lookin at how those elevator lights shine on your beautiful melaninated skin

whew baby he went 😳 inside but greeted you

“im kurapika”

“well hello kurapika”

and that was the BEGINNING

timeskip up in this bitch rq

the arcs are pretty hazy to me so like.... lets say yall were feeling e/o during the york new city arc

yall both were trying to become bounty hunters and were alr pretty close to e/o

you suggested working with him and he liked that idea

yall alr fought really well tgt and he actually liked having you around him

so you both became neon’s bodyguards

yall were slowly becoming closer to each other each day yall worked together

like lingering touches, yearnful gazes

allat cute mushy shit

kurapika is one touch starved and closed off bitch so he’s struggling here

you on the other hand you KNOW you want kurapika like who wouldn’t want him???

he’s a whole package in that tuxedo 🥵🥵

n e ways

soon neon notices this shit and it goes downhill

this lil shit starts PURPOSELY locking yall in rooms together

like baby no we are supposed to protect you what are you doing???

“im not letting you out till you two kiss!!”

“i beg your pardon?” - kurapika

“neon huh???” - you

kurapika is internally like what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck i lwk wanna kiss em but.... feelings.

you can see the internal STRUGGLE thats going on in kura’s eyes

you just say fuck it and pray the gods and any other spiritual holy beings are on your side and kiss him

kurapika’s stomach said 🦋🦋🦋🦋 when you cupped his face

like your lips are SOFT

(no cuz like some of yall rlly be making y/n have crusty ass lips like um no baby i wear lip gloss and chapstick religiously you aint gon catch me w/ brittle ass lips)

and you cant tell me kurapika doesnt wear chapstick

and he’s like ✋🏽😳 hol up this kinda.... this kinda hits why didnt i do this earlier?

(bc you’re a gated ass bitch thats why honey)

my mans just has to kiss back

he kinda just gently holds your wrists and kisses back

now you’re deceased bc damn boy where you learned this???

no cap you kinda felt your knees buckle and he noticed that but yall not gon talk about that

and you two reluctantly pull away bc hello yall still on the job and literally are bodyguards

“the door wasnt even locked.”

“you cheeky lil shi—

cue you chasing neon while she runs away giggling

kurapika can only gently touch his lips and smile with a red face

In the Relationship

now yall are disgustingly cute in private

kurapika is definitely touch starved and he always needs to be touching you in some way

he always looks out for you too

he’ll definitely press tons of kisses to your face or the back of your neck

calls you a bunch of cheesy nicknames

darling, my love, my sun, sweetheart, beloved, honey, babylove (the stanely uris thats played by wyatt oleff makes me lose my sHIT)

my boy loves your hair so much

like the texture? the volume?

he’s all for it

he would probably ask canary about wash day bc she’s black herself

would 100% help you with wash day

want him to detangle your hair? hand him that rat toothed comb he’s on it

wash your hair? let him roll up his sleeves he’s on it

oil massages? pass them oil bottles baby he’s putting you to sleep

like you will be KNOCKED as he washes your hair or oils it bc he’s that skilled

i think he would struggle braiding your hair but after you show him?

this man is taking over and braiding your hair neater than you

like excuse me where did you learn this??

parting god.

them parts are crispy and straighter than a mf

literally doesn’t comb your hair like ya mama do w/ all that tugging and shit

he’ll just gently move your head along or softly apologize whenever he accidentally tugs on your hair and presses a kiss to your scalp

taking. baths. together.

my boy CRAVES that intimacy

no sexual shit

after a long day of work he just LOVES to take a nice bubble bath with you

either you leaning against his chest or you on the opposite end of the bath

he can always unwind around you and let go of that stoic facade he puts on

i would say he’s a lil goofy in private? like he’ll scoop up the bubbles and blow them in your face

if you want jokes you gotta give em

baby had to grow up quicker so he’s more mature for his age

i’d say if you want them giggles out? hold his waist and blow the back of his neck

the way he JERKS from that then starts laughing

heart eyes up in that bitch

his laugh is so 🥺🥺🥺🥰🥰

“darling!” “that was so FUCKING CUTE KURA WTFFF”

another way? blow kisses in his neck

he will giggle like a lil kid

god i love him

when you go to sleep he’s always big spoon

doesn’t matter if you’re taller than him

big. spoon. kurapika.

the only times you can hold him is when he has a breakdown and his scarlet eyes are activated

nightmares haunt him alot and he just needs to hear your heartbeat to know you’re still here

he needs to feel your warmth and you whispering that you’re here

other than those moments you better be fine with him holding you

i would say he doesn’t move alot in his sleep other than the small twitches

but for some reason his grip is strong as FUCK

like you aint getting out of his arms at ALL

if you gotta pee hold it

nah im kidding

just wake him up he’s not a deep sleeper but he isnt a light one either

if he were to wake up in the middle of the night he’d definitely fix your bonnet or durag if it fell off

morning kissies!

one way he loves waking up is kisses all over his face

especially kissing on his eyelids

it makes him wake up with a big ol smile

“morning beloved.”

WHEWWWWWW THE RASP

ahem anyways

“morning pikapika.”

he used to hate that nickname

now? baby LOVES it bc it’s just for him

the lohl giving him a nickname just for him makes butterflies in his stomach go crazy

he can practically feel the love oozing from your eyes

the way he wakes you up?

if he’s feeling a lil goofy or silly he’ll lay ontop of you and blow kisses into your neck

if he’s still tired he’ll cup your face and gently call your name

yall cook together

if you cant cook he will respectfully say take your goofy ass out of the kitchen

if you can? show him how to season your food correctly. rmb how he made that pig look pretty asf but merchi basically said it taste like shit?

not on your watch

he’ll take mental notes as you teach him the ways of goya and sazon

sometimes he’ll just gently take over

not bc he thinks you cant do it right but bc he likes to provide for others

you just gotta lightly slap his hands away like bby i got this its okay

and he’ll understand

kisses with him are very soft but passionate?

like he isnt gonna eat your lips but he will hold you close and make sure you know how much he loves you

he’ll definitely twirl your curls around his finger

you of course gave him your permission when you started dating

he will always have one arm around your waist and one hand behind your neck

doesnt matter if you’re taller

he will 100% get on his tiptoes and do it

or make you sit down

he doesnt CARE if he has to step on a stepladder he’ll do it

he said run me my kisses NEOW

i would definitely say he’s a passionate lover and would throw hands with ANYONE if they make any snarky comments about your skin

“my s/o’s skin is beautiful mind your business and take yourself somewhere else before i do it for you”

😳

🕶🤏🏾

sir.....

you would throw hands for him too

anyone says anything about him being a girl?

its over

there was a time where someone called him a girl who was confused and you went off and got into a fight

you won by a landside

kurapika was like 😟😦😳🥺

bc you really fought for his honor

but he had to pull you away before you damn near put this person in the hospital

“honey thank you but it was okay. it didnt bother me.”

“no but it bothered me! nobody can just talk about someone i love like that.”

he went 🥺🥺🥺

he definitely kissed the FUCK outta you when yall got home

yall hands were rated e for everyone!

a ride or die couple

yall are in love love

maybe he’s looking for a ring and kurta wedding earrings

#kurapika x reader #hunter x hunter x reader #hxh x reader #x black reader #x gender neutral reader #kurapika kurta #kurapika #reader x kurapika #hunter x hunter #hxh

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hookingminor · 4 years

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close quarters (3) - andre burakovsky

a/n: hi! sorry it’s been awhile I've been in the middle of moving and it’s been hectic! I hope this makes up for it since it’s a little longer than the other parts! anyway, like always, please let me know your thoughts and I hope you enjoy some jealous!burky and friend!josty sorry this is like all tys im so sorry lmao

word count: 3,928

one / two / three / four / five

The next morning Andre was out before you could even try to make up for the night before with apology pancakes. You lounged around the apartment for a few hours, hoping he would be back after practice but when the afternoon rolled around, you gave up. You had your own errands to run, and if he wanted to avoid you, you could avoid him.

It’s not like you had nothing to do except sit around all day, so you began your furniture shopping. The landlord had contacted you saying the unit would be ready for move-in a few days before the lease started if you needed it. Had it not been for the, now, awkward atmosphere you’d created because you couldn’t keep your libido in check, you would’ve rejected the offer and waited until the first of the month. However, you’d fucked up whatever shot you had with Andre and wanted to get out of his hair as soon as possible.

Though it wasn’t like he was around for you to be in his hair.

You would have made him aware of your plans had he been home, but from the hours of nine in the morning to nine in the evening, he was nowhere to be found. And when he was home, he was tucked away in his room and away from you. For a whole week, save for the three days he was on a road trip, Andre avoided you like the plague. The only times you saw him were in passing as you took turns entering or exiting the apartment.

It was a careful dance you both performed, tiptoeing around as to not bother the other person just in case that night came up in a conversation. Which was probably smart on Andre’s part because you did want to talk about it. He didn’t have to feel the same, but you wanted to apologize and clear the air at least. The last thing you wanted was for Andre to tell Tom, who would tell Taylor, how you came onto him wantonly. Your cheeks reddened at the thought of being humiliated like that.

So, for a whole week, you’d barely seen him. You spent your days out and organizing your stuff for your new apartment. You’d ordered all your furniture items and had them delivered to the building, frequently running over to guide the delivery men through the complex.

All you had left to do now was pack the few things you’d brought to Andre’s and return your spare key, which you’d probably just leave on the counter with a note that said ‘bye’ since you never got the chance to speak to him.

Your last day at his apartment was filled with packing your suitcase and bags, making about fifty laps through the rooms to double check that you had everything. You really didn’t want to have to come back because you forgot something stupid.

But honestly? At this point you’d just replace whatever you accidentally left behind with something new to avoid another awkward run in.

A knock sounded at the front door as you finished packing up the few spices you’d bought for the kitchen. Andre’s cooking skills borderlined on nonexistent and it’s not like he was going to use the chile and herbs so you figured you might as well take them with you.

You answered the door to reveal Tyson’s cheerful face, one that was way too cheerful for before noon.

“Uh, hi, Tyson,” you said, slightly confused at his arrival, “Andre’s not here at the moment.”

“I know. He’s at Gabe’s watching the game. I’m just dropping something off for him,” Tyson answered, ruffling the bag you hadn’t noticed he was carrying.

“Oh, well come in,” you said, opening the door wider for him to enter.

Tyson walked in and over to the couch, resting the bag against the coffee table. You let him be and resumed your packing, assuming he would be leaving soon anyway.

“Are you moving out already?” He asked suddenly, tearing your focus away from the box you were currently stuffing.

“Yeah,” you huffed out, “I found a new place on 36th. I’m just finishing up the last couple boxes and then I’m out for good.”

“Is Andre not helping you?” Tyson asked as he took a spot beside you at the countertop.

“No, we’re kind of… not talking at the moment?” you said, though it sounded more like a question, “I didn’t want to bother him with something I can do alone.”

“Not talking?” He repeated with a smirk, “Sounds like an interesting story, please share with the class.”

“It’s not that interesting, I promise,” you chuckled lightly, hoping to steer the conversation elsewhere.

“Andre, literally, never shuts up. If he’s not talking to you something obviously happened,” Tyson said.

You gave him a sideways glare to let him know you really didn’t want to talk about this, but he sat there expectantly as he waited for you to continue.

“I may or may not have tried to make a move on him,” you explained with a blush, “And it may or may not have been well received. And he’s been MIA for a week, so I haven’t had the chance to apologize.”

The smirk on Tyson’s face fell when you reached the end of your sentence and his brows furrowed instead.

“Wait, you’re telling me he turned you down? Burky? Turned you down?” He reiterated slowly.

“You don’t need to keep saying it. It was bad enough when it actually happened, I don’t need to relive it,” you muttered, breaking his gaze as your cheeks flamed even hotter.

“Sorry, I’m not trying to make you feel bad. I just don’t understand why he did that. He seemed pretty interested when I asked him about it,” he said. That caught your attention.

“You asked him about it?” You insisted, focusing on the last few words he said.

“I probably shouldn’t—,” Tyson stammered, noticing the mistake he made too late.

“No,” you interrupted, “No, you have to explain yourself right now. What did you ask him?”

Tyson looked at you hesitantly, and he knew there was no way out of this.

“I, maybe, asked him at the golf course after we first met if he was planning to do something, but he said no. Then I asked him if I could try something, just to get on his nerves,” he added the last part quickly, “And he said no to that as well.”

“So he’s not interested?” You asked, dumbfoundedly. At no part in Tyson’s story did Andre ever say he was into you.

“He definitely is. You should’ve seen him, he was so defensive. I think he just doesn’t want to try anything because of your roommate situation,” he gestured vaguely to emphasize his point.

“That’s so dumb, we aren’t even roommates. He was doing a favor for a friend. This was always temporary,” you countered.

“I never said it was smart, I was just saying what I thought,” Tyson held up his hands in surrender.

“Men are so fucking stupid,” you mumbled under your breath. If Andre was actually into you and not acting on it because of this, you were going to kill him.

“Yeah, I can’t say I disagree,” he said, laughing lightly.

“Well, I want to be out of here before he gets back, so I hope you don’t have any plans,” you sighed, taping off the last box you’d finished packing, “You’re helping me build furniture.”

“You don’t want to talk this out with him?” Tyson asked, moving from his spot to help carry a heavy box you were struggling with. You dropped your extra key on the counter before scribbling a note saying that you had everything moved out.

“If he wants to be an idiot, I’m not going to stop him,” you replied confidently, grabbing the suitcase and duffel bag you’d stashed by the door.

You drove yourself and Tyson to your new complex, and you were thankful for the extra hands so you didn’t have to make more than one trip.

Using your new key, you entered through the front door and were met with the tons of boxes you’d been piling up for a week now. You dropped your boxes and bags by the kitchen, which was the only uncluttered area of the whole apartment. Furniture covered almost every inch of the main living space, and you were internally dreading the hours it would take to build everything.

Tyson was just realizing just how much shit you had stocked up, but it was too late for him to back out now.

“This is going to take all day,” Tyson said, jaw falling open.

“I hope you’re good at reading directions then,” you replied, turning to give him a wide smile.

The next seven hours passed in a blur, most of it consisting of you shouting at Tyson for misinterpreting the instructions and him getting confused about which screws went where. You ordered pizza about halfway through the day, which led to more arguments about what toppings to get, but you’d rather die than eat a five meat pie.

Once the last piece of furniture was complete, your bedroom dresser, you both fell on the couch in a sweaty haze, out of breath and sore from lifting.

“Thank you for your help today,” you said finally.

“Don’t thank me yet, you’re going to owe me a favor one day,” Tyson replied, letting his head fall on the back cushion. You rolled your eyes at his statement, but he spoke again before you could say anything.

“Actually, I know what you’re going to do for me,” he said, sitting upright to look at you with a devious smile. You raised your eyebrows at his proposition, indicating for him to go on.

“You’re going to be my date to the charity dinner this Saturday.”

Despite your refutations, Tyson made it very clear you couldn’t get out of the event. At first, he blackmailed you with the furniture building and that you owed him, but that wore off quickly when you stopped feeling bad about soliciting him for help.

He called you about four times on the day of to make sure you were still planning on going.

“I’m serious, Y/N. If you’re not ready to leave when I get there in an hour, I’m taking you as is. And if you don’t want to look like a slob when you see Burky, I suggest you be ready,” he insisted for the hundredth time.

“I promise you I’ll be ready. Now I’m hanging up so I can shower,” you groaned out, tired of his constant chiding. You ended the call and tossed your phone on the bed. You’d come to terms with being kidnapped for the evening, but a part of you still wanted to ditch last minute just to upset Tyson.

After your shower, you dolled yourself up, putting on the new dress you’d bought for the occasion. It was a form fitting black number, not short enough to be scandalous but still hugged your chest in the most flattering way possible.

Maybe you had gotten it with the intention of wanting to make Andre feel at least a little jealous, but that was beside the point. If he didn’t want to ask you out, you wanted to make him eat his words.

You were finishing the final touch-ups with your makeup when your phone rang once again.

“Hello?” You answered, not needing to read the ID to know who it was.

“I’m parked out front,” Tyson said.

“I’ll be down in five,” you replied.

“Wearing something presentable, I hope?” He said, voice raising at the end of his sentence. You didn’t answer him, deciding it was better that he saw for himself just how presentable you were.

Tyson’s reaction was everything you hoped it would be and more. He leaned against the side of his car, scrolling on his phone when he heard your heels click across the pavement.

Giving you a low whistle when he saw you, he tucked his phone back in his pants before clapping loudly.

“Wow,” he gushed, “Can I get a spin?”

You laughed at his praise and gave him a dramatic turn, flipping your hair for extra effect.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to impress someone,” he hooted, opening the passenger for you.

“Play your cards right, and you might get lucky tonight, Jost,” you teased, sliding yourself across the seat.

“In another life, baby. Another life,” he said wistfully, climbing into the driver’s side.

The drive to the arena took less than thirty minutes, but the time passed quickly as you updated Tyson on your new job and he explained what you were to expect from the night. It was mainly just for the big donors, much fancier than the regular events they did for ticket-holders.

He mentioned that it would be filled with inane conversation that bored him to death most times, but he’d have an excuse to be more lenient on the mingling since you were with him. You weren’t quite sure how that worked, but it didn’t matter much to you.

“Do you know if he’s bringing a date?” You asked timidly when he’d parked the car.

“The guys usually don’t bring dates to fancy events like these unless they’re serious about them, so no. It’ll mainly just be the wives tonight,” he answered.

“Then why are you bringing me?” You asked.

“What can I say? These events are a little boring, and I am in desperate need for some drama,” he replied with a sly smirk, and you knew agreeing to this was already proving to be a mistake.

“Great,” you whispered to yourself, “I can’t wait.”

Tyson ushered you into the vast space that was now decorated with a stage and multiple tables where the ice rink would normally be. Servers floated around with flutes of champagne, and Tyson swiftly snatched two when one passed by. Handing you a glass, he offered his arm for you to take, and you both made your way to the large group of hockey players who stood with their significant others.

Gabe was the first to notice the two of you join the group, welcoming you with a bright smile.

“Josty! About time! Everyone else is already here,” his voice boomed across the table and everyone else’s gazes flickered to the two of you.

“Who do you have with you?” Gabe’s wife, Mel, asked.

“I’m Y/N,” you said, introducing yourself and reaching over to shake her hand.

“This is Burky’s roommate that I told you about,” Gabe said to his wife, but everyone at the table heard. The few guys nodded in agreement, now giving you longer looks to take you in.

“Actually, we’re no longer roommates,” you chuckled, “I moved into my new place last week.”

“Andre wasn’t around to help her move, so I stepped up. She’s here to repay that favor,” Tyson added, making it clear to everyone there that you weren’t actually together on a date.

“Ah, I see,” Gabe said knowingly, and all the guys exchanged a look. It was clear there was something being said that also wasn’t, but you didn’t know anyone well enough to call them out on it or ask.

“I hate to steal your date away from you, Y/N, but us guys have to go do our rounds,” Gabe said after a moment, pushing his chair out to stand up. You knew he would’ve been whisked away from you eventually, but at least he was leaving you with a group of women who seemed nice enough.

Andre’s eyes found you the instant you walked through the doors. He would’ve been completely blown away by how gorgeous you looked tonight had he not seen who you’d come with.

You’d come with Tyson.

His friend, Tyson. The same friend who egged him about you a few weeks ago.

Andre instinctively stood up a little straighter, peering over the head of whatever donor he was currently talking to. Tyson was leading you to the team’s table, your arm wrapped around his.

How did Tyson even know you? As far as he was concerned, the only time he’d met you was that one day in his apartment. It didn’t seem like he’d gotten a good chance to talk to you that morning, and Andre doubted Tyson would be as bold as to ask for your number in front of the guys.

The donor was listing off some statistics from the season, but everything went over Andre’s head as he watched you mingle with the group. Only now was he noticing your attire for the evening: a tight black dress where your breasts were spilling over tastefully.

He felt his chest tighten as he saw Tyson’s hand drift from your arm to the small of your back. You tossed your hair over your shoulder as you took a seat at the table, and the other guys excused themselves.

Andre saw them begin to disperse into the crowds, and he took this as an opportunity to excuse himself from his conversation, hoping Z could continue on without him.

He maneuvered his way through the busy bodies, apologizing when people would call out his name to engage in discussion. Stepping into Tyson’s path, he cut the young forward off with a gentle, but firm, hand to his chest.

“Got a second, Josty?” He asked quickly, pulling him aside before he could agree.

“What’s up, man?” Tyson asked.

“You brought Y/N as your date?” Andre questioned even though he knew the answer, “I didn’t know you guys talked.”

“Yeah, well, I stopped by that one day to drop off your shit, and she was packing. It looked like a lot, so I offered to help. We drove all her stuff over, and I helped build some furniture,” Tyson explained casually, as if the answer was common knowledge.

“And you asked her here on a date?” Andre asked, but there was more bite in his voice than he intended.

“Is that a problem?” Tyson retorted.

“I told you to leave her alone,” Andre insisted.

“Why? Do you have feelings for her? She told me about the disastrous night you turned her down, so I don’t think it’s that,” Tyson recalled, crossing his arms for effect, “If you’ll excuse me, I have to go talk to some people.”

Tyson walked around Andre’s tall frame, leaving the man to simmer alone.

Andre didn’t want to admit that Tyson was right, especially to him. Andre was into you, and he’d fucked up any chance he had when he panicked and ran away.

He regretted his decision the minute he closed his bedroom door behind him that night. He closed his eyes and let his forehead hit the door, kicking himself for ruining the moment. You were right there in front of him, lips plump and ready to be kissed, and he panicked.

Andre hadn’t expected that night would take a turn and that you would be looking up at him with lustful eyes, and he didn’t know what to do. He overthought the situation, and before he could process what was happening, he was pushing you away and running down the hall.

Now, the same point was being driven home once again. He fucked up. He didn’t kiss you, and then ignored you, and now you were here looking hot as fuck and on the arm of someone who wasn’t him.

Andre saw you leave the table and make your way over to the bar. Before he could stop himself, he was following you there, his excuses becoming even more short when people tried to grab his attention.

“Hi,” he said, catching your attention as you waited for the bartender to return with your drink.

“Oh, hi, Andre,” you replied curtly. You were wondering how long it would take for him to see you out; not that you were awaiting his arrival, though.

“You look great tonight,” he complimented as he fidgeted with his hands.

“Thanks,” you said, tapping your fingers along the bartop.

“I’m sorry about the apartment thing. I would’ve helped if I had known you were moving,” Andre persisted.

“You weren’t really around for me to tell you about it,” you declared, “And don’t worry, Tyson handled it.” Except Andre was worrying about it. He was worrying about Tyson handling you, and he wanted to not think about that.

“I’m sorry about all of that,” he apologized again. Andre wasn’t one to be at a loss for words, but it seemed he never could find the right ones around you.

“Again, don’t worry about it,” you placated, giving him a reassuring smile though reassured was far from how you wanted him to feel. Thankfully, your drink had come and Tyson had appeared at your side.

“There you are, babe,” he said to interrupt your conversation. His hand reached over to lightly grasp your hip and pull you gently into his side, “I haven’t seen you in awhile, I just wanted to check in on you.”

Andre didn’t bother to try and hide the murderous glare he was giving Tyson for pulling you away. You felt the tension between you increase tenfold, and you brought it upon yourself to break it before they started yelling.

“We should get going, but I’ll see you around, Andre,” you said, breaking Andre’s focus so he turned his gaze to you. His eyes softened immediately, and you could see the remorse hidden behind them. You gave him a shy smile before allowing Tyson to lead you away from the table.

You’d walked about twenty feet before Tyson opened his mouth again.

“He’s seething,” he said quietly, leaning down to say it into your ear. You knew Andre could see you, and you knew this little gesture would upset him even more.

“Good,” you said happily. It was only fair he suffered a little bit if he was going to be a dumbass.

“I’m going to get my ass kicked at practice on Monday,” he muttered.

“I bet if we leave now he’ll be even more furious,” you suggested, turning to give him a pleading look.

“You really want me dead, huh?” Tyson chuckled, steering you towards the front entrance.

“Hey, it was your idea to bring me. This is on you,” you emphasized.

“I know, I’m hoping I don’t regret it,” he sighed, “We’re getting ice cream on the way back.”

You laughed at his statement, nodding your head in agreement. You’d had enough social interaction tonight, and the pot had been thoroughly stirred thanks to yours and Tyson’s charade.

Andre watched from afar as you and Tyson left the arena, his hand resting near your ass as he escorted you to the exit. Tyson stopped occasionally as he said his goodbyes to those who tried to talk to him, probably making up some excuse as to why the two of you needed to leave.

Andre still had a bit of time left before it was acceptable for him to leave as he had drawn the short end of the stick this time around. His hands tightened around the glass he was currently holding, blocking out whatever Mikko was trying to tell him. Andre was glad he hadn’t driven tonight because he planned on getting trashed before the night was over to get the images of you and Tyson together out of his mind.

#andre burakovsky #nhl imagines #hockey imagines #nhl fic #my writing #avs95

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springfieldblues · 4 years

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my long ass review for S32E03 Now Museum, Now You Don’t

warning: LONG because i rambled about history more than i thought i would

id been looking forward to this one because i like art history, especially after seeing how they tried their best to stick to historical accuracy in the previous episode I, Carumbus. this time however….they didnt try that hard. i dont know why i thought theyd go through that sort of trouble again LMAO

but its okay, i dont really expect the simpsons to be the paragon of historical accuracy or anything. especially in anthology episodes told through a particular character's lens (in this case, lisa, whos already feverish so whatever)

first i just wanna say that this is, i guess, less of a review and more of an accidental list of history fun facts. so im just gonna get my general thoughts out of the way first.

the episode was fun! to me at least haha. i mean it got me to think and do a lot of research on my own so that must count for something. besides a couple of really weird ones, the jokes were good. anthology episodes tend to be….not that good but i thought this one was one of the better ones so far. idk.

anyway on to lisanardo da vinky its the renaissance! jesus christ the italian accents in the beginning of this segment were annoying as hell but i also feel like that was the joke lmao. ill be real i kind of tuned out for a second there when grampa started rambling so idk what he said.

i told myself i wouldnt get nitpicky with historical accuracy if the jokes were funny (final edit: so that was a lie) but this meh bit with the pizza guys and mascots was really not worth ignoring the fact that its impossible for italy to have any tomato-based food in the 15th century (tomatoes were brought to europe from the americas in the 16th century, and pizza as we know it today—flatbread, cheese, tomato—originated in the late 18th century)

oh this next part was kind of legit tho. lisanardo, like the real leonardo, became andrea del verrochio's apprentice at his workshop. i loved this next bit:

"Whoever paints the sweetest cherub will have the honor of having MY name signed on their work. That's what great artists do!"

SO YEAH as it turns out, lisanardo painted the sweetest cherubs. the painting here is called The Baptism of Christ, and the real leonardo assisted verrochio in finishing it. specifically, he painted the cherubs in the corner.

this causes verrochio to quit and go someplace with less talented people: a music school (yes, verrochio did quit painting after getting owned by young leo and his mad angel painting skills. he never did anything with music tho, he was more of a sculptor)

alongside lisanardo, in mr largo-verrochio's workshop we have barticelli (botticelli bart), dolphatello (donatello dolph), ralphael (raphael...ralph) and mediocrito (no one that i know of. sorry milhouse) (and kearney i guess but they dont refer to him by name). botticelli and donatello are said to have also been apprentices at verrochio's workshop, but raphael came a couple of decades later so he couldnt have been there. and donatello was too old so that claim is a bit questionable. but anyway

it IS true that leonardo's peers envied him, to the point where he was anonymously and purposefully accused of being gay (a major crime punishable by death in 15th century florence) while he was still working at verrochio's workshop

we are then treated by what im pretty sure is the fourth time the show has used 'at seventeen' by janis ian, this time sung by a dejected lisanardo (man they really do keep making yeardley sing these days huh) who only wishes to be appreciated and not envied.

"I'll show them all! I'll show them all in a secret diary that no one will decipher for 400 years!"

some of lisanardo's future inventions. who wouldve known

so after barticelli, for some reason (revenge??? or something?? what was his plan here idgi) steals lisanardo's diaries full of blueprints of her inventions and takes them to mr burns who i have to assume is pope alexander VI here, they decide to use her inventions for war.

"With these, we can kill the most evil people in the world!! ....Slightly different Christians."

leo actually did this of his own accord. im surprised this is what they decided to do with lisanardo instead of talking about leo's love of nature and vegetarianism (not a single mention of that in this episode? come on...) then again, trying to do good only to end up indirectly making things worse is a very standard lisa storyline. i guess they didnt want to miss the chance to have evil pope burns (very fitting, especially for that era since they were all about money and controlling the people)

so lisanardo decides to leave for france, unlike the real leonardo who was more or less persuaded by his ultimate fanboy king francis I to move to france.

"Lisanardo, I have many questions. Why are you hitting yourself? A nerd says 'what'? And how is it possible that I am rubber and you are glue? Et cetera, et cetera."

that line may seem a little random, like hes just nelson saying nelson things (and i mean, obviously he is) but the real francis also "had an unquenchable thirst for learning, and Leonardo was the world’s best source of experimental knowledge. He could teach the king about almost any subject there was to know, from how the eye works to why the moon shines." so yeah, he did have many questions and lisanardo, finally being appreciated for her intellect, was happy to answer them all. its very interesting how lisa assigned this role to nelson in her retelling of da vinci’s life :^)

and so she lived the rest of her days in france, nat king cole's 'mona lisa' plays because duh, and they make a da vinci code reference because duh. and the segment ends. and not a single time did they show the actual mona lisa painting. the fuck?

(ngl i was fully expecting bart to say 'leonardo da vinky' for a second here)

so this next segment is about french impressionist painters, most likely the batignolles group, a name adopted by the early representatives of impressionism. its much more vague than the lisanardo segment since no one here is referred to by name (except moe, more on him in a sec) but i dont feel like it really matters in this case. bart is prrrrooobably claude monet but its hard to say, this segment is kind of a mish-mash of a lot of things. also i gotta say i really liked how lisa introduced the story to bart with an 'if you hate the formal study of art' and not 'if you hate art' because thats exactly my headcanon. i LOVE the concept of artist bart and whenever its referenced it just makes perfect sense to me.

anyway the segment opens in 1863 at the école des beaux-arts (back then it was actually known as the académie des beaux-arts), preserver of traditional french art styles. skinner reviews his students’ paintings one by one. praises the plain, unimaginative paintings depicting your typical european countryside landscapes. very run-of-the-mill (haha get it...cuz theres….a windmill) (although the real académie didnt approve of such basic stuff, they wanted artists to draw epic historical and mythological scenes) then he gets to barts painting and he gives him an F- because the painting made him think.

(the paintings in this scene arent real famous paintings as far as i know but they are inspired by real paintings enough to get the point across)

in comes barney dressed as bacchus as a model for the students to sketch, which i just loved:

barney: “You prefer robe open or robe off?” skinner: “Just cover your privates with this walnut shell.” barney: “Whoa!!! So roomy!”

skinner gasps in horror at bart’s sketch, which “looks nothing like him” and bart explains that “it shouldn’t; we’re making the art that we feel because we can’t compete with a camera.” damn, you go bart. take that, realism. draw what you feel!!

(also no, you didnt need to hold still for 17 hours for a daguerreotype. 30 min tops.)

nelson haw-haw of the week: FOIE-gras!

so here they are at the moulin rouge (“enjoy it before baz luhrmann ruins it” hey shut up. i love that movie), which wouldnt be built for another 26 years, but it is the most widely known gathering place for bohemians in the public consciousness so i can understand why they went with the moulin. nelson delivers this anachronistic line:

“This époque keeps getting beller and beller!”

which alludes to la belle époque, the golden age of france usually dated from 1880 to 1914. made me snort so ill let that slide

and heres moe! as henri de toulouse-lautrec, who was actually born a year after the year this segment is set in. yo moe szyslak he was just 1

toulouse-moetrec introduces himself as the chronicler of the demimonde (not an actual job). an iconic figure associated with the moulin rouge (largely due to his affinity for alcohol and prostitutes), toulouse-lautrec was also a painter, having illustrated a series of posters for the moulin himself. he simply had to be in this segment, anachronisms be damned, just because they decided to include the moulin. cant have one without the other.

and yes he did have a walking cane where he kept his liquor.

i love how everyone drinks absinthe in this place. theyre bohemians what else would they drink

toulouse-moetrec points out that barts paintings are the greatest thing hes ever seen (and hes seen like five things!) and that hes a genius. milhouse realizes that they should stop doing what the teacher says and use their own minds to instead...start doing what bart says lmao. to the easels!

next we have skinner hyping up chalmers about the art his students made for the salon de paris, an art exhibition that the emperor of france will attend. he assures him that none of these paintings will encourage debate, provoke thought or be out of place at a dentist’s office. when they unveil the art, theyre both SHOCKED at how scandalous the paintings actually are.

this reaction was kind of accurate. impressionism was severely rejected at the salon de paris, due to paintings not looking finished enough to them, they thought they were ugly and vulgar for depicting nudity in a contemporary setting (historical and mythological nudity was fine). these impressionist paintings were sent to the salon de refusés, which is. yeah. the place where they sent the rejects. the salon de refusés does not make an appearance but this scene makes a reference to it when the artists get expelled from the royal salon. also:

“What about our student loans?” “Oh they’ll be refunded. We are not barbarians, I mean, come on.”

(god if only)

so the painters are down because they want the emperor to actually see their paintings. toulouse-moetrec pipes in once again with an idea.

“There is one thing the emperor loves more than anything.” “France?” “No, he hates France.”

apparently the emperor really loves cheese, which makes sense since its napoleon III (who loved cheese) and homer (who loves cheese.) so the painters roll into the salon inside a giant wheel of cheese (obviously.) as lenny said, “Eh, you know French cheese. Very runny.” napoleon III chases after the wheel into a room, where the wheel falls apart after getting chomped on by the emperor. now that they got his attention, the painters proudly show the emperor their impressionist art, which he couldnt be more indifferent about because he just wants to eat his cheese dammit, and he awards them with the royal medallion just to kind of get them out of his way. skinner immediately starts kissing ass (as he does) until marge’s like ‘hey wait a minute. you expelled these students from the royal salon’ and an executioner immediately starts ominously measuring skinners neck.

“Uh, sir...is your tongue sticking out because you’re dead or because you’re mad at me?”

and thats the end of that lmao (gore in this episode, gore in the last episode, and next week we’re getting gore too cuz its THOH, what the hell is goin on)

we get a short intermission with maggie, who wants a story for her too! lisa tells her that renaissance artists loved to put babies in their paintings, especially baby angels.

here she is showing her The Triumph Of Galatea by raphael:

King David Playing The Harp by peter paul reubens:

and a very simplified version of pretty much any depiction of hell by hyeronimus bosch lmao:

not much else to say about this one, really. but i really liked that sky!

the last segment is about frida kahlo and diego rivera. or as bart puts it ‘the one about a fat guy whos wife is too good for him.’ i was REALLY looking forward to this one because i love frida and i thought itd be a cool opportunity for animators to go bonkers and do really cool shit with her art as inspiration…..but the segment is not about frida, its about diego and his selling out to capitalism. and its also yet another story with homer and marge drama. no funky cool animation here. sigh i guess i’ll take it

the story begins in 1929 at la casa azul, frida’s home (now museum dedicated to her life and work.) frida and diego are getting married. this courtyard definitely did not look this way yet back in 1929. also theres something very cringy yet funny about lovejoy saying spanish words the way he does, i honestly cant decide how i feel about that one

the writers know theyre being cringy with their gringoness so they go along with it.

moe: “Spanish for ‘best wishes’!” mel: “Spanish for ‘congratulations’!” bumblebee man: “Spanish for ‘muy bueno’!”

OH YEAH BUMBLEBEE MAN this is his new voice actor, eric lopez! hes not mexican but its still great to finally have a latino actor voicing a latino character and hes very excited to be part of the show so i hope to hear more of him!! im rooting for him

el barto/zorro makes an appearance which i am very confused about. he has jack shit to do with frida and diego and mexico in the 20s-30s. el zorro was set in the spanish california of the early 19th century. their use of the original theme song makes me think they just wanted to flex their disney privileges tbh

lets not talk about that that whole scene was bad

anyway diego announces he and frida are going to new york, without even asking her first. frida is obviously pissed.

“Don’t worry, as a woman, you’ll be treated with much more respect in America.”

so in new york, diego is having a bit of a business meeting with mr burns as one of the members of the rockefellers, who is commissioning him to draw a mural for the rockefeller center. its kinda funny how he refers to him and frida as socialists even though they were very much communists lmao its okay you can say it. ok so far, but then frida says ‘yes, we hate the capitalists! right now, a young socialist is being born who will take them down! mr. bernie sanders. i hope hes quick about it’ and that was a simple enough joke and couldve been left at that but then its immediately followed by this weird as fuck family guy-esque cutaway gag to bernie as a baby:

“Getting a cootie shot should not cost your lunch money. And if you don’t listen to me, listen to the Bernie Babies! What? Everybody’s got goons.” *larger babies start beating up this other baby* “I disavow that, and welcome it.”

this confused me so much that i had to ask one of my american friends to help me understand, but even she was like ‘uhhh yeah thats a weird joke,’ especially now that hes been out of the race for months (then again these episodes take almost a year to produce. i guess they couldnt be bothered to replace it with something more relevant.) whatever that was weird and confusing and unfunny moving on

frida is pretty irked that diego is going through with this deal. after all, it goes against everything they believe in. im not sure how the real frida felt about diego doing the mural, but she did feel a bit of rage during her visit to the united states, especially the obvious disparity between rich and poor. she hated having to interact with capitalists and found americans very boring. in this segment, frida seems to be acting more like the american communist party, which diego got kicked out of for accepting commissions from wealthy patrons. in any case, frida is pretty upset about this whole thing.

and finally we get the first and only kind of surreal frida moment. kinda. maybe. its more cartoonish than anything but im desperate ok

interesting how they felt like they had to add a “don’t smoke” in big letters after showing patty and selma flying away on their giant cigarettes. i wonder if this is something theyre making them do now? i remember hearing something about them toning down patty and selma’s smoking

diego comes home to frida, drunk as hell, followed by the marx brothers. i cant believe they didnt make a marxism joke come on it was RIGHT THERE. THE MARX BROTHERS. KARL MARX. COME ON

frida paints her feelings.

this makes diego realize that frida is a genius and he is not half the artist she is. he proclaims he will now show his awe of her by sleeping with other women, starting “an hour ago.” to which frida replies, “and i will start sleeping with other women, starting two hours ago.” yes this was pretty much their relationship. though im just wondering how the hell did diego not know frida was this kind of artist until now? i know homers an idiot but jeez. art was how frida and diego met, diego knew from the get-go that frida was an incredible artist. i guess the fame got to his head or something. again, homer just being stupid.

“well enough already, while the art is still deco, okay?”

its time for the mural diego painted, Man At The Crossroads, to be unveiled:

rockefeller examines it. good and great so far, and then...uh oh

“Who’s that fellow…? With the beard, and the bolshevik smile…” “That’s the founder of Soviet Russia, Lenin!”

“B-b-but he’s a communist!” “Oh he just attended a couple of meetings.”

rockefeller will not have this communist in the temple to capitalism that is the rockefeller center, so he orders diego to paint over it. diego stands his ground and refuses. despite rockefeller’s threats, diego says that theres only one person he wants to be proud of him no matter what and in true homer & marge fashion, frida is touched by this. they happily leave the rockefeller center.

now, the real story of Man At The Crossroads and the rockefeller center was actually not that different. as soon as the rockefellers found out diego had snuck in a portrait of lenin into the mural, they ordered him to paint over it, to which he refused. diego even offered to include abraham lincoln and even american abolitionists in the mural as a compromise, but the rockefellers simply did not want any references to communism whatsoever. they did not complain about the hammer and sickle, though. yes, they did know diego was a communist and hired him anyway. what did they expect? lmao. diego said:

"Rather than mutilate the conception [of the mural], I shall prefer the physical destruction of the conception in its entirety, but preserving, at least, its integrity."

so they decided to destroy the mural before it was even finished and they never talked to each other again.

diego then repainted the mural at the palacio de bellas artes back in mexico, this time known as Man, Controller of the Universe. this new version included even more communist leaders and a depiction of john d. rockefeller jr. drinking at a nightclub, right underneath a depiction of syphilis bacteria. cue nelson haw-haw:

this was the version they used in the episode also, since the original was, well, never finished and also destroyed. only a black and white photograph of it exists, taken by diego before it was destroyed so he could remake it.

right so, homer!diego then pulls a Barthood and finishes the episode with a large mural summarizing the entire episode. he says some rick and morty thing i didnt get because i dont watch the show idk idc

the end

ALRIGHT NOW ITS TIME FOR THE STORY OF VINCENT VAN MOE

#if you read all of this bless you #the imageless gdocs version of this is 8 pages long #hope you...enjoy?!?! these art history fun facts?!?!#dont let me do something like this again but also let me know if i should do something like this again #i was really only motivated to do this because im already passionate about the subject so idk if i could do it otherwise #anyway. this took me all day yesterday because the power kept going out #but im finally done #bye

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hypnotixstorm · 4 years

Text

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* to do list *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Key

Normal Text = Have NOT started working on the request

Bold and Pink Text = I am CURRENTLY working on the request

Once I have completed a request it will be REMOVED from this list

Can I get an imagine of Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho? Maybe an AU hundreds of years ago where he ends up caring for a human woman and teaching her how to defend herself. If you don't like that one, anything you think of.

Character: Kanda from DGM NSFW Prompt: "Make me." Love youuuuuu 😘

How about a NSFW scenario of Kakashi coming home to his sweet little naughty civilian S/O? 😜 A bit of role play where they call him sensei while he's doing them on the kitchen table?

Thanks for the Soi Bean Post! This gonna be my last Soi Fon request. Sorry for being quite a Soi Queen freak. For my request can you Soi after shower decides to wear s/o clothes. S/O tries to take picture of her. Then she tells that she has falling in love with you. You have changed let me take care of you. You can be very very very sluff on this one. Thanks!

ok ok so i have a few requests 🥺🥺 so! first could you maybe do an “I missed you.” with Rukia? 🥺💗 just fluff for my baby girl aaaa

Ichigo kissing his s/o in the rain 😆😆😆 Headcanons or scenario is up to you! 💙

ANYTHING SHIKAMARU. Deadass anything

Hey! I was wondering if I could request some Rukia x fem!reader relationship headcannons? Only if you're able to! Tysm! 💖

I hope requests are open but I was wondering if you could do something with byakuya and his s/o being like a very intimidating couple but his s/o is actually very sweet to everyone?

Kakashi x reader and instead of team 7 its now y/n tryna see whats under the mask and eventually she just asks and he actually reveals it adfhsjjs

Can I please get rat dad Ging being seduced by a younger woman who refuses to take “no” for an answer until he finally gives her what she wants? NSFW please! 💖

ok so please don't feel pressured to write this birthday imagine 🥺 i know u have a lot of requests rn ah. but! if you're able to i really would love another toshiro one bc i'm a sucker for him 😭 maybe one where he's really overworking himself so the reader helps him relax and it just ends in cuddles 🥺💓 only if you're able to! ilysm 💓💖💓💖💓💘💓💘💓

ok i swear this is the last one i feel bad requesting sm 😭 but maybe a “Do you wanna, maybe, go out sometime?” with toshiro bc he really is best boy 🥺👉🏻👈🏻

OKAY SO ANOTHER ONE WITH SABURO WITH UHHHH GOING ON A FIRST DATE WITH HIS S/O ICIXHAJGSSHSSUSKSU he'll probs driving his van around with the music blasting out 👀👀

honestly i would kinda die if u wrote some renji smut 😳😳 literally in any situation, i'm just needy rn 😭

ok ok i'm here hehe. how about, the reader gets really injured during a battle and shiro's kinda blaming himself for it. kindaaa angst into a super fluffy ending if that's ok hhh 🥺

Hi 🥰 Can I get a headcanon for Kakashi with a really seductive s/o, like she likes to tease him in public and whispers dirty things in his ear and calls him daddy? Nsfw pls? 😊😁

“make me” and hisoka??? thank you

hehe this is for the 🦋🦋 event! congrats on 200 bb!! so, i saw attack on titan on your list and i'm experiencing a severe lack of my best boy marco 🥺🥺 if you don't write for him that's fine hehe, but if you do, could i please maybe get a lil scenario where marco helps the reader out with her training and then they accidentally confess their feelings and it's just rlly fluffy and cute? 🥺 i need marco being happy in my life rn sbdjdhdjr 💓💓

“If you keep biting your lip like that, I’m holding you accountable for my actions.” for Kakashi please! I love him 🤤

If your requests are still open, can i ask for some domestic kakashi fluff? Ty

Hi mommas❤️❤️ CAN I PWEASE request some Guren (seraph of the end) relationship headcanons ? Not nsfw but maybe a little steamy 🥺🥰 I LOVE UU -🍒

Hi Chloe 🥰 Can I have some spicy nsfw headcanons for Yami where his s/o is acting really bratty during sex and he puts her in her place? 😪😂😊

Kageyama wirh Oikawas sister reader? there just chillin Nd stuff and toru comes over and picks y/n up and they hug and kageyama is like “eXcuSe mE???” forgive my spelling im on mobile lmao

Hiii❤️❤️ Can I request an imagine where you live in a small town and work at a cafe and Bakugou is your cliche small town boyfriend? Or headcanons! The idea is so cute and I love your writing 😊

okay so uHHHHH you can just go for Mephisto sharing some food with his s/o owo;; take your time on it too because i know it's gonna be really great either way!

A reader insert saved by vampire! main YYH crew from a pack of werewolves

Since you said requests are open maybe.. suga subbing for you? Idk he's just always appeared like someone who would love to please you in anyway possible.

V A M P I R E LAVI!!! DO IT GIRL!! 👌👌♥️♥️♥️

Fake dating with Lavi!!!!! Need more of the DGM boyz!! 😂

can I get an itachi x reader fic where it's itachi's birthday and the reader decides to give him a special night (👀), wearing lingerie, lighting candles, etc. for him to come home to? I love your work (and you!!) sm btw 🥺💞 - nina!! (@kunoichihatake)

hello ✨💕 it’s me, ryn 😘 if it’s okay, can i request a nishinoya x female!reader? perhaps a first date at the boardwalk with like the rides and carnival stuff? then at the end of the date he kisses her and it turns out the karasuno squad was following them the whole night hehe?

Hi! Can I request a prompt of some soft Kakashi, maybe some cuddles, perhaps it gets a little heated... a lil' Nsfw never hurt nobody👀👅 Thank you so muuch!~😍❤️

If I had kakashi in front of me I would tell him “aren’t you tired of being the most handsome man here?”

Hi! I saw that requests were open for the Haikyuu!! boys so here I am! I was wondering if I could request a Tsukki x reader where Tsukki has a crush on the reader but doesn't know how to express his feelings other then throwing insults. it can be angsty or fluffy I just really love Tsukki as a tsundere lol. (also btw I LOVE your theme and blog aesthetic its very pretty!)

Hey wifey😚 so Ichigo has stolen my heartttt can I get the strawberry boy with an S/O who gets super shy with with physical contact? Tyy💗💗

Fake dating with Lavi!!!!! Need more of the DGM boyz!! 😂

NSFW Vampire Squall (FF8) for very obvious reasons because UUUUUUGH

Hello there miss, my name is kandaxxx. Nice to meet you since I have definitely never requested from you before and this is definitely my first time and i am definitely not taking advantage of your bomb writing skills to ask you to write a “Choke me, daddy.” for Seymour from FF (love you forever and always!!!!!!)

hey butterfly 🥺 can you please write a story where the reader and (any character) are fighting and it turns out it was just about something stupid? like chicken nuggets? thank you 🥺💗

Eek! DGM! I was wondering if you would do a request for a general Allen Walker relationship HC? I don’t see him on the character list, but I’m just curious *bows* Thankyou senpai!

Spin The Bottle with any of the DGM characters that you're comfortable writing????? (but like obviously when Kanda spins the bottle it has to land on the reader [me] because YOU KNOW WHY OK????????) ilysm!!! 😍

I’m thinking a smut scenario of some kind that uses the prompts “Perhaps I need to remind you of your place.” and “Let me show you what happens to little brats who don’t follow the rules.” I feel like those are very Nozel Silva things to say. 😈 -bakubabes-hatake

Omfg HI mommy, Can i request really fluffy and soft itachi after he comes back from a mission? Non-massacre AU and you’re on the same team as sasuke lolol thirsty for them age gaps ❤️ thank youuuu ily -🍒

Can I get a fake dating with Kand--Roy Mustang (hahahaha) 👉👈🥺

Is this okay to ask for? Egor taking care of s/o who has period cramps... Ty!

Hello! Can I please request some headcanons for Kiba with a S/O with a praise kink? And for Shikamaru with a S/O with a choking kink? Thank you so much.

Wow. Here is me putting in a request. Shocker, right?? 😂 I want some Greed, baby 😈 as for the prompt, it's not in your list, but could you maybe do something based off of "Oh my god. Did we just break the bed?" ???? 👉👈

It's a shame u only have one ling request, so could I request some Ling x Reader where they're both absolutely oblivious until Lan Fan or Ed or someone finally just tells them for them? Sorry if I didn't make any sense ❤️❤️

ok idk if you write threesomes but 😳😳 if you could write one with daichi and suga n maybe some dp, i'd probably die 🥺💓 only if you're comfortable with that tho ♡

Tyki flirting with his crush in his native language of Portuguese? I really love your work and please have some candy 🍬🍭🍫

hi butterfly! 🥰 i hope you're doing well! you already know what i'm going to ask you for — a request! i just feel really down in the dumps lately. can i request headcanons for an s/o that takes graduation pictures on their grandmother's 3 year death anniversary with kenma, nishinoya & kuroo? i hope you can do my request! you don't have to do it if you don't want to!

hehehe kuroo, tsukki and kageyama headcanons of their s/o sending them a nude while they at training and them making an excuse to get home and fUcK yOu SeNsELeSs - 🌊

Hello may I request itachi x reader. People learned the truth and he can finally return to his wife and children in the village 🥺 and they don’t have to be in secret anymore

holy shit,, i am starved for the squall content,,, if you don't mind, catching you wearing their clothes?

S/O walking in on kakashi masturbating? 👉👈 💕

#this is a lot longer than i thought it would be #holy hell #i have so many requests #a bit frightened now #but oh whale #i hope you guys are excited for all these requests #i know i am #although im intimidated #by their sheer numbers #IVE GOT THIS THO #FOR MY CUTE #LIL #BUTTERFLIES #I LOVE YALL

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captainillogical · 5 years

Text

Devil’s Ballroom Ch.8

A year after the events from the earth’s final attack, Little Homeworld is finally complete, and there’s a new jazz bar where gems and humans mingle and drink. - As you’re typing back a reply, someone pulls the stool out next to you and takes a seat. You see a sliver of pink out of the corner of your eye as you try not to actually Look. Oh god. It’s her. God can’t help us now.

Spinel/Reader

collab with my lovely wife @firstofficertightpants

(i’m sorry. i have terrible chapter pacing skills so the next one will be the last, not this one. thanks for all of ur patience p: )

Immediately you accidentally elbow Alex in the face as you try to get out of his grip, and he yells out in pain and drops you onto the ground.

"Wait! SPINEL!" You shout and run towards the direction she went, but you don’t see her anywhere. "SPINEL!!!" You shout again, eyes frantically roaming in every direction around for her, a couple of people stop to stare at you. She’s much faster than you, and could be leagues away by now.

You can't believe she would just run like that, without explanation. She was staring at you and Alex like.. did she seriously think that you and Alex.. oh god. She thought you were with Alex.

Okay. You try not to panic as you stand there, awkwardly. You feel a hand on your shoulder.

"What the hell was that?" Alex says beside you. You can't speak for a moment, and when you do, your voice comes out hoarse.

"Er.. I think some horrible misunderstanding just happened." You say, defeated. You look up at him, and you're trying to not be visibly upset. He looks down at you, and makes a face.

"That was her? She could've said hi, sheesh.. she even left cookies here." He shrugs, looking at the spilled cookies on the ground.

"Dude. How are you so fucking stupid." You say, nearly about to smack him again. He gives you a confused look. "Are you shitting me? She came to give me those cookies in thanks for yesterday, and what does she see? You kissing all over my face."

He still gives you a blank look.

"Ohhhh my god. You are such a fucking moron." You retort, staring at him for several solid seconds until a look of sudden realization hits his facial expressions.

“Oh. OHHHHHHHHHHHH.” He covers his mouth, and has the audacity to look mortified.

“Yeah.” You cross your arms. “Thanks for that.”

“I uh.. man, I just wanted some Y/N love, I’m sorry. I just got so carried away.”

“I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m like, romantically involved with you.. Oh god what if she thinks I like men?” You cover your face in your hands, groaning into them. “I never told her that I liked just girls..”

“You told her about your crush on Harper though? What about that?” He raises his eyebrows in question.

“Yeah but I never told her about any of the other shit, and I haven’t exactly like.. given her any signals..”

“But you flirt with her all the time! And she flirts back! I know, because you’ve told me everything, multiple times.” He bends down and scoops up the container, and picks up the cookies and places them all back inside.

“Alex, I really hate to break this to you, but girls flirt with each other all the time. Most of the time, it’s over compliments, and sometimes it SEEMS genuine, but really, they’re just being nice.” You say. “Unless you’re super bold, with girls you basically have to be frank with them about your feelings and intentions for them to realize you’re serious. I myself prefer to kinda be sure that the other person likes me back, before I stick my neck out, you know? Because getting the ‘Oh, I thought we were just friends’ shit fucking hurts.”

“I’m pretty sure she likes you, dude.” He says to you like you’re an idiot.

“I’m not so sure about that.” You say, because you refuse to believe anything unless the cold hard facts are slapping you in the face.

“For someone so smart, how are you so stupid?” He sniffs one of the cookies, and looks like he’s contemplating taking a bite. You scoff. “You know what? Don’t answer that. It doesn’t matter. My point is, even I can tell she likes you.”

"Coming from you, that means nothing to me." He immediately looks up, completely offended. “What? I mean, seriously. Do I have to remind you of all of our middle school and high school years? That should explain itself.”

“Okay when you put it that way, YEAH, I was stupid, but this is different. This is me absorbing someone ELSE’S love life, and even I’m not that much of a fool.” He sighs, and mournfully tosses the cookies into the bin closest to you. “I think you need to like, give her a call or something and explain yourself. She looked really upset.”

“Yeah, I..” You pause for a second to pick your screwdriver back up. You don’t even want to work anymore. “You’re right. I’m just nervous.”

“Just do it before you overthink it.” He replies.

“Ugh, okay.” You pull out your phone, swipe over to your contacts, and press the call button on Spinel’s name. Immediately, it goes to voicemail.

Of course.

You leave a voicemail for her to call you back as soon as she hears this, and you also shoot her a text.

“She’s not answering.” You say.

“Of course she’s not, I mean, I wouldn’t either. Give her a while and try again later, she probably just needs some time.” He says, and also pulls out his phone, typing something on it real quick. “Also, give me a minute, mom needs to call me about something for tomorrow.” He steps a couple feet away from you to take the call.

You stare at your phone, and for the first time in a long time, you really don’t know what to fucking do other than just stand there. What if she’s so upset, she never talks to you again? Will she give you a chance to hear you out? And are you ready to talk about your feelings with her?

Lord.

You haven’t really thought about them too much yourself, if you’re going to be honest. You’ve been keeping this all super casual in your mind, because it feels irrational to grow feelings for someone this quickly, considering you’ve known her for less than 2 weeks. But.. you admit, the more you push the thoughts away, the more you understand that you might like her a lot more than you originally considered, and denying them will just cause you issues like that one time when you were 19.

You sigh out loud. Off to the side you can hear Alex arguing with his mother about some errands she wants him to run tomorrow, and for a brief moment you consider just going home, but then remember that not even Mr. Smiley can cover the rest of the shift. You have a good two hours left, you can survive, hopefully. You make yourself busy with fixing the part you were previously working on - but you’re having a hard time concentrating. After a couple minutes, Alex taps on the side of the wall, and you peek your head out to look at him.

“Look, I hate to do this to you right now, but mom wants me to go grab a few things from her office, and pick up an order from the print place before it closes.” He pushes his curly dark hair out of his eyes, half leaning on the wall next to you. “I can probably be back by the time you’re done with your shift.”

“Hmm.. alright.” You mumble, trying to keep your mind on more positive things. He leans closer to you, stretches out his arm, and pokes you on the cheek.

“Don’t hyperfocus on this. Shit will be fine, you just gotta give her some time to get back to you, okay hun?” He gives your cheek a little love smack and stands straight, heading out already. You watch him go.

“Super easy for you to say..” You say to yourself, and busy your hands.

Most of the rest of the shift passes quietly, and you receive no messages from anyone. You hate that you can’t do anything, not really, so you send Spinel another text. She still hasn’t seen the other one, and it’s been nearly two hours.

Y/N: Can we talk? Please.

You aren’t in the mood to text anyone else, so you put your phone back into your pocket, and start all of your closing duties. The next twenty minutes goes by in a heartbeat, the crowds of tourists long since dissipated. There isn’t a lot to do. Once you clock out and grab your things from the breakroom, you feel your phone vibrate so you pull it out quickly to see who it is. You try and fail not to feel disappointed that it’s just Alex.

Alex: she wrapped me up in some other shit so like, im runnin hella late

Alex: im sorry

Alex: its gonna be a while, ill let you know when im done and ill just come over to ur place

Alex: if thats ok

You type out a couple replies to him, and sigh out loud. It’s for the best really. You don’t exactly want him to talk to you about all this stuff right now anyway. You head out, lock up the place, and walk in the general direction of your home.

By the time you’re home and settled, Alex has given you an update, and it’s been nearly four hours since you saw Spinel with no response. You’re seriously starting to worry, because she’s never not replied to your messages like this. You go to send her another text, and realize that she still hasn’t opened any of your messages. You send her another inquiry, and pop up your chat with Steven.

Y/N: Steven.

Y/N: I need you to answer asap.

You see that he’s online, and you wait for an answer. It only takes him a minute or two to get back to you.

Steven: Hey Y/N, what’s up?

Y/N: Have you talked to Spinel in the last couple of hours?

Steven: Not since this morning, why?

Y/N: Can you call her just to check up on her? I’m worried about something.

Steven: Yeah hold on.

You wait for several long minutes for him to get back to you.

Steven: Her phone’s just going to voicemail, which is pretty weird. Maybe she accidentally let it die? I’ll let you know when she answers back.

Steven: Are you guys okay?

Y/N: Uhh, I’ll get back to you on that.

Steven: Hmm, okay.

You go to lay on your couch face down, and scream into the cushions.

Apparently you fall asleep that way, because the next thing you know, you have to peel your drool covered face off the couch cushion. You blink away your sleep-heavy eyes, and blearily check your phone. It’s 5am.

The only message you’ve received is one from Alex saying he stopped by, but left since he saw you were sleeping. Okay wow, he could’ve woken you up into a better sleeping position. Your neck feels like shit.

You’re trying to ignore the growing feeling of dread in your stomach, pointedly not thinking about how Spinel hasn’t texted you back yet, and how long it’s been. You grab a glass of water from the fridge, trudge up the stairs into your bedroom, and flop on your bed. You pass out again nearly instantly.

When you wake up again, the sun is glaring into your window, and you groan. You roll over and pull the covers over your head. Fuck the sun today. You grab your phone from your nightstand, and notice it’s almost 1pm, the fuck? Why the fuck did you sleep so long? You look at all your notifications, and pretend that you’re not looking for a specific one from someone.

Spinel still hasn’t texted you back, and STILL hasn’t seen any of the messages you’ve sent her. You are starting to panic a little, so you shoot Steven a message.

Y/N: She hasn’t said anything to me at all, has she answered you?

You message your dad and friends back while waiting a few minutes for Steven to reply. It takes him a few minutes to get back to you while you're laying in bed.

Steven: Her phone is still off, and she hasn't replied to anything I've sent her. I'm gonna ask Lapis to check up on her since they live in the same building. I'll get back to you when I get an answer.

It's been like twenty hours since you've seen her, and you're worried. There's no point moping around though, so you get up and get dressed for the day. You make and eat breakfast, even if you don't normally. You need a distraction from your thoughts, so you give your dad a call to check up on him, and ask him when he's coming home this week. He talks to you about his long days in meetings after meetings, the silly shit he got up to with a coworker last night after drinking, and the new hobby he's thinking of picking up when he gets back home. You guys talk for a long while, and maybe it's something you really needed, because you momentarily forget about what you were so worried with in the first place, until your phone buzzes. It's ringing actually, and your phone screen lights up with Steven's name. You tell your dad you've got to go to take this other call, and answer Steven. You sit there, phone in hand for a moment, before putting it to your ear.

"Y/N?" You hear him ask, although a bit muffled.

"Yeah. Anything?" You reply, trying to keep the nervousness out of your voice.

"She's uh.. She's on homeworld with the Diamonds right now? Maybe they worked something out with whatever event they were planning." He says into the receiver, completely casual like this is no big deal. Like that answer didn't just shatter your morale.

"Hm, okay. I appreciate you telling me this." You want to hang up and cry.

"Why didn't Spinel tell you she was going? I mean, she doesn't need to let me know since I go back to homeworld frequently.. are you guys okay?"

"Uhhhhhhhhhh." You say, unable to form an answer that isn't too revealing. "I'm not sure. But I'll let you know if anything changes."

"You know you can talk to me, right?" He says, gently. You appreciate that he cares, but it's best if he doesn't interfere.

"I know. Thank you, Steven." You reply, holding back any emotion that will give you away.

"I'll talk to you soon, okay? See you, Y/N." You say goodbye as well, and hang up.

You sit at your dining table for several solid minutes without moving, staring blankly at your phone, mind swirling with thoughts.

Okay. Alright. You can do this.

You refuse to cry, and you pinch your arm to get the prickling feeling away from the edges of your eyes. Fuck. Okay.

So she just.. left. She left, when she was fighting with the Diamonds literally yesterday about something awful they said to her, so awful that she had an emotional breakdown over it, and couldn't even TALK about it with you afterwards.

She left for homeworld to escape you.

You, specifically.

Because of a misunderstanding.

You probably sit there for a good twenty minutes absorbing everything, weighing the gravity of the situation. Afterwards, you get up and distract yourself with chores. You refuse to put any more thought into this, and just figure you'll wait.

At around 6pm, Alex comes over, and the two of you play Minecraft for the rest of the night, and he pointedly doesn't ask about Spinel at all. You're thankful that he's here in person, for once, because you don't know what kind of stupid shit you'd do without him here.

He spends the night and crashes on your couch, and you lay awake for most of the night, restless.

When you wake up, Alex has coffee and oatmeal ready for you, which is pretty funny because he never makes food. He's usually awful at it. He's sitting at the table sipping his coffee and drawing in his sketchbook, and he looks up when you make your presence known.

"Wow, you kinda look like shit my guy." He says, taking another sip of his coffee, and setting the mug down.

"Thanks. Had insomnia pretty bad last night.." You trail off and move to grab a mug from the cabinet and pour yourself some coffee. It's a black coffee only kind of day.

You sit down on the opposite side from him, and slowly drink your coffee. It smells good. You're worried Spinel hates you and never wants to see you again. You pull the bowl of oatmeal towards you and take a bite of lukewarm mush.

"This is kind of awful but thanks." You say as you shovel more into your mouth, and consider adding more brown sugar to this.

"I ain't no Gordon Ramsay, but I try." He doesn't look at you as he shades the back leg of the deer he's sketching. You watch him bite his tongue in concentration, and you take another sip of coffee. It's kind of burnt tasting, but whatever. You've had worse. "What do you want to do today, anyway?"

"Mmm." You eat another bite of oatmeal. "Can you please pick? Cuz I'm kinda braindead right now and I don't really feel like concentrating." He looks at you with mild concern.

"Last time I got to pick, you banned me from picking out what we do for a solid year." He furrows his eyebrows, twisting his pencil in hand.

"Yeah, well.. I don't really care right now." You shovel more food into your mouth.

"Fine. You said so, okayyyy, so no complaining later." He rolls his eyes and huffs, pencil scratching against the paper. Your phone buzzes several times on the table, and you reluctantly grab it. One message from dad, and.. two from Steven. You open up Steven’s messages first.

Steven: What did you do?

Steven: She doesn't want to come home.

Your stomach feels like lead. Alex notices you immediately.

"Uh. What's wrong?" He asks, leaning over. You tilt your phone away from him and you can feel the tears coming. You swallow, trying to get your face to cooperate.

“Um..” You feel your voice wavering, so you take a steadying breath. Looking down at your phone again, you struggle to form any kind of coherent words at all. You push your phone over to Alex, he reads what's on your screen, and looks back over to you with a serious face.

“For real? Are you kidding me?” He says, and you can hear the frustration in his voice. “I’m gonna give her a piece of my mind.”

“No,” The words finally find you. “Let me deal with this, please.” You give him a half hearted smile, and pull your phone back to yourself. With shaky hands, you text Steven back.

Y/N: Listen, I didn’t do anything, but..

Y/N: I’d prefer to get this sorted with her in person.

Y/N: I don’t want to play the messenger game

Y/N: I want her to hear it from me.

You don’t have to wait too long for his reply.

Steven: Okay well, I don’t know how well that’s going to work

Steven: Considering she refuses to talk to me about any of it

Steven: Let me know if you end up wanting me to do anything?

Steven: And I’ll message you if anything happens on my end.

Y/N: I appreciate that. Thanks.

You sigh and look up at Alex, who’s watching you with his chin in hand, leaning on the table.

“Anything?” He inquires.

“Nothing.” You say.

“Well, let me clean up the mess I made and let's go out. Mom let me have the car today, so we can go wherever. You said I can choose and no take-backsies, just give me a few minutes, alright?” He stands up and takes the both of your plates to the kitchen, and you watch him for a moment before deciding to get up and get dressed.

You head up to your bedroom and open your closet, rummaging around for something cozy. You grab a soft long sleeve shirt, and sweatpants, because who gives a fuck honestly. You’re looking inbetween all your sweaters for your favorite one that you’d like to wear today, before realizing that Spinel still has it. Instantly, your eyes fill with tears at the reminder, and you let yourself cry quietly in frustration where no one can see you.

After a few minutes, you wash your face in the bathroom and get dressed, settling for a different sweater. You take a couple deep breaths, and head downstairs to Alex.

You spend the rest of the day with Alex, and he takes the both of you to Empire City to browse the mall and window shop, and he buys the both of you dinner. You feel like he’s being extra sweet to make you feel better and you appreciate him so much for it, but Spinel’s on your mind literally all day and you can’t distract yourself enough. He gives you a big hug after dropping you off at home, and before leaving he makes sure that you’re okay. You’re not, not really, but he helped you not spiral further downwards today.

The next day you only work a half shift, so you get to sleep in and you take full advantage of it. It has now been three days since Spinel disappeared with no word since, and you’re beside yourself with worry. But you can’t let this stop you living your day to day life, so you do what you do best and keep on with your routine.

The fourth day goes quickly as you work a full shift, and you’ve got quite a few things to do before your dad gets home tomorrow. You’re excited to see him, as he’s been gone for nearly three weeks now. The house will be back to normal, and way less lonely.

Your dad comes home the fifth day and you spend the entirety of it with him, and you don’t think about Spinel at all. The both of you go to the movies, and then to the beach to have a relaxing afternoon as family bonding time. When you guys head home, you make him his favorite steak and potatoes and he talks about all of the things he had to do and how much he missed your company while he was gone. You think he notices that your mood has slightly been off today, but he doesn't ask about it.

The sixth day, Steven sends you a text about her still not being home, and you wonder why you even bothered opening the message. At this point you’re no longer despondent, you’re now just frustrated with the growing feeling of anger building inside you.

By the tenth day, you’re rightfully pissed. You gave her more than enough time to get over whatever feelings she felt - and she’s not taking any of your feelings into consideration. She left you to deal with the aftermath of what she assumed to be true, and never even gave you the chance to explain yourself. You haven’t sent her a text since that last one you sent over a week ago, and you think you’ll send her one more.

Y/N: Whenever (or IF, I guess) you decide to pop back in on earth, I’d like to have a chat. :)

Steven hasn’t said anything much in the last week, either. You kind of feel like he’s avoiding you because of this, but it doesn’t matter now. If she never wants to come back, that’s on her.

Two more days go by - pretty uneventfully. You spend most of your time at work, or playing minecraft with Alex and the occasional Harper when she’s actually in a motel versus camping. The two of them haven’t asked about Spinel at all - and you know they’ve talked about it extensively in private. You’re secretly relieved that you don’t have to talk about her, though.

Two weeks pass, and you give up entirely. Life goes on.

One of these late afternoons you’re lying in bed after work and texting your friends, and for a moment you think about shooting Spinel a last message. You don’t think she’ll come back to earth at this point, but you want your sweater back if she ever visits. You swipe over to your chat with her to let her know this, and your eyes glance at the ‘seen’ icon at the bottom, timestamp dated nearly 36 hours ago.

Huh.

Wait. What the fuck.

You sit there for a moment, frozen in shock. Shock that quickly turns into boiling anger, and you find yourself texting Steven faster than you realize.

Y/N: So she comes back and you say nothing, yeah?

Y/N: Remind me to not do you any favors for a while.

Eyes stinging, you go back over to shoot Spinel an angry message, but before you can even type out half a sentence, Steven rapidly texts you back.

Steven: Hold on for a second, okay?

Steven: Let me explain something.

You don’t really care at this point.

Y/N: nah man.

You get up from bed, pocket your phone, and waltz downstairs. You put on a sweater, toe on the nearest flip flops, and head out the front door. Dad’s at work currently, so you lock the door and head over to little homeworld. You walk briskly over to the bar you met Spinel at, and after a small hold up with the bouncer, head in and move directly to the counter, facing Bismuth.

“Hey Bis,” You say to her, and she glances over to you from her current patron, and smiles at you.

“Y/N! It’s been a minute. How’ve you been?” She replies, facing you.

“I’ve been alright,” You lean a bit over the bar. “I actually just have a question, if you don’t mind.” Bismuth looks at you inquisitively, and you continue. “What’s Spinel’s address? She never gave it to me.” You smile sweetly at her.

“Hold on, let me get a pen and some paper.” She says as she sets down her glass, and grabs a pen and some receipt paper from the register. You watch her scribble something down, and she hands it to you.

“Bis, I ever tell you that you’re the best?” You take the piece of paper from her hand.

“Only once,” She grins. “But I could stand to hear it again.” You laugh at that, and pocket the note.

“Thanks for this. I’ll pay you back later, promise.” You wink at her, and turn to leave. You hear her chuckle and pick the glass back up from the counter.

“I’ll keep you to that!” You hear as you leave the building, pulling out the note again to glance at the address.

It’s over a mile away, and you figure now or never, and walk towards the general direction of her place. You try and fail on calming your nerves on the near 30 minute walk, and by the time you get to her apartment building, you’ve worked yourself up into a whirlwind of emotions. Also you’ve pointedly ignored your phone this entire time, and you’re pretty sure you’ve missed 5 calls and dozens of texts, but you knew that if you looked at any of it, you’d lose face and chicken out.

Spinel’s apartment is on the 9th floor, and you marvel at the technology side of the building for a bit. These gems really knew how to build stuff. You take the elevator up, and once you’re on the floor, you take a sharp left to the odd numbers side of the building. You reach her door and stop, almost touching the frame to knock on it. Although it’s pretty quiet in the building, you can hear a faint voice, or voices, coming from inside her apartment if you listen closely enough.

You take a deep breath, and let it out. You take another three, and consider leaving altogether. You steel your nerves, lift your arm, and knock on her door frame twice.

You think you hear the voice quiet down as you stand there, waiting. Several seconds go by, and you can hear your own heartbeats.

For a sec you think that she won’t come to the door, but after a few more moments you hear quiet movement towards the door you’re standing in front of. You make a point to step to the side, so whoever is answering the door can’t see who’s standing there through the peephole.

Very slowly, you see the door handle turn, and the door swinging open several inches. You watch Spinel peek her head out the door, her phone in her hand, and turn to make direct eye contact with you. She freezes instantaneously, like she expected it to be anyone else other than you standing there.

Her hair is in a messy bun, and your eyes trail down to notice that she’s wearing your sweater.

This pisses you off immediately.

#spinel #spinel x reader #spinel su #spinel self insert #steven universe #my fic #devils ballroom

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sagemoderocklee · 4 years

Note

Ooh, directors commentary on TAOL?? I know it's an epic so maybe just on the chapter where Lee and Gaara are traveling in Jade Country :3

sorry for letting this sit in my ask box for a couple days. i got kinda sidetracked and then had to go back to work today, which is not a fun time tbh but the evils of capitalism and so on....

anyways, im thrilled you asked for this particular part of TAoL because I absolutely loved that chapter (x) and put a lot of work into it between building up the culture of Gyokukakushin and making sure all the Arabic and Chinese I used was legit (which is partly why it took like 4 months to write). plus the chapter has a lot of great GaaLee moments that make me really happy.

one of my biggest downfalls as a writer is how long it takes me to actually finish anything. as i think most people who follow my writing know, i tend to prefer lengthier stories with lots of heavy politics, and that tends to mean that the build up of romance takes a while... which is again how i like it. i prefer a slow burn--a proper slow burn, not these 2k fics tagged slow burn. i mean, 100k into the story and the most you’ve got is an accidental hand brushing another and some intense eye contact... which admittedly TAoL has given more than just a little bit of physical contact and intense staring, but my point is that when i say slow burn i mean S L O W

anyways, onto the actual director’s commentary

So, Jade Province--as it’s not a country in itself, but a province within Wind Country--is a sprawling section of the south-east portion of Wind. I started building Jade Province and its capitol, Gyokukakushin sometime before I started on Ch10 of TAoL, but it was all a very loose idea. I’d initially conceptualized some things about it for the one shot I wrote, Keepsakes, because I’d been doing some background work on the Kazekage lineage and the culture surrounding the Kazekage family--such as arranged marriages, treaties, etc.

My idea is that Karura and Yashamaru are actually from Gyokukakushin. They would have been the children of a person in the political sphere within the capitol, and the marriage between Karura and Rasa would have been arranged early on and she would have been sent to Suna as a pre-teen or teen so that she would feel that Suna was home. I imagine she and Rasa would have married sometime when she was between 18-20. This was the main reason Rasa was able to take on the roll of Kazekage, based on the family tree I built up for the Kazekage line--he was the only one who was married and could produce heirs.

Not that any of this ever comes up during TAoL. In fact, Gaara doesn’t even realize that in going to Gyokukakushin he’s actually visiting half of his ancestral home. However, there’s a lot of fun hints about his connection to Gyokukakushin if you recall the many mentions of the color the same shade as Gaara’s eyes in that chapter. This was a specific nod to his heritage, and something that the locals definitely would have been fascinated by because there’s lots of significance surrounding that particular color in the region. I also wanted to use the reference to his eyes to highlight Lee’s particular fascination with Gaara’s appearance, and especially the element of Gaara’s eyes and the many ways he looks at Lee.

The biggest challenge within this chapter, of course, was the fact that I was using languages I’m not familiar with and had to find a good place to gather resources. Thanks to @ghoste-catte I discovered that reddit (of all places) has a translation subreddit which I was able to use to help bring that aspect of the story to life in an organic and respectful way. My Japanese is rusty, but I have a much better grasp on it than I do Chinese or Arabic, and so I spent many, many, many, many, many..... many hours searching for resources, watching YT vidoes, at the bookstore--I even bought a small book on Arabic. In the end, the subreddit was way more helpful than anything else because it allowed me the chance to get more concrete explanations from native speakers, so I could understand exactly why something was said the way it was. Most of the phrases used in that chapter aren’t really Gaara saying anything special--things like “be quiet” or “stop”--which I usually alluded to with Lee racking his brain trying to drudge up the vocabulary Gaara has taught him.

However, there’s one line--which I hope people did not turn to google translate for--that makes me especially happy, and that line really would not have been possible without that subreddit. I think the best part about being able to successfully navigate the challenge of using other languages is creating the same confusion Lee feels for those readers who doesn’t know those languages, and for those who do, offering them a nice glimpse at what’s going on that Lee cannot grasp. It’s fun and really changes the experience for each reader.

Language is such a beautiful and intricate aspect of people and culture, and my biggest fear with approaching the use of Arabic and Chinese was not only saying the wrong thing, but being disrespectful. So it was an incredibly good experience, and I was incredibly lucky to receive the help I did!

Building up the tension between Gaara and Lee was something I’d really wanted to execute well, too. It’s not often I write stories where the romance doesn’t start from scratch. With TAoL, Lee needed to already be in love with Gaara, and that was a big stress for me because I’m constantly asking myself: is this earned? I think one of the biggest failings of fanfiction is that people don’t ask that question. You really have to ask if your romance is earned. If your character growth is earned. If a redemption arc is earned. And I constantly worry that I’m moving too quickly with romance in particular, especially for Gaara and Lee. I’m not big on putting them together without a lot of development, and I’m not big on established relationship fics (that aren’t sequels) for them either. I like the work it takes to get them together, I like the journey of getting them together. And I don’t like it to be easy.

But for me, TAoL is one of my best actualized works. I think Alliance really helped me build the skills I needed to execute a story like TAoL on so many levels--from the complicated political landscapes, to the cultures, to the relationships between each character. And so I do feel like Lee being in love with Gaara at this point in their lives makes sense, and does work despite the fact that we didn’t see him fall in love with Gaara during the course of this fic. There are subtle nods to his feelings for Gaara in the early chapters, but I didn’t go too hard at indicating those feelings until really the second Lee chapter, this chapter I’m talking about now. I think there were some hints in the first Lee chapter--the chapter where he broke Gaara out of prison and whisked him away from Suna--but I tried to keep those things to a minimum, partly to not over do it and ease people in to that, and partly because I wanted to keep the suspense alive surrounding the real purpose for Lee being in Suna.

So when they get to Gyokukakushin, it really gave me a much better chance at showcasing his feelings. There were moments prior to Gyokukakushin, but those were from Gaara’s PoV--like the moment within the destroyed village, Myoujou, where they’re hiding from the group of shinobi and Gaara’s trying desperately to get Lee to focus his chakra enough to mask it.

But the success of that particular moment is lost on Gaara because he doesn’t really know how Lee feels about him at that point in time, so his impact on Lee is entirely lost to him....not to mention he’s dealing with a lot of grief and trauma, so he hardly has the wherewithal to be paying attention to whether or not his rescuer is secretly in love with him.

One of my favorite tender moments is this one:

“Do you have a favorite word?” Lee asked, before a yawn interrupted him.

“In Indigosi? Or in general?”

“Both.”

Gaara glanced at Lee from the corner of his eye. “Affection,” he murmured, almost as though he were afraid to admit it. “In Indigosi...” Gaara was silent, his gaze shifting away from Lee to the window. A warmth spread across his brown skin, a blush rising on his high cheekbones. “Rohi.”

He looked down at Lee, something bright behind his eyes.

Heat burned Lee's face like an inferno. “What does that mean?”

Gaara looked away again, hiding from Lee in plain sight. “My soul." The words hung in the air with some other meaning, one that Lee could not decipher. Gaara would forever be a paradox, an ever expanding puzzle for Lee to piece together. He didn't ever want to figure him out completely, but he would never stop trying to get as close to epiphany as he could.

“That is beautiful,” Lee told him as another yawn overtook him.

“I should let you sleep,” Gaara said, moving to get up.

Lee stopped him with an imploring hand against Gaara's forearm. “Stay? You did not finish telling me about your trip to Dusk Country.”

“You kept interrupting,” Gaara teased lightly, settling back into place.

Lee smiled up at him, ever so slightly cheeky. “I promise I will be quiet.”

“You're going to fall asleep,” Gaara corrected.

“Probably. It is very late.”

I love so many of the emotional scenes from this particular chapter, but I love how simple and sweet this moment is. There’s such a wealth of affection in small actions, and I really wanted to highlight that Lee and Gaara have grown closer during their time traveling from Myoujou to Gyokukakushin, and things that were born of necessity (like sleeping close together for warmth) are now things done because they want to. There’s comfort in the closeness of sitting next to one another, there’s something peaceful about Lee falling asleep while Gaara talks to him. It’s a nice moment, less high emotion and more quiet contentment, which I think is much needed after everything they’ve been through.

I think that my other favorite scene would be the scene on the beach, right after they’ve watched the sand artist and Gaara makes his model of Suna. That scene is a complicated affair for Lee because he’s both enjoying his time with Gaara and feeling guilty for enjoying that time together. And of course Gaara’s got a lot going on too, which Lee can only guess at.

One of the other things I really enjoyed about this chapter is the fact of Lee and Gaara being in disguise, and really the use of their aliases. I particularly like any excuse to get Gaara to call Lee “Ren”. I’m particularly in love with that stroke of genius regarding Lee’s alias, and there’s a certain emotion, a certain connection that I really hope I could convey with how they use each other’s aliases.

I could probably talk about this chapter forever, but unfortunately there’s also thins I don’t want to say at the risk of spoiling future chapters since this is still a WIP (and probably will be for a while longer, though we’re almost halfway there! Two more chapters to the halfway mark!) Thank you so much for sending this particular ask anon! I had fun chatting about it and I hope you enjoyed reading my comments!

#naruto #shippuden #rock lee #gaara #gaalee #taol

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pnwswiftie · 5 years

Text

I felt owned by an employer once. He was sexist and baited me into working for him only to turn the tables and gaslight me. And to be honest I’ve never pin pointed the feeling that has sat in my gut about him until recently; until watching my idol go through the same thing on a large scale in front of the world, until what has happened, what has been happening to Taylor Swift in her industry.

Mine was a veterinary surgeon whom I worked with in the past. I left the veterinary field and started a new career. The Vet (we will call him) moved away and when he came back he contacted me with a new idea to start his own practice.

He painted me a beautiful picture of what this clinic would be like. He said he couldn’t do it without me and promised me the world. I still remember the phone call where he said the words- “you will be my practice manager, my right hand, you could run the show and have a handsome career, I’ll make sure you are set for life, you will have an opportunity to buy into the company as well, to profit share.

He offered to pay me whatever my current job paid me. I didn’t jump at saying yes. I worked so hard to be where I was and this was a big risk. My now husband was hesitant and didn’t trust him 🚩 but supportive of whatever I chose (love him). Well, im the only one of me so a month later I took the jump and put in my notice. I trusted him.

I was hired on with one other person. A male, roughly my same age, overall a nice dude. We will call him Sam. I was in charge of all operations of the front desk and all aspects of the business side of things. I started every excel sheet for income tracking, taxes, inventory. I created every document, I created the scheduling program, I set up every vendor accounts. I scanned every piece of paper that came into the clinic doors, I set up our benefits. I answered phones I handled every single client. I visited clinics and preached to people our vision, so they would refer to us (we were a referral based clinic) on my days off. I did it ALL. I also scrubbed into surgery with the Vet and Sam, as there were only 3 of us running the entire show. If the phone rang, I would answer on a headset under my face mask and handle a client or clinic call right there, scrubbed in. I didn’t mind, I felt proud to show off my multitasking skills. He would give a little wink and a joke and the validation felt nice, like I earned his approval 🚩 when I did something above and beyond.

About a year went by and I was rolling in hard earned money, that’s for sure. I was working 7 am to 10 pm some days so I always had overtime. Sam was responsible for 1 thing- patient care, and I was responsible for LITERALLY everything else you could possibly think of. 🚩Needless to say I was getting worked to the BONE 🚩 . I was cool with it tho, this is what I signed up for right? We were growing and successful and getting BUSY!

One day I accidentally found out the pay gap 🚩between myself and Sam. I had been completely naive to the fact that we were not equals, nor was I getting paid “management” but that he made SUBSTANTIALLY more than me. I gave it some energy for a couple days and vented to my husband, then I let it go. Sam was nice, it’s not his fault. 🚩Maybe he’s just worth more than I am to the company, I told myself. 🚩Maybe he has a past history I didn’t know about that made him more valuable. It definitely should have been my red flag 🚩

My relationship with the Vet was kind of like a daughter and father but 🚩 only on his terms. Fun and playful and lots of “your our boss lady!”. It would also take very odd turns, 🚩 having to do small tasks outside my morals. In the office he would call me “the office manager, the boss, it’s all up to you, hospital administrator!” yet on the phone would call me 🚩 “the front desk person” 🚩“my receptionist” to other veterinarians. It bothered me, a lot, but I pushed it away. 🚩Who am I to be that nit picky over a title? 🚩He probably didn’t mean it or misspoke, I thought.

The tricky part is that I only have little under the radar examples of his abuse. 🚩 The ones you can’t QUITE put your finger on, that you can’t QUITE justify quitting on the spot but make you feel 🚩 worthless. They continued every day. He was incredibly sweet and funny, and then 🚩condescending and cruel. It was a roller coaster to try to please him constantly. It wore on me. I came to work and to deal with it I would make lists on scratch paper. Lists of why I was starting to hate my job. Lists that I would read in the car and cry. If I wasn’t cheerful he’d come in with 🚩“PMSING TODAY?” .... I’d laugh n bite my tongue. 🚩 That’s just being friendly playful right, he knows me well enough to say that to me, we’re like family, right? But every day I felt awful. And I needed my job now, more than ever. 🚩 He knew I needed this job, too. We had just put an offer on a house and surprise! we’re now expecting a baby.

Being pregnant changed things. I couldn’t assist in surgery and xrays like I used to. 🚩He would scoff when I would have to leave for prenatal appointments. 🚩 He would be caring and kind one minute, giving me hand me down baby clothes and gifts, and then cold and dry the next. 🚩Sam could and often would sleep in and no call/no show. He would roll in at noon and jump into surgery, acting like nothing happened, they’d joke together about women in front of me and being hung over. I was 5 min late once because of a traffic jam and had to have a “sit down meeting” about attendance. 🚩 I felt so ASHAMED and EMBARRASSED. 🚩 I had never once, NOT EVER, had work problems, attendance problems, behavioral problems, in my entire history of working. This job was my LIFE. 🚩 Was something seriously wrong with me???

The last straw came when I was 6 months pregnant. He claimed that everyone was having a private “check in meeting”. He told me at mine that 🚩him and Sam talked 🚩 and agreed that I’m not the happy bubbly girl I used to be. I sat with him in the shade of a big oak tree in the grass that has since fallen in a wind storm (ironically. He said I would be getting a $1 raise and that he wanted me to take on MORE responsibility since I could no longer assist in surgery and listed basically anything he could possibly think of to tack on to my job to make up for that $1. 🚩 all I could think was... how???? I was already drowning. I finally got courage this time and said NO. My lip quivered and tears ran down my face with 🚩 stress. I brought up valid arguments but looking back I wish my voice wasnt so timid. Or that I had the courage to call out just one, ONE instance of his inappropriate behavior. But lastly, 🚩 I asked why is my title “FRONT DESK PERSON” when Sam is now “Lead Surgery Operations Director (Who Does No Wrong)??

His response sticks with me to this day. It was painful and degrading and I will never forget it. After working my ass off and building this place from the bottom, the long nights and everything I gave them... I also will never forget his 🚩 smirk . “Well you see, giving you a title like that would be like rewarding a BAD DOG with a BONE” 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

🚩I was devastated. 🚩And confused. 🚩I’m a BAD DOG???

I stuck it out for the remainder of my pregnancy, working the 12 hour days up until I went into labor at work. I trained a new girl on every process, excel spread, schedule I had developed and created. I put on a fake smile and wrote my scratch lists and re-read my lists on the way home and cried. I couldn’t just quit. I couldn’t let my family down.

We had our baby and stared at his tiny toes and fingers and cried every single day that I may have to go back to my hell job. I interviewed for different clinics while on leave. I was desperate. The vet was on a sweet streak- 🚩 sending us gifts, having his wife cook us meals and checking in on us all the time. He frequently asked what date I was coming back. He informed me that when I came back I would need to take the later shift and give the new girl my current shift. 🚩She needed it, he said. He said we could discuss the title of “lead receptionist” now and could 🚩 continue to work towards my goal of hospital manager. 🚩 I accepted but I felt sick. 🚩 I felt like I had to go back to work for someone who I couldn’t trust. I felt like he owned me in the worst possible way. (At one time he even tried to tell me I had half of the PTO that I actually had saved up for maternity leave, another 🚩🚩🚩 but I saved my paystubs as PROOF)

Today I work for the clinic that we shared the building with. When they heard I left they immediately offered me a position. The Vet left to purchase his own facility. He acted shocked and surprised and in disbelief that I wasn’t returning. At first it was tough, not gonna lie. We literally ate noodles for a year because I went down to part time. But the bravest thing I ever did was RUN ♥️ I now LOVE my job and they treat their employees wonderfully and equally and have real life morals.

I actually didn’t intend for this to be a novel LOL but even if not a single soul reads this, it’s therapeutic for me to actually get my thoughts down after almost 6 years now. My advice is to ALWAYS trust your gut. TRUST THE 🚩 RED 🚩 FLAGS. Don’t let anyone make you question your character. Never EVER ACCEPT being controlled and manipulated against your morals. Choose the future over time spent in the past (thanks T @taylorswift) and work somewhere that respects you. That pays you FAIRLY. Don’t be afraid to TELL your story too because this has to STOP (I’ve almost deleted this whole thing 13x) If it happened to me I can’t imagine how many other women it happens to. Anyway if you read this then holy shit here’s a hug and CHIN UP YOU ARE WORTHY, YOU ARE NOT A BAD DOG. ♥️

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wintermutal · 5 years

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Bro 4231 is not the most graphic thing on site, if you wanna leave it up I say leave it. If anon hates it so much they can blacklist or whatever, you’ve left that ditch of worms behind. What kinda stuff are you working on now, regarding your original stuff? THATS where the sexy writing is, where your passion’s at.

okay so for ORIGINAL stuff….man, it’s been weird since i left. im currently refitting the broken masquerade tale i was working on for the past year to a new universe. a lot of my extra energy has been being poured into a massive irl nonfiction project, which is coming together nicely so far, but as far as fiction goes i’m still missing like……….A Lot in this project. i usually write light stuff to help me sleep, resulting in a MASSIVE amount of random fluff and angst with my characters (including a 20k document i generated last year before overhauling the canon and having to start over) but that’s not like………Real Shit, you know? like, it’s still missing substance.

like, the problem with this is that Shadowgraphy, as original as the characters are, was still a foundation tale. the whole point of it was mocking the ‘we die in the dark so you can live in the light’ saying (thus the name; ‘shadowgraphy’ is the art of shadow puppets). as a result, for every fantastic original thing in it, there’s a fantastic foundation thing, too, including a scene where the villain has our humanoid-scp-protagonist strapped down to a chair for Torture Reasons and says “if i’m going to build a foundation, i’m going to build it from the wreckage of you”, which i’m not gonna lie is a a line i am never gonna be able to get back with the same amount of punch (actually, the entire scene preceding that one of the villain leading him down an ominous dark hallway from his chamber is also totally bopping, but i might be able to salvage that.)

so, i have characters. i’m gonna keep the whole main cast and the villain (or…former villain? is he still a villain in this? idk) as well as a new character i made in the past couple weeks. here they are, as i’ve adapted them so far:

-Miles Cuin. teenager at the time of…whatever story is happening. biopath, can cut people with his mind. accidentally killed his mom when he was 7 while discovering he could cut people with his mind. his dad, as an alternative to a prolonged juvy sentence, gave up permanent custody of him to DATH, Daytona Academy and Training Hospital (working concept here), a semi-locked down facility which trains biopaths to be surgeons and doctors. it’s a Big Deal to be operated on by a biopath because of the amount of precision that can be carried out fully without tools or even touching the patient, although wounds, in the case of Miles’ specific abilities, still have to be stitched up manually. In personality Miles is very literal, very analytical, and very serious/focused, which are all qualities valued if you’re a minor being trained to do high-risk surgeries. Has black hair buzz-cut to comply with hospital standards. gay, but hasn’t really had a lot of relationship experience due to his circumstances and therefore is…..Confused™ as well as touch starved. has some serious issues with self harm that started shortly after his mom’s death and continues to the present; being a biopath, especially with his particular specialty (’human scalpel’), makes self harm very easy to accomplish and harder to kick.

-Kilroy Fisher. also a teenager at the time of whatever story this is. technopath, is able to ‘cast’ himself into electronics and streamlines coding and reprogramming for any language of code he knows. lives in the mid-sized harbor town that DATH is at the edge of. recovering from a drug addiction that caused him to both drop out of high school and get kicked out of his mom’s house. now rents an apartment from an older technopath in town in exchange for helping him code some very sketchy stuff, leading to him eventually hacking into the Daytona communication system, running into Miles in the process. personality is lighter-hearted and more socially amiable than Miles, but also much more anxious and prone to outbursts and prolonged bad moods. bisexual and very fucking sure of it. long blond hair, very thick aviator glasses.

-Dean Eiler. Mid 30s. DATH director; narcissist who appears like a fantastic person to the press as well as patients and their families, while meanwhile being an absolute nightmare behind the scenes. will go to extreme lengths to justify his behavior to himself, upto and including flat out lying with little hesitation. unfortunately a very skilled biopath, although how he got the training is opaque and uncertain and almost certainly wasn’t morally fantastic; past is overall shadowy. in charge of the everyday running of DATH, including daily interaction with trainees; doesn’t constantly terrorize them, but will seize any excuse to do so while in the mood. otherwise tends to be condescending and disturbingly confident in cutting people open. straight, cycles through a variety of girlfriends, none of which stay for long for obvious reasons. always dresses impeccably with his hair slicked perfectly back, and is very clearly concerned about his appearance. if not in surgery or training, wears black slacks and dress shirts with narrow ties.

-Walter Wilde. Late 20s. assistant to Eiler. Almost was an author, but was pressured into pre-med and then into med school, landing him in a Daytona pseudo-administrative position. tends to be far kinder and more sympathetic to the trainees. still writes in his free time and has a book out, although it’s not enough for him to quit DATH, which is something he really wouldn’t mind doing if he didn’t feel so strongly attached to the kids…although it’s very clear that many don’t feel the same way towards him.

-Wren. teenager. DATH trainee. haven’t actually decided on a gender for this person yet, but they’re very ambiguous in terms of expression. close comrades with Miles.

-???? idk im still working shit out

anyway. it’s a cool universe so far but there’s no like….plot lmao like there WAS a plot but it was so foundation-oriented i need to completely gut it lol. also the worldbuilding needs more work

#im liking it so far #kilroy and miles.......gay #long post #??? idk if ill keep that tag but whatever #asks #writing #vandal.txt #Anonymous #unnamed story #EDIT: hospital renamed bc. oh my go #DOUBLE EDIT: realized that it was NOt the hospital name that was the problem but something ELSE i did not know was a slur #big yikes

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getallemeralds · 5 years

Text

really, really long rambling

i forgot how i got onto this tangent but on the car ride home i ended up thinking about Speed The Collapse, or. actually that’s just the first fic in it, i dont think the setting has an overall name. uhhh. WELL it’s the yogscast fic/RP setting i started years ago and evolved into atomiclalna/getfluxd/wellcatchyou. and it evolved into being pretty weird and im thinking about it again so here’s an explanation of all the characters while i think abt writing more STC

(some of this is specifically rp-verse that later got welded into fic canon, to make things extra confusing. especially with Atomic and Digger. fantastic)

Lalna “Lal/Atomic” Coffee is the “main” Lalna. he’s an AU of Flux Buddies that got... really convoluted bc of him originally having a bunch of different rp verses and then i accidentally slammed them together and had to try and reconcile em. he’s an omnidisciplinary scientist but mainly likes rockets, nukes, and blowing things up. and reckless use of thaumcraft, obvs.

he got de-Fluxed in one rpverse with the help of Circuit (a friend’s OC), and then when the verse-fusion happened it got kind of weird because Nano (who also got de-Fluxed in the same rp) stayed Fluxed but Atomic didn’t, so he’s just... kinda weird. but with the like, non-rp verse, i think it ended up being that he just burned all the surface-level Flux off but Nano had progressed so much that it probably would’ve killed xem to do the same, and then once the whole like.. dark realm stuff happened, his Flux resurfaced like how Nano’s got worse. I DUNNO i kinda started writing him before i was even caught up on flux buddies prime while 2.0 was over halfway through so :,)

either way he ended up with intense scarring on his face & hands, on top of miscellaneous scars he had from various near-death experiences, and it kind of became his “identifying feature” both in-universe and out. he’s also a cyborg just to keep himself alive because he’s Very aware that he doesn’t have respawn (unlike pretty much everybody else) and with how reckless he is with his own safety + his expertise with machines it felt like a logical conclusion to him. he’s also very casual about his own injuries bc he can just patch it back up later, no big deal. it grosses Nano out.

Lal’s very scatterbrained, bad at talking to people, and horrendous at taking care of himself. he’s also super disaster gay and was dating both Circuit and Nilesy in the rp verse (as well as like, whatever’s going on between him and Nano in both fic and rp). he sees Xephos and Honeydew as basically his adopted parents, although his relationship with them has faded due to lack of contact; he’s usually very casual about people going in and out of his life, but it started to wear on him and he gets pretty lonely.

he’s very distrustful of other Lalnas because of everything with Hector and MP!Lalna, although he doesn’t go on the attack immediately unless he feels threatened. his memories of YOGLabs (i think the “YOG” was supposed to stand for something but i never actually sorted out what it was) are of working on the respawn system before getting suddenly fired; in actuality, he’s the master clone that got kicked out after Hector proved to Xephos that the Lalnas were too dangerous to keep around. the side-effect of this is he has a weird bug where he ends up with memories of various other Lalnas, and sometimes has trouble keeping track of which Lalna he is without someone being there to ground him. this really doesn’t help with Nano’s mistrust of him

his timeline goes: Voltz -> Yoglabs -> Duncan’s Lab -> Blackrock -> The Apprentice -> Flux Buddies series

Lalnable “Hec” Hector is... complicated. he’s the original Lalna, who according to Xephos went insane and had to be locked up in YOGLabs; several of his breakout attempts failed, only for him to finally bail out successfully and go on the run. his main goal is to bring down YOGLabs, believing that Xephos has put all his morals in the trash in search of power & immortality, with a side hobby of trying to figure out what the hell is up with the Specimens, seriously it shouldn’t be this hard to clone somebody even if they’re full of eldritch goop wtf

all of the Lalnas are trans btw. Hec has voice dysphoria, both bc he has a case of the genders and also bc he hates the idea of being mistaken for another Lalna (although he’s tried to play that in his favour a couple of times. it usually backfires. sup, Tungsten); he feels like the Lalnas are unstable inferior knockoffs, and really doesn’t like seeing reflections of himself walking around. usually this means he goes out of his way to avoid them, but he started directly clashing with Atomic after they ended up in close proximity to each other and he took an interest in Nano.

he’s like... he plays up his edgy side to try and seem intimidating, but he’s honestly pretty pathetic. not that he can’t be dangerous, but he’s just kind of a paranoid guy with a whole lot of brain problems. has a lot in common with Atomic but does Not want to admit it. Hec is also very desensitized to blood and death bc of his work at YOGLabs (Atomic kinda is too but it’s not as prominent), but if he’s actually eaten anybody it’s probably it was probably out of curiosity. WAIT THAT SOUNDS REALLY WEIRD. i do think the like, cannibalism thing is something he got a reputation for without really comitting to it, but the nickname stuck and he’s like “sure, that’s edgy and scares people, i guess” and started going by Hector and then Five makes fun of him

he kinda suffers from badass decay but in an entertaining way bc its more like Lal & Nano learn more about him and are like, okay he’s pretty threatening, but he’s also a Lalna and they’re all idiots

his timeline is: Voltz -> Yoglabs -> Flux Buddies series

Livid Coffee is where shit starts getting REALLY weird and complicated. his deal was established in a rp arc on Atomic’s blog, where like... it was getting close to the end of Flux Buddies 2.0 in-universe, and Hector was testing out the Time Gate with the idea of like, going back in time to YOGLabs, before everything went wrong, and beating the shit out of Xephos. Lal saw something was up, went to go check it out, and got captured; Nano got suspicious once he didn’t return, and Hector has zero foresight or critical thinking skills and kinda panicked. he was only able to get the incomplete Time Gate open for a few minutes at a time while testing it, so he kinda... just. grabbed a Lalna. and sent him on his way back to the base and hoping Nano wouldn’t question it too much or that xe’d think he just had amnesia or something.

unforseen problem: the Lalna that Hector had managed to time-theft was Livid, his past self from when he still worked at YOGLabs.

im gonna be real i still have NO IDEA how this arc goes down in fic, if it does at all, but it does establish a whole lot of important things while also getting REALLY convoluted. i made a lot of decisions in dp that i definitely wouldnt today :,) BUT the gist of it is that Nano easily puts 2+2 together and rushes to rescue Lal only to get captured, and meanwhile Livid learns about everything. about Lalnable, about the failed clones, about getting fired, about how everything ended up the way it is in Lal’s time period. and he freaks out, but realizes he has a chance: he can try to stop all of this. he can go back to his original time period, and tell Xephos to shut the project down, and stop Lalnable from ever existing.

so some pretty cool stuff happens: he stages a rescue mission, rushes back through time while the baddies are distracted by the buddies, and sabotages the Time Gate in YOGLabs Deep Storage so Lalnable isn’t able to get there (which leads to baddies&buddies being scattered through time once they go through). he then runs to talk to Xephos, warn him about everything, because surely he can fix all of this, right?

Xephos listens, but then decides he doesn’t care about the risk and orders Livid to go through with it anyway. when Livid refuses, he’s locked up and his brain is fucked with to try and wipe his memories of the event. he finishes CloneSec on Xephos’s orders, only for everything to click back into place and the betrayal+paranoia causes him to lash out and try to kill Xephos, which gets him rebranded as Lalnable Hector. so it’s a time loop, basically.

as a side note, there’s a backup Livid of sorts-- in case of failure break glass, basically. somewhat literally, bc the clone is hidden in the YOGLabs reflecting pool in a glass box, far away from where anyone would stumble across him. he’s the closest clone to the original (meaning he doesn’t have any physical deviation like the other Lalnas eventually develop over course of experimentation & the master clone template), and has all of Livid’s memories up until the time travel nonsense. he never got to make an appearance outside of the original Livid in Distant Past, but interestingly one of the first times Atomic experienced clone memories in rpverse was something that happened to this guy.

his timeline is: Voltz -> Yoglabs -> Distant Past (fic) -> Hypercubed

while most of the Lalnas were fired or disposed of, with the exception of Hypercubed bc he’s in a frickin box, there was one that Xephos held onto. im gonna be real, im not totally sure how Moonquest fits into everything; honestly im kinda tempted to say it might be a case of a spare Xephos, even, considering he’s not like.. maximum bastard like Yoglabs Xephos is. either way, a single Lalna got picked up by Honeydew & Xephos and they decided to go to space together because why the hell not?

he doesn’t really have a unique nickname yet, because i haven’t done too much with him-- the most Moonquest stuff i wrote was actually an AU, with like. multiple system alien Lalnae, and he never crosses paths with that clusterfuck up there so Atomic only knows about him via clone memories & a very weird encounter with a clone-of-a-clone. who knows what he’s up to nowdays, considering Deep Space Mine never got anywhere.

his timeline is: Voltz -> Yoglabs -> Jaffa Factory -> Moonquest -> Hole Diggers -> Deep Space Mine

AND NOW WHO YOU’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR, THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND: DIGGER

Digger is... he’s something. while all of the other Lalnas listed here (minus original!Livid) are respawn clones, Digger is instead a “shell” clone-- basically just an empty, expendable shell someone can temporarily dump their consciousness into if they want to do something dangerous/stupid or just need to quickly hop somewhere. so, like, basically not a Lalna in the same sense as how the other Lalnas are basically like.. twins but a large number of. he’s also a reject, due to Honeydew screwing around while the shell was being constructed and accidentally mixing in some of his own DNA. because shells have DNA for some reason? they’re weird, they’re like... i think Digs got described as being made of “fake meat particles” once. doesn’t even have a pulse. or like, blood, or viscera, because any damage done to him cracks the shell.

ANYWAY so Digger was initially just a defective shell but the Hole Diggers didn’t get rid of him bc they thought he was funny in concept and also were too lazy to do anything, so he just got parked somewhere in the space station to be forgotten about. then there was a glitch with the sync chambers while Lalna was swapping to a shell, and suddenly Digger was like. aware. he basically got a copy of Lalna’s consciousness downloaded into himself. cue distress and dissociation once he immediately realized he was Stuck in an incorrect shell. THEN Honeydew accidentally blew the space station up to fuck, and Digger-- along with everyone else-- got sucked into a black hole.

ive been kinda vague about where exactly in time&space he ended up, but he basically took over some ruins he found and dug out a huge complex underground base and raids a nearby village for supplies while he was getting his feet. this is how he found a thaumonomicon, and he got himself deep into thaumcraft out of curiosity. he got himself heavily warped, and normally it would be pretty concerning but he’s rather calm about it

ive kinda gone back and forth on how he sees himself, so: he definitely starts out thinking he’s Lalna Prime but in a shell, but then learns about Other Lalnas and his memories are confusing&incomplete so he starts questioning himself and has a big ol crisis. he picks up the nickname “Digger” and ends up developing in his own direction somewhat, becoming his own person despite being a shell. having to accept the fact that he’s permanently a shell has been... difficult, and he tries very hard to ignore it because he feels like he’s super fragile if he thinks about it for too long. by the time he showed up in rp stuff, though (like showyourenergy and the corruption saga) he started owning it as like “yeah!! this is me, i guess!! if you look down on me for it ill shoot you with a very big gun!!”

his opinion on other Lalnas is that he’s TERRIFIED of them. like, pretty much convinced he’s going to get hunted down and killed if the original Moonquest Lalna finds out about him (once he learns that he even exists). that, combined with his warp, means he has paranoia to rival Hec’s; it only gets worse in rpverse when he’s managed to make a Lot of enemies. he does have a very close friend, though, potentially the only person he trusts completely: Drei, aka Specimen Echo 3-B, one of the failed Specimens that Hec created. there’s like this whole thing where Nano & the two surviving Specimens are like, a trio representing various forms of thaumic corruption? Nano is Flux, Five is Taint, and Drei is Warp! so Drei met Digger when he got himself warped to all hell, and they’re basically siblings.

i also rp’d him for like 3 days on here during the jsab corruption saga bc for some reason i doodled a leo!lalna instead of using RR

his timeline goes: [Voltz -> Yoglabs -> Jaffa Factory -> Moonquest] -> Hole Diggers -> ?

#txt #leo chirps #leodoodles #leos ocs #oc: digger #this is so many words i am SO sorry #this post took me like all day to make bc i decided to draw all these fuckers too #yogscast #atomiclalna #wellcatchyou

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homijoh · 5 years

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Hi!! I know I say it many times but...I just love your premade gameplay so so much!!! It's a huge inspiration! :) I am hoping to rotate between premade households too and I am wondering if you have any tips for a newbie like me? Apart from the stuff that you roll, do you have everything planned before you play a household or do you just have a general idea of what's going to happen and take screenshots as you go? Thank you!! and keep up the great work! ^^ *hugs*

Hi! Thank you so much! I love everything you do as well! Hollyoaks is my jam, but I also loved your history challenge which is how I found you in the first place.

Oh boy some tips, so lets see:

1. I dont plan everything but I have a general idea on where to go for some families(like the vatores(caleb leaving was planned),and vlad(you uh will see this one later), victor using dina for an heir etc..) and other times I just let things happen and see where it takes me( the jangs and delgatos recovering from the affair, Akira breaking up with J etc…). For example J and Akira were going to stay together and have some kids but they were such and odd couple from the start that I couldnt get them to mesh with each other the way I wanted so they broke up and Akira is on the lookout for a new life partner. Being flexible is a big part of it, if something just isn’t working I let it not work and come up with a new plan.

2. If things feel boring do something different. My sims tend to stay at home and work on their skills A LOT and while that’s interesting to me, no one wants to see the same sim paint 20 paintings. So I try to at least have one outing where the sim goes somewhere typically with someone not in the household. These outings I dont plan what the sims are going to do while there(unless I need some story shots), I tend to just let them go and see what they do.

3. Have a planned switching day and time. I typically am done playing a household and ready for a new one every 6 sim days or so. Either their stuff is just dragging on or im out of ideas so the 7th day I dont control the sims at all. I just let them fill their time how they want without me micromanaging them and see what happens. After the 7th day I’m usually so excited to switch and full of ideas for the next household so that’s when I switch.

4. Take advantage of days off or days where you only have one sim with a chunk of time before everyone else comes back home from work/school. That’s your time to focus on that sim and flesh them out a little bit. what would that sim do with that time? if there is a sim that you want to do this with but doesn’t have the time off, use one of those vacation days!

5. Give the sims their own personality quirks and stick with it even if it makes playing harder for you. For example Diego Lobo does not cook his own food, so he goes to the food stand outside his apartment a lot, or to restaurants. Or for example Penny Pizzaz who uploads a viral video first thing every day. Continuing this serves no real purpose. Its not like anyone checks that what you say they do you actually do after all, but I find that it helps form who the sim is in my own mind. It keeps them feeling like a person with their own personality and thoughts. If that makes sense.

6. Sometimes the rolls are wrong. Its okay to go off script and pick your own chance card. Like if Dominic or Moira rolled the divorce card I’d nope it and reroll. There are just some things that don’t fit the character or narrative and you still have all the control. Its not the end all be all, its just a tool to help flesh out the story.

7. Be a good bullshitter. I cant count the number of times I’ve just made stuff up because it sounded believable. Its not always about what the sims did or didnt do, its about the motive behind the action. Accidentally putting the same painting in the Vatore’s and Vlad’s house turns into a feud over the lady in the painting etc… sometimes I realize things later on and am like yep totally planned that(I didnt shhhh!).

8. Take more pictures than you will need. Even if you dont end up posting it at all, take pictures of it anyway. I have found that sometimes I dont know where I was going with something until I realized there were other pictures I had no plans for that went with it and changed the narrative.A picture of Eliza helping Maple doing homework makes her look like a good mom, a picture of Almond doing homework by herself right after makes it look like she has a favorite. Better to have too much and not need it, than have too little and you have to adjust or change the dialogue to fit their faces etc…

Thats it for now I think haha. Thanks for the ask and Im so excited to see where you take the premades! I’m loving Bob and Eliza’s story so far.

#ask #anotherplumbob

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modesty-blaise · 5 years

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Since I'm curious, what caused you to become very possessive of your gifs? Not out of rudeness but curious, since no matter what you do a lot of them show up in the gif function on Tumblr which automatically credits you at the bottom of the gif.

Hey. Tbh, at first I didn’t wanna bother with yet another anon but since I see no ill intent behind this, I decided to go and answer it. Unfortunately, half-way through I realised my reply is turning into incredibly long semi-bitter rant and expands well beyond calling out just one person in Psychonauts fandom (and yes, this is related to Psychonauts fandom – you do know that these anons are not really that anonymous, right?) so… buckle up! All that beneath “read more”.

I’ve been on this hellsite for like…7-8 years? Maybe more? Can’t really tell cause I moved blogs and my old blog now consists of only 4 posts I’ve made close to leaving so I honestly have no idea how much time I’ve spend here before moving. Anyway, during those few years I’ve spent on my first blog I’ve met a lot of creative gifmakers who enjoyed sharing their love for fandoms they were in. I’d like to point out that this was waaaaay before tumblr created that insert-gif option so, back in the day, the only way to add gifs to your post was to: 1. make them yourself 2. take them from someone else. And a lot of people were taking them from someone else which resulted in many gifmakers giving up on making gifs and leaving fandoms and/or even leaving tumblr – and I’ve had many of my friends give up on what they love and have their games/shows/movies/whatnot ruined for them cause people would not stop stealing from them. And many of my friends eventually left tumblr cause they couldn’t deal with it anymore.

Tumblr adding insert-gif option, in my opinion, honestly, just made it worse for gifmakers. Cause now people had the opportunity to use gifs for their posts, with or without creators’ permission/knowledge, but it was alright and it was perfectly fine cause creators were credited. There’s their name at the bottom. It’s alright. Like… it doesn’t matter if they’re actually okay with people using something they’ve put hours into making or if they’re not – tumblr gives them credit so they SHOULD be okay with it. Simple as that.

Well, we’re all different and some people are not okay with that. I’m not okay with that. It took me weeks to figure out how to use photoshop correctly. Took me countless hours of looking through different tutorials and basically trial-and-error-ing my way through the process. Whenever I make gifs, it takes me hours to record videos and then hours trying to achieve that 3mb limit on gifs (thank lord these days we’re beyond 1mb limit). After all that effort I put into creating gifs for games that I love and enjoy, someone is going to make 2 clicks and have that same gif added to their post, without even asking. So how is that okay?

Back to your question. Yes, “no matter what you do a lot of them show up in the gif function on Tumblr”, that is true and that is something I was aware of when I saw you-know-who announcing they would be starting 30 days Psychonauts challenge. So, hating to see my gifs used against my will, and not wanting to start any unnecessary drama and threaten people in advance with reporting them if they do use them, I’ve made my blog as private as I could. It was only accessible through the dashboard, it was not showing in ANY search engines inside and outside tumblr, and my gifs were impossible to find through insert-gif function – I’ve made sure. I did all that cause I just knew that during those 30 days, someone would use my gifs and I would get mad and I desperately wanted to avoid that (hence going extreme). And you know what happened? You know what creator of this challenge (who prevously already reposted my gifs) did? *drums* They used my shit anyway. :3 They just uploaded it from their computer, where they’ve saved it earlier.

And like… a lot of people see pretty pic and decide to save it - I mean, we all do that. Heck, even I have a folder full of shit I saw online and liked it – but i’m not uploading it online cause I haven’t made it. It’s not mine to share.

But some people are not like that.

Some people see fanart of something they like and they want to share their opinion on it – and instead of making their own post, maybe drawing the fanart themselves, they decide to use someone else’s art for their post. Do they know who made it? Do they have creator’s permission to share it? If the answer is NO, then they should be a decent human being and not do that to creators. Oh, they shared it anyway but now people in fandom are calling them out BUT this actually happened on accident? They know who the creator is but, somehow, they accidentally forgot to credit them? OK, well, it’s possible, shit happens, but they better make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Then sometime later these same people decide they want to make a post appreciating their fav character and they want to include pics cause duh, you can’t have character appreciation post without pics, right? Now they have several options: they can get their own screenshots, make their own gifs, maybe draw something… or they can just take someone else’s creation. Do they know who made it? Well there’s my fuckin name on it, and since they’ve stretched it from 245 to 500px, it’s really hard to miss, plus it’s not like there are that many people making Psychonauts gifs. Do they have permission to share it? Hmmm, nope, didn’t ask me. Is this also an accident? Could be. I mean, I’ve seen stranger things happen, so accidentally forgetting to credit content creators twice… kinda suspicious but still possible. Who am I to say?

Now if these people then decide to make a post appreciating their fav ship and they want to add a cute pic of the loving couple – yup, you guessed it! They can either create something or take something. Again: they know who did? They asked for permission? Got the permission? No?!?! But they posted it anyway?!?! :o Could it really be, that after being called out publicly, after being told that reposting is bad (something that’s very easy to understand), after even having tumblr staff intervene and remove stolen shit from their blog, after all that - could it really still be an accident?

Nah, man.

They just don’t give a shit.

Cause if they did, they’d stop with that crap first time they were called out.

(and if you think Psychonauts fandom is their only fandom and that they’re not doing this crap in other fandoms too - hoooo, boy, do I have some bad news for you! Do you know how many stolen and butchered HP fanart is on their blog? Hobbit stuff? They seem to be one of the most accident-prone users on tumblr. And honestly - it’s a real miracle their blog’s not been terminated.)

Back to what I was talking about - I’m not okay with people using my gifs and I’ve made it very clear. I literally do not give a shit if I’m credited or not, I’ve made it very clear that I don’t want my gifs used without my permission. If you like them and want them on your blog, there’s a fuckin reblog button. It’s sole purpose is to allow you to share other people’s creations. Or shitposts, cause lord knows we all love those.

So that’s why when someone spends hours going through my Psychonauts tag and goes as far as to send me “I love your gifs” anonymous message, but the very next day makes stim moodboard post including one of my gifs, now cut and resized to fit 3x3 format they’re going with, I get mad. And that’s why when someone uses one of my gifs to promote their RP blog, butchering it to fit their aesthetics, and later when confronted going as far as blaming their good friend on it cause god! they’ve had no idea it wasn’t theirs, I get mad. (makes you wonder though: if they friend has such skills, why not making them gifs themselves?)

Like…. I’ve had my gifs stolen plenty of times. I’ve had them stolen for roleplaying, for headers, for imagines, just for notes… I’ve had them stolen by people claiming to run official fan sites (that’s a real wild story but I won’t get into that now)… I’ve seen them on pinterest, weheartit, FB, all those random gif sites… and I’ve seen EVERY. POSSIBLE. EXCUSE. ranging from: “well i found it on google so why should i credit you” “lol dunno who made this but its pretty so im posting it” “ive had it on my computer for years so i don’t remember where i got it from” “i dont know how to make gifs so im using weheartit as a source” “credit to whoever made this” (that’s my fav) to “its just a gif so who gives a shit” (it’s not – it’s hours of creator’s time and lots of love that you’re now shitting on so thanks) and “i have an /illness/ and getting notes makes me feel better so dont u dare blame me for stealing” (I don’t remember exact excuse but it was something along those lines and like… how do you even respond to something that without looking like an asshole?).

And sometimes it really is just an accident. Sometimes people really do forget to credit you and/or ask you for permission. And I’ve had my fair share of those accidents. People in Psychonauts fandom have been using my gifs for various crap but, when approached, they’ve removed it and apologised. And it’s something I really appreciate. (if they actually bother reading this and they recognise themselves: i’m really grateful and thank you for not being an ass)

But you know what I don’t appreciate? People making a call out posts about me, asking about my gifs when they know very well they’re the main reasons why I’m not making those gifs anymore, at the same time failing to address any of the issues I have with them and instead rather explaining to others what happened BUT explaining only the parts that make me look like a villain cause how I even dare be mad about them stealing? How I even dare call them out on it? That is so ridiculous and criminal of me, and it’s so so sooooo bad that they need to call me out. I deserve to be called out by the very same person who’s been stealing my shit.

And their explanation is…well… it’s something.

They were sympathetic and polite? When did this happen? Did I completely missed that part? Please someone fuckin enlighten me with such post/message where they expressed their sympathy and politeness and I’ll apologise right this second.

I told them to “literally fuck off”? Yeah, that did happen, I admit that. Did they bother explaining why I told them to fuck off in the first place? Did they say they were caught stealing from me and had tumblr stuff remove my shit from their blog? Did they get into details of how they demanded the proof of my so very wild and obviously false claims but then when I showed it, they just deleted that “how dare u call me out cause I would never do such thing” post? No, they didn’t and geee, I really wonder why.

Instead, what did they choose to address? Out of all the things I’ve said. Hm? What did they choose? Me telling them to fuck off. Me dropping the F-bomb on them, rudely rejecting their obvious kindness and politeness. Nothing else.

Back to what I was talking about before I got derailed again: no, I’m not mad cause this person used my gifs without crediting me. I mean – I am, but that’s not my main issue with them (and they know it). My main issue is that this is someone who will continuously lie and steal and still deny any of it, even when there’s plenty of proof (and you can always count on me to show up with proof tbh), and then go as far as to publicly ask about my gifs and try to call me out. Like me getting mad that something I’ve put hours of work into, and something I’ve made cause I love the game and I want to share my love and appreciation for it, is now being shared against my will and my knowledge - like me getting mad over something like that is so unreasonable that they need to make an entire post about it while pretending they have absolutely no idea why I’m even mad and why we have issues.

And I have every fucking right to be mad. 3 times is not an accident. 2 times to the same person is not an accident. They know it. But yeah, playing stupid is their defense so it’s not like I expected them to actually address their actions this time either.

And you know what? Just because I swear a lot doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Doesn’t mean there’s no solid ground for my claims. People on tumblr have always been and always will be stealing shit. Sometimes they will credit you, often they will not, and that’s just how it is, doesn’t matter if you’re okay with it or not. But that doesn’t mean I’m just gonna sit quiet and accept someone’s shitty behaviour. Especially when it’s directed at me.

TLDR: giving credit =/= having permission

but my previous posts leading to this ask were not about that

you knew that already

#psychonauts #this is a lot longer than i expected #meh #also: all those posts are now under one tag #so you don't have to check my blog 4 times per day #that hobbit reposter #my psychonauts stuff

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the-desolated-quill · 5 years

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Quill’s Swill - The Worst Of 2018

Congratulations dear reader. You survived 2018. And you know what that means. It’s time for another best of/worst of list. Welcome to Quill’s Swill 2018. A giant septic tank for the various shit the entertainment industry produced over the course of the year. The films, games, TV shows and various other media that got on my bad side. As always please bear in mind that this is only my subjective opinion (if you happen to like any of the things on this list, good for you. I’m glad someone did) and that obviously I haven’t seen everything 2018 has to offer for one reason or another. In other words, sorry that Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald isn’t on here. I’m sure it is as terrible as some have been suggesting. I just never got around to watching it.

Okay everyone. Grab your breathing masks and put on your rubber gloves. Let’s dive into this shit pile.

Hold The Sunset

The news that John Cleese would be returning to the world of BBC sitcoms was incredibly exciting, being a massive Fawlty Towers fan and all. Unfortunately Hold The Sunset was not quite what I had in mind. It’s one of those rare breed of situation comedies that chooses to offer no actual comedy. It’s not a sitcom. It’s a sit. Like Scrubs or The Big Bang Theory.

An elderly couple plan to elope abroad only for Alison Steadman’s son to barge in, having left his wife, and forcing them to put their plans on hold. Hence the title ‘Hold The Sunset.’ It’s like a cross between As Time Goes By and Sorry, but if all the humour and relatability were surgically removed by a deadpan mortician. The characters are weak, the plots are thin on the ground and the humour (hat little of it there is) feel incredibly dated. The middle aged mummy’s boy is something that hasn’t been funny since the 90s. It’s an utter waste of great talent and what hurts even more is that this tripe is actually getting a second series. I can only assume the people watching this are comatose. Either that or there’s an epidemic of people in Britain who have lost the remote.

Avengers: Infinity War

Yes this is one of the worst movies of 2018 and no I don’t regret saying that one little bit. Avengers: Infinity War was fucking terrible. Period. There were too many plots and characters going on, which made the film hard to follow (and what staggers me is that the so called ‘professional’ critics have condemned movies for having too many characters and plots before. Spider-Man 3, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Batman vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice and even Deadpool 2. But because this is an MCU movie, it gets a free pass. Fuck off). The characterisation was weak due to sheer number of characters they try to juggle, resulting in characters coming off as one dimensional caricatures of themselves and scenes where characters such as Iron Man, Doctor Strange and Star-Lord sound completely interchangeable. The villain, Thanos, is a stupidly and poorly written villain, but that’s hardly surprising considering what a shit job Marvel have done building him up over the course of these 20+ movies. And let’s not forget that pisstake ending. A bunch of prominent Marvel characters die and it’s all very, very sad... except all these characters just so happen to have sequels planned, which makes this ending fucking pointless and have less impact than a feather on a bouncy castle.

I don’t know which is more shocking. That Marvel and Disney think their audience are that stupid and gullible, or that their audience are actually validating their view. Fuck you Disney.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

I’ve always wanted a Harry Potter RPG, where you could customise your character, choose your house and actually live a full school life at Hogwarts. This year, Warner Bros and Jam City gave us just that.

That was a mistake.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is the epitome of everything that’s wrong with the mobile gaming market right now. The gameplay is boring and involving where you just tap images on a screen until a progress bar fills up. Wizard duels are little more than rock-paper-scissors challenges that require no kind of skill. Bonding with friends and caring for magical creatures just consist of pathetically simple pop quizzes and yet more boring tapping. Oh and of course you only get a certain amount of energy to complete these tedious tasks. If you run out of energy, you wait for it to fill up... or pay up for the privilege. So determined are they to extract your hard earned cash from your wallet, there’s actually a bit where Devil’s Snare strangles your eleven year old avatar and the game effectively tries to guilt trip you into paying micro-transactions to save them. It’s sleazy, gross and manipulative. Honestly, you’re better off just playing Candy Crush.

Agony

When the developers of this game said they wanted to give the player a trip through Hell, they had no idea how true that statement really was. Agony is dreadful on a number of levels. The design for Hell itself, while visually interesting at times, is often not very practical and gets quite dull and repetitive after a while. The stealth mechanics are a joke and the AI of your demonic enemies are pitiful. All of this alone would have been enough to put this game on the list, but then we also have the casual misogyny. Agony is a gorefest trying desperately to shock the player. We see men and woman get tortured, but it’s the women that often get the extreme end. The violence inflicted on them is often sexual in nature and the game seems to go out of its way to degrade and dehumanise women at every turn. The orgasmic cries of ‘pull it out’ quickly become a staple of the game’s experience as we see naked women raped, tortured and murdered, all for the purposes of ‘entertainment.’

I would call Agony sexist, but honestly that would be giving it too much credit. Agony is like a little child trying desperately to be all dark and edgy in a pathetic attempt to impress everyone around him, and we should treat it as such. Go to your room Agony. No ice cream for you.

Peter Rabbit

If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of Beatrix Potter rotating in her grave.

Yes we have yet another live action/CGI hybrid, but instead of something innocuous like the Smurfs or Alvin and the Chipmunks, Sony instead decides to adapt Peter Rabbit, with James Corden in the title role.

It’s about as bad as you’d expect.

Their attempts to modernise the story are painful to say the least with pop culture references, inappropriate adult humour and twerking rabbits. Plus rather than the gentle, but slightly mischievous character we got in the source material, here Peter is a sociopathic delinquent who seems to revel in making the farmer’s life a living hell. He’s unlikable and unwatchable as far as I’m concerned and the film doesn’t in anyway earn the emotional moments it tries so desperately to sell to the audience. And the worst part is it’s getting a sequel.

Wait. Do you hear that sound? That’s the sound of Beatrix Potter tearing out of the ground, ready to kill whatever idiot came up with this shit.

Fallout 76

I was excited for Fallout 76. A MMORPG where players band together to rebuild society after a nuclear apocalypse. Could have been great. Pity it wasn’t.

Fallout 76 is a dreadful game. Not only is it a buggy, glitchy mess that requires a constant online connection to play, which could result in you losing hours of progress if your WiFi went down, it’s also unbelievably tedious, and that’s because there’s nothing to do in the game. There’s no other characters to interact with, the various robots and computers you come across are really little more than quest givers, there’s no actual plot so to speak, and because of the sheer size of the world and the number of players allowed on a server, the chances of you actually meeting any actual players is remote. And let’s not forget all the behind the scenes drama. Bethesda falsely advertising Fallout themed canvas bags and players getting shitty nylon ones. Bethesda accidentally releasing the account information of various players trying to get a refund for said bag. Bethesda failing to program the year 2019 into the game code, meaning that the game’s nukes don’t work.

Maybe there’s a chance that Bethesda could pull a No Man’s Sky and fix everything over the coming years with various patches and DLCs, but the damage has already been done. It’s incredibly disappointing. The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to have be fucking incredible to win everyone back.

Mama Mia!: Here We Go Again

I can’t stand jukebox musicals anyway, but Mamma Mia was always one of the worst. Its boring, meandering story with its one note, obnoxious cast of characters screeching out ABBA songs like they’re at some drunken karaoke session at some poor sod’s hen party has always grated on my nerves. So imagine my delight when they announced we were getting a sequel. Ever wondered how Meryl Streep met her three lovers and founded her hotel? No? Well tough shit, we’re going to tell you anyway.

Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again is basically just Mamma Mia again. The actors still can’t sing, the characters are still annoying and story is still boring and meandering, completely at the mercy of the chosen songs rather than the filmmakers using the songs to compliment the story (you know? Like proper musicals do?).

How can I resist you? Very easily as it turns out. Gimme, gimme, gimme a fucking gun so I can end my misery.

The Cloverfield Paradox

A lot of people were unhappy about the direction Cloverfield was going. They wanted a continuation of the found footage, kaiju movie from 2008, not an anthology series. I was personally all in favour. Partially because I thought the first Cloverfield was a tad overrated, but mostly because I thought it would be a great opportunity for more experimental film projects and could be a great launchpad for new writers and filmmakers. 10 Cloverfield Lane was a great start. Then The Cloverfield Paradox happened.

The Cloverfield Paradox is basically JJ Abrams trying to have his cake and eat it too. Maintaining the anthology format whilst connecting everything together in a ‘shared universe’ (yes, yet another shared universe). The result was a cliched, poorly edited and idiotic mess of a film that actually took away from the previous two films rather than added to them. Everyone hated it and, as a result, 2018′s Overlord, which was totes going to be part of the Cloververse, was made its own standalone film and Abrams double pinky promised to make a true sequel to the original Cloverfield. A complete and total disaster. No wonder it was a straight-to-Netflix film.

The Handmaid’s Tale - Season 2

This is probably going to be the most controversial entry on the list, but please hear me out because I’m not the only one who has a problem with this season.

I was reluctant to watch The Handmaid’s Tale simply because of how gruesome the original book was, but I forced myself to watch the first season and I thought it was pretty good. It remained faithful to the source material for the most part and included some nice additions that helped to expand the story and mythos. If it was just a one off mini-series, everything would have been fine. But then they made the same mistake as The Man In The High Castle and Under The Dome did where they commissioned another season and attempted to tell a story that goes beyond the book.

There’s a reason why the original story ended where it did. The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t meant to be an empowering story about women sticking it to the patriarchy. It’s a cautionary tale about how fragile our civil rights truly are and how easily they can be taken away from us. It’s designed to shock, not to satisfy. So seeing a handmaid blow herself up in a suicide bombing feels very incongruous and just a little bit silly. It would be like doing a TV adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 where the first season followed the source material and then the second season turned Winston Smith into this heroic freedom fighter trying to overthrow Big Brother. It would represent a fundamental misunderstanding of what the book was about in the first place.

And then of course there’s the increased level of violence in Season 2, which many have complained about. In Season 1 and the original source material, the violence was justified. In Season 2, the motivation behind the violence has gone from ‘how can we effectively demonstrate how easily a fascist patriarchy can happen in the West?’ to ‘what brutal act can we inflict upon Ofglen to shock the audience this week?’ It’s purely for shock and nothing more. And with the showrunner (who I feel I should mention is a man) announcing that he has planned ten seasons of this, it seems that The Handmaid’s Tale is going to go even further with this depravity until it effectively becomes the equivalent of a Saw film.

The Handmaid’s Tale exists as a way of shining light on and critiquing misogyny in its most extreme form. Season 2 however demonstrates that there is a serious risk of it becoming the very thing it’s criticising in the first place.

The Predator

I love the Predator franchise, but The Predator is the worst.

People thought that this would be good because director Shane Black had actually starred in the first Predator movie back in 1987. Instead we got this bloated, confusing, obnoxious and insulting mess of a film that seems to go out of its way to ruin everything that makes Predator so good. There’s no tension. No suspense. No intrigue. Just a bunch of gore, explosions and shitty one liners from annoying and lifeless characters. They essentially took this big alien game hunter from outer space and turned him into a generic monster from a bad summer blockbuster. It no longer hunts for sport. It wants to take over the world and splice our DNA with theirs. But don’t worry, a rogue Predator doesn’t want to kill humans (even though he himself kills a bunch of humans), so he gives us a Predator Iron Man suit to set up a sequel that will probably never happen because this movie was a box office bomb and it fucking SUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKKEEEEEDDDD!!!

This film also has a very nasty streak towards those with disabilities. There’s a lot of jokes at the expense of a character with Tourette’s and it has an extremely ignorant and patronising view of autism, portraying the main character’s kid as being a super genius who can decipher the Predator language and even going so far as to say that he represents ‘the next stage of human evolution.’ Presumably the Predators want social communication difficulties because apparently it helps them hunt somehow.

What with Disney acquiring 20th Century Fox, the future of both the Alien and Predator franchises were very much in question. This film needed to be a success in order to make a case for Disney to keep making more of them. It wasn’t. Congratulations Shane Black. You might have just killed off this franchise for good. Thanks arsehole! :D

So those were my least favourite stories from 2018. Join me on Wednesday where we shall discuss something more positive. Yes, it’s awards season. Who shall win the coveted Quill Seal Of Approval? Watch this space...

Or don’t. It’s up to you. I don’t want to force you or anything. It’s a free country.

#quill's swill #quill's swill 2018 #worst of the year #review #opinion

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things-we-used-tc-share · 5 years

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Manifestor / Chapter 9

Warnings: Dissociation, recovery, mentions of low mental health

Ships: None (Thomas/OC later in the fic)

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8

Plot: Set in a world where Witchcraft is real, and the government hunts down those who practice magic, Thomas must flee to an underground safehouse after being discovered. Now fighting a war against Witches who seek the end of non-magic people, Thomas must learn to control and harvest his powers, as well as the manifestation of his sides to bring about peace and unity in the Human and Witch world. (Nanowrimo 2018)

Dissociation is Thomas’ second instinct. His body moves, his hands touch things, his eyes see things but his brain just doesn’t process it, or anything. He thinks he may have been sat there for an hour, maybe five minutes, time seemingly folding in on itself; his body is corporeal and yet he feels like a ghost. Without Roman to fill him with passion, ideas, creative flow, he seems to feel to fall short of doing anything; it seems that even Logan can’t quite stir his motivation to be productive, and without Virgil, his need or want to respond to activities, to be motivated by his anxiety to be productive, had dissipated.

For two days, he moves without purpose, in a spiral of effect without a cause. He barely leaves his room, he sleeps so much he’s become further exhausted and Logan speculates he may be becoming depressed. Thomas can’t remember the last time he ate and it felt like he couldn’t remember why he even ate food in the first place, with no hope or fear he was simply losing the will to live.

Roman is the first to wake up. He’s tired and drowsy and he looks like death warmed up, but he’s awake. The moment he wakes, Thomas’ will starts to warm up again, like the slow boil of a kettle. He begins to get up, move around a little, noticing the things around him for the first time in days. He still doesn’t leave his room, however, until two hours later when Virgil wakes up.

His anxiety kicks in a whole lot faster, as he washes and sighs, dwelling in some form of self-disgust as he takes in his appearance. Immediately, he brushes his teeth, washes his hair and changes his clothes for the first time in days. His stomach growls and he panics, when was the last time he had eaten, oh god was he going to die? Logan lets out a sigh of relief as Patton helps the two sides to their feet, planting a warm cup of coffee in their hands.

Thomas knocks at Jack’s door, eyes tired but face brighter than ever “Please tell me you have some food, I haven’t eaten in days,” Jack snorts lightly and opens the door for the other to enter, planting a packet of biscuits and a cup of tea into Thomas’ hands. He eats fast through noises of approval, sighing happily around a mouthful of biscuits. At the back of his head, he hears Logan saying ‘slow down you’ll make yourself sick’. “So when can we resume training?” Thomas asks, halfway through the packet as the idea is recalled to the front of his mind.

“Whenever you like Thomas, I was honestly wondering if you wanted too, I haven’t seen you in a few days and I thought maybe you needed space, time to yourself, as it turns out I probably should’ve checked on you, I’m sorry,” He gestures to Thomas’ mouthful of biscuits, to which earns a somewhat embarrassed smile. “In future though, please don’t be afraid to seek help from me or others if you need it, we’re here to support you,”

The American nods, pushing his newly combed brown hair from his tired eyes. Despite the general look of exhaustion, the bags under his eyes, the yawning every five or so seconds, he’d never quite appeared as ready and focused to Jack in his entire time of knowing him. This dude truly does have the potential to go places he thinks to himself, marveling as the other stands and stretches, eyes wide and ready to go.

There’s a lot of strength in Thomas.

They train for a couple of hours, Thomas begins to work against Jack in his powers, since everything had happened he’d not gotten assigned a teacher to help him with the other elements as so was basically working off his fire control. “So what I know about air, is the it requires you to think logically, it’s a logical skill, as is earth, you have to understand the mechanics of nature to understand your power,” Jack sits on a bench in the large open space room, his eyes focused on Thomas “I only know theory here so from there you’re going to be self-taught buddy,”

Thomas knows nature, he’s spent his entire life admiring nature, and growing up nature had been the one power he’d learned by himself to have some control over. He’d found biology and ecosystems and environmentalism fascinating as a child, spending half of his time learning about plants and flowers, and animals. When he was ten, his mother had been sad his father had accidentally cut the rose bush down and he’d made another one grow in its place.

Here and now, however, he had to recall the information he’d known then to recreate that moment. “Logan?” He calls out, the logical side appears, arms crossed and jaw set firmly, adjusting his glasses. “How do vines form?”

“Vines are a type of plant that ‘climb’ so to speak, it’s suggested this is an evolutionary tactic so that they can gain support in order to grow, as well as reach the necessary elements in which to grow for example sunlight or rainwater,” Like a pocket dictionary, the other sets off, instilling the knowledge into Thomas as he closes his eyes. “A growth form is created on long stems, from there the plant will continue to grow or climb up their chosen structure,” Thomas closes his eyes, his arms outstretched. There was a hole where sunlight came through in this room; his palms face outwards with the light shining onto them. Slowly, roots began to form along his forearm, reaching out from under his skin, green started to grow. Poison Ivy. The leaves sprouted slowly but surely, catching the sunlight against them as it began to grow further and further outwards, their tendrils wrapping around his arms before reaching his fingertips. Slowly the growth reached outwards towards the light. He can understand the plant, and the plant seems to understand him as he moved his arm suddenly it shoots outs, aiming perfectly through the hole where the light had been shining. He allows the plant to leave him and it slowly begins to grow back up through the hole, searching for life beyond this underground city.

Jack grins, enthralled. “I always thought Earth was the coolest specialty to have, you can do so much with it, so much comes from nature, us, plants, animals, the Earth always gives,”

“And we always take,” Thomas says softly, tracing the part of his arms where the pant had been “That’s what humans are designed to do, Witch or no Witch,” He cups the palm of his hands and a flower blooms in the light, it’s rouged petals glistening. He hands it to Jack with a small smile, sitting next to him. But the moment this flower leaves Thomas’ hands, it wilts and dies. “Sorry, it doesn’t have roots, like the vine, no way to sustain itself outside of my energy,”

The Irishman shrugs “It’s fine, it was nice to look at anyway,” Logan sits beside the two and stares around the large, open room with a thoughtful expression. His eyebrows furrow as he considers for a moment.

“You never learned how to manage Earth,” He says finally, slowly, the cogs in his brain working “It was always innate in you as you grew, fire came to you when you were angry, and now you’ve been taught how to use it, but Earth, it was always there, no one taught you how to control it,” He looks at Thomas carefully “I think you might have a specialty after all Thomas, one element that overall you just felt innately attached too,” Thomas’ eyebrows raise as he looks down at his hands, where the wilted flower had laid. It’s true. He had never had to truly consider his usage of Earth, he had simply loved it enough for it to almost…control him in a way, and he had an understanding with nature because ever since he was young he had wanted to pursue Environmentalism.

“Logan, I think you’re right,” A giddy smile crosses his lips and Jack claps him on the back, a smile on his own face.

“Man that’s the best news I heard all week,” The Irishman sighs, leaning his head back against the wall. “Seriously, good for you dude, I’m happy for you, it’s at least one thing you don’t need to study endlessly,” Thomas nods “You will need to do some work on it, a lot of re-learning I imagine, but not to the same extent as the others,”

Thomas feels a whole lot lighter now, letting out a sigh he hadn’t known he was waiting to let out, things felt a whole less like they were weighing on him. “Yeah, I’ll be getting somewhere with my powers now, at least, anyway, let’s work on water a bit, come on Jack, set something on fire,” A hearty laugh left the other as he stood up, following after his excited friend. Logan felt a small smile tug at his lip, cracking open a book and observing the two as they got along.

Taglist:

@analogical-mess // @unikornavenger // @mycatshuman // @creativity-killed-thekitten //@theresneverenoughfandoms //@charmingprincey //@aclickonapostwillchangeyourlife//@heck-im-lost //@k9cat //@stilljittery //@romansleftshoulderpad //@sanderssideslibrary //@max-is-tired //@therealmoshar //@punsterterry//@trashypansexual //@miserykillme

Add yourself to my taglist: Sanders Sides/Thomas Sanders

Ko-Fi

#sanders sides

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