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awaterfalls · 8 days

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Tim Gutterson

"Miami to The Holler"

Summary: Lia Martines transferred shortly after Raylan Givens from Miami to the Lexington U.S. Marshall courthouse only to be met with disdain from Tim Gutterson. After an undercover stakeout to catch a drug transport went south, feelings come to a head.

A/N: OC Intro: Lia Martines, Tim GuttersonX!FemaleUSMarshall, She/Her Pronouns, Angst, Enemies to Lovers.

• Hey guys! This is my first time ever posting something I write here. I hope you guys like it!! I want to thank my amazing, incredible, espetacular friend, Nat @she-wolf09231982.. thank you for helping me with these! ❤️

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How can I begin to explain the situation I find myself in? Well, I'll from the beginning. Before becoming a U.S. Marshall, I always thought it would be easy. Just like in the movies. You shoot people and make arrests. But it's totally different. I was a U.S. Marshall for the Miami department when I met Raylan Givens. He already had a reputation, but even a bigger one after he had his showdown with the big drug king, Tommy Bucks, shooting him down for not leaving the city like he had asked him.

Our superiors arranged for Raylan to be transferred away from high profile Miami to Eastern Lexington, Kentucky. I soon followed in his footsteps looking for a quieter life in the country. I transferred to Harlan, Kentucky and it was terrifying. Being a newbie in a place you know is bad enough, imagine being in a place you don't know... It was a nightmare. It was bad in some parts, in fact, but one person made the environment worse. Tim Gutterson is my partner at work. Basically, we're assigned to do everything together. All the missions... everything. In addition to Tim, I also have Rachel and Raylan, but Tim was the most annoying.

Since I arrived here, he has always picked flights with me and done everything to show that he didn't like me. And because of this, every time we had a mission together, Art would lecture us saying he would destroy us if we messed up and how much it would ruin our careers. I never thought this day would come, but it did. Art had gone over the details of our next undercover stakeout.

" Martines and Gutterson, you are going to stay at the hotel where the supposed drug dealers are lying in wait. Lucky for you, they're not very smart and probably don't know that we're after them. But it's still important that you be cautious and avoid any kind of confusion, ok? You guys know how important this is to us, so don't screw it up."

That's what Art told us before we were sent to this hotel. Basically, Tim and I were to pretend to be a couple and staying at the hotel where the suspected drug dealers were, so that we can collect as much evidence as possible and arrest them. It's something quite easy. After all, it's just a few days away from Harlan, watching two people. Easy... That's what I thought.

Tim and I arrived at the hotel on a Monday and settled in as best we could. We arrived the day of the mission, so we had to be quick.

"Are you ready? We don't all day." Tim said looking at me irritated while letting out a bored sigh.

" Are you that excited to be my husband?" I said smiling and he rolled his eyes.

"The day I get excited about doing anything with you, you can be sure that I was abducted... I'll wait for you in the car." He said, leaving without giving me the chance to respond.

He's an idiot. I wonder what I did to make him hate me so much. I met him in the car and we were soon on our way to where we believed a drug deal was going down. The journey was long and tedious. He didn't say anything and neither did I... It was irritating me.

"So what were you doing before all this?" I asked breaking the silence.

I've always been curious about him. I always asked about the lives of everyone around me. And I've also always been an open book to everyone. When I met Tim that all changed. Because of our relationship we never spoke, but something about him always intrigued me. People talked about him and what he did before, but I wanted to hear it from him. He looked at me sideways but didn't respond. It seems like he was thinking about whether or not to respond. His face had an expression of doubt mixed with anger. I don't know how to explain what I felt when I saw him like that.

" What does this have to do with what we're doing now?" He snapped before continuing. " Why are you so interested in knowing? All this time you've been here, the only thing you've done is insult me and now you're interested in my past? And let's be honest, right? As if you didn't know, I'm sure Rachel or Raylan told you about me. Please, let's stop pretending we care about each other. I want to do the work and go home, be at peace and not hear your annoying voice." Ok, that one hurt.

It was always like this with him. Every time I tried to talk to him or try to clear the air, he always verbally attacked me. He didn't give me a chance to get close to him.

"Why did I always react like this, Tim?" You thought to yourself before spoke up. " Every time I try to get closer to you, you always push me away. There's always something bad to say. I never did anything to make you treat me this way. I don't know anything about your life. I have nothing against you. But for some reason you seem to hate me. I don't understand. Why do you treat me like this? What did I do wrong? People around us speak very highly of you, they say you're a great guy. But you prove me wrong every day. The question I asked wasn't intended to provoke you, but you're right, I did already know what you did or what you were before here, but I wanted to hear from you. Because I like you. I know that despite everything, you are a good man. But I'm tired of proving myself every day to someone who doesn't care about me. I'm sorry for bothering you so much and I promise I will never talk to you about non-work topics again." You finalized. It really was very tiring. I always tried really hard to get closer to him, but he never let me. It's tiring to fight over something you don't know for what or why.

We continued the journey in silence. Everyone in their own thoughts. At least the landscape was beautiful. This is a beautiful place, the nature around everything leaves me at peace. I was taken out of my thoughts by an abrupt bang. A car just hit us from behind, causing us to be projected forward sharply. We didn't have time to think, as the passengers in the other car started shooting at us. Tim and I did what we could to defend ourselves taking ducking inside our vehicle. There were so many of them firing that I didn't even know where they were coming from anymore. As we returned the fire, we managed to hit one of them, because we had heard a scream as their car came to a screeching halt. As we cautiously approached their car, they opened fire again. Tim pulled me back behind our car to take cover. The fire fight didn't last very long, as they left when they saw that we were outnumbered. We definitely got one of them right.

Tim looked at me with concern.

"Are you okay? Your forehead is bleeding." I hadn't noticed. The adrenaline was so much that I went blind. It was probably when we were thrown sharply at the time of the crash. I remember hitting my head somewhere, but I couldn't quite see where.

"Oh, I'm fine." You said touching your forehead where it hurt. " It's no big deal. We need to let Art know they found us. We can leave it like this. " I said taking my cell phone when Tim snatched it out of my hand.

" Are you crazy? You're hurt and the only thing you care about is this shitty mission? We're going to the hospital. The work can wait and I'm sure Art can too." He said pulling me into the car.

The ride to the hospital was quiet. Tim didn't say a word to me, but I could tell he was worried. Obviously, it wasn't about me, it was about the mission and probably what Art was going to tell us. I was too, because ruining everything wasn't in the plans, but life isn't always the way we want it to be. We arrived at the hospital and while I was waiting to be seen, Tim went to call the office and explain what happened. The nurse called me and immediately started cleaning my wound. I had forgotten how much it hurt. It wasn't anything serious, but I had to get two stitches on my forehead. Another scar for the collection. Yay!

When we left the hospital, Tim informed me that Art was already aware of what had happened and that he was going to send us back up the next morning and that we were to stay at the hotel and wait for them. We got back to the room and I went straight to take a shower. Tim seemed weird, more than usual. It was as if he was bothered by something beyond himself. I don't know how to explain. But I won't dare to ask, the last time I asked him something, I almost got shot. I got out of the shower and left the bathroom, Tim wasn't in the room. I could've waited for him or even called, but I couldn't stay awake for long so I went straight to bed. I needed to lie down and rest. My head was hurting so much and these thoughts never left me alone. What do you need to do to have a little peace? To die? Perhaps yes. But it wasn't my time yet. I fell asleep like a rock.

Around down, I woke up scared. I had a nightmare.

"Damn it! I hate these kinds of dreams. I don't have any peace even when I sleep. " I thought to myself. I turned to the side and found Tim sleeping.

"Okay... He's sleeping with me... In the same bed as me... Wtf? It's the end of the world." I thought. I couldn't help but notice how serene he was. His mouth forming a pout, it looked like a baby. The messy hair... He's beautiful. Asleep and awake. "Stop staring at me and go back to sleep." Tim mumbled at me. It scared the shit out of me. How does he know I was looking at him if he had his eyes closed?

" How do you know I'm staring at you?" he smiled. A beautiful smile, I must say. " I know everything you do, Lia. " It was the first time he called me by my name. And it sounded so beautiful in his voice.

" Okay... You're weird! And I wasn't looking at you, I was just checking to see if you were breathing, that's all. " I said, trying not to seem so obvious, even though I had the impression that he already realized how stupid I was looking at him. And once again he smiled. What possessed him to keep smiling like that?

"Lia, you don't fool me. I know everything you do. I know what you like and don't like. I know how much you love chewing gum because it helps you stay calm throughout the day. I know you like to tease Raylan that the coffee he buys is horrible, even though it's from the same place that Rachel and I buy it. I know you twitch your lip when something bothers you. I know you wear the same leather boots to work because they bring you luck. I know the place you love most in the world is your home and yes, that's cliché. " He paused to take a breath before continuing. "But that's okay, I'm not judging. I know you. I've noticed you since the day you set foot in that office. It felt like an angel entering hell. I couldn't take my eyes off you, but I had to contain myself because I didn't want you to notice. Damn Lia, I always paid attention to you. The moment I understood that I like you, that I was in love with you, I panicked. What would a woman like you want with a guy like me? I thought you weren't a woman for me, because I always thought you deserved better than this... But today... Lia, today I almost had a heart attack. I thought I was going to lose you... I couldn't bear the thought of losing you. This makes me see how much time I wasted leaving you out of my life. Lia, I want to apologize for treating you so badly all this time. I was in a state of denial and the only way I found to keep you away from me was to treat you the way I did. I thought you would realize how stupid I am and leave me alone, but you always came back and I somehow, always came back to you. My thoughts most of the time, are you. Damn, I really hope you can forgive me. I really do." He explained.

Okay... He threw all this at me and I don't know what to say. I'm confused. This entire time I thought he hated me... But he actually likes me? My gosh! This is a lot for me.

"Tim, I don't know what to say... I'm confused. I mean, you like me? I really don't know what to say. And of course I forgive you. And I care about you too. I like you. I'm just puzzled because I always thought you hated me. Never in my life would I think of you telling me those things." I said as he looked at me relieved.

We stared at each other for a few seconds until he pulled me towards him and hugged me. It was a sincere and totally affectionate hug. It felt like home. I felt comfortable in his touch. He smells so good... Like heaven. A smell I could easily get used to. We held each other all night and I never felt so good. Tim wouldn't let me go, not even to go to the bathroom. He said he didn't want to waste any time with me ever again. And to be honest, neither do I. I can't wait to tell Rachel this.

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Guys!!!! It's a very long one shot... I really hope you guys like it! Also, English is not my first language so please be nice, ok? Thank you!! ❤️

#tim gutterson x reader #tim gutterson #justified #jacob pitts #raylan givens

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destinygoldenstar · 1 year

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Which Love Triangle Is Worse? (Ninjago Vs Total Drama)

Hey, this is called a sponsor, right? For advertising something? Why don’t we try it? For a book?

Destiny’s Burden. An original story by yours truly.

The world of Destiny takes place a century into the future, where Earth and all its morally questionable implications were wiped out for the sake of a utopia.

The beloved savior, Mary Sue, rescued everyone from extinction by creating a world system that would change all of humanity.

Destiny, from all the Chosen One stories you’ve heard, is the dominant force of society. Those who’ve praised Mary Sue have been granted a loving world of kingdoms with the clearest right and wrong, and lives of great fortune. Those who’ve rejected her ideals were cursed to become the Dark Lords, the villains and the black of the stories that would come.

When certain children come of age, they are granted a destiny of their own, abilities of a Chosen One, and given clear stories for them to follow and train for. Stories that would bring peace to their wonderful world, against the Dark Lords who dare to try and change it.

A generation of Chosen Ones begins with Charlie Sue, the descendent of Mary Sue herself, being assigned the task of becoming the savior of the entire land after a group of Dark Lords steal power.

With the help of a few Chosen One friends, Charlie must train for the day he claims his place as Destiny’s savior.

And if Destiny really is that pleasing of a utopia.

An original fantasy action story by yours truly. Questions are free to be asked in messaging me, and followers of my blog will, in time, get a chance to beta read parts of the story and give much needed feedback to make this a great passion project. More info coming soon.

Now, onto the post.

You know, this was easier to decide than I thought.

I know, it didn’t sound like it would at first.

Okay, lets think of a better intro...

Both of these cartoons means quite a bit to me.

I already talk about Total Drama on my blog quite a bit, to the point where I think some of my followers think I’m a TD blog. I’m not. There’s other stuff I talk about. In fact, there’s even more I could talk about with TD, and opinions I have yet to share.

However, it is an absolute CRIME in my head that I have not talked about Ninjago as much as I do with TD. I mean, I made a Skybound review awhile back, which holds up on my opinions, but that’s about it.

Why do I say this? Well because, I have the LAMEST childhood over. I did not grow up with Total Drama. I watched it when covid hit and I had nothing better to do. I didn’t even watch Avatar The Last Airbender until last year, which is NUTS.

I was more so into MLP as a kid, but I stopped watching it around Season 6, not through any puberty hit, but because my parents HATE me watching MLP. (For reasons I don’t get.) And I was also bullied heavily for liking MLP, so...

I also was obsessed with Minecraft Story Mode. (And I did make a few posts about it. They’re old, though.) It’s sad to me what happened to that series...

I also binge read the Sailor Moon manga, and I have all the books still. I watched the 90s show too, but... I honestly did not like it.

I would say, ‘what a surprise, the book is better’, but you’d be shocked to hear the Sailor Moon fandom say that the 90s anime is superior. For me... no.

Then I had one brief RWBY phase. And I mean BRIEF. In actuality, I don’t hardcore hate the show, but the one aspect of the show that prevents me from getting into it is it’s awful protagonists. I dunno, maybe I’ll make a post about that topic, because it’s astounding to me how bad their protagonists are.

And if you know me, I more so tend to have more to talk about when it comes to the flawed shows rather than shows with perfect writing. I said it over and over again, YES, I’ve watched ATLA, and Arcane. Those shows are amazing. Do you want me to praise those shows like the 7 billion other people on planet earth have?

Okay, I’m getting off track.

But there’s one show in my childhood that I distinctly remember being a part of my childhood more than any of these: That’s Ninjago.

I remember when I was around eight years old, and my sibling and I would tune in every week to watch an episode on Netflix. And I don’t even like the shows my sibling watch. But we both bonded with this show specifically. I think it has to do with this being the first show I’ve watched that wasn’t just one episode adventures. This was a show with substance, with story arcs that branch for multiple episodes, with characters to follow. Something I was not familiar with at the time.

Also Zane. Best boy. No I’m not taking criticism.

Before I even made my Tumblr account, I would write private essays talking about Ninjago. They’re terrible.

I have huge memories of this show. I WANTED to talk about this show for awhile, but couldn’t figure out what to talk about.

And then in my creative writing class, we were talking about tropes we hated.

My teacher said ‘the love triangle’. (I didn’t have that on my list, surprisingly)

It seemed like everyone, besides myself, hated the love triangle trope. And it seems very valid.

Like, just pick one love interest, darn it!

So that got me to make this post. Why a contest between these two shows?

Well they both have a love triangle that the majority of the fandom hates, they’re both known for destroying a relationship people liked, and they both take place in their Season Three.

And also, everyone hates these plotlines, so I wanted to ask myself, are they really that bad? More importantly, which is worse?

That’s what we’re here for.

Keep in mind, this is my POV on these plotlines. There’s obviously gonna be disagreement and I would love to hear your opinions when reblogging.

Also SPOILER WARNING FROM HERE ON OUT. IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED EITHER OF THESE SHOWS AND DON’T WANT TO BE SPOILED, DON’T CLICK ‘KEEP READING’. Watch the shows, and then come back.

But there’s one key factor that I think makes people lean to one argument:

Bias

My first claim is that it has to do with nostalgia of the show that springs our reactions.

When I watched the Ninjago love triangle as a kid, I was confused, cringing, and angry.

When I watched the Total Drama love triangle when I’m older, I was just like ‘okay, so we’re doing this.’

So obviously, there’s a great line of bias. As a kid, your brain hasn’t fully developed, so when bringing up a concept that isn’t black and white, and emotionally damaging, you’re gonna get heavy results.

It was the same for when Zane died in Season Three. I was a kid. I was TICKED.

Looking back now, that was an expertly built up scene and one of the best payoffs to a character arc in the show.

‘Animation is for babies’

And yet you have this:

“Are you working for Silco?”

“Fuck you”

-Arcane. (And that’s the LEAST adult thing in the show)

It’s the same thing with shipping.

Kids media are given the simplistic idea that romance is absolute. That you have one person destined for you and it will all work out.

A love triangle is... complicated, for kids heads.

So when another guy a character is in love with enters the picture, kids are gonna be confused and relatively act negative towards it. Despite the fact that love triangles... do actually exist in the real world?

Anyone remember Hamilton? Of course you do.

This is why we tend to hate Love Tringles in my eyes.

But I want to be as objective as possible with this, and discuss each storyline and their problems. So lets coin toss and decide which show we start with.

*Flips coin*

*Gets Heads*

Ninjago, it’s your lucky day.

I guess it’s fitting since I watched this show first.

Ninjago (Jay, Cole, and Nya Love Triangle)

Ninjago is a show produced by LEGO, which tells the story about a group of ninjas being assigned to face against the evils of the titular world. It’s also LEGOs biggest TV show to date.

This is more of an action superhero show than anything, and I think that’s gonna be the biggest difference here. Both shows I’m talking about have different priorities.

But I’m just focusing on the love triangle.

This plotline springs in its third season, Rebooted. It’s an eight episode long season, and the plotline gets introduced in the premiere briefly, and stays relevant all season between the three characters involved. It gets carried over to season four in that third episode, and it’s mentioned briefly in the premiere of season six. Then it ends.

People tend to hate this love triangle for a certain reason:

Why?

WHY was this love triangle needed?

I tried researching what was going on behind the scenes when the decision was made, but I could not find anything. I may be bad at research though.

My best guess is this:

Ninjago was originally supposed to end after Season Two: Legacy Of The Green Ninja. However, from the success of the show and insane toy sales, they made the decision to continue the story and make a third season. The task of continuing a story you designed to end is... daunting. For any writer.

So my biggest assumption on why they decided to do a love triangle was because they were still struggling to figure out what to do with the story of Ninjago from where they intended to end it.

I don’t hate Rebooted. Rebooted has its moments. But the season also carries a lot of lows, and this is one of them. It’s why I think most of the fandom sees this as a mid tier season overall, and pretty mixed.

So lets give context to the love before the season:

Right from the pilot episodes, one of the missions of the newly formed ninja team was to rescue the fire ninja Kai’s sister, Nya.

And the lightning ninja, Jay, says this:

“We’re saving a girl? Is she hot?”

Right off the bat, and before they even met, the writers implied that Jay was gonna have a thing for Nya, the most major girl character in the entire show.

Jay and Nya properly meet in the second pilot episode after Kai rescues her, and they exchange their favorite colors. It so happens to be blue. Flirting.

Right off the bat, there is no hate each other until they love each other bull, there is no will they or will they won’t, from the moment they met, these two have had a thing for each other.

In fact, we don’t even really do a ‘will they or will they won’t’ with them, because the flirting carries over in the proper first season of the show.

So much so that their big milestone in their relationship is in Episode 8.

Yeah. That’s quick. It’s almost impressive.

Basically, that episode has Jay trying to impress Nya, Kai tricking him into giving his sister an allergy (like the great brother he is), and despite this, Nya accepting his proposal to go on a date. Unfortunately, Jay gets his finger pricked on a snake fang, and it’s worse sounding than it sounds when you know the context of the show. Wacky hijinks ensue when their secrets of their identities clash, with Jay being a nobody from a junkyard, and Nya being a Samurai ally to the ninja and wanting to keep that a secret because of some sexist bull.

But by the end of the episode, they make up, confess their feelings, and become an official couple.

From there, there’s minimal drama between their relationship for the rest of Season One, and all of Season Two. It’s just been them flirting and praising each other, and being supportive.

There was also an episode where an evil clone of Jay kisses Nya, and tells the real Jay about it, which makes Jay so mad that he essentially MURDERS him.

Compared to Total Drama, and due to different show circumstances, this is actually a very tame thing to do.

So, Jay and Nya as a couple, pre-Rebooted, has had next to NO issues.

Now you might be wondering, if that’s the case, WHY IN THE NAME OF HECK did they decide to throw Cole into this? Where did he fit in all of this?

Well, I just rewatched all of Season One and Two for this post, and in terms of Cole and Nya interactions... there was nothing.

I’m not kidding. These two have not had ONE interaction with each other pre-Rebooted. The most is when Nya is talking to all the ninja, not Cole specifically.

So why would Nya suddenly have a thing for a guy she never talks to, when she has a good relationship with Jay?

And whatever you Total Drama people who haven’t watched Ninjago are thinking, it’s even dumber than that.

So in the premiere of Rebooted, they go to this sci-fi tour at the new Ninjago central tower... thing. The ninja are left doing plot stuff with Cyrus, and Nya is left to take care of kids and be a chaperon to a field trip. Little girls find this ‘perfect match’ machine, which is SUCH a real thing in the real world (sarcasm), and they make Nya try the machine.

And her perfect match is said to be Cole.

THAT is how Nya gets feelings for Cole.

Told you it was dumber than you think.

She did not gain feelings for Cole through any interaction with him, or other people pressuring the concept, or even her current boyfriend being any wrong to her.

No.

It’s a freaking. MACHINE.

So right at the next time Nya is focused on, she is flirting with Cole. She mistakes him referring to the students with their kids, she gives him the looks, and she’s also holding hands with him.

Yeah. Nya is essentially CHEATING ON HER BOYFRIEND.

And again, she’s only doing this because a MACHINE SAID SO.

It’s not like she’s even trying to hide it, as Jay catches them.

This makes Nya look horrendously unlikeable in the season, as you’d expect.

Why is this so OOC for her? Because there was ZERO prompting for this to happen. None.

At most, you could say that Jay’s ego made her feel lesser of relevance, but to Ninjago’s credit, they do address that... IN SEASON SIX.

So that’s not an excuse here. We’re talking about BEFORE Skybound.

Until Skybound, and I guess Tournament of Elements, Nya hasn’t had an issue with Jay’s ego. Again, in the episode where they hook up, she tells him that he doesn’t need to impress her. And they both agreed on such.

In the third episode of Rebooted, it’s revealed that PIXAL is the AI of the machine that did all of this. Not only does she not apologize or tell Nya that she should let her heart decide, but she encourages the cheating and to dump Jay.

To be fair, I don’t really hold PIXAL accountable for the love triangle. At this point in the story, she’s just a robot doing her job, and knows little about showing humanity. And she just woke up from a near death experience, so yeah, I think it’s safe to say that she was numb when she told Nya this. PIXAL is really not trying to harm anybody, or say anything personal, she’s just saying what the program of the machine told her to say.

However, Jay hears PIXAL claim that Cole is Nya’s perfect match, explaining that Nya was indeed cheating on her, and it absolutely ENRAGES Jay.

So much so that when an unexpected Cole walks into the room, Jay physically tries to beat him up.

They were friends before, and had some playful teasing in the first two seasons, but now it’s gone.

This is, deemed by many fans, one of the WORST scenes of the entire show.

I don’t blame them. I hate this scene too.

Even if you take the so called build up out, the scene is accompanied by awful dialogue and puns, so... there is NO ironically enjoying this either.

So from then on, Cole and Jay hate each other and spend the rest of the season fighting over Nya. To be fair, past this episode, it just turns into spiteful comments, and doesn’t escalate to any physical fighting until Season Four.

And it’s not like they’re trying to kill each other. Quite the opposite in fact. (Jay does oblige in saving Cole from getting lost in space, no hesitation)

So yeah, this season, because of the love triangle, assassinated all three characters involved. And mind you, I LOVE Ninjago’s protagonists. I LOVE these characters. So when I say they’re OOC here, I mean it.

I already talked about Nya and how this was out of character for her. Because the sexist BS is the biggest pet peeve I have with Nya. Otherwise, she’s very compassionate, assertive, and a girlboss with a very strong character arc throughout the entire show.

Jay does have a right to be angry. After all, he was cheated on. But I think he’s mad at the wrong person. He never blames Nya for this at all, and only pins it on Cole as a heartless monster. That’s odd to me, because Nya cheated, and he SAW THAT. I thought he would yell at her at least once, but no, instead he demands she picks him like an egotist. That’s what someone possessive would do, and Jay has NEVER done this before.

Besides, if you think about it, he’s only mad because PIXAL, an AI, said he was no good for Nya. In that case, he should be mad at PIXAL too. Sure, I said that PIXAL couldn’t help it, but if I were Jay, yelling at her would be warranted.

But nope. It’s all Cole’s fault, even though Cole was kind of a victim of circumstances.

Speaking of, why is Cole even into Nya?

Like I said, they haven’t talked before this. Cole has shown no signs of liking Nya, in fact, he seemed to support Jay and Nya as a couple. This is especially strange because Cole is the kind of character who knows exactly what he wants. If he was into Nya, he would’ve said so right away, especially before Jay even got with her.

The worst part is, the rest of the season only consists of Nya trying to decide who she likes, and the other two trying to fight for her affection. I don’t think they even mention the cheating after this. And again, it goes absolutely nowhere until Season Four, Episode Three.

In that episode, Jay and Cole are forced to fight each other by Clouse rigging the titular tournament. They’re actually not okay with this until Neuro, a guy who can read minds, escalates their rage. Then they’re okay with beating each other up with a ton of rage and grief towards each other.

Before the match, Lloyd tells them to remember who the real enemy is. He is referring to Chen. This is the driving force to the rest of the fight.

In a fight scene that is actually visually pleasing, ngl, Cole and Jay go all out until a random point in the middle where Cole decides, ‘hey, you’re not my enemy, and I never even liked Nya, so yeah, I’ll just sacrifice myself so you can stay in the game, symbolizing how you won this love triangle.’

And they make up.

Despite the little effort and prompting beforehand. Like I said, they only did this because Lloyd said so. So why are they making up now if they hate each other so much?

And then any love life plotline with Cole completely drops, and Cole is left with no love interest until Master of the Mountain. Cole and Nya have some scenes together after this, but it’s clear that they’re just friends and it never goes anywhere. And in Skybound, the love triangle is just treated as the plot device that broke up Jay and Nya, as they get back together.

So did the love triangle really amount to anything besides that?

No.

You can wipe out this plotline entirely, and not much changes. The villains don’t take advantage of that specifically, and they forget about it afterwards, with no build up beforehand.

Yeah you could argue Chen and Clouse took advantage of it, but they were after the ninja because they were spoiled the behind the scenes drama of their little game. They were threats, and an alliance, which their games try to discourage. So they would’ve set Cole and Jay up against each other anyway.

I fully understand why people hate this plotline, as it’s used for unnecessary drama. Unlike Total Drama, which uses titular DRAMA as a part of the plot’s torture, Ninjago has no reason for their drama to be unnecessary. This is not a torturous scenario Ninjago is living in, this is an action show!

I guess I can appreciate that Jay and Nya were able to recover from this and get back together. They even get married. My heart sings.

And at least in Ninjago, this plotline drama doesn’t seem to escalate, and people are able to forget about it.

Total Drama is a completely different story.

So lets talk about that.

Total Drama (Courtney, Gwen, and Duncan Love Triangle)

I talked about Total Drama quite a bit on my blog already, so I’ll be brief.

Total Drama is about a group of teenagers being scammed onto a game show to try and become celebrities. Torture ensues.

It’s far more treated like a reality show in cartoon form, I guess that’s the best way I can explain it.

Despite the fact that the love triangle here is HIGHLY loathed, even more so than Ninjago, and that I did headcanon posts of all three characters, I’ve avoided talking about the love triangle before this.

That fandom is THAT violent when it comes to this topic.

You will NEVER get the same POV about it.

So what I’m gonna say is guaranteed to tick off at least half of the people who read this.

PLEASE, just hear me out.

I don’t really ship either.

I haven’t been a hardcore Jaya fan either, but it’s the same mindset I gave to Duncney and Gwuncan. In the latter two’s case, it’s because they’re trapped under such awful circumstances, that being the show’s setting used to stress them out, screw up their heads, and torture them. And also the executives who forced this on the writers.

In the context of Total Drama’s writing staff, they didn’t want to do this either. They were forced to by the executives, who wanted to teach kids that breakups happen and you could end up with someone else.

That sounds like it has good intentions...

Until you find that the actual moral they delivered with the first breakup was that ‘If you break up with someone, the entire world will hate you. And you deserve it.’

I don’t think I need to tell you that’s a bad message.

To be fair, I’ve never been against either ship involved, so I don’t hate either.

But the canon circumstances?

OOF.

Let’s get this started:

So the first season of Total Drama is kind of a different story than with Ninjago.

Unlike Ninjago, which just had Jay and Nya as a couple and Cole was someone I assumed was ace (welcome to the club), all three people involved in the later love triangle had an established love interest and relationship.

Gwen, the third wheel and the Cole in this case, had a relationship with Trent, your typical guitar playing love interest and as generic of a love interest as you can get. But they get in a few shenanigans with Gwen being a stubborn loner, and Heather being Heather and doing one of my most hated story tropes, so they don’t get together until the end of the season.

And then in season two, Trent gets his character assassinated and becomes possessive over Gwen, OVERLY so, and it causes Gwen to break up with him because as I said in previous posts, Gwen doesn’t know how to deal with relationships.

And then the entire world treats Trent like a victim, that Gwen was the abusive one, and everyone hates Gwen.

And this is just the START of the Gwen social punching bag.

Then in season one, there was another relationship relevant to this topic: Duncan and Courtney.

They’re presented as your typical bad boy/good girl dynamic.

And they actually had fun chemistry. Ngl.

Duncan flirts with her, and Courtney tries to deny her feelings for him and masks it through lectures, claiming she hates his rude and rebellious behavior. Despite this, they keep having sexual tension, and they have a kiss in Episode 12.

You could say Ninjago has an advantage then, but keep in mind that Ninjago has 13 episodes in its season one, and Total Drama has 26 episodes. So I’d say they’re both impressive.

I would say that on an enjoyment standpoint, Duncan and Courtney, and Jay and Nya are very fun couples with fun chemistry. That’s why people liked them.

Jay and Nya however, barely had any drama going on in their relationship before Season Three.

Duncan and Courtney are a different story.

Like I said before, Courtney tried to deny her feelings for Duncan and masked it through lecturing her own love. It’s not until she finds out about Duncan’s more positive traits that she realizes she wants to be around him. Or rather, she can FIX him.

Yeah. Courtney is a fixer upper.

This is a trope in romance, and not a very good one if you ask me. Usually, I use the fixer upper to claim why a relationship would NOT work.

SHUT UP FROZEN.

And I don’t want to take this all out on Courtney and say she’s the problem. Duncan is a jerk as well. He’s a bully, he cares more about his image than being himself, and he also does stuff we’ll talk about in a minute. But in terms of the couple aspect, Courtney is the one raising the red flags in the beginning.

Now, I do think Courtney cares about Duncan and thinks she’s helping, but that is not the point. You can love your partner, and still abuse them.

Instead of these two working through their differences, Courtney just hands Duncan a list of things she wants to change about him, and is VERY strict about him following that. Prior to this, Duncan has annoyed her by trying to flirt with her, and she responds through lethal hits to the nuts, or physical punches, or mentally guilt tripping him. Prior to even that, she DITCHED him in his hour of her need for a million bucks.

Yeah, Total Drama LOVES romanticizing abusive relationships. That is a PROBLEM.

So Duncan, in his stress of the relationship, decides he doesn’t want anything to do with her anymore, and he votes her off the show, breaking them up.

And then he wins a million dollars, and they get back together.

“Now you’re saying that I’m a gold digger, but check my gleam up, hey go figure.” -Six

And then in Celebrity Manhunt, they publicly humiliate each other yet again, sue each other, and break up. So what was the point of them getting back together?

I heard people claim that in this same special, they have a kiss on the bus while bickering, so that means they’re back together.

If you want to see it that way?

Courtney did.

But let me ask you this: Where in this episode was that confirmed? Where did they agree to get back together?

Exactly.

Duncan never made it clear to Courtney that they weren’t back together in his mind. They had what you called a fling. Duncan does this. He is a horndog.

This is Duncan emotionally using Courtney for his own image. See, I told you Duncan wasn’t innocent in this.

Then there’s Gwen.

Unlike Cole and Nya, Duncan and Gwen actually DID have interactions pre-season three.

In season one, their dynamic started around the slasher episode, as they bonded over their shared enthusiasm for blood and gore in movies. They orchestrate the survival plan for the challenge, and betray each other, but I don’t think either of them took it that personally. They also helped each other/bickered in the castaway episode.

Their friendship properly starts in season two, where they have friendly interactions and help each other out in challenges. Gwen even picks Duncan first to be her teammate.

It gets to a point where Trent, Gwen’s girlfriend at the time, gets jealous and thinks Gwen is hitting on Duncan. Gwen denies it and claims they’re friends, but no one believes her. In fact, when Gwen is sent to the Aftermath show and broken up with Trent, everyone accuses Gwen of dumping Trent for Duncan. Another reason why the show wants you to hate Gwen and absolutely no one else.

That is frustrating.

In the Celebrity Manhunt special, it’s revealed that Gwen DOES indeed have a crush on Duncan and just doesn’t want it to surface because he’s with Courtney. When she hears they broke up, she becomes interested again.

This is a year after season two, so we don’t know what happened that made Gwen change her mind.

Did Gwen and Duncan bond off screen?

That’s an even bigger possibility in this show than in Ninjago given the circumstances, but they never establish that they did.

Duncan quits Season Three at the start, but the producers track him down anyway. Before he returns, Courtney talks about how she misses him, and wants him back.

GWEN IS IN THESE SCENES BTW.

There’s also this exchange between Alejandro and Courtney in episode two that I noticed upon rewatch that I find interesting:

“Such witty remarks from such fiercely intelligent women. I’m both humbled and intrigued.”

“Nice try. But I’m with Duncan.”

“And what pity it is that you should give yourself to a quitter, who doesn’t deserve you.”

“That’s not-Duncan is-totally-you’re just- will someone hurry this camel up?!”

Obviously, Alejandro is playing her. He is the season’s bad guy after all. He’s taking advantage of the relationship strain.

But consider how Courtney stutters when trying to defend Duncan? She’s trying to dodge any notion that Duncan would leave her. She thinks she’s doing the right thing, and can’t fathom the idea that she’s done something wrong. She doesn’t WANT to believe they’re broken up.

I’m shocked no one brings up this scene, actually.

During this, Gwen and Courtney, being on the same team, become friends from their shared hatred of Heather. Really, I think they just became friends because they’re the only non-simps, non-insane, non-horrible people on their team.

Friendships come from very unlikely places sometimes.

They didn’t really have any interactions before this. Cole and Jay had two whole seasons being on a team.

And then we get THE SCENE.

Duncan comes back, and immediately, Courtney lectures him for leaving her, then embraces him. He says that every time he ran from the cops, he thought of HER.

He’s staring at GWEN.

GWEN REALIZES THIS.

It brings her in a spiral of question late at night, and she’s clearly not thinking clearly. Are Duncan and Courtney a thing? Are they not? Does Courtney deserve him? Is Courtney a bad influence? Does Duncan like Gwen? Is Duncan interested in her?

Duncan shuts out any questions by coming into the bathroom to kiss her.

Thus, he cheats on Courtney with Gwen.

This can be interpreted in a lot of ways, but I think there’s two we can bring up.

One is the nature of Duncan’s character.

He is a horndog who cares about his image. He wants to be seen as a bad boy and not his true self. He wants is bad boy persona to be his true self. He wants validation from the people around him, so anyone who finds interest in that persona, he will bang.

He’s not sweet good intended Nya. He’s quite the opposite.

But I don’t think it’s clear what his intention was. Was he trying to escape his situation with someone he trusts? Was he trying to spite Courtney? (I mean, All Stars implies that) Was he trying to start over with a new girl? Is he using Gwen? Does he actually love Gwen?

None of these questions get answered. We are given NO clear idea why Duncan did this. That’s why there’s such a division in perspective.

They could’ve at least had a confessional where Duncan explained his intent, whatever it was, but nope.

The other factor is the influence of the show.

This is the machine from Ninjago.

This is the PIXAL, if PIXAL was a sociopath.

The show fans assumed there was something going on with Duncan and Gwen, and they pressure them into trying to admit that being the truth. EVERYONE, throughout the year, pressure this. Geoff, Heather, fans, Chris, even Courtney herself.

I talked about this in other posts, so I’ll be brief. The show screws up the morality of SEVERAL characters, to the point where they will do nasty stuff you wouldn't see them do in season one, where they were pure.

It’s very easy to assume that Gwen would only have feelings for Duncan because the show is pulling her strings.

But they don’t establish that either. That’s just my interpretation of it to try and make sense of this writing.

So take all of this with a grain of salt.

Gwen regrets the kiss afterwards, somewhat, well, only because afterwards Courtney goes on and on about how Duncan’s her boyfriend. I think Courtney’s just rubbing this in because she knew Gwen was crushing, and wanted to keep her away from him.

I guess you could say Courtney is Total Drama’s Tsundre.

That makes a lot more sense in a minute.

Gwen and Duncan discuss the matter of Gwen kissing Courtney’s boyfriend in a song. Duncan sings he has no regrets, and Gwen reminds him of Courtney. They both agree that they should stop with the secrets and come clean. They know what will happen, so it’s better to just tell the truth.

Then Duncan gets mauled by a bear, so they have to wait until after the challenge.

But then Alejandro figured it out and outs it to Courtney, ruining it.

Courtney IMMEDIATELY becomes bloodthirsty on Gwen, and next to EVERYONE joins Courtney in berating Gwen. (Except Cody)

This scene, alongside the Jay and Cole scuffle, hurts to watch.

But I will confess, I prefer to watch the Total Drama fallout scene, because I think the voice acting in the scene is better. You can feel Courtney’s heartbreak as she screams at her nonstop, and the sinister craziness awakening in her. And Gwen CRYING?! REGRETTING what she did?!

Come on, there’s at least SOME value here besides Cody getting a dub.

Even if it is little value besides Cody getting a dub.

From here on out, EVERYONE on the plane (Again, except Cody) HATE Gwen’s guts. They will not let her forget what she did. They will never give her a single iota of grey area besides ‘You suck Gwen, we hate you, the entire world hates you, and you deserve to be hated. Go jump off a plane and die so we can have a party about it.’

Gwen and Duncan even try to apologize, but no one takes it.

This is like Cole and Jay, only it’s not just Jay berating Cole, it’s EVERYONE.

I think I would’ve stopped watching Ninjago for years if that was the case, because that would’ve been PAINFUL to watch.

Courtney is the key factor of this hate club, and rallies everyone up to hate on Gwen and Duncan and try to remove them. Sierra, Heather, Tyler, Alejandro, who the last one WANTED to happen as he’s now in control of her.

And unlike Jay, Courtney actually DOES berate the cheater for what they did. Deserved.

But then again, at least Jay doesn’t sing a song about trying to kill the other point of the triangle.

50/50.

To Courtney, this is all a serious betrayal. Gwen and Duncan were the only people Courtney allowed herself to open up to, and then they betray her. She has a right to be mad, but not a right to her actions driven by the madness.

For Gwen, Duncan is now the only person she can feel safe with. People tend to cling to the kindness in their life that’s the closest to them. This is why Gwen chooses to stay with Duncan and ignore all the hate she’s getting. She needs love in this moment.

And then Duncan tries to play Alejandro by pretending to still be into Courtney. It’s an act, but still.

We never see on screen if Duncan explained himself and apologized to Gwen.

Ninjago had a whole season and three episodes worth of love triangle drama.

Total Drama only has three episodes.

And then it abruptly ends unconcluded.

Courtney wanted to get revenge on Gwen by dumping her off the plane and making Duncan jealous of her.

Technically, she WON.

She gets Gwen out, and she, not intentionally, uses Scott to make Duncan jealous, which causes Gwen to leave him.

Sorry, getting ahead of myself.

Now lets address All Stars.

You could argue this focuses on the love triangle as well, and... kinda? But, All Stars seems to bail on EVERY plotline World Tour had. I have NO IDEA why this is, as unlike Rebooted, World Tour is a FAN FAVORITE SEASON. But they bailed on everything.

And it’s clear that the writers had no objective with giving the love triangle an ending.

The season is more so focused on Courtney finding a new boyfriend in Scott, that she plans to use, Duncan being thrusted into a heroes position and wanting to be a bad guy again, and Gwen, once again, being hated by everybody around her.

Duncan and Gwen have NO romantic scenes together, and Gwen constantly shuts him out in favor of trying to make things right with Courtney. The girl she BETRAYED.

She also claims that Duncan was not Courtney’s boyfriend at the time, thus she didn’t do anything wrong...

I’m ASSUMING Duncan told Gwen that story to get her on his side. THAT would make sense of this phrase. BUT the writers never establish that.

And again, Duncan only gets jealous because Gwen’s ignoring him when he’s trying to help, and Courtney’s finding a new slave to give her the win. My assumption is that he’s trying to strike up a conversation with Gwen, considering Gwen wanted to make things right with Courtney, but again, no establishment that this is Duncan’s motive.

So Gwen gets fed up with that, and dumps Duncan, shutting him out of her life.

This scene is SO QUICK, that it feels like an afterthought. There’s no blowout, there’s no prompting, there’s no remorse for the action later besides one Duncan confessional, it’s just ‘okay, they’re broken up now, Gwuncan haters can chill the F out.’

Is that the motive? What about the people who liked Gwuncan as a concept and wanted to see more of them?

Here’s a writing tip: If your fans don’t like an aspect of your story, DON’T bail out of it. WORK on it. MAKE IT BETTER.

In my series that I’m doing, Destiny’s Burden, a lot of my beta readers didn’t like one of my characters at first. They considered her insufferable, annoying, selfish, and stereotypical. But instead of writing that character out of the plot, I took the time to give that character development, and have them develop less of a spoiled personality. Now that character is a fan favorite among my beta readers.

THIS IS WHERE YOU DO THAT, BUT WITH THE LOVE TRIANGLE.

THIS IS WHERE YOU WRITE IT BETTER.

And then there’s the last part of this. Gwen and Courtney making up.

Unlike Tournament of Elements, which threw in the forgiveness at the last minute, Gwen actually puts in the effort beforehand to be friends with Courtney again. She tries REALLY hard actually.

Gosh, I CANNOT believe I’m saying ALL STARS did something better than THE TOURNMENT OF ELEMENTS. WHAT AM I ON?!

And, looking at the Cole and Jay tournament fight, and the Gwen and Courtney boxing match... this is the same scene.

This is literally the same scene, minus the sacrifice Ninjago had.

They duke it out, they beat each other, and they apologize in the middle, explaining that they never missed the girl/guy, they just missed each other, and they make up and become friends again.

I prefer the Ninjago scene though, because it’s way more visually pleasing, and the dialogue seems more sincere to me. Courtney and Gwen’s ‘apology’ is so corny I can’t-

So what is the ending of Total Drama’s love triangle? Courtney and Gwen become best friends in la la land, they trash over Duncan, and cheer when he’s thrown in jail.

And then Courtney betrays Gwen, making all the love and support Gwen got back meaningless. But hey, that’s not relevant to this topic.

Most people in the fandom claim that this was character assassination on all three characters. Just like I said with Ninjago.

Here’s the thing: Total Drama has more episodes around this time. Ninjago didn’t. I know NOW it’s not a contest on which show had more episodes, but looking at it, Ninjago, in four seasons, had 44 episodes, and Total Drama, in four seasons, had 91.

This is a double edge sword, as on one hand Total Drama has more to work with. On the other, Total Drama has more to work with.

After all, like I said, we are given no clear motive for why Duncan even cheated, or didn’t tell Courtney that they weren’t together anymore. Gwen was cheated on technically in season one, and here she is doing that same emotional betrayal in season three to Courtney. And again, the whole ‘he wasn’t your boyfriend’.

There’s multiple instances where literally ONE MORE SCENE of ANY part of this plotline could’ve helped it make more sense. But no. The writers just really did not want to write this. Again, they were forced to. It shows.

But I will say this, unlike with Ninjago’s love triangle, the Total Drama love triangle is SEVERELY plot relevant. You CAN’T write it out.

Everyone says they should’ve just written it out... how?

Every fanfic I’ve seen that’s written the love triangle out actively made the story less interesting, and gave the three characters involved nothing to do.

The villains, again, take advantage of the situation to give themselves plot armor. This is how Alejandro uses Courtney. She would’ve never helped him otherwise. This is what makes Heather jealous, prompting the last quarter of World Tour. This is what season two’s Gwen bashing has built up to. This is what makes Gwen the biggest social punching bag of the entire show. This is what spawns Gwen to become a villainous vulture. This is the start of Duncan’s downfall, and his mental distress getting him behind bars later.

You NEED the love triangle to be a thing for the story to make any sense.

I’m sorry, but that’s what I see.

Which is Worse?

Now to answer the money question.

Which plotline is worse?

This is REALLY subjective. So take it with a grain of salt.

Both of these plotlines have huge issues. They are both dampers to their season three.

Ninjago had a worse motive, a more pathetic fight, dragged on, and had no plot relevance whatsoever.

Total Drama had a more unlikeable cast participating, poor establishment of motive, ended way too quickly, and suffered from no ending.

I think we can both agree on the quality on both of these plotlines.

It really depends on which plotline I would prefer to watch a compilation of over and over again.

And in that sense...

I think I’d pick Total Drama as the better one.

This is for a few reasons:

One is that Total Drama is a far more morally grey show, so its characters are far more morally grey than with Ninjago. It’s more believable that the TD characters would do stuff so spiteful towards each other, than the Ninjago characters. This makes it so that you can see everyone’s point of view, and the plotline becomes welcome for multiple interpretations.

Two is that there was SOME build up to the cheating. You could say that it was bad build up, but at least it WAS build up. What build up was there in Ninjago? Oh yeah, none.

Three is that Total Drama’s plotline is actually plot relevant. If I have to watch the love triangle to watch World Tour, I’ll watch it. I won’t skip it. If I skip it, I know I’ll miss vital information for the rest of the story.

That said, though I say Ninjago is the worse plotline, it does have an advantage of having a better makeup scene, and an actual ending. And the characters were able to recover because of that.

Because, with all six of these characters, I DO like them all. I want the best for them (even if Duncan arguably doesn’t deserve it)

But let me know your thoughts. Would you agree? Disagree? Is there something I missed? Let me know.

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nflstreetsanimereviews · 1 year

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A Retrospective on Sword Art Online's Aincrad Arc

What you’re about to read was originally going to be a review of the first volume of the Sword Art Online series. Then after reading it along with the second volume, I realized that they were so interconnected that it only made sense to combine the two into one review. After that, I had a realization–most people reading this have probably already watched the SAO anime. Meaning that reading this would pretty much be redundant since it’s a pretty one-to-one adaptation. Even if you liked the anime, there’s no payoff in reading the light novels, since the anime has the superior version of the Aincrad arc. Needless to say, this review became more of a slightly below-surface-level view of Sword Art Online as a series, Reki Kawahara’s growth as a writer, and what you would be better off reading if you wanted to learn more about Aincrad. Please excuse the title, I couldn't think of anything better to name it.

Believe it or not, it’s been almost eleven years since Sword Art Online first aired. For those who don't remember, it was a huge deal when it aired. It was probably the biggest anime back in 2012. It was also the most panned, with many calling it overrated or saying it just plain sucked. While some of the criticisms were over the top, it was understandable why many didn’t like SAO–there were many better anime that aired that year that only got a fraction of attention it did. Many of SAO’s plot points, especially in the second half of the show, were rightfully slammed for being inconsistent about Asuna’s personality and the way it handled Kirito’s and Suguha’s relationship. After a while, it became ‘cool’ to hate on SAO. After all, it was a mediocre-at-best anime that became immensely popular despite said setbacks. I’ve always had a soft spot for SAO–for a series that wasn’t that good overall, it does maintain to keep being interesting, which at the very least is what you want. With that in mind, I decided to re-read the first and second volume to see how it holds up, years later after the hype.

For those who’ve already watched the first season of Sword Art Online, the first two volumes cover roughly the first half of it. It begins with Kirito, our protagonist, playing the game Sword Art Online, a Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (VRMMORPG). The game is played on a device called a Nerve Gear, a state-of-the-art VR headset that simulates all five senses. For Kirito and the ten thousand players that were able to log on and play SAO, they’ve just unwillingly signed up to be trapped in the game’s world (Aincrad). The game creator, Akihiko Kayaba, states that he’s holding them captive until they’re able to reach the 100th floor of the game’s map and that anyone who dies in the game also dies in real life.

I don’t think it’ll come as much of a surprise when I say that this book isn’t good. With all of the knowledge and lore I know about the Sword Art Online series, SAO volume 1 is alright–but on its own, it’s flimsy and hollow. After the big reveal that Kirito and everyone else in the game are trapped in there, there’s a two-year time skip, which in my opinion is a huge mistake. What the reader knows of SAO and Aincrad from this volume is almost at an elevator pitch level, assuming that this is their intro to the series. For now, we almost know nothing about the world around us–we just know about how powerful and cool Kirito is.

Most of our perspectives on this are warped because most of us already knew about Sword Art Online from the anime, which had a completely different pace from this. It’s why I’m including the second volume in this review as well. This volume skips most of the world-building and spends an extensive amount of time showing us what ends up being the final boss fight, along with Kirito and Asuna being together, although we as a reader don’t know that much about her or why she fell for Kirito in the first place. Funny thing is that the Aincrad Arc part of the anime takes parts from other entries in the light novel series–from Volume 8 (which is a collection of short stories, like Volume 2), Material Edition 1 (which I don’t even know is translated into English officially), and Progressive Volume 1 (written four years after the first volume was published, and is a ‘spin-off’ that expands on the Aincrad arc). To put in perspective how much this volume is lacking in detail, the anime adaptation only uses material from the first volume in episodes 1, 8-11, 13, and 14. That’s a whole lotta gaps! Compare that to the second half of the anime–the Fairy Dance Arc. It adapts from volumes three and four chronologically, and it shows in an obvious decline in plot quality. There are other reasons why that is, but that’s not relevant here.

I mentally tried to put myself as a reader that didn’t know anything about Sword Art Online before opening this book, and this was the interpretation I got: This volume leaves a lot to be desired. We know that Kirito is perhaps the most powerful person in the game. We know that Asuna is in love with him. We know that many have gotten used to life in Aincrad and have given up all hope of returning to the ‘real world’. But we don’t get to see them transition into that. All we get is the tail end, where life is already settled in. It zaps most of the fun out of it. It straight up didn’t make sense how THIS became popular enough to be animated in the first place–it is, until I did some more research on how this light novel came to be.

—

At the beginning of the afterword for Sword Art Online Volume 1, Reki Kawahara, the author writes “The volume of Sword Art Online you hold in your hands now was my first novel, written for the Dengeki Game Novel Prize in 2002.” He actually never submitted it, due to it being too long to enter, and instead published it online. The web version of Sword Art Online, which ran from 2002 to 2008, had popular support, but it wasn’t what got it published as a light novel. He won the Dengeki Novel Prize in 2008 with his story Accel World, allowing himself to finesse his way into also have SAO published as well. So basically, what we’re reading is the most juvenile writing that Mr. Kawahara had to offer. Due to it being not how he got his foot in the door, SAO was left on the back burner for Accel World. That being said, the web novel had LOADS of content, which made it more feasible for Kawahara to be able to publish both it and Accel World at the same time, even if the writing quality wasn’t up to Kawahara’s now-seasoned standards.

—

The second volume of Sword Art Online contains four short stories–stories that were sorely missing from the first volume. For the theoretical person in my head who has only read the first volume, and knows nothing else about the SAO universe, this volume gives some life to Aincrad and the society that formed in-game.

The first story, titled The Black Swordsman, starts on the 35th floor of Aincrad. Our hero runs into Silica, rescuing her from a mob of NPC monsters. Kirito and Silica go on a quest to revive Silica’s Tamed Monster, Pina.

This story introduces the concept of ‘Kirito, the older brother’–something that those who’ve seen the later half of the first season of Sword Art Online know full well about (many would claim that they know ‘too much’.) While Kirito admits that he’s helping her because she reminds him of his real-life sister, their relationship is nowhere near as weird. I have to say though, there were still some ‘sus’ moments. The one that comes to mind is Kirito saying “Level is just a number”. I cringed at least a little reading that, even if the context is way less insidious than expected.

Other than that, it was an alright story about the difficulties of being a young girl trapped inside Sword Art Online. While Kirito is also young (he’s only two years older than Silica), he’s had years of prior gaming experience before SAO, along with also being a beta tester. Silica, being only thirteen (and a girl), for better or for worse, has a constant stream of fellow players wanting to play with her. Her naivety gets her into trouble, being only saved by Jes-...I mean Kirito. This story also gives us a more in-depth look at the mid-level players of SAO. Silica, being ‘mid’ herself, doesn’t fight on the frontlines, and instead makes her living exploring already cleared dungeons in the lower levels of Aincrad. It’s a pretty good gig if you want some excitement in your life, but aren’t crazy (or strong) enough to be on the front lines. Probably beats subsisting on apples and being harassed by Army assholes in the Town of Beginnings.

The second story, titled Warmth of the Heart, features our hero with the blacksmith Lisbeth, who both go on a quest to the 55th floor to obtain a new mysterious metal–a metal so rare that it has not been dropped in-game yet.

This story was by far the worst. I feel bad for Lisbeth, because the entire reason for her existence is to be another girl to pine after Kirito. Yes, as you would expect, Kirito’s Law1 is in full force in this story–Lisbeth, swept by the enigma that is ‘Kirito’, falls for him in no time. Are there really no other honorable men in Aincrad other than Kirito? Well, of course, there’s Agil and Klein, but they’re adults. Lisbeth, while older than Kirito, is still a teenager. Not that age has ever stopped someone in Sword Art Online, but you’d think that there’s at least one other Japanese teenage boy stuck in the game that is as honorable, or even as nice, as Kirito. Guess not, considering that most male players in the game that aren’t Kirito and friends turn out to be huge sickos most of the time. Guess being trapped in a video game world with little hope of ever coming back gets to you after a while. Cabin fever did a number on more than a few men in Aincrad.

Anyways, back to Lisbeth–this story kinda rubs me the wrong way due to the way it establishes her character–someone who will only feel unrequited ‘love’. In scare quotes because it’s a ‘love’ that comes from being stuck with him for a day. Replace her with any other female blacksmith, and the story would’ve gone the same. Because he’s Kirito, and you’re supposed to want to be with him forever. It isn’t like Lisbeth is bland or anything. From what little we know about her, I like her. It’s just disappointing that her purpose (for now) is to be a side-piece of Kirito’s theoretical harem. She’ll never get what she wants because she’s not Asuna. Her fatalist interpretation of Kirito’s and Asuna’s relationship combined with her inability to move on traps her in Kirito’s ‘friendzone’, for a lack of a better term. Needless to say, this story doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test.

The Girl in the Morning Dew is the third story, featuring Kirito and Asuna shortly after they got married in-game. They come across a little girl named Yui, who collapses near the two while they’re venturing out to a remote part of the forest on the 22nd floor to look for a rumored ghost. Yui, not a ghost, nevertheless lacks a Color Cursor, something that every living object has in Sword Art Online. Kirito and Asuna, never one to not help someone in need, help Yui try to find where she came from.

Out of all of the chapters, this one is the best by far. The worldbuilding is a good thing to see. I mean, we gotta know about Aincrad first if we’re expected to care about it. A lot of the chapter is set in the Town of Beginnings, the starting town in Sword Art Online. It’s still the most populous town in all of Aincrad two years after the ‘game’ started. Most people who still live there are those who’re afraid to go outside the town’s walls. There’s also the Aincrad Liberation Force (known as the ALF, or simply as ‘The Army’), the largest guild in SAO with more than a thousand members, who make the starting town their base. It was nice to come back to where it all started, since Kirito stayed in here for all of one day the first time he was here.

This chapter delves into the conflict within the higher rungs of the Army and offers a very interesting insight into what happens when leadership breaks down. One faction of the ALF has turned to ‘taxing’ (extorting) the citizens of the Town of Beginnings–who’re probably the least well-off out of all of the people trapped in Sword Art Online, considering most of them haven’t even left the town. In typical SAO fashion, these ‘taxers’ are unnecessarily evil–they would take candy from a baby and laugh about it. Another victim of cabin fever. Caught between this is an orphanage run by a woman named Sasha, who houses twenty kids that’re stuck in SAO without a parent or guardian. There’s a lot about The Army that could be expanded, but since this is a series about Kirito, all we need to know is that they’re the closest thing Aincrad has to a form of government. Did you know that ‘The Army’ is actually a combination of two guilds, the ‘Aincrad Liberation Squad’, a front-line clearer guild, and ‘MMO Today’, a mutual aid organization that aimed to spread info about Sword Art Online and resources equally.

The final story, titled Red-Nosed Reindeer, is also the earliest story chronologically, taking place in December 2023, almost a year before Kirito and everyone else finally broke out of Aincrad. The story is also the only one where Kirito is the lone narrator.

This story hearkens back to an earlier time in Kirito’s Sword Art Online playthrough, when he briefly joined the ‘Moonlit Black Cats’, a small guild whose camaraderie was a welcoming surprise to the lone-wolf Kirito. Kirito hides his actual power level, pretending to be only two or three levels higher than the rest of the guild, while in actuality he’s Kirito, the all-mighty slayer of bosses and wooer of around half of the women he talks to. Nevertheless, things go horribly wrong one day when one of the members accidentally sets off a trap in a labyrinth, ending up killing four of the guild members and driving the remaining member to suicide. This memory still haunts Kirito months later, believing that he is the reason why the Moonlit Black Cats were killed. He’s especially guilty about Sachi, who Kirito was mentoring and teaching sword skills to.

While it’s woefully the shortest, Red-Nosed Reindeer is easily better than the first two stories. It’s the only insight that we get to see of the ‘early days’ of Sword Art Online, with all of the other stories in the book taking place in 2024, the year after. Our visit with the Moonlit Black Cats is only brief, getting only a little bit more than the cliff notes on them, but at least we got to meet them.

—

These four stories add some flair to the Sword Art Online universe, but still leave a lot to be desired. Aincrad is a vast and wonderful world, filled with ten thousand people’s stories–two volumes are better than one, but there’s still tons of meat on that bone. Mr. Kawahara agrees as well, regretting that the Aincrad storyline is only solved in one volume. To correct this, he started the Sword Art Online: Progressive series in 2012.

The Progressive series starts from the very beginning. I mean, the very beginning. The first volume only covers the first two floors. Kawahara, in his afterward for the first volume of Progressive states that “I wrote the story [Sword Art Online] as a submission for the Dengeki Novel Award, so I had to finish the story with the game being beaten, right in the very first installment.” Wow. So that explains why it was wrapped up so soon. The first volume quite literally was what he was going to submit in 2002. In a sense, it’s actually very cool, since what we’re reading is pretty much the first thing he wrote. One of the payoffs of reading the series is seeing the growth in Kawahara’s writing.

Continuing on, he also says that “Later on, I wrote a number of shorter prequel stories that filled in gaps (see Volumes 2 and 8), but they’re more like little episodes, and don’t focus on the meat and potatoes of the players advancing through the game.” Okay, so we did read Volume 2, but I’m not going to read Volume 8. This review is already long enough as it is. Moving on, I’m so glad that he gets that what supplements he wrote are substandard, especially for a great concept like Sword Art Online. They just don’t quite scratch the itch for people like me.

Moving backward, it’s pretty absurd to see an author so freely critique and criticize his most known and successful work. It was popular enough to have people begging him to write more when it was a web novel. It was somehow impressive enough to have it published as a light novel, which then had an anime adaptation that blew up in popularity, and since then has had several sequels and even a spin-off. It’s a staple ‘starting anime’ to this day, nearly a decade after it aired. It makes me respect him a lot to admit what he really thinks, and try to ‘rectify’ it in a sense. The Progressive series contains many ret-cons of the original novel. The biggest to me is when Asuna and Kirito meet–in the first volume, Asuna and Kirito are just kinda together forever already, and we’re supposed to care about it–but in Progressive, they meet a lot earlier. On the first floor. This change is for the good, because we get to see their relationship from the start. We get to see them slowly become lovers, rather than be dropped off via timewarp to literally a week before they get married. There are also characters from the original novel, like Agil and Kiabou, along with new ones.

So, is it worth it to read the Sword Art Online series? To be quite honest, I think it’s only worth reading the Progressive series, and that’s if you’re into the concept of Sword Art Online. I’ve only read the first volume of the Progressive series, and while it's miles better than the original series, it still wasn’t great. That’s only the first volume though. Kawahara has written a total of eight Progressive volumes–usually releasing them once a year. The funny part is that the SAO light novel series didn’t have an original arc until 2017. The guy got 18 volumes of content from what was basically something he wrote for fun. I know light novels aren’t the longest things, but that’s a lot of words! So basically, this arc up to the Alicization arc was already written by 2008, and Kawahara was only able to write new arcs when the light novel caught up to where his web novel was when the series was originally published. That’s quite a mind boggle. It also pieces together why it became big enough in Japan to warrant an anime adaptation. Since there was already a web novel, Japanese readers had the opportunity to read past where the light novel is, if they didn’t ready before reading SAO. The context it was released makes it suffer from poor-quality writing and bad pacing, but those gaps could be filled by the web novels, which were only ever released in Japanese. The light novels began being translated into English in 2014, two years after the anime aired. Most of those who bought the light novel had already watched the anime. This means that my theoretical person whose first experience with SAO is with these light novels was likely a larger minority than I originally thought. Sword Art Online really is a weird series!

It might be worth a read of the main series–only after you’ve read all of the Progressive series that is. I mean, it’s up to you. The anime series has adapted the light novels up to the end of the Alicization Arc. You could either watch it or read it. That is, if you wanted to in the first place, which I highly doubt.

‘Kirito’s Law’ is a slight deviation from the more well-known ‘007’s Law’–basically, any woman who interacts with Kirito for more than four hours has a fifty-fifty chance of falling in love with him. Unlike ‘007’s Law’, these women pass away ten times less often. These two terms were made up by me at the time of writing this.

#sword art online #sao #anime #light novel

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ess-presso · 1 year

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your fic recs have been absolutely superior so ty. my turn! engraved upon my heart (in letters deeply worn) by inkpot_winters - jegulus little women au. need i say more. (also bc little women was in your top books)

taylor time! sad beautiful tragic, the moment i knew, and the way i loved you! ( i keep thinking im repeating ones ive already said so if i give u one i already said just ignore it LOL)

chat time!

drarry being a guilty pleasure is so real. like drarry and jegulus is same ship different font so u cant go wrong.

and being used as a personal grammarly by friends? SO real. my best friend cant spell for shit and ive been her dictionary and autocorrect since we kids.

okay but red converse is so james of you. i have red converse as well (i think i wore nothing but my red converse for an entire year when i was 16) but i like to change it up with my green or black converse too (i drew stars and moons all over the rubber part on my black ones because. i have to make everything in my life about wolfstar obviously)

GREEK MYTHOLOGY KIDS UNITE! this makes me so happy. truly a superior breed. i guess my obsession just bled into my academic career and here i am LOL. and dont worry, caecilius est in horto is a joke here too (at least it was in my intro to latin class, i feel like the average canadian would be lost)

love that u want to save lives. thats so cool of u. my best friend is a nursing student and shes the most badass person ive ever met so maybe its a prerequisite to be cool if u save lives.

(also wanting to be an agent after watching a spy movie is SO REAL like i swear my divine purpose becomes being a cool ass kicking agent, until reality dawns on me and i remember im just. a random person)

your top books list is so good. i love little women SM & ive heard so many good things about if we were villains (i really need to get on reading that)

also JUMANJI i love that movie. so good. and the hunger games movies ofc just classics at this point. and help the woman calling herself the kim k of businesswomen in the apprentice is so funny some people say the funniest things.

id love to visit new york too. concrete jungle where dreams are made of, obviously. the big gulp cup. god i want one too. (we have them in canada but i think ours are way smaller?)

your jewelry sounds so cool. i love the hp pandora bracelet thats so cool & rings! i love rings sm i cannot leave the house without them.

pop tarts & chinese takeout is such a good combination. perfect comfort food fr.

and a fellow cat person! i like dogs but i love cats sm. i have 3 and theyre my most favourite little creatures on the planet.

an INFJ! very remus of u. (at least i think hes an INFJ? idk i saw a tiktok about it lol) im an INTJ so im living up to my reg kinnie status.

stars is such a good choice. i will always be a star person too (and hello? im an ex-astronomy student too thats so funny). theyre just so pretty and i swear i could stare at them for hours.

christmas is my fav holiday too!! ive actually always wanted to visit london at christmas time it sounds so nice. do you get much snow during the winter? we dont get much snow here so honestly anywhere that gets snow at christmas sounds great to me.

I ACTUALLY DONT KNOW WHY I THOUGHT JAMES OPENED THE DOOR??? i think i read some dumb thing somewhere where he opened the door wearing a lightning mcqueen costume and it really stuck with me😭 i guess i decided that was canon to me LOL

question answer time!

fav rarepair - oh god i dont even know. i tend to always enjoy the more popular ships. although i did read a fake dating fic where james and evan fake dated to make barty and reg jealous, and ofc barty and reg fake dated to make james and evan jealous. (a star for a summer's day by moony_reggie if u wanna check it out!) so ill say james x evan. they had more chemistry together than i would've expected.

fuck marry kill james sirius remus - GOd. i cant even answer that question thats like the hardest thing anyone has ever asked me. uhmmm ill fuck them all, and then marry them all. if i had to kill someone itd be myself because i cannot be responsible for any of their deaths THEYVE BEEN THROUGH ENOUGH!!

place i wanna visit - id love to visit new zealand. im a HUGE lord of the rings fan and they filmed the movies there so id die if i ever got the chance to visit. ive actually always wanted to visit london too (and a lot of the UK in general, especially wales and scotland) as well as italy & greece! i visited both on a school trip a few years ago and it was a dream come true but id love to go back.

fav book/book series - another brutal question but ill try:

picture of dorian gray

song of achilles

percy jackson series

shadowhunter chronicles (yes its the incest series NO THEYRE NOT ACTUALLY SIBLINGS I SWEAR! we dont talk about it.)

mara dyer series by michelle hodkin (underrated and so good)

hp series ofc

hunger games ALWAYS.

six of crows duology my beloved <3

most embarrassing thing ive ever done - oh man. okay lets see. when i was in 10th grade i had to take a spanish oral final at the end of the school year but i am an ANXIOUS woman and did not wanna do that so i skipped my spanish class until the end of the year. my best friend was in my class and my teacher kept asking her where i was until one day she told my teacher i had CHLAMYDIA and thats why i was gone. i guess her excuse worked because the teacher never asked again. the next year any time i saw that teacher in the hall she gave me a funny look but . i guess mission success? i never did have to take that final so. LOL

favourite thing i own - i have a set of lightsabers (yes im a star wars nerd (derogatory)) but also i have the ring from the lord of the rings! my precious truly.

if my life was a movie - i truly dont think my life is interesting enough to have an exciting title. i think the best i can come up with is "the underwhelming adventures of a crazy cat lady and her books". and thats just like abysmal so.

YOUR TURN!

do u have any pets?

fav fanfic trope?

do u have any weird talents?

whats your gas station order?

fav flower/plant?

fav planet?

and simply because now i have to know, most embarrassing thing youve ever done?

fav instrument sound? (like what sounds most pleasing to your ear)

and thats all! i eagerly await your responses and in the meantime ill be over here doing a little dance.🕺

-bee

bee hello hello hello 👋 i missed u <333

jegulus little women au ??? on god , sign me up for this right the fuck now. (& little women is genuinely so good. amylaurie truther 5ever>>>>)

(fic rec for u - no bright line by lady_grey - w/ sirius being an actor, remus being a historian & lily being the filmaker & matchmaker who fixes them up. james and harry are just there for the vibes honestly.)

tay tay -

sad beautiful tragic - JEGULUS - ‘long handwritten note’ - HELLO???? mr rab with the locket?? ‘kiss me try to fix it’ james trying to tell regulus to come and come that he’ll save reg , but reg already knowing he’s beyond repair. ‘for the life of us we can’t get back’ WHAT WHAT. they should’ve been happy your honour. ‘we both wake up in lonely beds in different cities’ the different places they wake up in especially during the summer holidays. ‘beautiful magic love there. what a sad beautiful tragic love affair.’ THEM THEM THEM THEY HAD SOMETHING SO SPECIAL AND THEY WERE SO TRAGIC.

the moment I knew- BLACK BROTHERS- i had to think about this one because I didn’t think anyone of my ships would betray each other like in this song. just not turn up or anything. BUT OF COURSE ! black brothers angst. i can just imagine sirius being like ‘bro i’m coming to your party bro’ & reg waiting but he doesn’t come because he’s getting smashed with the marauders. AHHHHH OH MY GOD NOW I’M ALL HURT. ‘your close friends seem to know when there’s something wrong’ - James being all ‘sup reg what up with u dude u seem a little depresso.’ i can just feel this song. very them .

the way i loved you - JEGULUS - i love this in the context of that jegulus had to break up and bartylus begins but then reg keeps thinking of james , like to me ‘frustrating intoxicating complicated’ is something reg would SO use to describe james. (ps - i’ve heard people use this for remus-grant in which it’s remus singing the song about sirius which i also agree with!)

now chatting time-

drarry ! i love them so much ! ‘harry had never been less interested in quidditch, he was rapidly become more and more obsessed with draco malfoy’ like BRO . i know what you are. ‘the boy who lived’ more like the ‘bi who lived’

and the personal dictionary thing is so real , isn’t it? it’s always like ‘ess check this’ ‘ess is there an a in definite’ ‘ess why is there a red line under this word’ .

and yes i agree red converse is very very james of me ! i love them so much they’re very dear to me. and green and black converse ??? very slytherin of you (i think the stars are so real of you #wolfstar5ever) i actually have a pair of stars converse !! on the little flap thingy , there is a little moon stitched on as well! when i saw them i was like ‘ i must own these’.

AND YES GREEK MYTHOLOGY FOREVER !!!! WE ARE THE BEST !!! the trojan horse was my obsession as a kid lmfao. i love that you took it to the next step though i could never do latin for so long ! (and i’m glad caecilius est in horto carries everywhere. it’s a staple of latin classes honestly.)

AND YESSSS saving lives is for cool people only ? are u a loser ? do you want to save lives ? if yes then u are no longer a loser ! (and nurses are definitely badass good on your best friend for opting for that)

(after the movies end i always be in the toilets staring into the mirror having an existential crisis like ‘well i’m gonna be in the mi6 now better get to training’ then the toilet flushes behind me and i get back to reality.)

little women ❤️❤️❤️❤️ (the 2019 movie >>>) ( and yes you must read iwwv that book changed my brain chemistry forever)

AND JUMANJI JUST SLAPS SO HARD HONESTLY!!! kevin and the rock together >>> . AND THIS YEAR’S APPRENTICE is on crack fr. if you watch it , you’ll notice there’s one guy who looks exactly like the hyde , honestly. and lord sugar saying ‘i hear you own a pest control business. any tips on how to get rid of piers morgan’ LIKE BRO YOU WENT HARD.

yes new york oh my god new york seems like the place that would make or break u. (not to mention that americans are a bit of a novelty here . like the candies , the cheetos the accents >>>) AND THE AMERICAN BIG GULP IS LIKE HUMONGOUS. HUGE . I must try it. (you have them in canada ??? that’s so cool)

RINGS ARE SO COOL. makes me feel all mysterious n shit , but i do too much lab work to handle wearing them all the time.

pop tarts & chinese takeout are simply superior. i don’t make the rules??

YOU HAVE CATS ??? I DON’T (yet. i plan on getting a black cat with green eyes. but a black cat) THAT’S SO SWEET AND AWESOME AND COOL AHHHHH. cats are so adorable honestly. (what are the kitties names ? i must know them and shower them with love from me !)

and yes INFJ !!! i love chocolate , but unfortunately i am not a werewolf so not totally remus. INTJ?? you little reg kinnie i see you there.

stars honestly i love them. light pollution is just so damning in london though. (and what??? that’s such a freaky coincidence oh my god !!!)

AND YES CHRISTMAS I LOVE CHRISTMAS !!! we did get snow last year but it melted pretty fast. We actually got frost a couple days ago , but not proper snow. i’m waiting for a real proper snow day again where the snow actually stays for ages. and lmfao you don’t get snow in canada ?? whenever i imagine canada i always think of three things - snow , maple syrup & mooses. it upsets me that not all of these things are everywhere in canada.

AND LMFAO NOT THE JAMES DOOR THING ??? it’s such a funny little thing because i see people bashing him for being dumb and opening the door and i’m like ‘guys.no’ (but he defo was wearing a costume.like that’s just the truth .)

your questions -

just enjoying the popular ships and not having a rarepair is so real of u. like yes i’m a basic bitch and i just want my jegulus + wolfstar. so what?? (and james & evan?? hmm never heard that before , i’m gonna have to check it out.) my rarepair is really really weird. brace yourself. it’s pansy x percy. i read one fic with them and i thought that was really cool so i think they’re sweet to read now and then! (the fic was the secretary by pacificrimbaud btw - recced by me but do read the tags for extra warnings ik not everyone likes that. it has wild child personal assistant pansy and rude controlling boss percy.)

not being to choose between them is so real . (me however ?? fuck james marry sirius kill remus. love u moonpie but mummy’s got a job to do.)

visiting places where movies got filmed is so surreal though isn’t it ?? and a lotr fan?? my mate’s one and she gave me the silmarillion to read for xmas . (it’s going to take me at least seven months to read because i read (1) page and got confused already.) AND VISIT LONDON YESSS !! very cool here usually , as long as you don’t bump into any roadmen. (I also want to go to italy and greece. Especially venice and athens >>>)

your fave books , i’m going through one by one

podg - isn’t ben barnes in the movie ?? so many edits i’ve seen of him with potd scenes , honestly i’ve got to read the book (& watch the movie of course , to sate my desire.)

‘name one hero who was happy’ & ‘ i am made of memories’ haunt me forever.

pjo is honestly so iconic. i’m waiting for the big old series to come out now.

IS THIS THE ONE BASED ON RON X GINNY FIC ?? like the one that goes ‘you’re my sister , my blood , i should want to protect you’ 😀😀😀 but i trust your judgement here bee!

never heard of this one. but i did just search it up , and the blurb is interesting so i’ve added it to my tbr !

hp did have my little year five self in a chokehold.

THE HUNGER GAMES OH MY LORD >>>>> peeta mellark and his baby bombs my god>>>

and soc ! i would read it except i have been spoiled for a certain chapter 40!

NOT YOU SKIPPING THE SPANISH CLASSES BECAUEE YOU DIDN’T WANT TO DO THE ORAL??? just say me llamo been and pass the exam 🤨🤨🤨🤨.now u got chlamydia too . and the teacher looking at you like ‘damn how she get chlamydia , this bitch be getting around.’

OMG LIGHTSABERS ??? i would so fight with them all the time that’s so so so awesome. (just looked up the lotr ring. it looks so elegant!)

ahhhh being a crazy cat lady >>>> (not abysmal cats beat people anyday.) my movie would be ‘drunk procrastinator’ because honestly i never do things on time and a little bit of sippy sip does release the stress sometimes. (the things i’ve done when under the influence will haunt me. my best friend has so much blackmail material on me .)

MY QUESTIONS —>

unfortunately not yet. but i do want to get a cat , so i’ll get on that asap.

when person a smells person b in amortentia , or when person a is given veritaserum and admits they like person b. i’m a sucker for that shit >>>

my weird talent is that i can eat an entire bowl of cereal in under ten seconds !! not useful at all , but it’s weird so yes , i consider it a talent !

i had to look up what a gas station was i got so confused. we call them petrol stations here so i was like ‘tf is a gas station’ BUT ANYWAYS! I don’t even have a car unfortunately, but my chauffeur (best friend) does and obviously i abuse the best friend privileges, and whenever he needs petrol i always get a pack of gum , a can of sprite (+ a diet coke for the driver man). (this is what you mean by gas station order , yes ? gas stations in canada don’t have restaurants in them right?)

favourite flower - poppies ! i adore poppies ! + lavender they’re so pretty // favourite plant - hyrdrangeas ! (they’re classified as shrubs so they count) very sweet and nice.

favourite planet - gonna be a real one and choose my gal pluto. she’s still a planet to me , okay???

i was at a funeral when i got a phone call . my phone was NOT on silent. and the worst part ? my ringtone was baby got back , so now the deceased’s family have a memory of ‘turn around stick it out even white boys got the shout , baby got back!’ in the middle of someone’s eulogy.

saxophone ! that shit RELAXING AS FUCK !

q’s for you to answer next time you come around -

what the fuck is putin (not the president)

unpopular opinion about the marauders

unpopular opinion in life

Dream car

do you watch the apprentice?

do you believe in soulmates ? (romantic or platonic?)

what’s your hidden talent?

Favourite villain ?

ever had your heart broken ?

ever broken a heart?

(bee you know the drill by now !! don’t be too long , I’ll miss you<333)

#ess waters a plant #bee <33 #ess’s marauders x ts crossover

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jackdawandicarus · 2 months

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WIP ASK GAME THINGAMAJIG

I was tagged by @the-laws-of-physics-were-harmed ^^

Idk to tag so u tag absolutely nobody/whoever sees this and wants to do this

rules: answer as many (or as few) of the questions about your WIP as you can.

1. What was the first part of your WIP that you created?

Chapter 1 babyyyyy. Idk what else to say here I started at the start with no plan (no money, no prospects-) and winged it. All I knew was that Ophelia and Zopyrus had to be bitten by werewolves. Fun fact! Zopyrus was originally going to die in this chapter, but now he doesn’t!

2. If your story was a TV show, what would the intro song be?

Uhhhhhh, lemme pull out my playlist real quick… Okay, sooooo, I think either Lights Go Down by I DON’T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME or Eat Your Young by Hozier could work. ^^

3. Who are your favourite character(s) and why?

Kit because, um, idk I like putting him in situations (mental torture) the most. He’s probably followed by Arabella, because she is mentally unstable and very relatable and incredibly fun to write and- Raymond (formerly “Stevie”) is third because she is just my main chaotic character and has some nice character dynamics going on with the other characters. She is also a mess. All these guys are. I think that says something about myself. Oh, Ophelia is sneaking up on me again because I’m working on planning out her character arc right now.

4. What other pieces of media could share a fan base with your WIP?

The problem with this question is that I know next to nothing about any fandom I’m not part of so all of my possible answers sound self-indulgent as *fuck* to me. Like, I’m going to answer Six of Crows but tell me if that’s stupid (/gen) I honestly can’t tell. 😭✋

5. What has been your biggest struggle while writing your WIP?

🤓🔫 Writing it.

6. Are there any animals in your story?

The first book’s plot is smuggling a dragon across international waters so yeah. Also one of the protagonists (as well as multiple other characters) are werewolves if that counts. There’s also going to be some wolves I think? And some sort of bird motif I haven’t decided on yet. WAIT THERE’S DINOSAURS IN BOOK TWO OH MY GOD I JUST REMEMBERED!!!

7. How do your characters get around?

A variety of ways? On foot, by carriage, Icarus and Daedalus style (wings may or may not actually be real, depending on the character), on horseback, in a boat, on the back of ginormous hulking winged beast, or in a motorcar. The usual ways your average people of varying levels of humanity get around.

8. What part of your WIP are you working on right now?

Chapter 2! ^^ I am completely stuck. I hate writing character introductions because I am shit at writing character descriptions, I always write *way* too little or wayyyy too much. I also never know which aspects of a character’s appearance to describe.

9. What aspects of your WIP do you think will draw people in?

The ✨gay✨. The ✨werewolves✨. The ✨sheer genius of my inherently superior storytelling✨ /s. The ✨dragon✨. I really need to ✨stop putting sparkles around things✨ in this section. On a more serious note, I don’t know. Tell me what intrigues you most about my WIP, friend and fellow carbon-based lifeform, for I have no motherfucking clue in motherfucking hell.

#my ocs #ask game #my oc shit #oc: ophelia #oc: zopyrus #oc: kit #oc: raymond #oc: ray #oc: arabella

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serpenteve · 3 years

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[This is a long ask, I am sorry]

I'm Russian Anon from a bit back, and NEVER TALK TO ME about these names in the Gregverse. I can understand wanting to have something that is perhaps Russian-influenced, but then you alter our names in a a way that is interesting, and you don't just ignore things like our patronymics, how we address each other depending on familiarity (For example, you would address your superiors/strangers/teachers as [Name] [Patronymic]. Alina should be addressing Baghra as Baghra Ilyichna), or our family names (For example, if Anna Karenina was born Nikolai, he would be Nikolai Karenin instead).

-Fedyor--Fyodor. Probably changed because people named Fyodor are sometimes given the nickname Fedya. That, or LB didn't realize that in Russian, Фёдор (Fyodor) is sometimes spelled without the two dots of ё (A letter that has the sound 'yo') by natives, so it looks like Федор, which it still is not.

-Malyen is not a Russian name. I have no idea where LB got it. No one names their child that if they have working knowledge of the Russian language. Perhaps a nickname for your child? The root of the name, depending, is found in our words for 'too few' or 'little'.

-The Darkling is named Aleksander, which is a name that means 'Defender of Mankind', so I have questions about what, precisely, his purpose in the story is. He should also be Aleksander [Patronymic] Morozov, and called Sasha, Sash'enka, or even Sash'en'uchka, depending on how close you are to him (Or if you're an enemy and wish to insult him). Perhaps Alyosha, too but that tends to be reserved for Alexey.

-It should be a huge deal that Alina and Mal lack patronymics as orphans. To address someone who is not a friend or family, in tsarist Russia, without their patronymic would've been a not-small insult. They would always be referred to as Alina Starkova or Malyen Oretsev by people trying not to be too rude. They couldn't even be introduced at court without revealing themselves to be orphans.

-The same for Zoya Nazyalenskaya. Either she has turned her father's name intro an unusual patronymic (Suhmevna? Suhmichna?), further marking her out.

-It would be easy to denote intimacy (Or scandal) if say, Nikolai was inviting Alina or Zoya to call him Nikita or Kolya.

-Or, if you want to show Alina and the Darkling being in love, Alina was being called Alya or Alinoch'ka by Aleksander.

-I'm sorry for another rant, but our naming system is useful for story drama, interesting, and not even that difficult!

Ahhhh I love Russian forms of address! It's such a handy way to immediately denote the relationship between two characters just by what they call each other 💕💕And thank you for the mental image of Baghra sarcastically calling Aleks something like "Sash'en'uchka" in public and him immediately faking his death and moving to Tsibeya ☠️

It would have been interesting if both Mal and Alina didn't know their surnames and went by the Duke's name (Alina Keramsova, Malyen Keramsov) and that immediately told everyone that they were orphans and how that would have affected their identities. Also, I read somewhere that "Malyen" is the "Ravkan" form of "Malcolm" which...........................ok whatever leigh

At some point, I just decided that the Gregverse doesn't have diminutives for the sake of simplicity, but then in the second book, Nikolai refers to Vasily as "Vasya" so then that means that diminutives DO exist and we have to contend with characters like Genya or Misha who everyone calls by the diminutive??? What is their actual name??? *cue x-files theme*

#viv answers #linguistic butchery of a perfectly beautiful language

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batcat46 · 3 years

Text

goosebumps- alex karev x reader no specific pronouns

an/ this is gonna be two parts the first is an intro second which ill have out soon is gonna be smut, enjoy <3

Pulling up to the hotel you were squirming ready to get off his lap. “Stop moving i hate this as much as you do.” Alex snapped at you. You were all shoved in a car as you had just flown coast to coast for an emergency surgery. The rental car had been too small to fit all five of you. The patient was a six year old boy hence Alex being there, his heart was outside his chest. You were Christina’s apprentice, she was one of the best chardiothroactic surgeons on the west coast and apparently the east too. Jackson was there to supervise the scarring possibility to make sure the incision didn't leave a big mark. You were the youngest so they automatically picked you as runt of the group. You got stuck on Alex's lap, the same Alex who would yell at you for the smallest things in front of everyone, patients sometimes. He had a problem with you and you didn't know what it was and frankly you didn't care. He put his hands on your hips grounding you. “I said stop.” Christina turned from next you two and exhaled. “Okay lovebirds we get it stop both of you.” Jackson let out a laugh from the passenger seat in the front signifying his agreement. As soon as the driver put the car in park you were launching yourself out of the small car. Trying your best to open the back to grab your suitcase. You struggled not being able to open the latch. Alex walked up behind you, pressing his front into your back. Reaching around he easily undid the switch and the back swung open. “Not all of us can be the best sweetheart.” you irked an eyebrow at the nickname. They were fairly new and you still didn't know how to feel about them. “Oh shut it.” you spit back grabbing your bag and dodging his shoulder as you walked into the lobby. All four of you standing at the check in desk the women looked up to you. “We only have three rooms booked for Grey-Sloan.” Christina and Jackson looked at each other instantly. She made eye contact with you and smirked. “Oh come on why's it always me you bully?” you huffed out. “It is not only you, I bully Alex a good amount.” she smiled proudly. You rolled your eyes and grabbed your room card out of the secretary's hand. You and Alex were on the seventh floor, while the other two were on the third, once they got out he turned to you. “I don't need this to be awkward. Just sleep on the floor and we'll be good.'' The elevator dinged and the doors opened. “ i will not be sleeping on the floor, shouldn't you be a gentleman and do it?” “When have you ever known me to be a gentleman?” he scoffed. Swiping the card through the slot of the door he pushed it open. “We've got surgery early tomorrow, just let me sleep on the bed. I'm the main assist anyways.” he turned to you after raiding the mini fridge. “Lets just sleep in the bed together, you were already on my lap earlier.” You had a delayed reaction processing if you really wanted to or not. “Fine, but pillows go between us.” you exclaimed stepping into the cramped bathroom to change into sleeping clothes. Coming back out he was shirtless with black sweatpants on, your eyes lingered a bit too long along the hem on the pants. “Words get you what you want, princess.” he was trying his best to get a rise out of you. You grabbed pillows off the top row and shoved them along his side to create a barrier. Laying down you let out a sigh, how did you end up in a best next to your superior, with him half naked. Goosebumps rose on your arms, pulling the blanket up it only seemed to get colder. “Did you turn on the ac Alex?” you whisper not sure if he was awake or not. “I didn't” he said without moving his face from squashed into a pillow. He reached his arm out from under the blanket and threw the pillow to the floor. “Come here.” he said with his arm up leaving a space for you to slide in. you hesitated but eventually gave in cuddling up to the warmth. His chin was resting on your head as his arm wrapped around your lower torso. “I swear if were are enemies to lovers trope i'm gonna be mad.” “not lovers babe.” you could feel his smirk as he said his next word. ”yet.”

#alex karev #karev #doctor karev #grey sloan memorial hospital #grey sloan #grey sloan fanfiction #grey sloan imagine #alex karev imagine #alex karev fanfiction #pt1 #greys anatomy #greys abc

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whereisten · 4 years

Text

I Think We’re Alone Now

A Jaemin fic that’s part of our Halloween Series!

Summary: Your Spring Break plans change at the last minute when the campus heartthrob asks you to join him and the popular kids to your nemesis’ cabin.

Pairing: college student! Jaemin x female reader

Genre: romance, angst, mystery, suspense, horror, crime

Word Count: 7.4k

Warnings: Bullying, body image mention, gore, violence, death

(A/N): SHOUTOUT TO MY GIRL KRYS FOR THIS DELICIOUS MOODBOARD. SHE IS AN AMAZING ARTISTE. I AM IN AWE. I hope my story does this moodboard justice and I hope you guys enjoy! Thank you for the support!

___

Spring Break was imminent for the kids of Guang University. It was your freshman year and your friends all had different plans. You planned to stay home and get a head start on your homework and catch up on all of your favorite Korean dramas.

You headed out of the school with Haechan, your best friend. He had plans to go visit his family in South Korea for a couple of days. You were bummed that your closest friend wouldn’t be in town for the break.

“You sure you don’t want to come to Seoul with me? We might bump into Ji Chang Wook. You never know.” Ji Chang Wook was your celebrity crush.

You balanced your giant biology textbook while you tried to find your phone. “That’s tempting but I have a big exam right after break and I’ve been behind for weeks...So now I have to cram.”

Haechan sighed. “Y/n, you need to give yourself some down time.”

You frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Haechan sighed. “You haven’t come out to any parties in the past two months.”

You sighed. “Well...”

Haechan whined. “You’re supposed to be my party buddy...”

“Well, party buddy, then explain Daniela, Hazel, and Ally,” you said, calling out your best friend for not being so lonely at these parties after all.

“I-“ Haechan started.

Before Haechan could explain, a group of girls you’d tried so hard to avoid walked by and “accidentally” bumped into you, making you drop your book to the ground.

The girl who bumped into you turned and laughed. “I’m SO sorry. Maybe if you didn’t take up so much space, it wouldn’t have happened.”

The other girls laughed as they began to saunter off.

You groaned. You thought bullies retired once they graduated from high school when reality finally gave them a slap to the face.

Well, unfortunately for you, the mean girls from your old high school were smart enough to get into your dream school so you now occasionally saw them. And worse, shared a biology lab with them. The head of the pack, Heather, always had it out for you for always beating her for the best grade in class. You’d get a 94 and she’d get a 93. You were just happy to get an A and she was furious she wasn’t number 1. You guessed it had to do with her superiority complex and how she had to please her wealthy parents.

Haechan yelled, “Heather, what the hell-“

Heather started, “What? It’s a simple observation.”

Well, not everyone could be a size 0 like Heather. You knew that you had a healthy body shape. Sure, you know you could use improvements but you were human. No one was perfect. Nothing Heather could say could make you think she was right. She was just a hater.

“Have a nice break, Heather. Maybe your dad will finally come home,” you said as you grabbed Haechan’s hand and walked off.

“Hey! y/n, get back here!” Heather demanded. Her dad and her mom were separated for a while now and he was never home to spend time with his precious daughter.

Heather’s bark had always been bigger than her bite. So you didn’t let her words get to you. Not anymore.

___

Haechan went home while you waited to call an Uber to take you to the record store across town. You may as well go out and do one fun thing before you hunkered down at home for the break.

That was when you heard someone sobbing hard. And you couldn’t help but find the source.

The boy sat down on a bench by the bus stop. It was the campus heartthrob, Na Jaemin. You’d shared a couple of lectures with him this year. He was very sweet, always had something to compliment you on. Your hair, your lipstick, your outfit.

Well, then he would proceed to ask for help with assignments but you appreciated getting paid with flattery.

You frowned. “A-are you okay?” You started. “Do you need help?”

Jaemin looked up as tears ran down his beautifully sculpted face. His eyes widened at the sight of you. He wiped his tears away with his jacket sleeve. He shook his head. “Y/n! Hey, I’m…okay…I just-“

You sat down beside him and pulled an unopened bottle of water out of your backpack. You handed it to him. “Here.”

He looked down at it and asked, “Are you sure?”

You nodded. “Go ahead.”

“Thank you,” he said, managing a half-smile.

He drank from it as you waited.

He exhaled in satisfaction. “Thank you, y/n. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you like this. School and work have been so stressful…I just needed to let it all out.”

You hesitated before you put a hand on his back. You moved it gently against his muscular upper back. “I’m sorry…Do you…wanna talk about it?”

Jaemin froze and debated telling you. “I got fired from my job…” He admitted.

You removed your hand from his back. “Jaemin, that’s terrible…I’m so sorry…What happened?”

He shook his head. “The boss was kinda harsh. I couldn’t take it. I slipped up once and I got the ax.”

You tried to meet his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Jaemin.”

Jaemin managed a smile for you. “Thank you, y/n. You’re always sweet. Always good. I’m glad you’re here with me.” He placed a hand over yours.

This may or may not have made you want to scream with excitement. But your better judgment told you to contain yourself because Jaemin was upset.

Your little moment was interrupted by Heather and her cohorts.

Heather stood in front of Jaemin, noticing his red eyes “Oh, Nana, what’s wrong?”

Jaemin didn’t look all that thrilled to see Heather either. “It’s nothing…Don’t worry about it.”

“Because if y/n is bothering you, she should leave. Isn’t that right, y/n?” Heather turned to you with her hands on her hips.

You were about to snap when Jaemin beat you to it. “Actually, Heather, she’s not. So what can I do for you so you can leave faster?”

Heather looked at her group in shock. Her minions all let out audible gasps and whispers. “Jaemin...”

“I’m waiting,” Jaemin said, a new commanding tone overtaking him.

“We wanted to know if you’re coming to my cabin this weekend.” She tried to come off flirtatious but after his rebuff, she was confused.

“Maybe,” Jaemin replied, “If y/n comes.”

“What?” You and Heather exclaimed.

“I’ll go if y/n goes,” Jaemin said resolutely.

You started, “Jaemin, I-”

Jaemin interrupted. “I need this, y/n. A time to get away. And if you come, I would love it…” He said softly, almost intimately…Like no one else was around.

You’d had a crush on Jaemin since the first day of Intro to Theater. Jaemin was a tremendous actor. He was an excellent Demetrius to your Helena in your act for A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Jaemin was always so nice. You thought the most he would do for you is give you a dollar for the vending machine. And that would’ve made your heart soar to the moon.

It was odd that you were considering going somewhere to hang out with Heather and her friends...But you did want to get to know Jaemin more.

What about your homework?

Well, it could wait.

And what about Heather?

Well, pissing off Heather was a hobby of yours.

One of Heather’s friends coughed. And Heather rolled her eyes. “Fine. Meet at my house at 7 AM tomorrow.”

___

Your older sister Sophie drove you to Heather’s. “Why are you going to Lucifer's spawn’s cabin?”

You sighed. “Because a cute boy asked me to.”

Sophie put the car in park right in front of Heather’s mansion. She looked at you in disbelief and fascination. “A boy?”

You said, “He wanted me to come.”

Sophie laughed. “Well, y/n, he must be very cute if you’re willing to hang out with Her Royal Darkness.”

“Like her ego, I’m sure the cabin is big enough so I don’t have to see her.”

You were both so distracted that you didn’t notice Jaemin knock on your passenger side window. He smiled brightly. Wow, he looked incredible for someone who woke up and texted you good morning at 5:30 AM.

“Wow,” your sister said, in shock from Jaemin’s beauty. She rolled down your window.

“Ready to go, y/n?” Jaemin asked. You saw the expectant look in his eyes. He was radiant and much more relaxed. You were so happy to see him. He seemed to feel a lot better.

“Jaemin, this is my older sister, Sophie,” you said, “Sophie, this is my friend Jaemin.”

They shook hands and Sophie muttered, “You better tell me everything when you get back. And that I am the maid of honor at your wedding.”

“Bye, Sophie! We’ll go on our run together when I come back on Sunday, okay?” You said louder to deflect from what Jaemin could’ve overheard. You and Sophie ran together every weekend for stress relief and bonding time. You got out of the car and hoped Jaemin hadn’t heard anything.

Jaemin offered to give you a ride on his Jeep Explorer to Heather’s cabin, much to Heather’s disappointment. Heather’s friends were riding with her.

You and Jaemin had fun on the road for two hours, just the two of you. You enjoyed some old school Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, and Britney Spears. You snagged the CDs from your sister’s collection.

“Every little thing I do never seems enough for you!” You and Jaemin sang.

You too had gotten off the route to get snacks at a convenience store and because Jaemin needed to fill up his tank. He insisted you put your wallet away. He bought all of your favorite junk food essentials: M&Ms, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Coke, Orange Fanta. This boy knew his way into your heart.

“So, y/n, what’s your end goal in life?” He asked as he continued the route to Heather’s cabin. “You strike me as an aspiring pediatrician...Saving the children!”

You laughed at his enthusiasm. “I’d like to be a physical therapist. My parents got into a car accident when I was nine...My mom was fine but my dad broke his right leg and right arm. He needed to get physical therapy in order to walk properly again...I went with him to almost all of his appointments. I have a lot of respect for physical therapists after how much they helped him…”

“I’m glad your dad recovered,” Jaemin said as he gave you a quick smile before gluing his eyes back onto the road.

“Me, too...But...my end goal in life? Honestly, I just want my own space to dance around in...With no shame.”

Jaemin chuckled. “No shame, huh? Does that mean you’re a terrible dancer?”

You smacked him. “No. Well, I’m sure there are worse dancers.”

He laughed harder. “Okay...I believe you.”

You laughed. “What about you, Jaemin? What’s your end goal?”

He sighed. “Start up my own content-creating company...I’m into traveling and uncovering hidden gems. Be the next big thing after Buzzfeed Unsolved.”

“Those are some pretty big shoes to fill…” You started.

Jaemin sounded unsure. “Yeah…”

You smiled, “I know you can do it. You’ve got a subscriber in me.”

Jaemin faked a tear. “You have no idea how much that means to me.”

You both laughed again as you reached for the M&Ms and your hands touched. You quickly pulled away, embarrassed. But Jaemin smiled to himself.

Jaemin said, “But as cheesy as it sounds...I want to get married, get a big house, and fill it with twelve children.”

You coughed. “Twelve? Are you and your future wife thinking of splitting the pregnancies up?”

Jaemin laughed. “Okay, maybe not twelve...But a family of my own is my dream. My parents split up when I was five so...I’ve split my time between two homes and it was an awkward feeling, especially after both of my parents remarried.”

“Oh…” You said. You couldn’t exactly sympathize with him because your parents were happily married so you didn’t want to say anything that could rub him the wrong way. That was the last thing you wanted.

“I want to be with that one person...For the rest of my life...When I meet her, I’ll know.” He said, giving you a meaningful look.

You had no idea how to process that so you took a sip of your blue raspberry ICEE and held it in the air, awkwardly. “Here’s to you finding your soulmate someday.”

He chuckled. “Thank you.”

___

You arrived at Heather’s summer home...Well, she called it a cabin. But it was actually a mansion by the beach. It was gorgeous. Something straight out of a movie. It looked like it could be its own hotel resort. You realized that there was a good chance you’d have your own room.

“This house is huge!” You exclaimed.

Jaemin looked along with you as he handed you your bag. “What a shame. I was hoping we would room together.” He said softly into your ear.

You turned to him in shock and he shot you his infamous flirty grin. This boy had you thinking he liked you and he’d better stop before you tried to kiss him.

Heather handed everyone keys to their bedrooms. “If any of you lose this copy, I can’t help you.” She made sure to say that as she handed you your keys.

You went up the stairs of the beach house and chose the last room on the left. You were unlocking the door to your room when someone from behind you tapped you on the shoulder.

“Hey, you’re y/n, right?” You recognized Yangyang from your mandatory PE class. You both took Intermediate Swimming, a class where as long as you flailed in the water and passed the easy quizzes, you’d be guaranteed an A.

You nodded. “And you’re…”

He said, “I’m Yangyang. It’s so nice to see you here!”

“You, too,” you said, averting your eyes once again. Yangyang was pretty attractive and you hoped he didn’t remember you and your Sailor Moon one piece. You always tried to be one of the first in the water and the last to leave when it came to your swimming class.

Even though Heather’s comments were nothing to you, it didn’t mean you were completely immune to the hurt it caused.

“You were in Coach Emerson’s swim class, right? You had the iconic Sailor Moon swimsuit.”

And there went the rest of your hopes and dreams. “Y-yeah…”

He laughed. “Don’t be embarrassed. I had Dragon Ball Z swim trunks.”

“Really?” You said.

Yangyang pretended to be hurt and winced. “I thought you’d be the one to notice.”

“Well...I’m not exactly looking at anyone’s...body…” You said, cringing at your words.

He laughed. “Fair point. I just liked the pattern. Your favorite character is Sailor Mars, right?”

You nodded, “Hell yeah. She’s the best.”

“I’m more of a Sailor Venus guy, myself,” he replied.

“Good taste. But all of the Sailor Scouts are queens,” you started.

“No question,” Yangyang said. “Hey, do you-” His phone started to ring. “Sorry, y/n...I gotta take this.”

You waved goodbye to him and entered your spacious bedroom. As much as Heather despised you and you despised her, her family had excellent taste in real estate. The queen-sized bed was plush like a cloud straight from heaven. You pulled the window up to feel the ocean breeze. It was paradise.

You heard a knock at your door an hour later. It was Jaemin.

“Wanna go for a walk?” He asked.

“Sure!” You said, having already changed into a sundress.

Jaemin thought you looked stunning. Well, you always did. He was so happy to be here with you. Otherwise, he may not have gone on this trip.

Jaemin led you to the beach where you let your toes touch the water. He teased you by splashing you. And you splashed him back until you both were soaked.

You both laughed so hard that you toppled over each other, you on top of Jaemin. You both stared at each other for a long time. Jaemin closed his eyes, his long eyelashes caressing his cheeks. He waited for you to kiss him.

You moved closer and your lips met his. His lips tasted salty thanks to you and your merciless splashing. But the kiss was everything. It was fireworks at the end of a perfect night. It was hot chocolate on a warm winter night. It was like an angel held you and you snuggled against his wings. The kiss was perfect.

You two let go and Jaemin bit his lip. “So.”

You stood there, frozen. “So…”

“So...we did that.”

You nodded. “Indeed we did.”

“Thoughts?” He looked at you with his big brown eyes.

You cleared your throat. “Well...I certainly wouldn’t mind doing that again.”

Jaemin’s big gorgeous goofy smile came back full force at hearing you. He cupped your face in his hands and was about to kiss you again.

“Guys!” Naeun called out to you. “Have you seen Yangyang?”

You and Jaemin pulled yourselves apart. You answered, “Last time I saw him was when he went to his room. Is everything okay?”

“He wasn’t answering his phone...And I found it in his room.” She held up his phone that had a Dragon Ball Z pop socket on the back of it.

You frowned. “That’s weird.”

Jaemin offered. “Maybe he went for a walk. Got some fresh air?”

“Maybe…” Naeun thought and you nodded. “If you see him, tell him I’m looking for him and that I’m pissed.”

“Okay,” you said.

Naeun stomped away, frustrated.

“Now where were-” you started.

Jaemin already pulled you in for another kiss. He pinned you down against the shoreline and trailed your neck with his kisses.

You breathed heavily as you held him tightly.

He looked at you, as if asking you something.

You gave him a look. “What’s up?”

“Do you want to…” His eyes moved down to his pelvic region where his member was protruding through the fabric of his trunks.

Your eyes widened at how big he was. And your eyes nearly popped out of your head when you realized what he was asking. “Oh…”

Jaemin waited for you patiently.

Things were moving too fast. You were more than happy to kiss Jaemin all night but you really weren’t ready to have sex. Not tonight, anyway.

You already knew the answer. “I’m sorry Jaemin. I do like you but...I’m...not ready. I should go…” You got up but Jaemin stopped you. It was like a romantic Korean drama scene, except instead of your wrist ...He grabbed your ankle.

“It’s okay...You don’t have to go. Please don’t go…” He begged as he made a puppy dog pout.

You laughed, relieved. “Okay okay...You can stop making that face.”

Jaemin pouted his lips even more. “What face?”

You rolled your eyes and splashed him. You and Jaemin spent a couple of hours on the beach, kissing and talking. You wrapped up and he walked you to your bedroom.

___

You woke up early the next morning to hear screaming and crying. You got out of bed and ran out the door.

“What’s wrong?” You asked, finding Naeun devastated on the floor. Heather sat down with her on the ground and consoled her.

“Yangyang…” She said between sobs. “He’s gone!”

Renjun looked grave as he handed you his phone. “We all got these messages. Did you, y/n?”

You looked at what was on Renjun’s phone screen and there was a video of Yangyang, bound up and gagged. Tears streamed down his eyes. He mumbled loudly for help.

Tears fell out of your eyes. “What the hell is this?”

You couldn’t believe it. You’d just had a whole conversation with him yesterday. He was friendly and funny…

And now he was like this.

Jaemin replied, “Someone’s idea of a sick joke...I don’t recommend looking at the rest of the story, y/n…”

You ignored him and kept watching. The next video pointed to a wall and you could hear Yangyang clearly now...He was yelling. “No! Who are you? Why are you doing this? Stop! Nooooooo!” The video cut off after that. The last picture was of Yangyang with his throat slit with text that read: “Wonder who will be next...It’s anyone’s guess, really. 🧐 #springbreak2020”

You ran into the bathroom and threw up. The rest of the group followed you into the bathroom. “Well, y/n?” Tzuyu started.

“Well, what?” You asked.

“Show us your phone,” Tzuyu demanded.

“Why?” You asked.

Jaemin intervened, “Why are you guys ganging up on her?”

“We’ve checked everyone’s phones...Now we want to see y/n’s,” Tzuyu said, a vindictive look in her eyes.

“Fine,” you said. You pulled it out of your pocket and you were shocked to find the messages on your phone.

“Someone sent them to her, too. She’s as innocent as the rest of us,” Renjun said.

Tzuyu frowned. “Okay…”

She seemed disappointed that you weren’t the culprit. You wondered why Tzuyu hated you. She was merely one of Heather’s followers so you guessed she would hate anyone Heather hated no matter what.

Still, this didn’t alleviate any of your worries. Someone kidnapped and murdered Yangyang overnight. And whoever that was remained close by.

And they weren’t finished.

Unfortunately for all of you, your cell reception was weak so you couldn’t contact the police. You were on the verge of a panic attack.

Renjun decided, “We should try going to the next town to get reception.”

Tzuyu started, “You are not leaving me here.”

“Fine, we’ll go together.” He said as they both walked off and borrowed Heather’s car.

___

You sat in the living room, scared to be in your room all alone. Hell, you didn’t mind being with Heather and Naeun. Jaemin was making lunch in the kitchen for you guys.

It had been a few hours since Renjun and Tzuyu left. Now you were all getting worried. The next town wasn’t that far off, according to Heather. So something was up.

And you wondered if it had been a good idea for them to leave. Maybe they had been just as much in danger as the rest of you. Whoever the killer was...He had resources to be anywhere at any time. It gave you shivers.

“Y/n, can you get Naeun a glass of water?” Heather asked you.

You nodded and met Jaemin in the kitchen. You asked him once again, “Are you sure I can’t help with anything?”

Jaemin shook his head. “I’ve got this.” He said as he finished making lasagna.

You got a glass of water for Naeun. “Jaemin, I’m scared,” you said.

Jaemin looked rattled up, too, but he seemed to be holding it together for the rest of you. And it meant a lot to you.

The four of you sat down to eat quietly. Naeun barely took a bite of her lasagna.

Not too long after, she started wheezing. Hives broke out onto her skin. “Epi...Pen...Heather.”

Heather jumped out of her seat. “I’ll go get it!”

“Oh God,” you panicked. “You need air! Let’s go outside, Naeun.”

You and Jaemin helped her out to the front door so she can breathe better. You were praying Heather found her EpiPen soon.

Heather returned, upset, “Are you sure it’s in your purse? I couldn’t find it.”

Naeun nodded. “Yes…”

When you realized Naeun’s EpiPen was missing, you ran up to your room and grabbed yours. “I brought mine!”

“Hurry up!” Heather said.

You ran back down and Naeun was able to get the injection she needed to recover from her reaction.

Heather took Naeun up to her room to recover.

“I wonder what Naeun was allergic to…” You said to Jaemin.

Jaemin frowned. “I don’t know...I had no idea she had severe allergies. Maybe it was in one of the ingredients but I’m not sure which one…God, I feel terrible.” He put his face in his hands.

“Hey, it’s okay...It was an accident...She’ll be okay,” you said as you hugged him.

“It was a good thing you had your EpiPen, y/n...You’re amazing…”

“Or I just have severe allergies, too,” you said.

He laughed awkwardly. “Right…”

Even more hours passed. Renjun and Tzuyu haven’t returned. Everyone was antsy.

You and Jaemin were going to go out and look for them but you were shocked to find his tires had been slit recently.

This wasn’t a coincidence. The killer was watching your every move. You wondered if he had gotten to Renjun and Tzuyu. Your throat dried up at just thinking that.

You and Heather grabbed weapons from her father’s shed, which included gardening shears and hunting rifles.

Heather taught you how to handle the rifle. You both went back into the house with your weapons in tow. You all made sure to shut all of the windows and close all of the doors. You scoured the entire property. No one can come in. And no could come out. You hoped there wasn’t some random secret entrance to this house that rich people always seemed to have in the movies. You all reluctantly headed to bed.

You sat up on the edge of your bed. You were comfortable in a concert tee and some shorts. You wanted to wear something that would be easy to run in. Just in case the killer would come for you next.

Jaemin was at your door. “Hey…Heather and Naeun both fell asleep.”

“How can they be asleep...I can’t sleep knowing that that bastard is out there…” You said.

Jaemin walked into the room. “Can I sit with you?”

You nodded. “Jaemin, what are we going to do...We can’t just stay here. We're sitting ducks. Renjun and Tzuyu are just gone...And we don’t know when or even if they're coming back…”

Jaemin rubbed your back in small circles. His touch was distracting. Kissing Jaemin would be a great distraction.

Making love to him would be even better.

That would be ridiculous. The last thing you wanted to do was have sex when a murderer was afoot. That would be a total cliche.

Jaemin replied. “I’m sorry, y/n...I think our best bet is to wait it out until morning and go to the next town on foot.”

You nodded. “Yeah...Maybe daytime will be safer.”

Jaemin nodded. “Why don’t you go to sleep and I’ll take the first shift?”

“Really?” You asked.

“Yeah, I’m wired. I had three cups of coffee in the past hour. You need to rest, y/n.” Jaemin said as he pulled the covers over you. “I’ll come back to wake you. I’ll be on guard.” He grabbed one of the hunting rifles he left outside the door.

“Thank you,” you said as you shut your eyes. Sleep quickly took over.

___

You were quickly shaken awake. “Y/n get the fuck up!” Heather hissed.

“Heather?” You exclaimed.

She shushed you. “Shut up. You need to come with me right now.”

“What’s wrong?” You whispered.

Heather made sure your door was locked before she returned back to you. “Naeun is dead.”

You looked carefully at Heather and had seen that she’d been crying. “What?” You asked. “That’s impossible.”

“We shouldn’t have left her alone. She said she was fine. She seemed fine. I went to check on her and...she wasn’t breathing. And...I think she was smothered, y/n.”

“Wait...Are you saying…”

“The killer is Jaemin,” Heather said.

“What? Why would you say that?” You shook your head.

“Think about it, y/n. None of us has good reception here so how is that we got those texts about Yangyang? The killer had to be in close proximity to us. Tzuyu and Renjun left in my car, which he probably messed with so they got into an accident...And...I don’t even want to say what could’ve happened...Whatever Jaemin put in the lasagna almost killed Naeun. Then, her EpiPen fucking disappeared. And then, conveniently right after, his tires were slit. And now, since he couldn’t finish the job the first time, he smothered Naeun to death.”

“Heather...Jaemin wouldn’t…” You started.

“I know...I had my doubts, too, but...he gave me some calming tea before I went to sleep...When it cooled down, I tested it...It’s been drugged.”

Your heart sank. “How do you know?”

“My dad’s company is working with the nail polish that can track date rape drugs. My painted nail changed color when I tested it out. Jaemin tried to drug me, y/n…” She showed you her neon green polish and the one fingernail that turned black.

You covered your hand over your mouth.

“I had a feeling he would come check up on me so I tossed some of the tea down the drain and pretended I was asleep. He came back to check that I was asleep, y/n...That’s just creepy. Why the hell would he need to drug me?”

Not knowing how to answer, you started, “Heather...Maybe…”

Jaemin surprised you both by breaking the wood of the door down with an ax. He made a big enough hole to unlock the door from the inside.

You and Heather yelled. Jaemin heard everything.

Jaemin started. “Heather, why are you up? I thought I was going to take care of you tomorrow in my grand finale…”

“Shit,” Heather said as she got closer to you.

“Jaemin? What grand finale?” You demanded. “What is going on?”

Jaemin smiled wide at you. “Sweetheart, I thought I told you to sleep.”

The look in Jaemin’s eyes became cold...Calculating.

“y/n...It’s no accident that I asked for you to come on this trip…” Jaemin said as he pulled a knife out of his pocket and twirled it around his hand. “I thought you’d partake in the festivities…”

“What festivities?” Heather demanded. “Why the fuck did you try to drug me? Why did you kill Naeun? What the hell did she do to you?”

Jaemin tsked as he met Heather’s eyes. “Why wouldn’t I kill Naeun? Why wouldn’t I kill them all? Think about it, you ungrateful little brat.”

You found yourself moving closer to Heather then for she was your only living ally. Albeit the biggest bitch in the land.

Jaemin killed everyone.

Jaemin was the killer.

Heather shook her head. “Jaemin, stay the fuck away from us. I swear to God. Or I’ll-”

Jaemin chuckled. “You’ll what? Call Daddy? Call Mommy? They’re both abroad, never giving a second thought about their spoiled daughter...Those two think you couldn’t be safer and more comfortable…It’s ridiculous...A girl who has everything...Takes it upon herself to put others down...You’ve put y/n down for years...You’ve never let go your childish and petty hatred for her...And for what reason?”

Heather’s resolve faded when she realized what you had.

“Jaemin…” You started.

“Y/n, did you not realize that each person on this trip has fucked with you one way or another?” He asked.

Well, the girls were bitches, yes, but…

“Naeun was the one who spread that rumor about you getting your breast implants...Tzuyu was the one who nearly ran you over in the student parking lot...Renjun body shamed you in the boys’ locker room...And Yangyang told us all that he wanted to take your virginity this weekend…”

“Jaemin!” Heather exclaimed.

“You should’ve been careful with who you added in your group chat full of morons, Heather....Ah, and Heather, dear...you’re the ringleader in all of this...You goaded Naeun and Tzuyu to do these things to y/n. You’ve set out to put y/n down for a long time now. You even went along with Renjun and Yangyang’s comments about y/n’s body...Fuck you, by the way, she’s perfect in every way...And I should’ve made them all go through slower...more painful deaths for all of the things you said about her...”

You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. You had no idea that even boys were targeting you...First off, you literally just breathed. The girls were childish and petty but…

“Jaemin,” you said.

“Yes, sweetheart?” Jaemin asked with a kinder smile to you.

“What they all did to me was wrong...But you didn’t have to…”

Jaemin’s eyes widened. “Kill them? Well, it wasn’t up to you...All of these people are worthless scum that won’t amount to much, honestly….So was it really a waste?”

Heather surprised you by pulling a handgun out of her pocket. She shot Jaemin in the chest. “y/n, let’s go!” She pulled you out of the bed and you both ran for your lives.

“Agh!” Jaemin groaned as he fell to the ground.

You both ran down the stairs. Heather unlocked the front door, knowing the house was no longer safe.

You both ran down the steps of the entrance. You had to pull Heather with you because she ran too slow for you. Then, you heard a gunshot.” Heather fell down. She’d been shot in the foot. “Fuck!” She yelled.

You turned to see Jaemin at the entrance with a hunting rifle. “Bulletproof vest, baby!”

You yelled as you tried to help Heather up.

Jaemin asked, genuinely confused. “Y/n, why are you running? This has nothing to do with you.”

You gaped. “Are you kidding me? Apparently, this has everything to do with me…Jaemin put the gun down! Please stop!”

Jaemin shook his head. “Out of the question, sweetheart. You’d be smart to leave Heather to me.”

Heather began to cry. “No…”

You wrapped Heather’s arm around you and both walked off. Heather winced with pain but she could manage as you kept running. Jaemin was getting closer and closer. He waited, then.

You and Heather were confused. Why did he stop running?

You and Heather both walked over a bear traps you both hadn’t seen.

You yelped in pain and Heather cried out, “Son of a bitch!”

It hurt for both of you to move an inch. You both cried.

Jaemin made his way over, using a flashlight. He sighed. “Y/n, you should’ve stopped running. Now you’ve your beautiful ankle...Well, it’s no big deal...I can disinfect it and patch it up nicely for you...After I’m done with Heather.”

“Jaemin, no, please stop. You don’t have to do this. I don’t want you to do this. That’s enough!” You pleaded.

At the sound of your last two words, Jaemin froze. The words brought him back to when he was a kid and he would pummel other children for bullying his younger siblings. His parents would beg him to stop. It was too bad that their words didn’t stick. And your words were no different.

Jaemin sighed. “I’m sorry, y/n…” He whacked the back of his gun over your head so you blacked out.

___

Heather had also been knocked out. She awoke to being tied up and sitting in the hot tub beside the Olympic sized swimming pool in the backyard. She noted that bricks were tied around her ankles. As she tried to pull herself up, it was impossible for her to get out.

Jaemin smiled wickedly as he wielded the thermostat. “You’ve always prided yourself on being the hottest girl at our college...Why don’t we put that to the test?”

“Jaemin, please stop! I am so sorry!” She cried. “Please don’t do this! I messed up! I...I’ve always been jealous of y/n! Because she was the one who had everything. The perfect family. The perfect grades. The perfect body. Everything about her is so damn effortless that I hated it.” She hoped that pouring her soul out to him might make him change his mind.

“Oh, boohoo…” Jaemin said as he increased the heat.

Heather grew uncomfortable. “Jaemin...Stop...Please...It’s too hot…”

Jaemin sighed. “Goodbye Heather…”

___

You slowly woke up seated on the passenger side of Jaemin’s Jeep. Your eyes quickly opened when you realized that. You jerked awake and found Jaemin in the driver’s seat, calm and composed. “I think we’re alone now...”

You backed up against your window. “Jaemin! Where is Heather?”

“Oh, she’s tied up at the moment...In the hot tub...She is indeed the hottest girl from our college now…” Jaemin said, a chuckle escaping his lips at his pun.

You were about to be sick. You pulled the window and vomited. You tried moving by the gash from the bear trap made you wince and groan in pain.

“Oh, y/n...I didn’t mean for you to get hurt...You couldn’t help it, though. Wanting to help that brat till the end...Because you see the good in people...You are simply too pure.”

“Jaemin...Where are we going?”

“To the next town...Where we will report a murderer that broke into Heather’s summer home…”

You looked at him in disbelief. Surely, he wouldn't turn himself in.

“The murderer is at large and we narrowly escaped, y/n...I got you out of the bear trap and we were able to get away in my car…”

You shook your head. “Jaemin, no...They’ll never believe you...”

Jaemin shocked you by breaking down the same way he had the day before you left for the trip. “Officers, please h-help us. Our friends are gone!”

You looked at him in disbelief. Did he fake crying before?

Well, you did think he was a tremendous actor. You just didn’t know how right you were.

“Jaemin, this is wrong…” You started.

He sighed. “Y/n...you worry too much...Now your life will be brighter...It’ll be perfect now. Perfect for the perfect girl…”

You contemplated how the hell you could get away from Jaemin. Your options were limited as he’d taken your phone. You couldn’t exactly run that far but you could find a way to slow him down. You noticed Heather’s car off the side of the road. It’d rammed into a tree. Jaemin must have tampered with Heather’s car, you realized. He did admit to having a hand in their disappearance, after all.

You thought fast and with all of your strength you moved over to Jaemin’s side and turned the wheel so the car collided into the trees.

The impact was intense but you’d dodged most of the impact. Jaemin laid next to you, unconscious and bleeding.

You limped out of the car and checked Heather’s car. As you feared, Renjun and Tzuyu died from the impact. It was a gruesome sight. They dealt with blunt trauma. Their heads were draining blood. You nearly puked again.

Before you broke down in tears, you thought fast and remembered Renjun and Tzuyu smoked. You rummaged through the glove compartment for a weapon or a phone...You came up short with Renjun’s lighter. Tzuyu’s phone had some battery left. The reception was low so you had to find a way to get to the next town to get reception.

So now what the hell were you going to do, you weren’t going to light a car up on fire...And burn the evidence that was once Tzuyu and Renjun.

You noticed the gas leak that came from under the car. You got under the hood of Heather’s car and found the gasoline tank leaking. You grabbed an empty Starbucks cup from the front seat and let the gasoline slip in.

___

You ran, not getting very far when Jaemin called out to you. He was able to walk normally and he was quickly catching up to you.

“Y/n! Sweetheart! Where are you going? Without me...” Jaemin called out.

You turned quickly and found he walked over to you with an ax.

“Fuck off, Jaemin!” You said, realizing he was just as capable of killing you.

“Sweetheart, let’s just talk about this...I did this all for you...Because I love you...I want to make you happy. I want to marry you. Have twelve children...Ah, yes, you said twelve may be excessive...How does eleven kids sound?”

You rolled your eyes. He was fucking insane. You decided to provoke him. “What makes you think I would marry a deranged killer?”

Jaemin’s face was unreadable then. You hid the cup of gasoline away in your sweater. Pretending you've injured your arm so Jaemin wouldn’t be the wiser.

“Y/n, please…”

You entertained him by turning around.

“What, Jaemin? How could you possibly convince me that anything you did was okay?”

“If you let me try…” Jaemin started. He got closer to you.

You waited for him to get closer and quickly doused him with the gasoline.

Jaemin coughed as some of the gasoline got in his mouth. “y/n, what are you-”

“Goodbye, Jaemin.” You ignited Renjun’s lighter and tossed it at him.

Jaemin clothes caught on fire. He yelled in agony as you watched him struggle. He threw the axe at you but he missed. You cried as you went back to Jaemin’s car and started up the ignition. Thank goodness, it still worked.

Jaemin immediately removed his clothes to remove himself from most of the flames and patted himself down. He immediately charged at you as you backed the car up from the tree.

You didn’t think twice as you ran him over. Checking the rearview mirror and seeing the job hadn’t been completed, you reversed the car and ran him over again.

You waited ten minutes to see that Jaemin was dead. You got out of the car and kicked his body to check for any movement. You got his heavy, lifeless body into the car with you. You checked his pulse again. He was dead. You checked multiple times because once again, you weren’t about to become a movie cliche.

You made it to the next town and reported Jaemin’s murders and how you killed him in self-defense. You explained your weekend of terror and you were at the station all week for questioning. Your family joined you and consoled you as you told them all you knew.

The police scoured the mansion. They found Yangyang’s body in the pool house, beaten to a bloody pulp. They found Naeun’s body in her bed, like she’d been in perpetual slumber. They found Heather’s body in the hot tub, wrinkled and burnt. They found Heather’s car where Tzuyu and Renjun’s bodies remained.

Jaemin told you the truth. He worked part-time at hardware store. He had been fired that day for snapping at one of the customer’s who was berating his wife. Before Jaemin left, he stole an ax. He really did get the ax, like he’d told you.

It turned out Jaemin tampered with the reception at Heather’s house and because her house was already remote...Jaemin was able to use that to his advantage. He used the last of the reception before he cut it off to send the texts about Yangyang from a burner phone, which was uncovered in his Jeep. Yangyang’s phone was unlocked and the police uncovered his messages that were supposedly from his dealer, who he scheduled to meet with the night he disappeared. It turned out Jaemin hacked into the dealer’s phone to get Yangyang right where he wanted him. Jaemin did indeed tamper with the wires of Heather’s car so Tzuyu and Renjun’s fates were sealed. The leftover lasagna Jaemin had prepared was analyzed and there were traces of crushed peanuts in the lasagna. Naeun had a severe peanut allergy. Naeun’s EpiPen was found with Jaemin’s other belongings. When you’d saved Naeun with your EpiPen, Jaemin took it upon himself to smother Naeun with a pillow in her sleep. Jaemin had planted bear traps around the front lawn, which was how he caught you and Heather. Heather died from heat exhaustion in the hot tub as she was tied up and restrained with bricks tied around her ankles. Jaemin had done all of this with gloved hands so no trace of his DNA could be found at the crime scenes. If it hadn’t been for the evidence he’d hidden in his car, then the case would’ve been more difficult to resolve.

Jaemin’s body was recovered at the crime scene. Thankfully, he was not a movie cliche where he up and left and awaited his next victim. He was dead to the world and most importantly, dead to you.

[Fin]

482 notes · View notes

sasster · 3 years

Text

I dunno if you guys can tell but I haven’t done a lot of fantroll stuff lately. Or really. Much of anything. But I DID write this.

Mind this is just some oc species shit, BUT it would mean quite a lot to me if you guys read it. Since it’s the... Longest thing I’ve written in .. All of 2021? Yike!

Anyway, as usual, here is a link to a google doc if reading it on my blog upsets the minds eye.

----

“You know that we are practically Gods in comparison, right? It is a marvel that my people are not in the conquering business. We would be very good at it, do you not agree?”

Their captor spoke with a high in their voice, Qei was positive that they’d gotten their hands on some sort of mind altering substance to get them into the mindset that they were in -- Well, how else could you explain prattling on your master plan to a supposed lesser species? He found it rather foolish for the younger Cardali to speak so loudly and so boldly in front of newly rounded up prisoners. That was to say nothing to the tragically gaudy and unnecessary large castle-like structure that he and the four others of his crew were dragged to. Truly, he’d never seen such high ceilings outside of the Temples on Cardalith. What a waste of resources.

The upside is that the People of Aeilur were a remarkably easy species to mimic. They have no real sexual dimorphism, at least not one noticeable from the outside looking in, nor do they spend a lot of their time on ridiculous beauty standards. They were just a product of their world. Aeilur is a beautiful planet, actually, lush with fauna and vegetation long extinct on most other worlds. A strong, sturdy, practical people, with pacifism practiced down to an art, they wouldn’t raise arms even if an entire army to make a grab for their planet and it’s bountiful resources. It was Falarittus’ responsibility to help keep such things from occurring.

Qei could see how an opportunistic megalomaniac might have taken advantage of such information, he just never thought that he would see the day that one such megalomaniac would be an Ambassador of Cardalith, one of their own. He was disgusted.

There is a tug at the shackles that restrain his top set of hands, indicating that while he was lost in thought he’d stopped shuffling behind. He emits a low inquisitive grunt, he was going his usual hm, but he supposes that this is the only translation his current form could offer. How fascinating! He’d have to make plans to spend more time with the People of Aeilur. Under less pressing circumstances.

There is another sharp tug at his reins and he resumes trudging along behind the madman. How humiliating. Demoralizing. It was important for him to experience this though, so that he could speak to his short experience under their thumb when it came time to trial. There would be a trial. Not that Qei was worried that Falarittus would have much of a case. It would be short.

Not as short as it would have been if Qei were to let his patron in on the manhunt -- Why that temperamental giant would have lost it before they even stepped foot into this… Mansion? Seriously, this thing was gaudy. Might’ve burned the whole thing down Himself. No matter, this was always going to be a job for Qei. He even felt bad bringing along a crew with him. Diollea insisted he bring back up “just in case”.

He threw a worried glance over his shoulder to gauge them. They seemed comfortable, and he breathed out a sigh of relief.

Oh. Right, Falarittus was still talking.

“Once they see what I’ve done for the people of this world, the Gods themselves would shower me in praise. My peers and superiors would turn to me for guidance in the new age!”

It looks like Qei tuned back in just in time for a gem! He couldn’t help himself as the air quickly expelled from his new and quite long proboscis, which resulted in trumpets quite a bit louder than he was anticipating. He thinks this might be what a laugh is for this species. He did not intend to be laughing, but the idea that their creators would entertain the idea of the subjugation of any species, let alone one so peaceful as the People of Aeilur, was preposterous!

Only an idiot who made their home the size of a mall would have such delusions.

“What is so funny, worm?”

Worm! Perhaps not letting Diollea come was the mistake, this miserable pile of goo would long be ashes in that event. The trumpets were coming in spurts now, and Qei’s guess was that these were the equivalent of hiccups or maybe wheezing.

Qei’s crew took some steps back as Falarittus took the several steps to close the gaps between them. Now, naturally, Falarittus and Qei were eye level, but in this form they only came to just about chest level with him. Gentle, emphasis on the giant, indeed. The latters trunk swayed between them with a gentle undulation in a behavior that Qei was actually quite familiar with! Taunting.

He’d only seen it when three sisters prepared for a friendly bout of wrestling upon their reunion; It was cute. This was not.

“Oh, did you want to fight? Is that it? Did you plan to be the warrior of your people?”

Qei merely held up his two sets of shackled hands, hands big enough to hold Falarittus’ head in it. Hands that could crack their skull like a fragile piece of pottery if he were so inclined. He could not disrespect this form with violence, though, he thinks.

The bitter laugh that erupted from the man opposite him was unlike anything he’d ever heard come from the mouth of another Cardali, and he has met many of them in his day. It was almost ear splitting and made the hairs from his arms to his chest stand on end. Danger receptors? Very nice.

“It is not in you to fight, but please raise your hands to me so that I may cite self defense back to my superiors.”

There was a sick smirk on their face as they pulled a set of keys from their robes -- Robes, they were wearing robes like some sort of high priest in a fantasy story book -- and began to unlock the cruel piece of metal from Qei’s top set of arms. This was ideal, as he was fairly certain this is the set that translates back to the singular set of arms in his natural form, as they did not rudely burst from his shoulder blades like the second set did.

“Let's keep it fair, I only have the one pair after all.”

“Fair?” His own voice was quite alien to him, raspy and guttural as it tried to form words unfamiliar to the vocal cords tongue he borrowed to speak. Standard was not a language that belonged in this mouth.

“Fair. Say it with me. F-er.” Holy. Xenophobia. How did this pass the sniff test? No, there had to be another traitor in their ranks for such an awful wretched soul to have been left alone here. An example was to be made, and Qei would make sure that it was handled swiftly. The only good news was that this was so early on, that there was just this region of the planet that experienced it. Which was a really bad thing to think was a good thing. But there was a chance that the People of Aeilur would continue to allow Cardalith’s aid.

“Fair.” Qei said, once again the word barely made it past his tusks in one piece.

Falarittus cackled wildly at this attempt as Qei closed his eyes and focused his energy intro retracting that disrespectful set of arms back into his body, he’d been shifting for quite long time at this point in his life, so the rest of the shift passed by with a pleasant hum and totally not worth describing from the inside.

He reopened his eyes to the sound of metal hitting the floor, he was now looking at his own hands, ambient green glow and birthmarks exactly where he’d left them. They were clenched into tight fists. Most importantly, though, he was staring straight into the shell shocked eyes of the once quite full of himself clown.

“Fair enough?”

“Qei’eleritte, wait, let's talk about this --”

He swung hard, possibly with more force than intended, because they crumpled to the floor almost instantly. Behind him, he could hear the humored trumpeting of his still disguised crew behind him.

This could have been so much worse.

#coko writes sometimes #qei things #waves hello #owo)/#i would appreciate feedback but if you're mean i'll cry

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eclaire-went-bam · 3 years

Text

random riddler headcanons

cannot read the difference between > or <, he uses the "which way is the alligator facing" thing to help him. he keeps this secret very close to him

idk abt you guys but for some reason he always gave me. ace-spec vibes???

on that note he's quoisexual in my eyes. there are,,,question marks on the flag bro,,, it's perfect

that being said he's still DEF homoromantic we all saw that one coming

can't say the words “floor ride in the wyatt tier” in one go

has this unexplained fear of being wrapped up in something, especially arkham straight-jackets (ref to that one throwaway line in young justice lol)

biggest troll bait

80 page long defense plan intro is not fully an intro. it just. trails off into how he hates the batman and how superior he is to him after page 62 (reference to an arkham knight dlc)

the full defense plan is exactly 765 pages

has an official twitter account

adamantly believes cicada 3301 is real. he really wants to join just to feel super smart, but he found out about the whole thing after the organisation/arg/whatever you think it is went silent

when asked how he is, he says “well” to flaunt his correct grammar (although saying good is actually acceptable too lol don't tell him)

has spent WAY too much money on that green luminescent paint. he probably would've been richer than bruce wayne if he just saved it (arkham games again)

has taken either dance or theatre in the past behind his father's back. that's how he so effortlessly makes dramatic speeches, poses, and movements without falling over

would cry if he got a 99% instead of an 100% on a test. partly because 99 is an odd number and i need to self-project though (but also validation i guess 🙄)

can't??? drive???? PLEASE never let him behind the wheel he'll get a diu even while completely sober

hair conditioner before shampoo

he doesn't need a mask, everyone already knows who he is. at this point he just wears it because it feels natural to wear it when he's commiting 💕felonies💕 if not he feels practically nude

nobody knows if it's nygma or nigma and that's his greatest riddle in his eyes

has said or done SO many things solely because he wanted validation or to prove something and is now held up to that expectation all the time it's not fun

somehow rhymes when he's either very euphoric or very angry and he hasn't even noticed he does this

i mean yeah he rhymes with some of his riddles but those are on purpose

he was just. REALLY influenced by those books that are completely full of riddles when he was little. found it collecting dust on a shelf he was finally barely tall enough to reach when he was like 8 and practically brought it everywhere cus it made him feel so cool

speaking of which, serious case of chuunibyou/eighth grade syndrome

instead of just. saying words like "twenty" hell say stuff like "onescore" (hopefully i'm thinking of it right)

for someone who speaks with a lot of question marks he sure does have a lot of exclamation point undertones

doesn't curse just so he doesn't sound lesser. instead he'll try his very hardest to make improvisions that he tries to not make sound stupid

they sound stupid.

you best BET he flaunts whatever hat he has on EVERYWHERE that's his PRIZED possession

when he committed his first riddle crime everyone thought it was an arg

utilises the manipulative kind of word salads to sound intelligent (just wanna emphasise, not the schizophasia kind)

whenever it involves himself, he can't tell when others are joking or not

whenever he walks into the restroom, of course, he stares longingly into the mirror

honestly if there's any mirror he'll examine himself in it, even if not obviously. he needs to make sure he still looks a a a a adorable!!

“riddle me this: cryptocurrency???”

#just so you guys know #i had SO many written on my notes app #but then a bug on my phone happened and it basically. factory resetted my phone.#so they're all gone now #this is just what i remember #im so upset #anyways moving on #there are so many interpretations of him so #i kept the hcs as general as possible #i love him??? big fixation rn i need to draw him im surprised i hadnt finished anyth already #these have no real theme just completely random headcanons #the riddler #dc #headcanon #edward nygma #or is it nigma?#these headcanon posts are actually kinda fun;;;

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your-disobedient-servant · 3 years

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Voltaire’s Paméla Letters Translated: Intro and Letter #1

The letters that Voltaire rewrote in the vein of Richardson’s Paméla after his falling out with Frederick the Great have intrigued me ever since I first heard of them in November or December. Only discovered to have been a rewrite and not originals in the late 20th century, it’s hard to say how much of it is authentic and how much exaggerated or made up, but for me, the fact that they have been altered only adds to the fascination.

Six months into learning French, I’m still not sure I’m quite ready to use this as translation exercises, but I’m impatient, I found the book for very cheap, and besides, I feel that to translate Voltaire you must channel some of the hubris, so bring it on. Poetry (to my surprise, it turns out I actually enjoy translating poetry in some masochistic way) and all. In the end, I am proud of the result.

This is not a very juicy letter, but I’m sure one will come along soon enough. I’m not sure how many will I be able to complete because there’s about fifty of them altogether, but I hope I manage at least a few.

Big thanks to everyone who helped me out with the draft. The rest under the cut for brevity, English followed by original French.

FIRST LETTER

In Clèves, July 1750

It is to you, please, niece of mine, to you, woman of a wit superb, philosopher of the selfsame kind, to you who, like me, of Permesse, knows the many paths diverse; it is to you I now address this disarray of prose and verse, recount my long odyssey's story; recount unlike I back then did when, in my splendid age's glory, I still kept to Apollo's writ; when I dared, perhaps courting disaster, for counsel strike for Paris forth, notwithstanding our minds' worth, the god of Taste, my foremost master!

This journey is only too true, and puts too much distance between you and me. Do not imagine that I want to rival Chapelle, who has made, I do not know how, such a reputation for himself for having been from Paris to Monpellier and to papal land, and for having reported to a gourmand.

It was not, perhaps, difficult when one wished to mock monsieur d'Assoucy. We need another style, we need another pen, to portray this Plato, this Solon, this Achilles who writes his verses at Sans-Souci. I could tell you of that charming retreat, portray this hero philosopher and warrior, so terrible to Austria, so trivial for me; however, that could bore you.

Besides, I am not yet at his court and you should not anticipate anything: I want order even in my letters. Therefore know that I left Compiègne on July 25th, taking my road to Flanders, and as a good historiographer and a good citizen, I went to see the fields of Fontenoy, of Rocoux and of Lawfeld on my way. There was no trace of it left: all of it was covered with the finest wheat in the world. The Flemish men and women were dancing, as if nothing had happened.

Go on, innocent eyes of this bad-mannered populace; reign, lovely Ceres, where Bellona once flourished; countryside fertilised with blood of our warriors, I like better your harvests than all of the laurels: provided by chance and by vanity nourished Oh! that grand projects were prevented by doom! Oh! fruitless victories! Oh! the blood spilled in vain! French, English, German so tranquil today did we have to slit throats for friendship to bloom!

I went to Clèves hoping to find there the stage stations that all the bailiwicks provide, at the order of the king of Prussia, to those who to go to philosophise to Sans-Souci with the Solomon of the North and on whom the king bestows the favour of travelling at his expense: but the order of the king of Prussia had stayed in Wesel in the hands of a man who received it as the Spanish receive the papal bulls, with the deepest respect, and without putting them to any use. So I spent a few days in the castle of this princess that madame de La Fayette made so famous.

But this heroine and the duc of Nemours, we ignore in these places the gallant adventure; for it is not here, I vow, the land of novels, nor the one of love.

It is a shame, for the country seems made for the princesses of Clèves: it is the most beautiful place of nature and art has further added to its position. It is a view superior to that of Meudon; it is a land covered in vegetation like the Champs-Élysées and the forests of Boulogne; it is a hill covered in gently sloping avenues of trees: a large pool collects the waters of this hill; in the middle of the pool stands a statue of Minerva. The water of this first pool is received by a second, which returns it to the third; and at the foot of the hill ends in a waterfall pouring into a vast, semi-circular grotto. The waterfall lets the waters spill into a canal, which goes on to water a vast meadow and joins a branch of the Rhine. Mademoiselle de Scudéri and La Calprenède would have filled a volume of their novels with this description; but I, historiographer, I will only tell you that a certain prince Maurice de Nassau, the governor, during his lifetime, of this lovely solitude devised nearly all of these wonders there. He lies buried in the middle of the forest, in a great devil of an iron tomb, surrounded by all the ugliest bas-reliefs of the time of the Roman empire's decadence, and some gothic monuments that are worse still. But all of it would be something very respectable for those deep minds who fall into ecstasy at the sight of poorly cut stone, as long as it is two thousand years old.

Another ancient monument, the remains of a great stone road, built by the Romans, which led to Frankfurt, to Vienna, and to Constantinople. The Holy Empire devolved into Germany has fallen a little bit from its magnificence. One gets stuck in the mud in the summer nowadays, in the august Germania. Of all the modern nations, France and the little country of Belgium are the only ones who have roads worthy of Antiquity. We could above all boast of surpassing the ancient Romans in cabaret; and there are still certain points on which we equal them: but in the end, when it comes to durable, useful, magnificent monuments, which people can come close to them? which monarch does in his kingdom what a procosul did in Nîmes and in Arles?

Perfect in the trivial, in trifles sublime great inventors of nothing, envy we excite. Let our minds to the supreme heights strive of the children of Romulus so proud: they did a hundred times more for the vanquished crowd than we solely for ourselves contrive.

In the end, notwithstanding the beauty of the location of Clèves, notwithstanding the Roman road, in spite of a tower believed to have been built by Julius Caesar, or at least by Germanicus; in spite of the inscriptions of the twenty-sixth legion that quartered here for the winter; in spite of the lovely tree-lined roads planted by prince Maurice, and his grand iron tomb; in spite of, lastly, the mineral waters recently discovered here, there are hardly any crowds in Clèves. The waters there are, however, just as good as those of Spa or of Forges; and one cannot swallow the little atoms of iron in a more beautiful place. But it does not suffice, as you know, to have merits to be fashionable: usefulness and pleasantness are here; but this delicious retreat is frequented only by a few Dutchmen, who are attracted by the proximity and the low prices of living and houses there, and who come to admire and to drink.

I found there, to my great satisfaction, a well-known Dutch poet, who gave us the honour of elegantly, and even verse for verse, translating our tragedies, good or bad, to Dutch. Perhaps one day we will be reduced to translating the tragedies of Amsterdam: every nation gets their turn.

The Roman ladies, who leered at their lovers at the theatre of Pompeii, did not suspect that one day, in the middle of Gaul, in a little town called Lutèce, we would produce better plays than Rome.

The order of the king regarding the stage stations has finally reached me; so my delight at the princess of Clèves' place is over, and I am leaving for Berlin.

***

LETTRE PREMIÈRE

À Clèves, juillet 1750

C'est à vous, s'il vous plaît, ma nièce, vous, femme d'esprit sans travers, philosophe de mon espèce, vous qui, comme moi, du Permesse connaisez les sentiers divers ; c'est à vous qu'en courant j'adresse ce fatras de prose et de vers, ce récit de mon long voyage ; non tel que j'en fis autrefois quand, dans la fleur de mon bel âge, d'Apollon je suivais les lois ; quand j'osai, trop hardi peut-être, aller consulter à Paris, en dépit de nos beaux esprits, le dieu du Goût mon premier maître !

Ce voyage-ci n'est que trop vrai, et ne m'éloigne que trop du vous. N'allez pas vous imaginer que je veulle égaler Chapelle, qui s'est fait, je ne sais comment, tant de réputation, pour avoir été de Paris à Montpellier et en terre papale, et en avoir rendu compte à un gourmand.

Ce n'était pas peut-être un emploi difficile de railler monsieur d'Assoucy. Il faut une autre plume, il faut une autre style, pour peindre ce Platon, ce Solon, cet Achille qui fait des vers à Sans-Souci. Je pourrais vous parler de ce charmant asile, vous peindre ce héros philosophe et guerrier, si terrible à l'Autriche, et pour moi si facile ; mais je pourrais vous ennuyer.

D'ailleurs je ne suis pas encore à sa cour, et il ne faut rien anticiper : je veux de l'ordre jusque dans mes lettres. Sachez donc que je partis de Compiègne le 25 de juillet, prenant ma route par la Flandre, et qu'en bon historiographe et en bon citoyen, j'allai voir en passant les champs de Fontenoy, de Rocoux et de Lawfeld. Il n'y paraissait pas : tout cela était couvert des plus beaux blés du monde. Les Flamands et les Flamandes dansaient, comme si de rien n'eût été.

Durez, yeux innocents de ces peuples grossiers ; régnez, belle Cérès, où triompha Bellone ; campagnes qu'engraissa le sang de nos guerriers, j'aime mieux vos moissons que celles des lauriers : la vanité les cueille et le hasard les donne. Ô que de grands projets par le sort démentis ! Ô victoires sans fruits ! Ô meurtres inutiles ! Français, Anglais, Germains, aujourd'hui si tranquilles fallait-il s'égorger pour être bons amis !

J'ai été à Clèves comptant y trouver des relais que tous les bailliages fournissent, moyennant un ordre du roi de Prusse, à ceux qui vont philosopher à Sans-Souci auprès du Salomon du Nord et à qui le roi accorde la faveur de voyager à ses dépens : mais l'ordre du roi de Prusse était resté à Vesel entre les mains d'un homme qui l'a reçu comme les Espagnols reçoivent les bulles des papes, avec le plus profond respect, et sans en faire aucun usage. Je me suis donc quelques jours dans le château de cette princesse que madame de La Fayette a rendu si fameux.

Mais de cette heroïne, et du duc de Nemours, on ignore en ces lieux la galante aventure : ce n'est pas ici, je vous jure, le pays des romans, ni celui des amours.

C'est dommage, car le pays semble fait pour des princesses de Clèves : c'est le plus beau lieu de nature et l'art a encore ajouté à sa situation. C'est une vue supérieure à celle de Meudon ; c'est un terrain planté comme les Champs-Élysées et le bois de Boulogne ; c'est une colline couverte d'allées d'arbres en pente douce : un grand bassin reçoit les eaux de cette colline ; au milieu du bassin s'élève une statue de Minerve. L'eau de ce premier bassin est reçue dans un second, qui la renvoie à un troisième ; et le bas de la colline est terminé par une cascade ménagée dans une vaste grotte en demi-cercle. La cascade laisse tomber les eaux dans un canal qui va arroser une vaste prairie et se joindre à un bras du Rhin. Mademoiselle de Scudéri et La Calprenède auraient rempli de cette description un tome de leurs romans ; mais moi, historiographe, je vous dirai seulement qu'un certain prince Maurice de Nassau, gouverneur, de son vivant, de cette belle solitude, y fit presque toutes ces merveilles. Il s'est fait enterrer au milieu des bois, dans un grand diable de tombeau de fer, environné de tous les plus vilains bas-reliefs du temps de la décadence de l'empire romain, et de quelques monuments gothiques plus grossiers encore. Mais le tout serait quelque chose de fort respectable pour ces esprits profonds qui tombent en extase à la vue d'une pierre mal taillée, pour peu qu'elle ait deux mille ans d'antiquité.

Un autre monument antique, c'est le reste d'un grand chemin pavé, construit par les Romains, qui allait à Francfort, à Vienne et à Constantinople. Le Saint-Empire dévolu à l'Allemagne est un peu déchu de sa magnificence. On s'embourbe aujourd'hui en été, dans l'auguste Germanie. De toutes les nations modernes, la France et la petit pays des Belges sont les seules qui aient des chemins dignes de l'Antiquité. Nous pouvons surtout nous vanter de passer les anciens Romains en cabarets ; et il y a encore certains points sur lesquels nous les valons bien : mais enfin, pour les monuments durables, utiles, magnifiques, quel peuple approche d'eux ? quel monarque fait dans son royaume ce qu'un proconsul faisait dans Nîmes et dans Arles ?

Parfait dans le petit, sublimes en bijoux, grands inventeurs de riens, nous faisons des jaloux. Elevons nos esprits à la hauteur suprême des fiers enfants de Romulus : ils faisaient plus cent fois pour des peuples vaincus que nous ne faisons pour nous-mêmes.

Enfin, malgré la beauté de la situation de Clèves, malgré le chemin des Romains, en dépit d'une tour qu'on croit bâtie par Jules César, ou au moins par Germanicus ; en dépit des inscriptions d'une vingt-sixième légion qui était ici en quartier d'hiver ; en dépit des belles allées plantées par le prince Maurice, et de son grand tombeau de fer ; en dépit enfin des eaux minérales découvertes ici depuis peu, il n'y a guère d'affluence à Clèves. Les eaux y sont cependant aussi bonnes que celles de Spa et de Forges ; et on ne peut avaler de petits atomes de fer dans un plus beau lieu. Mais il ne suffit pas, comme vous savez, d'avoir du mérite pour avoir la vogue : l'utile et l'agréable sont ici ; mais ce séjour délicieux n'est fréquenté que par quelques Hollandais que le voisinage et le bas prix des vivres et de maisons y attirent, et qui viennent admirer et boire.

J'y ai retrouvé, avec une très grande satisfaction, un célèbre poète hollandais, qui nous a fait l'honneur de traduire élégamment en batave, et même vers pour vers, nos tragédies bonnes ou mauvaises. Peut-être un jour viendra que nous serons réduits à traduire les tragédies d'Amsterdam : chaque peuple a son tour.

Les dames romaines, qui allaient lorgner leurs amants au théâtre de Pompée, ne se doutaient pas qu'un jour au milieu des Gaules, dans un petit bourg nommé Lutèce, on ferait de meilleurs pièces de théâtre qu'à Rome.

L'ordre du roi pour les relais vient enfin de me parvenir ; voilà mon enchantement chez la princesse de Clèves fini, et je pars pour Berlin.

#this nearly murdered me #i mean swearing at Voltaire is nothing new for me but #i open the book as soon as i get it and the first letter containd FIVE POEMS #dramatic little bitch (semi-affectionate)#anyway onto no. 2 #Paméla letters #my translation #Voltaire #Frederick the Great #Mme Denis

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staylavendertea · 3 years

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music, ya know

this is a complete impulse of lying in bed middle of the night thoughts that i don’t even know if anyone’s gonna see that have been stemmed off the experiences of the past couple days, topic of 1:41 am mind boggle:

music and it’s aesthetic and importance in literal every sense cause it’s just that important to me

first experience of realizing this, i’ve always loved film scores and listening to music and the orchestral pieces from movies and shows, but it really seemed to hit me recently, like the fact that this week’s new LOKI episode, no spoilers, has the most badass score and a badass scene with such a perfect mix and musical atmosphere. i literally had one of my best friends over, who has a very small interest in comics, cinema, marvel in general, especially a show about a norse comic god that they know nothing about, and whilst they sat there for my own regard, watching the show like a normal human being would, i sat there clinching their hand, watching in awe as our music is louder than actors talking tv speakers spurted out the most spine tightening world building story and just wandered “jesus that was good” and whilst i will always think about the superior acting, cgi, the amount of different people that just went into those few scenes and like what was physical set and what was computer image and what the hell did i just watch that has my brain running olympic marathon circles right now?

the thought that said brain kept going back to was that fucking score. it was literally tearing apart of every corner of my head and why was it doing that?

second experience, another marvel one, but i digress. black widow (no spoilers i promise), thursday night, movie theater for the first time in i can’t even remember how long now and we set through so many previews just for fucking boss baby to start playing and the reaction of the theater to make me burst out laughing.

however whatever works in that little projection box, gets fixed and the movie is pushed to just a little before it starts, a nice small pepsi ad, the regal rollercoaster intro (if you go to regal movie theaters ya know what i’m talking about), and then i hear it - the marvel studios logo - something so musically engraved into my head that my ass that can’t sing for anything, can harmonize with the sound and makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up around movie theater surround sound. but i can’t think of that now, i’m here to watch black widow, a movie on hiatus with the rest of the world for so long now, a character i didn’t know much about it or truly, didn’t have the most connection with in the first place. yet through that one movie, i seemed to build one of those.

ofc though scarlett johansson’s beautiful acting and world building, but it isn’t until the end of the movie that i even realize why. it was the fucking score again. when i think about it, the beginning of the movie felt like all of black widows scenes in the avengers movies for me, kinda just, there. not really emotionally tugging, not bad ofc either, but just, there. in the present, watching something cool in motion. but then it hits, what i can only describe as a theme that somehow tells the entire black widow movie in one singular composition. something so badass, story telling, but also just singularly black widow-esk. i can tell you that i walked out the movie theater rambling about the composition and looking up composers.

third experience, the most recent as it was literally like 20 minutes ago and sprung one train rail of a thought process that immediately tugged me into typing this brain vomit into a tumblr post. i have playlists. for everything. and when i say everything, i fucking mean everything. i’m a writer and a reader, i have playlists mostly for the young avengers, my most utter comfort characters, and their stories i’m writing. i also have playlists/genre/specific song for about every book i read.

when i read red white and royal blue when that came out, i noticed i listened to one of the drunks by panic at the disco the entirety of the ending of the book and the words and music fit together like puzzle pieces, not only did it make the reading experience better, but i was so fucking emerged in my over hyper-imagitive brain that when i finally actually finished the book, i still never left. rewind present day to the beginning of this past june, one last stop comes out, ofc i get it the day it comes out with my anticipation building like wildfire. i start reading that night and i put on my recents on my liked songs playlist (true to true spotify user) and i slowly over the next day as i read and finish the book, windle down to the genre, then the band, to the album, to the exact song that feels like the carbon copy of the words i’m reading. that song was only ones who know by the arctic monkeys. now go back to this past week, anyone who reads the carry on series knows, anyway the wind blows came out this past tuesday. i waited till wednesday to buy the ✨pretty special addition barnes and nobles copy✨ so that the dear friend that indulged me by watching loki that same day could buy it at the same time and make a cute book date or whateva. i started reading that night and something just felt ,,, off. i didn’t know what it was, but i was living off the pure joy that simon and co give me so i ignored the feeling. until i realized why it felt off this morning. i wasn’t listening to any fucking music, literally nothing, not even queen. motherfucking. queen.

i looked for the snowbaz playlist i made when i read carry on for the first time back in 2016/2017 when i was still a freshman in high school just to remember i deleted that literally forever ago. so i made a new one. like an hour and a half ago. very inspired on how i made the playlists for the young avengers and all their stories. letting the music talk.

the fact that all these rambling thoughts have led to this conclusion makes my head hurt, but for me at least in my own experiences. music talks. a two way conversation. a radio broadcast, turning the peg until you match the same frequency thats being put out and you can hear it and understand it. it’s like when you see comedians on stages or actors on panels, they talk, you have reactions, you talk back, and so forth the loop continues until the last voice, last note, rings out. music and songs and orchestral pieces and bands and composers and lyric writers are telling you the stories in reverse. they don’t know their doing it, obviously they meant something entirely different in their creations, but it’s like literature and any work of words and storytelling. interpretation. to me, the notes, pianos, violins, guitars, drums, singers, cellos, and anything that can make sound you can think of, is telling you something. whispering in your ear as you watch or read. facial features, emotions the characters dont say out loud, outfits, they way their standing or talking or moving or interacting with anything and everything.

when i just made that carry on playlist, i played it, decided to try read some good almost 2 am fan fic as you do, my hanging on by a thread sleep brain telling me words aren’t recognizable right now, and tighten myself into a blanket to see if i can sleep at all. the playlist still plays and my never shuts up head thinks it’s own daydreams, stresses out about anything it can, that is until the song plays. the one that just speaks the carry on trilogy language. the one that i found whilst i was reading wayward son and then would play whenever i re read carry on. the one that started this whole way too long ass post in the first place. cant be alone tonight by atlas. i heard just the first sound and i saw them, as if i were in the same room, like i never even put the book down in the first damn place because i’m actually terrified of finishing it. i could see simon in his oversized hoodies, baz in an outfit that was way too good just to be sitting inside, agatha looking as pleasantly pretty as ever, penelope poking fun at shepherd, and shepherd poking fun right back; bickering, laughing, saying the dialogues i try to remember so i can write them later, existing.

in a way music doesn’t just talk, but it lives. it lives and breaths. a three way conversation you could say. characters, stories, plot, and settings talk to the music, then the music delivers us listeners the message, so that we can send one back. this literally took me over an hour to write and i should point the important note that i do have synesthesia where colors and sounds and colors and words do the association so this entire thing might be me being entirely biased, but alas, i love sound so much and if there is anyone else that feels the same ways as i do as just a simple good film score and song makes anything ten times better, feel free to talk, i will totally be awkward, but i need some music freaks like myself around so feel free to hit me up, also if you love movies and cinema also feel free to hit me up as i need movie buddies and now it’s 3 am and i will be going to bed - peace out 🛸

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