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nightklok · 3 years

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Why hello it's time for me to be a nuisance and post my detailed Picklegail manifesto after a year of keeping this hidden underground, now it will be raised upground as part of my revenge plan-Under the cut is how I would've wanted their relationship to progress throughout the series-I converted a twitter thread i had into something readable so apologies if some things still don't make sense sdflkj

I like the challenge of trying to keep key elements of the show the same so Abigail won't be introduced until season 4 because I am like this. However, she would be mentioned in passing throughout the series by Pickles. The scene where Nathan mentions wanting to be a regular jackoff in Dethdoubles would probably have a few more lines by Pickles about 'settling down with that nice person you still think about' though the rest of the guys would think it's weird to think that. This would officially start in Snakes N' Barrels Part 2, the scene where Pickles began describing LA.

"Oh yeah, here's where I hosted my first concert in this small club. Got to meet a lot of fans and stuff. Especially this one girl, shit, wonder where she's at now."

This would also kinda explain why Pickles never even seemed to show interest in finding romantic partners throughout the series; almost everyone had an episode where they had a crush on someone even if it never went anywhere in the end. Pickles just never bothered dating because he knew that finding someone genuine as a celebrity was tough and he knew he wouldn't be connected as well as he did with that girl he met back in the 80s. There might also be a scene in Rehabklok where the doctors mention 'letting go of the past', which could also mean both letting go of his trauma from his family and letting go of the idea that he will get the relationship he really missed.

Season 4 comes around and now they all meet. Nathan notices how Pickles looked at Abigail like you would with trying to figure out if you recognize someone.

Nathan: "oh hey was she the chick you went out with back in the 80s?" Pickles: "Ehhh I dunno she is familiar though"

Will it get addressed by the characters? Probably not. Will it instead be painfully dragged out long because the readers will know? Yes, as per the MTL way :D

The two do eventually get some alone time. Abigail interacts with Nathan, Skwisgaar, and him one on one since they're the brains of the band and she wants to get through to them to help get progress on the album. Pickles and Abigail would get more one-on-one time; he especially becomes her translator when it comes to trying to understand what the boys are talking about when brainstorming.

They end up warming up to each other, making jokes, and probably the first time they really did comfy with each other was when Abigail asked Pickles to read the sheet music and he says seriously “I can’t read music”. she laughs thinking it’s a joke (he’s really not)

Abigail: “You know, I met someone back in the 80s who wanted to be a musician but didn’t know how to read music.”

Pickles: “Really? That’s crazy haha wonder if I met em too”

(this is in fact to piss readers off. There will be more dialogue to describe how oblivious the two really are.)

In the background of this, Nathan would be trying to impress Abigail. Her mistake would be beating around the bush instead of telling him upfront, causing very minor miscommunication.

But overall, the progress in the album is coming faster than ever thanks to Abigail's efforts. Though once again Nathan gets the dreams telling him the album isn't ready.

Pickles and Abigail pull an all-nighter to finish one of the last tracks. They get to talking a lot more about their personal lives, finding themselves having quite a bit in common. Abigail mentions meeting a singer back in the 80s who had inspired her to take up music production. After all, it would've been very hard for her to go to college at the time but the man had his own secrets too (being LGBT+ in the 80s) and he somehow managed to be successful. They don't kiss despite the tension but they do fall asleep on the couch together. Nathan sneaks into the recording studio while they're asleep and assumes they're dating which made him quickly back off on trying to flirt with Abigail. It would also make Nathan feel guilty as he realizes that Pickles is still mad at him if he won't tell him about his relationship. However, he wasn't there for that.

He catches the glow of the monitor and sees the album is almost finished. It isn't ready. He quietly attempts to delete it but the light of the monitor changing for him to delete the files slowly wakes Pickles up. He is groggy but then he realizes what's going on and attempts to stop Nathan but once again he's too late.

Abigail wakes up and quickly snaps out of her grogginess when Pickles explains frantically what happened. They both yell at Nathan for destroying their months of progress but Nathan only says, “it’s not ready. We need a better album. Trust me.” But since he doesn’t give a thorough explanation it’s hard to trust him.

Now is Going Downklok. They are in the submarine, Nathan is trying to fix things between him and Pickles but Pickles won’t have it. So he decides instead to let Abigail and him have as much free time as possible.

Nathan just talks about how great Pickles is to Abigail, accidentally dropping hints that she may have known him as the guy from before. And he does the same to pickles though he doesn’t talk to him much anymore and ignores him.

Pickles and Abigail are once again alone at the recording studio, both ranting their frustrations over working with the album once again. Eventually, it carried over to their own personal lives. And finally, they have the braincells to realize that maybe they did meet so many years ago. The room is so stuffy it feels like a sauna and only adds to the growing tension between. It only increased when they tried to leave the studio to remain as professional as possible but one of them instead locks the door. They both end up making out and eventually having sex in the recording studio.

Years of pent-up frustration, loneliness, and overall everything that had led up to the moment washed over. They decide to keep a secret relationship afterward because even though they did find each other, much like in the past, they found each other at the wrong time.

The dinner scene comes up. The two sit feet apart just to make sure no one would be suspicious. Nathan is at his height of frustration because he knows he had to delete the album but everyone is mad at him. He gets a little too drunk, and like the friend he is, outs their Relationship like a drunken wedding speech. Pickles quickly refutes that, instead he screamed at him over broken trust, deleting the second album that Charles had made sure the public wasn't aware and finally decided to quit the band. The news spreads like wildfire.

Abigail is quickly put to blame however it lasted very short since there became other conspiracies surrounding it. Nathan did say quite a lot after all to the point where it’s clear Abigail wasn’t part of the equation. But of course, some people blame her still and she decides to lay low. Pickles has to deal with his own consequences too so he decides to stay at her parents’ place with her as they wait for the news to blow over. While he’s happy to finally be with her, he does miss music terribly. Specifically, he misses playing with Dethklok.

She reminds him he can always talk to Nathan to sort things out but he knows Nathan isn't the type to apologize. The day of the concert comes, things happen as expected in the show. He doesn’t come home because they are in the submarine and he has to explain everything to her through a phone call where he’s beginning to break down, saying he has a terrible feeling that things will never be the same. She tries to calm him down but given how Selacia’s appearance is all over the news, she has the same feeling. They reunite briefly before the funeral.

I haven’t decided on the official ending so here’s ending one:

Toki offers to give up his seat so Pickles can sit next to her. He accepts as he doesn’t want to sit anywhere near Nathan. Magnus seems bothered but doesn’t say anything. There would be a funny scene of them just recreating 'Hello Magnus' 'Hello Pickles' once again.

But Magnus' tension quickly dies down when he hears them whisper to each other. He sees them hold hands discreetly and relaxes.

Magnus: "So I see the rumors are true between you two?"

Pickles: "I-yeah. What are you gonna fuckin' do about it?"

Magnus: "Nah, nothing. Just happy for you, is all."

Magnus does gain Pickles' trust enough to let his guard down by just sharing small talk. When the service begins, MMA texts Magnus over why Toki is sitting so far and how the plan is ruined. Magnus is hesitant to respond for a few moments (regret over what's to come, perhaps?) but he goes through and texts back that there is a change of plans but this plan would be better.

Well, couples would do anything to make sure the other is safe in such extreme circumstances.This plan could be much better, after all.

Ending two: pretty much exactly as canon. Pickles probably a lot more emotional- The end :D

#metalocalypse #pickles the drummer #abigail remeltindtdrinc #picklegail #my writing #I am surprised i managed to get this down #was it wise to post this when the big talk is the movie?#maybe but its part of the plan I think fskjl #gonna @ this to brendon small as my cover letter to let me be a writer just wait fdjld

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ralfstrashcan · 5 years

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3x18 Reaction / Commentary

Anxious feeling of imminent doom in my gut? Check. Skipping breakfast in favor of running to my laptop like a starving person? Check. Chances of surviving this episode with my sanity intact? Uhhh.... Well here goes nothing.

But one more thing before we get started (Does anyone wanna get out? Yeah, me!!!! Okay sorry.)

Who's this mysterious “Alex” person?? A new player on the board???

Alright alright, I'm stalling, I know. It's weird, last week couldn't pass quick enough but now I really don't wanna click the play button... okay anyway you're probably not here to read my angsting, so. Deep breath and here goes.

In terms of putting my nerves at ease this is working out pretty good. I love Becky, okay, and her sibling ship with Simon and the Sneak Peek made me real happy and I can't wait to see more of those two together (especially considering this'll probably be her last appearance on the show). So, yeah Team Lewis! (Also that comment about them and Clary never missing a Halloween together? I need all the kid fics!!!)

Lol dude I mean you literally died for knowing about it, but sure, make an understatement XD Also, “all the way from Florida”??? Last thing I knew about her she was lying in a hospital bed a week ago (aka 3A)? When did she get released? And relocated? I missed that???

:D :D :D <3<3<3

Queen Izzy :))))))) btw those kids had seriously lacking survival skills if you ask me. That wasn't normal, right? And where were their supervisors??

Effing f-i-n-a-l-l-y.

Also, Magnus with the deflecting again as soon as he's recovered just the tiniest bit is both painfully ic and also just painful </3

Ugh, can you believe Clace entered the Malec scene even though they must have felt it was a bad time and deranged it with their flirting? Unfair. In any case I agree, Clary was always and will always be an idiot XD haha okay sorry, I don't really mean that (only like, 83%) it's just the setup was too good to pass it up ;) I mean even Alec laughed at Jace calling her an idiot so I'm well within my rights to do it, too XD

Thanks, Alec, for sabotaging the one shot at open communication you had. I mean, I want to believe he does it because he realizes Magnus is back to his deflecting self and prodding will get him nowhere, but uhm, could he try for longer than three seconds before giving up? Is he really gonna let Magnus off the hook so easily and do something stupid and reckless instead?? *sigh* BUT ALSO HIS FRAKKING FACE OKAY I CAN'T

“Back from the Plot Fold”

Alec “Tact” Lightwood looooool

“Bitch I worked on this performance for centuries how dare you”

SO. MANY. QUESTIONS.

sdfshfsjdkfjsdf I love the way he talks okay. Exquisite. (Also he has a birthmark on his lip. It's really distracting. Am I implying Asmodeus is hot? Maybe. You can't prove a thing.)

............................................................your self-confident didn't make any progress since season 1, did it, Alec? *sigh* I mean he's basically agreeing with Asmodeus that this is what will happen if their situation doesn't change.

Okay what is structure, let me just yell my impressions of this scene at you. 1) Both of their acting is stellar. Love all the little body language cues, especially Asmodeus's mocking facial expressions. 2) “Return what you stole” and Asmodeus protesting it because clearly he had a “fair deal” with Magnus. 3) Alec breaking eye contact whenever Asmodeus lands a hit (“One he already regrets.” “You make him vulnerable, weak.”) 4) The fact that Alec protests the potential-line with “We love each other.” I was confused at first but when you think about it Alec says that they help each other access their full potential by loving each other and that's a beautiful sentiment. 5) Of course then Asmodeus lands another hit with “Then I'm afraid you will be the death of him” and Alec is back to looking away.

Thank you, Alec, for not being a total idiot.

“...or else the deal is off.” Obviously. Thank you, Asmodeus, for not being a total idiot either.

.........did he just nod? I knew I was right making that 'total' italic, implying he's still somewhat of an idiot XD

sooooo pretttyyyyyyyyyyyyy

And I can't believed Clary missed Luke so much she visited him in prison a total of 0 times.

Look I'm weak and I dig the Jace-Luke-father-son-in-law-dynamic.

Also can we take a moment to appreciate the fact that Alec is able to function as Head of the Institue even though he has to make the hardest decision of his life at the same time?? Just saying. Guy knows how to handle his shadowhunter responsibility. If only he was as capable in handling other things and omg this is not an innuendo you naughty people, I meant emotional intelligence goddammit.

I mean, he's not wrong? The way he cares about her is uniquely twisted, so.

.........................is Alec having 2x12 flashbacks? Because I sure am.

Hmmmm always admiring Clary's screaming skills :)

*sigh* I mean she didn't just SAY intense pain for a short while? Why am I even bothering.

The scientist has spoken lol.

1) They had a whole underground basement full of tons and tons of that serum, right? If those are all made up of nanoparticles then I really really wonder how big the Glorious splitter was that they extracted the serum from. Since, you know, that whole stash was supposed to be enough for the Downworlders all over the world. Wtf 2) I guess “self-destructing” that basement is gonna come back to roost them and they need to recover the original sword to eliminate the Evil Rune, right???? haha

Asmodeus wrote: Hurry up pretty boy, our deal isn't on the table forever ;)

I'm actually impressed Jace remembered to ask Alec about the proposal. You get some more diligence starlets, Jace <3

OMG ALEC ARE YOU SHITTING ME ARE YOU SHITTING ME ARE YOU SHITTING ME *sigh* I mean, those two situations are obviously totally comparable, right? I for my part am, again, having severe 2x12 flashbacks, where Alec asked Jace's council about something that Jace totally wasn't equipped to answer. *SIGH*

And I guess Jace isn't suspicious because of Alec's super suspicious behavior, right?????? Ugh.

The sad part is, Alec will probably see that as confirmation that he should go through with it because he doesn't want to be selfish. So while yay, Alec seeking council, he does it in the worst way possible :( at least I got some parabatai feels out of it :/

On the one hand I'm glad she sees it that way* on the other hand this is clearly supposed to be the influence of the rune, so that's kinda undermining her statement and making it even less credible. Thanks, show.

*Yes he was a victim, no he still carries some responsibility for his actions because free will is a thing and he's had some time on earth where he wasn't exactly coerced by anyone. Manipulated, yes. But he's aware of his agency and he should have used it better. I get that I'm asking for a lot here, maybe too much, and circumstances were always against him, but I'm also not absolving him of all his crimes.

Magnus deflecting because that's what he does. God forbid a scene that could be about him actually ends up being about him instead of a side pairing I couldn't care less about. *sigh*

Also, I'm not exactly sure if Magnus really thinks Alec thought being around Maryse could help him, or if he just said that as another means to deflect because honestly, the way Alec suggested to Magnus he go to Maryse was more the here-go-see-your-babysitter-approach than anything else, especially because he basically cut of the conversation they where having before Clace interrupted. *SIGH*

WELL I COULD

YOU NO FRIKKIN SAY, MARYSE

“My lips are sealed.... especially about my issues ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”

THE DISDAIN AHAHHAHAHA CATCH ME WHEEZING ON THE GROUND

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SEELIE QUEEN IS QUEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is this.... actually......... a scene with Alec and Izzy???? HELL YEAH

Okay, words. First off, I LOVE that Alec spills all the beans, and to Izzy, the one emotionally capable Lightwood. I mean, yay Jalec and all, but it's an universally acknowledged truth that Lightwood Men seem to be pretty unable to handle their emotions in a productive way.

Second off, the music playing in the background? Is the one from the Malec Breakup Scene from 2x18. Yay mood reference, I mean. Thanks for that lovely detail, show. (Hahahaha I don't even know if I'm sarcastic or not because it's so witty but on the other hand it's just cruelly twisting the knife like r u for real man give me a damn break.)

Third off, I love basically every line of this dialogue. The fact that Alec (or anyone really) FINALLY acknowledges that Magnus gave up his powers and saved Jace for Alec. Alec's argument: “Magnus sacrificed everything so I could feel whole and now I have the chance to do the same for him.” Also that wording, “a chance”? Not an obligation, not a repayment of a dept. A chance. Because he loves Magnus and this is his chance to fix it. (In his eyes at least, pssssh.)

And Izzy's intent “He wouldn't want this. He loves you so much.” So valid. And less biased (aka skewed by shitty self-esteem) than Alec's assessment of the situation.

Also this

Ouch, just. Ouch. So ic.

Also this

Izzy asking all the right questions. The way Alec looks away means “No” and the determined way he meets her gaze again after means “But that doesn't matter.” Very good scene.

(Honestly the only thing I would have wished for is that Izzy is a little more firm in her assertion that Magnus wouldn't want this and she like, tries to change Alec's mind instead of just accepting his decision.)

hehehe :)

The same time you moved to Florida apparently.

hahaahahha <3<3<3 kick-ass sister material

.........<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3 this deserves so much recognition okay. Since we all know drinking away his problems is Magnus's No 1 coping mechanism. Too bad he'll be pushed into his liquor again by Alec unwisely breaking up with him at the end of the episode (because I daren't dream of a change of heart on Alec's side.)

Also is this the part where Maryse blabs out Alec's proposal plans??

Ugh yay, so after Maryse reassuring Magnus that they are all here for him I guess the breakup is just gonna get 5 shades uglier. Yaaay.

Love that necklace damn.

Obligatory Sizzy moment in front of Becky so she can call Simon out on it later: Check. Just glad this role doesn't fall to Raphael. (Also you bet your ass I chose Becky's line as a picture for this because I'm really that petty.)

Also omg, I just peeked into the German dubbing because obviously the Count von Count pun doesn't work because the words for Count and the word for counting aren't the same here and the guy is named Graf Zahl. And just skdjfslkdjfklsdjfkld Simon's line “That does sound really made up” is honest to God transated with “You're right, I just made him up” like oh my God who is in charge of translating this and why are they so incompetent honestly!!!!!!!! W H Y

Lol that's gotta be the first time in his life that he called her Isabelle. Probably because she was slacking off during patrol.

AAAAAND I'M WHEEZING AGAIN AHAHHA HER OFFENDED FACE Honestly the seelie queen and Becky should start a comedy spin-off, I'd be watching the shit out of that XD

HAHAHAHAH HAVE MERCY XD XD XD Then again, can you blame Simon? Izzy is sooooo droolworthy.

1) She's gonna let Alec, Jace and Clary (two and a half shadowhunters ahaha) take on a whole nest of demons alone? Instead of backing them up? Okay???

2) Why they telling them that??? As far as they are concerned Simon and Becky are civilians, not their parents.

?????? NO SHE SHOULD TAKE BECKY WITH HER!!!!!!!! CAN YOU IMAGINE BECKY TOURING THE INSTITUTE? BECKY MARVELING AT ALL THE UNREALISTIC SHADOWHUNTER TECH?? BECKY KIDDING AROUND IN THE LAB??? I WAS ROBBED!!!

:)))) even Jace breaking out the comedy :D :D :D I approve

Those are some nice wings. Not perfect, but very very nice.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME HAHAHAHAHAHAH

Okay, Parabatai Fight Scene!!! 1) Jace again with his axes, nice.

2) Being sassy instead of, idk, picking up his weapons: Check.

3) True dat, but uh, Jace, what was the plan if Alec hadn't shown up? Inviting Drevak Queen out on a date?

4) I mean, why shoot one when you can shoot five, right? Good motto. But I still kind of want an explanation how two of those arrows could land in the Drevak Queen's head and the other three in her chest, like, what are physics anyway amiright?

5) Shot meant to make Jace look heroic when really, since we earlier learnt that killing the Drevak Queen kills all her spawn*, this was just Alec doing Jace's work for him XD

*Uh, yeah what the hell is up with that. Chitauri Genetic Defect or something? *sigh*

*Feelings of terrible foreboding intensify*

sssssssssssssssssssssssudden

Look, I agree. I just don't think Maia could really comprehend / accept that so fast (and off-screen) because ugh reasons, too tired to repeat myself again *waves hand unhelpfully* but whatever, I can accept this. I made my peace with it.

1) Last time I checked those cells were secured with a combination lock thingy.

2) Thanks Lanaia for sabotaging Sizzy, I'll be sure to send you a gift basket (or, if what I think will happen happens, some flowers for your grave lol).

*snorts* Reminds me of Hannibal who was always making cannibal puns at people and no one noticed XD Also, her knocking Jace out was really dumb? I mean, he wouldn't have stopped her from saving Jonathan because, uh, that's saving her own neck, too. And if she'd portaled them both to the cell she could have disposed of him there way easier, locking him up – since apparently she didn't plan to kill him, and that nice straightjacket would have kept him from alerting the other Shadowhunters way longer than that pipe over the head. So, wholly unnecessary. I mean, in a way it's nice to know that Demonic Clary isn't smarter than Regular Clary.

Dude she's literally wielding a spear, how dumb are you.

Aaaaaand there goes my order to the nearest funeral wreath shop XD

Look I have questions (which, okay, I should have asked sooner but what even is continuity right). When that weird gratifying wing dream sequence started I thought it was Clary tapping into the rune connection and it was the real Jonathan communicating with her. When Jace entered the play field it was clear at least some part must be fake because Jace sure as heck wasn't unconscious / in trance at the time and later didn't give any indication that he participated in some creepy contest for Clary's affections. But now Jonathan is surprised by this, too? He, too, was a product of Clary's imagination? I have so many questions, first of all, why the wings? And the really cheap back-white-symbolism? Also, why did Clary feel so drawn to Jonathan if this was all in her own mind? Was it the influence of the Evil Rune? Does the Evil Rune have a user interface that's shaped to look like Jonathan? Does that mean Jonathan has a Clary-shaped interface??? I need answers.

Ugh. Let's make this long and painful, shall we.

OF COURSE IN THE ONE SCENE WHERE SHIT WILL GO DOWN THEY DON'T FAIL AT CASUAL INTIMACY THANK YOU FOR N O T H I N G

Let's not talk about the fact that the thought, Alec could mean anything but a break together from everything that's been going on, doesn't even cross Magnus's mind because no. Noooooo. I'd rather talk about how absolutey awesome both of their acting is. For Alec I really like the way he moves his eyes, like the gaze darting around alternating with the rigid stare. For Magnus, uh, everything, just like, his whole face is perfection?? Yeah, that works.

The way he interrupts because he just needs to get this over with as quickly as possible.

Dammit, he does this eyelid dip here, it's not a blink, it's just his eyelids twitching down for a second because this is like a slap in the face. And then he turns and takes a step away because his instinct is to run from this because what is this, this can't be

“Is this about last night? Because I'm going to quit drinking.”

Magnus “forever apologizing for being an 'inconvenience'” Bane, final installment.

Dammit, his face. And again with the deflecting, trivializing his feelings, anything to keep this conversation from going where he thinks it's going.

*EYE ROLL* Sorry but you don't get to play that card after being effin obtuse for 7 episodes, Alec. Nope. Nope.

Magnus, his usual walls rudely ripped away. He has no chance but to admit how shitty he's feeling. And if it wasn't for the circumstances I'd say “yay, finally some communication” but well.

“Fine. I'm in pain,” he says, and Alec turns away, breaking eye contact for a moment because the final confirmation is too much for him for a moment.

I love that Magnus doesn't deliver this line meekly. He's worked up, sure, but there's also a confidence when talking about their relationship. Breaking up is an unrealistic concept to him in that moment because it's so absurd. It's not fixing anything so why would it happen? Makes no sense. *insert weeping sounds*

Brutal and efficient. Very ic.

Damn how does even his blink convey so much vulnerability??? (Somewhere Lexa is nodding approvingly.) (Also why didn't I find gif sets of this :c)

“You said there's nothing I can do to make it better.”

There's an audible difference in his voice, because this part is true and he's not lying. The controlled monotone isn't there anymore. This is his real despair in the face of not being able to do anything to help Magnus.

“It's not your job to make it better.”

Again, if this was a constructive conversation it would be a great step in the right direction. But sadly it isn't, and so this is too little too late.

“Well, what am I supposed to do? Just stand by and watch you suffer for the rest of our lives?”

Alec is still speaking the truth, and this is his motivation to go through with it. Because a) he believes what Magnus said about never being happy again without his magic (sidenote, he didn't, in fact, say that, he said it might never pass (meaning being affected by the magic loss) and he's not happy at the moment, which isn't the same as he'll definitely surely never be happy again without his magic, but whatever) and b) he's sure he doesn't mean all that much to Magnus. He's his current love, but that's about it. Nothing special, not worth leaving such devastating traces in Magnus's life and he certainly doesn't mean as much to Magnus as Magnus means to him. And especially from that second part stems his gravely false assessment of the situation which in the course of consideration leads him to the conclusion that breaking Magnus's heart will hurt less in the long run than him not having his magic. There's also the fact that be probably didn't think about how him doing this to Magnus will confirm every last insecurity Magnus ever had about not being lovable, because I can't believe he would have gone through with this if he'd thought of that. Or at least, he would have been visibly more torn about it, maybe even talked out of it by Izzy, etc. But it's ic for Alec not to think like that, because in a way I guess he loves Magnus too much to really understand that Magnus has these doubts. And Magnus mostly playing his vulnerabilities close to his chest isn't working in his favor here either.

“This isn't you. You're not this selfish.”

This is what I mean. If Alec was less convinced that he's doing the right thing this line might have shaken him out of it. Honestly, I half hoped he'd object this, consequentally incriminate himself and Magnus would catch on that something was going on. But ofc that didn't happen.

The spark line, just. Ouch. Again, very clinical and minimalistc. The way Alec stares, his voice back to being monotone, the way he clenches his jaw. And then his work here is done and he's ready to leave.

It only gets worse from there. Magnus, frozen in disbelieve because this can't possibly be true, and then he starts begging and it breaks my heart every single time okay. To see him reduced to this desperation is just cruel.

I still can't help but note the way Alec readily turns around before Magnus has competely turned around himself. I think he was on the brink of giving in.

The way Magnus holds on to him, hands fluttering over his arms, shoulders, cheeks. The way Alec can't even look at him for the barest second, eyes closed, breath going heavy. Magnus's everything. Just kill me now.

And let's not talk about their kisses and Magnus's whispered words because no. There's nothing to say to that except perfection. Intense, top notch emotion portrayal on both parts.

Then Alec pulls away (how???? gotta admire commitment and an iron will when you see it but boy is it misplaced) and Magnus's hands tremble because this can't be happening, this can't possibly be real.

Note that Alec doesn't look him in the eyes once because he knows if he did, it'd all be over. Also note the look of utter betrayal on Magnus's face. It's not just hurt and heartbreak, it's betrayal because this is what this is. Alec promised him something, made him believe that he could trust in him, in them, and now he's going back on his word.

Well, this was fun, let's never do it again.

Look, I don't have the nerve for this anymore, so I'll keep it short and in no particular order: - Asmodeus is ass powerful and manages to distance-summon himself, yay, nice to know that the one time a shadowhunter doesn't act stupid and impulsive it still doesn't pay off. - Asmodeus killing pissed off warlock lady was both obvious and unnecessary. - His smile is creepy. - “My son needs me.” MY ASS - He still needs to support himself on the back of the chair because he's a weak bitch hahaha.

Conclusion: *sounds of despair*

I just watched the 3x19 promo and.... they're really gonna end Malec on a train wreck this season, aren't they?? Oh God. They hoped they'd have a forth season to work through it and that's why they served themselves with issues and second helpings of extra issues, and since s4 isn't a thing we're gonna get an unsatisfying as hell 2x20-style resolution in the finale. God please say I'm wrong but like. Arrgghhhh.

(Also, credit where credit is due: “Before we get started, does anyone wanna get out?” is the line from Captain America in TWS before the elevator fight.)

#shadowhunters #3x18 #alec lightwood #jace wayland #magnus bane #clary fray #jonathan morgenstern #isabelle lightwood #simon lewis #becky lewis #the seelie queen #meliorn #kyle #maia roberts #luke garroway #asmodeus #pissed warlock lady #malec #reaction

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imatrisarahtops · 5 years

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17 for Izuocha?

The level of angst that I wrote for this is not okay and I made a friend cry while writing this. Twice. I’m sorry @max-thealien. And to everyone else.

Warning for off-screen character death. Not Deku or Uraraka. But, well. Someone that would make Deku say such a thing…

17. “I’m not alright! Okay? Are you satisfied? I’m not alright.”

The news had been devastating.

It affected everyone—civilian, hero, and villain alike. There wasn’t anyone who was untouched by the news.

At first, it seemed that everyone anticipated some huge uprising immediately after it happened, just as they had initially feared after All Might’s retirement. Special forces were on watch, just waiting for the moment the villains would strike.

Except they didn’t. It seemed as though the entire country—the entire world—had paused in mourning of the hero—the ultimately irreplaceable pillar of good and righteousness, the Symbol of Peace.

For the students of class A, it was supposed to be a time of celebration—really, it was for all of the students in their third year at Yuuei. But instead of commemorating their graduation, instead of preparing to go off into their new fields of work, whatever they may be—whether they’d be inventing and building support weaponry, or developing business strategies, or becoming sidekicks and pro heroes themselves—instead of celebrating and reveling in the moment with their classmates and friends, they were all grieving the loss of the man who had inevitably become much more to them than a mere teacher.

Uraraka knew that everyone grieved in their own way. She understood that and respected that, seeing it in how each of her classmates reacted to the death of their teacher. The entire class was respectful of each other and their own coping methods as they tried to deal with the aftermath, and no one said anything about any of them. When Sato and Sero took to the kitchen to cook or bake, the only thing uttered to them was a ‘thank you’ when they shared what they made with their friends. Nobody pointed out when Jirou and Kaminari and Hagakure suddenly took the the school gyms for extra training, something that happened excessively and at all hours. When Kirishima and Bakugou were seen sleeping together on a couch in the common area, or sneaking into each other’s rooms at night because of nightmares resurfacing from their first year, everyone turned a blind eye. Now it seemed that’s just how things were.

The one that truly worried Uraraka was Deku. To begin with, Uraraka had been most concerned about how the boy would react to the news; after all, she’d seen how distraught he’d been after All Might had first fought All for One, and then been forced to retire. But what was most troublesome about Deku’s reaction… was that it wasn’t there.

“Deku-kun?” She knocked on his door tentatively. She’d been debating what to say to him for days, and knew that time was running out; it was only a matter of time until she and her classmates returned to their homes, going their separate ways. While she knew it wasn’t the last she’d see of any of them, she couldn’t help but worry about what might happen if Deku did start to lose touch…

The door opened, revealing a flustered but otherwise visibly fine Deku. She wanted to be relieved at the sight, but instead, it unsettled her. “Uraraka-kun!” he said. “Uh, did you—do you want to come in?”

Uraraka flashed him a smile, nodding as he took a step back and let her through the door. The second she was inside the room, however, she froze. Sure, she knew that her classmates were packing up and preparing to move out of the dormitories, but the room was almost painfully stark. She remembered the first time she’d entered Deku’s room, when the whole class had been playing that silly game they came up with, trying to determine who had the best room—she remembered the way she’d giggled about it being the bedroom of an ultimate fan boy.

It had always been clear that Deku looked up to All Might—and he wasn’t the only one. She was well aware of Bakugou’s admiration of the hero as well, not to mention her other classmates who looked up to him a little more quietly, like Todoroki. Still, she could see that way that he influenced Deku’s combat style when fighting, even after he changed directions. The influence was always clear.

And as time wore on, it was easier to see that theirs surpassed a normal teacher-pupil relationship. She knew that many of her classmates agreed that just as much as their class developed into a family, so were their teachers. Without a doubt, many of those teachers acted as parental figures to them, especially when so many of the students lived so far from home. All Might, after his retirement, definitely put everything he had into his teaching, and it was clear how much he loved each of his students.

But Deku was special.

Uraraka didn’t know the details of that relationship, but she knew that they were close. Deku had had the chance to fulfill his dream, not only in becoming a hero and studying under his idol, but becoming so close to the man he’d always looked up to. Uraraka was sure that All Might saw something special in Deku—something a bit like what she saw in him, too. She knew that he had the potential to truly be an amazing hero.

As she glanced around at the boy’s room, now, though, her heart broke at how empty it not only looked, but felt. Gone were all of the posters and action figures and fan merchandise that had once adorned the walls, now packed into a few boxes stacked neatly by his window. The only personal touch was a single framed photograph that sat on his desk—a photo taken with several of his friends… and All Might.

“Deku-kun…” she began carefully. She looked to the boy as he took a seat on his bed, looking at her expectantly. “Are you…”

She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence, but it seemed she didn’t need to. The boy grinned widely on her, a hand rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m fine!” he assured her quickly.

She frowned. “We haven’t seen much of you lately,” she went on.

“I’ve been busy with packing,” he said. “I wanted to make things as easy as possible for the move out. My mom offered to help, but I didn’t want her to worry.”

“I’m worried,” Uraraka admitted.

Deku tilted his head. “About what?”

“You,” she said. “You haven’t been yourself.” She paused, frown deepening as she reconsidered, because no, that wasn’t quite right. "Or… or you have been yourself. You’re trying too hard to be yourself. It’s… I don’t know.”

“Isn’t it a good thing that I’m acting like myself?”

“Yes,” Uraraka admitted. “And no.” She took a step closer to him. “I’m afraid that you’re acting okay on the outside, but really…”

“You don’t have to worry about me, Uraraka-kun!” he quickly told her.

She sat on the bed beside him. “But I am worried,” she said. “I know how much All Might meant to you—”

“Can we… can we talk about something else?”

The words made her chest ache, and she raised her hand, resting it over her heart as though it could somehow ease the pain she felt for him. “Deku-kun…” She took a deep breath, furrowing her brow a little as she considered her next words. “Not talking about it won’t make it so it didn’t happen,” she told him.

He looked down at his hands, fingers curled into the hem of his shorts. She followed his gaze, eyes traveling over the scars he so often hid away.

“He’s not coming back,” she told him quietly, softly—just a breath above a whisper, as though saying it any louder would just make it that much more painful. “No matter how much we want him to, he’s not.”

“I know that,” he responded flatly, squeezing his eyes shut.

“And I know that you’re hurting from it,” she said. “It’s okay to be hurting, but you can’t keep it inside like this, Deku-kun. You can’t just lock yourself in your room, packing away every trace of him, and tell everyone that you’re all right.”

And just like that, it was like the final thread stitching him together snapped.

“I’m not all right. Okay?” he turned to her face twisted in anguish. "Are you satisfied? I’m not all right.” He jerked away again, pressing the heel of his hand against his eye, as though trying to scrub away tears before they even fell.

“Deku-kun—”

“He’s not supposed to be gone,” he told her, his voice sounding strained and desperate. “He’s not supposed to—I’m not ready…”

Uraraka reached forward gently, wrapping her arm around his shoulders and guiding him to her. His head fell onto her shoulder, and just like that, the dam broke. He reached his hands up around her back, grabbing fistfuls of her shirt as he clung onto her. She threaded her hand through his hair, combing her fingers through while the other palm rubbed soothing circles into his back.

She searched desperately for something to say, but words fell flat, feeling like empty promises that things would be okay. How could she tell him such a thing when his entire world was falling apart?

Her heart broke with his, her own tears falling as she held him close to her; and Deku held on just as tightly, grasping onto her as though afraid that he’d completely shatter the second he let go.

“We’ll make it through,” she whispered to him. “We just have to keep being strong.”

Dialogue Prompts

#izuocha #I'M SO SORRY #izuku midoriya #uraraka ochako #this was painful to write and i'm really so sorry #i tried to come up with other things to write but this seemed most fitting #i can't believe i killed dad i'm such a terrible person #i lowkey love izuocha #and my first fic for izuocha involves killing dad might what is wrong with me #cw: death #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #prompts #fanfic #fan fiction #bnha fic #ghost31415926535 #ask #reply

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bookishreviewsblog · 5 years

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Sarah J. Maas: Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass #7) | Lara

Years in the making, Sarah J. Maas’s #1 New York Times bestselling Throne of Glass series draws to an epic, unforgettable conclusion. Aelin Galathynius’s journey from slave to king’s assassin to the queen of a once-great kingdom reaches its heart-rending finale as war erupts across her world. . . Aelin has risked everything to save her people―but at a tremendous cost. Locked within an iron coffin by the Queen of the Fae, Aelin must draw upon her fiery will as she endures months of torture. Aware that yielding to Maeve will doom those she loves keeps her from breaking, though her resolve begins to unravel with each passing day… With Aelin captured, Aedion and Lysandra remain the last line of defense to protect Terrasen from utter destruction. Yet they soon realize that the many allies they’ve gathered to battle Erawan’s hordes might not be enough to save them. Scattered across the continent and racing against time, Chaol, Manon, and Dorian are forced to forge their own paths to meet their fates. Hanging in the balance is any hope of salvation―and a better world. And across the sea, his companions unwavering beside him, Rowan hunts to find his captured wife and queen―before she is lost to him forever. As the threads of fate weave together at last, all must fight, if they are to have a chance at a future. Some bonds will grow even deeper, while others will be severed forever in the explosive final chapter of the Throne of Glass series.

4,5 STARS

“Once upon a time, in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom …” After eight books of this amazing story I still can’t believe it is over. Although I started Throne of Glass series in May, I still find these books very dear to me and Celaena’s journey will stay with me for a while. I will most likely put a lot of spoilers in this review, because I am not sure I will be able to write it without some references, so be careful (there will be warnings of course). Even though this book was almost a thousand pages long, it wasn’t anything near boring. It was filled with action and twist from the beginning to the very end. Story and Celaena/Aelin herself have changed so much, that it seems so painfully far to look at the beginning of Throne of Glass. Maas introduced many more characters and storylines, that the length of the book seems quite fair since there was a lot of questions unanswered and stories unfinished. I like world-building and concept of Sarah’s worlds. In fact, if there is a map I can follow through the book while reading about war tactics there is 90% chance I will like the book. By now I can say I know the whole continent by heart since I used to check every city, river or mountain that was mentioned. Something about Sarah’s world-building that bothers me since A Court of Thorns and Roses is that there is no magic system. There are no rules of inheriting power or knowing how powerful one can be. Characters are just born with enormous power and every one of them has some different magic. Book was easy to read, chapters were short, each from different perspective. Descriptions were thorough and beautifully written as well as dialogues. I always admired Maas’s writing, but in this book, I was amazed by all those remarkable descriptions of places, battles and of course characters and their feelings in this amazing world she created. I could picture every scene and even empathize with characters I don’t like. Maas certainly knew how to make this one last story epic and unforgettable, while still pleasing us readers and fangirls. I still feel like there isn’t anything I can write that will put my feelings about this book in one place, but I will try with the characters. As I said before, long way since that lonely assassin in castle, hating the king and struggling to choose between crown prince and head of the guard. Story, characters, even villains have changed, completely. Perhaps I should start with Aelin, because she was character, I was most pleasantly surprised with in Kingdom of Ash. My perspective of her character changed a lot through the series. I loved her character from the beginning. She won my heart in The Assassin’s blade and I loved her strength and determination as well as the idea of 16-year-old assassin. Somewhere in Queen of Shadows, after she took her role as a Queen of Terrasen, she became annoying and I started to dislike her character. She kept her plans to herself and everyone praised her a bit too much, to the point where it felt like she was supposed to be the only important character in the story (where there are dozen main characters). I guess author was trying to make an impression of her being a good queen, still learning to rule, but it was rather annoying more than convincing. But I must say from the beginning of Kingdom of Ash, I started liking Aelin immediately. Maas did a really good job in writing her in state of torture, recovering and finally, continuing fight she started. *spoilers about Aelin’s character development ahead*Aelin showed her strength once again, during two months of brutal torture, by Maeve who wanted her to tell her where are the keys. She never once broke thinking about her country and how she must save it. During that period, I started to understand Aelin more, her motives and personality: how ashamed she was that she left Terrasen for 10 years and now she suffered so her people could stop suffering. From her recovery (which was very realistically described!) to her return to Erilea I forgot all about how she annoyed me. She has changed, started trusting her friends and allies, but those traits that made her one of my favorite character of all times still remained. Brave, willing to sacrifice herself for her friends and her country. She fought through all her pain and loss to glory and love. That scene where she ran out in golden armor in battle and when she stopped the river from destroying entire army were one of my favorite scenes in whole book. Maas did really good job with Aelin in this book, putting her a little bit on the side and creating some space for other characters, but still keeping Aelin as the initiator of everything and never letting her loose her value. There is nothing much to say about Rowan, my opinion on him remained the same as in the past two books – I feel like he is there only to play the role of love interest. Yes, I love him and Aelin together, but I could never connect with his character on a level I could with others and I haven’t seen much development of his. My favorites and the best power couple ever are Manon and Dorian. They were my OTP from the moment Manon was introduces to the series. I love them both so much and hey are my favorite characters from these books. Lots of angst and feelings, but I was disappointed *spoiler* they got separated at the end. I love cruel Chrochan Queen who was raised to kill and torture, but still finds her way and believes in herself. Her character was one of the best developed and most interesting character of the entire series. I loved her from the very beginning, but in Kingdom of Ash she showed not only her brutal side of a warrior and Ironteeth, but merciful and brave side of a queen who will unite and bring her people home. Her relationship with Abraxos and The Thirteen were one of my favorite friendships, **BIG spoiler* the scene of The Thirteen’s sacrifice was really painful. “The choice of how our people's future shall be shaped is yours," Manon told each of the witches assembled, all the Blackbeaks who might fly off to war and never return. "But I will tell you this." Her hands shook, and she fisted them on her thighs. "There is a better world out there. And I have seen it.” I wasn’t particularly fond of other characters, except Dorian and Chaol because they are part of the original trio. There was a whole lot of new and old characters and I couldn’t make myself care for all of them. I literally see no purpose of creating Elide or Lorcan than to add another perspective. Elide wasn’t even that interesting and her so called powers were brought up twice (I even forgot what were they). Sure, I started to like Fenrys, Lysandra was inspiring and I loved Aedion from time to time (although I find his character annoying and poorly developed). *SPOILER* When they are all summed up, we end with a big specter of main characters and, surprisingly, not single one of them died. I mean, I get it, it was a lot of pain and sacrifice throughout the book, but there was so many characters and I guess I even expected to be some painful deaths (that were not sideline characters). *following paragraph contains major spoilers for ending of Kingdom of Ash* “Let’s make this a fight worthy of a song.” I have a desperate need to comment on the ending of Throne of Glass series. As I said before, I was disappointed in lacking of deaths. It is not that I enjoy watching my favorite characters die, it is more about the impression certain ending leaves. I think ending should be emotional, especially after such a big finale. After finishing Kingdom of Ash, I was in state of “book hungover” for two hours (which is negligee compared to few-weeked depressions I endured after really emotional endings). Actually, the only things I was sad about was Aelin’s loss of power and separation of characters. Another thing that slightly bothered me, although I can’t say I am entirely unhappy with the outcome, is how forging of the lock turned out. I expected it would kill Aelin in some very emotional way, or at least it will take an enormous toll on her or Dorian, but at the same time I am glad they survived since they are my favorite characters after all. The whole ending just leaves the huge expression Maas didn’t want to kill of any important character and tbh I find that quite unrealistic and disappointing. Final battle was really tense, well written and I enjoyed reading it. I loved how it was all untangled between Erawan and Maeve. It would be pretty predictable and boring if it ended by them being destroyed with the keys, so this final battle gave the ending an epic note. “Aelin looked at Chaol and Dorian and sobbed. Opened her arms to them, and wept as they held each other. “I love you both,” she whispered. “And no matter what may happen, no matter how far we may be, that will never change.” All in all, I can say I am quite satisfied with this book since I have waited it for a few months and have been dying to see how will it all turn out. Throne of Glass series are really good work and I recommend it to any fantasy lover. The journey of young assassin has come to an end, but I can’t say I regret one moment of it.

#books #bookreviews #sarahjmaas #kingdomofash #throneofglass #youngadult #fantasy

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otabangbang · 6 years

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The Sliding Tiger: Part Two

Read Part 1 HERE This part is mostly dialogue, as we learn about the stranger Otabek has found...

"Call the local emergency number. He's probably a missing person who needs medical help."

"Maybe." Yuuri's words made sense and Otabek knew in any other situation, that was exactly what he should do. It didn't mean he wanted to.

"No maybe about it, Otabek. You found a passed out man in a bunch of bushes with no idea how long he's been there. Medical attention is important at least!" Yuuri's soft voice carried alarm in it and it unnerved Otabek. He didn't hear that an awful lot since Yuuri and Viktor had moved in with each other.

"What made you think he's a missing person, anyway? He could have wandered off from some friends here and gotten lost. Maybe then proceeded to trip and hit his head." And lose all his clothes...

"Something about it seems really weird," came Yuuri's swift reply. "I-I'm not sure what aside from him being naked, exactly, but the way you describe everything, it doesn't sound like a place someone just wanders from their group."

Otabek shrugged despite the fact Yuuri could not see anything he did. He rubbed his forehead, the phone clutched tightly in his other hand. He was leaning against the car, having managed to awkwardly lay the man down in the back. He couldn't be happier he was driving a hatchback, though he still had to move some equipment around. "Perhaps you're right. I don't really know. Yuuri, not to ignore your advice, but I'm going to attempt to give him some time to wake up before I call anyone."

"Otabek..." Caution came through in his voice then. "You don't know what kind of person he might be."

That irritated Otabek. It irritated him more than it rationally should and he was well aware of it. He didn't know who the man was, but he was sure, he was fully sure that he wasn't a bad person. "Yup. I know."

"I'm not trying to be a jerk about this. If you'd called Viktor he'd probably even be worse."

"I realize that." Otabek let out a sigh. "I understand, Yuuri. I'll be careful, alright?" he assured him. "I don't want to be too hasty, perhaps he was hidden away for good reason too."

"That could be. I trust your judgement Otabek...listen, just let me know how it goes after he wakes up, okay?" Yuuri sounded tired then.

"Of course. I'll text or call," Otabek told him. "Alright, I'm going to deal with rearranging the car. Thanks, Yuuri." With that, their call was over and Otabek was again alone with an unconsious man.

How would he wake him up? He didn't have smelling salts. He also had no desire to dump water all over him and the car, and he wasn't going to wake him up with alarm due to loud noises. Perhaps he could shake him? But what if he awoke suddenly and violently? There wasn't much to do except wait it out, and Otabek did happen to be pretty patient. He continued to lean on his car, eventually turning it on to play some soft music and break up the silence since there continued to be no one immediately around him.

He hadn't thought it would be enough to wake up his passenger, but about ten minutes into the music he managed to hear a small moan in between songs. Immediately he shoved his phone in his pocket and whipped around from the side of the car to look in the back, the trunk door raised since he put him in there. The man was laying there still with Otabek's jacket over his hips but his eyes were open - only about halfway, but they were open, and he turned his head.

"Hey," Otabek said, standing at the edge of the trunk and not knowing what the hell else he should do. The man didn't really react, still slowly waking up. Otabek cleared his throat and tried again. "HEY."

Suddenly the blonde's head snapped up and his eyes were wide, looking at Otabek. "The fuck are you!?" he asked and his hands, which had been limp at his side, suddenly dug into the floor of the car and his legs kicked to try and move back. "The fuck - where am I!?"

"Safe safe!" Otabek cried urgently. He didn't know what else to say and was close to grunting random words like a big ape. "You're safe!"

"Safe!?"

"SAFE! Yes! I found you laying in the brush and brought you here to be somewhere safe!" Otabek replied as the other was trying to scoot himself up against one of Otabek's cases of equipment.

"You...found me?" The sense of urgency dropped but a tiny bit to give way to curiousity. "I don't believe you!"

Otabek didn't know how to respond; clearly the man hadn't meant to be found, or hadn't expected to wind up in a situation where he would be. "It's true! I went for a walk and I found you laying there. I didn't know what to do except bring you back here. Look, what's your name?"

The blonde's captivating eyes narrowed. "Why should I tell you? Why am I naked?" That last question had an accusing tone to it.

"I have no idea why you're naked, alright? I put my jacket on you because of that. I'm Otabek Altin." Maybe if he introduced himself it would move things along. He hoped anyway.

"This is your jacket?"

"Uh-huh. Sorry if it's not very soft."

The other man continued to stare at him. Otabek was painfully aware that he was being judged, that a decision was being made. He could only hope the decision would be for Otabek to help him. If the stranger rejected his help and left, it felt like it would tear him apart and he didn't even know his name.

He knew his smell and he knew his eyes. He knew he'd be dumb to ignore that.

Then suddenly, the hard stare dropped. The man sighed. "No, it's fine. I'm Yuri," he said, and it suddenly felt like they knew each other.

But they didn't. "Cool." Otabek had to scramble on what to say next. "Uh! I have clothes if you want to wear them. They're a little big but-"

"Well yea, they're better than being fucking naked!" Yuri snapped and the tiny bit of softness that Otabek thought he felt an inkling of was gone.

"Right, right," Otabek muttered and pulled his suitcase from where he'd moved it on the backseat. When he had it arranged, he opened it to search for clothes. He didn't want to choose something that would make Yuri think he was trying to say something about him. "Uh so you don't know how you got here?"

"No!"

"Where are you from?" he asked as he selected a pair of jeans and a black belt with silver studded stars to help the smaller man keep them on.

For a moment there was silence. Then Yuri answered. "Uh, St. Petersburg, sort of. But I got moved around and now I'm in Spain."

"Spain? You're...pretty far from home."

"I...wait, where the hell am I?"

"Lake Galichskoye..." Otabek was growing more concerned by Yuri's confusion. He found a short sleeve shirt featuring a lime green guitar with wings and picked up that. The last thing was to choose underwear and unfortunately the ones that would fit Yuri best had a bear eating honey on the ass. He stepped back with the pile of clothes. "...In Russia."

Suddenly Yuri's head popped up over the seat, his eyes wide and gaze on Otabek. "No fucking way! I'm back in Russia? After all these years?"

Otabek blinked and then handed over the clothes, Yuri reaching eagerly past the seat for them. "I-I guess. How long were you in Spain?" "Ummmm...I guess I moved there around eleven or twelve. I don't...I don't really remember."

Moving around could be blurry in memory and Otabek nodded. "I see." Meanwhile, his heart had started to beat against his chest. At the training camp, the boy with the eyes and the lavender smell had been ten or so. The boy he never saw again - well that sounded like the age he may have moved away.

"And fuck I hated it! Fuck!" Yuri sort of vanished as he shrank back behind the seat to put on clothes. Otabek was focusing on the area outside the car, thinking as Yuri kept on. "Grandpa must have done something....shit! I don't know what the hell happened but....ah..." He trailed off and Otabek could hear him shifting around.

"Is this somewhere he would have brought you?" Otabek asked, knowing he had to piece things together.

"Maybe." Otabek heard more shuffling. "But...whenever we went to lakes, they were frozen. He would take me ice skating."

His heart almost stopped. "Skating?"

"Yea, what, there something weird about that? I was damn good at it! I think I could dance too, but...well again, things get kind of blurry. I used to wonder if I hit my head."

"Nothing weird! I-I like skating," Otabek said, turning around quickly. He wasn't going to get into the fact that he was kind of world famous. "I just didn't expect it I guess."

Yuri was crawling out of the back of the car by then, his clothes baggy on Yuri's thin frame. Otabek wasn't really big, just more muscular. "Uh-huh." He was kind of cute as he stared down at himself and then looked back up at Otabek. He looked like he wanted to say something but was hesitant for a moment. "...So what now?"

"I don't know." They silently regarded each other, Otabek and the strange person he'd found. "I have no idea where you came from. You want to call your Grandpa?"

Yuri nodded, suddenly paused, and frowned. "Fuck."

"What?"

"I don't know his number. His name is Nikolai but..." Yuri furrowed his brow in thought. "I don't- I can't remember his last name. It's not the same as mine."

"What is your last name?"

Yuri looked right back at him, his eyes wide and lost looking, but still not lacking the drive he knew was there. "Plisetsky."

He knew he had to know that name. Had to! But if Otabek couldn't place it, perhaps Viktor could. Skating, Russian from St. Petersburg, there was at least a small shot. "Okay. I'm going to text one of my friends in St. Petersburg and see if he might be able to dig something up."

"Pfft." Yuri rolled his eyes. "You know how many people live in that city? He's not going to know who I am just because I once lived in the same city, that's stupid."

Otabek chose not to mention who exactly Viktor was as he took out his phone. He wasn't sure it was really the time to mention Viktor's incredible fame, if only because he would have to then get to his own. "Better chance than me, I'm originally from Kazakhstan," he answered as he typed to Viktor: 'The name Plisetsky sound familiar?'

"Huh." Yuri shrugged. "Anyway, now what?"

"I don't know. What do you want to do?"

"Why were you here anyway?"

"Oh." Otabek sighed. "I'm on a trip across country, with at least a week left ahead of me." It pained him to say the next thing, but he had to. "I'm really only at the start of this trip, but if you need to go to St. Petersburg, I'll take you."

"Wow, what a hero you are. That's dumb, just get me to an airport and I'll fly back."

"With what money?" Otabek asked, an eyebrow raised. Not that he inspected Yuri's naked body, but he sure didn't see anywhere to keep a wallet.

Yuri's face transformed into the very portrait of confusion. "Oh. Uhhhh..."

"Look...Antropovo is about an hour away. We can go there and check into a hotel while you figure stuff out. How about that?" Otabek asked, hoping like hell Yuri would say yes. Aside from not knowing what else to do, he wanted to keep Yuri close as he tried to understand what the hell was happening to himself.

Yuri kept giving him that confused look, until he sighed and nodded. "Yea, okay. I guess so. If I can talk to Grandpa he can get me home and you can continue your trip."

Otabek nodded. He would still volunteer to take Yuri back, though. Missing the gig would be difficult, but if he had to do it to understand why he'd felt weird for such a long time, then he would cope with it. "Alright. Let me load some of this back into the car properly, and we'll get going."

"Okay." Yuri stepped over to the back and reached in, withdrawing the jacket Otabek had laid over him, holding it out. "Here...thank you, by the way."

Otabek didn't know what to really say so he just nodded as he took it and put it back on even if he wasn't cold. Then he joined Yuri at the back of the car to start rearranging things back the way they should be. His stomach growled. "Are you feeling up to eating? I'm pretty hungry."

"Not much of an appetite, but maybe I should try to eat anyway," Yuri told him. His hands were out to help, but he was mostly watching Otabek. "What is all this stuff, anyway?"

"Oh. Equipment for the gig I'm on my way to...I'm a DJ," he told him, a light blush in his cheeks. It felt weird to bring it up to Yuri for some reason.

"You're a DJ!?" Yuri asked, and loudly. It was nearly a yell. "That is so cool!" That WAS a yell.

"Oh ah-" Otabek didn't know how to react, but he laughed a little awkwardly. "Yea, it kind of is."

"There's no 'kind of', that shit's awesome!" Yuri was grinning as Otabek looked up to him. "You better play some good music on the drive!"

Otabek smiled despite himself. He was relieved that Yuri had come around since intially waking up. Hopefully, he could keep his mood up. "I will. I won't let you down, Yuri." And he meant that.

#Yuri on Ice #fanfic #otayuri #Otabek Altin #yuri plisetsky

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truecrimehunter · 6 years

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Wattpad Story Review Went Bad

Richard Brittain won a British Tv quiz show,Countdown, as a teen. To him, that won gave him life. It was his biggest goal. He boast about the win and thought he was smarter than those around him.

Richard enter university and went to a bar to hang out with his small group of friends. A woman named Ella Durant worked as a waitress. Soon, he became obsessive over her. He tried to win her over with his smarts with putting her on a team with him for University Challenge. He stalked her at her work, Twitter, Instagram, and such to keep tabs on her. She changed work shifts and started to work in the kitchen instead of in front of the house. She went to the Metropolitan police and student union. They didn’t do really anything. He stayed away for awhile but keep looking at her Twitter. She was one of those girls that tweets out relatable sad tweets, and she thought nothing of it. For some reason, he took those relatable tweets as she is talking about and to him. He went to her graduation, and she was creeped out when she saw him. After graduating, she moved from London to Glasgow.

After university, Richard wrote a poem called ‘The Benevolent Stalker’ and a book called 'The World Rose’. The book was about Ella and over romanticize of her. He traveled while writing. He wanted to publish the book and turn it into a movie. A publisher had other ideas and turned him down. He was pissed. He thought his book was a masterpiece (everyone thought otherwise). He still wanted his book to be out there. He puts the prolong on Wattpad for free and put his book on Goodreads(It’s also on Amazon).

He found Ella’s address from her college application. He went to her workplace and waved at her. She called the police and took her home. Two days later, he went back to her workplace and spoke to her even though she was screaming to get the attention of others. On September 23 2014, Ella saw a link a tweet to a blog called 'The Benevolent Stalker’ and went to the police. The defence counsel, Michael Meehan, told the judge that Richard either stuffering from paranoid schizophrenia or a personality disorder(maybe y'all should got him check out). He knew that Ella was living in Glasgow because her Twitter and Instagram accounts.

Back to his book, Wattpad’s users hated the prolong. He was pissed off that the users hated his work. He had arguments with them. A eighteen years old, Paige Rolland, read the prolong and knew how he reacts to criticism. That didn’t bother her(she has some balls), so she went to Goodreads after reading what was free to give her review with her real name. She dragged him to the dirt. Her review said(warning: it’s long review),“Before anyone reads any further, I must confess that I haven’t read this entire story. I’ve only read the prologue, courtesy of Mr. Brittain leaving it on Wattpad as a means of advertising and expanding his audience. There are two reasons I did not choose to buy this book and read the entire thing. Reason one being that the prologue was just awful and I certainly would not be paying £5 plus P+P to read the entire thing. Reason two…well, I don’t have a Kindle. And even if I did, I certainly wouldn’t be paying £1.90 for it. Surely Mr. Brittain was aware that first time authors self-pubbing give the Kindle book away for free. That way more people are likely to actually read it.

Let’s first talk about the cover.

As a writer self-publishing, I would have hoped Mr. Brittain did his research and understood the costs behind it. Surely he was aware of how much a good cover would cost him. What I’m looking at now looks painfully like something my English teachers in high school would make me read. Or a textbook. A washed-out photograph of a dirt path through a thin cluster of trees? Well…it doesn’t do anything for me and it certainly wouldn’t catch my eye in a bookstore. That combined with the bland colours used for the text and borders around that makes for an incredibly anti-climactic cover. And it definitely doesn’t scream "fantasy/romance novel” to me.

That blurb…

Yeah, that’s not a blurb. All I get is that it’s a fairytale and that the title means something. Nothing about the characters (other than the main one is a renowned beauty - urgh, gag me) nor about the plot. Probably because those elements are nothing more than a nice effort, at best. And if you have to explain the metaphor that is your title, you’re doing something wrong.

Now, to the prologue. As a reader, I’m bored out of my skull and severely disappointed in what I might have paid for. As a writer (albeit an amateur one) I’m appalled that anyone would think this was worthy of money.

Not only does it begin with “once upon a time” which you could argue is perfect as this is a fairytale (and it doesn’t work, it’s incredibly pretentious), but it’s filled with many writing no-nos. Way too much telling, pretentious prose, and a main character that I already hate. Ella is the perfect princess (true to fairytales, so we can at least give him a little credit despite how painfully annoying this is coupled with a complete lack of real personality shining through).

I’d like to take a moment to explain that fairytales, for those of you who don’t know, are short. They are short because frankly, nobody can stand that kind of writing for very long. It’s not considered good. Fairytales are there to entertain. Usually to entertain children. Full-length novels written for teens to adults?

Can we deal with the purple prose for a second? All this over-describing and stupidly flowery wording to describe Ella walking to her balcony and looking out.

Unfortunately, Mr. Brittain has gained a bit of infamy on Wattpad where he’s known for threatening users who don’t praise him (pray for me) and telling successfully published authors that they know nothing about the industry and are completely wrong in saying that writing rules must be followed in order to be successful. What I’m saying is, you can expect complete disregard for basic rules that lead to good writing for the entirety of this story.

Another writing rule that’s big is to avoid adverbs like the plague, particularly words like “suddenly”. Such a shame Brittain used this very word (which is considered a cheap and childish way of conveying suddenness, FYI) to describe a wolf howling and Ella jumping back in fear. So not only is Ella physically perfect, she’s faint-hearted too. Such a fair maiden. Never was a maiden so fair nor so beauteous. Nor so boobilicious.

Oh please.

Sentence structure. It’s all very repetitive. First part of sentence, second part of sentence. And that’s mostly how it goes. The first part of the sentence is separated by a comma before we go into the second part of the unnecessarily detailed sentence. It’s painfully dull to read. Doesn’t do much for engaging the brain.

Dialogue tags. They’re not so bad, but combined with those adverbs? Another writing no-no that Brittain has chosen to completely ignore has made this story all the harder to read.

Here is a perfect example of that purple prose I was talking about as well as this problem Brittain seems to have when it comes to over-describing. “The princess let her pet melt under her keen stare for a bit longer before she bent forward for stroke him.” This is fine, right? Well…no. Only because it is then followed by this: “Ella caressed Duncan’s fine brown hair, rubbing his ears and scratching him with scarlet fingernails.” First of all, we already know what colour the damn dog is thanks to the paragraph before. Also, we already know she is stroking him, so why do we need all this “caressing” stuff thrown in there and who cares what colour perfect Ella’s fingernails are? As if we need more reasons to dislike her already.

At some point, Duncan the dog “suddenly” becomes aggressive towards something in the room and all of that purple prose and telling and usage of “suddenly” completely ruined it. I didn’t care. I wasn’t scared. Why Brittain seems to think he can get away with not following these important writing rules is beyond me.

This sentence now. (“SPIT IT OUT!” Ella shouted.) I don’t think Brittain knows that using all caps like that in a story other than a children’s book is considered highly unprofessional. Not to mention with the exclamation point and the dialogue tag, we know Ella is shouting. So the caps become redundant anyway.

“But the bulldog merely yawned, slumped lazily in his basket with a sullen frown on his face.” Adverbs: check. Redundancy: check. Slumping is a lazy action. Frowns are usually sullen. From the context, we know this. I just…

Urgh, I can’t. Even if there WAS more on Wattpad to read, I wouldn’t. This is painful. Everything is written through telling and purple prose which is just about the worst combination there is as both a reader and writer. You can have the most fantastic plot in the world, but if you can’t write it well, it won’t sell. At least concerning self-publishing. And bad writing usually equals bad characters.

In the end (SPOILER) Ella’s father is found dead and Ella cries. Like…I don’t even care. There has been so little character development here (not that he allowed himself the room for that with all the pointless description) for a character I didn’t like from the first sentence about her, that I don’t give a damn if her father’s dead or she’s crying or how scared of the wolf’s howl she was.

The writing of this entire prologue (and what I managed to see of the chapters before they were removed from Wattpad) is bland and boring to read. It’s hard to keep reading because it’s so boring. It reads like a history book, and nobody goes into a fantasy/romance for bland, boring, textbook-like writing.

And Brittain has the audacity to say “To continue reading, please purchase the book…” You mean I have to pay to read something that’s not been professionally edited? No thank you >…

#true crime #long post #true crime community #wattpad #stalking #sorry that's it's so long #richard brittain #truecrimehunter

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whydidireadthis · 6 years

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All-New Wolverine (#19-30)

One of my hugest pet peeves with superhero comics is “male character, but with tits”. I hate it. I’ve always hated it, and I’ll always hate it. The invention of X-23 in X-Men Evolution was a painfully awkward inclusion following that same creative approach, and I despised it; it was, like so many others, taking a character and creating a female clone -- literally -- so that insecure straight boys could feel less insecure lusting directly after the character.

It’s happened plenty of other times in comics, most notably when Rose Wilson, who had her own identity and powers, had all of her character annihilated so she could become Ravager, Deathstroke with Tits. This numbers as one of the worst characters ever massacred into that role. It’s insulting; Rose had something distinct going on, and then idiot Geoff Johns came along and decided that he needed an x, with tits character.

The thing is, this stunt always ends up being insulting for both the character being imitated and the character either created to fill the role or forced into it. It’s even more insulting when they’re already established as being someone and something else, but they’re required to redefine themselves anyway, especially when they’re expected to be accepted as a replacement for the character they’re obviously meant to out-appeal because they can be openly lusted after by the imagined primary demographic.

Sibling Clonery

So the long and short of it here is that I’m saying I am not a fan of X-23, or Laura as she’s come to be known. Going into this, my expectations were rock-bottom. But I love Daken, and I always considered him a far more subversive and interesting necessary examination of the character of Wolverine and everything around him: the machismo, the insecurity of writers overcompensating through Logan’s often comedically excessive libido and attitude, and of course the overselling of the character. Daken is openly bisexual (and actually leans more gay, more often), comfortable with his sexuality, uses his mind at least as much as, if not more than, his claws, and in general undermines all of the bullshit that’s been built around Logan.

He dressed up in Logan’s old costume design and masqueraded in his superheroic identity, and in so doing forced readers to examine what really made Wolverine. It forced scrutiny on the concept of the identity, and who was behind the mask and the name.

Daken is a complex character, but he’s also easy enough to understand and is often surprisingly sympathetic, or at least identifiable. Even when he’s doing awful things, it’s not really because he’s a consummately bad person or has no reason for doing what he does. I don’t think all of his writing is great or even good, and he’s been wildly inconsistent for periods over the years, but he seems to have finally found a place where he can find some blessed consistency and appreciation.

Aside from that garbage Iceman series that will be gone and not missed very soon, which seemed not to get the memo that Daken couldn’t be a villain running the Hellfire Club while at the same time being kidnapped by a group of Laura’s foes, but whatever. Like I said, that series is gone and soon to be forgotten, and it’s good riddance to bad rubbish.

We’re looking at the good Daken appearances recently, and they just so happen to be in All-New Wolverine.

Marjorie Liu did some solid work with Daken, even if I didn’t agree with her direction at all times, and the crossover between him and X-23 called “Collision” was an interesting look at the characters. Liu’s run on the X-23 series, which is really in many ways a precursor to All-New Wolverine, gave her a lot more to work with than the typical runaround she’d been given in most of the other titles. Before Liu got to do things with Laura and develop her as a person (and at the time, also developing Gambit in a way that treated him like a person and not the embarrassing caricature people have exaggerated from foggy memories of the 90s X-Men cartoon), she really wasn’t much more than Wolverine, but with tits. That was it. She couldn’t really outrun her stigma, because she was just another piece of window dressing from Logan’s titles.

But it’s important to note that Daken, too, really didn’t flourish until he got out from the shadow, out from Logan’s titles, and did something else.

Not Wolverines, because god knows that was hot garbage that turned into a dumpster fire, and I’m pretty sure nobody had any idea what the hell was going on by the end. It was about enough to make me throw my hands up and walk away again.

But writer Tom Taylor wisely just handwaves Wolverines and tosses Daken into the story “Immune” as a spectacular and dramatic appearance, and that makes all the difference. What went before is addressed, touched upon, and then moved past, and we see that Daken is also has developed as a person since the frankly lackluster, incoherent writing of Wolverines.

I found myself actually caring about Laura as a person, more and more, because while there is a kind of naiveté in Taylor’s writing, it’s the kind that makes you want to believe in it. It’s the way things really should be, and the way I’d like them to be, as someone who has read superhero comics for far longer than is probably wise.

Full of Character

The characters are engaging and enjoyable, and I like the fact that they also have humor in their interactions. I’ve said it many times before: without at least some humor, things are not only unpleasant, but also unrealistic and difficult to believe. Utterly humorless events only tempt resistance from an audience, and speaking plainly, it’s just silly to have a genre so steeped in action and the outrageous take itself too seriously.

All-New Wolverine, however, knows its audience. As seen here, there’s plenty of mixing it up and making things different from how they have been up to now, but there’s also a consistency that is comfortable. These aren’t the clunky female characters written clearly to pander, or to tempt people into arguments over genitalia or hormones or anything else. It probably happens, and I’m lucky not to have seen it, but the characters in All-New Wolverine have solid personalities and relate to each other like people. And nicely enough, even though there’s no such thing as black and white in Logan’s circles, the characters have redeeming qualities and make you want to like them.

And I’m not going to lie here, I think one of the best things about the title right now is the fact that “our” universe’s Logan is dead, dead, dead. The X-titles, Logan, and Charles Xavier all need a hard time out so that things can do a little soft resetting and they can slip back in and not be horrible, ruined characters impossible to like, as they are now. I think the “Death of Wolverine” thing they did around it was stupid and tacky, but I always think that of death events, and they should’ve learned this long ago: death is not an event, and killing off a character shouldn’t be made into one.

But that’s a conversation for another day.

All-New Wolverine’s “Immune” storyline places Laura at ground zero of a super-infectious alien disease and, through it, showcases really what defines the character under Taylor’s direction as a writer. It’s especially nice to see her show not a pandering sort of sensitivity, but instead emotion easy to identify with, which makes it easier to sympathize with her. It gives her more personality and character, as well as strength of character; her interactions with Daken and Gabby humanize her, which is something that has always been needed.

She spent too long coasting on nothing but the fact that she was Wolverine, but with tits. Even Liu’s stretch still relied at times on the fact that Laura wasn’t sure if she had a soul, which while engaging, is still a fairly done-to-death story. The clone who isn’t sure if she has a soul, the clone trying to determine her place in a world that also contains the person she was cloned from, the clone trying to figure out who she is when that person is suddenly gone -- they’re all potentially interesting starts, premises, beginnings, but they were most of the story for a long while. Too long.

Gabby is great, not to mention hilarious, and it really delighted me that they have a pet wolverine named Jonathan, who accompanies them on their adventures. Some might bristle at the thought of a team of Wolverine-themed characters having what amounts to a mascot, but it really makes them a lot easier to sympathize with, not to mention a lot more fun. A mascot, or even just a cute animal, is an appealing feature that, again, humanizes characters through their relations.

The especially nice thing is that, even though I came for Daken, I stayed for Daken’s interactions with Laura and Gabby. They form a great core to the team of similarly-themed characters, and there’s so much that is said between them that hasn’t been even mentioned before. It’s like nobody ever thought about half of the things Taylor does, with what he works into the dialogue.

The title also isn’t afraid to show a bit of genre-awareness, but it knows moderation. This isn’t like the adventures of Deadpool or She-Hulk, which overtly show existential awareness and depend on (frequently absent) clever writing. All-New Wolverine is not a parody, but it can at times examine itself and shorthand that is rarely questioned and, by doing so, makes it easier to swallow.

It also doesn’t skimp on the Daken. And to be sure, Logan’s always been prone to nudity in his titles. There used to go hardly a month between seeing his hairy ass in something or other. So it’s nice to see it being used for something beautiful and even inspiring. I like the art a great deal, especially with the “Orphans of X” story, and what’s more, I respect them taking advantage of having Daken in the title to contribute a little heart-thumping eye candy.

But it’s not exploitation, it actually has a purpose and the art is really quite beautiful, like the sequence where he heals his arm back. It examines, in a way that only comics can, a zen meditative philosophy.

There’s unpleasant and violent stuff in All-New Wolverine, of course, but it’s not the tacky, gaudy, just plain nasty nonsense that seemed ubiquitous and overdone in the first decade of the 2000s. It has a purpose, and it has a role.

The Bad and the Good

It’s not all perfect, though. I will say that Taylor seriously needs to develop his pacing. Things take a long time to get moving, then reach a climax...and bunches of things happen between issues that would have been better dealt with at length instead of some of the things that were drawn out. He’s not the best at crafting a satisfying end to stories either, though it is important to note that his resolutions aren’t unsatisfying...they’re just not entirely satisfying either.

In “Hive”, which is basically the second leg of “Immune”, Laura goes into space with the Guardians of the Galaxy and fights the Brood. Things roll gradually in parts, then seem to pick up way too much speed. Events get a little confusing, and sometimes people seem not to say or do things because if they do, it will require the writer to develop those points. But in not doing them and not addressing some of them, it makes for a weaker story, with less impact.

I will totally admit, I laughed out loud at the resolution to “Hive”. It was the funniest thing I’d seen in a long time, and I’m probably a horrible person for that. It did actually give a fairly fulfilling ending, but it also failed to deal with several of the other issues brought up by the proceedings. The question was just never as simple as it’s often regarded by the story and its participating characters, and sometimes the unaddressed issues are the most glaring and most obvious when you’re reading it.

“Orphans of X” is exciting, thrilling, entertaining, and develops the characters significantly, every one of them. But it also has tacky turns and, in its extremely naive finale, seems to ignore the serious problems that it presented repeatedly before getting there. It’s too facile a resolution, and it’s one that is impossible to really accept; it can only be a temporary solution, because these people are not trustworthy or reliable, and they can’t be depended on. It makes Laura look a bit stupid for it, and it also damages the credibility of the proceedings somewhat.

But if you think about it in less of a “compare to real life” way and more of a “think of how superheroes are supposed to be” one, it’s a lot more agreeable. Honestly, it’s how things should go. People should be able to come together and make sense to each other. People who have been victimized by others should be able to unite against those others and be stronger for the experience, instead of fighting amongst themselves. Superheroes are supposed to inspire others to greatness; they are supposed to inspire bravery and courage, dignity and integrity, and all the majestic things that they show overtly, which we all must try to metaphorically exercise in things like strength of character and personal integrity, mercy, kindness, empathy, and a refusal to give up even when the odds are against us.

From Vat to Very Fond

So for the time being, I’ll just accept it that way. It’s not a perfect story, and neither is “Immune”/”Hive”, but they’re entertaining, the characters involved most all benefit from and are enriched by their inclusion, and I genuinely liked the comics. I enjoyed reading them.

I liked Laura. I’ve started to find her genuinely engaging and interesting as a character, for the first time since she came into being. Do I think she’s good to carry a title by herself? No! Not at all. But that’s also not the point of who she is. She’s not supposed to be alone. She functions better in a family, and the family dynamic is what makes her so much more interesting.

She’s fascinating in how she interacts with the others she is so close to, like Gabby and Daken. They all enrich each other, and they grow as characters in this mutually beneficial relationship.

I feel the same way about Batman, for example. There are plenty of characters who just aren’t really that compelling or interesting when they’re alone, or they’re fundamentally not likable. Batman needs a Bat-family, because he’s dull as a beige room when he doesn’t have anyone to interact with but his enemies.

Laura needs a Wolverine-family.

With Jonathan too, because he’s just too wonderful to leave out.

Many, even most, characters should not be in a title totally alone. There are remarkably few characters who can really carry a story solo, and a lot of those stories are just not interesting. Logan is one of those characters who has never been that interesting, but he’s been an extension of so much straight boy insecurity that he’s become indispensable to Marvel. In a similar manner, Batman has become so overblown and oversold that it’s a miracle when, in stories like The Hiketeia, he actually is dealt with realistically.

We do need an escape, and we need characters we can identify with, even vicariously live through. I’m not going to deny insecure people their escapes.

But I think the time has come, and I think it’s shown in the quality of the writing, the solidness of the art, and the sheer enjoyability of the whole product, that All-New Wolverine has at least a promising start of maybe bringing us something new and better in superheroes. It’s not perfect, but it’s the first title I’ve read in years that made me want to follow it and had me waiting eagerly, not dreading, the next issue.

I sincerely hope that Taylor can keep up his quality. He’s made me care about a character I despised for years and then felt neutral about for years more. He writes Daken beautifully and makes me fall in love with the character all over again. And of course, Gabby is a wonderful character rather than the annoying young character she could be, and Jonathan the wolverine is delightful.

In the words of RuPaul, Tom, don’t fuck this up!

Because you’ve made this jaded comic fan, who once upon a time was completely done with superhero comics, believe that good things are possible again. And you did it with the Wolverine title and X-23...two things that were among my least favorite in the world.

It’s worth checking out All-New Wolverine. Now if we can only have that kind of excellence in the X-titles so that people will actually give a fuck about the X-Men again, instead of being embarrassed they exist in the same universe at the moment.

But baby steps. Baby steps.

#all-new wolverine #writing critique #daken #x-23 #comic review

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rockinthebeastmode · 7 years

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Mr. Brightside

A/N: So, a few things about this. First, it’s another Finn POV because it’s apparently all I know how to write. Second, it’s kinda supposed to be a ‘prequel’ to Smile Like You Mean It, though it reads just as well by itself. Probably better by itself tbh. Third, it pretty much follows Season 2, Episode 4 and a little of 5, and there’s a shit ton of dialogue in the beginning directly from that. FYI there’s a line from Chop that I couldn’t make out no matter how many times I listened to it so forgive my substitution and someone please tell me what the fuck he actually said. LASTLY its based on Mr. Brightside by The Killers. Hope you enjoy!

You can find my other fics here.

@mmfdfanfic @eveerez @i-dream-of-emus @lilaviolet @lau-vm @hey1tskat1e @tinakegg @kneekeyta

Let me know if you wanna be added/removed from the tag list and if I missed anyone :)

Mr. Brightside

It had been weeks of no contact and I finally was starting to feel like I could be around her again. I still loved her, no doubt about that. But I couldn’t stand not having her around me, or the gang. She had become one of my best mates and even though I couldn’t touch her or kiss her like I really wanted, it was a price I was willing to pay.

I took a deep breath and shoved my sweaty hands in my pockets and attempted a nonchalant walk towards her. She inhaled sharply when she saw me and my heart jumped. I sat across from her, sitting back and avoiding her eyes.

“Do you want me to go?” she asked, quietly. My head snapped to her.

“Nah, don’t be silly,” I said, meeting her eyes for only a moment. I lost my nerve and looked towards the football field. She sighed and I gritted my teeth. Time to come out of your cage, Finny-boy.

“Look, I don’t like this. It’s ridiculous,” I bit out, without thinking. I paused a second before finishing.

“Can we be friends?”

Her face seemed to brighten and I felt short of breath as she answered and smiled at me. I sat beside her, smiling back. Yes.

“I’ll fight with you, Rae.”

I looked at Izzy as she spoke, trying to keep from staring at Rae.

“I don’t know how to do it, but I’ll try.”

“You know I’m there Raemundo. I’ll step in, she won’t touch ya,” Chop said from beside Izzy.

“Can’t hit a girl though,” I piped up, cradling my drink across my chest.

“Not saying I’m gonna hit her, *I’m gonna put an end to that shit*, we could all do it,” he answered. My eyes met Rae’s across the table and I tried to smile.

“What about next time though, when none of us are there? What’s gonna happen then?” Archie asserted. Rae buried her head in her arms.

“I’m gonna get murdered,” she said mournfully. Chloe came up seconds later and Rae took her aside. I went to take a gulp of my Fosters when I heard Chloe’s next words.

“Amy told me how you two keep going off together--”

My head snapped towards them but Chloe’s next words sounded muffled to my ears. I forced my gaze away from them.

“Alright, Finn?” Archie asked quietly. I sent him what I hoped was a reassuring smile.

“I’m doing just fine, Arch.”

I offered to teach her self-defense. I had to do something, Archer was right--we couldn’t fight for her. Of course, I couldn’t help but ask about Liam. What the fuck did that tosser have that I didn’t?

So he’s a good laugh, into music, and cool. I had thought I was all those things. Turns out, I’m nothing but a grumpy sod.

Every attribute she listed about him was like a punch to the face. I’m not sure which hurt worse--her mooning over the guy or her literal punch to my mouth. Jesus, even when she’s hitting me, she’s amazing. It was worth it just to spend time with her at all.

Everything had been great in the summer and then college came and it all came tumbling down around me. How did it end up like this?

“You looked good out there...proper manly.”

I barked out a laugh.

“You say the weirdest stuff sometimes,” I chuckled. She turned to look at me in disbelief.

“You do,” I affirmed, grinning widely. Worry flashed across her face.

“You don’t think I’m weird though, do ya?” she asked quietly. I shook my head, smile faltering.

“No,” I breathed, watching her. She started to speak again but all I could do was stare at her.

“I don’t want you to think I’m weird,” God, I love her voice, “by asking if you think I’m weird, by the way” And her mouth… “I’m not paranoid about stuff like that” Oh, bollocks to it “I’m not some kind of person--”

I surged forward and kissed her. Fucking finally. Why did I wait so bloody long? This was perfect.

I just needed to get some sleep. As much as I wanted to be with Rae, she was moving on and I was too. Olivia sounded like a nice bird, at least from what Chop’s older brother had told me. Older than what I was used to but I had to give it a go.

I tossed and turned but couldn’t stop thinking about it all. What if she lied when she said nothing was going on between them? What if they were together right at this moment?

What if they kissed and she grasped his shirt in her hand like she did mine, touched his chest and felt his heart pounding. What if he unbuttoned her top all the way, took off her skirt and leggings, seeing every perfect inch of skin--

I pinched my eyes closed, choking back bile and willing the images to disappear. Just go the fuck to sleep, Finn.

I barely slept the night, my dreams filled with Rae and Liam together with me powerless to stop it. I frantically lit up a cigarette and focused on walking to Main Street. It was finally Friday and I was due to meet Olivia at some posh Italian place. I turned a corner to take a bit of a short cut and came across a group of people I recognized from school. Oh shit, it’s the fight.

I didn’t know whether to step in or not. Rae could handle herself, couldn’t she? She’d proven that in spades with the hit she gave me. I touched my tongue to my slightly split lip and felt a surge of pride. That’s my girl.

I made my way around the group, staying near the trees. I was just about out of earshot when I heard Rae’s voice scream out. I glanced at my watch as I doubled back. I was already late, what’s a couple more minutes?

I stepped up behind the crowd, staying out of view.

“I’ve got something I need to tell you, and I didn’t want you to have to find out from me but...I need to tell you the truth,” Rae started, her voice wavering. My heart dropped at her words. What happened?

“Me and Liam,” No, don’t say it, “We kissed last night.”

Her words were worse than a punch. They were more like a freight train hitting me straight on. I stepped back and ran. I couldn’t let her see me break.

Over the next few weeks, I put all my effort into dating Olivia. If I could just focus on her, I wouldn’t be stuck on Rae as much. But as beautiful and funny and great as Olivia was, it just didn’t feel the same. Her kisses weren’t as soft. I felt like I’d crush her every time I pulled her close. The taste of Bailey’s was starting to make me ill. Still...I tried.

“Is your food alright?” Olivia asked, glancing at me curiously. I shrugged slightly, suddenly aware I was moving my food around my plate instead of eating.

“Yea, it’s fine,” I stated, putting my fork down and taking a swig of my Fosters. She raised a brow.

“Just fine?”

I tried not to roll my eyes and just sighed instead.

“I’m just not feeling Italian tonight,” I admitted.

“Wanna go down to the pub, then?”

I shook my head violently. It killed me being around Rae and Olivia simultaneously.

“No, let’s go back to yours,” I burst out. The fuck was I thinking?!

“Okay!” she chirped, quickly waving for the check. She took my hand as we stood and left and my heart pounded harder the closer we got to her car.

Jesus, now she thought I just wanted to shag. Sure, I’d had sex before, but sex in any form didn’t appeal to me unless Rae was involved. Fat chance of that happening.

When we got to her flat, I tried to match her eager eyes, stretching a grin across my face. As soon as we cleared her front door, she was latched onto me. I responded seconds later, feeling almost like it wasn’t even me kissing her. Just some knobhead getting down his girlfriend while I was forced to watch it happen.

She whipped off her jacket and started to remove mine, pressing herself closer to me. I willed myself to feel something, bloody anything. She ran her hands down my chest to my waistband and I grabbed her hands without thinking. She pulled away.

“Something wrong?” she panted. I gasped out a laugh.

“No, ‘course not. Just need the toilet,” I said quickly, practically sprinting down to the end of the hall. I slammed the door behind me, running my hands through my hair. I stood in agonizing silence for a few moments before flushing the toilet and grasping the basin. I stared my reflection down in the mirror.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” I grated out. I splashed some water on my face and took a deep breath.

“Right, Nelson. You’re a bloke. She’s gorgeous. She wants you. Just do it.”

I nodded to my reflection before rolling my eyes and turning to the door and walking out.

Olivia wasn’t in the entryway anymore but I heard soft music coming from a room to my right. Her bedroom. Great.

I steeled myself and entered the room, candles flickering from every surface. Olivia looked at me demurely from the foot of the bed. To my chagrin, she had changed into a silk nightdress that cut off too short for comfort. My own encouraging words flew out of my mind.

“I can’t do this,” I croaked. She crossed her arms with a sad smile.

“It’s Rae, isn’t it?”

“No, why would you think that?” I asked without thinking. Like it wasn’t painfully obvious I was still mooning over her. She gave me a knowing look, moving to slide on her robe and turn the music off.

“I see the way you look at her. And the way she looks at you. There’s obviously something still there.”

I shook my head hopelessly.

“There’s not, she ended it, she doesn’t want me,” I lamented, tears pricking the back of my eyes. She smiled, coming to stand before me.

“She does. Trust me.”

I shrugged, looking at the floor. She patted my cheek, lifting my head to look at her.

“I’m so sorry, Olivia.”

“It’s alright, Finny. You’re too young for me anyways,” she sighed with a wink. I breathed out a short laugh, pulling her in for a hug.

“Want me to call you a cab?”

I shook my head.

“Naw, it’s a good night for a walk. Clear my head,” I answered. She walked me to the door where I grabbed my jacket from the floor and pulled it on.

“Go figure it out, Finn. I’m sure things will work out,” she declared. I nodded with a smile.

“Thanks, Liv.”

I headed towards the chippy, not quite ready to go find Rae just yet. As much as I wanted to believe Rae could want me back, I couldn’t make that assumption when she’d been the one to break things off. And what the fuck was going on with her and Liam? No, I couldn’t figure everything out tonight. But I would soon.

It felt like destiny or fate had pushed me to finally break things off with Olivia. Yea, it wasn’t the traditional, “It’s over,” but it did the job without much fallout. Maybe destiny made all of this happen, just all this bullshit for the light at the end of the tunnel. The bright side was almost here. I could feel it.

#mmfd fanfic #mmfdfanfic #mmfd fanfiction #my mad fat diary fanfic #my mad fat diary fanfiction #mymadfatdiary

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secret-diary-of-an-fa · 7 years

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I Like ‘The TALOS Principle’, but it Needs to Try Harder.

Good evening, humans. Apologies to those of you who thought I might have died... and are disappointed that I haven’t. I know it’s been a long time between blogs but, in my defence, I do have better things to do with my time. One of those thing is playing The TALOS Principle.

If you haven’t heard of it, The TALOS Principle is a cerebral, philosophical puzzle game in which you play as an artificial intelligence in a simulated world, struggling with ideas of morality and what it means to be a person. Now, I enjoy this game quite a lot. The puzzles are well-designed and make you feel like a genius whenever you beat one. The game-world is visually stunning in a very non-stylised, matter-of-fact kind of way. The backstory (accessible through e-mails and text-dumps found in scattered computer terminals) is beautiful and absolutely heart-rending. Without giving too much away, The TALOS Principle’s backstory may be the most tear-jerking thing in the videogame medium.

However, the game is not without its problems, and all of them can be traced back to one crucial flaw. You see, The TALOS Principle is clever... but it’s nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is. The game clearly thinks its far smarter than its players and spends a lot of time dangling philosophical ideas in front of them. Unfortunately, one of those players is me, and I’m a shit-ton brighter than the game is. This leads to some... interesting moments.

Let me explain what I mean using the ancient art of the example. There’s a bit where you debate the nature of personhood with a disembodied computer system that later turns out to have a very cynical outlook. The thing asks you for your definition of what a person is and the game lets you pick betweeen a number of options with philosophical precedents. For example, you can say that a person is “a rational animal” or an “ordered logical system” and so on. And the game clearly thinks its got all its bases covered. It doesn’t. There isn’t an option that defines personhood in terms of consciousness and self-awareness (which is how I think most people would define it), which seems like a massive oversight in a game whose central themes are the consciousness and self-awareness of non-human entities. I‘d say that it might have been done on purpose to serve the narrative, but there are so many obvious omissions of this type that I’m forced to conclude that its the result of insufficient thought on behalf of whoever wrote the script. In most other games, it wouldn’t matter (let’s face it, none of us are upset that Commander Shepherd’s dialogue options in Mass Effect were a bit far removed from what we’d say in similar situatons). However, in a game that sets itself up as a crash-course in philosophical reasoning, missing out entire basic philosophical precepts is a bit of a kick the urethra.

On a similar note, it suffers from what I like to call Geralt-of-Rivia Syndrome, which is when the main character never actually bothers to explain their actions to other characters or argue their point of view in a clear and concise manner. I managed to get into a debate about the merits of equal division of resources among a population with the snarky computer system at one point. The game was happy to let me state my belief in fair division of resources and listen to the other fucker reply sarcastically to them, but didn’t offer any options for explaining or justifying those beliefs.

Obviously, these are minor flaws. It’s a puzzle game, not a conversation simulator: the dialogue options in your debates with other machine intelligences can’t cover every possible contingency. It just would have been nice if they’d covered some of the painfully obvious ones. Trying to argue with the intelligence using the limited options you have feels like playing a game of Taboo (you know- it’s that word game where you have to describe something without using a pre-set list of verboten words and your team-mate has to work out what you’re describing).

However, minor gripes aside, there is one fairly major problem that I can’t let go without a spanking: the ludo-narrative dissonance in this game is off the pimholing chart. Let me ellucidate. Within the game’s narrative, the lead character’s central dilemma is whether or not to climb a forbidden tower or obey the edict against doing so in return for immortality. See, the main character thinks that the tower is genuinely off-limits. The forces that govern their world have put it out or reach. What’s more, they’ve offered a very tempting reward for not going anywhere near the tower. In short, the character I’m playing has no reason to want to go near the tower. It’s big and menacing and holds the fairly explicit promise of death. However, as the player, I know the tower isn’t actually off-limits at all. In fact, I know full well the game developers want me to go poke my nose in it. Right now, the team who put that thing together are going “Ooh, please player! Please climb our big tower- it’s ever-so tall and erect!” As a player, I have every reason to go into that tower: there’s loads more content in there and I suspect the ending you get for climbing to the top is way more satisfying than the one you get for ignoring it. Developers: when the entire central conceit of your game has a big dollop of ludo-narrative dissonance in it, you need to rethink some things. Here’s a rule of thumb for good game design: if the player has to make a choice, both the character and the player should have compelling reasons for both possible choices, otherwise things start to seem a bit silly.

Now, I still recommend this game. The TALOS Principle is very bloody good. I’m berating it because I like it so much and want it to try harder, not because I consider it a failure. It’s a solid experience and I suggest you give it a go. Be warned though, it is depressing as fuck, so don’t go in if your prone to dark thoughts.

#secret diary of a fat admirer #the talos principle #videogame review

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marcusssanderson · 6 years

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10 Signs It’s Time To Change Your Mindset To Better Your Life

Is it time for you to change your mindset?

The key to long-term health and happiness is a mindset. Many people mistake mindset for “fake-it-till-you-make-it” and that’s not it at all. There are two ends of the mindset spectrum: fixed versus growth. A fixed mindset holds to the belief that people are born with a set of skills and abilities that do not change. This mindset can cause problems in every area of life that demands that we grow and change, including work, relationships, and health.

A growth mindset is the opposite.

People with a growth mindset believe that change is not only possible but a positive and empowering part of life. These are the optimistic ones who look for opportunity and aren’t afraid to step outside their comfort zone in order to achieve a new goal.

Of course, these are two extremes, but most of us fall somewhere on the continuum so it’s helpful to know when it’s time for a fresh perspective.

10 signs it’s time to change your mindset to better your life

1. You’ve had the same complaint for more than a week

I know a few people who repeatedly complain so much about the same things, I already know their miseries even before I ask! Don’t let your complaints define you. Complaints are poison to any relationship, so you definitely want to get away from them as much as possible.

While It is important to acknowledge what we don’t like or what upsets us, it’s also important to acknowledge that there are opportunities for growth and change. So when you see something you don’t like, either change your mindset and do something about it or let it go.

2. Your relationship woes are on repeat

Is there a pattern in your relationships? If you’re having the same argument with your significant other week after week, then it’s time for a mindset shift. Most long-term couples who are struggling report a much higher level of relationship satisfaction after 5 years.

This is largely due to being pushed into growing in some way. Save time and anguish by resolving to shift to a growth mindset, which allows for change in yourself and your partner. There is a difference between what you need in life and what you need from your partner.

3. You are Content.

Feeling content is okay, but really it’s a short hop over to ambivalence. When was the last time something thrilled you? Close on the heels of a growth mindset is your passion and purpose.

While your passions and purpose may evolve over time, it’s important to acknowledge them and give them room to be expressed.

4. You put everyone else’s needs before your own.

Parents are especially prone to this. Granted, there are moments in time where the needs of others come first. This is especially true if you have an infant or someone is sick with the flu.

However, as the saying goes, “you can’t pour from an empty cup.” Long-term, healthy lifestyle changes that begin with a mindset shift are an investment in yourself that pays dividends in terms of the physical and emotional energy. The bonus here is that the better you meet your own needs, the more emotionally generous you can be later on.

5. You’ve asked yourself, “Is this all there is?”

This is the manifestation of growth versus fixed mindset in its simplest form. The short answer is no. Life is full of limitless possibilities. The best way to make these possibilities a reality is to start by switching your mindset from fixed to growth.

It’s not necessary to know what you’re growing towards but to know that growth is possible and necessary for long-term health and happiness. If your future seems depressing, change your mindset as the first step to better mental health.

6. Your health could use a tune-up.

Reality check: As a young adult, you still have youth on your side. The exercise and eating habits you relied on in your 20s won’t work as you age. The problem isn’t just poor diet and insufficient exercise.

More and more, we know the massive ill-effects of insufficient sleep. If change your mindset, you start to put yourself first. You deserve to make time to exercise, sleep well, and eat healthfully. You deserve these things as much as you deserve to shower.

It is possible to look and feel as good as you did in your twenties. Switching your mindset from “getting by” to “self-care” is the only healthy way to get there. Remember, it’s not about being a swimsuit model. It’s about maintaining health in the long term.

7. Your routine is painfully predictable.

Having a fixed mindset might serve you for a short time, but to thrive, you may try shaking things up a bit. If that sounds too vague and you don’t know where to start, try this: List your daily routine.

What is necessary? Do you notice something that doesn’t serve you? Oftentimes we keep a routine because it’s easier to go on autopilot to save mental energy that you may feel is in short supply.

By opening the door to change with a growth mindset, you allow ideas to flow freely into your daily experience. The benefit is that more meaningful experiences mean that you create more energy which improves your mood and overall outlook on life.

8. You hate your job

You spend the majority of your life at your job, so it’s important for you to enjoy it. Clearly, it’s not always practical or even advisable to quit your job in a blaze of glory. Adopting a growth mindset helps redefine your current experience as you explore other options later on.

Even if your co-worker is a total dolt and your cubicle is less than inspirational, there is room to reframe your perspective and use the experience as part of your personal growth. Identify where you are and imagine where you want to be.

Chart a course to get there. In the meantime, be open to learning opportunities within your current experience. You know what you don’t like. List what you do like. It could be the paycheck, the environment, the prestige, or the resume’ building experience.

9. You’ve been called a pessimist.

Either that, or the more polite term, “pragmatic.” This is the result of fixed mindset and will get you nowhere. Our ego would love to tell us that something isn’t possible, but in reality anything is possible with a growth mindset.

Sometimes this outlook manifests because secretly we don’t believe that we are worthy of anything more than what is in front of us. The truth is, growth is possible, even if the solution isn’t clear yet.

10. You are self-critical

A growth mindset is the most instant cure for self-criticism. If your inner dialogue has been harsh, snarky, or downright hateful, it’s time for a mindset shift. Remind yourself that you are where you are because that’s the plan for you right now.

It’s important to be aware of those last two words, “right now.” Nothing is set in stone. A change in perspective is more powerful than you realize. Once the self-criticism stops and as you heal your relationship with yourself, you are at a point where real, useful, and powerful changes can happen. Hopefully, you’ve learned how to change your mindset to better your life.

The post 10 Signs It’s Time To Change Your Mindset To Better Your Life appeared first on Everyday Power Blog.

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learnspanishfans · 7 years

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Portuguese in 3 Months Mission: 2 Month Update

This is an update to Holly’s Portuguese in 3 Months mission.

In my last update, I filled you in on the first month of my Portuguese in 3 months mission. During that month, I discovered quite a few listening resources, had several talks with native speakers, and adjusted some of my personal expectations along the way.

In this update, I’ll discuss my second month, how it differed from month one, and how I overcame some of the challenges I was faced with.

I’ll also share the my two-month video.

Let’s get started!

New Portuguese Study Resources

A LOT of my time throughout my mission was spent researching and trying out different Portuguese resources. I don’t know if I’m just picky, but quite a few resources just didn’t work for me, so I abandoned them and tried again.

PortuguesePod101 was my top go-to course for most of my mission. However, I actually took a two-week break from it this month because I started to get sick of the repetitiveness after binging on so many lessons in such a short time (In my first five weeks, I burned through all the lessons in lower beginner and upper beginner seasons 1 and 2). This isn’t a knock against the product; it’s just a side-effect of depending too much on a single resource.

The Portuguese Language Resources I Used in Month 2

So I branched out more this month to find other ways to improve my Portuguese:

Practice Portuguese

Practice Portuguese is a free European Portuguese podcast for upper-beginner and intermediate students.

I fell in love with the format after listening to a few episodes. It’s presented in 100% Portuguese, so there’s no time wasted listening to English (though I discovered later that some of their most recent episodes do feature some English, to help lower-beginner Portuguese students).

There are different types of episodes: “artigo” (article), “atualidade” (news), “diálogo” (dialogue) and more. The host speaks very slowly and clearly, which is especially useful if you’re not familiar with the European Portuguese accent. The “artigo” episodes are my favourite, because they’re always read twice: once slowly, and once quickly. I also like that there are no vocab lists dictated, and no grammar drills in any of the episodes. You just get to listen to natural spoken Portuguese for a small chunk of time – not too much to be overwhelming.

Semantica Portuguese

Semantica Portuguese is a video course in Brazilian Portuguese.

It has 25 free episodes on iTunes. They’re meant to be watched in order because they follow a storyline, the way a TV series does. This keeps you coming back because you’ll want to know what happens next. I could definitely see the potential of this course, but ultimately I decided not to go forward with a subscription.

Most of my Portuguese studying has been done away from a screen (such as through audio lessons, podcasts and Portuguese music), and I wanted to keep it that way. But if you prefer a visual approach from time to time, definitely give this course a try.

The Conta-me Tudo (“Tell Me Everything”) Podcast

I wanted the Conta-me Tudo (“Tell Me Everything”) podcast to work out for me, I really did.

The premise is fascinating: in each episode, an ordinary person gives a talk to a live audience about an incredible, funny, scary, or life-changing story that happened to them. The topics are extremely varied, from improbable love stories to travel disasters.

Every episode summary looked so interesting that I wanted to listen to it just for the story, never mind improving my Portuguese! But I listened to five episodes, and try as I might, I couldn’t pick out enough words to get the gist of any of the stories. But this podcast was super motivational to me. My new long-term goal in the language is to reach a good-enough level to be able to understand this podcast. Once I do, I’m coming straight back to listen to every episode!

More TV Shows

I watched several episodes of Got Talent Brazil, but I kept coming back to Got Talent Portugal, probably because I know that show better and am used to the judges. I also found an episode of the kids’ show Caillou in Portuguese!

Audio Flashcards

I’ll share a little more on these in a moment.

How Editing My Portuguese Mission Videos Helped My Language Learning

Editing and adding subtitles to my videos was a surprisingly big help.

As I played and replayed sections of my month-one video to hear the dialogue, I noticed many of my mistakes for the first time. For example, I pronounced the word “frequently” as “frequemente” instead of “frequentemente” several times. (I blame my French knowledge for this mistake – in French, the word is “fréquemment”, NOT “fréquentement”.) I wasn’t aware I was doing it until I listened to myself speaking Portuguese.

After hearing that and my other mistakes from the video – over and over in painfully clear slow motion as I typed out the subtitles – I can assure you I never made those mistakes again!

I highly recommend to anyone studying a foreign language to watch yourself speaking the language on video.

When you’re speaking in the moment, you don’t notice all of your mistakes, but you’ll easily catch them when you listen to yourself on tape. It’s a very useful exercise. Don’t worry, you’ll get over the cringe factor pretty quickly.

Was it a Mistake to Avoid Reading and Writing?

A key part of my Portuguese mission is learning through listening and speaking. As far as possible, I’ve avoided resources that involve reading and writing.

When I found good Portuguese audio or video resources to study, it was very motivating. But searching for good resources sometimes took so long that it became frustrating.

Hunting for fun and motivating things to listen to wasn’t easy. Sometimes it was a big waste of time. Especially with music.

I listened to hours of music by Legião Urbana, Mariza, Titãs and more, trying to find songs that I liked enough to memorize. That’s where my motivation slipped the most, because none of the music really clicked with me. However, I did eventually find a few fun songs this month. I memorized one of them: “Balada do Desajeitado” (Ballad of clumsiness/awkwardness/ungainliness…the word doesn’t translate very well) by D.A.M.A.:

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcfSEeovjcE

Memorizing this song was hard! It goes fast, and a lot of syllables are eaten up for the sake of rhythm. But I feel that learning this song improved my speaking skills quite a bit. I started to feel comfortable “glossing over” certain words and pronouncing them more naturally, much like an English language student might learn to say “gonna” instead of “going to”.

My Feelings at the Halfway Point of My Portuguese Mission

Around the six-week mark of my mission, I sat down to reflect on my progress so far. Certainly, I was very happy with my progress to date.

Here are some of my thoughts:

Does No-Reading-or-Writing Really Work?

Honestly, when I first started this mission, I had no idea if a no-reading-or-writing approach would work at all!

It was a big experiment for me. But I was happy to see that I was making more progress than I had in all of my other language attempts in the previous 15 years. For the first time, I wasn’t treating listening comprehension as an afterthought – and it was working.

I Did Have One Achilles Heel…

There was one area that I could tell I was weak in. It’s yet another area that I’ve always had trouble with in every language I’ve studied: vocabulary. See, I’m kind of a grammar nerd, and grammar rules tend to come naturally to me. Vocabulary has always been a bigger struggle. And my listening-only approach to learning Portuguese didn’t offer any new solutions to this problem. TV shows and podcasts exposed me to vast amounts of new vocabulary, but didn’t do much to reinforce the words so I could reproduce them later.

Knowing French was definitely a big help when it came to guessing new words in Portuguese conversation, but that would only take me so far. I realized that if I wanted to memorize new words, and not just French cognates, I’d better put some more effort into vocabulary. But how to do this without making long vocab lists to read and drill until I memorized them?

That’s when I discovered audio flashcards…

Audio Flashcards – My New Superpower!

I’d considered creating audio flashcards at the beginning of my mission, but I hadn’t yet gotten around to it. It seemed like too much work!

But now that I could see that vocabulary was a sticking point in my progress, I was finally motivated to do it.

Here’s what I did:

A good flashcard app will let you record sound to go with your text flashcards. Anki is a great app for this purpose if you use Android or a personal computer for your flashcards. For iOS, Anki is a little pricey for some people, so Flashcards Deluxe is a good substitute.

There are some online guides for how to load mp3 files into your Anki decks. With this method, you can take clips of words and phrases spoken by a native speaker or an audio dictionary so you’ll be sure they’re pronounced correctly. I took the simpler route of using the app’s built-in record button to record my own voice speaking the English, Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese translations for each card (yes, you can make three-sided cards in both Anki and Flashcards Deluxe!). This proved to be the quickest and easiest way for me – I was up and using my first set of audio flashcards within half an hour.

To keep with my no-reading-or-writing goal, I didn’t want to have any Portuguese or English writing in my flashcard deck. I didn’t want to associate the audio with any visual reference in my mind.

I know from experience that long after I become fluent in a foreign language, I still find myself imagining words written down before I say them, and having to picture the words that native speakers say before they “click” for me in conversation. I didn’t want to have this obstacle in Portuguese. So instead of a standard three-sided flashcard, which might look, for example, like this:

Side 1: “Did you like it?”

Side 2: “Tu gostaste?”

Side 3: “Você gostou?”

My flashcards all looked exactly the same:

Side 1: “English”

Side 2: “European Portuguese”

Side 3: “Brazilian Portuguese”

To know what was on each card, I would have to press Play to hear the audio. I couldn’t “cheat” and see the written words. I had no choice but to rely on my ears only. This worked wonderfully for me.

In fact, there was only one drawback to the way I created my flashcards, though really it was more of an advantage. Before pressing record for each phrase I wanted to learn, I practised the line several times so I would say it right (I did read the written Portuguese for this part, to be sure I was saying it correctly). Well, after all that work of practising each line and recording it, I sat down to use my flashcards and found I had already memorized about two thirds of the deck! Oops, I guess? So the next day I made a new deck and recorded longer, harder phrases to learn.

No matter which type of flashcards you make – audio, written, or even image-based – when you’re studying, always say the target words and phrases out loud before flipping over the card to see/hear the answer.

Portuguese in 3 Months: My Two-Month Update Video

Finally, here’s the video that I made with my Portuguese teacher, Tatiana, at the end of month 2 (click CC to see the English subtitles):

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPzLAzAiNdo

Tatiana asked me the previous week to think of a movie to discuss during our chat. Naturally, I picked Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which is the best movie I’ve seen in the past year.

I found a European Portuguese podcast all about movies, called Arena dos filmes. They had one episode from early 2016 devoted entirely to the latest Star Wars movie. I listened to it three times in preparation for our chat.

I didn’t feel as good about this conversation as I did about my month 1 update video. I wanted the conversation to be completely spontaneous, so I didn’t prepare any specific material, or even study any vocabulary. I just listened to the podcast and tried to absorb Star Wars-related Portuguese that way. I did remember a couple key phrases, such as “o lado negro da força” (“the dark side of The Force” – no discussion of Star Wars is complete without this!), but not enough to easily describe the plot.

This is where I feel that my natural, somewhat unstructured approach to Portuguese faltered the most. Specialised vocabulary sometimes just has to be memorised, “brute force” style.

In hindsight, I should have created some audio flashcards containing the main ideas of the movie plot and studied those instead of listening to the podcast that third time.

On the plus side, the video does give a pretty good picture of how my Portuguese sounds when I’m truly on the spot. Tatiana mentioned afterwards that she would’ve liked to have helped me a bit more with plot points and vocab, but she had never seen any Star Wars films before (!) so it was up to me to explain the storyline. I’m hoping to find a Portuguese-dubbed version of The Empire Strikes Back so I can watch it and tell her about the best Star Wars movie of all .

One Month to Go in My Portuguese Mission!

Thanks for following along! Stay tuned for the final update of my Portuguese in 3 Months mission.

The post Portuguese in 3 Months Mission: 2 Month Update appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

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yamijay357 · 7 years

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Top 10 Movies of 2016

Another year has passed and another Top 10 movie list must follow. I found this year to be a tad weaker than 2015, with many of my picks for this list not coming to theaters until November or December. This year started to show, quality wise at least, the blockbuster fatigue that constant releases in expanded universes (superheroes, especially) can evoke. Fortunately, once I narrowed down my list along with a few honorable mentions, it became very difficult to put them in order, which is usually a sign of some great films. I believe that every movie listed here will be a great addition to one of your movie night queues. So, without further ado...

Honorable Mentions

Deadpool

Superhero movies have flooded our theaters to the point that we’ll soon be getting over half a dozen in a single year. This year they ranged from the painfully mediocre (Batman v. Superman, Doctor Strange) to just bad (Suicide Squad). Deadpool was a nice breath of fresh air as Ryan Reynolds brought the much loved Merc with a Mouth to the screen. Deadpool is funny, lampooning everything from the superhero genre as a whole to the questionable decisions made regarding both previous appearances of Deadpool and the career of Reynolds himself. If only all comic book movies could be this faithful to the spirit of the character.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Another year, another Star Wars movie. This installment was a landmark film for the franchise in that it was the first major release not to focus on the main narrative following the Skywalker family. Instead, we were given the story of how Princess Leia ended up with the Death Star plans she had at the beginning of A New Hope. We get a look at a different side of the universe not particularly focused on magic space wizards but instead on real people fighting the threat of the Empire. Felicity Jones leads a great cast in a solid movie that has one of the best third acts of the franchise. Alan Tudyk stands out as a reprogrammed Imperial droid that is loyal to the Rebellion but throws shade like no other. While not all characters were developed fully, in the end, Rogue One stands as the best blockbuster of 2016.

The Top Ten

10. Manchester by the Sea

Grief is often the hardest thing to sell on screen, so making such a deep theme the focus of your movie is a bit of a risk. However, Kenneth Lonergan deftly writes and directs a unique view of grief for a unique family dynamic. Casey Affleck plays Lee Chandler, a handyman who resides in Boston away from his home of Manchester following a family tragedy. The death of his brother brings him home where he discovers that he is now the guardian of his nephew Patrick, played by Lucas Hedges. The film follows both of the men as they deal with death and all of the complications that come from it. However, their story is both painful and funny, as the movie makes for several reactions that seem all too real to those of us that have lost someone close. While the ending leaves several elements uncertain, Affleck and Hedges give strong performances that give us one of the truest depictions of loss ever set to film.

9. Pete’s Dragon

I hate the original Pete’s Dragon. When I found out a remake was being made the chances of me seeing it were slim. However, when it received several good reviews, I fit it into a four-movie day at the theater, mostly because I was curious. I didn’t expect to walk away with such a satisfied feeling. All of the awkward elements of the original (Animation that stood out in a bad way, sub par musical numbers, and Mickey Rooney) are gone, leaving a wonderful modern fairy tale about an orphaned boy and his invisible dragon friend that hit in all of the right places. Bryce Dallas Howard leads a great cast including Karl Urban, Robert Redford, and promising newcomer Oakes Fegley as Pete. A great story, seamless effects, and an ending that will bring tears to your eyes allows this movie to soar above its predecessor and claim its place on this list.

8. Lion

This movie snuck into theaters near the end of the year and I saw it on New Year’s Eve. It was a pretty great way to end the year. Lion is the true story of Saroo Brierley, an five-year-old Indian boy who, while searching for work with his older brother, gets transported across India to a region that is entirely alien to him, including the language. After Saroo finds his way to an orphanage, he is adopted by a loving Australian couple. 25 years later, Saroo is obsessed with finding out what happened to the family he lost. This may be the most genuine, human film made this year, as the audience feels the panic and fear of a strange new place with young Saroo, and the hope and frustration plaguing his adult counterpart as he searches one of the most populated countries in the world for a single small village. Dev Patel gives his best performance yet as Saroo in a film that will take you on quite the feels trip when both you and Saroo reach the conclusion.

7. Jackie

We all know what happened November 22nd, 1963. But have you ever thought about what the person most affected by that day did in the week that followed? Natalie Portman plays Jackie Kennedy, who is interviewed the week after her husband President Kennedy was assassinated. The movie rests completely on her and she doesn’t disappoint. She completely becomes Kennedy as we see a world that is rocked by loss on both a personal and national level. Kennedy must face everything that comes in the aftermath from being moved out of the White House for the Johnson family to trying to explain to her children why their father won’t come home again. There are times that I forgot I was watching Natalie Portman as I fell into the world captured so perfectly by Pablo Larraín. This film speaks not only to the humanity of Jackie Kennedy, but also to her amazing contribution to the legacy JFK left behind.

6. Arrival

What would happen if we really were visited by alien lifeforms? A history of cheesy and often terrible movies (cough, Independence Day, cough) has built in the assumption that the aliens would be hostile and seek to destroy us. If aliens were to visit, I believe that Arrival shows us the most likely outcome compared to anything else. Amy Adams plays linguistics professor Louise Banks who is called in by the government to try to decipher the communications of alien visitors. Along with a brilliant physicist (Jeremy Renner), Banks must figure out the intentions of the visitors before other countries take hostile actions. This movie does an amazing job of displaying both our actual ignorance of other lifeforms and all of the possible directions we could take with it. In the midst of people not understanding each other, Arrival is a brilliantly made film that speaks to all people.

5. Moonlight

Similar in structure to Steve Jobs, Moonlight consists of three short films focusing on Chiron (aka Little), and his coming of age in a poor neighborhood that has no shortage of drug dealers. As a child, he finds a crack dealer named Juan (Mahershala Ali) who, along with his girlfriend, serve as loving parental figures in the place of his disinterested and drug-addicted mother. Juan helps Chiron trust people, which leads to him sharing an intimate moment with his high school friend Kevin. Circumstances lead to Kevin and Chiron separating but encountering each other as adults, leading to one of the most beautiful ending scenes of the year. Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes give stellar performances as each stage of Chiron’s life. Such a simple story gives way to profound emotions that will resonate with you well after the film is over.

4. Loving

Speaking of simple, there was probably no more simply put-together movie this year than Loving. And yet, it managed to be one of the most profound films of the year. Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga play Richard and Mildred Loving, a couple whose illegal interracial marriage led to the Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court case that ruled all marriage laws having to do with race unconstitutional. But that is not what the movie is really about. With limited dialogue and politics, Loving focuses almost solely on the relationship of the two main characters and the hardship they have to face from their home state. We learn about their dreams and the lengths they will go to in order to be together. The leads are absolutely fantastic and give you the entire weight of the story while spending only a few minutes of screen time in courtrooms. In a year where several films on this list took my heart, Loving is a true standout.

3. Zootopia

The reason that The Good Dinosaur didn’t succeed as much as everyone thought it would was because it failed to deliver on its premise of a world full of dinosaurs by showing us just a few dinosaurs. Zootopia doesn’t suffer from this problem, as the world of Judy Hopps (Gennifer Goodwin) and Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) is a rich world of animals with different personalities, troubles, and ambitions. This movie would have succeeded as a fun movie on that alone. But Zootopia goes a step further and delivers one of the most profound messages of almost any animated film ever made. It not only highlights the obvious prejudices different groups of people feel toward each other, but also how we may not even be aware of our own unwarranted feelings of distrust and how they can affect people close to us. This was the movie that 2016 needed and that we’ll need for years to come. Also, who wants a full Gazelle album? (Raises hand)

2. La La Land

Earlier this year, when introducing one of my friends to my favorite movie, Singin’ in the Rain, I made the comment that “they don’t make this kind of movie anymore, and it’s sad.” Well, turns out that Damien Chazelle felt the same way and gave us an amazing film that serves as both an homage to the musical genre that preceded it and as a beautiful piece of art that will inspire future artists for years. Emma Stone plays Mia, a girl trying to pursue her acting dreams in LA, along with thousands of other people. She frequently runs into Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), an unemployed jazz musician who dreams of owning his own club. The two chase their dreams together to the tune of the best soundtrack of the year and delightful dance numbers and city backdrops. La La Land succeeds in every technical aspect as Los Angeles is turned into a magical, musical dreamland. Stone and Gosling go beyond their usual charm and give us amazing characters with surprisingly good singing voices that would make Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers proud. And then the ending. Well, if the ending sequence doesn’t fill you with emotion, then you’re probably a robot.

1. Hell or High Water

The biggest surprise of the year for me turned out to be my favorite movie of 2016. Hell or High Water is David Mackenzie’s neo-Western masterpiece that is perhaps the best possible step to take after the Cohen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men. The film shows Chris Pine and Ben Foster playing brothers Toby and Tanner Howard. When their mother dies and Tanner gets out of jail, the bank handling the loan for their mother’s farm seeks to seize the property. In order to pay off the bank that overcharged their mother for years, the brothers begin to pull off small robberies of the local branches. While authorities don’t see it as a priority, the crimes attract the attention of two Texas Rangers (Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham) and a chase across Texas begins. Every performance is incredible in this movie. Chris Pine shows his dramatic chops while giving the best performance of his career (so far) and Jeff Bridges is outstanding beyond even what you would expect. The cinematography shows off the gritty yet beautiful western landscapes yet never loses the scope of how the region has been hit by the advancement of modern times. But the true winner here is the best screenplay of the year as every character is able to draw you into a story that begs questions of morality and loyalty. While La La Land may walk away with all of the awards, Hell or High Water is my pick for Best Film of 2016.

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