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analoghorrorexplained · 11 months

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Hi, this ask is probably gonna be lengthy. But I wanted to say your posts on UrbanSPOOK are really good and perfectly nail everything wrong with the series, which is why I wanted to run something by you

I ended up finding the series pretty late into its prevalence (5 episodes in) and I’ve been going back and forth over my opinion of it with how split the community is over whether it is a masterpiece or problematic

Ultimately I’ve come to the conclusion that ‘The Painter’ does have a unique premise and impressive art, but poor execution in terms of blatant insensitive/inappropriate theming and an inconsistent story (which the creator has even admitted himself to be simply a way of promoting his art)

Which is why I personally want to try remastering the series. My goal is to polish it and fix the glaring issues, such as obviously removing the unnecessary ‘content’ and retouching the story to make it accurate and understandable. (I also intend to recreate every piece myself instead of directly reusing all of Slug’s art since I have some art skill)

I’ve been conceptualizing for the past month, but that’s as far as I’ve come. Besides the problem with original story currently incomplete (and most likely staying that way should the reception deplatform him), there is simply too much to fix to the point I’m not fully confident I can remake a well-thought out portrayal completely on my own.

I want to know your opinion on a possible repaint (literally) and if you have any advice on fixing the broken storyline, it’d be appreciated before I formally decide to do this or not

I am going to be honest: the only thing that does work about the series is this idea of having the villain be a person and not some sort of existential threat or disease. That, and having the killer have a gimmick like leaving paintings behind. That is about it and all I will praise. Everything else either conceptually or in execution is a dumpster fire.

One of the biggest points of re-write here would be the Painter himself and his motives. At the moment: we have no idea why the painter is doing what he does nor is there really a pattern to his behavior. Real serial killers do not act like this. There is usually some sort of greater reasoning or motivation to their choosing their victims. Some serial killers favored people with certain features or were in certain communities. Others tended to kill in a certain area or have a specific way of doing it. There is usually some sort of clear pattern or patterns set. So far the Painter just seems brutal for brutalities sake and it adds very little to the story. There is no reason for the painter to be as brutal as they are or for them to target the people they do. In the 6 episodes we have seen of UrbanSPOOK at the time of writing all we know is what the painter looks like (kind of) and that he kills/paints people. This second thing can even be debated since it is implied there is more than 1 person behind what is going on. We have no hints of motive or patterns. Being angry because a victim got away isnt enough character development for 6 episodes worth of story. Painting and taunting the police isnt either. Being a sexual degenerate isn't. The painter is just a hollow character with no real defining traits other than "he does fucked up shit".

For a painter re-write you are going to need to fill those gaps at least somehow. Presuming the painter is human, which I am going off of the assumption he is: why the fuck would he kill people so brutally. Why is there this fixation with rape or forms of sexual trauma/violence? Why does the painter paint their victims? Does the painter incorporate their victim's remains (IE: teeth, hair, bone shards, blood, etc) into the art somehow or are these paintings painted before the killings even happen? Why is any of this happening and why would the painter be doing this? You dont have to lay all your cards on the table right away. But to have a compelling story: you gotta have more than what we are shown at the moment. Its not enough to keep me hooked since its ALL over the place. And despite being all over the place, we still dont even know anything about who the painter actually is beyond their crimes and why they are doing what they are doing. This also goes for the victims and any other additional character. What is the point for them being there and why should we care about/hate them? What are they doing to push the story forward (or create a story to begin with)

Secondly, there is going to need to be major edits in terms of presentation, how info is given to the viewer, and how events in-universe happen.

As I mentioned before the series suffers from not really having an overall story to tell and from not using the format its in well (which leads to additional logistical problems for the story down the line). I do not think UrbanSlug really understood the setting of his own story or the genre he was putting it in. To fix this, you need to think about how this story might actually appear in an analog format (IE recordings of old news broadcasts, safety briefs, PSAs, websites, etc) and how those might look depending on the time and place your series is set in. I would hesitate setting it any time after 2000 since we are moving away from Analog tech in the 2000s which makes the format the info is being displayed in a lot more confusing. But I would really think about just how this shit would look if it were happening in real-time in the time period you have chosen. Would the police address this publically? Would victims be interviewed on the news? Would there be stories about this floating around? Would there be briefings? Would there be any reason to lie to the public about what is going on? Is the painter producing some of the content we are seeing? Where are things taking place and what technology does that place have that can be used as a storytelling device?

I would also really be careful of plotholes and inconsistencies. For example: the "incompetent police" trope is really overplayed. In urbanSPOOK proper: it seems like the police all have brain damage from being hit with a brick by the painter too hard. They do not seem to be doing anything and only serve as a way to explain why we know about the paintings or how we know how these people died. They serve no general narrative in-universe purpose other than to be exposition dumps. Same with the sexual violence and gore. There is no reason for things to be they way they are with the info presented and due to how inconsistent it is presented. And the fact the Painter was somehow able to kill both active duty and retired cops (one of which was also a farmer) in the deep south without getting shot or caught is impressive and also nonsensical since he is just a guy. The police more or less seemingly discovered the painter's hideout. Why the fuck is nothing being done to track down who that is? Cops have died they took one of their own. Would that not be additional motivation to keep on fighting harder? And with the wax bit, how the fuck was that even possible given how the painter got into the house and the things in the area? Why did the painter have any reason to sew the twins together or rip their genitals off? Why does the series never mention the swamps at all even when its set in an area where those are common? Why is nothing from the setting, time period, or environment taken into account? What should be taken into account? If there is a variable (like post-9/11 gun culture in the south, the fact gators and swamps are common in the area the story is set in, or realistic police reactions to things) are all things you need to think of when crafting your story. Would it make sense for the painter to be able to travel really far distances in a short amount of time or would it make sense for a news broadcast or police PSA to leave out all identifying details and locational details when talking about something?

If you cannot find a reason for something existing within the story, do not include it within the story.

And finally, I would like to stress that while having extreme violence or SA in your story is fine: it should not be used as a gross-out factor. If the main point of the narrative is to be like "look at this guy, he is so evil, he killed a person in a violent way and fucked a dead child" and that is the extent of where things go: you have a terrible story and a poorly handled topic. This kind of goes along with the "dont include things in your story that serve no overall purpose" point. But you owe it to the victims of these crimes, your audience, and everybody else to address this topic with respect and not blind sensationalism. There can be a lot of different ways this manifests in practice. A lot of it will have to do with research and how a topic might fit in your story. But it needs to serve a purpose beyond being gross and horrible.

TLDR:

Make things have a reason for happening and have that reason make logical sense for the story. If it does neither do not include it.

Take advantage of your setting and of the format your story is in to help tell it (and make sure your story makes sense for both the setting and format)

Make things semi-logical so we do not get any more candlewax mound/people being terminally stupid incidents. Stick to your own universal-rules or the laws of reality and do not rely on suspention of disbeleif.

Do not rely on shock horror to tell your story or use it as a crutch to try to get the viewer to love/hate something constantly

Have more than 1 character that does something

Follow your own rules of reality and when in doubt, do research

Try to avoid filler/repetitive episodes/points as much as possible. If you find yourself saying the same thing over and over move on to something else or cut out that point

Have an idea of what your endgame is before you begin writing the series

TLDR TLDR:

Write a story first, make art later.

I hope this helps. Idk how much can logistically be done to fix it but you can attempt. But itll take a lot of ground-up work.

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thedaveandkimmershow · 4 months

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Yesterday we got a late start. Our niece and her dad were in Amsterdam for the Friends Experience because they are both HUUUUUUUGE fans of the show.

They had tickets for a while now but my niece somehow forgot and went already with a friend of hers. Then yesterday she went again with her dad because, you know, Friends.

The experience involves accurate and various Friends sets and moments... and the two of them took full advantage with photographs of themselves in iconic spaces recreating iconic moments.

They both said it was super busy because the day got off to a delayed start due to technical problems... so there were more people than expected crammed into a shorter schedule. Still, the pictures they took make it seem like they're the only ones on set.

Adorable. 😊

Around 2 in the afternoon I get a text they're on their way back from Amsterdam... so at 230 we leave our hotel for the local grocery store, Aldi, because Kimmer literally cannot get enough of the place.

Also, I'm not clear why we need more food. My aunt is a relentless feeder of family members. Plus we've got a stock of baked foods we keep receiving as gifts from family over the last few days.

Still, we're going up and down the aisles looking... looking...

And yeah. We find a gift or two for someone or someone's at home.

Don't tell them, though.

It's a surprise. 😉

3pm and my niece and her dad are pulling up to our hotel. Since we're still at Aldi, they drive down the street to pick us up...

And then we're on our way to the center of Gorinchem.

Now first we've gotta a coupla highly important things to figure out.

Here's how my niece put it:

"So my father and I are discussing a few options. We thought we could get a chai latte 😆 we could go into town and drink some in one of the local lunchrooms. Then I can take the card game to my grandparents tonight! Or we could get the chai latte to go and go to our house. Or we don’t get a Chai latte 🤣🤣 so many options😆"

Yeah.

Complicated. 😉

We quickly decide the Chai Latte is essential to our afternoon so we head to Gorinchem Centrum and park in the Kweeklust parking garage along one of the rivers surrounding the centrum.

We spend the next hour walking from the north end to the south end where there are locks and then those boats that take tourists down the Merwede river to castle Slot Loevestein.

I'm pretty sure this is the dock from which my cousins 'n I as children made that trip ourselves with our parents, one of whom took an iconic photograph of us.

From the parking garage, Kimmer 'n I do a pretty good job of walking and being present with family. This part of town is so picturesque, though, there's so much unique architecture, so much fascinating detail, that for a while in there we become raging photography monsters, eating up everything we see along the way.

youtube

This is, of course, my niece and her dad's hometown. It's also a small town and every so often they run into someone they know.

And then another someone.

And another someone.

Yeah.

That small.

Either that or they're both quite famous and we just don't know it. 🤔🤨

Along the way, both my niece and her dad point out the shops and cafes they frequent: a record store here, a high-tea restaurant there. It's a lovely bit of family Show 'n Tell. 😊

For example, my niece points out an entrance to a church that used to be walled off, hidden from the Nazi's during the occupation of Holland during World War II.

My niece's dad one-upped her by pointing out a lane along which is a row of connected, narrow homes. In one of these, he tells us, is the home in which he was born.

He just can't remember exactly which one. 😕

He can tell us, though, that the building across the narrow lane from the row houses used to be an orphanage. And then a block later we run across a shop featuring a painting of Hugo the Great and an illustration of castle Slot Loevestein which prompted a telling of this slice of dutch history in which Hugo is captured, taken to the town center where villagers help him escape inside a wooden cabinet.

Huzzah!

By 'n by, we wander to a historic door that's related to the Hugo the Great story... next to which is Espressobar Hugo.

Where we get our Chai Lattes.

It's 4pm.

A lovely little espresso place, the bar offers a full sit-down experience: take your seat, check out the menu, and soon someone comes by to take your order.

Eventually, our Chai lattes are brought to the table. Actually, three Chai lattes and one cappuccino 'cause that's my niece's dad's jam.

The Chai, by the way, comes in tall, thick, clear glass cups accompanied by a shot of whipped cream with Bailey's and a little square of chocolate brownie.

Kimmer couldn't have hers... so she gave it to me for a sum total of two little brownie squares for my afternoon.

After a lovely hour of hot drinks, good fun company, and a bunch of photos Kimmer felt compelled to take at the back of the espresso bar, we take our leave of Gorinchem in order to swing by the home of my niece's family.

Why?

Because our day's primary agenda with her is to play her Harry Potter trivia game.

We've taken most of the afternoon with a lovely city walk, so now we're gonna grab the game on our way to my aunt and uncle's to play after dinner there.

Of course it's not a grab 'n go we do. The "stop" easily turns into a Show 'n Tell of their home including the "shed" out back that's a pretty massive deal with plenty of storage inside and a covered space outside for lounging on chairs. There's even a sign over the window facing the covered space that reads

Surf Shack. 🙂

It's actually more fun than I'd guess getting a tour of someone else's home. But this one's comfortable and hits a lot of the same design notes that we love from lighting to furniture to decor (including the old-school LPs and the Lego VW bus).

6pm We're back at my aunt and uncle's place for dinner. At the dinner table's their daughter (arriving a little later than the rest of us due to work), her husband, their daughter/my niece, and then us.

Once again it's a lovely time had by all with a thoroughly traditional Dutch menu including variations on mashed potatoes, sausages, and beef.

After dinner, we settle around the table to play my niece's Harry Potter trivia game. We don't specifically read or follow the rules... we just play in a way that makes sense to us and is fun for us.

So.

Is it fun?

Well, all I can say is it's LOUD. It's competitive. And we're super into it against each other and with each other.

Because that's how we roll. 😉

Now, while we're thoroughly into all things Potter, my cousin's husband's in the living room with my aunt and uncle revisiting some of my uncle's history.

Meanwhile (and I don't know how this happened) the game we're playing at the dining room table turns into a wide-ranging conversation about the British royal family, from "The Crown" to the tabloids to each royal to each royal couple.

Again. No idea how that happened.

Definitely the conversation drew my aunt into the room. My aunt... who isn't into Harry Potter trivia games but is quite able to weigh in on British royals past and present. 🤔🤨

And then somehow (again, I don't know how) the conversation pivots to the challenges of being a parent and the simultaneous, complementary challenges of growing up. It's another wide-ranging and detailed conversation with everyone everyone everyone at the table weighing in.

'Cause we're all experts like that.

With so many parents at the table, it's like a support group. 😉

Inevitably, our arrival at 6pm flips through more hours than I would've guessed because suddenly it's 11 o'clock at night.

Did not see that coming either.

So, with hugs and kisses all around, my cousin's husband and niece drop us back at our hotel at 11:30.

Dang.

Talk about Time Travel.

That time at my aunt and uncle's flew.

And yeah. It's amazing how much life you can cram into those hours...

When you're with your tribe.

☺️

#the friends experience #friends #aldi grocery store #chai latte #walking #strolling #picturesque town #espressobar hugo #harry potter #harry potter trivia game #surf shack #dinner #family #dutch food #games #competition #fun #laughter

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the-himawari · 2 years

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A3! Nanao Taichi - Translation [N] Welcome to Akebono-so!

*Please read disclaimer on blog

---

Sakyo: Should we finish today’s rehearsal up to here?

Banri: Yeah. Good job.

Taichi: Great work~! Ha~, my tummy’s rumbling already…

Sakyo: We had dinner before practice, didn’t we?

Juza: …I’m hungry too.

Banri: You too?

Azami: I mean, we moved around a lot.

Omi: Haha, that’s true. Should I make something for a late snack?

Taichi: Are you sure!?

Omi: Yeah, if something simple works.

Taichi: Woohoo! You can count on Omi-kun. Thanks a bunch! Alriiight, let’s head to the lounge!

-pause-

Taichi: Yeeep, Omi-kun’s special yaki udon after rehearsal… really hits the spot~! I wanna have this late night snack everyday…!

Banri: I get how you feel, but what’ll you do if that increases the burden on our lead?

Taichi: …HAH!! I’ve come up with a great idea!

Juza: Great idea?

Taichi: Lots of different dishes appear in our upcoming show, so why don’t we actually try making them for our late night snacks! But it’d be tough for Omi-kun to make them all by himself, so each day, one person will make something!

Azami: Like a recreated meal, in other words?

Taichi: Right! It'll be fun, it’ll fill us up after rehearsal, and it'll be connected to our performance, so it's win-win!

Sakyo: Well, I guess it does relate to the show.

Banri: There are things that we usually eat, but tryna to recreate the dishes that appear in our show doesn’t sound bad.

Omi: Yeah. I think it’s great too.

Juza: Same.

Taichi: It’s settled! Alright, I’m the one who suggested it, so I’ll start us off tomorrow!

Omi: Is there something you’d like to make, Taichi?

Taichi: I wanna cook mapo tofu!

Banri: Geh. The mapo tofu that appears in the script is sweet though…

Taichi: Uh… I-I’ll make the regular spicy version…

Azami: What happened to the recreated meal?

-pause-

Taichi: Everything’s ready! I’ll put my soul into making mapo tofu! (I've learned how to make it from Omi-kun, but I gotta make sure I don’t add anything that’ll make it go to waste like when I messed up last time.) (Back then, I accidentally added Chikage-san's spices into the minestrone Omi-kun was making…) (Everyone turned into zombies, and it was terrifying…)*

Taichi: But this time, I'll make use of that lesson learned to make some delish mapo tofu according to the recipe! Here goes nothing~! This amount should be good… And then the potato starch should be here… umm… There it is! He said the white powder. It’s gotta be this. Okay, next is~…

-pause-

Taichi: Tah daaah! Thanks for waiting! I put my whole heart into making Taichi’s special mapo tofu~!

Banri: Heh, it looks legit.

Sakyo: Yeah, it ain’t bad.

Juza: Looks tasty.

Taichi: Hehehe~. Omi-kun taught me how to make it, so it’s perfect!

Omi: Alright, let’s dig in right away?

Azami: Itadakimasu.

Taichi: Itadakimaaasu! *Munch*! Urgh…!?!?

Juza: !!

Omi: T-this is…

Azami: It’s sweet as hell…

Banri: Dude, weren’t you gonna make regular mapo tofu…!

Taichi: I-I planned on making normal mapo tofu but…!

Sakyo: You didn’t taste it beforehand? You…

Taichi: I wanted to eat it together with everyone, so I held back…

Sakyo: Geez…

Azami: The mapo tofu’s sweet like in the script, so it’s accurate in terms of a recreated meal. But…

Banri: What’d you put in it?

Omi: Could it be powdered sugar…?

Taichi: Powdered sugar? …AH!! Don’t tell me I mistook the potato starch and accidentally added sugar!?

Sakyo: So that’s what happened…

Omi: Ahh… right. They were on the same shelf and they’re both white powder, so it was hard to tell, huh?

Taichi: UWAHH! You guys, I’m so sorry~!!

Azami: Hold up. Juza-san’s been quiet this whole time…

Juza: Thanks for the meal.

Banri: HA!?

Taichi: EHH!? You ate it all, Juza-san!?

Juza: Yeah. It was good. You’ve got talent for cookin’, Taichi.

Banri: Are you for real…

Omi: Haha, it looks like it suited Juza’s palate.

---

*References Omi’s SR Enemy's Provocation card story.

#a3!#a3! translation #nanao taichi #act! addict! actors!#this story was missing from the set~

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slashbitch2 · 3 years

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Prove Me Wrong, Darling

who doesn't love a bit of enemies to lovers? :)

You and Agatha had never gotten along. From your perspective, it was due to a conflict of interest. Whereas if you asked her, she'd likely say it was a conflict of intelligence, or something else insulting along those lines. Though the issue you had with the fellow witch wasn't her attitude, rather her underestimation of your powers. It'd started with her massacre of the Coven, when she'd attempted to end your life alongside the others. But to her surprise, you'd been strong enough to defend yourself and escape. Since then, there'd been several instances where your paths had crossed, and you hadn't let her live down the failure yet.

This particular occasion was different, however, as Agatha had asked you for help.

It'd taken everything in you not to immediately mock her. But you knew that she'd leave without further explanation if she felt ridiculed, and you were just dying to know what had made her stoop to your level. So, you'd swallowed your pride and attentively listened to her proposal. It'd mostly featured the repeated phrases "immense power" and "huge source of energy," and even a confession that she was baffled by the cause, which only intrigued you further.

Although you weren't too interested in accumulating anymore power, the opportunity to be on level ground with Agatha was too good to pass on. You confessed this to her upon accepting the invitation, which resulted in an unimpressed eye roll. Regardless of her annoyance, you left that same day, arriving in the least expected location. A quaint town in New Jersey.

"Well," You landed behind Agatha in the middle of a road, surveying the picturesque, colourless neighbourhood. "isn't this lovely."

She pursed her lips, looking round similarly perplexed. "Lovely?" She echoed. "This is like every outdated suburban stereotype rolled into one. Like some kind of picture-perfect movie set."

Her condescending comment jogged a memory. "That's what I was thinking of!" You exclaimed, clapping your hands enthusiastically. "Did you ever watch that sitcom- from the 50s? The Dick Van Dyke Show?"

"From the title alone I'm glad I didn't."

"Seriously, it's practically the same setting." You moved to stand directly in front, forcing her to look at you.

"So, what you're saying is someone used this insane amount of power just to recreate their favourite TV show?" She quirked an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed by your theory.

"Well, wouldn't you?"

"No."

"Anyway." You glanced down at the rather eye-catching ensemble Agatha was currently wearing, then at your comparably casual yet modern clothes. "This isn't going to work." With a wave of your hand, the jeans and jumper combo was replaced by a more period accurate pencil skirt and blouse. Satisfied, you looked up at her expectantly.

Taking it as a challenge, she copied the gesture, managing to both create a new dress and fix up her hair. She smirked, enjoying the chance to show off her superior abilities.

"It's not a competition." You huffed.

She placed a hand on your arm fake comfortingly. "Of course not, dear."

The contact caused you to shiver slightly. It felt as though her touch ignited sparks, though the sensation wasn't exactly unpleasant. Quite the opposite, in fact. But indulging in it didn't feel right either, so you were grateful when Agatha removed her hand.

Her face dropped, eyebrows furrowing. Slowly, she swivelled round to point at a house. "There. Can you feel it?"

Following her outstretched finger, you tuned into the energy, focusing specifically on the house. "Mhm." Unsurprisingly, Agatha was right. An unfamiliar energy was being emitted from whoever was inside. You tried to pinpoint what kind of magic the user possessed, but found no trace of any familiar type. "Shall we go meet the neighbours, then?"

"You read my mind." She muttered, narrowing her eyes and offering an arm without so much as sparing a glance in your direction.

You hesitated, taken aback by the kind gesture. It hadn't dawned on you until then that an incredibly powerful being was residing little over 10 metres away, and that you were both about to willingly walk into their house. Looping your arm with hers created a naïve sense of safety.

Neither spoke as you approached the house with faux confidence, only pausing for Agatha to summon a potted plant. A house warming gift, you guessed. The simple gesture of goodwill brought a smile to your face.

"I didn't expect you to be such a considerate neighbour." You whispered.

"Gotta make a good first impression." She reached out to knock against the door.

---

You sighed. Barely an hour spent in this black and white world and you were already bored. Everything was so tiresomely perfect, so normal that you questioned how you'd ever suffered through those terrible old sitcoms in the first place. Sitting in Wanda's living room, the only entertainment was your partner in crime Agatha, or Agnes, as you ought to say.

She was currently flipping through a magazine, tracing the page with her index finger and reading aloud to help Wanda prepare for her anniversary.

"Any notable date you can remember? Special occasion?" She asked the redhead. "You know, to remind him of good times." She winked suggestively, briefly glancing at you with an expression that only you could decipher. She was enjoying flustering Wanda a little too much.

"Oh...I don't know." She trailed off, untrustworthy eyes darting around the room. "Do you two have any memorable date? Maybe I could steal some ideas."

Had the sitcom spell effected you, this would've been the ironic moment in which you spat out whatever drink was currently in your mouth. Fortunately though, you'd declined the offer of tea earlier, and opened your mouth to correct her.

Agatha beat you to it by nudging you with her elbow. "Oh don't we just?" She laughed deeply until you joined in with a forced chuckle.

Deciding to join in with her game, you hummed thoughtfully. "What about that picnic we had? In Salem, remember?" Judging by the way her eyes flashed dangerously, she knew you were referring to that dreadful night with the Coven, serving as revenge for the sudden change in relationship status. "Agnes decided the best time to go on a date would be at night- and in the middle of forest of all places!"

Agnes threw back her head in exaggerated laughter. "Oh hush! I thought it'd be romantic. Besides, you're the one who got us completely lost, dear." She continued, further adding depth to the altered anecdote. "And I'd say it went pretty well regardless." She turned to whisper conspiratorially to Wanda. "So I'll spare you the dirty details."

The three of you fell into easy laughter, only interrupted by the shrill ring of the telephone. "If you'll excuse me." Wanda stood up to answer. "That's probably Vis."

You took the distraction as respite from forcing such an overly hospitable smile, finding that your cheeks were already aching. For the last few minutes, you'd been aware of a pair of eyes watching you closely, and finally turned to face the witch sitting next to you.

"What?"

Agatha said nothing, her invasive eyes never leaving yours as she took a sip of her drink. You could practically see the gears turning in her head as she thought something through, and dreaded to wonder what she was about to say.

Reaching some form of a conclusion, she leant forward to place her drink down on the table. "Kiss me." She murmured through clenched teeth, momentarily glancing at Wanda, who's back was turned.

"Excuse me?" Out of all the possible things she could've said, this request seemed the least plausible in your mind.

"When Wanda turns round she should see us-" Agatha gestured her hand back and forth as if vocalising what she was implying was too sinful to put into words. Her vagueness was met by your blank stare. "Y'know?"

"No?" You shook your head, unable to comprehend why she'd ask such a thing, untrusting your interpretation of her suggestion.

"Just-" Agatha raised her hands to grasp your face. Hesitated. Then threw them back down into her lap and sighed in frustration. The fact she was struggling to initiate contact was laughable, though eventually you took pity on her.

Leaning forward, you kept your eyes open to watch for Agatha's reaction. You found it amusing that upon realising what you were trying to do, her eyes shut impossibly fast. Satisfied that she was consenting, you raised one hand to cup her cheek and continued to chase after her lips. The kiss was chaste and affectionately mundane, exactly at it should be.

In response, she grabbed your knees and pulled you closer, nipping at your bottom lip. Clearly Agatha wasn't on the same wavelength as you. Her hands shifted further up to your thighs, bringing a startling heat to the kiss. You gasped, virtually melting at her touch. You wanted this. One hand slid to rest on her shoulder. But it wasn't the time or place. You gently pushed against her.

Agatha pulled away, breathless. She scanned your face with pupils blown wide and mouth slightly agape like she'd just reached some new revelation. You were certain your expression mirrored hers.

Wanda cleared her throat somewhere in the distance.

"Gosh, Wanda I'm sorry." Agnes' cheerful voice reappeared as she addressed the redhead without breaking your intense shared eye contact. "But I think we ought to be heading home now." She said unabashedly. Like you hadn't just been caught making out on the neighbour's couch.

"Of course." You could hear the understanding smile in her voice, the slight awkwardness from intruding. "It's been lovely meeting you both."

Summoning an ounce of brainpower, you turned to Wanda. "And you. Feel free to keep the magazine." Then tugged Agatha up and began dragging her toward the front door. For once in her life she went willingly, allowing herself to be pulled along, calling out a last minute farewell to Wanda.

Upon reaching the end of the garden, Agatha wordlessly took the lead. Staying true to her fabricated story, she set a determined course for the house to the right, waltzing up as if she owned the place. A quick flourish of your fingers and the lock was rendered useless. Now the house was yours.

As soon as the door shut behind you, she turned on her heel and pushed you against it. Her mouth quickly sought out yours with a desperation only appropriate in private. Had you known Agatha was this good of a kisser, you would've done this ages ago, but elected not to vocalise the praise knowing she'd never let you live it down. You felt her smirk against your lips, and briefly wondered if she'd somehow infiltrated your mind. You wouldn't put it past her.

As she began trailing kisses down your neck, any concern about the invasion of privacy became inconsequential. You sighed. She rewarded the sound with a nip at your throat. Due to the haze of lust clouding your better judgment, you didn't register the sound of footsteps until it was too late.

"Woah!" A man called from the top of the staircase, presumably the current previous resident of the house. Agatha froze, her lips still pressed up to your neck.

"If you two beautiful ladies hadn't already broken into my house, I would've happily invited you in." The man grinned obnoxiously, slowly continuing down the stairs.

Agatha disinterestedly waved her hand, incapacitating him. The sound of the stranger tumbling down the stairs caused her to let out a short, cruel cackle, before returning to bury her face in the crook of your neck.

"Not big on roommates?" You joked, sliding a hand up and down her back soothingly.

She nipped at your flesh, a little harder this time. "Trust me, he doesn't want to be here for what I'm about to do to you."

Already impatient, you decided to tease her in hopes it would speed things up. "You're all talk and no action, Harkness."

She all but growled as she returned to your lips. Without warning her hands squeezed your hips. "I don't think you're in the position to be insulting me, love."

"Then prove me wrong, darling."

#agatha harkness x reader #agatha harkness #agnes x reader

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omg-im-such-a-masochist · 3 years

Text

TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS

@ziasaph

Prompt: When Roman and Y/N have a little phone teasing, Roman is left with a problem to solve...with his bare hands.

Word count: Long-ish

Pairing: Roman Reigns x Reader

Warnings: +18, masturbation(male),cursing,explicit thoughts,smut(implied)

Notes: This is my first time ever trying to “recreate” what would go through a man’s mind while masturbating( I don’t have a wiener, so you know, this might not be 100% accurate) this is written in Roman’s POV only. Y’all know the drill loves,sorry for misspellings,english isn’t my first language (bla bla bla),check out my other stories if you’d like to(it would make your girl here very happy 😊) and if you’re comfortable with it,please let me know what you think? Some feedback is always welcomed and appreciated ❤️You can check out my other stories typing ‘masochist writes’ on the search bar on my page and my newest story as a fixed post.Okay,now let’s get to the fun part,shall we? Hope you’ll enjoy 😉

“Fuck me...” I whispered as I adjusted my bulge for the 4th time. I just finished a phone call with Y/N, and we kinda had a little phone teasing so now,here I am making my way to my locker room with a very painful hard on that I couldn’t wait to take care of.

As soon as my eyes met the locker room door I sighed in relief, until I heard

“Yo Uce,hold up!”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me!” I barked under my breath

“What up Uce?” My cousin Jimmy happily smiled at me

“Good,good...” I dumbly replied

“You ok there?”

“No I’m not ok Jimmy,what to you want?”

“Is this because you lost your match? Uce, you gotta learn how to lose man”

“This is not because of my match ok? It’s another thing that’s bothering me”

“Oh...Is it because Y/N hasn’t come back yet? I know you love her and all, but ever since she left, you got all blue and shit... I’m aware of your obsession towards her,but she has her own life problems to deal with you know? You can’t get all bitchy every time she needs to leave man...” he vaguely said

Y/N took a one month license so she could solve some problems regarding her family business, and ever since she left my mood has gotten worst and worst, and I still got 8 more fucking days ahead of me before she comes back! The racional part of my brain understands and agrees with what my cousin’s saying, but the other primal part of me just wants to punch his face and tell him to shut the fuck up.

He doesn’t understand the connection that Y/N and I have, she is my other half as cheesy as that sounds. I’ve never had believed that sort of stuff UNTIL the day I met her. From that day on I knew I had found my one and only. So you can’t really blame me for being in such a shitty mood, I was left without my sunlight for a whole fucking month, so yeah, I was gonna whine about it.

“Are you done,mom?” I said with an annoyed tone

“I’m just trying to help Uce”

“Yeah I know man” I sighed “I’m sorry is just that I gotta take care of something..” I vaguely said

“Ok, I’m not gonna keep you long, I was just gonna ask you if you would like to go out to th-“

“No,thanks. I have other plans” I quickly said before he could finish

“Really? And what possibly great plan is that,that you gonna miss a night out with your favorite cousin?”

“You really wanna know?”

“Yeah! And it’s better be a good plan for you to dismiss me like that”

“I’m gonna take a shower, take care of a very painful boner, jack off while I think about my girlfriend, then I’m gonna head back to my hotel room where a nice,big and comfortable bed waits for me...and maybe jack off again looking at some pictures of Y/N. Happy now?”

He looked at me in disbelief

“So you’re dismissing my invitation for a night out so you can jack off? How old are you? 14?” He started laughing

“Is that all Jimmy?” I made sure my voice demonstrated how annoyed I was.

“Yeah, yeah..go ahead Mr. Puberty go do your business...even tho you won’t need to take care of it yourself..” he barely whispered

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, nothing...here I’ll even open the door for you..just so your hands don’t get too tired!” He said mocking me “Milady, please” He bowed down and was now 100% laughing at me

“Fuck you Jimmy” I muttered under my breath closing and locking my locker room door.

I got out of my ring attire faster than a demon from church and made my way to the shower, while I waited for the water to heat up, I begin to stroke myself lazily while I thought about Y/N and the last time we were together. I got under the shower and remembered her body, the way it felt against mine, her breasts and how they are a perfect handful size, how soft her skin is (specially her boobs), how delicate her nipples feel against my lips.

Her sexy love handles,fuck I love those, which is why I don’t really get it why she hates it so much and wants to get rid of them so bad? I love how they feel when I tightly grip them on my hands whenever I’m holding her hips in place while fucking her from behind. My dick got harder just to think about it..Fuck I wish she was here!

I love her ass, I was always a tits lover until I saw that ass! Then I was officially converted into an ass lover. I just love to touch it, grip it, bite it, I love to watch it bounce when she rides me, I love to kiss it, spank it, rub my bulge against it..

*I begin to stroke my cock harder*

And fuck it..I love to fuck her ass.

But not as much as I love to fuck her pussy, nothing compares to the feeling of my cock buried deep inside of her tight pussy, I could cum just by remembering the vision of my dick sliding in and out of that sweet pussy..MY pussy, that belongs to ME! Fuck I just wish she was here, I would eat her out like a mad man.

I love to go down on her, seeing her eyes roll to the back of her head as I hungrily devour her..seeing how she squirms underneath me, moaning..begging for me to fuck her, how incredible she tastes...

But I also love when she sucks my dick.

The sight of her, on her knees, with a mouthful of cock while she looks up to meet my gaze.. FUCK ME isn’t that a beautiful sight?! Her lips all swollen and red from sucking me, her hands stroking my cock while she looks up and give me one of her satisfied smiles..so fucking gorgeous. Even more gorgeous when she chokes on my dick, making me slide all the way down until I hit the back of her throat just so she can pull back, gasping for air, while she giggles amused about how far she had taken.

With all of those sweet memories I came on my hand, giving me some sort of relief (at least for now). But it wasn’t the same thing tho, it wasn’t her and I NEEDED her!

God I love that woman, and I just fucking miss her, I just wish that she was here..

I made my car ride back to the hotel thinking about everything that I missed about her. I missed her scent, her voice, her smile, her hugs, her kisses, the way she likes to stroke my hair to help her sleep, her stealing all of my gray sweatpants just so I couldn’t “advertise” my package to other women, our late night conversations that were sometimes meaningful others meaningless, our make out sessions, lazy morning sex, horror movies marathon, the way she argued with one of the characters and told them they were “so dumb” and she “wished they would just get killed already”, the way she comforted me, the way I comforted her...

I opened the door to my hotel room, dragged myself to the sofa and was so deep in thoughts that I didn’t even noticed that the lights were on.

“Should I come back later?” The voice said in quite an amused tone.

*Wait..I know that voice!*

I turned my head to my left side so I could meet the owner of that voice, the one I had waited 3 long weeks to have by my side again

“Y/N” I couldn’t help but ran towards her, grab her tightly in my arms and kiss her so intensely that she almost couldn’t breath.

“Ro” she giggled “Baby, as much as I love this affectionate side of yours, you’re kinda making it difficult for me to breath” She chuckled

“Sorry, it’s just that I missed you so fucking much! You have no idea what hell I’ve been through those 3 weeks without you” I said as I gave her light pecks all over her lips,neck and face.

“Aww Rome.. I missed you too love! That’s why I decided to make you a surprise come back, everything solved before expected so I didn’t need to be there anymore so I decided to come back to my home,you!” She smiled

“I am your home,just like you’re mine! Those 3 weeks without you were a nightmare!”

“Oh I know! Jimmy told me you were being a little bitch and if I didn’t came back soon he would whoop your ass!” She was laughing uncontrollably

“That fucker...he knew you were coming back today didn’t he?” I asked remembering his little comment about me not needing to jack off at the hotel.

“Yep! He helped me with everything. Why?”

“Oh nothing, it’s just that he asked if I wanted to go out with him somewhere after the show and I declined saying I had other stuff to do”

“Like what?” She asked slightly confused

“Oh you know, like jack off in the shower thinking about you..”

“Did you?” She looked at me with that vixen look on her face

“What do you think baby girl? After our little teasing on the phone, you got me all worked up so I had to think about you while I took care of business with my own hands” Which where now roaming down to grab her ass.

“That sounds fun..why don’t you tell me everything you thought about huh?” She deviously smirked at me

“Oh baby, I might as well just show it to you” With that I picked her up in my arms and made my way towards the bed. I was going to show her everything that went through my mind those 3 weeks.

And fuck,she better be ready, ‘cuz I got all night long..

#roman reigns imagine #roman reigns smut #roman reigns x reader #roman reigns fanfiction #roman reigns one shot #roman reigns #wwe imagine #wwe fanfiction #wwe one shot #masochist writes

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takerfoxx · 3 years

Text

Well, in honor of the Rebellion sequel FINALLY being announced, here’s something I was going to do today anyway! Here’s the second part of the crew of Walpurgis Nights watch The Rebellion Story, stretching from Madoka arriving at the school to Hitomi’s nightmare!

Note: I originally was going to write this as one big piece and release it all at once, but then I realized what a dumb idea that would be, so it’s going to get released in chunks as they’re finished.

Note the 2nd: Every time a prolonged conversation takes place, just assume that they’re pausing the movie to talk.

Reminder:

G=Gretchen

H=Homulilly

Op=Ophelia

Ok=Oktavia

Ca=Candeloro/Mami

Ch=Charlotte

...

G: You know, I can’t get over Tavi having legs, or Fee having hair.

Op: It does look good, I gotta say. Must’ve been a bitch to keep it looking so fresh though.

Ch: And probably sets fewer low-hanging branches alight or set off fewer sprinklers.

Op: As far as you know. That style is smokin’

…

H: Seeing all those boys is…weird.

Ch: I know what you mean. I mean, I can picture what they look like, and I’ve seen recreations, but even still…

G: It is interesting to think about. I mean, here it’s perfectly normal for girls to get into relationships with other girls. But there girls like us would be a minority.

Op: Can’t imagine why. Now that I’m seeing them…not really getting the appeal. They don’t even have tits!

Ch: I guess you had to be there.

Ok: Hey, is it true that girls who liked other girls got picked on a lot?

Ca: Well, that’s an oversimplification of a serious problem, and I certainly never saw it happen. But then, I was a little…sheltered. And yes, in some places of the world, that does unfortunately happen. And worst.

G: Poor girls.

Ch: And guys. It happens to the gay guys too.

Op: I never got the gay thing. I mean, using the word as an insult. Like, why would that even be something to be ashamed of?

Ca: That’s…a really complicated question, and I’m not sure I’m really qualified to explain.

G: Well, I think they’re just being silly! I don’t see how anyone could see anything wrong with this!

=Gretchen leans over to give Homulilly a small kiss on the lips. Homulilly is more than happy to reciprocate=

Op: GAAAAY!

=Homulilly smacks Ophelia upside the head=

Ca: All of…that aside, I have to say, this is sort of nostalgic.

Ch: Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?

Ca: Oh, relax. I mean, just this. The school. The girls and the boys. The uniforms. Don’t worry, I’m not going to be struck with an uncontrollable desire for penis.

Op: Though if you do, I know a girl who-

Ca: Thank you, Ophelia. Please don’t finish that thought.

…

Op: Ha. Still a rebel, even then.

Ca: You were. You definitely were. Even more than this version. At least this version of you is going to school.

Op: And Tavi’s the goody-goody, sneaking off…hold up.

Ok: What?

Op: Rewind it a bit.

Ch: Okay…?

Op: So, does this version of me and Oktavia…do we live together?

Ch: Huh?

H: What?

Op: How would she know about me slacking on my homework after school if she wasn’t there? Like, in the same house?

Ca: W-Well, friends visit after school, sometimes to work on homework…

Ok: No, I’m going with Ophelia. We were totally shacking up. I mean, look at us. Look how irritated I am with her. That is love.

Ca: Girls, I hate to burst your bubble, but nobody was actually dating anyone back then.

Op: Oh, come on! Look at us!

Ok: Yeah, I mean the only other explanation is…

=silence=

Op: Is what? What are you…Oh, my God.

G: What’s wrong?

=Ophelia and Oktavia both start to look very uncomfortable=

Op: Candy, tell us the honest truth here: are we sisters?

Ca: What?!

Ch: Oh my God, I’m not hearing this.

Op: If you hid it so we wouldn’t freak out, I understand, but we really need to know-

Ca: No! No, you are not sisters, and you did not live together in our timeline! You knew each other for little over a month when we died, and only really got along for about two weeks!

Op: Oh, thank the flames.

Ok: Whew.

Ca: Seriously, what’s wrong with you? I already told you your stories.

G: Yeah, and Hitomi’s known Oktavia and me for a very long time! I think she’d mention it if you two were related.

H: Plus you look nothing alike. At all.

Ok: Okay! Okay! It was a momentary slip of stupid! We panicked! Leave us alone.

H: Would you two have stopped dating if it turned out you were related?

=Ophelia and Oktavia exchange looks=

Op: Probably not.

Ok: Nope.

Ch: Great. Now that we’ve established yet again how degenerate you two are, can we please continue the movie?

…

G: Huh?

Ok: What’s her deal?

Ca: I…kind of remember her? She was a teacher, and I think I had her my first year. But it’s been so long that-

Op: This lady’s bugging.

Ch: Too many shots in her coffee.

Op: I don’t think that’s alcohol.

Ok: Look at the class. Look at us! We’re all as confused as…we are…huh.

Ch: Don’t think about it too hard.

Op: Okay, seriously! Who allowed this lady around children?

Ca: I can remember her being a little eccentric, but this is on a whole new level.

Ch: Well, as the first few minutes proved, this whole city’s totally drugged out of its mind.

G: Does she want the world to end?

Ok: You know, I’m kind of feeling her.

G: Eh?!

Ok: Okay, look! Way back in the day, before I had a reliable gig, I used to sub every now and then for the FIB’s music department, and let me tell you, after a couple days of trying to keep those sand crabs under control, the apocalypse wasn’t sounding too bad!

Ch: How bad does her class have to be for her to go that far off the deep end?

Ok: Well, me and Fee are in the class.

=Ophelia snickers=

G: Oh, I saw Hitomi!

H: Fantastic.

Ok: I thought you two were cool now.

H: Eh…

Ch: Hey, kids! It’s time to play, “Spot the important characters!”

Ca: Did our hair really stand out that much? I distinctly remember other kids having bright hair colors!

Ch: Well, if you have a bunch of characters that you’re only animating for one scene, then you gotta skimp on some of the details.

…

G: Oh, there you are, Lilly!

Ca: Okay, this part I remember as being fairly accurate.

H: Huh?

Ca: I mean the bit about you being a transfer student and having been in the hospital for a while.

H: Ah.

=pause=

H: My God, I look stupid.

G: Don’t say that! You look cute!

H: Did I really wear my hair like that?

Ca: Well, no. You wore it straight. And I don’t remember there being glasses.

…

Ca: This part…is different though.

G: Really? How so?

Ca: I didn’t know Homulilly before she showed up.

Op: Yeah, you talked about that before. She just sort of appeared out of nowhere one day?

Ca: Yes. And pretty much just…aggressively inserted herself into our group. I mean, she wasn’t rude about it, but…

H: I was a time-traveler trying to save the only person that had ever cared about me from a terrible fate and had already failed several times. No doubt I wanted to skip the pleasantries.

Ca: I’m s-sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything negative.

H: No offense taken.

Ok: So basically, you had reloaded your save over and over and was skipping the cutscenes so you could get to work on the part you were having trouble on.

H: That is…a remarkably accurate way of putting it. At least I assume that was the reason. I don’t know anything other than I was told, and to be quite frank, I’m glad of it.

Op: Hear fuckin’ hear.

Ok: Cheers. Oh, uh, sorry, Candy.

Ca: Don’t worry about it.

…

Ok: Well, Candy’s really talking you up. Guess you were kind of an ass-kicker, Homulilly.

H: No, it’s like the other version of me said. I was probably in a support role.

Ch: What, with the time-stop thing?

H: Yes.

Ok: Support role, my scaly ass! That is like the most OP power ever! I mean, what could I do?

=pause=

Ok: Uh, that wasn’t a rhetorical question. Candy, what could I do?

Ca: Oh, uh. In addition to your sword, you could use boost pads to jump and heal very quickly.

Op: So a tank, basically.

Ok: See? Just take and give damage! Basic as hell! Now time-stop, that’s a power with some class!

Ch: Plus time-travel.

Ok: Yeah, that’s like the jackpot of unfair.

H: Didn’t do me any good. We all died anyway.

Op: We’re chilling in our expensive, two-story house in a really nice neighborhood watching all this on our expensive big-screen instead of getting our asses beat every night and worrying about homework. I’d say things worked out.

…

Op: GAAAAAAY!

Ca: Oh, come on. It’s just hand-holding.

Op: Look at that blush! Look at it!

H: She has a point. By all accounts I was already pretty infatuated with Gretchen.

=Gretchen blushes=

Ca: Fair enough. GAAAAAAY!

=group cracks up=

Op: Though, seriously. Were any of us straight?

Ca: Well, Oktavia did have that crush on that one boy that supposedly started the whole trouble, and I had a couple of crushes of my own.

Ok: Did you not see me earlier in the movie? I at the very least bisexual!

Op: Or Kyoko-sexual. Everyone’s gay for Kyoko! Even the boys are gay for Kyoko!

G: I don’t really know what that means.

Op: It means the boys find me incredibly attractive, but in a gay sort of way.

G: I still don’t know what that means!

=Oktavia leans over to whisper something in Gretchen’s ear. Gretchen’s eyes go wide=

G: Oooohhhh…

…

Ch: A month? So do the landscape shots just mean a time-skip?

Ok: Okay, we were joking just now, but this is pretty explicitly romantic.

H: As I said, it was at least on my end. Though I don’t understand why he has to be there.

Ca: He was always around, unfortunately. I’m mainly wondering why he’s being so quiet. Or catlike.

H: Why, was he talkative?

Ca: Very.

Op: Huh. Maybe that’s why we got Cheese. We were just used to the animal companion that wouldn’t shut the hell-

=Cheese starts screeching from the other room=

C: Pickinilly! Pickidelly! Picadely whore!

Ch: Great, now you’ve set him off.

=Cheese flies into the room and lands on Homulilly’s flower. She tries not to laugh as he prances about before spying the movie playing=

C: Rat bastard! Rat bastard! Rat bastard!

Op: Where’d he learn that? I didn’t teach him that.

C: Rat bastard! Rat bastard!

Ch: Oh, for the love of…Here, I’ll take him.

=Charlotte offers Cheese her arm, and takes him outside=

Op: I’ll say this: the bird might be a pain in the ass sometimes, but he is smart.

Ok: …did anyone else see the freaking dirigibles flying around in the background, or just me?

….

Op: Shit, those are a lot of airships. Hey, Candy-

Ca: No, those are new also.

Op: Something’s seriously off about this timeline, then.

Ch: Who the hell is that?

G: Oh! It’s Hitomi!

H: Of course it is.

Ch: Huh. Guess she does get more than a cameo.

Op: Jesus Christ, does her entire family all sleep in the same bed? You could fit an entire studio apartment into that thing!

G: Well, we were apparently all pretty well off.

Op: You had a normal-sized twin with a bunch of stuffed animals. She’s captaining the HMS Spoiled Rotten in there.

G: She’s not spoiled!

Op: Look, there are like three queen-sized beds between the six of us. You could put them all together and they still wouldn’t be as big as that monstrosity!

Ch: Isn’t she like living with three other girls now?

G: So? That doesn’t mean anything. Lots of people have roommates.

H: They’re dating.

G: What? What are you talking about? That’s silly to just assume-

Ok: Gretch. C’mon. It’s not a secret.

G: B-But-

Ok: Poly relationships happen all the time.

G: I…how did you find out?

Ok: You do know that I talk to her too, right? And honestly, you’re making more of it than she is.

G: I guess so.

Op: She should’ve brought that bigass bed with her, then. Gotten some use out of it.

…

H: Who’s she calling?

Ok: Oh boy.

Op: Well, well, well! Violin-boy!

Ok: Fantastic. Hey! I sold my soul for you! Hope it was worth it!

Ch: Er, you okay?

Ok: Yeah, I’m fine. I am pretty curious though.

Op: Oh! Stood the fuck up!

Ch: Wow, he just shot his own rich girlfriend down to play with his stringy stick!

Ok: Violins are way more than just stringy sticks! But yeah, he did shoot her right down, didn’t he? Starting to think I dodged a bullet.

H: You literally died.

Ok: I know what I said.

Op: I guess Hitomi dodged the same bullet. Traded in one deadbeat for three smokin’ hot girlfriends. Can’t see how that’s not a win!

G: Uh, her family? Whom she still remembers?

Op: Er…yeah. That’s a good point.

…

Op: Oh, she mad.

Ca: Teenage relationships are just like that sometimes. You feel all these big emotions and-Huh.

Ch: And you throw up yarn all over your room? What’s going on here?

Ok: We’re back on that weird shit again, aren’t we?

Op: Does she not notice any of this?

Ok: She just got shot down by her own boyfriend. Cut her some slack.

Op: Did the bed just…Okay, it ate her. It ate her and threw up even more yarn.

Ca: This is all getting very…witch-like.

G: I thought only Puella Magi could become witches.

Ca: So did I. But clearly my knowledge is very obsolete.

Op: Goddamn, Homulilly! You butterfly-effected the universe something crazy!

H: How is this my fault?

Ch: Oh, there’s another freaky teddy-bear. At least we know how they’re made.

Ok: Teenaged angst?

Ch: Most terrifying force known to mankind.

#WN Rebellion MST

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lloydskywalkers · 4 years

Text

afsdgfdhgj!! thank you sm, i’m so happy to hear that :’D that is...something i do very much need to work on actually, i’ve been trying to kick the talking-self-down habit for a while now, it’s just!! it’s tough, guys.

on a lighter note, i know exactly what trope you’re talking about and i’m an unapologetic sucker for it afdsgfdh. unfortunately this probably isn’t exactly what you’re looking for, but i got bit by the idea and it wouldn’t let me go, so here’s a somewhat-short (somewhat) fic about it!

Sometimes, the ninja forget they’re technically, kind-of-sort-of, famous. Like, not all the time, because some people are creepy and won’t leave them well enough alone, and some people are just…really enthusiastic…but for the most part, it is easy to forget sometimes, because out of gi they look pretty normal.

(Until Lloyd’s eyes start shuffling through colors like a sporadic traffic light, of course, but that doesn’t happen as much now.)

The point is, sometimes it’s easy to forget that they’re famous.

Sometimes, though — when movie posters the size of the Bounty are plastered all over the city because some wise guy thought making a film about them would be a great idea — it’s harder to forget.

“This feels like an invasion of privacy,” Cole mutters, crossing his arms as he sinks deeper into the theater seat.

“Oh, yeah,” Nya says. “Because trading cards and entire news documentaries with our full names and intimate dating life details were one thing, but a loosely-based movie is where we draw the line.”

“Intimate dating life my foot,” Lloyd scowls, clearly far from getting over that one article that managed to snag a picture of him and Harumi before…everything.

“Well — yeah, fair, but like—” Cole sputters. “They hired actors to play us. They’re gonna be recreating our lives and it’s — it’s weird, okay?”

“I dunno, I think it’s pretty cool,” Kai says, already on his third mouthful of popcorn, and the trailers have’t even started yet. “I mean, it can’t be worse than that play they put on, right?”

“Don’t jinx it,” Zane mutters darkly, his eyes flashing at the reminder.

“I’m with Kai,” Jay says, bouncing in his seat as he reaches for the popcorn. “I think it’s cool that people care enough about us to make a movie, you know? Like, did you see the budget for this thing?”

“Was it as high as the repair cost for the tower we blew up last week?” Lloyd says.

“Uh…maybe. I didn’t compare, exactly. But look, you can’t put a price on lives. A little collateral damage is worth it.”

“A little?” Zane says, his eyebrows shooting up.

“Eh, we helped clean it up,” Nya shrugs. “That counts.”

Jay points at her. “Thank you.”

“Still say it wasn’t my fault,” Kai grumbles, crossing his arms. Lloyd pokes him in the ribs, and Kai yelps, flinching away from him. “Not cool, not cool!”

“We’re definitely not going to make it through this movie without getting thrown out,” Cole groans into his hands. They’re already getting looks from the movie-goers around them, and their patience doesn’t look like it’s going to last very long.

“C’mon, have a little optimism,” Jay placates. “This is gonna be fun— hey, that’s my popcorn!”

“No way, lightning brain, I bought it, I hold it.”

“But you bought it with Nya’s money.”

“Which she stole from Lloyd’s sock drawer this morning, so that doesn’t count.”

“Wait, you stole my sock money?”

“Um…call it payback for stealing the last of the cookies last week.”

“How is that a fair trade, I only took one!”

“Yeah, one dozen—”

“Guys, please—”

“You’re one to talk, you stole all the—”

“Would you all shut up, it’s starting, and — I said shut up!”

******************

It takes a few threats of murder, and one or two threats of open power-use to the face, but they quiet down in time for the opening credits.

The movie begins peacefully enough, with an older man telling some ‘punk little kid’ as Kai describes him, a whole lot of ‘stereotypical sensei mumbo jumbo’ as Lloyd describes it, about himself. Which, to be fair, is pretty accurate to their lives, so they’re able to quietly munch on popcorn for the first few minutes, at least.

But then the plot starts.

“What do they mean, ‘uh oh’, to Lloyd Garmadon?” Kai frowns. “The city loves you.”

Lloyd shrugs, tossing a mouthful of popcorn back. “I dunno,” he says. “I mean, it is tough to be that kid.”

“Yeah, ‘cause he’s the worst shortie ever, like four feet tall,” Nya whispers to him. Lloyd elbows her in the side. Zane shushes them, just in time for the actual movie Lloyd to show up on the screen, in bed and receiving a call from—

Lloyd doubles over, choking on his popcorn.

“Luh-Lloyd?” Kai says, in delight. “Luh-Lloyd?!”

“Pajamas,” Lloyd wheezes, as Nya thumps his back. “Look at his pajamas, I gotta buy my dad those—”

The others are left to giggle their way through the interpretation of one of their greatest enemies snacking on cereal in printed pajamas, telling Lloyd he ‘must’ve butt-dialed him’. It’s hysterical until Garmadon forgets Lloyd’s birthday, and the Lloyd onscreen gets the signature Sad Puppy Eyes Lloyd Look on his face — which, props to the actor, he nailed it — and everyone looks to Lloyd in sympathy.

“That’s rough, buddy,” Jay pats his shoulder. Lloyd rolls his eyes.

“It’s not me,” he says, shrugging again. Really, his dad forgetting his birthday is like, incredibly tame, compared to hurling him through a prison wall or six.

Now, forgetting he existed, that stings. But also, like, this isn’t his dad, so. Eh. He doesn’t really care.

“Is that supposed to be Misako?”

Never mind. He cares now.

“Are you—” Kai plasters a hand over his mouth, muffling this next part. “—kidding me?!”

“Oh, she’s, uh…really present, huh,” Cole winces, as ‘Koko’ encourages her son about being himself, and other really nice stuff Lloyd would have super appreciated hearing when he was younger.

He opens his mouth again, and Nya takes the opportunity to stuff more popcorn in it. Lloyd chomps down angrily, glaring at the screen and grumbling under his breath.

“At least you’ve shown up at all,” Jay comforts him. Lloyd is very much not comforted. He just wants to get through the rest of the movie in peace, and shift the focus off of him as quick as possible.

Oh boy, is he disappointed.

Like, he gets a few minutes of relief as the others are introduced, but that’s all, really. Even if it is hilarious.

“Hello, fellow teen.”

Cole makes a sound like a dying balloon, and Jay almost coughs popcorn out of his nose. Zane just presses his lips into a flat line, his expression unreadable. “I do not…know how to feel about this.”

Jay and Kai are doubled-over on each other by now, choking on laughter. Cole, bless him, is doing his absolute best not to burst into giggles, while Nya and Lloyd have given up and are full-out cackling.

“Well,” Zane says, eyeing them with a gleam in his eye. “Perhaps I should start updating my database with ‘teen lingo’ then—”

“No!” they all chorus in unison, waving frantically at Zane, earning several dirty looks from the people around them as they do.

“You’re perfect the way you are, buddy,” Jay says hastily.

Kai, at least, seems pretty steadily in character—

“Aw, look, I almost snapped your spine.”

“That’s a Kai hug, for sure.”

—and Nya’s thrilled about having a motorcycle. Jay’s a tad indignant at his character’s stuttering, but Cole reminds him he has zero room to talk, so Jay shuts up in time for Cole to shrug at his own portrayal.

“I like that shirt,” he remarks. “And those headphones are cool.”

Then the reality of the scene they’re watching sinks in.

“Wait, why are we in school?” Zane blinks, confused.

“Why are they being so mean to you?” Cole exclaims at Lloyd, taken aback.

Lloyd makes a face at the cheerleaders on screen, jerking his shoulder up as if to say ‘like I know’. Which is kind of a lie, because he does know, the movie told them, but he’s not gonna get into that. Kai is already fuming in his seat beside him, growing steadily angrier by the second. “Who do they think they are,” he hisses. “I’ll show them a number one hit.”

Lloyd rips his eyes from the screen, watching Kai in mild alarm. “Kai, you know that’s not actually me, right?”

“—tear those kids a new one—”

Lloyd cringes at the looks they’re getting from the people around them, patting Kai’s arm. “Chill out, Kai, seriously. This is like, basic Darkley’s stuff, don’t worry. And I walked away from that fine.”

Wrong thing to say. Kai swivels on him, his eyes flashing. “Wait. This happened to you at Darkley’s? For real?”

“Um…” Lloyd sweats briefly, the sounds of Boo Lloyd! coming from the screen really not helping at all. “I mean, I was a brat. I brought a lot of it on myself.”

Kai looks like he’s going to combust. “I swear—”

“Kai,” Lloyd interrupts, trying to quell the storm. “It’s fine. Seriously. I mean, there was this one time that four guys way bigger than me ganged up and hung me from a roof by my hoodie all night, but it wasn’t that bad. I’m fine.”

Kai’s face turns thunderous, matching the roar of Garmadon finally coming into view onscreen. “Wasn’t that bad?” he says, incredulous, gaining them several shh’s, mainly from Nya. Kai ignores them. “Point me to those punks, Lloyd, I’ll strangle ‘em—”

“Kai.”

“Wha — oh. Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“That — that was different.”

“Uh-huh.”

“…you — you weren’t there all night.”

“I sure was.”

“Oh.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Um. Sor…rry?”

Fortunately, both are saved by Garmadon smashing his way on screen in a giant shark mech with a full-scale crustacean-themed army, to which the ninja kind of just…stare. That’s — that’s the best they can do with that one. That, and be thankful Garmadon himself isn’t here to see this.

“I mean, to be fair, I can see him appreciating a song entirely about himself,” Kai mutters, as the chorus continues to yell about Garmadon!. “And — wait, Lloyd, are you filming this?”

“Uh, yeah?” Lloyd says, re-adjusting the zoom feature on his phone. “Now hush, I wanna save this and make it my ringtone.”

******************

The mechs are, admittedly, cool. Their total lack of ability to do Spinjitzu, way less so.

“That’s so not how Spinjitzu works,” Nya scoffs, as Sensei Wu finally makes an appearance, just in time for Lloyd to request wind as an element, which brings on another bout of choking.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Lloyd sighs. He then blinks rapidly. “Wait, where are our powers?”

“Nonexistent, apparently,” Zane murmurs. “Along with our common sense.”

“To be fair, that’s never been a reliable thing in the first place,” Jay points out.

The lack of common sense continues to be a trend throughout the movie, and by the time the ‘Ultimate Weapon’ comes up, things start to go downhill rather fast.

“Which, to continue to be fair, is also pretty in-character. This whole fight kinda is.”

The other ninja grumble in agreement as Lloyd runs off to confront his father alone despite all warning, and Lloyd begins to sink lower into his seat. He has a bad feeling he knows exactly where this is going, and sadly, he isn’t disappointed.

Well, for the most part.

“A cat?” Lloyd yelps, his eyes bugging out. “A giant cat?! How is that fair? All I ever get to fight is creepy part-reptile people who want to suck the power out of me, where do I sign up for this?”

“This is surreal,” Zane remarks, as Meowthra tears her merry way across the screen. The whole scene is a disaster, slo-mo destruction and everything, but it’s pretty much the standard fare they’re used to, so they really don’t bat much of an eye as the cat totally wrecks them.

“Nice to know we can’t catch a break in any universe,” Jay sighs sadly, as his mech is torn apart on screen.

“This movie is really beating the ‘don’t-challenge-dad-solo’ message over the head, huh,” Lloyd mutters, chin in his hand, having recovered from his brief bout of extreme-cat-heart-eyes.

Kai gives him a stink-eye. “Yeah, I wonder why.”

Understandably, the Lloyd onscreen is considerably upset at the apparent destruction of all his friends. The ninja are all incredibly curious as to where the movie is going to go next, though, since this Garmadon celebrates his victory by throwing a pretty sick party instead of building a skyscraper-sized stone Colossi of destruction and wrecking half the city.

“Kind of unfair,” Jay scowls, as the henchman do the conga onscreen. Nya’s got a smart comment to make back, but then the Lloyd onscreen reveals himself —

“In typical dramatic-Lloyd fashion, they got that right.”

“Oh, shut up.”

— and then proceeds to snap at the Garmadon onscreen, “I wish you weren’t my father.”

The theater goes remarkably quiet, as do the ninja. Cautiously, they turn to look at Lloyd, who is staring at the screen with a look on his face similar to if you’d shaken up a soda bottle really hard and were about to take the top off. Then—

“Oh, heck yeah, how’s that for karma, you over-powered conceited jerk of a dad,” Lloyd hisses viciously at the screen, punching his fist in the air. “He’s got the right idea, it’s my turn to start disowning family members. Screw ‘you’re not my son’, I’m gonna pull this one out next time and disown him—!”

“Lloyd,” Nya says, a bit nervously. “You know he’s, uh, he’s crying on screen now, right?”

“Yeah,” Lloyd spits.

“You, uh. You know you are too, right?”

“N-no.”

“Therapy,” Cole whispers to Zane. “So much therapy.”

“I’ve already booked us,” Zane murmurs back, sliding his phone back in his pocket. “If the office can simply manage not get blown for one more week this time, we might actually make it."

******************

While they do, however, manage to stay quiet for most of that scene — and isn’t Cole wildly impressed with them for that — the next scene kind of shoots that victory right into tiny little pieces.

“Why are we being so mean to you now?” Cole exclaims, flabbergasted, as the poor Lloyd onscreen looks seconds from tears, the rest of the team staring down at him with firm glares.

“Shh, this is getting dramatic,” Lloyd hushes him.

Nya gets a look on her face that promises murder, and Kai refuses point-blank to be shushed.

“What a bunch of jerks. We’d never do something like that, I’m going to have words with some people—”

“Jamanakai,” Lloyd just says, wearily. “Rooftop. All night.”

Kai deflates, sinking into his seat. “S’not the same,” he mutters, fiercely. “We never said all those mean things to you.”

Lloyd gently pats his arm. “There, there,” he says. “I know you didn’t mean it.”

“I never said it! It’s — it’s that imposter on screen, that’s who!”

“Kai, I know—”

Lloyd is interrupted by an unfortunately-timed declaration from the onscreen Jay.

“Now, we hate you.”

Lloyd blinks, almost surprised at the slight flare of hurt that sparks in his chest at that. Which is stupid, because these directors don’t know them, and that’s not really Jay, but hey, why not play into his worst fears, movie—

Then “Jay!” is hissed in scandalized unison, and Lloyd stuffs said worst fears back into box and tries not to snicker at the look on his brother’s face.

“It’s not me!” Jay defends desperately, waving his hands wildly. “That’s not me!”

“Deleting all data related to treating Lloyd as a friend.”

Jay is saved as everyone turns on Zane, who just buries his face in his hands. “Let it end,” he moans.

******************

Apart from being shocked that Sensei Wu is actually going with his ninja on their quest for the Ultimately Ultimate Weapon—

“It’s ultimate ultimate, did you miss that trip-inducing scene they explained it with?”

—they aren’t as surprised by things anymore after that, having caught on to the movie’s flow. It’s a little more slapstick than they’re used to, all bright colors and quick action, but it’s enjoyable to watch Garmadon and Sensei Wu snipe at each other, at least.

“Ten bucks says he survives just fine,” Cole says blandly, as Sensei Wu goes plummeting toward the river.

Not one of them take him up on that wager.

“Geez, they’re really roasting us for being morons in this, huh,” Jay observes, as their onscreen counterparts take the clearly-a-trap route, as per Garmadon’s advice.

Lloyd, who is still stewing about having his voice made fun of, bites out, “I think it’s pretty valid, for some of us.”

“Oh, suck it up already, Lloyd. Your voice changed anyways, get over it.”

“Are you saying I sounded ridiculous before?”

“Uh, no-o…?”

“Oh, there we go, getting humiliated again,” Nya sighs, as the ninja are cornered by Garmadon’s ex-generals. “I wonder why they didn’t give us our powers. You’d think they’d have capitalized on that, it’d look pretty cool.”

“Who knows. I’m still trying to figure out if my character’s love for music is a clever reference to me and my dad’s singing background, or just a shallow attempt to give me character at all,” Cole muses. They turn back to the movie just in time to wince in unison as the ninja onscreen flee, leaving Lloyd and Garmadon to be captured.

Kai is less than pleased with this development.

“Oh, so we’re just leaving Lloyd behind now? Who wrote this movie, I wanna talk.”

******************

By the time Garmadon’s teaching Lloyd how to throw bricks from a roof to some sappy soundtrack, then relocating his dislocated shoulder in a wild tone change, they’re mostly lost for words.

Also kind of enjoying the movie, though no one will admit it. The expressions are funny, and there are some lines that hit home. Sure, Lloyd spends a good ten minutes alternating between sputtering and gaping when Garmadon describes their family history, and only proceeds to get worse when everyone else receives powers and he gets a cute little tree branch, but it is fun to watch their onscreen counterparts run around to “I’ve Got the Power” playing cheerfully in the background. Plus, no one tries to ostracize Lloyd again, and it’s oddly satisfying to watch Garmadon get eaten by a giant cat, so by the time Lloyd’s trying to hide suspicious sniffling into the empty popcorn tub while his onscreen counterpart is giving Garmadon his big sappy speech about forgiveness, they might actually give the movie a decent rating.

Cole’s just happy they haven’t been thrown out yet, because they’ve really been pushing it this whole time. But finally, it seems like everyone’s settled down and is keeping perfectly quiet—

“What do you mean, he gets to keep the cat?”

Cole’s hopes and dreams go up in sad, despairing smoke.

“Wait, that’s what’s bothering you?” Nya blinks. “Not the whole, ‘this Lloyd gets his entire family back happy’ part, but the cat part?”

“Well yeah, I’m upset about the cat part!” Lloyd exclaims indignantly. “He gets a giant cat! The size of a skyscraper! What kind of raw deal did my grandfather cut me here, I didn’t even get to keep my dragon! This is so dumb, and — and oh look, now my dad’s all happy and stuff—”

Nya and Zane glance around in alarm. The movie-goers around them seem to be losing the last, lingering shreds of their patience, and Cole wisely decides that this might be a nice time to make an exit. The movie looks like it’s about over, anyways, and—

“—and what, they just have happy family dinners together now?!”

Yeah, they’re leaving.

******************

“Well, that was…enlightening,” Zane says blankly, as they exit the theater. He still looks tragically annoyed at the way the producers decided to portray him, but he’s mostly recovered by now. Probably because he torched his little movie poster on the way out, but who are they to judge.

“I think you mean infuriating,” Kai mutters, glaring at the theater as they leave it behind.

“I don’t know, it wasn’t so bad,” Nya says. “Like, they obviously decided to go for Lloyd’s very sensitive personal life as a focus point, so at least the rest of us got off alright.”

“Giant cat,” Lloyd mourns, clearly still more hung-up on that than Ninjago’s apparent obsession with his family drama.

“I just wanna try that lightning thing later,” Jay says. “Know any doors I can practice busting open dramatically?”

“Yeah, the door to the producer’s office,” Kai grumbles.

“Enough, guys,” Cole sighs. “It was a lot better than it could’ve been. Let’s just be happy the city still likes us enough to make us the heroes.”

They all nod at that, placated for now, at least. They fall into silence, carefully navigating their way home, until Jay breaks the quiet.

“Your heroes on the wa-a-ay,” Jay murmurs. He’s met with five looks of equal disappointment. “What?” he shrugs. “It’s catchy.”

Cole rolls his eyes, and Kai scoffs. They fall back into silence for a beat, their footsteps the only sound on the street, then—

“Something-something save the da-a-ay,” Lloyd hums.

Jay beams, and Kai moans. Nya just grins. “Gonna something-something pla-a-ace—”

“That takes us higher!”

They dissolve into snickers, their mix of off-key singing echoing across the Ninjago City streets. Cole spares a sigh of despair at their attempt, but he can’t help grinning too. It is a catchy song, and, to be fair, for trying to capture their general team spirit, it comes pretty close.

A lot closer than half that movie did, he frowns. Though he does still want that shirt his counterpart wore.

“Hey,” Jay speaks up. “Let’s learn that Garmadon song next. We can sing it to him in battle.”

“Oh, now you’re talking.”

#lego ninjago #ninjago #tlnm #sort of #lloyd garmadon #jay walker #cole brookstone #zane julien #nya smith #kai smith #the whole gang's here even if they don't wanna be #listen i'll defend this movie til the death bc it's what got me here #but the show ninja would have Opinions #answered #my fic

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tamtam-go92 · 3 years

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Does anyone still remember my sims 2 to sims 4 uberhood project from like a lifetime ago? Well I’ve been going back to in since like a month. I finished Veronaville/Oasis Springs and Desiderata Valley/Newcrest in the meantime. I’ve also remade the premade sims to make them look more accurate to their sims 2 originals and to match their traits even more to their personalities. I own more packs now so the builds look way better (though I didn’t revised the Pleasantview/Willow Creek lots). My goal is to finish and really play this save! I always wanted to play an Uberhood in the sims 2 but I don’t have the nerves to do so. But with the Story Progression of MCCC I might be able to skip households that aren’t interesting to me. We’ll see how this works out in the end. There is still a lot of work ahead of me. Let me know if you are interested in pics! Under the cut some notes to which world will be which ‘hood and some thoughts about them and my system for giving sims 2 premades sims 4 traits (mainly for my own reference when I’m not on my usual device).

Oasis Springs -> Veronaville -> Done Might be a funny decision, I was even asked before why I decided to do so. I stated that Veronaville always gave me Mediterranean vibes, I never gave Veronaville a winter season in sims 2. And I mean climate change is real you guys! This is probably what a Mediterranean area looks like today.

Willow Creek -> Pleasantview -> Done This is the obvious choice I guess. All makeovers can be found in the tag above. Sims have been remade.

Newcrest -> Desiderata Valley -> WIP Desiderata Valley has quite the suburban vibe to me, with the skyscapers in the background of Newcrest I thought that was really fitting. The lots are a bit small (as are a lot of lots in sims 4) but I made it work. Currently recreating the sims. I always had a soft spot for DV and I missed playing them. Some lots are really hideous!

Granite Falls -> Three Lakes I don’t own Outdoor Retreat but I plan to build the lots I planned for it anyway and save them to the gallery (if I ever get the GP).

Magnolia Promenade -> Bluewater Village (partial) In Magnolia Promenade I’ll build the own businesses by the Ramirez, Jacquet and Landgraab family.

Windenburg -> Bluewater Village I know that a lot of players see Windenburg more like Veronaville but I thought the whole setting with the big urban part would be more fitting to a Shopping District. Still don’t know who to handle home businesses...

San Myshuno -> Downtown (partial) and Belladonna Cove (partial) It makes sense to turn San Myshuno into Downtown. The Apartments will be filled with Belladonna Residents though.

Forgotten Hollow -> Downtown (partial) The vampire parts of Downtown would go to Forgotten Hollow. I don’t own the Vampires GP though. I’ll still build the lots and to the same as with the Three Lakes lots. Might get Vampires in the future...

Brindleton Bay -> Riverblossom Hills Those two ‘hood just give me the same vibes, idk...

Selvadorada No changes to the hood. I don’t own the pack, I don’t plan on getting it and even if I would, I’d have no idea what else to turn it into.

Del Sol Valley -> Belladonna Cove (partial) This would be like the uptown part of Belladonna Cove. I don’t own the pack so same as for Granite Falls and Forgotton Hollow applies.

Strangerville -> Strangetown Do I really need to elaborate this? I don’t think so. The lots in this world are really small and the Strangetown lots tend to be huge so I gotta improvise, but I’ll make it work!

Sulani -> Twikki Island This is pretty obvious too I think. With the possibility to have rental homes in residential worlds I could turn Sulani de facto into a vacation hood. Yet I don’t own the EP so same as above applies.

Glimmerbrook -> Magic and Belladonna Cove (partial) Glimmerbrook will be the homes to all thise magical beings from apartment live (and a not so magical neighbor of the Cordial sisters).

Britechester -> SSU, LFT, ALT This one is really giving me a headarche. I’ll include one residential lot from each S2 University and merge the Sororities and Fraternities of the SSU and LFT. They’ll move into Dorms I think. Don’t know what to do with the rest of the students yet.

Evergreen Harbor -> Belladonna Cove (partial) Probably just made this decision because there are apartments in Evergreen Harbor too. Will turn it into the low and middle class part of Belladonna Cove. I really don’t like this world, guys it’ll probably be a lot of community lots.

Mt. Komorebi -> Takemizu Village Guessed it, right? xD See Sulani on the how to. Mt. Komorebi will see a special inhabitant as it has one lot more than Takemizu.

On Traits:

I take Sims Personality, Hobby, Aspiration and Secondary Aspiration to calculate their traits. I use my own playing preferences and experiences on what Sims 2nd Aspirations and Hobbies are.

Personality Traits: Neat, Proper (Neat), Slob (Sloppy), Self Assured, Outgoing, Self Absorbed*, Charmer** (Outgoing), Gloomy, Unflirty, Loner, Independent** (Shy), Active, Adventurous, Wild ** (Active), Lazy, Squeamish, Clingy** (Lazy), Goofball, Childish, Clumsy, Erratic, Kleptomaniac, Chief of Mischief Aspiration, Silly** (Playful), Inquisitive** (Serious), Cheerful, Good, Angelic** (Nice), Hot Headed, Evil, Mean, Fussy** (Grumpy)

Hobby Traits: Foodie, Glutton, Vegetarian, Master Chef Aspiration, Master Mixologist Aspiration, Whiz Kid Aspiration (Cuisine) Perfectionist, Artistic Prodigy Aspiration (Tinkering) Music Lover, Dance Machine, Music Genius Aspiration, Social Butterfly Aspiration (Music and Dance) Creative, Art Lover, Maker, Painter Extraordinaire Aspiration, Master Maker Aspiration, Lord/Lady of the Knits Aspiration, Artistic Prodigy Aspiration (Arts and Craft) Geek, Whiz kid Aspiration (Games) Extreme Sports Enthusiast Aspiration, Mt. Komorebi Sightseer Aspiration, Rambunctious Scamp Aspiration (Sports) Child of the Ocean, Bodybuilder Aspiration, Rambunctious Scamp Aspiration (Fitness) Bookworm, Bestselling Author Aspiration, Master Actor Aspiration, Social Butterfly (Film and Literature) Child of the Island, Freegan, Green Fiend, Loves Outdoors, Recycle Discipline, Beach Life Aspiration, Freelance Botanist Aspiration, The Curator Aspiration, Angling Ace Aspiration, Outdoor Enthusiast Aspiration, Jungle Explorer Aspiration, Purveyor of Potions Aspiration, Eco Innovator Aspiration, Eco Innovator Aspiration, Rambunctious Scamp Aspiration (Nature) Paranoid, Whiz Kid Aspiration (Science)

Aspiration Traits: City Native Aspiration, Good Vampire Aspiration, Worldfamous Celebrity Aspiration (Pleasure) Family Oriented, Jealous, Successful Lineage Aspiration, Big Happy Family Aspiration, Vampire Family, Super Parent Aspiration, Soulmate Aspiration (Family) Romantic, Hates Children, Noncommittal, Serial Romantic Aspiration (Romance) Genius, Renaissance Sim Aspiration, Nerd Brain Aspiration, Computer Whiz Aspiration, Master Vampire Aspiration, Archaeology Scholar Aspiration, Spellcraft and Sorcery Aspiration, Academic Aspiration, Strangerville Mystery Aspiration (Knowledge) Ambitious, Materialistic, Snob, Fabulously Wealthy Aspiration, Mansion Baron Aspiration (Fortune) Cat Lover, Dog Lover, Bro, Insider, Friend of the Animals Aspiration, Joke Star Aspiration, Party Animal Aspiration, Friend of the World Aspiration, Leader of the Pack (Popularity)

*Don't own the Pack of Traits in Italics ** Toddler Traits

Okay that turned out really long xD If anybody read this, thank you! If you want to know something, just let me know, I love to ramble about my projects xD

#tamtam talks #ts2tts4 #ts2tts4 uberhood

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inmyarmswrappedin · 4 years

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DRUCK reactions - s4 ep2

With special thanks to Michi ( @wodrueckts ) for looking over it to make sure I didn’t say anything glaringly wrong. 💛

CLIP 1: It’s hard out there for a hijabi

Here’s one thing I like about this episode: the shot of the tiara spinning in the air. That said, it’s kind of inexplicable. It’s been like a month since the Abiball, so what’s the tiara doing here? Was Amira holding onto it all this time? Did she have this vision of, like, sorting out her shit as she prepares to move out of her parents’ home, and remembering how her gay friend gave the tiara to her because he hated that his boyfriend was so hot he just naturally won all popularity contests? And she was like, “Imma do a solid for future Amira and get rid of this dollar store tiara right now”?

Anyway.

So far, Amira M.’s season has been the only Sana season not to drop during Ramadan. Seems like the Druck team thought they might not even get to Amira, and then they got renewed at the eleventh hour. So they needed to put that shit out quick because the character was set to leave for Australia and anyway it would’ve been really weird to do an Amira season in uni, and then go back to high school with the next gen. So this season is set in summer, and depending on what Wtfock does with Yasmina, it might be the only Sana season to do so.

I think setting this clip lakeside was pretty clever. Plenty of chances to show people in swimming suits or skimpy clothing, as well as people’s reactions to Amira’s burkini. It very quickly sets the stage for the season, same as the bus montage did for Sana in Skam.

I’m not sure how to feel about Sam thinking cunnilingus is boring. Is she sure she’s having it done right? I thought Abdi had a longer than average tongue.

And thanks to Michi, I discovered that this was a reference to Skam, which I didn’t even know because I still had the gdrive subs for s2, where Chris says getting eaten out in Gran Canaria was fun, as opposed to the new subs, where she says it was boring as shit and she fell asleep.

I can’t remember whether Sana’s prayer app ever went off in front of the girl squad. When Skam España did it, the girls immediately freaked the fuck out at the thought of Amira praying right in the middle of a street party. In this case, Kiki looks at Amira for a second. Amira turns the app off though, so we never find out what the girls would’ve done if Amira were to pray right there. Or if it’s happened before. (I’ve been told by Michi this has happened before but the girls didn’t have a reaction then either.)

“Girls, why does it always have to be about boys with you guys?” GO OFF, AMIRA. I remember when I watched the season live, I became exhausted at all the boy talk, so it’ll be interesting to see if I still get this feeling watching the episodes.

In comparison to Vilde, Kiki is also a good sport about Amira wanting this topic to be over. I mean, she laughs a little (perhaps knowingly?), but Kiki is always up for changing the topic to something else about her… Like her and Carlos’ house hunting!

And also, Druck has sent Mia off to Spain to reassure viewers that this Noora won’t take over the season like other Nooras. (Ahem.)

For lack of something to talk about, Amira brings up boxing. Kiki is immediately interested, since she loves working out. Amira is really not into the idea of her brothers getting to know her friends, so she uses Hanna’s reticence to shoot Kiki down.

Her mood has been spoiled all in all, so she stays back to feel alienated as the girls splash around.

She does look cute as hell in her burkini and sunglasses though.

CLIP 2: Am I a bet? Am I a fucking bet?

I really like the blink and you’ll miss it shot of (I think is) the customized snow globe with the Nadia and Amira pic.

Some other stuff in Amira’s room: A polisci book, a list of lodgings in Sydney open on her browser, and what I’m pretty sure is a save the date card from Nadia and her fiancé. This is a very smart way to set up Amira’s character for people who might not have been paying a lot of attention to her so far. It’s always fun to get a peek at a Skams character’s bedroom for the first time.

Amira’s season came after Imane’s, and one thing I immediately liked more about Druck was that they spent time with the prayer scenes. I remember ONE (1) scene where Imane prayed in Skam France, and we only got to see the tail end of it.

I’m pretty sure the game the Mahmoodis play doesn’t actually exist, which probably has to do with having to pay royalties to show a real game. Interestingly(?), when I searched Dr. Whoo and Chopstick on google, it led me to Doctor Who pages, so I wonder if it’s all an elaborate Doctor Who reference on the part of someone in the Druck team.

In Skam, Sana misses the shot because the balloon squad are talking throughout the whole song, but Amira loses because Mohammed literally leans into her line of sight to make eye contact. In general, Mohammed is a lot more suave and savvier than Yousef ever was.

CLIP 3: This apartment is gonna kill somebody

And on a similar note but related to Amira, she is set up as someone the other girls rely on for advice. Kiki needs her help with the renter, while Sam asks her for romantic advice. I think the reason for this might be that while the girls didn’t exactly rely on Sana for advice in Skam, Sana was the one with the ideas since the start. Amira doesn’t necessarily take charge of situations the way Sana did, but there’s this notion that without Amira, the squad would fall apart.

The Berlin housing market = shantycore goals.

I also like the bit of subtle social commentary in Amira’s speech, about middle aged people helping young adults get started with life, so the latter can support the former when it comes to pensions, etc.

CLIP 4: Huh.

So even though Amira didn’t want the girls at the gym earlier, they are here now.

The day before, Amira posted a story on ig reminding the girls about the boxing class, with no indication that she ever tried to get them not to come.

Hanna gives a quick bit of exposition when she mentions Stefan is already working full time (and in a job that presumably requires a uni degree) while she just graduated high school. Which she finds weird.

As in Skam, Essam calls Amira ‘slave,’ which Kiki and Hanna notice. Amira quickly says it has to do with a bet, and the subject gets dropped.

When the season was airing, I thought for sure this wasn’t the end of it, and it would be brought up again, either through Kiki, Hanna, or possibly Stefan via Hanna. But no, this is really the end of that storyline.

My question is, why? What is the point of recreating this storyline from Skam (even going through the trouble of setting up a week during the hiatus between episodes 31 and 32, where Amira wins and Essam has to be the slave) if you’re just going to drop it in the same episode? It’s bad writing because we’re still in the stage of the season where storylines are being set up for later. It’s bad writing because Kiki and/or Hanna literally never bring up this bet/slave business again after devoting several clips and a bunch of social media to it. It’s like the writers didn’t really want to adapt this storyline from Skam, but they also didn’t have a ton of ideas for this week. Or maybe they were going to go somewhere with it, but then they changed their minds because it made some character look bad, but they forgot to take it out.

Like okay, fine, it wasn’t my favorite storyline in Skam either. It made Vilde look like an idiot at best, or a racist and a traitor at worst. But then why even have Kiki and Hanna overhear Essam? It’s not like they had to do it for adaptation reasons. Skam France didn’t.

It’s frustrating as fuck, and it won’t be the last time this season will pull this on the viewer.

Speaking of which, Sam thinks Mohammed is hot as hell (she ain’t wrong) and invites Essam, Omar and Mohammed to Jonas’ birthday party. This bothers Amira, because she doesn’t want her brothers to hang out with her friends. Even though she apparently just invited the girls to the boxing class that takes place at the gym her brothers attend.

[SIGH]

But anyway, Sam is being characterized as someone who is in charge of her sexuality (throughout the whole show, but specifically in this episode). While Amira is pining from a distance, getting flustered just from eye contact, Sam sees a hot guy and immediately creates an opportunity to see him again.

CLIP 5: Barbecue pining

There’s such a summer vibe about always finding reasons to hang out at a specific place because your friend got a summer job there.

I gotta give it to the writers. Essam is such a well-constructed younger sibling character. He’s a brat exactly in the way younger siblings are, and yet… That’s also the reason he’s so endearing.

And, on that note, Omar gives off such dad vibes. Not even older brother vibes. Every time I see Omar I feel like he’s thinking, “ha-ha! These little brats are acting out because they’re going through a lot! We just have to understand them!”

The conversation Amira and Mohammed have around the barbecue is so dumb, but you gotta love how pleased Amira is that she has Mohammed’s attention. Though she’s also unused to liking having a guy’s attention.

David and Matteo are back, and they’re still adorable! Good for them.

The way you could describe this moment as, Amira literally turned around for a moment and Sam was already touching Mohammed’s hair, and have it be accurate, sums up what they’re going for here.

Social media

There was a lot of social media content to keep people fed in the hiatus between episode 31 and 32. David and Matteo backpacked through Europe, Mia left for Spain and Kiki made a video about it, Stefan was invited to a game night with the crew, Kiki and Carlos looked for an apartment, and as I mentioned earlier, Essam lost a bet to Amira and had to be her slave for a week. I think that’s about it!

Abdi suggests that he and Carlos give Jonas supplies to make a protest sign as a birthday present and I almost lost it.

I think the piece of social media that most pissed off Skam purists was a chat where Jonas assures Amira he’s already thought of buying halal meat (as well as vegetarian and vegan options) for his birthday, because apparently Druck wanted to show up Skam or something, but like… It’s not like this storyline went anywhere on Skam either, like at no point do the girls learn to order pizza Sana can eat. So what does it matter if Jonas is already aware that Muslims eat halal meat.

I love that Hanna went to boxing class once, posted a bunch of stories about it and then never attended again. What a mood.

And to close the week, Kiki texts Amira that Essam started following her on insta.

FINAL THOUGHTS

When the season was airing, I found these clips cute enough. But on rewatch, I didn’t care for this episode and the reason is that so much of it ended being irrelevant to the season. What this episode did well was setting up the Kiki/Amira friendship, setting Kiki and Carlos’ apartment and the boxing class as recurring settings for the season and some character details. Essam is a really solid character from the get go, and I like the details in Amira’s room. They could’ve left out just about everything else.

#druck #about druck

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atalana · 5 years

Text

Alright, I’ve just spent 17 hours absorbing the epilogue, and in true Dirk Strider fashion, I have Thoughts.

I had plenty of responses I’ve been considering to this, about two hours ago I was honestly thinking of just dropping in with a fuckin one liner like “So Dirk Three wrote the epilogue” (Dirk Three kinda did write the epilogue, and I’ll explain that too), but we’re on the fucking essay train now and no one’s getting off it any time soon so it’s time to dive into this fucker and get it all off my chest.

Under the cut you will find essays on Dirk, cherubs, ultimate selves, both major Dirk fics (Detective Pony and Theatre of Coolty), a bunch of story bullshit, and my severe love for all Homestuck characters

(But very little criticism of the epilogue, I am no longer about that life)

So the prologue is important here. It’s the main bit of accurate information we have, not tainted by an unreliable narrator. (Well, it is, but less so). The prologue tells us that, with the characters outside of canon, they are becoming their ultimate selves, particularly the characters most susceptible to such knowledge, like seers, or heart players.

Now Homestuck wrestles a lot with the idea of the ultimate self. It is, as defined by the text, the true thing a person is, an amalgamation of every possible version of themselves. It is not a viable human being, because that’s not how human beings work. It basically amounts to Hussie’s character rules, like, there are some ways that these characters will be always, some things they’re prone to, things they like, decisions they’re likely to make, but who the person is within that is subject to extreme change depending on circumstance. The four people who embody this narrative most clearly are Vriska, Terezi, Davepeta, and Dirk.

I’m still not 100% sure on why the ultimate selves outside of canon thing is, but my best guess would be this - within the story, there’s a definite timeline, right? Like, these are the things that are written down, this is what you can see, the word of god (loaded phrase, thanks Dirk), the things that you look at when trying to apply death of the author (even more loaded phrase, thanks Hussie, also thanks Calliope). There’s more than one timeline, sure, but that’s the point, everyone is who they are within that timeline, affected by what happened to make them who they became. Outside of canon is, well, outside of the story. They’re not affected by the story here, they’re just characters. This is a fanfiction site. And what does fanfic do best? It takes the characters, takes who they are, pulls them out of the story, and shoves them in wherever it likes, to become whoever it is they become. And thus who the character is exactly becomes murky and confusing if you’re trying to jam them all into one thing, and it all gives Rose Lalonde a headache. Ultimate selves.

Davepeta liked their ultimate self, it helped two kids who were otherwise struggling with unsatisfying ultimate selves to become a better whole.

Vriska took the proactive approach, by which I mean bullying her other selves into letting her become the ultimate Vriska, which was ultimately useless and gave her no ultimate self at all

Terezi saw her ultimate self, and is still processing what that means for her (but also Terezi is still in canon, so she’s immune to epilogue bullshit)

And Dirk, god, poor Dirk. Dirk was terrified of it. Because he could see his ultimate self and he knew that’s not the kind of person he wanted to become. (And this is where I start using the Theatre of Coolty numbers because there’s no other way to get through this, if you haven’t read/seen it you 100% should, but as a general note, Dirk One is the main Dirk we know, Dirk Two is Brain Ghost Dirk, Dirk Three is “Trickster Dirk” but actually revealed later to be Hussie, Dirk Four is Hal)

Because here’s the thing. Dirk’s ultimate self is him, but it’s also Hal. It’s also BGD. It’s also Bro. And Dirk One was never as bad as he thought he was, but he surrounded himself with copies of himself, so he knew how bad he could be, and tried everything he could to avoid it. We have actual canon confirmation on multiple occasions that Dirk would so much rather kill himself than become the kind of person capable of hurting his friends. Which only got worse after he met Dave and realised Bro existed, like, that just doubled his resolve to Never Be That Person.

(Hey, fun hypothetical, if you kill yourself to stop yourself becoming a bad person because you know it’s inevitable but you’re too good a person to want to go through with it, is it heroic or just? Because I would like to have a lengthy discussion with the god tier clock!)

God, there’s so much I can write on the subject of Dirk’s ultimate self. Because you can see every version of him inside there, there’s Bro in his possessiveness, Hal in his need to fuck with people for no real reason, BGD in his hyper critical nature (beyond what is normal for all Dirks), Dirk One in his desire to never let anyone hurt him again. (God, the “I’ll never let you break my heart again” line hurt so much, because like… I can feel Dirk One in that line, but it’s delivered by ultimate Dirk, and ultimate Dirk isn’t the kind of person who would have even been heartbroken by Jake’s actions. Dirk One poured his soul into that relationship and Jake responded by ignoring him, and like, this isn’t a dig on Jake, because that did make Dirk very intense and hard to deal with, but as Calliope so beautifully put, the children left alone are those who most despair at being ignored. And every version of Dirk was so very alone.)

When sending initial thoughts to my friend, I wrote “Ultidirk is Dirk One but without the compassion or empathy and with an apparently infinite supply of horse tranquilizers”. Which was mostly a joke, but does get down to the core of the problem. Dirk One and Ultidirk aren’t really that different, when it comes down to it. But there’s one crucial element that makes all the difference. Dirk One’s life philosophy is “This is a me problem, so I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you don’t have to deal with that problem, at any cost”. Ultidirk’s life philosophy is “This is a me problem, so I’m going to make it everyone else’s problem. And it turns out that without basic human empathy and morality holding him back, Ultidirk will just… fucking declare himself God, and use that alongside his powers of manipulation to just write a new story in which he is the villain. Very little changes in the scale of things.

(The other main difference is that Dirk One is scared to exist, whereas every other Dirk is scared to not exist, that’s the stuff, good callback, etc etc, that line fucking killed me, and also killed whatever remnant of Dirk One was still lurking inside Ultidirk and god I want to hug him)

(I also want to extract him from Ultidirk and bring him on an Ultidirk murdering quest bc he would be 100% down for that without a second’s hesitation but that’s a bit hard to do)

Now you may be wondering why I brought up Theatre of Coolty if I was only gonna refer to Dirk One as Dirk One and not touch on any of the others. Well, it’s true, saying Dirk Two and Dirk Four when I have simple three letter names for both of them is a bit ridiculous. But then we get to Dirk Three.

Now here’s the thing about Theatre of Coolty. Dirk One appears in Homestuck, as alpha Dirk, in Dirk’s usual shirt with the orange hat. Dirk Two appears in Homestuck, as brain ghost Dirk in god tier pyjamas. Dirk Four appears in Homestuck as Hal, and he wears a red hat because he’s Dirk in a different colour scheme, also because the sprite Hussie eventually made for him based on fanon had a red hat, all’s sorted there.

But Dirk Three? Trickster Dirk? Never appeared in Homestuck. They tried, but it was still Dirk One. Dirk is immune to cherubic influence (remember this point too, it’s important), because his concept of self is so present (and also because he’s depressed as fuck, but that doesn’t necessarily exclude you, it’s just the presence of both at once). And who does Dirk Three turn out to be? Well, they said it from the start, Theatre of Coolty is about the presence or absence of god, who definitely will show up at some point. Dirk Three is Hussie in a Dirk costume, Dirk Three is God, Dirk Three is The Author.

Dirk Three is Ultidirk. Congrats, all four Dirks have officially shown up in Homestuck, to whatever extent this counts as Homestuck, an extent which has been thoroughly documented by its own existence bc this is Homestuck (kinda) and you gotta lean into the bullshit or you’ll drown in it.

So yes, this was penned by Dirk Three. Who is also Lord English in two different metaphorical ways now (The trickster element, and also the fact that the epilogues insist on making Jane a second Condesce, which in this analogy puts Dave as himself and Dirk as, you guessed it, Cherub Master of All. Which is additionally insulting as fuck because Dirk grew up in that apocalypse and would never contribute to recreating it, if Jane ever was inclined to, which she isn’t, but you know).

And LE’s major force of opposition? Adult Calliope. (Also, like, Vriska, but symbolically it’s the other cherub.)

Which brings me to the main point of this essay, and that is that all of this? It’s a cherub fic. And we knew this, from the moment we were offered that choice. Meat or Candy? Well, neither of them are sustainable food sources for humans, not with the meat uncooked like that. They’re not satisfying endings for us either. But it’s all cherubs eat. (Well, that and special stardust, but that was Caliborn’s intermission. This is Calliope’s offering.)

Which again feeds back into the AO3 metaphor because from their introduction, Caliborn and Calliope have been fandom inserts, representing all of us, for better or worse. They read the story, come up with the theories, they write the fanfic.

And Calliope’s trying so hard. But she’s not human. She doesn’t get it, not on a way that connects with the characters, only with the text. Cherubs spend their lifetime alone. Cherubs only have black romance. Cherubs think trickster mode is an acceptable way to solve problems.

And, as Dirk pointed out back when he was still himself, everyone getting married and having a bunch of babies for no reason doesn’t solve shit.

Without a solid timeline, everyone became susceptible to becoming their ultimate selves. Ultidirk is a dick with the powers of actual capital g God, and none of the remorse of Dirk One, so he took control of the narrative. And so Calliope, the fanfic author, the one with the power to write a new story (with the exception of Dirk, as previously mentioned, he’s immune to cherub bullshit, and John and Terezi, who are still in canon), tried to help everyone realise their full potential.

But she made them selfish. She made them solitary. She doesn’t understand how humans work, so they became parodies of themselves. In meat, there’s a plot, but it’s insubstantial, because no one is truly themselves, facing a Dirk who lost himself years ago. In candy, it’s fluff with, again, no substance. It’s trickster mode calmed down. Everyone gets married and has babies, but it makes no sense, and everyone’s miserable.

And John Dirk and Terezi are the only ones who see it, because they’re the ones who haven’t been given to Calliope. But what’s the point, when they’ve lost their power over the story? What’s the point of gaining power if you’re not yourself anymore? (And one way or another, they all die in the end.)

The rest of them… Well, they do the things the narrative implied they would do, but usually in the worst possible way.

(Aradia and Sollux have been canon neutral since 2011 and they like it that way)

And now we go back to Detective Pony, like everyone and their mother have analysed already. Because yeah, these two things have so much in common, but also, some really crucial differences.

Both are stories in which Dirk takes control of the narrative, in which he is fought for control by another author figure, in which he considers his own role in the story, what he’s created, who’s got the authority (I still love that pun so much), and eventually forces the characters to come to the conclusion that he needs to be defeated, because at the end of the day Dirk is still hopelessly suicidal and like most problems the kids have, this is never addressed outside of ironic bullshit. (Not to him anyway, it’s kinda addressed in candy but I think if you’re talking about someone’s suicidal tendencies at their funeral it’s too fucking late).

But Detective Pony is ultimately a heavily veiled love letter to his friends. Detective Pony is Dirk exploring what he fears becoming, it’s him learning to let go, and eventually he relinquishes control of the book to the characters in it (as does Jeanne Betancourt).

Meat is Dirk’s notice of ownership over his friends. It’s him glorifying having become that thing he used to fear, it’s holding even tighter to everything he fears losing, and ultimately neither he nor Calliope trust the characters enough to pull back. They’re both obsessed with it, in both iterations, this battle between the two of them, even though it was never supposed to be about either of them.

But Detective Pony has an original story, with a timeline. It even has a second solid story for Dirk to come from, since Homestuck itself explicitly states when and why Dirk made it. When Detective Pony sits down to analyse which version of the text is better, it has that substance to fall back on. Jeanne Betancourt’s version is boring but kind. Dirk’s is interesting but cruel. And because the characters are all solid people, not their hazy ultimate selves, they have agency too, and can decide their own fate.

When Dirk analyses whose version is better in the epilogue, his whole reasoning is that neither is good. The characters rarely have any agency. Even the few moments, between Roxy’s void powers and Dave’s ability to stand up to Bro (which, by the way, so proud of him, how many people do you know who, in a situation where their childhood guardian and abuser literally became god and tried to thought influence them into doing something they kinda wanted to do already, would have the mental resilience to say “no, this isn’t me, stop that” and stand by that? Dave is the strongest goddamn character in this whole comic, holy shit), are only hints of who they were as real characters in the story. Dirk takes control, in one version, because he’s lost himself to Ultidirk, who’s overly concerned with how stories are supposed to be written, and tries to wrestle Homestuck into a shape he finds interesting. In the other, Dirk kills himself before he can hurt anyone. (And before anyone gets on my case about Dirk’s reasoning being he’s lost his purpose, his purpose was always protecting his friends.)

But Calliope’s not helping them either, just piling them full of romance and fluff and selfish parodies of themselves and thinking that’ll work out. Giving the villains “redemption” without ever actually letting them redeem themselves. Explaining all about their tragic backstories without doing anything with it. To bring back a very old quote, it’s like when Mario gets the star. He wins, but he’s denying himself many powerful moments of catharsis.

Just with less happiness, more death, and a bunch of weirdly political teen drama. And then when Calliope gets distracted by Ultidirk and gives up, everything unravels completely, but it also lets them live a life which does let some of the characters be happy, in a weird roundabout way. It’s dysfunctional as fuck, but these characters care so much for each other, not even being in a weird self melting fanon bubble could erase that completely. (And then things get buck fucking wild because this is still Homestuck we’re talking about)

(Though seriously, I could have done without the Jane is a fascist thing, she deserves better than that. Like what was the point of decrockertiering her if she was just gonna go right back to that? Also I love Dave but he barely has a leg to stand on in most of those political arguments anyway given how he completely destroyed LoHaC’s economy and once accused Karkat of communism for captchaloguing a chair. And while I’m complaining, Jake English is still not being allowed to consent to fucking anything.)

I’m not sure why this was written. I’m not sure why a lot of things in Homestuck were written, honestly. It’s certainly not a satisfying ending, but I don’t think it was supposed to be. It’s not disappointing either, and it’s definitely interesting, with all of Homestuck’s trademark humor.

When I first wrote this halfway through candy, I’d written the following as an ending:

“But if we’re going to triple kill the author, I think this is just ultimately validating everyone’s own interpretation of the ending. You can’t write everyone’s fanfic at once. You can’t be a cherub, or a god, we don’t write fic about people’s ultimate selves. What you can do is provide a timeline for them to exist in, and a better one, where they have a chance to be the people they have the potential to be. And just to be happy, in a way that feels real.”

But honestly, now? I think the point was just to fuck with us, and also do a fuckton of exposition about canon and the nature of reality

So fuck it, let’s end on a relevant Dirk quote

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naturallysuperbullshit · 4 years

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S2 E13: Houses of the Holy

First || Previous || Next

Gotta love weaponized televangelism - oh wait, that's all televangelism

Okay but how fucking powerful is this ghost that it's able to (pretty accurately, from my recollection of s4/s5 episodes, tho without any eyeball melting) recreate an angelic visit sans vessel

HOW did Sam get into the hospital without another nurse questioning him tho

I still dont understand why Dean likes the stupid Magic Fingers machine like... it's just shaking the bed, it's not like it's a massage chair

"She seriously thinks she was touched by an angel?" -laughs in knowledge of future seasons-

Dean mocking angels and unicorns in the same breath when he encounters both at a later date is exceptionally funny

"In all this time, i have never seen anything that looks like an angel" I mean. The angels you do meet don't exactly look like cherubs.

Convenient that the guy had 2 shovels in his root cellar

No one else sees the fucking lightshow out on the street in the middle of the night????

Jdjsndhehjd oh my god I haven't watched any SPN blooper reels in actual years but I still recognize this fucking scene as the one where they did like 100 takes bc they couldn't get the window lock open

"To think that God's Messanger would appear and incite people to murder... it's tragic" -laughs in knowledge of what that particular archangel is actually doing-

"The Archangel Michael, with the flaming sword. The fighter of demons - holy force against evil." holy foreshadowing Batman also Aziraphale had the flaming sword jsjsjsjs sorry can't resist

"We could use a little devine intervention, i suppose" as a treat

I said it before but like honestly, even without knowledge of future seasons, Sam definitely has a point about how, with everything else they've seen, it just makes sense that angels exist, too.

The last 3 people the spirit appeared to were all considered degenerates, and had no faith before the spirit appeared, but Sam just admited that he had faith, and has hardly a drunk or a sex worker, so like... why does Father Gregory appear to him? Sam doesn't fit the pattern, and this show is very particular about its ghosts stucking to a pattern. Yeah yeah redemption whatever Sam still doesn't fit the pattern.

"Dean, i saw an angel!" oh Sam, give it a couple more years, and you'll be saying that with a completely different tone of voice

You think the actual angels watching over the Winchesters bc of their status as vessels saw this happen to Sam and were like "....what an idiot"

"Maybe we're hunting an angel here, and we should stop!" -laughs in knowledge of future seasons-

Dean says "I'm gonna need to see some hard proof" and Cas up in Heaven makes a note to leave a fucking brand on his shoulder

Okay fine I'll take back my earlier complaint about no one else noticing the light show

....inch resting how Dean is the one doing the "angel's" work and Sam is the one working what could arguably be called black magic

???? They found a big black candle at a fucking minimart??????????

It's oddly vindicating when the boys get caught doing something weird lmao

"I was a man, but now I'm an angel" that's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.

Hey how did Dean find them tho

WAIT i just noticed that according to Father Gregory's marker, it's 2007, which means it's been about two years in the show timeline - i thought we were still on a year and a bit tbh. This show does not show the passage of time very well.

"I call upon the archangel Raphael" oh don't do that, he's an asshole

This preist is incredibly calm for finding out that ghosts exist, that his friend is a ghost, that his friend is a vengeful ghost who has been killing people, and that his on-the-spot exorcism actually works

Oooh yikes. Now that's karma. Are we sure Gabriel isn't in this episode?

"I wanted to believe, so badly" again, give it a couple of years, Sammy, and you'll wish that Dean had been right and angels didn't exist

The use of Eric Clapton here is making me cry fuck

"Houses of the Holy" final thoughts: this is probably up there with "Faith" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes" as a foreshadowing episode, but more importantly, it shows us how Sam and Dean view the concept of "good" supernatural forces - and how those views can be shaken. It's a pretty neat look. Also I know the first Trickster episode is soon so the ironic timing is not lost on me lmao.

#s2e13 #houses of the holy #spn s2 #supernatural notes #supernatural

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pastelgrungewrecker · 5 years

Text

Genesis As A Love Story

This is the eye of the hurricane, this is the only Way I can protect my his legacy…

Perceptor stared out the wide window of the observatory-turned-homestead he and Brainstorm had spent the MTO’s final years in. The sky looked dark yet burning, the wind howled instead of whispered.

Something knocked at the door.

They were scuffed and battered- lost and trembling.

They pleaded to be let in; their vocoder corroded and raspy and their hands worn down. Perceptor remained silent, tilting his helm and narrowing his good optic before he finally spoke.

“Why did you come here?”

“You saved one of us, once. You loved one of us, once. Please.”

His optic widened. He noticed the haphazard plating, the twitch of unfit cabling and beckoned the shivering form in before glaring into the cloying evening as it fell. The door shut like an executioner’s axe falling into the chopping block.

Like a guillotine hitting its mark.

They were an MTO, like Brainstorm had been. Born into the fires of the end of the war off an assembly line into a mission that was dead in the water. Off planet factories, hidden springs of life and hazards unknown and Perceptor handed them a fuel ration in silence.

“He called you the Least Warlike Autobot.”

“I was once known as that, yes.”

“I couldn’t think of anywhere safer to go when they raided the facility.”

Perceptor rested his chin on his own hands, thinking. Thinking to the times Brainstorm’s nightmares threw both their sparks into a death-tone spiral; thinking about the whispered confessions from a one time weaponsmaker, a coffin-filler.

“....How many of you are there.”

“Ten of us, the final half-batch.”

“Can you contact them.”

“...Yes, of course- they’re my unit, I-”

“Comm them, now. Give them these coordinates. Tell them to look for the observatory dome, and to come by cover of night.”

The mech looked at Perceptor in shock, mouth opening and closing wordlessly as The Least Warlike Autobot smiled tiredly.

“I did not love one of you once- I still love him. And this... This is something I will do, in his name. Because its the right thing to do. Because it’s what he’d want, I think.”

‘I want to make a DIFFERENCE, Percy!’, echoed in the sniper’s helm, ‘There has to be more than making assembly line weapons, assembly line people... Always war and more war- what about LIVING?’

And so, Perceptor took his place back at the wide, wide window to keep watch. Hours passed, he paced and fueled and calmed the nervous twitches of his new housemate.

The first one arrived in a clatter of unfamiliar wings and wide optics; the scorches of blaster-fire on his plating.

The second arrived with a limp- a cracked Autobrand and wobbling as they stood.

And then a third. A fourth. A ninth. A twelfth.

As days began to pass in blurs of color and sunlight Perceptor welcomed them with a quiet smile. Datapads were activated that had spent aeons in dim silence; lines of styluses slid over screens and there was clattering and clinking in the unused laboratory again.

They called him Sir, and their ranks grew.

They called him Commander, and their ranks grew.

And then, as Perceptor looked over the Observatory that had grown to house almost a hundred and thirteen MTOs from both sides of a broken war, he smiled his tired smile again.

“Call me Professor.”, he said softly, “Call me Professor; and call yourselves students. Scientists. Medics. Cybertronians.”

Word began passing around- to MTOs who feared going out in the daylight; to mechs who called themselves neutral but feared the gazes of old warriors.

And so, the ranks grew. The Observatory grew. The eyes of history turned their fickle gaze towards the one-time homestead as another construction project began.

As a sign, humble yet clean, was raised. As grounds were slowly acquired and purchased and cultured.

Genesis Academy.

The first ten graduated in a simple ceremony- no badges, no sashes, with only their fellow students and a few of their Professor’s friends in attendance. It was First Aid; shuttled in from medical duties scattered across broken galaxies, who painted the first new medic’s sigil upon the pauldron of the nervous First Graduate.

It was Minimus, chest puffed proudly as he saw his two newest apprentices bow low to him before taking the Oath of the New Accord.

It was Drift, soft-opticked for the first time since the war ended who greeted three brightly smiling mechs; packed and ready to follow him into the newly-budding cities as planners and guides.

Perceptor stood with a wide smile, flanked on either side by a new scientist and teacher.

The applause was soft, almost intimate. Perceptor adjusted the spectacles he now wore in place of his old reticule and his backstrut creaked. And then someone in the little crowd turned, and jogged towards the ‘entrance’ of the ‘campus’ grounds.

A dozen new faces, wary and nervous, looked back.

“Professor! New students!”

Perceptor glanced up, and stepped down from the short grandstand built for the small graduation. Rodimus greeted him at the gate with a debonair smile he hadn’t worn in longer than memory.

“I found some new faces, Perce. Got the room?”

Perceptor, as always, thought back to the first time Brainstorm slunk into the lab. Silent and shy and hesitant and wondering who would fire bitter words at him first.

“Always have room, Roddy. Always will. Welcome, students, to Genesis Academy. Let’s get you started.”

One of the faces twisted into disbelief, “But... But we’re CONS.”

Perceptor met their gaze, “Does that matter?”

Silence.

“The answer is no.”, he continued,”This is Genesis Academy, this is MY academy. There are no Bots or Cons here- there are students, and today there are graduates. Come with me- there is a celebration to be had, and then we will begin studies in the morning.”

Twelve hesitant frames followed the sniper-turned-science teacher to the crowd of brighter faces and smiles. A bellow of recognition, a shriek of glee- Perceptor glanced over, seeing a second-stage student bowl a new arrival over with wordless joy.

“I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD, HALF THE UNIT’S COMMS WENT DOWN-”

Steps creaked as Perceptor rose to the grandstand again and faced the crowd.

“Welcome to the new students, and congratulations to our graduates!”, he said, his university-accented baritone carrying over the gathered Cybertronians, “To my graduates- It makes my spark jump its orbit to see how far you have come- battered and beaten but never broken, all the way to rank and title!”

Ten chestplates swelled in pride.

“I know, deep in my processor- that you will do us all proud. Every single one of us- even the ones who are not present.”

Perceptor cleared his throat, optic dimming.

“All I will ask of you, as a final assignment- do not forget. Do not forget what you saw, what you lived. Do not forgive needlessly, but do not carry grudges longer than you need them.”

A moment of silence, of helms tilted down in respect.

“Now, with my blessing- congratulations on completing your education under my tutelage.”

The First Graduate stepped forward, “A cheer for the Professor!”

Perceptor jumped slightly at the dull roar that rumbled over the grounds; surprise replaced with a fond smile as he swore he heard Brainstorm’s voice in the crowd.

And then, the heavy thud of Whirl and Cyclonus’s steps.

Perceptor froze, and then turned- curious and confused. The last two of his students stood proud and tired and each with one of Whirl’s claws on their shoulders.

“May I present, Sniproscope-”

“PROFESSOR, you mean.”

“Whatever, Percy. But may I present- the first Artisans of New Cybertron; certified by yours truly. And my mech- they have one hell of a final project for ya.”

Both students stepped forward, each bearing one side of a holoscreen projector display.

“Another cheer for the Professor!”, called the one on the left.

The roar returned, as expected.

“And three cheers for Brainstorm of Kimia!”

Perceptor’s spark froze as the projection flared to life....

“Hiya Perce.”

The hologram grinned, popping it’s mask off and showing a crooked smile Perceptor missed more than he could ever say. Holo-Brainstorm laughed weakly.

“I can feel my spark going, Perce. I can feel it. So I’m recording this for you, and hiding it where you won’t think to look until you need it- or until I’m needed again.”

Perceptor’s hand shakily went to cover his mouth, and Drift moved like a flash of snowfall to hold him steady.

“Ratch is gone, and I know it hurt you to say goodbye to him. I could see it in your optic- and I knew one day that look would come back when they lowered me down. Hopefully you remembered what I wanted after all the fancy stuff was done.”

The hologram snorted a laugh, “Fire me into the unknown, and all that.”

A cleared throat, and Holo-Brainstorm stood tall.

“But.... In the event my projector plans can be. Well. Deciphered....”

The students puffed their chests proudly.

“It didn’t hurt, Perceptor. I promise. It couldn’t- I was with you, and that was all I needed. I lived my life, full and grand as I wanted it to be....”

Brainstorm’s smile recreated far too accurately.

“Come here, Percy. I hope, if you’re seeing this, and it’s built the way it needs to be.... I hope this works.”

Perceptor walked forward slowly as the hologram opened its arms. He stepped into the embrace, expecting the buzz of electricity when those arms closed around him-

And then he didn’t.

Firm and so close to real it broke his spark as the tears he had swallowed down since the funeral dripped from his optic- feeling Brainstorm’s faceplates against neckcables.

“I love you, Percy. Don’t close yourself away, okay?”, the hardlight hologram whispered, “There’s still so much to do in a brand new world.”

A soft laugh.

“Maybe start a school or somethin’. You always had a knack for teaching hard lessons... Sometimes with a whack to the helm. I gotta go now, I can hear you upstairs settling into the berth after making it again. I’ll see you on the other side one day; but not too soon, got it?”

A last squeeze, and the hum of the hardlight projection faded away like stardust.

The first new Artisan stepped forward.

“I was able to find most of the plans he hid away, Professor. I... If you grant your blessing, I can-”

“Build them all.”, whispered Perceptor, “Every last one of them. Put them in the world. For me. For him.”

The second New Artisan stepped forward, pulling a datapad from their subspace with what looked like a added memory drive, “I wasn’t much help with the building- but... here at the academy, I learned to love. Well. Writing. And I want to show you the first new title for New Cybertron.”

Perceptor held out his hands, breathing deep and taking the datapad and tapping the screen. It hummed softly to life.

“Genesis As A Love Story In Equations - Or, The Biography of Brainstorm of Kimia; and the Memoirs of His Conjunx and Fellow Crewmates.”, read Perceptor, his voice breaking softly as the words flowed out.

An awkward laugh, “It’s... a clunky title, but. I still have some drafting to do.”

Perceptor looked up, optic blurry and Drift’s hand on his shoulder strong and comforting.

“Thank you.”, he whispered, “From myself.... and Brainstorm. Don’t let them forget him.”

“I won’t- WE won’t.”, was the answer, “He was OUR Genesis; he was the First of us.”

Perceptor exvented softly, his optic closing peacefully as the final words passed from his processor to his spark.

“He’ll never, ever be left behind again.”

#tf #pastelwrites #perceptor #brainstorm #simpatico #big heart hurty

65 notes · View notes

ironwoman359 · 5 years

Text

(Taylor’s Traits)

Ariyana: Prompts! Prompts prompts prompts, answer all the prompts! Prinxiety angst! Logicality breakup hurt/comfort! Moxiety comfort after bullying! Patton being mind controlled to fight Virgil!

Dael: Your creative exploits are fulfilling, but please do not forget about this very important List of Things that need Doing.

Ellie: Awwww look at all these comments, people are so sweet, they love your work, Ari!

Claire: Uh, I know Ari wants to write and Dael wants to work, but consider this: The Sims.

Dael: Recreation is important as well, but some of these things need to get done or we are going to regret it tomorrow...

Leah: Oh my god we have so much acne why won’t it just go away!

Dael: Leah, if we keep picking at it and trying to pop new break outs they aren’t going to get better, they’re going to get worse–

Leah: IT NEEDS TO GO AWAY!!

Ariyana: I don’t want to alarm anybody, but I am totally stuck on this mind control fic, do we jump right into the mind control or should we show the abduction leading up to it...

Claire: Not to freak you out Ari, but it’s gotta be good if we’re going to post it, we can’t post garbage.

Leah: Everything we do is garbage, and people are gonna know and they’re gonna leave us, not that they even care much to begin with, but if you post garbage they’re going to hate us, but if you don’t post anything they’re going to get bored of us and leave, and if this ACNE doesn’t go AWAY you we’re going to look HIDEOUS in the wedding photos!

Dael: Oh god, we haven’t called the hairdresser or the photographer back yet, why would you bring the wedding up, Leah, we haven’t even done anything on this List for Today yet and–

Leah: We forgot SO MUCH today, it was a total failure!

Ellie: These comments are so nice...but why aren’t there more of them? why did so few people comment? did we do something wrong?

Ariyana: I can’t work under these conditions, I don’t know what to do.

Claire: It’s getting late we need to sleep.

Dael: Guys PLEASE we have to do something...

Leah: We are the WORST!

Ellie: How much do our followers really care about us, really? How authentic to our true self are we on this blog?

Claire: Dael, I am begging you, we need to get to sleep, please try and rally everyone.

Dael: I–

Ariyana: IF I CANNOT WRITE THIS ONESHOT THEN WHAT USE AM I TO THIS WORLD??

Leah: This is it. We are finished. We’re going to fail at life forever now.

Ellie: Is posting this fictional conversation between fictionalized aspects of ourself like this the right thing to do or is it a thinly veiled, manipulative cry for attention from people we are desperate to please and terrified of disappointing/offending?

Claire: Please Ellie, you know I can’t handle it when you get Meta like this.

Dael: Okay, everyone enough. Ari, to say that you are a failure as creativity because this mind manipulation fic is giving you trouble is absurd, because you literally wrote an 800 word story in one sitting this morning before work that has almost 600 notes and dozens of comments across tumblr and AO3. Last night you wrote two other ficlets that also have hundreds of notes and overwhelming positive response. You have been on a streak, just because that streak is fading doesn’t mean that you are failing.

Leah, your list of concerns are legitimate, but you must learn to calm down when presenting them, as your current method is not helpful to anybody. The acne will go away if we properly research treatment options and stick to a self care regimen. Even if our skin is not perfectly clear by June, we have hired a makeup artist who will do airbrush foundation for us, so we will look fine. The things that we do are not garbage, as again evidenced by the extremely positive response that our fics received yesterday and today. There was much that was forgotten today, yes, but there were also things accomplished, to ignore those things in favor of dwelling on what was forgotten will only lead to greater crisis.

And Ellie. It is understandable to be worried about people’s perception of you, especially considering the number of followers that we have amassed in our time here on tumblr, but to think that none of our followers care for us is simply untrue, and you know this. Not everyone will be pleased all the time, but clearly the majority of our followers have positive feelings towards us, as they are still here.

As for posting conversations like this...well, your goal is to be more authentic, yes? Even if this is a dramatized version of our thought process, with different aspects of our personality being characterized and given turns to speak, it is still a fairly accurate picture of what’s gone through our head in the past half hour or so. I do not believe it is manipulative to let people know what we are feeling, both the highs of being happy they like our work and the lows of being worried that we will not be able to consistently satisfy. And if someone does decide not to stay, then they are making the best choice for themselves, and that is admirable.

...

While I do regret not having all of our tasks done for the day, I do believe Claire is right. At the moment, making sure we get enough sleep is the most important thing so that tomorrow, we can easily catch up on what we have fallen behind on. As such, I am going to be okay. As will all of you, correct?

Ariyana: I...yes, I am going to be okay.

Ellie: I am going to be okay.

Leah: ......

Claire: I’m gonna be ok. C’mon, Leah.

Leah: ........there’s still a f*ck-ton of things wrong with us.

Ellie: Leah, LANGUAGE!

Leah: But I guess I’m going to be okay, for now.

Dael: Good. Now, Ari, if you would please?

Ariyana: Gladly. Thank you for this, by the way. The other fic still isn’t coming but after doing this...I feel better. Goodnight everyone!

--- --- ---

I’m going to be okay. Love you guys, g’night! <3

#Taylor's Traits #fanders sides #my writing #original work #ariyana #leah #dael #claire #ellie