#why read the books when I keep summarizing them

[hisnamesdylan]

Lockwood: Just don’t call me Ant. Or Tony.

Lucy(internally): Does anyone actually call him Tony??

[Later]

Kipps: Well, if it isn’t Tony.

#lockwood and co #save lockwood and co #anthony lockwood #lucy carlyle #quill kipps #why read the books when I keep summarizing them #in meme format #this is like my third time #but seriously #the books are pretty good #you should read them #and watch the show #on netflix #then complain about the lack of a season two #it’s worth it #lockwood & co #renew lockwood and co #lockwood and co season 2 #the screaming staircase

[the-fandom-is-now-my-life]

melusines say the darndest things

Even after successfully hiding your relationship to the eyes of Fontaine's people sometimes children melusines can have loose lips and accidentally say a bit too much and cause misunderstandings

Wc: 1.2k

Cw: reader gets called mom by Ngen but treated as GN/ they/them, melusine causes a pretty big misunderstanding, ideas of having children (unspecified if pregnancy or adoption)

“Good morning, mister barista” a small Melusine calls from behind the cupboard, the little green girl tiptoes so her eyes could be seen.

“Morning Ngen, chocolate milk?” The kind man asks as he does everyday, and already knowing the answer he starts heating the milk.

“ Yep, thanks” she hops towards a table and keeps seated while kicking her feet waiting for her milk.

Soon after Arouet came with a tall glass with a little bit of foam on top and grated chocolate over “Here is your milk, do you want something to eat?”

“No, thank you” she smiles at him, making him beam, “but can I ask something?” She asks softly.

“Of course, what is it?”

“What is a mom and a dad? When I go play on the playground ladies always ask where are my mom and dad” she pouts

At the question his blood runs cold “ uhm, a mom is someone who takes care of you and comforts you when you feel scared and a dad is someone you know can protect you from anything and spoils you rotten?” The forty year old man never thought much about that but attempts to summarize it with his own experiences.

“ Oh! Then I do have a mom and a dad!” Her small eyes shine

“ Really? Good for you”

“ Yep! That makes Dr. YN my mom and Monsieur Neuvillette my dad! So that is why they sleep in the same bed then!” She clasps her fin like hands together as if she just figured out the answer to a riddle.

The base chatter that always swarmed the cafe and gave it its characteristic liveliness fell silent, the different tables all were interested in what the Melusine said.

The journalists found a fresh scoop that could be exploited for months on end, amdeven if the noblewomen would spread the information around their circles faster than they can finish editing the news, such a shame the great judge isn't a bachelor any longer but that does allow them and their husbands to try and social climb by associating with his spouse.

On the other hand the salarymen working for the palais mermonia were neither happy nor sad, simply concerned. If their boss had a fight with his lover or decided to take half a day on valentine's day or his anniversary would they have to shoulder the extra work?

“ Oh~ how cute” a pitchy and sickly sweet voice starts speaking at her, a woman with black hair and wearing a noble dress takes a seat next to Ngen “tell me more, shop owner get me a platter of macarons for the sweet girl!”

“ And a portion of madeleines!” The reporter sits on the other chair, leaving him facing the noblewoman with the Melusine on the middle

“I'm not sure… Dr. YN, I mean mom always says too many sweets are bad for you”

“ Don't worry! It's just some cookies for breakfast, I'm sure they wouldn't mind if you don't eat dessert at night”

“ Exactly as the woman says, moderation is key”

As the plate with macarons gets settled on the table first the lady pushes it towards the melusine accompanied by her questions “So, tell me what do your mom and dad do? Do they frequent a certain restaurant? Or do they read certains books?-" Before any of the cookies were grabbed the journalists pushes the macarons away with the madeline plate, the colorful sugary dots moving to one of the edges because of the force.

“ At least ask something interesting, when did they get married? How long ago was that?”

“ What is up with those useless questions? How are you even using that information?” The manicured fingers tap methodically against against the glass tables, the noblewomen who were still on the other table started muttering about the scenario

“And for what use would knowing what books they read? Readers of the gossip column need to be started with the base of the gossip, like when and how it started“

Before they can keep bickering Ngen bit on a madeleine before taking another bite of the macaron as she spoke “ I know dad really likes soup at the hotel Debord so that is why mom rented the whole place for a night for next week” the journalist mentally notes the date for later use

“ A special secret dinner? So romantic”

“ Yep, mom said they wanted a private moment when they told dad…” she keeps speaking when suddenly she seems to notice something

“ Told what??”

“ Oh, does that make me a big sister then?”

“Is that another baby set?” Neuville looks at your reflection from the bathroom's mirror, your hands holding a yellow dress with daffodil embroidery and white knit socks

“ It's from Mrs Jonquille” you rub the cotton skirt between your fingers “ it seems to be good quality too”

Neuvillette walks towards you and grabs the socks, inspecting it awestruck. They could barely cover the tips of his fingers, causing you to laugh “ Are human newborns so… tiny?”

When suddenly a howl breaks the silence startling you both and leaving the set on the nightstand

“ I'm sorry, daisy!” Ngen apologizes to the puppy barking at her under her bed

You quickly tell her “Ngen, I told you to be more careful where you walk, daisy is still very little” a soft thumping against the tiles approaches the shared bedroom and a sad melusine hugs your leg

“ I don't want daisy to be mad at me” she whines into your pajamas

“Don't worry, I'm sure she will forgive you” you pat her head softly, messing the green and blue hair “she is just scared because you hurt her, but she truly likes you”

“ because I'm her big sister?”

As she asks that Neuvillette’s eyes dart towards yours, confusion meeting with confusion. The only idea that Neuvillette could conceive of the sudden titles being thrown around was Ngen being jealous of the attention towards the new puppy. Even then he recognizes to himself that he doesn't mind the familiarity and might even enjoy the cozy feeling in his chest.

Holding her in his arms a placid smile on his lips “Yes, Ngen, Daisy loves her big sister” Without her noticing the dog now peeks her head inside the room after hearing her name the puppy sits down at your feet and you hold her to Ngen’s face

“See? She was just scared. Now get ready for bed, it's past your bedtime”

“ Okay~” she quickly jumps out of Neuvillette's arms and the puppy follows after her, her tail playfully waging

A few seconds of silence settle in the room and you walk to the bathroom to brush your teeth

“Why did she suddenly start with the mom and dad thing?”

Neuvillette starts tying his hair back in a braid, his two blue streaks outside of it “ I'm unaware, she still referred to me as ‘monsieur Neuvillette’ when she accompanied me to the Palais mermonia” he sits down on his side of the bed, the white sheets matching his pajamas made of white silk and blue details “I hope it didn't bother you. If it did I apologize, I will talk with her about it tomorrow”

“ I didn't mind, actually. I think kinda sweet, like if she was our daughter”

As he pulls back the blankets he finds the baby dress on your nightstand and stretches over to grab it, the yellow cotton intricately embroidered with a darker stringing the form of daffodils, it was a very delicate work, noticeably even just by touch “it would be a waste for this to go unworn” he mumbles softly

“ It would, wouldn't it” you smile at him from the on suite bathroom

#genshin impact #gi #neuvillete x reader #neuvillete #neuvillette x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin neuvillette #im thinking this as a prologue of 'how the iudex sleeps' but can be read as a stand alone

[tc-doherty]

Hey! In your practical writing tips - post you said novels require lots of telling. I've noticed this too when I read, amazing books that tell a lot vs. showing but all advice gears to show and that's what I've been learning to do. Since I can't find anyone that teaches when to tell vs. show and how much tell vs. show is right and why telling is good etc. I was wondering if you could elaborate on this? Why some books that tell a lot are very engaging and others can't keep my attention? I'm so interested to see your thoughts! Thank you.

Like I said in that post, teaching people how to write isn't really my jam so this is less a teaching guide and more just my assorted thoughts on the subject based on my own opinions and the habits that I follow.

I guess what it boils down to is this. You can't really say that either showing or telling is more important in a novel, but the things that you show are perhaps more relevant.

For example, if you describe the morning routine of your character in great detail every single morning, readers are going to get bored. The story will grind to a halt. Yes you're showing us that, which most people would say is a good thing based on "show don't tell", but the information isn't relevant. If you're setting up a fantasy or sci-fi story it might be relevant once or even twice to show us how things work, but not every single time.

Similarly, if your character gets news telling them that someone they love has perished, you don't want to simply say that it made them sad. You want to show us their reaction. What do they do? What do they say? What physical sensations do they have? Are they lightheaded, do they feel out of breath, does their throat hurt because they're trying not to cry? That information is all relevant to the character, the scene, and the reader. If you simply say they're sad, then your story feels too shallow.

Many people might consider dialogue a kind of telling, but really it's both. What the characters say, how they say it, and also what they don't say can show us a lot about who they are as a person, which is relevant information to the audience even if they're simply explaining something that would be considered exposition. But what do your characters actually need to say or hear? And what can you relay to us through something happening in the background, for instance?

And what about the genre? I like to write road trip novels, which means I spend a lot of time showing the minutiae of the journey. That's relevant because the story is the journey that's being taken. But sometimes your characters just have to get from one place to another, and you don't need to get bogged down in it. You can just say that they took a bus or boat or horse or whatever.

Balancing it in any given story is the writing equivalent of "this meeting could have been email". What do you actually have to get together in a conference room to discuss (show the readers in detail) versus what can be summarized in a few sentences in an email? What will make you bored out of your mind if you see too much of it, versus what will leave you lost and confused without it?

And of course just because something is telling or summarized doesn't mean that the way that you write isn't important! Your writing should still be engaging even when you're telling. Pay attention to the words you use, the rhythm of your sentences, the variety of sentence lengths, things like that. If something is pleasant to read it will keep the reader's attention on the page. If the sentence rhythms or lengths are too similar, it becomes "monotone" and causes people's attention to wander.

Something I pay special attention to is that - unless the narrator is subjective or unreliable - I don't tell something about characters in the narration which is shown to be false. Nothing gets me riled up like supposedly objective narration which tells me a character is like so and I should feel like this about them, but then their dialogue and actions reveal that to be patently false and I feel some other way. Of course that is something that relies on the narrator being objective and having access to more information than we do. If it's a POV character who might just be unobservant, overly arrogant, biased, or kinda stupid, that's fine

When it comes to showing versus telling in regards to the background/description...well. I struggle a lot with description because I have almost complete aphantasia and can't visualize things easily. So I cheat! Anything that I describe in detail is something that my POV character is actually paying attention to. The level of detail varies from book to book based on what kind of person has the POV and what sorts of things they notice. And again, that's relevant to the audience because it's information which is relevant to the character. This is also really great way to start building up to any kind of romantic interest, because people do tend to pay a lot more attention to people they're interested in!

I feel like this has gotten really long, so if there's anything that you would like me to elaborate on more or I wasn't clear about, feel free to send another ask! I won't say I'm objectively right (usually lol) but I'm always happy to talk shop.

Hopefully some of it can be helpful to you or at least give you some things to start thinking about. And of course, it's always a good way to start by studying books that you read and seeing what you like and what you don't like and how it's been handled in both.

#writeblr #writing #writing advice #thanks for the ask #I hope I could help :3

[feelbokkie]

Sorry, I Love You | Chapter 2

pairing: Jeongin x fem reader

genre/warnings: smau, crack, angst, fluff, non!idol au, friends to lovers, unrequited love, will they, won’t they dynamic, abusive relationship, alcohol abuse/alcoholism, emotional/psychological abuse

pov: 1st/2nd person (depending on how you view it)

warnings: swearing, toxic boyfriend moments, manipulation, mention of food, drinking, slightly suggestive, minor domestic violence (reader gets grabbed roughly but that's all)

summary: Jeongin is in love with his best friend and he has been ever since he met her back in high school. He’s not sure how Y/n feels about him and in order to persevere their friendship, it’s a secret he keeps to himself. But when Y/n starts showing interest in one of their new neighbors, Jeongin starts to worry about the future of their relationship.

taglist: CLOSED

word count: 4,122

screenshot count: 15

a/n: moas, don't come for me

previous | masterlist | next

©feelbokkie (2024) — all rights reserved. reposting/modification of any kind is not tolerated.

"Please tell me that you decided to be a good student this year and did the reading." You breathe as you slide into the empty seat next to Jeongin.

He quickly slides his backpack off your desk and drops it next to him.

"Have you met me?" He scoffs, his eyes wide in shock. "I was going to ask you to summarize it to me right now."

You let out an annoyed groan and you lay your head against the desk, silently screaming in your head. If it was a class that wasn’t for fourth years and you didn’t already know the professor, you wouldn’t be stressed. But life would never be so kind to you. It doesn't help that you have this particular class three days a week and today is the third day so you technically had enough time to read.

"How much time before class starts?" You ask quickly, hunching over to your bag and searching for your textbook.

"Like 3 minutes," Jeongin tells you slowly, confused as to your sudden burst of energy.

You pull out your book and quickly flip over to where you left off last night. "I can work with that."

Jeongin can't help but stare at you. He's so used to you being so on top of your game, that he's not sure he's ever seen you this frazzled when it comes to school. You might even be more tightly wound up than Seungmin when it comes to your grades. How you managed to not do the reading is beyond him.

"What happened to your neck?" He asks, his fingers brushing against the dark purple spots on your neck.

Soobin happened.

You know know how he is, you're not even sure why you agreed to let him over last night. He let you study, for a few minutes. And before you knew it, your textbooks were lost between the sheets, and your clothes and your neck was littered with large love bites. If you didn't know any better, you'd think he's a vampire with the way he's always attaching himself to your neck. In the chaos of it all, you ended up going to sleep without setting your alarm and slightly overslept. You barely had enough time to get ready with how far away from campus your apartment it, you weren't going to waste time trying to cover up the hickeys on your neck when one of Soobin's hoodies could cover them up just fine.

Or so you thought.

"Burned myself with a curling iron," You mumble slowly as your eyes scan over your textbook.

"Your hair's straight today," Jeongin moves a loose strand out of your face for you, making it easier to see the words that you barely understand.

"Then I burned myself with a flat iron," You correct.

It's not that you're ashamed of what you did last night with your boyfriend. You just know that Jeongin could be a bit…prudish when it comes to things like this. It's also eight in the morning and you're not necessarily comfortable with talking about your sex life in front of your peers. So for the sake of your sanity and privacy, you have to lie to him. A little white one.

"But--"

"In, I love you but it's hard enough for me to read in Korean without you trying to interrogate me." You snap, quickly becoming stressed by everything around you.

"Sorry," Jeongin slides back into his seat, facing forward. After a few seconds, he hunches over to his backpack. Finally, he sets something on the corner of your desk. "Here, you need this more than I do."

You glance over to the side to find a can of your favorite coffee. A small smile takes over your face. You know he was probably going to give it to you anyway. He doesn't like that brand because it's too sweet. He always fusses when he sees you drink it. Still, whenever he gets himself a coffee, he makes an effort to bring you one too.

"Thank you Innie," You reach to open it but he quickly picks it up again.

"Read, read. You have two minutes to finish and summarize that for me." He says quickly as he opens the can for you.

"You know that feeling that you get when you know a movie is going to fundamentally change you for the rest of your life?" You beam, the corners of your mouth twitching upwards as you walk out of the theater with a bounce in your step.

"Y/n, you say that about a lot of movies," Jeongin laughs as he watches you skip over to the trash can to throw away the now-empty popcorn bucket.

Various sounds from all the different movies playing simultaneously can be heard as you and Jeongin make your way out the the theater. Your mind is going a thousand miles a minute as you replay all the key moments of the movie in your head. Jeongin trails behind you, holding both of your backpacks and your cups.

"I mean it about a lot of movies, Jeongin. I always pick something that sticks with me and make it a part of my personality. Did you think I like eating dessert first because I'm quirky? No, it's because Remember Me taught me that life is too short to not do things that make me happy. Like eating sweets before my meals."

You spin around, walking backward as you start at Jeongin. His smile is so wide you can barely see his eyes and his dimples are as deep as craters.

"What lesson are you taking away from this film, oh great movie Buddha?" He jokingly bows in your direction.

You stop dead in your and blink at Jeongin. You stare at him for a bit. You stare at the black and white flannel over the plain black t-shirt he's wearing and the medium-wash denim jeans he's wearing. A variation of one of his regular outfits. A shirt and some button-up over it and a pair of jeans. You've come to realize over the years that he probably wears similar outfits because of the simplicity and comfort of it all. And somehow, it brings you comfort too. Familiarity, stability.

"Y/n," Jeongin waves your drink in front of you. You chuckle as you take your cup out of his hand.

"Jikai wa jikaidesu. Ima wa imadesu." You do your best to imitate the man in the film you just watched. You take a sip of your drink before opening your mouth again. "'Next time is next time. Now is now.' Going to try to focus on the present more and relish on perfect days like today."

"That means we shouldn't have to worry about our film analysis then," Jeongin smirks as you two start walking again.

"Fuck that, I'm going to sit down tomorrow and work on that paper while the movie is still fresh on my mind. I'm not even going to drink tonight." You turn around and head over to the concession stand. You quietly take Jeongin's cup from his hand place both cups on the counter and ask for refills.

"You should just stay home tonight and write it." He suggests, his face softening a bit.

"Hm, yeah I know but I promised Soobin. One night out isn't going to kill me. It's going to be impossible to not think about this movie for a while. The cinematography. The soundtrack. Oh my god, the overall non-plot, plot. A masterpiece. It should win all the awards."

"It has good reviews pretty much everywhere so it should. But you know that those things are also popularity contests." Jeongin nudges you as the cashier comes back with your drinks and new straws.

You pull your backpack off of his shoulder and swing it over yours as the two of you finally make your way out. The crisp, cool air hits your face as you push open the door back to the outside world. Slightly weighed down by your backpack, you still skip around.

"I'll make my own award," You slightly pout, you turn around to face Jeongin again. "Oh! Back to the cinematography for a second. I'm in love with the fact that they used film over digital. It's more expensive, but there is something about film that makes a movie better than a digital camera."

"I think it's the graininess. Digital is...too perfect if that makes sense. Y/n, turn around. You're more clumsy than me."

You roll your eyes and make a face at Jeongin, still walking backward. He scoffs as he rolls his eyes in response, the golden shine from the sun hits his face.

"I'm not going to fa--"

You cut yourself off as you stumble over a rock that definitely shouldn't have been in your path. You struggle to keep yourself upright, grasping the air for some sort of invisible rope to keep yourself from falling. You squeeze your eyes shut as your hand clasped around nothing, bracing yourself for the impact of the fall. Only, it never comes. Instead, you feel Jeongin's strong grip around your wrist, keeping you from hitting the ground. Unfortunately for you, you also feel the ice-cold soda that spilled all over you, soaking right through Soobin's jacket and straight to your skin.

"Shit," You mutter under your breath as Jeongin pulls you up. You lean forward, pulling the fabric of the shirt and hoodie away from your skin as you internally panic.

"I told you so," Jeongin stifles a laugh and he sets his drink and backpack down on the ground.

"Now is so not the time. What do I do?"

He quickly shrugs off his flannel and hands it to you. "Here,"

"A few things wrong with that. 1. I'll still be sticky. 2. We are in public, I'm not taking off my shirt."

Jeongin freezes for a moment, his face quickly becoming red as he stares at you.

"T-then let's head over to my car and I'll take you home." He stutters.

"It's fine," You gather up some of the fabric and wring a bit of the soda out. "I don't want to make your car sticky. I'll just walk home, it's not that far from here."

"That's stupid, let me just take you home,"

"Are you sure?” You ask hesitantly. Jeongin’s car has cloth seats. It’d be easier if he had leather seats. At least those you could wipe down and call it a day. No matter how much you scrubbed it, unless he got the car detailed, it wouldn't be fully clean. And you already know he's not going to get the car detailed.

"Just go Koolaid man," He picks up his things and gently pushes you in the direction of the car.

"Kool-Aid man is insane. I wasn't even drinking Kool-Aid." You protest.

"Yeah but it was red," He teases, running off into the direction of his car. "C'mon, let's go before you attract ants."

"Ants? That fast? Hey, Yang Jeongin, don't run and leave me here."

Your nose is instantly assaulted by the smells of sweat and alcohol when you walk through the door of the third frat house on fraternity row. With all the warm bodies, alcohol, and movement the temperature in the house is a stark contrast to the cool, refreshing air outside.

You're tired of bumping into people as you search the house looking for at least one of your boyfriend's friends. After your conversation with Soobin, you didn't feel like going out. But you knew that if you didn't go, it'll just lead to a fight. You also know that everything Soobin was saying is just the alcohol coursing through his veins, not him.

You shove your way past a couple of people who were blocking the path in the hallway. You let out a sigh of relief when your eyes land on Soobin, Yeonjun, Kai, Beomgyu, and Taehyun sitting on a couch, a few girls sit around them, talking. Yeonjun's left arm is casually slung around a girl that you don't recognize while Soobin sits on his right. Beomgyu sits on Soobin's right, a plastic cup in his hand as he laughs at something Kai, who's sitting next to him on a chair, said. Taehyun's back is to you and a girl is sitting between him and Kai.

Soobin looks at you through hooded eyelids, the corner of his mouth turns up with an annoyed smirk. "Oh look, she finally hopped off Jeongin's dick and decided to join us,"

"Dude," Yeonjun's jaw clenches as he smacks Soobin's chest with the back of his hand.

Beomgyu, Kai, and Taehyun's head snap towards you. You feel all the heat in your body, perhaps all the heat in the room, rush to your face. You can only imagine how red you are. Both Beomgyu and Kai fidget in their seats while sitting quietly. Taehyun just looks at you with soft eyes and a soft pout.

"I'm going to get another drink," Beomgyu mumbles, quickly getting up from his seat.

"I'll join you," Kai jumps up and follows him.

You press your lips in a fine line before forcing the corners of your mouth up into a smile and taking Beomgyu's spot on the couch.

"Sorry, I spilled soda all over myself. Got in my hair and everything." You explain to everyone.

"Sure, 'soda' is one word for it." Soobin slurs. Yeonjun hits his knee against Soobin's knee while Yeonjun while Taehyun shoots him a look. Soobin doesn't seem to notice either one of them, he's too busy staring at you.

"You're here now, so that's all that matters." Taehyun coughs, "How's fourth year treating you so far?"

"My courses are all pretty easy. Saved a bunch of my easy classes for this year so I'm coasting. I shouldn't fall behind when we start working on the film."

"Oh, oh," Yeonjun shouts, his arms shooting in front of Soobin to tap your hand. "Speaking of the film, did you start looking at the script?"

"Oh, Han and Hyunjin actually got the script done on time?" Taehyun asks excitedly, leaning forward in his seat.

"Seungmin threatened to work with a different writer if they didn't. And yeah, I finished with Jeongin during lunch today. It's really good!"

"Right? Those two are idiots but they're geniuses when it comes to writing. This is their best script yet." Yeonjun grabs your wrist and excitedly shakes it.

"What's this one about?" Taehyun asks, his attention fully on you and Yeonjun.

Yeonjun sits up straight, his arm no longer around the girl he was talking to and his hand still on you. "It's this coming-of-age film about these two guys who are best friends in their final year of high school..."

You don't notice that Soobin's eyes finally leave your face and zeros in on Yeonjun's hand on you. You don't hear the scoff he lets out or the look on his face. You're too focused on listening to Yeonjun describe the script to Taehyun. You don't notice anything until Soobin's warm hand finds the back of your neck and his wet thumb roughly rubs the skin towards the front of your throat.

"There, all better," He mumbles into your ear.

"What are you doing?" You whisper harshly at him, not wanting to interrupt Yeonjun.

"Something was on your neck, I was helping you," He hums, pleased with himself.

You freeze, not sure what to do. Soobin wiped off a bit of the makeup covering one of the hickeys he gave you. You don't have any makeup with you to fix it but you're not sure if anyone else noticed it. You ball your hands into fists as you stare at Soobin proudly smirking.

"What are you guys talking about?" Kai asks as he and Beomgyu finally make their way back to the group, drinks in hand.

They set the few bottles of water, soju, and beer on the table before sitting down. Beomgyu takes the now-empty seat next to Yeonjun and Kai takes his original seat.

"Junnie was telling me about Han and Hyunjin's script and it sounds amazing."

"Should we be talking about that here? Are you worried that someone is going to like, steal it or something?" Kai asks.

"Seungmin already submitted the paperwork to our department heads this morning. He spent all summer tracking us down so we could sign the forms so he could turn them in immediately." Beomgyun shouts, "So if anyone takes it, it's on them."

A necessary precaution that the university implemented a few years before you started to combat accusations of plagiarism amongst students. Why it took them so long is a wonder.

"Did you read it, Gyu?" You ask, resting your hand on Soobin's lap as you lean over him.

"What?" He shouts back.

"I asked if you read it?" You ask loudly this time.

Beomgyu takes a sip of his drink before shaking his head. "Don't need to, we're reading it together on Sunday."

"You guys are meeting to talk about it already?" Kai asks, leaning forward toward the group. In the distance, you can hear a group chanting about something.

"Seungmin is on one this year after what happened with last year's film." You explain.

"To be fair, Hyunjin and Han were driving all of us crazy with the last-minute changes. I can only imagine how bad it was for you, Yeji, and Innie."

"It was a pain--"

"Didn't Yeji tell them off?" Beomgyu accidentally talks over you.

"She slapped Hyunjin one day when she was going over the footage once."

"She did what?" Beomgyu tries to lean in closer to hear you over the cheering from inside the house.

"She--"

Soobin leans over, close to your ear. His breath makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, "Maybe you should go sit on his lap so he can hear you better."

"It's nothing," You wave off before leaning back into the couch, chewing on your lower lip. Soobin throws his arm around your shoulder before taking another sip of his drink.

You're not too mad at him. Hurt, yes, but not angry. You know Soobin's been drinking and that is just how he gets. It's not fun, the attitude he gives you, but you know it won't last long. That in the morning, after he gets over his hangover, you'll have your boyfriend back. The one who skipped classes all week to take care of you when you had the flu. And takes you on cute dates. And mumbles that he loves just before he falls asleep.

Taehyun eyes shift between the two of you quietly before sliding over a bottle of water towards Soobin. "Why don't you have some?"

"Why?" Soobin blinks at the shorter man.

"Probably to give your liver a break," Beomgyu adds.

"He had two bottles of soju by himself before we got here." Kai quickly whispers into your ear.

You press your lips together again as you process what he just said. At first, you're not sure that you heard him correctly at first because of all the commotion going on around you. Realization slowly sets in on how drunk Soobin actually is right now. It explains his anger from earlier.

You plaster on a small smile before pressing a kiss into Soobin's cheek. You brush the hair out of his eyes and rest your hand on his face. "Let's go home, yeah?"

"You just got here and now you want to leave?" He furrows his eyebrows in confusion.

"I've had a long day. And last night...was a long night. I'm a bit sleepy." You try to convince him.

He scoffs, "I told you not to come,"

"You know what?" Yeonjun quickly downs his drink and stands up, "I have work tomorrow and the party is kinda lame. I think I'm going to head out. You guys want to come with?"

Everyone else agrees, either finishing their drinks or abandoning them on the table in front of you. Soobin rolls his eyes before finishing his drink and stumbles as he tries to stand up.

***

"You know, we only left the party because of you," Soobin says suddenly.

Soobin is leaning on you for support while the six of you are walking back to their house on the other side of campus. Beomgyu latched himself onto Yeonjun's back much to his dismay. Taehyun and Kai, walk behind you, talking about something with hushed voices. You know they're talking about you and Soobin. After his behavior, you're not sure how they couldn't be.

"You were embarrassing both of us." You snap back, finally getting annoyed.

Soobin stops dead in his tracks, causing you to stumble back. "I'm embarrassing you?"

"Let's not do this right now--" You gently place your hand on Soobin's shoulder to try to calm him down a bit, only for him to shrug it off.

"No, let's do this right now because you've been pissing me off today. Do you know how embarrassing it is to sit around, waiting for my girlfriend for hours while she's out doing who the fuck knows what with another guy?" He raises his voice. A few drunk stragglers turn their heads towards the pair of you as they walk by.

"Soobin, he is my best friend and we were out doing homework. I apologized for being late and I told you what happened."

"Why should I believe you?" He cocks his head to the side.

"Because I'm your girlfriend and I've never given you one reason to doubt me." You turn your head to the side and squeeze your eyes shut while taking a deep breath, trying to calm yourself down.

It's not his fault. He's drunk. This isn't your Soobin.

"Are you sure about that?"

"Why would I lie?"

"So you wouldn't get caught,"

"Doing what?"

Soobin steps closer to you, closing the space between you. "Why don't you tell me,"

"Hey, you two good?" Kai asks as he and Taehyun approach you.

"We're fine," You turn to shoot them a reassuring smile.

"Hey," Soobin roughly grabs your face and forces you to look at him. "Look at me when I'm talking to you,"

Before you could open your mouth to tell him to stop, both Kai and Taehyun are between the two of you. Taehyun shoves Soobin back while Kai checks on you.

"What is your problem?" Soobin laughs.

"What's going on?" Yeonjun asks, walking back to the group with Beomgyu in tow.

"N-nothing," You whisper, still thrown off by how harshly Soobin turned your head.

"I'm taking Y/n home," Kai says suddenly. You're not used to him being serious. You're not even sure you've ever seen him serious the entire time you've known him. You're not sure you like it.

"We were just talking, Hyuka. Stay out of it." Soobin tries to explain, walking forward, only to be pushed back by Taehyun again.

"You made it my business when you put your hands on her." Kai turns back to you, placing his hand on your head, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Hyuka. It's okay. He's just drunk, he didn't mean it like that."

A glimpse of sadness flashes across his face for a moment. More pity than sadness really. Almost like he's apologizing to you on Soobin's behalf. You're not sure why he feels the need to. You know that once Soobin is sober enough, he's going to come and apologize for his behavior. He always does.

"Yeah, no it's cool. Go ahead and fuck one of my friends. I'll just go back inside and find some desperate girl. Then we'll be even."

"Okay, dude, that's enough. Hyuka, Tae, go and take Y/n home. Gyu and I got this dumbass." Yeonjun takes Taehyun's spot and pushes him towards you and Kai.

"Both of of them? Now that's being greedy. Be careful not to choke on both of their--"

"What the fuck is your problem?" Beomgyu asks this time.

"C'mon, let's go." Taehyun orders as he gently pulls you away from your boyfriend.

You bite your tongue as you nod your head softly and walk away with Kai and Taehyin on either side of you. You know he doesn't mean it, but it still hurts. You've never once thought about cheating on Soobin, but to hear him say that to you hurts. Your heart is pounding in your chest and the cool air feels mazing across your face. You look back over your shoulder to see Yeonjun and Soobin arguing and Beomgyy texting someone on his phone.

"You okay?" Taehyun asks.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It wasn't that bad. But he'll be back to normal tomorrow." 

—

Buy me a coffee?

—

Taglist

Red means that it wouldn't let me tag you (either at all or properly)

@amyyscorner @jiisungllvr @marked-unknown @veedoesntknaur @nuronhe @lixie-phobia @yongbbokkie @f9clementine @kibs-and-bits @jihanlovic @puppysmileseungmin @jaydebow @kangaracharacha @lilcutieana @lanatheawesome @everglowdaisies @babrieeee @sunshinessky @szkstay @aslou @weird-bookworm @autumn-lv @ismelllikechlorine247 @stay278 @wolfennracha @tesywesy @mmmsvnts

#feelbokkie writes #silu smau #stray kids #skz #stray kids smau #skz smau #chan #bangchan #bang chan #lee know #minho #lee minho #changbin #seo changbin #i.n smau #hyunjin #hwang hyunjin #han #jisung #han jisung #felix #yongbok #lee felix #lee yongbok #lee felix yongbok #seungmin #kim seungmin #i.n #jeongin

[perregrinstudiessometimes]

How I Annotate Non-Fiction Books:

Step one gathering supplies. The supplies you need will be based on your needs and the text you are annotating so feel free to fit this to your need or habits.

For physical books: highlighters, pens, sticky notes, page flags, index cards, the book/document

For digital books: your device or choice (might do an in depth post of digital texts later)

step two- creating your key

For small documents, I tend to stick to one color (each of my classes are assigned a single color).

For Longer documents, with lots of information, I will create a key for example:

keys should be based on what information is most important. In my history classes dates and names are more important whereas in a science class terms and chemical formulas may be most important.

You should also keep in mind why you are reading the book/document. For example: Are you reading to write a book report? Then it would be best to highlight the thesis and any points you wish to bring up in your review.

some parts of your key will most likely not need writing down after they become habit, for example after highlighting an important term, I will underline the definition of the term. (I personally tend to under highlight)

very important highlighted text will also get a page flag so that it is easier to find when reviewing, write a review, etc.

step three- your first read through

break the reading into smaller segments, for example. if you are reading a textbook or information-dense book you may wish to use headings or subheadings as your guide for this. if your text is not already broken into smaller section resign yourself to summarizing after every few paragraphs

You can write your summaries in whatever way suits you, your habits, or the book you are working with.

For this book I am writing my summaries in index cards, but I could have written them in sticky notes, or in a notebook (physical or digital.) I have tried all of these techniques and I like them all and tend to switch between them.

On the back of my summary cards, I write the page numbers the information was pulled from so that I can more quickly find the information if I need to quote it.

Feel free to ask questions in the replies or in my asks!

#Rosie teaches #studyblr #study #studying #100 days of productivity #study tips #college #studyspo #study notes #student #new studyblr #text book #annotating #annotation #annotating books #book #new bookblr #english #language #language arts #historyblr #history #study inspiration #study advice #study with Rosie

[lazywitchling]

Alright, here we go. My review for The Dabbler's Guide to Witchcraft by Fire Lyte

Final rating: ??/10 - it broke my numbers system.

TL;DR - I like the book. I'm angry at the author. It's great for new practitioners. If you're going to get it, please get it from the Spiral House Shop, get Alex Wrekk's two witchcraft zines to go with it, and go look at/reblog/contribute to the original Dabbler's Week project.

(Also I think this is the longest review I've written yet. I'm sorry.)

This book is very good. I'm mad about that. The author is an excellent writer. I'm mad about that. I want to dislike this book but I can't, and I'm mad about that.

So let's get into the breakdown of why.

First up, a housekeeping thing: "Fire Lyte" is a pen name that I don't believe the author uses anymore, so I will be referring to him as Don Martin, the name he is using on his current projects. I know he's on TikTok, formerly of Inciting a Riot podcast, now of Head on Fire podcast.

Second, some links relevant to the review-which-is-actually-just-a-rant:

The breakdown of things I found that were taken uncredited from Tumblr

I COULD be making this up and reading it in bad faith, but this bit about 'heteronormative marriage' has my alarm bells ringing

Why I hate the title of this book

The original Dabbler's Week project links

Anyway.

I picked this book up specifically because of the title. It's been 3 years since it was published, so it took me a while, but I remember looking at that title when it was first out and thinking "Hey... the timing of this... did this person just wholesale lift the 'Dabbler' idea from Tumblr?"

The answer is: Yes, probably!

(He also summarized the Malachite Dick post from February 2020, but he actually credited Tumblr along with relevant usernames, so that's good and also made me laugh.)

But... yeah. The fact that he's crediting Tumblr from something that specifically happened in February 2020, when the original Dabbler's Week was from late January 2020 and seems to have inspired his whole book? Don, would it have killed you to mention ANYTHING about that project and the people involved?

He's very big on talking about following trails of information, listening to podcasts, listening to the podcasts of people talked about on those podcasts, reading books talked about on those podcast, and so on. But if he doesn't start off by saying "Dabbler's Week was a project issued by asksecularwitch on Tumblr", then how is anyone supposed to follow THAT chain of information, hmm? If his whole advice on finding good witchcraft resources is to follow the chain of people who are sharing information from each other, but he makes no mention of where he got the whole idea for his book, then what?

Side rant: I'm real tired of how Tumblr information is simultaneously treated as too shitty to ever bother reading or mentioning, but good enough to screenshot, repost on other sites, recite word-for-word on tiktok, and apparently write a book about.

ANYWAY. I'm angry about it. I'm gonna be angry about it. Here, please look at these links to the shenanigans that began the original Dabbler's Week, because Don certainly won't tell you about this part.

Anyway.

Some bad things:

I mean, the plagiarism. I keep hesitating to use the word 'plagiarism', because to me that seems like wholesale lifting entire works and slapping your name on them, when all Don did was fail to credit a few Tumblr users he quoted. But then again, if I did that on a research paper in college, it would be called plagiarism, so.

This book is in fact not a great guide for 'dabblers'. The point of Dabbler's Week was that if someone didn't know if they wanted to commit to witchcraft but wanted to fuck around with casting some spells for a week to try it out, there were week-long guides on things someone could do to try that. This book is not for fucking around with magic, it's for people who are already sure that they want to make this a thing in their lives. It handles some heavier topics (e.g. vetting mentors and not getting sucked into a cult) that are very very important for someone who is BEGINNING, but may be too much for someone who just says one day "lol I think I'll cast a spell for fun". A far more accurate title would have been "The Beginner's Guide to Witchcraft", but then he'd lose that punchy and marketable and googleable term 'dabbler'. (Yes, I'm going to be petty about this.)

"Wow Jes, it sounds like you really hated this book."

NO I DIDN'T, AND I'M SO MAD ABOUT THAT!

Some good things:

The author has a writing style that I enjoyed very much. This is a personal preference, but I like when books are either written so that the author is fully invisible (Bree Landwalker's books do this wonderfully), or the author is fully visible, like they're sitting at the table having a conversation with you (Kelly-Ann Maddox's 'Rebel Witch' comes to mind, as does Alex Wrekk's 'Brainscan 33: DIY Witchery'). Don Martin is the table conversation kind. That makes this book very easy to read, while also getting information across in an easily-understood sort of way.

This book fills a very necessary gap in modern witching books. It talks about the online community of witches, and a lot of the pitfalls that have come along with the bonuses of having so much witchcraft available at our social-media connected fingertips.

He gets very in depth with things like cultural appropriation. That's something that you can find in a lot of modern witch books, but Don actually spends the time breaking the concept down and explaining WHY it's harmful, HOW it affects people, and quotes people from the affected minority groups. I have seen the appropriation topic come up in a lot of the witch books I've read, but Don is the one who has covered the topic the best, imo.

He spends time on topics that I myself would have been dismissive of. The example that comes to mind is the chapter 'Can I Make Sh*t Up?' My knee jerk reaction was "Yes, you can make your own spells, you don't need to get someone else's permission. Next question." But Don goes through the full breakdown of yes you can make up your own spells, yes you can make your own correspondences, but no that doesn't mean you can just throw a water soluble crystal in your water bottle because you think it's good for cleansing.

Actually on that topic, he covers a lot of the why not just the what. It's not just 'appropriation is bad', it's 'and here's why'. It's not just 'research your herbs', it's 'here's some examples of things that can and have gone wrong.'

SPELL CANVASES! There are 11 'spell canvases' in this book, and they're pretty much all just kids/teens science experiments (e.g. dissolving an egg shell in vinegar, lighting a tea bag on fire so it flies, and using food dye to color a white flower). He does not give intentions for these spells, but gives a spell technique and then some examples of how you could apply your own purpose/intention to it as needed. It's actually pretty smart, and now I wish there was more stuff like this.

He actually explains what UPG means. Man, 'UPG' is one of those things that I keep seeing as a 'I don't know what that means and I'm to afraid to ask' blog post. When someone pops into the witchy social media circles, we can throw the term 'UPG' around as if everyone knows what it means, and forget to actually explain that it's Unverified Personal Gnosis and what that means. Don's got us covered. Good on you, Don.

The one throwaway line about why you don't have to buy fancy witch things. Tucked away in chapter 12 is this almost nothing-sentence mentioning why you shouldn't be "going broke hoping to buy your way into 'effective' magic" (pg. 161). I have seen, reblogged, probably written posts about 'No you don't need the fancy tools! You can just use whatever! But you CAN buy them if you want, you just don't NEED them.' And we've all seen those around, right? But damn, if Don didn't just get to the heart of it. You can't buy your way into skill. YES, Don, THAT!! THANK YOU.

Alright. I'm running out of words. This isn't a review, it's a rant. Holy shit. Let me shut up with a TL;DR

Almost without doubt, Don liked Tumblr's idea enough to write a book about it, but failed to give credit. But he's an excellent writer and covers a lot of topics that are not often written about in printed books, and to get those blogosphere-ideas onto bookshelves is invaluable. This is a good book for beginners starting out in witchcraft, but not for dabblers who just want to screw around with some spells. Do the pros outweigh the cons? Is it ethical to buy a book when the author gets royalties but the bloggers he got the idea from do not? I don't know. I can't tell you that. You'll have to weigh all this against your own moral compass and decide for yourself. My recommendation is that if you're going to buy it, please buy it from the Spiral House Shop, because if Don Martin's going to get paid for this book, Alex Wrekk should too. Buy Alex's zines. Reblog Sec's posts. Links are up at the top.

#jes vs witch books #drama in your llama #navigation: reviews

[lurkingshan]

Hi....If you don't mind, can I ask, what are your top 10 (or top 7) favorite media (can be books/ manga/ anime/movies/tv series)? Why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before......Thanks....

Thank you for the ask, I don't mind a bit! Though I will say that this particular question sent me into a minor existential crisis, because how on earth could I ever pick just 10 things that I love across all media. I don't know if y'all have picked this up about me yet, but I consume vast amounts of media, like...unbelievable amounts of media, it is my great joy in life. I consulted @bengiyo about how to approach this question, and he suggested a frame to help narrow it down: what are my favorites that someone else recommended to me, that I then felt compelled to recommend to others? Hope you don't mind the tweak! As always, keeping this in the realm of Asian media for this blog, here is what I got:

What Did You Eat Yesterday?

When I met @bengiyo and @waitmyturtles I learned very quickly that this was their all-time favorite, and if I didn't like it we were gonna have a problem (jk but not really). I hadn't watched it on my own because until recently (shoutout to our savior Gagaoolala) it was quite inaccessible and I hadn't yet stumbled onto @isaksbestpillow and found her amazing subs. Luckily, I have impeccable taste and WDYEY is in fact a masterpiece, so they watched me watch it, I lost my mind over how unique and brilliant and technically flawless it was, and we are now all bonded for life over our love for this show, which just returned for a second season and will hopefully continue forever. I love it so much I have even started reading the manga, and I am not a manga girlie by nature (I prefer reading prose), so you can be assured I absolutely will not be shutting up about it anytime soon.

Go Ahead

Credit for this one goes to @ginnymoonbeam for watching it first and then sending up a flare for me as a fellow cdrama enjoyer that this one was worth prioritizing immediately. I love big sprawling family stories that unfold over time, I love digging into intergenerational family trauma, I love good dad characters, I love found family dynamics, and I love a well done romance subplot embedded in a much bigger story, so this show hit so many of my sweet spots. It's #1 on my list of modern cdramas and I would recommend it to anyone.

Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed

Speaking of cdramas, I must give a shoutout to @dangermousie who wrote this post summarizing their favorite danmei novels, which I found when I went looking for recommendations and was trying to figure out a way into this segment of Asian media. I admit I am a bit bougie about my reading material and modality, so I really can't deal with machine translations or reading on html pages, and thus I still have not read some of these as I am patiently waiting for official English translations to become available (me and 2HA are gonna have a party in 2024 I tell you what). I had already heard of The Untamed, of course, because I am a human person who lurks in online spaces, but reading the novel got me significantly more interested, and I quickly fell down a months long rabbit hole that included consuming the novel, the show, and copious amounts of fanfiction. This story is so complex and layered and full of fun mysteries and meaty moral quandaries and interesting family relationships and has an A+ second chance romance and one of my all time favorite characters to boot; it really took over my brain for a minute. And while it hardly needs me to recommend it given how popular it already is, I'm still gonna do it whenever I get the chance.

Mo Du/Silent Reading

And while we're on the subject of danmei, let me give a shoutout to my favorite modern danmei novel, which was recommended to me by an IRL friend who is not on tumblr. Mo Du is a sprawling mystery novel that spans five major interconnected cases, and it centers on an exceedingly competent police captain, Luo Wenzhou, and a young business heir/super genius, Fei Du, who start out with an adversarial relationship (but I bet you can guess what happens next!). The crime stories in this are almost shockingly intricate and every detail comes together in the end without a single loose end, which is impressive enough on its own, but somehow the author (Priest, who some of you will know as the writer of Faraway Wanderers aka Word of Honor) manages to also write a perfectly paced, incredibly compelling love story between the two leads that is layered with complex trauma and psychological hot buttons and secrets and lies that unfold organically alongside the mystery. I am in the middle of re-reading it right now and my love for it only grows stronger. The gif above is from a recent attempt to adapt this into a live-action drama that got quickly canceled, but honestly, the less said about that, the better (though Zhang Xin Cheng will absolutely remain the Fei Du of my heart). With China's censorship laws, there will be no faithful live action version of this story, so I highly recommend reading the novel.

Pachinko

While we're on the subject of novels, I must mention another IRL friend recommendation: Pachinko. This one is a sprawling multi-generational family historical fiction epic that tracks the lives of a Korean family that is forced to migrate to Japan during Japanese occupation in the early 20th Century. Y'all, this book is amazing, and it has now been turned into a television show airing on Hulu that is also quite good (though structured quite differently, but that's another post). I learned a ton of real history in the course of reading this, and I found the journey of Sunja and her family so compelling. The book has a real intersectional lens and digs deep into themes of oppression, racism, class disparity, and sexism, and is rooted in Korean values around filial piety, respect for hard work, religion, moral condemnation, and of course, the importance of food to communicate.

The Great Indian Kitchen

Switching gears, let me give a shoutout to this Indian film that my bestie @neuroticbookworm recently recommended to me and @waitmyturtles. This film is about a modern young woman who enters an arranged marriage with a family of high status (though maybe not of the kind you think) and explores her experience of oppression as a woman in a very patriarchal religious setting. The story is really compelling, I learned about a common experience for women in India, the narrative ended in an unexpected place (in a good way), and I really enjoyed the watch. And this film is on YouTube with good subs which I linked above, so it's quite accessible.

Be Melodramatic

Let's get back to dramas, shall we? I credit this one to @kdramaxoxo, who recommends Be Melodramatic constantly, and thank goodness because otherwise this under appreciated gem would have never landed on my radar. This is a beautiful story about a group of friends who move in together in the wake of personal tragedy and tracks their progress as they heal and move on from their hardships. The themes of grief and growth and change are quite poignant, the relationships, both platonic and romantic, are all very compelling, and the music is beautiful. If you haven't seen it yet, what are you waiting for (@nieves-de-sugui this is definitely a good one to add to your list).

Make it Right

Time for @bengiyo to get another shoutout. This is a Thai bl classic that doesn't get the love it deserves, and he is its number one promoter. I don't know when I would have gotten around to watching this if he hadn't recommended it so highly, and I'm so glad I did. I wrote about this one, why I loved it, and why I think it's under appreciated, and I highly encourage others to give it a try.

Coffee Prince

We will end on an OG kdrama classic, which I watched early on in my kdrama journey thanks to a recommendation from an IRL friend who said it was the best version of the well worn Asian drama genderbend trope that they had ever seen, and my god were they right. Not only was this my first Gong Yoo drama (a life changing experience in and of itself) but this one really took me by surprise for how sharp and progressive it was about gender fluidity, sexual identity, and the struggle toward self-acceptance way back when it aired in 2007. I recommend this one to everyone, and its a great entry point for people who prefer queer media and have (justified) suspicion of mainstream kdrama's treatment of queer narratives.

#what did you eat yesterday? #go ahead #the untamed #mo du #pachinko #the great indian kitchen #be melodramatic #make it right #coffee prince #drama recs #danmei #shan answers

[jack-pseudonym]

A Love Letter to Herobrine

So, fun fact: that screenshot that I'm using as the thumbnail is not the origin of Herobrine as a piece of Minecraft mythology. This image was first posted on 4chan around August 31st, 2010, and the character had been floating around the Minecraft forum for a while before that.

The earliest description of a character resembling Herobrine was posted around July on a general creepypasta thread. The Minecraft wiki calls this story "White Eyes." It was posted by a user named Flaky and you can read it here. The post doesn't feature the iconic Herobrine design, but it's the origin of a lot of the beats that keep coming up in Minecraft horror stories.

To summarize real quick: a Minecraft Alpha player is so creeped out by the weird noises and phenomena in a cave under their base that they seal it up and move elsewhere. Eventually they discover a dungeon with a single broken music disc inside, which causes the cave noises to return louder than before. To play the disc, they need resources from their old storage room built directly above the cursed cave. When they return to their base, the player has an encounter with a pair of glowing white eyes. Eventually they go creepypasta-insane from listening to the music disc and (I think) die.

The contents of this post are not as important as the fact that the author provides us with a screenshot of the cave, which should be right next to the famous Herobrine image in the history books.

(If you're not seeing it, check the bottom left.)

The next Herobrine sighting is the famous one. It's pretty much a compilation of all the ideas about the character that were floating around the Minecraft forum at the time. The main thing it introduces to the canon is the idea that the "Herobrine" account was owned by the deceased brother of famous Minecraft dev Hatsune Miku. The obvious implication is that Herobrine is his ghost. It also gives us the classic "fog hill" image, of course.

The third "canon" sighting was concocted by an early Minecraft streamer named Copeland. This is the highest effort of the three and probably the first Herobrine Sighting Video ever recorded. The first thing Copeland did was edit Herobrine into a few wide screenshots of his base to create hype for the stream. This resulted in the third member of the triumvirate of famous Herobrine screenshots, and honestly maybe the creepiest.

In order to get Herobrine on video, Copeland changed the texture of a painting. He went live shortly after, playing like normal for a while before “encountering Herobrine” in a dimly-lit room, screaming, running out of the room, and turning the game off. He continued to stream for a bit after that before declaring he would delete the world.

Why is Minecraft scary?

It's important to keep in mind that Minecraft at this point had exactly one full-time developer and no marketing department. The only reason a given thing was added to this version of Minecraft was that the developer thought it sounded interesting. This had two major effects on the state of the game that enhanced its creepypasta factor substantially.

One: the game is very bare-bones. Minecraft Alpha's infinite replayability comes from its core concept rather than a depth of additional features. Even some basic quality-of life fixes like the ability to stack most food items are absent from this version of the game. This resulted in the features that were present being scrutinously analyzed and theorized about by hundreds of people at a time on the forums, because once you had diamond armor and a big house there wasn't much else to do except dig into mechanics.

Two: many of those mechanics and features that did exist in Alpha were bizarre, and several of them seem like the developer was going out of their way to create a creepy atmosphere. Let's take a look at the mechanics I'm talking about and examine how each of them contributed to the Herobrine mythology.

Fog and light

One thing the White Eyes story and the famous Herobrine post have in common is a focus on low view distance. The second post even specifically mentions that they were playing with their render distance set very low since their computer didn’t have the specs to run anything higher, which most people in the 2010 indie gaming community could probably relate to.

This is relevant because Minecraft cuts off your view distance really sharply. If your render distance is set close to you, everything beyond the cutoff disappears into a thick bank of fog. This is probably best illustrated by looking at the same hill from the famous screenshot with a higher render distance.

In the Herobrine screenshot, this entire back half of the hill is completely cut off. Literally anything could be inside the fog and it would be totally invisible until you got within a few dozen blocks.

On top of that, this hard cutoff of visibility happens the same way with darkness. Walking just a few blocks into a cave leaves you completely unable to see anything until you place a torch. And, of course, if that torch were to be somehow removed, you would be instantly plunged into pitch blackness. Just look at the White Eyes screenshot up above.

The simplistic lighting engine of Minecraft Alpha is obviously not intended to make the game scarier. That said, as someone who’s become totally accustomed to modern Minecraft’s smooth lighting mechanics, it’s really remarkable how much more eerie the game is when you’re consistently forced to walk into total darkness and thick fog to get anything done. Without smooth lighting, when night starts to fall it looks like an enormous shadow passing over the whole world.

If you've heard of the classic Internet creepypasta Ted the Caver, there's a bit where Ted is stuck inside a similarly cursed cave with no light. Earlier in the story, the writer points out that darkness in caves is different from darkness above ground - there is straight-up no light to see with. Your eyes never adjust. Something could be literally inches from from his face and he would never see it. These older versions of Minecraft feel like that.

(If you want to experience the horrors yourself in the modern day, turn smooth lighting off, brightness down to Moody, and crank your render distance down. I seriously recommend it.)

Dungeons

Dungeons are the only place in this version of Minecraft where you can find naturally generated cobblestone. The normal way to get cobblestone is to mine stone and place it back down, and it was the go-to strong building block for quite a while. This gives dungeons the distinct feeling of having been built by someone.

But this is contrasted with the monster spawner, which is one of the most alien blocks in the game. It’s not obtainable in survival mode in any way, it’s destroyed if you try to pick it up, and the floating image of a monster inside the cage is still probably the least blocky thing in the game.

Dungeons are also extremely rare for some reason. You could easily spend weeks in the same survival world and never find one, especially if you didn't enjoy caving for the sake of it once you had all the diamonds you needed.

All this is to say that if you were a Minecraft player in 2010 who’d never encountered one, someone on the forum describing finding a dungeon would sound exactly like the intro to any other creepypasta you'd read recently, right up until it happened to you. It's hard to convince your subconscious that an eerie forum story is completely fictional when things like dungeons are real.

Music discs

Okay, I've been writing about the eerie side of Minecraft for like a thousand words, and I somehow haven't brought this up yet. We need to talk about Discs 11 and 13.

The vast majority of music discs in Minecraft are electronic music tracks composed by German musician C418. They’re basically lo-fi beats to relax / play Minecraft to. There are two considerable exceptions to this genre. Let’s talk about 11 first.

The first thing you’ll notice about it is that the colored portion is black and the outside of the disc is cracked and broken, which is one of the most creepypasta things to ever be in a real game. And then, when you pop it into the jukebox and turn it on, instead of lo-fi electronic beats, you get this.

The track opens with heavy breathing and footsteps on stone, as the recorder of the disc runs through what is pretty clearly a cave. They sound terrified of something, but after a few seconds they stop and catch their breath. Soon, though, there’s a sound like faraway music and the recorder breaks into a run, faster this time, terrified again. The speed of the footsteps increases until the sound changes from stone to dirt, a sign that they’re almost at the surface, until there’s something that sounds like a growl and the sound abruptly cuts off. The last few seconds of the recording are static.

This is probably the most overtly horror-themed Minecraft ever gets, and this disc features heavily in a lot of Minecraft creepypasta. It makes sense. In the middle of an album of chill, electronic music, there’s one disc that’s a found footage horror short film, complete with the person holding the recorder meeting with some fate at the end. Imagine you’re going through your friend’s old VHS collection and there’s a copy of The Poughkeepsie Tapes in the middle of it with no explanation.

Also, this is the only time there’s any real physical evidence of another person existing in this world. Villages weren’t added until the release of Beta months later, and even then, this doesn’t sound like a villager. It sounds like us.

Disc 13 is less infamous by comparison, but it’s still jarring compared to the rest of the soundtrack. 13 consists mostly of slow, reverberating ringing sounds, and at this point I’m going to bring in the last weird Minecraft feature, because they sound like cave noises.

Cave noises are maybe even more infamous among the community than disc 11 as “the thing that makes Minecraft scary.” The most common of these noises are either relatively realistic, like wind or something, or eerie but obviously musical, like part of the soundtrack. Every so often, though, you’ll get one that sounds like footsteps, or the sound of a minecart traveling down a distant track. There’s obviously nothing actually there, but it’s another piece of evidence that even if you’re the only person in this world, there are things here that you didn’t make. This is not helped by the fact that the criteria for a cave noise occurring include darkness.

Conclusion 1

If you take all of these things together - the fog, the darkness, the weird signs that you’re not necessarily alone in this world - it’s easy to see where the sheer amount of creepypasta about this game comes from. It would not be unbelievable in 2010 that something like Herobrine could actually be in the game, and even if you were an adult and didn’t buy that he literally existed, Minecraft Alpha is still a nearly perfect game for scaring the shit out of yourself after just having read a bunch of horror stories.

(I know this because I scared the shit out of myself several times while revisiting Minecraft Alpha for this essay.)

Why Herobrine?

Surprise! There's more.

So we know where the Herobrine story comes from: a bunch of people playing an old, weird sandbox game that - intentionally or by accident - also functions surprisingly well as a survival horror game, and scaring themselves because it’s fun.

Now I want to talk about why the Herobrine story specifically resonated so hard with people that it still exists while hundreds of others have been basically forgotten. Keep in mind, the White Eyes story originated on a thread for a completely different creepypasta that no one has ever heard of. So what’s special about Herobrine?

To start with, we need to take a look at the specifics of Herobrine that set it apart from other creepypasta characters. The Minecraft wiki has a definition of “canonical” Herobrine that includes the first forum posts and images, like the famous 4chan post, as well as the Copeland streams. These are, quote, “fundamental to the creation and popularization of the character.” So let’s look at the commonalities between them.

Herobrine apologism

The most interesting thing these stories have in common, especially compared to more modern Herobrine, is a complete lack of aggression from Herobrine in game. The narrator of White Eyes does go crazy and maybe die, but that happens due to influence from Disc 11. The actual entity with the white eyes only appears once, and it never personally acts on the player.

In the original 4chan post, Herobrine is explicitly stated to run away and disappear if the player tries to approach and get a clearer look at him. The Copeland saga begins with Herobrine watching him in the corner of a screenshot, and even during the close encounter Herobrine doesn’t chase him out of the house or even follow him. He just stands there.

Just looking at the original Herobrine canon, there’s almost no reason to even conclude he’s malevolent at all.

So if Herobrine isn’t out to get you in the original canon, what does he do? Aside from watching you from the edge of your vision, there are a few consistent things to watch out for in the oldest videos. The most famous Herobrine signs are pyramids made of sand, trees with the leaves removed, and tunnels to nowhere, almost always lit with redstone torches.

The thing that strikes me about these signs is that they’re almost player-like, except with no internal logic to them. Building structures, cutting down trees, and digging tunnels are core to the gameplay loop of Minecraft, except in the Herobrine versions there’s no productivity. The pyramids are uninhabitable and the tunnels are never deep enough to find ore. It’s like what someone would do if they knew what you were supposed to do in Minecraft, but couldn’t understand why.

By far the most common explanation for the origin of Herobrine is that he’s a ghost. The most famous herobrine story says that he’s the dead brother of Hatsune Miku, and that part of the mythos is considered basically canon now. Even if you don’t like that element (can you tell I don’t?), a lot of posts from this time period describe him as the ghost of a miner. This is probably because the game literally has inexplicable mining sounds programmed into its caves. Either way, it’s hard to avoid the idea that Herobrine used to be a normal guy. Someone who lived in this empty world before you did.

"REAL HEROBRINE SIGHTING 100% PROOF"

There’s a Youtube playlist that I come back to a lot. It’s called “The Oldest Herobrine Sightings Ever (In Order!)” Most of the videos are either clearly faked, made by a 9-year-old, or clearly faked by a 9-year-old, but they still have a vibe to them that totally captivated me when I was younger and half buying into it.

They still give me a similar feeling years later, which is obviously partially due to nostalgia, but I don’t think the feeling is actually the exact same. It’s not quite nostalgia, and it’s not the the fear-slash-fascination I felt in 2012, glued to these videos while ready to run out of the room at any time in case something too scary happened. It’s closer to a good kind of melancholy.

And if you go back to The Oldest Herobrine Sightings Ever with the idea of feeling some empathy for him, it makes them hit a lot harder than if you just assume he's a murder ghost who’s coming to get you. I know I’m pretty far into Death of the Author territory at this point; I’m projecting an amount of emotional complexity onto fake cryptid sightings made by internet babies that almost definitely wasn’t there to begin with, but that doesn’t make this reading of the story any less impactful to me.

In order to make this point of view more believable, I’ve cherrypicked a video from the playlist for us to look at. The video is, naturally, called “REAL HEROBRINE SIGHTING 100% PROOF” by CreeperAssassin87. It's only five minutes long and I recommend watching it so you can determine for yourself if I'm making shit up.

In the video, CreeperAssassin heads out of their (pretty impressive) base only to find themselves face-to-face with the man himself. What happens next is probably the best example of my point in the whole playlist, but if you watch the other videos closely you can notice this pattern.

CreeperAssassin says very confidently that Herobrine started “chasing” them, but look at what he’s actually doing. He’s not running at the player or even really looking at the screen, and he’s not armed with anything more dangerous than a pickaxe. Remember, at this point in history, Herobrine wasn’t believed to have any magic powers to attack you with either. There’s nothing actually threatening going on here.

After that jumpscare, CreeperAssassin naturally spends the rest of the video running away and hiding, with Herobrine following close behind. My favorite part comes after the player has sealed themselves inside the wall of the castle. Herobrine breaks in, and once he has CreeperAssassin completely cornered...

...he doesn’t do anything. He just stands there and stares. The narration claims to have “luckly escaped” [sic], but I genuinely find it hard to see any malice in his behavior here.

One of the last appearances of Herobrine in the video is him watching CreeperAssassin through the window of their base after they block off the door. At this point, the video has firmly established that he's able to break blocks, and CreeperAssassin is completely cornered again. If he wanted to harm the player, he could do it easily. But once he's shut out, he just resigns himself to it.

Again, this video is probably the strongest example, but this observation holds pretty well for the vast majority of Herobrine sightings from this time period. If you shift your perspective a little bit, his behavior is not far off from what a normal person might do if they encountered another player for the first time.

Oh, hello. Who are you? It's nice to finally meet someone else. I thought I was alone out here.

Of course, nearly everyone he meets runs away and shuts him out. Eventually most of them either abandon their haunted worlds or delete them entirely.

Conclusion 2

For a lot of people on the Minecraft forums in 2010, Herobrine may have been an introduction to stories like this. I obviously doubt that a tragedy about a ghost doomed to wander alone forever was what any of the people involved here intended to make. That said, those emotions are still present, and strongly enough that they inspired me to write this entire thing.

I believe this contrast between the fear created by reading a scary story about an eerie game and the inherent sadness of the Herobrine figure is what made this story stand the test of time. Compare Herobrine with his more one-dimensionally hostile imitators, and then compare him with other creepypasta hall-of-famers like Ben Drowned. All the greatest urban legends make you feel something more complex than "afraid."

One last thing that I thought made a really good anecdote to conclude this vibes-based essay.

One of the most successful post-canon additions to the Herobrine lore is the idea of a Herobrine spawner, a structure you can build that will let him in to your world. The materials needed to do this are pretty consistent between stories, involving a base made of gold, redstone torches, sometimes some mossy cobblestone, and a netherrack pillar on top. Lighting the netherrack on fire is what activates the structure.

(There are some pretty obvious parallels here with real-life rituals meant to summon ghosts or spirits, especially the lighting of a fire.)

The origin of this structure, as far as I can tell, dates back to one of the first ever mods meant to add Herobrine to the game, a server plugin released in 2010. This plugin not only introduced the spawner, but Herobrine’s behavior in it is really interesting. He’s much more docile in this plugin than in the substantially more famous Herobrine Mod released the following year, where he directly attacks the player and summons zombies and whatnot.

The keystone here is the name of the plugin, the file you have to download to let him into your world. It’s not called “Him,” or “WakeUp,” or “WhiteEyes.”

It’s called “iLoveYou.”

#pseudoessay #minecraft #minecraft alpha #herobrine #creepypasta #migrated from old website #long post

[friends-to-lovers-tournament]

Friends to Lovers Tournament: Round 1, Side A, Match 9

propaganda under the cut!

Iruclarazz:

LISTEN THEY ARE THE OT3 TO BEAT ALL OTHER OT3's LIKE THEY HOLD SO MUCH POWER!!!

1. THEY ARE SO FUCKING FLUFFY AND COLOURFUL AND PURE AND ADORABLE AND—*chokes on emotions* anyways they're literally the most wholesome and supportive of all ships like i can't even begin to summarize how much they care for each other

2. THEY CANONLY CALL EACH OTHER SOULMATES and even if clara and azz don't understand what a soulmate is (they're demons) they're just happy to be close to iruma. 

3. whenever one of them is upset or bothered, the other two form a team and they go ALL OUT to lift the third person's mood!!! they try to solve the problem but if that's not possible, they just stay with that person and try to make them feel better so that they can face their problem with a better mood and more strength

4. they're ALWAYS together. and none of them are bothered by it!! and instead of being toxic about the need to stay close, they establish boundaries! like they have their own secrets they can't tell the others and that's totally fine! no pressure at all in their squad

5. listen these three help each other become better people!! like they bring out the best in each other and it's the most wholesome, encouraging, healthy, lovey dovey ship ever!!! like clara becomes more responsible despite her need for chaos bc she wants to make sure azz and iruma can depend on her! azz stops putting up walls and allows people to approach him because he wants to get involved in the other two's lives! and iruma learns how to set boundaries with these two where he could never say no to anyone!! like if that isn't the most awesome and perfect relationship idk what is!!!

6. one tol and two smols that's all.

THERE IS JUST SO MUCH MORE IN CANON THAT SHOWS HOW AWESOME THESE TRIO ARE AS AN OT3 BUT YEAH IT'S THE MOST BEAUTIFUL POLY SHIP I'VE EVER SEEN IN MANGA!!!

Sunnflower:

ok listen their relationship is extremely important to the plot of the game so they get a lot of focus and a lot of the stuff they say abt each other is like????? bro thats kinda fruity ngl??????? theres like. a lot of stuff i could say about them. like a lot. too much actually

so instead ill just, idk summarize their relationship and then give some fun facts abt them

Sunny and Basil are best friends! They're shown to be very close to each other, closer than they are to the rest of their friends. They rely on each other to listen when they need to vent, and like to read books together! Before the events of the game, Sunny and Basil become involved in an incident that basically tears their friend group apart. Basil keeps the secret of their involvement from everyone because he cares too much about Sunny to let him get in trouble. They then don't talk for four years, and spend the entire time pining for each other!

Basil hopes for four years that Sunny will finally come back to him, meanwhile Sunny has retreated into a perfect dreamworld he uses to cope. All of his friends are there, and everyone is happy, and the dreamworld is full of things Basil loves. The most common food item is tofu(Basil's favorite food),  there's an entire race of plant creatures that adore tofu(Basil likes to garden + his favorite food), his garden in the dreamworld is huge and has lots of flowers that represent each of his friends! Also, an important NPC says this abt Sunny and Basil's relationship: "He is special to you. A string of fate ties you together." A string of fate you say? Hmmm, I wonder why they phrased it like that...

Also, when Sunny and Basil finally do start talking again, Basil says stuff like this: "W...Wait... P-Please, SUNNY... Don't leave me... Not again..." "After all this time... you've finally come back for me. But... tomorrow... you're going away. H-HOW COULD YOU DO THAT!?!? That's mean, SUNNY. That's so mean!" Yeah... he's not doing too well...

But don't worry! After a year or two of therapy I'm sure these two can have a happy, healthy relationship!

Obviously I have a lot more to say abt them but it's all literary analysis and context clues and stuff, I just wanted to point out the more obvious stuff!

#friends to lovers tournament #welcome to demon school iruma kun #omori #iruclarazz #sunnflower #iruma suzuki #asmodeus alice #clara valac #omori sunny #omori basil #polls #tournament polls

[juicycoutureheaux]

Fixer Upper

Chapter 1 Chapter 2

Hey y'all. Here's Chapter 2 of my Sheriff!Leon Kennedy AU. Just a couple of notes, this chapter does have some TW. Domestic violence and Alcohol are mentioned in this chapter. If those are active triggers for you and still want to read, PM me and I'll be glad to summarize for you. Seriously! Also I gave Patrick a last name because he literally DOES NOT HAVE ONE. LOL Anyway this is kind of slowburn-y and this may be more than three chapter but not too many. I might extend to four. Anyways this fic was inspired by @angelscoda and I strongly recommend that if you haven't discovered her page, check her works out! Also, I churned out this Chapter and it hasn't been edited very well, but I did not wanna keep yall waiting. Also if you or anyone you know is affected by domestic violence call 800-799-7233 or text 'START' to 88788. You are not alone, your family and friends love you no matter what situation you may be in or what your abuser says. Love is patient and Love is kind.

You went to bed with a strange feeling. Instead of thinking of your sweetheart, Patrick, you were enamored with the thought of your new boss, Sheriff Kennedy. 

He was so kind and unpretentious, it seemed so easy to be around him. You wondered if he read books or looked at the stars and wondered what was behind them like you did. 

Y/N shook herself out of her thoughts and drifted off to sleep. 

She dreamt of finding new life on other planets, her parents taking her seriously, and most importantly, she dreamt of Leon. 

You woke with a start, to the sky at the precipice of sunrise. The oranges and purples danced together as the moon made its grand exit into the horizon.

You swiveled around to the side of your twin bed and let the bottoms of your feet touch the smooth hardwood floor. 

You turned off the old fan on your bedside table. The fan had seen better days, however, y/n had taught herself how to make repairs to keep it in working condition. 

Her tinkering had been born out of necessity; however, over time she grew to love being able to make old things efficient again. She wondered if Patrick ever had to repair a fan or anything really. 

She imagined he had enough money to get a new anything, anytime it broke.

You started the morning by combing your hair and brushing your teeth. You splashed cold water on your face to make it seem less irritated. You didn’t want to admit it, but you wanted to look good for Leon, even if he didn’t notice.

You picked out your favorite dress and ironed out all the wrinkles. You looked at yourself in the mirror admiring your reflection. You felt confident enough to head down the stairs to the kitchen table. 

Mary-Anne and Mama were busy fixing breakfast. Mama was fussing over Mary-Anne telling her to sit down and whatnot.

“Mama L/N, I promise I’m fine and your grandchild is just fine!” 

“All that moving, he’s gonna come early!” You heard your mama say.

“You and the rest of the family are so sure Hank & Mary-Anne’s baby is going to be a boy.” You said announcing your presence. 

“Good! Someone else is here, Mary-Anne! Please sit!” Mama said, exasperated.

Mary-Anne, not wanting to put up a fight any longer, sat down.

“Y/N, why don’t you look pretty today? I remember when I could wear dresses like that!” Mary-Anne said, rubbing her belly.

“You mean like six months ago?” You said sarcastically. 

Mary-Anne smiled and your mother rolled her eyes. 

You grabbed an apron not wanting to ruin your dress, and began kneading the dough for the biscuits. 

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to stay too long, mama. I gotta make sure I'm on time to meet my new boss!” You said a little too enthusiastically because your mother whipped her head around to look at you. 

“You know, if you marry Patrick, you won’t have to work anymore, you’ll be busy planning parties and get-togethers for all the married ladies.”

“Mama…” you groaned. 

“I’m just saying Y/N, you would love it, imagine, my daughter, the belle of the social season in Collier!” Her mother sighed. “So don’t ruin it by chasing after some cop!”

“Mama!” You said insulted.

Mary Anne decided to get in between the duo. 

“I think Y/N just wanted to make sure he felt welcome; after all, it is her job.”  She made sure to emphasize the last word. 

Mama’s body relaxed and so did yours. 

With that, you kissed your mama goodbye on the cheek and mouthed a “thank you!” to Mary-Anne. 

You walked out the door shocked, to see your new boss waiting outside leaning up against the side of the patrol car. 

“Hey! Y/N!” He said, smiling with all of his teeth.

You thought your legs were going to turn to jello, he was so handsome.

“W-what are you doing here?” 

“I thought I’d save you the trouble of driving that old truck and risk not having a secretary for the day.” He opened the passenger door. “Wouldn’t want to make me late for my first day would you?”

You smiled a genuine smile. 

You hopped in the car and you made your way down the road. 

The radio was playing Elvis's “Blue Suede Shoes.”

“You like this kind of Music Deputy Kennedy?” You asked genuinely curious. He didn’t strike you as the Elvis type.

“You can call me Leon when it’s just us,” he said, eyes not straying from the road. 

He made you blush, and you sank down in the seat unconsciously.

“But to answer your question,” he looked at you with those sharp baby blues. “I love the King.”

You laughed together like it was the funniest joke ever. 

You were a little disappointed when you arrived at the station. You could have spent the whole day in the car with Leon.

You two entered the building and you went quickly to the break room to start the coffee for the day. 

Leon entered his new office and opened the blinds. Two years ago he would have never imagined a career in law enforcement, let alone a town like Collier’s Sheriff.

Leon was brought out of his thoughts when you walked into the room carrying a fresh cup of coffee.

“Should I get used to this or are you just being nice because its my first day?” 

You looked at him confused.

“I’m not used to someone else doing things like this for me.”

“Well get used to it,” you said happily. “The old boss made me bring him his coffee like clockwork and I had to make it juuuussst riiiiigggghhhttt.” You emphasized.

Leon just nodded.

“So Deputy Kennedy, how do you like your coffee?”

“I can make it myself Y/N, don’t worry about it.”

“I insist! You’re going to be pretty busy, pretty soon.” You said looking into the mug. “I don’t want you to worry about the easiest part of your day.”

Leon smiled and patted you on the shoulder. “I take it black, with just a little bit of sugar, Y/N. Thank you.”

You smiled and felt your cheeks get a bit rosy. You fixed his coffee and set it on his desk.

“Well if you need me, I’ll be outside the door. Just ring me if you need me.” 

He grabbed your hand gently. “Do you mind staying in here just a little bit longer, I’m not ready to start working quite yet.” He smiled a toothy, but nervous smile. 

You held on to his hand and squeezed it in a friendly, assuring manner.

“Of course, Leon.”

He smiled in response.

You looked around the office. It was empty, there were no pictures of his family or any personal effects to the room, save for a framed police academy diploma. 

“They didn’t give you time to set up here?”

“What do you mean Y/N?” 

“The last guy here had tons of pictures and hunting trophies and…” you realized your mistake a little too late. Maybe, Deputy Kennedy didn’t have those things and you had just reminded him of the fact.

Leon smiled a sad smile, “Well maybe while I’m here, I’ll be able to fill this room with all those things.”

“Leon, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to…” 

“It’s okay, you’re honest. I like that about you.”

You smiled and heat spread across your cheeks.

“I don’t have any living family members, I grew up in a group home.”

You felt so embarrassed. How could you just interrogate him like that?

The blowing of the A/C unit emphasized the silence. It felt like your body was on autopilot when you went up to him to pat him on the shoulder. 

“I’m so sorry, Leon, I hope you can find your chosen family here.” 

“That's really nice of you, Y/N. I hope I do too.”

You quickly took your arm off of his bicep, realizing you were touching your boss in a more than intimate way. You didn’t want to be known as “that” type of girl.

You quickly mumbled “Gotta get back to work,” or something along those lines, and scuttled away.

Leon just kicked his boots and sat down behind his desk. He couldn’t quite figure it out, was she flirting with him or was she genuinely kind? He hated to admit it, but he was used to women throwing themselves at him. They’d be good for a night or two, but they never seemed to care to learn more about him than what he could do for them.

Y/N was sweet, but she was young. She probably had never had a real relationship before, her kindness was just surface-deep; it was nothing more.

He decided to go ahead and look over the schedule for the week that Y/N had already prepared for him. 

He could get used to this.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

You were heading to Leigh’s diner to grab lunch for the office. It was actually one of your favorite tasks. You were able to get out of the office and walk around town for a bit. It also helped that you walked past “Gannem’s Appliances” where they always had the news on in the window. 

You would take a moment to look at the goings on in the world, to see what was happening outside of your small fishbowl of a town. 

The announcer was reading hastily from a fresh news bulletin. 

“After 40 years of groundbreaking research, NACA has officially decided to change its name to NASA. The official decision was made late last week, after changing their focus from just flight to space travel of humans and robots.”

You could have fallen right where you stood. Robots? Spaceflight? You were in heaven, you had only daydreamed about working in a high-tech lab with robots; now it was really happening.

You quickly looked at your wristwatch and scuttled to the diner to pick up the order before the men at the office got too hungry and wondered where she was at.

You walked into the bustling diner, thank goodness her order wasn’t quite ready yet. You decided to stay out of the way of the other patrons and sat at an odd chair near the window. You felt almost invisible, but, you were used to it and didn’t mind.

You were stuck in your thoughts until the sound of women gossiping brought you out of your stupor.

“Did you see the new Sheriff? He’s a cutie!” one girl with perfectly coiffed blonde hair asked. 

“Do you think he has a secretary? They almost always marry the secretary!” Another girl with auburn hair giggled.

Y/N recognized the girls. They were girls from her graduating class, they had gone to the same school since kindergarten and they either didn’t seem to recognize her or were ignoring her. You couldn’t decide what was worse.

“Oh he has a secretary all right, it's Y/N. Do you remember her from school?”

The girl with auburn hair just raised her eyebrows in slight confusion.

“Great.” you thought. “They don’t remember.” That stung.

“Well, she wasn’t much of anyone, she’s lucky her daddy “the farmer” got her the job,” she emphasized the farmer part as she lit her cigarette. 

“Ohhh, I remember said the auburn-haired girl. “Isn’t OUR Patrick supposed to be courting her? I heard his mother set him up, guess they’re trying to fix his image. I hear he made a fool out of himself at the University of Georgia last year. His daddy had to call in a LOT of favors from his buddies from the law school.”

“That’s just Patrick, he’ll grow out of it. I feel bad for him, one bad mistake and he has to get married off to the first prude that would take him. I bet Y/N’s mother is just beside herself, all the new social connections and money.”

“My mama told me her mama was a social climber. Always trying to get invited to social events;  well she’ll never belong just like her daughter.”

The girls broke into laughter.

Your face was red from anger and embarrassment.

Of course, your order was ready and the waitress called out your name which made the girls' heads snap and turn around to look at you. You did your best not to make eye contact, as you grabbed the food, but tears were already falling from your eyes.

As you left you could hear them burst out in more malicious laughter. 

You were humiliated, and you just wanted to get back to work.

You were two doors down from the office when you heard a car next to the sidewalk slow to a roll.  You instinctively glanced over and there was Patrick in his fancy car. He was definitely the last person you wanted to see right now. 

“Hey, baby. I missed you.” He slurred as he stumbled out of the car.

You took a minute to look at his car, there were beer bottles littering the back seat. 

“Let’s go for a ride, I’m bored and I want some alone time with my girl.” He grabbed her roughly. 

“Have you been drinking? Why did you drive here? You know it's dangerous! You whispered harshly at him. People were beginning to stare.

“Baby, I just wanted to see you, I’m lonely. You should keep me happy you know, if you’re gonna be my wife,” he was looking at you like a piece of meat. 

You felt sick to your stomach.

“I have to get this back to the office, then I’ll come with you.” You were trying to stall, you didn’t want to make him angry, but you surely didn’t want to get in the car with him.

It didn’t matter. He didn’t like your answer. Patrick was shockingly strong and when he yanked you into him, you both fell over and you yelped. 

People were now watching and whispering. 

You wanted to disappear into dust and wondered if you should have just got in the car, maybe nothing would have happened, and the two of you wouldn’t be out on the sidewalk in the middle of town embarrassing yourselves. 

Patrick yanked you up and raised his hand to hit you, you braced for impact when someone broke you two up.

It was Leon and his face was calm, but she could feel the anger radiating from him.

“Y/N! Do you know this man?” He said calmly but firmly. 

Before you could answer, Patrick yelled at Leon. “I had it handled man, she’s my fiance. We don’t need your services anymore.” He made a move to grab your arm again. Leon moved in between you two.

“Sir, not only are you in violation of a city ordinance of being intoxicated in public, but you are also assaulting your fiance in public, which is a felony charge.” 

Patrick just scoffed. “And what? You’re gonna arrest me? Do you even know who I am?”

Leon stepped closer to Patrick, they were about the same height, but something about Leon’s body language made him seem taller. 

“Yes, Sir you’re under arrest for the assault of my secretary Miss Y/L/N. You have the right to remain silent…” he began cuffing Patrick in broad daylight. 

“Wait a minute! Y/N just tell him we were just fooling around baby.” Patrick pleaded with you.

“Deputy Kennedy please, we’ll handle this in private. Patrick just made a bad mistake that's all.”

You pleaded to Leon, you hoped he would take your side.

“Handle in private? Are we supposed to wait until he kills you Y/N?” He said loudly.

You couldn’t move. This was really happening and everyone was going to blame you for Patrick going to jail. 

Leon picked Patrick up and brought him into the station and locked him up in their little holding cell.

Everyone in the office was dead silent when they saw who Deputy Kennedy was bringing in on the first day. You followed in quickly behind them and everyone glared at you. You ignored the glares and got on the phone to call Senator Armstrong, Patrick’s father. 

Deputy Kennedy refused to let you see your Fiance, stating that she was the victim and a witness to his crime. 

You just sat in your small little cubicle and cried. You cried over how embarrassed you were and how those girls were right, Patrick didn’t really love you. How could he? Who would do that to someone they loved?

The sounds of a man shouting broke the silence of the police department.

“How could you lock this man up? It was a simple lovers' quarrel, they’re both kids!” You heard Senator Armstrong’s baritone voice fill the small station. 

“You either ignore your son’s behavior or are too ignorant to see it.” Leon quipped back.

“Excuse me?” Armstrong sneered. “You better watch it boy or I’ll…”

“Or what Armstrong? I’ll go missing? Don’t go incriminating yourself in the police department now.” Leon said smugly. 

You walked out of your cubicle to see the scene unfolding in front of you. You thought Senator Armstrong was going to have an aneurysm with how red his face was. 

He quickly looked over at you and saw your tear-stained face. “My poor future daughter! Look what you’ve done! You’ve upset her by jailing her fiance right in front of her!”

He wrapped a heavy arm around your shoulders. “ I paid the bail and I'm taking my family home.”

Leon just gestured for the door and said nothing. Senator Armstrong ushered you out, but not before you took one final look back at Leon with fresh tears in your eyes.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

You were sitting in the Armstrongs’ tinted limousine Patrick’s head on your lap. You couldn’t help but stroke his soft hair. He buried his face in the fabric of your dress and groaned.

“I can’t believe that asshole through me into the cell with all those actual criminals. It was miserable, sobering up in that shithole.”

You rolled your eyes instinctively, Leon’s words ringing in your ears still. “What if he did lose his temper and couldn’t stop hitting me?” You shrugged it off. It was just one bad moment, he’ll change.

Your future father in Law just glared daggers into his son. 

When you arrived at your home, you still patted Patrick’s head gently. “I’ll see you later honey.” 

He quickly leaned up and kissed you on the mouth for the first time. It was sloppy and full of want. It wasn’t sweet at all and you felt sick.

You quickly got out of the car and ran into the house. 

When you arrived in the foyer, Hank was waiting for you.

“Is that bastard out there?” He asked angrily.

You looked down at your feet, you thought you’d at least be able to sleep and take a bath before being interrogated about the incident earlier. 

You heard your mom shout from the kitchen. “Is my baby home? Hank you leave your sister alone! She needs to rest.” Your mother hurried in to welcome you.

“Oh sweetie, there’s no need to cry.” She wiped your tears with a cloth she had in her apron. “Daddy and I get into arguments all the time.” 

Hank got even angrier. “You know damn well that was no argument they had, Thomas Wells said that son of a bitch shook her like a ragdoll before Deputy Kennedy got to them.”

Your Mama just rolled her eyes. “Thomas Wells is a known exaggerator, people love talking about people who they’re jealous of. Speaking of Y/N, you’re not going back to that job. It doesn’t look respectable to have the future Mrs. Armstrong working at that office.”

Your mother grabbed your arm gently and took you into the dining room and fixed your dinner. She hadn’t done this since you were a child, she was definitely trying to get on your good side. 

You felt that familiar pit of disappointment and anguish in your stomach. You had realized Mama really did want to be a part of the social class as the Armstrongs. She wanted it so bad she was willing to cover up what Patrick was willing to do to you.

You nibbled on supper and went upstairs to cry, you were exhausted.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

You couldn’t sleep that night. All you could do was replay the day’s events over and over in your mind. 

You also felt extremely violated by Patrick’s lack of respect for you.

When daybreak came, you took a light catnap for an hour or two. You were awoken by your mother shaking you awake. 

“Y/N, sweetie, time to wake up.”

You squinted at her through your dark eyelashes, confused.

“Don’t give that look, Y/N, Suzanne Armstrong called and wanted to take you shopping.”

You lurched up from your bed. “Miss Suzanne...why?” 

“She wants to make sure you look polished for the engagement party of course. The local and state newspapers will be covering it of course.” Your mother said excitedly. “Hopefully she’ll remember your mama too, I could get one of those tweed suits just like the first lady! Wouldn’t that be fun?”

You smiled a sad smile. You wanted to see your mama happy, but was she willing to do the same for you?

You got up and began your morning ritual, you made sure your dress was crisply ironed and you even added a ribbon in your hair to make yourself look a little more stylish.

You waited patiently in the sitting room before seeing the car roll up. Your mother ushered you out the door and into the awaiting town car, driven by a chauffeur of course. He opened the door for you. Inside awaiting looking prim as ever, was Miss Suzanne in a pastel-colored suit. 

“Well look at this little doll,”  she said and kissed your cheeks. “I just can not wait for you to marry my son. You two are just going to give me and your mama the cutest little grandbabies.”

You smiled uncomfortably. 

The town car started to pull away into town and Miss Suzanne wasted no time discussing future plans with you.

“So, I’ve already contacted all the news outlets. The Atlanta Sentinel is sending reporters to this party and even LIFE Magazine!” She squealed excitedly. 

“They love the Cinderella feel of this story, my dear. Everyone loves a great love story.” She composed herself again. “and it is my job as fairy godmother, to make sure you ARE the belle of the ball. There are going to be a lot of eyes and I want to make sure you look perfect.”

She looked you up and down. “We’ll have to do away with this wardrobe,” she motioned with her pointer finger to your homemade dress.

The car was heading out of town, you made a comment about going to the local department store in town. 

Miss Suzanne let out a full-bodied laugh. “My dear, we’re going to Atlanta to shop. You can’t be photographed in some outfit from Belford’s.” 

You just fell silent and looked out the window as Miss Suzanne rambled on about how excited she was, planning a wedding, and how much great press it would be for her husband and Patrick. 

When they finally arrived at the fancy boutique in midtown Atlanta, they were greeted by staff in crisp uniforms waiting outside for their arrival. 

The head designer, or who you assumed was the head designer came blowing through the doors and came to greet your future mother-in-law. 

“My dear, thank you for coming, let me grab your coat.” He grabbed Suzanne’s expensive tweed jacket and hat. He handed it to a dour-looking assistant.

He then acknowledged you. 

“My, my who is this diamond in the rough?”

Suzanne answered for you. “A diamond in the rough indeed. This is my future daughter in Law, Y/N.” 

You didn’t know whether to curtsy or not. You gently bent your knees and answered with a quiet “hello.”

“My goodness, she is just precious! We certainly have our work cut out for us.” The man snickered.

Being brought up in the south, you knew being called precious wasn’t a compliment. 

You sighed as you followed the man and Suzanne into the boutique knowing it was going to be a long day. 

#resident evil #leon kennedy x y/n #leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy #tw: violence #TW: domestic violence #tw: alcholism #tw: alcohol #tw: unsafe alcohol use #resident evil Alternate Universe #Patrick infinite Darkness

[sporesgalaxy]

Tumblr keeps crashing each time I send this so I gotta be quick: do have any tips on how to study biology (college is not an option atm)

Oh boy! I will do my best!

I've listed the basic irl resources for biological information first, followed by some online resources.

I've got a strong Animalia bias, so apologies that I don't have any botany-specific sites for you. 😔

I'm sure there's some stuff I'm forgetting. I'll add on to this if I think of anything!

If there's anything specific you need help finding a reliable biological resource for, let me know and I will try my best to help find you something!

•••

Finding primary sources (stuff written by the scientists who did the research [i.e. a journal article]) is always very good, but reliable secondary resources (someone else summarizing other people's research [i.e. Wikipedia page, book]) can be very valuable as well.

•••

Meatspace Resources

-

I would highly recommend checking to see if there is a Nature Park in your area! Nature parks often have volunteer programs and/or free educational opportunities. In my experience, naturalists are always very excited to meet new people interested in learning about local ecology!

-

There's also Zoos and Aquariums of course, although I know they cost money and are typically geared more towards kids. I'm lucky to live near some nice ones. Maybe check if there are any special programs happening at Zoos/Aquariums in your area (by checking their website[s]), where you might learn more than you would on a normal day trip.

-

Plus natural history museums, which usually have rotating exhibits so that you can keep learning new things when you come back! They also have more of an all-ages vibe than Zoos in my experience. Once again dependant on if there's one near you, and not free.

-

Last but not least: the local library, although obviously not every published book is a flawless resource. Still, might be interesting to poke around! There's usually some sort of digital search catalogue to make finding things easier. Libraries are fun :)

•••

Online Resources

-

Jstor is GREAT. Not all jstor articles are open access/free, but some are! And you can set a search filter to show you only things you can access.

One good way to find out what experts have written for other experts about biology: search a species name or biological concept or type of experimental study, etc. etc., in jstor's journal articles. I've linked a search for journal articles "I can access" containing the word "biology" as an example.

The website layout can feel a little obtuse at first but I think if you fiddle around with it a bit, it's not too bad to figure out? Feel free to kick my ass if I'm wrong djgjkeg

-

Wikipedia is actually a very good place to introduce yourself to a lot of biological concepts. I would recommend checking out some of the sources yourself if you can-- usually at least some of them are free, and that can introduce you to new free resources for learning more (today I discovered bugguide.net!). Often they will link you to jstor.

But biology-focused wiki pages have a pretty good track record for Correct Information in my experience. The only issue I've run into is there being too little information sometimes.

-

Pubmed is a really good resource to read biomedical scientific papers for free if that interests you at all! Reading scientific papers is a really important skill and I think you can pick up a lot just by diving in and googling words you don't know.

A well-designed experiment is replicable (that is, you can understand from the paper how they set things up to the point that you could do it yourself, given the resources). It's also important to pay attention to sample size. The more times you replicate any process in an experiment, the more likely you will be able to identify what the most common result really is, and why.

-

Fishbase is a website I was introduced to in my icthyology class to find info about different fish species :) It kind of just dumps all the info on you in a big text wall, but many pages include great details about life cycle and diet that might go unmentioned on wiki pages.

-

I've never used bugguide.net before today, but so far it seems solid and like it has a lot of good info. I assume it is similar to fishbase but for bugs

-

EDIT: FREE ONLINE TEXTBOOKS I FORGOT ABOUT!!!

I used both of these for university classes at some point. I didn't use them much, so there may be issues I don't know about.

In my experience though they were solid resources, if a little confusingly worded at times. Bouncing between the textbooks and wikipedia tended to help me.

#syd writes an essay #<- not really but eh. to bookmark it. #asks #biology

[ecargmura]

My New Boss Is Goofy Episode 10 Review - Autumnal Short Stories

This episode is a bit different from the rest in that it’s more of a compilation of short stories compared to one whole episode. Fortunately, these little stories revolve around the theme of autumn. Basically, this episode is summarized as Momose and Shirosaki doing cute things in autumn, ft. Hakutou, Aoyama and Kinjou.

The first story is about Shirosaki and Momose meeting up during work and then an acorn hits Shirosaki’s shoulder. He thought Momose was calling him, but since the latter didn’t want to embarrass him, he told a white lie by saying he likes acorns. The segment ends with Shirosaki giving acorns to Momose and Kinjou giving Shirosaki a squirrel kigurumi. This is a cute way to start the episode.

The second story is just a cute halloween-themed episode where Shirosaki and Momose stumble upon a halloween festival while out for work. Shirosaki gets scared as usual. There’s an instance where Shirosaki tried going left, but went right and smooshed his cheek against Momose’s. After kids were telling them how to differentiate left and right, they bought them candy as thanks. Cute. It’s okay, Shirosaki; I get my left and rights mixed up at times too.

The third story is about Momose and Shirosaki out on a drive for work-related purposes. Momose was amazed by Shirosaki’s driving skills, but he’s still a goof as he tried getting out without removing the seatbelt. Afterwards, on their way back, they saw a vending machine that only took small bills. So, as Shirosaki went to the convenience store to ask for change, Momose reflects on the difference between Shirosaki and Kurono, his old boss. When Shirosaki comes back, he has a bag of beverages and snacks; unfortunately, Shirosaki forgot he was supposed to ask for change and paid everything with credit card. I get you Shirosaki; that happened to me too! At least, Momose likes driving with his boss now. The little flashback with Shirosaki making a mistake at his driving test was hilarious; I just hoped he got his license on his first try—I got mine on my first try and I still wonder how I did so to this day. There’s also a small segment where Aoyama and Kinjou are in a car together. Aoyama even has a Kumatte-chan GPS!

The fourth story is about Momose and Shirosaki working from home due to a mass infection at Minette. Hakutou’s wondering why they’re at home today. Shirosaki makes a big goof by trying to drink something with his mask on. Since they’re at home, Momose reassures he can take off his mask, which he does. Drinking something with the mask on was something I did once. I think the biggest highlight of this segment was the fact that Aoyama was telling the others that he isn’t wearing any pants underneath. Aoyama, TMI!

The fifth segment is about the two going on a day trip. They decided to buy a book to keep themselves occupied on the train. As a book lover myself, it’s nice see what sort of books they chose. Momose chose a poetry book that contains healing poems; I feel like it’s perfect for someone who needs some mental healing. Shirosaki chose a mystery book with a cat on the cover; I bet he picked it precisely because there’s a cat on the cover. It turns out that Shirosaki already figured out the culprit…because he bought and read the book before. It’s okay, Shirosaki! Having multiple copies of a book is normal for bookworms.

The sixth segment is about taking Hakutou to the vet. Is it just me or has Hakutou gotten bigger? He looks a bit bigger than he did in previous episodes, especially the part where Shirosaki picked him up. Also, the cat noises Hakutou makes are so cute! Props to Hiro Shimono for having such a cute voice! The part about the stethoscope was cute. Also, the taxi driver from Episode 6 has returned!

The seventh segment has the quartet go to an autumn festival. They reflect over what they did in festivals in their youth. Shirosaki had danced but went off course due to his goofiness. Aoyama tried goldfish scooping but they all swam away from him. Kinjou tried flirting with a girl; it turns out he was just being playful towards his mom. Momose had always been kind; when he got the yoyo, he gave it to his mom. The story moved Shirosaki. I think the most hilarious thing is that the habits of their childhood was still implemented onto their adult selves as they repeated the same things they did before, with Aoyama failing at goldfish scooping again, but is given a yoyo from Momose and then Shirosaki getting lost, so Kinjou gets him back by playfully hitting on him. All of their childhood selves were adorable.

The eighth segment has the main duo go to another company to earn a deal. Momose is nervous because he had gone to that company in the past but failed to get a contract; Kurono blamed him for that. Shirosaki sensed his nervousness, and then told him how he managed to overcome nervousness. In the past, he and Aoyama went to another company to negotiate a deal, but his nervousness got to him that Shirosaki accidentally spoke in an arrogant tone. Fortunately, Aoyama was able to do damage control by saying that Shirosaki speaks like a haughty queen when nervous. Despite his mistakes, they managed to get a deal. The story warms Momose’s heart and they actually got a deal! The part where they high-fived was so silly. Momose was trying to call a taxi but Momose mistook it for a celebrating and did a high-five. Haha, never change, Shirosaki.

The final segment is their day off where they legit go on a date. They go to various spots like a restaurant, then the park where they proceed to explore and even go on swan boats! They were talking about how couples who ride swan boats break up, but if they ride the boat with the eyebrows, they’d be together forever; guess who rides the boat with the eyebrows? I think the funniest part about this segment is at the post-credit scene where Shirosaki was like “Wait, we didn’t need to ride the boat with the eyebrows because we’re not a couple.” MM-HMM! SURE!

While this episode was different in terms of formatting, the vibes were still there. We’re now in the double digits when it comes to episode counts. There are only 12 episodes, meaning there are two more episodes left. I’m sad. What was your favorite segment of this episode? I liked the final segment where they went on a date!

#my new boss is goofy #atarashii joushi wa do tennen #Yusei shirosaki #Kentaro momose #hakutou #Mitsuo aoyama #aigou kinjou #review #anime #anime review

[cyberphuck]

ASSASSIN’S APPRENTICE ABRIDGED: PART FOUR

My friend Razz wants to understand my shitposting about the Farseer Trilogy, but doesn’t want to have to read the books, so I’m summarizing it for them!

 EDIT: Halfway through Jhaampe I start calling “The Big Turnip” the “Big Onion” instead and I can’t be arsed to fix it.

Read Previous Entries!

 Alright Bastards and Old Bloods, this is it: the final entry and JUMBO-LENGTH conclusion to Assassin’s Apprentice Abridged!

 - Excerpt from Chade Fallstar's private writings, Grune 28th, 1497:

Dear Diary, the other day we caught a little zombie-Forged girl and I've been keeping her in a jar with a stick and a leaf. If I shake the jar, she talks. She knows who she is and who her family is, and she also knows a lot of swear words. I gave her some bread when she wasn't hungry and she said "shove it up your ugly ass." I tried to teach her a trick and she bit me. I decided to send her to live on a farm upstate along with Chivalry and Prince Regal's mom.

 Love, Chadey.

 While Chade has been playing Jane Goodall with Forged people, Fitz has been very busy being an alcoholic. One evening, Chade calls Fitz up into his wall-hole and says "It's time for you to stop being a drunk and for the readers to remember who Prince Verity is."

 "Why is there a hay bale in the corner of your--"

 "Prince Verity is Chivalry's younger brother and currently King-in-Waiting for the throne," the Fool says, lounging underneath the hay bale. "That makes Prince Regal next in line after Verity. Just so you know."

 "Right," Chade nods. "Fitz, your job from now on is to hang out with Verity in his Fortress of Solitude and do whatever he wants you to do."

 "I'm fourteen," Fitz says.

 "Don't argue with me, boy, I've got a wedding to plan. By the way, did you ever figure out who tried to kill Burrich?"

 Fitz shrugs. "I figured somebody tried to kill him because he's Burrich."

 "Ah yes, the age-old solution of 'things just happen, what the hell," Chade rolls his eyes. "Well, go on, shoo. Go bother Verity."

 Sighing, Fitz climbs thirty-nine flights of stairs to where Verity is sitting in his empty tower room and staring out the window. "Breakfast, your highness," Fitz announces.

 "Ew," Verity moans.

 "There's also a cup of tea with enough caffeine in it to kill some sort of very big gray trumpet animal," Fitz offers.

 "Yeah, okay, I'll take that."

 "So, uh," Fitz says, standing there awkwardly as Verity drinks an amount of stimulant that should make his heart explode, "watcha doin up here?"

 "Defending the kingdom."

 Fitz looks out the window at the ocean. He looks back at Verity. "Like... with a gun?"

 Verity smiles softly. "Oh, you're stupid. I like that in a person I'm going to use as a tool for the rest of my life."

 "I like you, too," Fitz says, tail wagging.

 "I'm using the Skill to confuse the Vikings so they won't raid our shit and turn our people into zombies," Verity explains. "I'd ask Galen's Skill students to help but they're pretty useless. Hey, didn't Galen teach YOU how to Skill?"

 "Oh, he tried but I'm bad at it, it's because I'm a basta-- HHHHGGGHHGHGHHGHHHHHH KEPPET.EXE HAS ENCOUNTERED A PROBLEM AND NEEDS TO GHHHGH TROJAN DETECTED TAKE ACTION TO PREVENT GHHGGHHHH HOT SINGLES IN YOUR AREA CLICK HERE TO CHAT GHHGHGGGHHHHHH"

 "Huh," Verity says after thoroughly mentally assaulting Fitz without warning or permission. "Looks like someone used the Skill to convince you you were bad at Skilling. That’s just one of the many things the Skill can do that I will reveal to you whenever I feel like it, which will usually be AFTER you need to know.”

 "I think I need an adult," Fitz whimpers from the floor.

 Verity chuckles fondly. "I am an adult. Too bad I don't really have time to teach you to Skill properly. That probably won't come back to bite us. Run along now, stop crying. Oh, and see if Chade can get you to murder that gross noble two counties over."

 A few weeks later, at breakfast, Fitz tries to eat Coco Puffs as quietly as possible while Verity and Shrewd argue.

 "I don't WANT to get married," Verity says for the eighteenth time. "I've gotta keep sitting in the Martyr Tower and keeping Vikings from attacking us!"

 "Well guess what, bucko, I'm your father AND your king and if I say you're getting married then you fucking are!" Shrewd rage-butters a scone. "And I swear to Eda if you pull a Malicious Compliance like your older brother and marry the absolute worst candidate for queen you can find then I'll look the other way when YOU'RE assassinated too!"

 Fitz slowly reaches for the cereal box, eyes wide.

 "It'll be good for morale, Verity," Shrewd goes on. "Everybody'll be like, 'oh, if the Prince is getting married and pumping babies into some foreign woman then being murdered by Vikings really isn't that bad!'"

 "And who did Regal choose for me to be married to?" Verity asks.

 Shrewd looks at the smudged writing on his hand. "The Kraken," he announces.

 "You mean Kettricken?" Verity says. "The mountain princess? I'm like twice her age. And I don't have time to go to the mountains to grab her, Vikings will totally Vike you all while I'm gone!"

 "Well SOMEBODY'S gotta go up there and grab her," Shrewd insists.

 "Figure it out," Verity snaps as he storms out of the room. "And by the way, Fitz has been sitting there eating six bowls of sugar cereal because he has no adult supervision!"

 He slams the door.

 "Hi Grandpa Shrewd," Fitz says into the silence.

 "Hello, Lil Accident. Just so you know, Kettricken is only second in line to the mountain throne. First is her brother Rurisk, who took an arrow to the chest a couple years back and now is about to die from Being Poisoned to Get Him Out of the Way."

 "Yes Grandpa Shrewd.”

 Chade Spidermans down from the ceiling. "You're sending him and not me? Why?"

 "Plot reasons," Shrewd says, taking the cereal box away from Fitz.

 "Oh boy," Fitz says, jumping up. "I'm gonna go tell my friend the Fool!"

 The Fool's not in his room, but a bunch of other cool stuff is: every Lego set from 1973 onward, a bunch of those neon-colored ponchos from the 90's, Sudoku puzzles completed in ballpoint pen, and A BABY????

 Oh wait, that's a doll. Looks like a baby though. Weird.

 Next Fitz goes to visit Patience. Patience is sifting through an old jewelry box; she sits Fitz down so she can hold different things up to him and see how they look.

 "Hmm. No, too subtle... this one's too gaudy. Ah, yes, this one." Patience pulls out a black collar with the word DADDY on it in gold letters. "Yes, this is perfect. Put it on, Fitz."

 It's eventually decided that since Verity can't go to the mountains, Regal is going to be a stand-in at the wedding and then they'll have another wedding later when the Kraken comes down to Buckkeep. Fitz is loading up the horse-van for the journey when the Fool cartwheels up to him.

 "I have something for you," the Fool jingles.

 "I didn't go in your room and touch your doll or accidentally drop your seven thousand five hundred and forty one piece Millenium Falcon Lego set," Fitz blurts.

 "Take this Pepto Bismol," the Fool says, "and don't eat anything weird in the mountains."

 "Don't worry about me, Fool," Fitz laughs. "I'm sure nothing bad'll happen."

 Fitz goes on a road trip. August, Fitz's cousin and current member of the Skill Gang, is going with them to help Verity Skill-connect to the wedding when it's time. Hands the stableboy is also there, which is nice, because they're taking the I-5 to Jhaampe, the mountain capital, and there's not a lot to look at on the way. They travel through a lot of places that Fitz is just going to have to travel through again in two books while being chased by Regal, so all he really notices is that there's a shitton of grass, a bigass lake, and only one set of hot girls who want to give him and hands their first sexual experience (the girls' mom shows up and hits them with a sandal until they go home).

 The wedding party climbs into the foothills of the mountain kingdom, and there waiting for them are... the Vikings?

 Okay, so the group of seafaring raiders that I've been referring to as "The Vikings" are culturally sort of more like Mongol raiders. It's not really a one-to-one comparison but the important point here is that the mountain people are what we in the real world would typically imagine Vikings to be, except that here in the Six Duchies the Vikings are the Vikings and the mountain people only LOOK like Vikings, Fitz is Simba, Regal is Scar and I think the Fool is Horatio.

 Are we clear? Alright moving on.

 Fitz and co. are greeted by a welcoming party of mountain people, who are tall and pale and blond. They're super friendly and cheerful, singing the Songs of Their People and totally confusing Hands, who doesn't speak Mountain. Fitz doesn't speak Mountain either, probably. Maybe.

 They arrive in Jhaampe, where the buildings look like if you cut off the tops of the towers in Red Square or planted a bunch of turnips upside down. A second welcoming party pops up, and when August and his cronies complain that their feet are tired and they don't feel like walking anymore, the mountain peeps carry them into the city on planks. Fitz is extremely embarrassed by this and is trying not to cringe all the way down into his tights.

 To seem less like a lazy dick who makes strangers carry him places for no reason, Fitz strikes up a conversation with one of the old ladies carrying his plank. Her name is Jonqui and she knows a lot about the city, and slows the plank down so she can point out interesting landmarks and gardens.

 "Pull-Out Fail speaks good Mountain," she remarks, grinning. "Maybe he learned as a tadpole?"

 "I'm just super good with languages I probably grew up speaking," Fitz shrugs.

 They arrive at the biggest turnip, which serves as Jhaampe's royal palace. Jonqui escorts Fitz inside and he finds that it's not really a palace, it's more like a tent made out of a tree, with a lot of open space in the middle, and there's not a whole lot of private spaces that he might use to murder their prince.

 Whatever, he'll figure it out.

 "Come, Pull-Out Fail," Jonqui says, herding Fitz to a center stage. "We will watch our Shift Manager present his Shift Manager to be your Shift Manager."

 "Shift Manager?"

 "Yes, that is what we call our royalty. When someone comes to demand to speak to the person in charge, the Shift Manager is the one we have chosen to throw under the bus," Jonqui explains. "It is a very important duty."

 Besides King Eyod, who is an old person, there are two random mountain folk in white dresses. Fitz eyeballs them and wonders where the rest of the royal family is. "The girl one," Jonqui says, elbowing Fitz, "she is my niece."

 "Neat," Fitz yawns, still looking around for someone wearing a crown. "That other guy looks like He-Man."

 "Yes, he is my nephew."

 Gifts are exchanged.

 "This isn't going to be like that one scene in Midsommar, is it?" Fitz asks warily. "You're not going to like, set these people on fire?"

 "This," King Eyod announces, taking He-Man by the shoulder, "is my son, Shift Manager Rurisk, first in line to the throne of the mountain kingdom. And here is Shift Manager Kettricken, who shall marry the Shift Manager of the Six Duchies and become their General Manager, She Who Sets the Schedule."

 There is general oohing and ahhing and applause. Fitz realizes he's been chatting boredly with the King's sister this entire time. Why hadn't Regal sent any kind of message to the wedding party ahead of time to warn them that the mountain people liked to play Undercover Boss? No, Regal had just texted to remind them to bring his Gucci underwear, the dick.

 Jonqui drags Fitz over to meet Kettricken and Rurisk. "Kids, this is Pull-Out Fail Farseer," she says. "Now you go run along and play, and be back when the streetlights come on."

 "Yes, in our language we call him 'The Bastard' because he sucks," August chimes in helpfully. Rurisk glares at him.

 "Pull-Out Fail," Rurisk says. "I knew your father. And I spoke with him, on the day that he'd learned that he'd knocked up one of our people. He was a good man."

 "This joke is getting kind of old," Fitz says. "Listen, my name is Fitzchivalry--"

 "Oh, Fitzchivalry Farseer?" Kettricken brightens. "You poison people, right? Regal told me all about you and how you run around with Lady Thyme murdering people in the Six Duchies. It's so good to finally meet you!"

 "Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," Fitz replies articulately.

 "Come on," Kettricken says excitedly, "let's go to the herb garden. I heard you like herbs."

 On the way out to the herb garden, Fitz forgets that Kettricken knows he's an assassin and notices she has boobs, because he's fourteen. Together they get enthused about plants and shit, and they take a stroll around the herbs.

 "Taste this one, it's really weird," Kettricken says. "... What's that thudding noise? With a jingle? It sounds like someone's court jester is banging their head against a wall."

 "I hear that a lot," Fitz shrugs. "I usually just ignore it. You said to eat this plant I've never heard of? Mm, spicy!"

 "So," Kettricken asks as she stops a speeding train with one muscular arm, "what's my future husband like? Shift Manager Regal told me that he's really old and nasty and that he just sits in a recliner watching Fox News all day."

 "He's thirty two," Fitz tells her, mentally adding a dick to the big ol' bag that he wishes Regal would eat. "Verity is super nice, and funny, and he has fun hobbies and he likes animals. He's really handsome, too, he has gorgeous black hair and shining eyes and big broad shoulders and a really nice ass--"

 "So Shift Manager Regal lied to me." Kettricken frowns, biting her lip. "Does he lie about a lot of things?"

 "They hang people in my country for having an opinion on that," Fitz says.

 "Regal was six Jagerbombs deep one night and told me all about how you loved sneaking around and killing people," Kettricken confesses. "He said that if you showed up with the wedding party, it meant that you were here to poison my brother to get him out of the way and make me the heir to the mountains."

 "What haha that's weird what a weird thing to say haha," Fitz stammers, foaming at the mouth.

 Rurisk and Jonqui come running down the path to fetch Kettricken, telling her that there's a thing at the thing she has to do, remember that thing? And Fitz smiles and waves bye to them and then walks happily back to his room in the tree-palace and starts frantically digging through his stuff for the Pepto Bismol the Fool gave him.

 Rurisk bursts into the room at five the next morning, waving a bottle of Mountain Bismol. "Pull-Out Fail, are you still alive?!"

 "I wish I wasn't," Fitz moans, face pressed against the rug. "Get away from me with that."

 "He's not dead, no thanks to you," Rurisk says, glaring at Kettricken as she peeks into the doorway wearing footie pajamas. "Go get us some breakfast, and don't fucking poison it!"

 Fitz tries to stand up and faceplants on the bed. "Stop making the floor move."

 "Someone told Kettricken you were here to kill me," Rurisk explains. "I told her not to worry about it, but she thought it'd be a good idea to trick you into eating what we call Fentanyl Flowers and then not tell me about it until fifteen minutes ago."

 Kettricken comes back into the room with donuts and coffee. Rurisk breaks a donut into three pieces, giving each of them a piece. "And if this is poisoned, you've killed us all," he warns.

 "Oh my god, that was one time," Kettricken whines.

 "Listen, Pull-Out Fail," Rurisk says earnestly. "My little dinky mountain kingdom needs the space for farmland down on your big prairies. We need cool stuff from the town that the Liveship Traders books take place in. We need a beach for our college students to go to on Spring Break. So I'm willing to give you ethically sourced furs, good lumber for warships, and my hot little sister as trade."

 Fitz pauses with a donut halfway to his mouth. "What do you mean, 'ethically sourced furs'?"

 "We shave bears. It's not important right now. What is important is that you don't have to kill me to get me out of the way, because I'm on YOUR side. Do you get me?"

 "I get you," Fitz nods.

 "Good. Now I'm going the fuck back to bed. Kettricken, don't poison anybody on the way back to your room."

 "If you don't stop I'm gonna tell DAD--"

 Fitz lays back on the bed. He closes his eyes and wonders if communism should be a thing. Then he thinks, no, having a monarchy is definitely a good idea. What could go wrong with having a ruling class of divine-right royalty who are constantly murdering each other for the throne? And surely there's no drawback to having a Prince that's an evil little shit who commits crimes against humanity with no fear of punishment or reprisal.

 Yeah. Kings are the best.

 The next day Rurisk invites Fitz out to the dog kennels. Fitz loves dogs! Then they turn a corner to find a very old hound dog whose jowls, ears, belly and tail are all dragging on the ground as he waddles up to them, and the music swells as Fitz cries "Nosy!!" and kneels down to hug him.

 "That's my loyal old hound dog," Rurisk says. "Burrich the stablemaster sent him to me in a little basket with a bow on it years ago."

 "I had a socially unnacceptable soul-bond with this dog," Fitz explains.

 "Gross," Rurisk smiles. "Anyway, I gotta go do Prince stuff. Smell you later."

 Fitz immediately goes to find Burrich, who is in the Big Turnip presenting a horse to Kettricken as a wedding present. Cob--

 Wait, there's a note here. It says, "Cob is the stable boy that Fitz and Nosy met when they first came to Buckkeep." There's a piece of straw taped to it.

 Cob is there too, and he makes sure to give Fitz the middle finger as he approaches.

 "Burrich, I need to talk to you," Fitz says. "I just found out you didn't kill Nosy when I was little."

 Burrich stops what he's doing and turns slowly to stare at him. "I'm sorry, you thought I killed a puppy? Jesus, no wonder you were so twitchy as a kid."

 "But you didn't kill a puppy," Fitz says. "And we can still be friends."

 "You thought I was a monster who would [BUILD A ROCKET SHIP SO THAT AN ANIMAL COULD RETURN TO ITS HOME PLANET] if I'd found out you'd bonded with it, but you turned around and bonded with another fucking puppy," Burrich growls. "Which I told you is nasty, so no, we can't be friends."

 Fitz drags himself sadly back to the Big Turnip.

 That night, Fitz is getting ready for bed when Regal's servant turns up at his door. "Hey fuckwad, Prince Regal wants to talk to you," he says, and drags Fitz by the wrist up to Regal's royal Regal room.

 Regal is chilling in his chambers doing epic bong rips out of the skull of a dead orphan, like not a dirty street urchin, but specifically an adorable little ragamuffin with soot on their little tophat that flew off comically when Regal took them out from five hundred yards away with a sniper rifle. "What's up, DICKchivalry," he sneers, then high-fives one of his minions.

 "Hi," Fitz says, forcing a smile.

 "Have you gotten around to murdering Prince Rurisk yet?" Regal coughs.

 "Uh."

 "Uh," Regal says mockingly. "God, you're stupid. Isn't he stupid, minion who has no business hearing any of this?"

 "Absolutely idiotic, my Prince."

 "Prince Rurisk said he's on our side," Fitz says, "and that he wants us to have the lumber we need and his sister and everything. I figured maybe it'd be better to like, not kill him."

 "Alright, since you're too dumb to plan an assassination, I'll figure it out for you," Regal says as his minion loads another bowl. "I want him graveyard dead before the wedding so he doesn't stand next to me and make me look short. Now fuck off."

 Fitz fucks off with many a backward glance, wondering what the fuck he's supposed to do now. There's no signal in the mountains so he can't send a message to Chade or King Shrewd to tell him that Rurisk is cool actually, and even though Regal sucks, like, REALLY sucks, he IS a Prince and Fitz is a tool of the Crown so he does technically have to follow orders.

 What the fuck is Regal's problem? Fitz thinks while brushing his teeth the next morning. Why did he tell Kettricken that I'm an assassin? Why does he want Rurisk dead so bad when Ru-Dawg is on our side? Gosh, I wish I could talk to Chade or Verity or Grandpa Shrewd or literally anyone, but they're so far away, and--

 Oh right, the Skill.

 "AUGUST," Fitz pants, sneakers squeaking as he skids to a halt in front of his cousin. "I've been looking everywhere for you. Look: do you see this silver pin, with the ruby in it? King Shrewd gave this to me when I was nine and sitting under a table eating leftover pies. The Fool and Regal were there too, and there were some puppies, and King Shrewd knelt down and gave me the pin and told me that if I ever needed to talk to him, I could just show this pin at his door and he'd let me talk to him, no matter what, and there's something really important going on so I need you to send a Skill message to him right now."

 August looks at him for a minute. "No," he says finally, and turns to leave.

 Fitz grabs his sleeve. "August you HAVE to let me talk to Shrewd, there are LIVES at stake!"

 "Okay fine, jeez," August says, shaking him off. "I'll get Shrewd on the line."

 "Great! Great. Okay. Tell him, uh." Fitz takes a deep breath. "Tell him Prince Rurisk is doing great and I don't think we should kill hi-- uhhhhhhhhh, I mean GIVE him the PRESENT that we were going to POISON him with."

 "You're such a fucking spaz," August mutters, closing his eyes to make a Skill Call. Then he shrugs. "It went straight to voicemail."

 "Redial," Fitz says desperately.

 "No, I've got important cousin shit to do, including telling Regal that you just tried to get me to dial long distance to talk to the King." August walks across the palace to talk to Regal, but the Prince is high as fuck and doesn't care.

 Fitz leans against the wall and makes a thinky face. "Maybe I could kill Regal," he says for what will be the first of several hundred times. "Eh, probably not worth it."

 That night, Regal's minion gives Fitz a little secret packet of horrible deadly poison. "Regal gave me this to give to you to give to Prince Rurisk," he says. "Put it in his drink and make it look like an accident."

 "Did King Shrewd send me here as some kind of complicated political maneuver where I would kill Rurisk and then be publicly hanged for murder so no one would find out that we killed Rurisk for political gain?" Fitz asks.

 "Take the fucking accident powder," the minion snaps.

 Fitz walks through the Big Onion to Kettricken's door, where he knocks and tells her that he's going to kill her brother. Then he goes to Rurisk's room, with Kettricken following behind. He sits down at Rurisk's table and dumps the accident powder into a glass of wine while Rurisk watches. Then they both drink from a different glass.

 "Kind of sucks that Shift Manager Regal told everyone you're an assassin, Pull-Out Fail," Rurisk says. "You wanna hang out here in the mountain kingdom so you don't end up at the bottom of a lake with your feet encased in concrete?"

 "Maybe," Fitz says. "I think somebody's supposed to catch me in the act of killing you just now, will you let them in?"

 Cob bursts in the door. "Caught you red handed poisoning the Prin-- OH FUCK KETTRICKEN YOU DIDN'T DRINK THAT WINE DID YOU??"

 "No, why?"

 Rurisk falls over dead.

 "Wait, why is he dead, we both drank from the same gl-- wow, I do NOT feel so great," Fitz says, foaming at the mouth again.

 Cob grabs him. "I sent Smithy to space," he grins.

 "Yeah, well I have a poisoned knife," Fitz replies, stabbing him with it.

 "Sweet mountain Jesus, someone stop him, he's killing everyone!" Kettricken yells, then realizes she's holding a heavy metal object and beans Fitz in the head with it.

 Fitz wakes up in the stables outside the Big Onion with Regal already monologuing over him. "I wanted you dead because you and Lady Thyme poisoned my mother!"

 "Queen Desire, Shrewd's second queen who died at some point in this book but Fitz literally cared so little that he didn't even mention it," says a nearby hay bale.

 "Thank you, hay bale," Regal says. "You thought I didn't know you poisoned her, but I DID know! I also know that you were using Burrich to Skill, but as soon as I had Cob stab him you were forced to stop. I knew ALL of these things!"

 "Glag," Fitz says, concussed. Then he closes his eyes, and suddenly he can Skill.

 "Hi, Prince Regal," Galen the Skillmaster says. "Are you ready for me to Skill-Kill Prince Verity during the wedding so you can marry Kettricken and be King-in-Waiting?"

 "Ugh, but she looks like a Soviet Union propaganda poster," Regal moans.

 "Suck it up," Galen says, hitting 'end call.'

 Fitz is still laying on his face in the stables. Nosy noses in and ambles over to drool on him, then bites through the ropes Fitz is tied up with. Burrich shows up next.

 "You have the Wit," Fitz tries to say, but he's still suffering poison damage and the 'hit in the head' debuff, so it comes out as "Glaggaglah."

 "I'm in the closet," Burrich says. "Did King Shrewd turn you into a baby assassin?"

 "Glag," Fitz confirms sadly.

 Burrich looks back at him, then does a double-take. "Where the fuck did you get that collar that says 'DADDY' on it?" he demands.

 "Patience glave it to me."

 "I cannot fucking believe this," Burrich mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose. "That's the collar that I gave to your dad."

 Fitz looks at him.

 "You gave it to Prince Chivalry when he found out about me," Fitz says. "That's why it says 'DADDY,' because that's when he found out he was a father."

 "Sure, we'll go with that," Burrich says queerly.

 Jonqui, King Eyod's sister, clips through the wall while T-posing. "Come back to the Big Onion," she says. "Kettricken has forgiven you for poisoning her brother. Which I know you didn't do."

 They drag Fitz back to his rooms at the Big Onion. While Fitz is trying to remember how to drink water, August shows up at the door. "Verity called," he says boredly. "He said, uh, be loyal to who's loyal to you, or something. Also all of Regal's servants died mysteriously and he wants you to go to the hot springs to help him bathe."

 "I do not want to see Regal naked," Fi tz protests, but goes anyway.

 Regal's sitting in a hot tub drinking an evil martini when Fitz and Burrich arrive. "Ah, there you are," Regal says. "Hulking Manservant, bang Burrich over the head."

 Burrich goes down. Fitz yells timber. Regal drags Fitz over to another hot tub, ignoring the sign that says 'WARNING: DO NOT USE THIS HOT TUB IF YOU HAVE BEEN RECENTLY BETRAYED BY YOUR EVIL UNCLE' and throws him in.

 "And that's that," Regal says happily, dusting off his hands, and leaves.

 Fitz, flailing around in the water being hot tubbed to death, can suddenly Skill (again). This is great! He Skills joyously. Skilling is rad! I'm gonna call everyone! Hey Verity! VERITY! ... Verity?

 "Dearly Beloved..."

 The Fool looks up from his Adult Coloring Book. "Hm?"

 "We are gathered here today to join these two second bananas in holy matrimony. Do you, Prince Verity..."

 Verity! Fitz Skill-yells. Look out!! Skillmaster Galen is standing behind you about to pull a Skill Dracula on you and suck out all your, uh, Skill! That's a thing that can happen apparently!

 I am actually Queen Desire's bastard son and Prince Regal's half brother! Galen Skills evilly. I'm pretty sure there's no member of the Farseer reign that HASN'T either sired or given birth to a bastard! Like seriously, as a family we legit just cannot keep our pants on. ANYWAY! I have been conspiring to kill Verity and put Regal on the thro-- oh okay apparently you can just straight kill someone with the Skill too, who knew.

 Galen collapses, Skill-dead.

 AUGUST, Verity Skill-megaphones into August the Skill-cousin's ear. PUT THE KRAKEN ON THE LINE SO I CAN TELL HER IT WASN'T ME WHO PLOTTED TO KILL PRINCE RURISK. AND ALSO THAT I RESPECT HER AS A PERSON AND WILL GREET HER WHEN SHE ARRIVES AT BUCKKEEP WITH A FIRM HANDSHAKE AND A MANLY NOD.

 August's head explodes.

 ~epilogue~

 Fitz and Burrich are later found in a wet, unconscious pile in the steams. Fitz has puncture marks in his wrist from where Nosy pulled him out of his hot tub tomb before climbing into his rocketship and flying back to his home planet.

 Though neither of them are dead, Burrich has conveniently forgotten that Fitz is a baby assassin, and Fitz probably can't be a baby assassin anymore because he has about thirty seizures a day due to being poisoned and then poisoned again and then blugeoned and kicked and drowned all in the space of like thirty minutes.

 They spend a long time recovering in Jhaampe, even after Kettricken and Regal (remember him? he's still alive) go down to Buckkeep. Burrich tells Fitz that they're friends again and that he'll go wherever Fitz goes because he's wearing the 'DADDY' collar. Fitz says, "Because you... view me as a parental figure? I guess?"

 Burrich replies, "Sure. We'll go with that." NEXT TIME, ON DRAGON BOOK Z: Fitz has his Hot Girl Summer, immediately followed by his Shit’s Wack Winter, in ROYAL ASSASSIN ABRIDGED! 

#rote #assassin's apprentice #farseer trilogy #fitzchivalry farseer #robin hobb #aa abridged #farseer trilogy abridged

[thepringlesofblood]

bonus content for those who read the taz: the 11th hour graphic novel and haven’t listened to the podcast arc

disclaimer: so. I lost my book about 1/4 of the way into this post. so the rest of it is just from memory (I did finish reading it several times, I just no longer have it to refer to). I wanted to post this before the next one comes out though, so here we are. If I find my book, I will attempt to finish up the details for the rest of the book. I cover some basic big things from memory, but nowhere near as detailed as the stuff I wrote down when I had the book to refer to. but in the meantime...let’s go!

by god they’ve done it again. 11th hr is a Lot and definitely the most plot-heavy book so far, PLUS they had to include the first lunar interlude where the boys had individual scenes. the result is frankly beautiful. we’re really hitting critical mass now.

as a result a lot more stuff got compressed, cut, changed, or skipped. i’m going to try to at least point out each difference, though there’s no way I could summarize EVERYTHING that got cut in one post. I’m going to be linking relevant episodes (& transcripts thank u tazscripts) instead, for things that are Just Too Much to include.

as always, this post is intended to be Fun and Cool Bonus Content for people who haven’t listened to the podcast, not a manifesto of stuff they “should have” included or a list of flaws. they had 11+ hours of content to squish into one graphic novel, that happened over a period of months. of course stuff got cut. and it’s stuff that was recorded in 2016. that’s eight years ago. of course some things are going to change.

tl;dr - I liked the dang book. you can be sad something wasn’t in the novel while still understanding why it isn’t. here is a list of the stuff that was changed, skipped, compressed, or cut, presented as cool facts & extra info for gn fans who haven’t listened to the podcast.

spoilers ahoy for the 11th hour, but I’ll try to keep spoilers for the rest of the series to a minimum or at least mark them clearly. At the very end I’m going to put a section of series-spoiler theories and observations, very clearly marked

Before getting into the nitty-gritty, there are a few MAJOR changes from the podcast I want to get out of the way first. This list also includes “stuff I remember but don’t have the book to refer back to on”

Several characters and a whole section of the map were cut.

I think this is the first time that any named, plot-relevant characters have been completely cut. The closest we’ve come so far was the bugbears, but they at least had a cameo in the photo in Lucas’ quarters. Luca, Redmond, and Stonefruit Farms fully don’t exist in the GN series.

the boys meet Redmond in ep 46, pt 6 of the 11th hr arc, having met his brother Luca at the end of the previous episode.

long story short, Redmond was the leader of the purple-kerchiefed ruffians and the brains behind the bank robbery, which The Boys had to go through with so that Redmond would help his lowkey-estranged brother Luca raise the temple of Istus from its decrepit state, as they were both devout priests of Istus. The whole key being in the vault thing is GN-only.

Also, Luca is a skeleton bc he was in the temple when it got rapidly old-ified, but dw he’s fine he’s just a skeleton. he gets better.

Redmond’s motivation for robbing the bank is that as a priest of Istus, lady of fate, he follows his gut feelings and intuition, and he had a strong feeling that whatever was in the vault would be the key to taking down the bubble.

they basically took all of the plot-necessary elements from Luca & Redmond and gave them to Ren. In the podcast, Ren actually blasts some of the purple-kerchiefed ruffians out of her bar after they get too rowdy. She isn’t involved with the robbery in the slightest.

Merle’s Temporal Chalice scene

in the podcast, it’s his arm being chopped off. or more specifically, grabbing a crystal that exploded and made him have to get his arm chopped off. 

Him running out on his kids is played kind of for laughs at first in the podcast. Merle is a heel for a lot longer there, bc the funniest improv is usually not the most ethical improv. They do talk about his life and the fact that he has a family, but the offer made by the chalice is for him to have his arm back

frankly, I think they made the right move in the GN. We get very little of Hecuba in the podcast, and I really liked seeing more of that conflict.

Roswell, my beloved

so, in 2016 when they did the podcast, the McElroys were at, let’s say a different place in their journey of learning about the queer community. which is to say that in the podcast Roswell’s pronouns were wildly inconsistent, in part due to them being a clay construct, in part due to them not being introduced with any pronoun in particular [though Griffin clarifies that he intends for Roswell to use they/them a little later on in the arc], and in part bc the boys just weren’t really familiar with the singular they. they tended vacillate between they/them, it/its, and he/him. we all learn and grow. 

in the book, thankfully, Roswell is 100% they/them. fuck yeah. related. The Boys are significantly worse people to Roswell in the podcast. like, significantly. we’ll get into it as it comes up more, I just want to signpost it here. 

e.g. Taako giving Roswell control of themselves and their command word is a GN original, in the podcast The Boys kind of “junebug” them around for large swaths of the last few episodes. also, a significant number of earlier loops involve them basically negging Roswell into believing that Isaak hired outside help (The Boys) with security bc they weren’t cutting it anymore (rude). I much prefer the geologists gambit they go with in the GN.

Diamonds

Paloma’s prophecies cost money in the podcast, so a lot of The Boys’ shenanigans (and a significant number of loops) are in pursuit of getting cash. which, in Refuge, is diamonds. Some examples: 

Before figuring out that you can’t take objects with you, the boys do straight up take some diamonds from the bank post-robbery. 

Taako gets Ren and a patron of her bar, Ash, to sign up and pay for a seminar/magic lesson he’ll be giving tomorrow (one of my all-time fav scenes). This leads to a touching scene at the end when the bubble finally comes down where Taako gives Ren a little certificate that says “first graduate of Taako’s Amazing School of Magic.”

Magnus tries to armwrestle a guy for cash (Merle’s idea), and though he rolls a 27 Strength check, the Goliath barbarian he’s rolling against gets a 28.

Paloma offers 1 diamond for a small prophecy, 10 for a big one. in the GN they aren’t differentiated, and one small prophecy just doesn’t show up as it’s not needed.

the taz fandom wiki has a handy list of all the prophecies she gives in the podcast

ok! let’s go!

Prologue (the bit before ch 1)

this isn’t in the 11th hour podcast.

the information we get about The Visitor in the 11th hour (from The Boys asking various Refuge residents) is that

Jack and June brought them to Refuge

or, they brought Jack and June to Refuge. We hear both things at different times.

they’re depicted in the statue as having a Red Robe and being kinda broad-shouldered.

Roswell never met them. At first they refer to The Visitor with he/him pronouns, but then mention “I say ‘he’, I didn’t know them”

they tended to keep their face hidden (maybe?)

that’s pretty much it

we learn about this interaction much much much much much later in the podcast, not as a scene that is played out, but abstractly as an event that happened, after we find out who The Visitor is. 

that said, I LOVE this scene’s inclusion and expansion. it makes total sense to me.

Jack is never described as having a sketchbook or being an artist. this will come back later. 

the final scene of the arc in the podcast is instead June giving Magnus some previous designs for the statue of Jack, June, & a Red Robe/The Visitor in the middle of town, with a version where the hood of the robe is down and the face of the Red Robe/The Visitor is visible.

Ch. 1

this is where the podcast starts at episode 1 of the 11th hr. 

boyland’s funeral is very accurate. his comically large family of 400 sons (mentioned in CK podcast) is why the Voidfish lights up like that.

the only real differences I could find were:

in the podcast what is erased is basically boyland’s personnel file. like, a report or write-up of who he is and his work for the BoB. johann writing songs about boyland’s life is new.

the only pronouns ever used for the voidfish in the podcast are they/them, it/its, and occasionally he/him. past taz graphic novels have used they/them. on pg 13 of 11th hr, both Johann and Merle use she/her for the voidfish.

I do not like this, but I have a suspicion as to why, and I don’t like that either. see spoiler-y observations at the end for more.

they merged this scene with a scene from the skipped lunar interlude before CK, where The Boys take cpt. cpt. bane’s “file” to the voidfish to be eaten.

 I described this in my other posts, but the two things relevant here are Magnus putting his hand up on the glass and vibing w the voidfish, and this exhange b/w Johann and The Boys:

Johann: When I, um, can I ask you guys a question?

Magnus: Sure.

Taako: Of course, Johann.

Johann: Are you guys really okay with, with this part of the deal?

Magnus: That we get forgot?

Taako: Which part?

Johann: Yeah, are you cool with like, if you beef it down there, the world just forgets about you?

Magnus: Well, I’m not planning on ever dying.

in the podcast, bc Avi isn’t there, Angus operates the cannons (Avi showed him how before he left). he is extremely nervous about it and about killing them on accident. once they’re in the orb taako casts stoneskin on himself “just in case”, but everything works out totally fine, though avi mentions when The Boys land that the stoneskin should’ve thrown off the trajectory.

the gn keeps the spirit of taako trusting no one without the angus psychological damage by having him just cast a better version of the spell angus cast, and I am a fan.

the leveling up stats aren’t right in the book, as I’m sure every dnd 5e nerd has already tweeted about.

they’re all level 10, so magnus should be a level 8 fighter and a level 2 rogue bc 2+8=10, while the other two boys are still just a level 10 cleric and a level 10 wizard bc they didn’t multiclass.

fantasy costco-wise: aside from the stuff they have in the book (all things they do own in the podcast, though hole-thrower and the feather-weight cuirass were from the fantasy gachapon), merle picks up matthias the living grimoire, magnus gets the magnetic charge and the tarantula bracelet, and taako gets the arcane trickster’s glove (no wiki page rip it just gives you some arcane trickster powers) and mockingbird gum.

they beat up the baby worms more before letting them go, it’s a full battle

Ch. 2

in the podcast, when they go through the barrier, they find themselves in an empty white space where they see an old woman holding the cup. she says “It’s you!” with recognition upon seeing them, and then says “find me” before they wake up.

important: every time the boys die in the podcast, they go back to this space briefly before waking up.

sometimes the woman gives a cryptic message, sometimes not, and in their later loops, the woman collapses, breathing heavily.

we find out in the end that this woman is June - she has a whole extended de-aging sequence later that they probably cut so poor Carey didn’t have to do a bajillion character models for June at different ages just for a few panels of dramatic effect.

pg 36 - to head off any dnd 5e nitpickers, Magnus does not have proficiency in rustic hospitality, since that’s not a skill. Magnus does have a character feat called “Rustic Hospitality” that he chose at level 1.

claiming to have proficiency in things you can’t possibly have proficiency in is a longstanding goof both in taz and among people who play dnd 5e in general, because it’s funny.

in the book, they intercut each loop with a scene from lunar interlude 3, and it works really really well. we’ll get to those scenes as they come up.

Is this the first time someone uses he/him for The Red Robe in the gn series? (Roswell says ‘his’)

in the podcast Roswell mentions having never met the visitor, and comments “I say “he”, but I don’t know.”

in the GN, when The Boys tell the director about The Red Robe in CK they use they/them pronouns and so does the director, but after this, even @ the end of the book after Taako guesses that The Red Robe they’ve been talking to isn’t the same Red Robe from Refuge, he and the other boys continue to use he/him for The Red Robe.

“Mystic Analysis”

he just did an arcana check in the podcast, I don’t think Taako had Identify as a spell, which is what the DND equivalent would be. 

they also don’t figure out that Roswell has a command word until much later, during the Diary Of Sheriff Isaak scene.

Griffin basically says “[they’re] an earth elemental, with a bird on [them], and earth elementals don’t generally have birds on them, so maybe it was just nearby when the spell was cast and got caught up in it”

Cassidy

in the podcast, she’s in jail for blowing up the temple of Istus, which she didn’t do.

GN Ren mentions later on that the temple got “un-built” which references how in the podcast the temple suddenly aged a matter of centuries in seconds, so from the outside it looked kind of explode-y. and cassidy is known for blowing shit up, so she was blamed. she also theorizes that it might be racism due to her half-orc heritage.

in the GN, cassidy’s arrested for trespassing on the closed mines, which she absolutely has done. it makes more sense, and eliminates a major plot point they cut from the book

she is otherwise pretty much the same, I love her very much

Paloma pretty much stays in her cottage in the podcast rather than sneaking around.

the fantastic exchange of “you guys have been here 45 minutes, what the fuck did you bring with you?!” “you should see what we can do in an hour!” is 100% verbatim from the podcast.

in the podcast, Ren is dead the first bank fire (and in most subsequent bank fires). she also wasn’t one of the bandits, or involved with the bank robbery at all

in fact, in the loop where The Boys were doing the bank robbery, she unexpectedly came in, recognized Taako, and almost blew their cover.

With so little time left on the clock, Taako cast Banishment on her to keep her safe and out of the way, but she made her saving throw - so it didn’t work, but she knew Taako tried to cast some spell on her, and there was a somber moment of her falling backwards trying to get away from him, tears in her eyes.

look it’s a good lil character moment

I can’t emphasize enough how brutal the first description of the bank fire and subsequent world-ending is. Griffin pulled 0 punches.

Magnus rushes in and he describes the scene like “you see a guy, who looks like this. they’re dead. you see two guards. they’re dead. you see a woman holding a tray of diamonds. she’s dead. you see this person, also dead. you see a dwarven bank teller. she might be alive, but it’s hard to tell, and if she was she is on the brink of death”

I think the boys, brogden, and maybe one of the purple-kerchief ruffians (which is how they are described in the podcast) survived the first one, and everyone else died in that bank. it felt so brutal listening to it the first time because you (and the boys) didn’t know about the loop yet, so it was just. horrifying.

I love how they pulled in off in the GN!!! the clock hands are just *chef kiss*

just before Griffin describes the destruction of Refuge, Travis interjects, “Ditto, did you base this on Majora’s Mask?”

while Griffin does not respond in the moment, he later confirms that Travis is correct.

Griffin’s description of the fiery deaths of The Boys: “And you’re being crushed by the shattered earth as it compresses down into the ground. And you hear an anguished scream come from something massive and furious, and all three of you have died…And there’s something about the dying that feels familiar.”

“and then you wake up.” hardcut to end of episode music. v epic.

Ch. 3 (i s2g they’re not all going to be this detailed the major plot differences are mostly out of the way now)

as mentioned, the scenes between each loop in the gn happen in Lunar Interlude III (transcript) (episode) - each of The Boys got to choose a scene to have in between arcs and Justin chose to have Taako give Angus magic lessons.

they’re all more abstract in the eps (Taako establishes a recurring time and place to give Angus lessons, and we get scenes from earlier vs later lessons, various shenanigans, etc.) but the major points are actually pretty much the same, just condensed into one scene in the book.

also taako giving magic lessons in his quarters makes 100% sense, but in the podcast they did it in the cafeteria, and that’s where the LUP is burned into the wall. significant? potentially.

in the podcast angus had made some macarons for taako but forgot to flavor them (he nailed the texture though which is hard to do in a macaron) so he asked taako to prestidigitate them better and then scorching ray happened and blasted em to shreds.

LUP. dude. I thought it was an acronym when I first heard it, bc in the podcast, Griffin says “So your staff, you lost control of it and you blasted the letters “L-U-P” into the wall.” Seeing it in cursive, all gorgeous and capitalized like a proper noun? knocked me the fuck out.

another dnd 5e tiny detail: in the gn, the description for Angus’ first wand says “wonderful stocking stuffer for the young sorcerer in your life”

i could have a whole conspiracy board about this.

skip this if you’re not super into dnd 5e mechanics

the difference (in dnd 5e) b/w a wizard, a warlock, and a sorcerer is:

wizard: gets magic from study and practice - taako is a wizard bc he studied spellcraft and learned how to do it.

warlock: gets magic from making a deal with something/someone far more magical than themselves - garfield is a warlock, so his magic stems from a deal he made with something (the devil??)

sorcerer: has innate magic within them.

this could come from a myriad of places, but usually from heritage or bloodline - maybe your great-grandfather was a god or a dragon or a demon or a djinn or something, or maybe your mom touched a weird rock as a kid and got magic powers that she passed onto you when she had you.

in the podcast, angus is only ever referred to as a wizard. makes sense - regular boy + magic training from taako = wizard boy.

but if he’s a sorcerer, the magic really was in him all along. is taako teaching him to channel it? does he know?

this also fits with a weirdly popular headcanon the taz community had for a while about angus secretly being a silver dragon (in dnd, color = different abilities, diff personality, etc, and silver ones like to shapeshift and pretend to be humans sometimes).

“draconic bloodline” is one of the most common sorcerer backgrounds - it basically just means ‘a dragon got involved at some point in this family tree, so now you can cast ray of frost’.

hmmmmmmm

end conspiracy theory

It is at this point that I lost my damn book. so. I’m just gonna post this bc the next graphic novel is coming out soon and I want to post it before then. If i find my book I’ll finish it up. If you have post-chapter 3 differences you noticed that aren’t already covered, feel free to reply/reblog with them!

Spoiler-y Observations Below!

CAUTION: contains spoilers for the rest of taz balance!

*voidfish speculation: my suspicion is that they’re using ‘she’ for the voidfish to foreshadow that they have a baby, so that makes them a “mother”? i call bullshit, but i’ve heard it used before as a justification for misgendering an enby who gives birth. obvs the voidfish is not a human being, people can have multiple pronouns, it’s not a 1:1 comparison, but i for one (as an enby myself) really liked the voidfish using they/them and feel oddly betrayed at them suddenly changing the pronouns. fingers crossed that there’s a different reason.

"what am statue” is low-key foreshadowing since magnus says it

merle knowing what relativistic time dilation is

LUP was burnt into the wall in the cafeteria in the podcast - lucretia would’ve seen it for sure. so they put it in taako’s room this time...

aw no ‘sorry about the cookies little man’

In 5 or however many years when gn series ends, someone should do a poll of people who only read the graphic novels and see if any of them pronounce “Lup” weird since they’ve only ever seen it written down.

hero wreathed in flames 0.0 I hope Joaquin is still there in the finale but I like the duality here

BATTLEAXEPROFICIENCYEASTEREGG

SNEAK PEEK AT THE HUNGER SNEAK PEEK AT THE STARBLASTER AAAAAAAA

257 - ‘I know him better than you could ever imagine’ because he created you? Oof ouch ow my bones. also....the magnus that made the cup was a very different person from magnus now. it’s not what Julia would want - the cup never met julia, obvs, and does not know the ways she changed him for the better.

Bottom of 327 - sweet Angus boy are you drawing something on that orb?

Istus is like you’ve been serving me your whole lives without knowing it in the podcast - maybe a bit too much foreshadowing for the GN

#dnd #taz #taz gn #taz graphic novel #the adventure zone #taz b #taz balance #taz b spoilers #taz balance spoilers #original post #ongoing

[hamliet]

Dear Hamliet, I've read some of your analysis and I really admire the way in which you articulate your thoughts. I'm a literature major who goes through a breakdown every time I have to write an essay. It is a really hard job for me and recently a proff told me that I rely too much on paraphrasing and I don't understand what to do with that.

So I was wondering if you have any tips on writing a well articulated argument.

Thanks in advance and hope you're having a great day! ☺️🫶

Thank you! And of course.

First of all, go easy on yourself. Learning to write good essays takes time and practice. I routinely got told the same thing about paraphrasing in high school, and then in college it was "you didn't answer 'so what?'" I was also incredibly hard on myself in college, and only realized that I actually liked writing arguments and essays after college. Probably has something to do with the fact that, while some people tend to refine under pressure, I crumble into a heap of anxiety. Lol.

Tips for Arguments: Thesis

Here are my first tips: come up with a good thesis and write an outline based on this, but also keep in mind that your thesis can be revised after you've written it should you find you were arguing something slightly different than you planned on.

Good thesis tips: should be debatable (for example, saying "Daenerys and Jon Snow are foils" is not debatable; they blatantly are). It should also answer "so what?" aka, why does what you're trying to argue matter? In terms of literature, specifically, you might want to tie it to the themes of the story or the historical context of the work, depending on the prompt, to explain that your argument affects how people read the work. For example, "Daenerys and Jon Snow foil each other in that they each deconstruct a particular archetype of the chosen one, which shows both the bad and the good of chosen one arcs; ultimately, Martin affirms the heroic goals of chosen one tropes."

You'll also hear "repeat your thesis in every body paragraph!" Which you should do (or paraphrase it, lol). But basically you want the last sentence of each argumentative point to explain why it proves your thesis.

Tip for Argument: Bluntness

You can never be too blunt in an essay. Particularly if you're writing in English, and particularly even more so if you're doing so in America (yes, culture does play a role in the levels of bluntness expected in an essay, and there are actual studies on this, as well as how culture affects essay structures!).

If you think it seems obvious, state it anyways. Don't worry about repetition so much. Worry instead about being too vague.

This is obviously a different idea than in creative writing, where subtext and "show, don't tell" get a lot of attention. Not so in academic writing. Tell us, even if you think you've shown us.

Tips for Avoiding Paraphrasing:

Think about your audience. It's hard to know specifically what you refer to, but I'm going to assume that you might be referring to the idea that you might be summarizing the book too much?

Your audience already knows the story. You aren't speaking to a rando on the street. Your audience is your professor.

Every piece of text you cite, be it a quote or a plot development, is evidence. They don't need the context of the broader work. Assume they already have it. They need evidence.

Context matters for you, insofar as authorial intent (your intent as the author of the essay) matters. Not for the audience perception. Basically, I'm saying don't take quotes out of context to make them seem like they support your thesis when they really don't, but you also don't need to explain in great detail why the context does support your thesis. Assume your professor is not a hostile audience who needs to be convinced because they believe the opposite of what you're arguing.

The other potential thing you might mean for paraphrasing is that you use brief paraphrases of the text rather than direct quotes. Where you can use direct quotes, always use them.

If you ever have specific questions on an essay, please feel free to reach out! And if any part of this isn't clear, also feel free to reach out!

#ask hamliet

[elatedandexasperated]

So there's been some discussion on RWRB actually being a "gay movie"

Most posts I've seen have more or less summarized that the movie is effectively a "straight romance" featuring a mlm coupling, which annoys me a bit. I can't say that this take is entirely wrong per say - I mean, I've called it basically a Hallmark movie, which I still think is true - but it's not devoid of queer experience like a lot of people seem to think it is...

and that "Hallmark" comparison, which I still stand behind, I feel comes more from structure than content.

You can take the film at face value or read deeper into it and still find a case for this argument. Most of this pertains to the movie alone, I'm personally in the camp that if you're going to analyze a piece of media, it should stand on its own. So while the book may have different expressions and levels of inclusion, remember, it's a book, not a 2-hour time boxed movie

Production

Right off the bat we have the movie's production. I'm not going into speculation on TZP or NG's sexuality out of respect, neither have confirmed or denied being part of the community and that's frankly their business and privacy. In a bit I will go into the text of the film regarding the characters, but I don't want to drag the actors into this any further than saying they did an excellent job portraying the characters.

Lopez, though, who is publicly out as gay, as well as McQuistion who is NB, have both put their messaging and perspectives on queer experience into the book and by extension the film and that much is very clear through things like the inclusion of Intimacy Coordinator Robbie Taylor Hunt (another Gay man) as a way of trying to keep the intimate scenes grounded and realistic. So in the production alone there were clear attempts to visually represent authentic queer experiences. I think this is honestly the main reason why the main relationship is so compelling: the actors vibed well with each other (to the point that it was the initial feud that seemed contrived and unrealistic, which is just hilarious to me) and the coordinator worked with everyone collaboratively to keep things grounded, realistic, and to prevent it from going too far into the realm of fetishization from a visual standpoint.

As for the writing, we obviously are going to see most of the relatable queer experiences pop up in the lead roles:

Henry

Henry's character is arguably where the representation of queer experience is most explicit - at least from a level that regular (read straight) viewers would get without a lot of hand holding. At a surface level there's the classic "what will my family think?" questioning and general anxiety of being outed. Most of us in the community can relate to that, but in all honesty this is pretty standard fare and not the meat and potatoes of why I wanted to write this, what I am now realizing, unreasonably long rant breakdown *inhales*

ANYWAY.

At a deeper level though, Henry's struggle isn't so much internal as it is external. Yes there's internal angst still about being able to love openly, but in the film it's pretty clear that a good chunk of his family is aware of his sexuality (the statement that the king had a conversation with him when he was 18, him being open with Bea, etc.); He's also pretty confident in his sexuality already (he fairly easily explains his sexuality to Alex, and has confidence in his sexual experience). I'll go into this when we talk about Alex more, but I think this stems from the characters being aged up, but what this also does is shifts the narrative from simply "coming out" to dealing with abusive relatives and power systems after you've come to terms with who you are as a person, and then finding the strength to actually fight them once you've built up your support network.

And progress isn't linear for anyone on this - we relapse, mourn old relationships with people and family we thought would support us, and sometimes silence ourselves because "it's easier"; we see this happen with Henry pretty explicitly when he runs from the lake house. The reconciliation with Alex isn't flawless either: Henry requests time and patience with things so he can slowly begin his process of actually tackling the issue of how his sexuality and relationship with Alex relates to and impacts his professional duties. Alex, in true found-family style, gives him the support that he both wants and needs at that point in the story.

Alex

Alex's portrayal in the film I think has been the more controversial of the two (Not in terms of actor choice, TZP is a fantastic actor... Also fine as hell but that's beside the point). Most people who read the book criticize his relatively short "Bi-panic" period and how they felt it was more fleshed out in the book. Again, we're dealing with a time boxed movie here, so obviously the book will have more details. That being said, I don't think it was as unrealistic as people make it out to be if you dig a bit. This part gets a bit speculative, but stick with me here.

While I can't relate to a Bi coming out being a gay man and all, I think people should look at some context regarding the character's background: Alex is an incredibly flirtatious, personable, and media-savvy character who is also steeped in left-leaning politics. He knows what bisexuality is and given that he had a few same-sex experiences, has probably come to terms with that before his conversation with Nora in her office. In that scene he even stated that being into guys was something he understood for himself, his main source of "panic" was more the realization that he was specifically into Henry, someone he was actually angry and antagonistic with for several years.

As for why he seemed trepid first telling Henry he was Bi, and this is speaking from experience, there's a huge difference between coming to terms with who you're attracted to and putting a label on it for the first time, even to yourself. I think TZP acted that awkwardness well, especially in the Paris scene where, to shift gears a bit, the driving queer experience is Alex's inexperience with going that far with other guys, something most of us go through at some point. And again, in good, supportive fashion, Henry guides Alex through the process without judgement.

Alex and Henry

Both Alex and Henry are older in the movie than they are in the book, a fact that Lopez confirmed via interview. Even though it's only a few years, there's a huge difference in understanding your identity between your late-teens/early 20s and your mid 20s (generally speaking, people can come out at any age and that's completely fine. Everyone deserves to come out at their own pace and in their own way). With this, I think they did a good Job shifting the narrative from the more internal conflict of "who am I", which is very common in teen-centered dramas, to the more nuanced experience of figuring out how "Who I am" is going to impact your relationships and professional life, which I think is more befitting older characters. With Alex, it's how it will look to voters/impact on his mother's reelection AND how it impacts Henry's professional responsibilities; with Henry, it's his duties to the royal family and appearances.

*PHEW*

There's a lot more too when you dig. A personal... Um, well "favorite" isn't a great word, but you get my point - is how some members of the community will actively sabotage others for personal gain: Miguel outing them for the sake of professional ambitions (and maybe some light petty retribution for Alex dumping him, wherein Alex was justified) is unfortunately a pretty common experience.

I'm sure that there will be more to add for this if there's a sequel, which I hope there is and that they bring McQuiston in for (talk about marketing: she writes the outline based on the movie and the novel based on the first book which releases at the same time as the second movie. People would go nuts I'm sure).

Asides

We as a community spent years reading into media to find scraps of representation because that's all we could get, but I think we're not great at reading into it with more explicit movies that, while maybe building themselves off of "traditional" genre frameworks, still have those queer experiences. I think we set our standards too high sometimes because we are so starved for representation. What we got in this movie is, at least in my opinion, decent representation and authentic experiences for many people in our community, it's just subtle and maybe requires a deeper read of a character or scene. I picked up on some of these points and I hope other people can see some of the arguments I'm making here.

As a complete aside, I think we've been brainwashed a bit to think that "queer experiences = struggle" automatically and we're too quick to disregard queer media as "not gay enough" if there's not a suitable amount of angst or a particular identity isn't represented (This is NOT me minimizing the struggles of the LGBT+ community, just making a statement that maybe we shouldn't hinge our identities and portrayals in media on such negative experiences). Gay stories don't have to be tragic or full of existential crisis as it pertains to our identity. And while maybe unrealistic, some good fluff is healthy to see alongside the angst. As we progress as a culture and we become more accepted, struggle hopefully becomes less and less a unifying aspect of queer identity and we'll be able to see that reflected in our media.

tl;dr

I think the movie has more going for it in terms of queer experience than people give it credit for, it's just not what's typically seen in visual media and is buried in there a bit deeper. Just because it's a "Hallmark movie" structurally and plays into tropes doesn't mean it's not gay.

#rwrb #rwrb movie #red white and royal blue #matthew lopez #robbie taylor hunt #alex claremont diaz #henry fox mountchristen windsor #long reads #ramblings