No arbitrary debates about what he "should" have achieved can ever take away what Neymar means to the game. He inspired a generation to see football not just as a matter of wins and losses but as an art form. The seat next to Ronaldinho is taken. And it's the boy from Mogi das Cruzes who occupies it.

Football-mad teenagers the world over stayed up on shoddy Brazilian streams just for the boy with the Mohawk and the nasal strips. And for those who needed to sleep, the next day YouTube compilations made sure that everyone knew exactly what audacious skill he pulled off the night before.

While others left Brazil early, hellbent on proving themselves in the European game. Neymar seemed to understand more than most that it isn't really about how where you play the game that attracts an audience. It's about how you play it.

The very embodiment of Joga Bonito. His game so beautiful that the only way to combat it was through brute force. While some hold his injury record against him, watch back any of the horror tackles he used to receive routinely and it starts to make more sense. The violence that his artistry inspired ultimately became his downfall. An irony so bittersweet that it could only be devised by the football gods.

In any other era, he'd have a Ballon d'Or. But is it really such a big deal that he doesn't? A Champions League trophy, Puskás Award, Copa Libertadores, and ten league titles is a career that most can only dream of. And with Pele's record for Brazil only a goal away from being his, his importance to A Seleção Canarinha will soon be a matter of historical record. No matter what the naysayers have to say about it.

In an age when players are increasingly becoming robotic, we seem to forget that we've been graced with a genius whose talents could never be boiled down to numbers. A career that should be celebrated, not put under a microscope.

You can debate as much as you like. But don't let the discourse keep you from enjoying Neymar. For all his talents and all his faults. Because when it's over, there won't be anyone like him again.

Credit: Copa90 | Via Instagram

(Dark! LC) - Date Gone Wrong

Pairing: Dark Luke Castellan x (female) Reader

▶ This is a yandere/dark work and it may contain triggering content so please READ THE WARNINGS before. Do not read if minor.

More at Masterlist

Female reader

WARNINGS: Consensual Oral (f receiving); Implied Future Noncon.

I've been posting way too much (my drafts are crying right now) but since it's Friday I HAVE to post something. So here it is, enjoy 😊

--

His lips sucked around your glistening pearl, tongue lapping at you with steady strokes.

Your hands gripped the thin picnic sheet underneath you, fingers bunching the fabric as the coil in your lower belly tightened. 

“I told you it’d feel good.” Luke’s raspy voice sent vibrations through your core and your body shuddered at the pleasant feeling, a shaky breath exiting your lips. “It’s gonna feel even better soon, trust me.”

It was strange to be in such an intimate position with Luke - your crop top bunched on your chest while your shorts and panties were somewhere thrown around the wet grass of the clearing, the camp counselor with his head buried in your pussy.

You certainly hadn’t expected him to ask you out, especially considering you had recently broken-up with your long-time boyfriend.

But your siblings insisted you needed to relax and have a fun time, and you quickly found yourself agreeing to it. You had expected some shallow kisses to take place, maybe even a bit of touching over the clothes but you were far from imagining Luke to deliciously attack your pussy like this, even though you were adamant on taking things slowly.

A whiny gasp left your lifts as his ministrations turned more insistent, more intense as if he was hell bent on making you come right there, right now and you soon felt yourself melting into the fire that was growing in your core, lips parted as you struggled to inhale properly.

It only took a few more moments for you to completely fall apart, fireworks exploding inside you as the orgasm runned over you, leaving you satisfied and limp.

You felt lighter, all tension leaving your muscles as you laid with your eyes closed, the peaceful nighttime sounds of trees and crickets bringing relaxation to you.

“Told you I was gonna make you feel good.” Luke’s cocky words have you smiling and he pressed a light kiss on your sensitive clit.

He laughs at your pout, the harmonious sound soaring through the quiet air.

You were jolted out of your blissful stupor when the clicking sounds of a belt being opened reached your ears, causing you to open your eyes instantly.

When you looked down, your heart sinked at the sight of Luke between your legs, undoing his pants. You pushed your elbows to elevate your body before pulling your legs up and away from him.

“Luke, stop.” your voice came out borderline hysterical, red flags and warning bells ringing in your head at the rushed actions, “I’m not- I didn’t come for that.”

Luke barely paid you any attention, his focus concentrated on pulling out the belt and pants.

The panic builded inside you and your eyes frantically searched for the discarded pieces of clothing, hoping to at least find your shorts. 

“Luke, I’m not doing this.” 

The sound of a plastic package being ripped terrified you and in the spur of the moment, your body moved on its own accord, moving to push yourself on your feet.

A second later, you were forcefully being pulled back, the wind being knocked out of your body as your back met the ground with a thud. 

“Luke, stop!” 

Luke ignored you, hand wrapped around your ankle as he tugged you towards him. The gloomy moonlight sent little help for you to see, but the smirk on Luke’s face was clear as day.

It made you feel helpless, tears pooling in your eyes as you writhed to free yourself. 

“Luke..”

“We were having fun earlier, right? You’ve had your turn.” he said, aggressively dragging all of your body in his direction. “Now it’s mine.”

His hands came for your wrists, securing them in his hold despite your attempts to push and kick him off you. 

“Luke, please, please.” you begged with loud sobs, aiming a failed kick to his groin that Luke easily dodged. “I’m gonna tell everyone about this if you don’t stop.”

Your threat doesn’t repercussionate the desired effect and Luke only chuckled.

“Think that’s gonna stop me? No one would believe you, you know.” he twisted your wrist meanly, drawing a screech from you, “They’d think you’re crazy. That you mistook me for someone else.” 

Luke pushed all of his weight to your body, his legs settling between yours after he punctured a mean kneeling to your thigh.

“They’d say it was dark. That you didn’t even see who did it in this pitch black darkness. That you imagined it was me. That some other boy caught you after I left.”

You felt the air escaping, feeling suffocated underneath his oppressive weight. Luke wasn’t heavy but in the current circumstances, it felt as if he was a brick of cement, and you slowly allowed your body to go limp, feeling utterly tired of fighting off Luke when in the end you wouldn’t come out victorious.

The reality of what was going to happen sinking in, the tears increasing and blurring your vision in the slightest.

“And then everyone will forget about you. About your little accident. As if it never happened. But you and I will know.”

In such constricted proximity, the scar on his right cheek felt more prominent than ever, like he was an animal.

A predator that had finally gotten his claws on the prey. 

“It’s okay, don’t cry. You’ll enjoy this.” he assured you, his hand  and a shiver ran down your spine when something warm and leaking touched your inner thigh.

"I know you will.”

Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc

The recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by student climate leaders! Join Aishah-Nyeta Brown & Jerome Foster II and be inspired by student climate leaders as we recognize the High School Student finalists. Watch now to find out which student received the $25,000 grand prize and top recognition!

20 Questions for Writers

Thanks so much for the tag, @lyntergalactic! :D I feel like I've done this before, but it must have been a whole ago. It looks fun! (also, I'm pasting just the questions at the bottom of the post if anyone wants to copy those)

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 247, though I'm not really sure what the ratio is for images versus fics... Okay, apparently, 97 of them are tagged with 'fanart' and have fewer than 100 words, so somewhere around 100 image-only works and 147 fics.

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 1,141,145; which includes a few collabs and fics for which I just contributed an image.

3. What fandoms do you write for? TCW exclusively 😅 Though I've done a handful of images for other things like Arcane, Dune, Trigun, The Expanse, House of the Dragon...

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? A bunch of my works with the most kudos are images, but if we're talking fics, then I think it's just some of my oldest ones...

That’s Not How It Happened (This Is How It Happened) - Fives arc fix-it and my first fic.

Orbital Decay - Codywan that I haven't edited since I posted it, so I can't vouch for the quality.

Modulation - Another one I haven't touched since I posted it, but it's an 'Echo gets rescued much earlier than in canon and he and Fives reunite' fix-it of sorts.

Will You Walk With Me? - Waxer's pov from the start of the war to the (fix-it) end, and it mostly focuses on his and Boil's friendship (Waxer & Boil or Waxer/Boil pre-relationship - take your pick). Even though this certainly isn't the best thing I've written, it's my baby. 🧡

Interference - Umbara fix-it featuring minor canon characters and some necessary OCs in the first chapter, then more major canon characters later.

More stuff below the cut, since this is a long list...

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Probably You're Just Harder to See Than Most, which ends very sadly on its own, but it's part of a larger fix-it including Modulation above, so Fives and Echo get reunited.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Pfff like basically all of them, idk XD;

8. Do you get hate on fics? No, just on one sketch dump, where someone went through 6 chapters of spicy cloneshippy images and then decided they needed to complain about it being gross and immoral 🤣 It was hysterical kjlksahfg

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Oh yes, I'm a certified smut goblin. Not really sure what the question means by 'what kind,' but I guess 'porn with feelings' is probably the AO3 tag that would most accurately describe all of the smut I've written XD

10. Do you write crossovers? Nope.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes! :D

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? Hm, I suppose if we're defining that as like, "what ship have you intensely shipped for the longest amount of time," it would be destiel? I was veeeeeery into that ship for many years.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I've had one wip sitting around for over a year, and for a while I was thinking I wasn't going to get back to it ever. But I made a little vibes playlist for it and had some help brainstorming, so I'm hopeful I can start tackling it again after I get some current stuff drafted.

16. What are your writing strengths? Starting something and working on it until it's finished.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I have a lot of trouble generating ideas on my own.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I think it's fine as long as it's either A. very short and clear from context or B. for some reason, the writer is intending to confuse the reader and obfuscate what was said. I know I've said it before, but I'm not gonna scroll to the bottom of a fic every few paragraphs to find the translations for whole phrases or sentences. If the amount of 'other language' starts making the dialogue difficult to follow, I'm just gonna nope out.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Technically, I wrote one thing for Gundam Wing back in like 2000, but I can't even remember what I did with it or what it was about, exactly. Other than that, TCW.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? flsdlfg that's really difficult... idk man, if it's quality we're talking about rather than sentimentality, I'd say it's a toss-up between these three 😅:

My Heart's Red Muscle - Canon-divergent AU where Waxer is a cyborg.

Kinktober 2022 - Character studies/development through smut, where Waxer and Boil find a list of sexy things to try out, so it's kind of meta. It's from my main Open Skies AU, and I'm weirdly proud of this one XD;

We Could Breathe Underwater - Force-sensitive Waxer and Boil AU

Phew! Okay this took me like three sessions to answer, but it was fun :)

No-pressure tags: anyone who sees this and wants to do it, plus @lizardberries @elismor @bilbosmom-belladonna @valkeakuulas @petrifiedforests @marbled-polecat @writegowrite @sophronist @marbled-polecat @ivalane

20 Questions for Writers

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

3. What fandoms do you write for?

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

5. Do you respond to comments?

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

10. Do you write crossovers?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

16. What are your writing strengths?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

19. First fandom you wrote for?

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

@akchimp75 you sent me an ask a week or two ago asking about my steampunk story and I saved it until I had plenty of time to write about it and tonight I wrote up this whole big post but when I saved it to my drafts, tumblr ate it instead. So here is the rewritten version of it. (Ehehehe I hope you're ready cuz it's infodump time.)

My eldritch steampunk story is called Tenth Generation. Once upon a time on a recently terraformed planet called Arona, there lived in a steampunk civilization, a diverse people of many different species (humans, pixies, cyborgs, anthropomorphs, human-animal chimeras, etc.) and many different genders and sexualities.

There are three main story arcs to the series (of books or graphic novels):

Arona fighting for independence from the organization responsible for terraforming, colonizing, and protecting the planet and exploiting it's resources to supply a distant space war

The main characters seeking the jobs they want

Everyone trying to solve the mystery of why there's a bunch of eldritch beasts running around the dark corners of the city when no eldritch beasts were brought over on the colony ships...

The main characters are:

Tempest Shields: a 15 year old roguish genderfluid (defaults to girl) who is nonverbal autistic. She dreams of becoming an airship engineer or pilot but it isn't feasible at this time due to her disability.

Timothy Shields: an 18 year old human-canary chimera who has a burning interest in religion and the occult. His desire is to become a cleric or an exorcist. He and Tempest grew up together on the streets and in an orphanage and adopted each other as siblings.

Timber of the Skies: (age undecided) Tempest's biological sister. They were separated from each other when they were young and have led very different lives. Timber is an airship pirate and her goal is to become the Pirate Queen of the Skies. Timber isn't in the story in the beginning but comes in later; one of the main story arcs is about Timber and Tempest restoring their sibling relationship. She doesn't have autism but she does have some kind of behavioural issue.

Some side characters include:

Detective Rory Poofypants (actual last name undecided). A fully transitioned transmasc detective in the city of Stormcairn. He is investigating the strange eldritch beast sightings and the bizarre stories of hysterical people who claim that they were temporarily transported to a dark realm, the home of the monsters. Rory also ends up frequently wrangling Tempest back to their home or tutor as they get into mischief around the city.

Kestrel Wothen: the young adult enby who is fabulous and extra and loves all things shiny and colorful. They spend all their money to buy an old mansion which (once the gang puts the resident ghosts to rest) serves as the home base of the crew as they investigate the eldritch mystery of the city.

Zakiyah Lee: a rich and beautiful aroace young adult. She's as sharp as a whip and fascinated by all things dark. By day, she's a student at the university, and by night, an amateur detective. Slowed only by her dysautonomia, she eventually leads the revolution against the Exploration World and (spoilers) eventually becomes Queen of the World. (Her cat's name is Bastet and there's more to her than it seems.)

Unnamed Pixie girl (possibly not a girl) age 14. She is a street urchin and becomes good friends with Tempest and helps her get into mischief. She has alopecia and sometimes chooses to wear a headscarf and other times doesn't wear any sort of head covering. Her wings get stolen by an eldritch beast, but Timothy rescues the wings and returns them to her.

Tempest's unhinged tutor. She lost her last tutoring gig because her pupil got eaten by a tiger (no fault of her own). She is middle aged and actually has red hair but the picrew didn't have a red hair option. Is mainly concerned (at least initially) with helping Tempest learn to communicate better through a combo of sign language and AAC.

And last but not least, Dominic. He's a 12 or 13 year old boy and he's got magic hands. He's a child prodigy and the only known wielder of backwards magic AKA eldritch magic. A rich benefactor (not in this list) sponsors him and supplies his every need on the condition that he continues to practice and grow his magical ability so that it can be monetized. Dominic becomes good friends with Tempest and Pixie girl. His older brother is Kestrel's boyfriend.

Matryoshka Doll & Wooden Soldiers writing update #1

I'm here to share some excerpts from the first chapter! You can find the WIP post for this story here if you want a more thorough introduction, but it’s essentially a retelling of Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King with elements of steampunk and magical curses weaved throughout. This post is pretty short because I’m a bit picky with my own writing, but I hope you enjoy regardless!!

So the first chapter is mostly dedicated to establishing the situation/setting, Clara’s character and her relationship with her mother. For context, Clara’s been sent off to go live in the city with her godfather, Drosselmeyer, and this is the opening paragraph!

Clara Stahlbaum never defended her mother’s state of mind, lest she also be labeled a hysterical woman. She’d packed a single suitcase and taken the first train out of Marburg’s countryside, not to pursue womanhood nor stardom the way her mother had, but to “seek respite”, as her father put it. Very few traveled further north during the month of November. Winter’s reach had expanded with each year, powdering the land in white to claim every valley and pine forest as her own. Godfather Drosselmeyer would regularly report on the local rumors within the city in his letters–about the snowflakes acting as spies for a fairy queen further north, or that a vengeful curse had overtaken the land–and Clara read each and every one of them as thrilling stories before bed. Such rumors aside, the harsh winters didn’t frighten her, but spring had never felt as distant as it did now, as Clara steps onto the locomotive that will plunge her deeper into winter’s grasp.

Honestly, I’m always very unsure of how to start a story, and I’m still not completely sold on this first paragraph, but I think it functionally does what I want it to do, so I’ll probably rephrase and restructure it in a different draft.

This is just a random excerpt that I sort of liked:

Her mother had always said that to get all the strands of Clara’s hair slicked back and neatly assorted into a tight bun was an undertaking, as if her hair refused to comply with the disciplines of ballet, her hairline embellished with golden baby curls in defiance. In her mother’s absence, Clara had wondered if her hair would refuse to be slicked back into a bun ever again.

I will probably move this part to a different chapter at some point ^^;

Here’s an excerpt of Clara reminiscing on the train. It’s a continuation of the previous excerpt except I have no plans of moving this part (for now). 

The scene of her mother bowing on stage as the applause drowns out all other sound, even her own heartbeat, is fresh in Clara’s mind despite its age, onlookers tossing out fresh bouquets of camellia and sealed yellowed envelopes to proclaim their admiration for the prima ballerina. Such admirers had remarked how Clara was the spitting image of her mother. She believed that anytime she watched her mother’s performance, she’d been staring straight into her own future, and she held onto that promise with pride. But then her mother’s hair grayed, her eyes sunken in, and her skin clung to her bones in a way that could only be considered flattering on a young woman. The convictions that once made her attractive and lively made her difficult to work with, the perfectionism that once made her brilliant made her controlling, and Clara could no longer aspire to such a future.

Initially, I want to present Clara’s retirement from ballet as if it was something she did by choice to avoid her mother’s fate, because that’s exactly how she copes with her injury (which is the actual cause behind her early retirement). She’s mentally trying to reframe her retirement as something she did by choice, rather than something she did out of necessity, because she already has a bunch of reasons she could have chosen to retire early.

That’s all I really had to share from the first chapter since I’m still reconstructing it, but I hope it wasn’t too short/long of a read! I’d love to make a post about character creation or constructing character psychology or something along those lines one day, so maybe I’ll do that if it’s something people would be interested in? Or anything fairytale related, let me know!

Tag list: @sam-glade @strangerays @writing-is-a-martial-art @amywrites256​ @eurydicefades​ @serenanymph

Let me know if anyone would like to be removed/added to the tag list for writing updates and additional content for this wip!

in his room | vh

side note: i wasn’t trying to make nailea a homewrecker, this has just been sitting in my drafts for a while lol.

Y/n walks into the house w Vinnie's keys & sees Micheal, Kovur, and Mia at the table.

"Hey, sorry to just barge in. is Vinnie here? He left his keys at my house and he said he wasn't feeling well so i brought him some stuff." She said holding up the bag.

"Vinnie's upstairs." Mia said.

"MIA!" Micheal screamed. "Y/n wait don't go up there."

"Is something wrong?"

Vinnie and Nai walk down the staircase together smiling. Their faces dropping as they saw the shocking look on her face.

"Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't realize you had company." She said handing him the bag.

"Baby it isn't what it looks like I promise."

"I came to bring you this because you texted and said you weren't feeling well. I'm just gonna go." She said as she quickly walked out of the door.

"Please don't leave. Let me explain." Vinnie said as he chased her outside.

He caught up to her and wrapped his arms around her pulling her close to him.

"I just wanted to see you. I shouldn't have came." She whispered.

"Please, listen I didn't do anything I swear."

"Vinnie-"

"No listen. I wouldn't hurt you, you know that right?"He said staring directly into her eyes.

"V let me go please."

"No I'm not letting you go. Not until you understand."

"Please." She whispered avoiding his gaze.

The last the last thing she needed was to hysterically cry in front of him and the others.

He realized he had hurt her. He let go and watch as she drove away.

Two weeks had passed since they had spoken to each other. Neither of them had posted on social media or left their homes, feeling like complete crap.

Nailea and Vinnie had both tried to call her to explain why she was up in his room but she ignored all their calls not wanting to talk to them.

She had woken up that morning wanting to talk. She missed Vinnie so much and felt like she owed it to him to let him explain.

She took a shower and headed over to Vinnie's. She knocked on the door and Micheal answered.

"Y/n! Hi!" She could tell he was shocked to see her.

"Hey, is V upstairs?" She asked walking against the threshold.

"Yeah, he hasn't came out in days. He's sorry, ya know."

"Yeah I know." She said looking at her feet.

"Hey!" She looked up to see more of his friends coming to greet her.

She said hello to them all and went up to Vinnie's room desperately wanting to get away from them all.

She knocked on the door and got no answer, which was expected. She punched in the code to his door and went in.

He was laying on his side sleeping with Hera cuddled up against him making her smile. Her smile dropping when she saw the state he was in.

She took a seat on his bed next to him running her hands through his hair then running her fingers over his dark circles.

Without opening his eyes, Vinnie grabbed her other hand squeezing it before bringing it to his lips.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, "it was nothing I swear."

He sat up and pulled her into his lap. She took her hand and put it on his shoulder, laying her head on his chest.

"Did you kiss her?" She asked quietly.

"No I promise we didn't do anything. She had a fight with this guy she's talking to and asked for my help. It was nothing. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”

"Okay."

"Okay?" Vinnie asked.

"Okay. You said that you didn't do anything, I believe you." She said looking up at him. “I just went so crazy when I saw you with her. The constant shipping and everything is really getting to me.”

She knew she needed to trust him and not think everyone is out to get her.

“I know they can be extreme but they’re just a bunch of thirteen year olds with nothing to do. If something was going on, I would’ve told you.”

He put his hand on her cheek planting a kiss on her lips. He said resting his forehead against hers.

“God, I love you so much. You have no idea.” He whispered.

“I love you more baby.” She said cuddling more into his chest.

feedback is accepted lol.

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

suna rintaro is NOT a genius.

summary: you loved the idea of soulmates. suna rintaro didn’t. it isn’t that hard to put two and two together to realize that maybe people with different opinions on things don’t belong together.

part 2

a/n: this was literally supposed to be a series, i gave up on it because i just didn’t like the way it turned out. it used to be called “out of my league” and this was the intro. i also renamed it. just emptying drafts!! please don’t get confused with the random timeskip, once again, this was a part of a series i never ended up posting😭

WARNING!!: suggestive themes, mentions of death, idk kinda angsty but tell me if i missed anything

Soulmates. Whatever the hell that means. The idea of soulmates is something I truly don’t understand. It’s bullshit, honestly. It’s all-pervasive.

My mother always told me I'd eventually find "the one.” I used to believe that when I was younger of course. But in my opinion? It’s all cliches. It's unhelpful, and it's certainly not true. Destiny is an excuse for the weak. Why do you think most marriages end in divorce? It's 'cause people who believe they are “destined to be" assume everything will fall into place without any effort. I don't appreciate people pontificating bullshit like that just to make me feel better, especially if they haven't found their "soulmate" themselves. My sister once told me, “People who believe in soulmates are more likely to break up and encounter more difficulty in their relationship, which will lead them to give up on one another eventually.”

I sure do believe that.

My mother is a prime example. Fumeiko Suna, my dear mother. Well, she clearly hasn’t found hers. I found out when I came home after a tedious day of school in 5th grade and found my dear mother on the floor crying, with bruises all over her face and a busted lip.

Initially, I thought a burglar had broken into our home once again, but if that were the case then there would’ve been missing furniture. But there wasn’t.

In fact, the place seemed cleaner than usual. When I ran up to her and asked her what had happened, there he was. The devil himself. My father. He reeked of alcohol, and I could detect his shadow towering over me. It’s funny how that I think of it. I used to fear that son of a bitch. Now, I’m way taller than him, and hate his guts. I turned around to see a faux-sympathetic smile plastered on his face.

He explained how my mother was being “clumsy” and had fell and busted her lip on one of the corners of the kitchen table and when I turned back around to face my mother, she smiled gently and nodded in agreement. She didn’t say anything after that.

It was then I realized my father had beat my mother to a pulp.

Long story short, when I found it was my father, sure, I was frightened. In fact, I remember going into my siblings’ rooms to inform them, they shrugged it off and told me that dad had been doing it for a while now.

Over time, when my dad had found out that I was aware, he didn't mind beating the absolute shit out of my mother in front of all three of us. This was when my burning hatred for that man started. Nobody in the house even attempted to stop him. I did a few times, though. He took all his anger out on me. At least my mom had a break for the day.

I almost pitied my mother. Almost. Maybe if she was strong enough to leave him, then yeah, I’d feel bad. But she still decides to stay with his sorry ass. It’s pathetic. It’s unrequited love or whatever you call it. How could she still love that asshole?

I mean, I’m not even going to lie, I’m an asshole too, but I’m definitely not my dad. I would never want to be him. He’s not someone I looked up to, he doesn’t do anything inspirational. He’s a businessman. He travels the majority of the time, and I’m pretty sure my mom invites men over when he’s gone. I don’t care enough to find out. But if I ever hear some guy rearranging my mom’s guts, I’ll kill him. I don’t even blame my mother. What she’s doing is wrong, she knows it and so do both of my older siblings. But they don't seem to care so why should I?

Who knows why she just won’t leave him. Maybe it’s cause they don’t want to ruin how people view our “picture perfect” family. I wonder what they’d say. “I thought the Suna’s were the ideal family? I guess not.”

My dad would probably lose it if he heard that.

Both my mother and my father are the cause of this broken family of mine. They never fed me or any of my siblings the love we always desired when we were younger. They never came to any of my volleyball games when I was younger. They never applauded me for the little recitals we’d have in class in primary school. They were never even here for most of my childhood. They always put money first and left us with the housekeepers. Hell, the housekeepers probably know me better than my own parents.They failed as parents. I despise them for it. They’re most likely the reason I am the way I am, but to be honest?

I don’t give a fuck.

In fact, I should thank them! Because of how they “raised” me, i’m extremely blunt, which is why people respect me. I use the hatred I have for my family and take it out on people and no, I’m not proud of that. I may be a heartless asshole, but I like that people fear me. The hell? Does that make me a sadist? Either way, people know to never fuck with me cause I’d fuck their shit up. I’ve overheard many people say it’s ‘cause of my privilege. It probably is. Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure can buy you many other things.

If my parents were broke, I’d probably be expelled from school by now. Abuse of alcohol and drugs are forbidden on school property. I don’t even take them at school, I somewhat care about my education and health, but sometimes I just need to blow some steam. Even if I did, nobody’s gonna say shit since my dad is the head of Japan’s board of education. How did his ass even get there?

Call me lonely or cynical. Maybe I am. But how is that a bad thing? Why do people need a significant other to rely on? What, a soulmate is just going to turn my life upside down then suddenly bring me happiness? Pfft, I’m gonna need actual proof that shit like that still happens. I’ve only seen shit like that in fairy tale movies. It’s whatever, though. I can live with being alone. I’ve basically been alone my whole life and it isn’t as bad as people make it.

You loved the idea of having a soulmate. The thought of meeting someone who just understood you, accepted you for who you were, and most importantly, loved you excited you. You couldn’t wait to meet your soulmate.

But recently, you weren’t sure soulmates existed.

When your older sister, Akira, came into your room and burst into tears, it frightened you. Your older sister, the one who’d always provide you advice on relationships and how to keep one was in your room sobbing hysterically because hers hadn’t worked out.

“I just can't believe it,” she sobbed.

You couldn’t believe it either. Your sister had recently gotten engaged to her boyfriend of 9 years. They started dating at the age of 15 and managed to make things work out even after high school, and out of all those years of dating, they never broke up. Not even once.

They’d go on romantic dates on Saturdays and they’d always write love letters to one another every day, just to remind one another of how grateful they were to have each other in their lives. On Halloween, they’d dress up as fictional characters from TV shows and books and take cute selfies and bake a bunch of sweets. They’d invite you to come bake with them, but you would politely deny. You knew they were only offering so you wouldn’t feel left out, which you appreciated.

Of course, they’d argue every now and then, but at the end of the day, they always managed to talk things out. Oh to have a relationship like theirs. They were everything you wanted to have in a relationship and more.

“I really thought he was the one for me, y’know?” No, you don’t know. But that doesn't matter. What mattered was cheering your sister up.

“Maybe he wasn’t ‘the one’ Akira, and that’s okay! People come and go all the time, soulmates come and go all the time as well-”

“You still believe soulmates are real, huh?” she let out a humorless laugh and sniffed her nose, “What If I missed my one shot at love, Y/N? What if I lost my soulmate?”

That’s some deep shit.

Now that you think about it, were soulmates real? Soulmates come and go, yes, you’re aware of that, but even though they leave, it’s always temporary. Soulmates always find a way back to their other half, the piece that completes them.

Your dad never made it back to your mother.

He died in a car crash 5 years ago. Your mother and father had been arguing because she claimed your father was cheating on her since he wouldn’t let her check his phone.

You were 13 at the time. Your sister Akira was accompanying you in your room, listening to them arguing back and forth with one another. There was furniture flying across the room, glass breaking, and both of them throwing curses at each other. You were scared. They never argued in front of you and your sister. They'd bicker sometimes, but it was never anything too deep.

Eventually, your father had enough of your mother’s false accusations, and out of anger, he packed his things and left home. For weeks. It wasn’t until one of your uncles called your mother and broke the news. She didn’t take it very well.

Late 2012-early 2013.

Not many people came to your father’s funeral, his family didn’t like the fact that he and your mother were together, they said your mother was trouble, but your dad still stayed with her, even if that meant it would completely destroy the bond he had with his family. Now that’s true love, you had thought. Only your mother, Akira, the Sunas, your uncle, and you, of course, attended the funeral.

It hurt a lot. It hurt when your mother informed both your grandparents on your mother and father’s side and all they could do is put the blame on her. It hurt how they had claimed you, Akira and your mother were a hindrance to your dear father’s well-being. How could they be so cruel at a time like this?

That was the first time you ever questioned if soulmates were real. Maybe they fell in love at the wrong time? Who knows.

After your father’s passing, Fumiko Suna, your mother’s best friend, was there to help your family out financially. Your mother couldn’t even find the motivating to go to work. Your mother and Fumiko have been best friends since junior high, they’ve literally been inseparable ever since. In fact, after they both got married, they decided to live right next to each other.

Your mom didn’t cope with your father’s death very well; none of you did. But your mom had it the worst.

She would cope with alcohol and clubbing which would always result in her bringing different men home almost every night. You didn’t say much about it, you thought it would be selfish to since that’s what seemed to make your mother feel better about herself, but your sister hated it. She was already 19 and in college at the time, but when she visited and found out that your mother had basically been neglecting you, she was furious.

“Seriously, mom? This is what you’re gonna do while your 13-year-old daughter is in her room having a literal mental breakdown because of your childish behavior?” Your sister had barged into your mother’s room when she thought you were asleep, she was screaming loud.

“You’re interrupting something important, Akira. You know better than to-”

“Oh, shut the hell up mom. You’re the last person on earth to be saying shit like that.”

“Well, if you’re done, you can leave my room now. You’re being disrespectful, and this behavior is not tolerated!” Your mother was screaming now. The man in the bed covering his body under the covers and looking back and forth between Akira and your mother.

“Sakiya, maybe you should hear your daughter out-”

“Not now.” your mother scarcely interrupted the man, eye contact never leaving Akira. “Y/N has never complained about this when you were in college. She knows this is my way of coping, why can’t you understand that too!”

Akira scoffed. “So what, getting fucked by random strangers you find on the filthy streets is your way of coping? Getting wasted every damn night to the point where Y/N has to drag you up to bed is okay with you? Do you even know how much this is affecting Y/N? Did you even bother asking her how she felt? I hate breaking it to you mom, but you need serious help.”

“You selfish child!” Your mother screamed, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around her body, getting up from the bed. “How dare you say that to your own mother?”

“I’m only telling the truth! If you’re the mother, then it’s your job to be taking care of Y/N, not neglecting her. When’s the last time you’ve engross in an actual conversation with her when you were fully sober?”

Your mother was silent. She quickly walked up to Akira and grabbed her by the hair and slammed her headfirst against the wall.

“You’ve got a big mouth! Maybe I should wash it with soap like I did back in the day, hm?” Akira was attempting to push her mother away, but she wouldn’t let go of her grip. The man that was still on your mother’s bed was in panic, yelling her name, which didn’t have any effect. He might as well stop.

"Look," Akira mumbled, struggling to get away from your mother's grip, "I know it's been hard ever since dad left-"

“Mom! Let go of her!” You cried from the door of her room.

All 3 adults froze and looked at your glassy eyes, mouths wide open.

“Hey, kiddo, I thought you were asleep?” Akira playfully said, your mother let go of Akira and crossed her arms then looked away from you.

“Well, I can't really go to sleep when there’s a bunch of adults yelling about my well-being,” you muttered incoherently. You quickly wiped the uncontrollable tears off your face and sighed.

“Honey,” your mom started, she walked slowly to you, carefully examined your face, and attempted to hug you, but you didn’t accept the offer which made your mother frown. She stopped walking until she was almost face to face with you and placed a hand on your shoulder gently. “Baby, your sister told me that you weren’t happy. Is this true?”

You looked away from her and stared dully at the floor, subtly shifting your feet, then you softly shook your head “no.”

“See Akira, Y/N is happy. So please stop stressing her out.” Your mother said through gritted teeth, then faced you once again. “Y/N honey, how about I go tuck you into bed, hm? I’m so sorry for the excessive noise that was caused.”

“Mom, how clueless can you be? Y/N looks miserable! It’s unhealthy for Y/N to be living-“

Slap.

Your mother just slapped Akira on the face.

“I know what’s best for my daughter! I am her mother! You are not the one who should be telling me how to take care of my own kid!”

“That’s enough, Sakiya.” a familiar voice said from the door.

“Fumeiko-“

“It’s fine. Sakiya, we need to talk.” It was Fumeiko Suna, your mother’s best friend, also known as your next door neighbor. She had been standing in the hallways the whole time, you didn’t even know she was there. Akira was the one who called her over.

That night your mother agreed to get help for her drinking problem. She was gone for 6 months. During those 6 months, the Suna’s took you in since Akira would be in college and you couldn’t have been more grateful.

You and Rintaro were the only kids in the house, being that you both were the same age and the others were in college. It was okay, they were all very polite, dinners were awkward, you could feel some sort of tension between the family but you didn’t pay any attention to it.

When your mom finally came back, it was awkward at first. She still seemed the same, loving and caring, just sober and free of alcohol. It was nice. You two spent the weekends bonding at the mall, watching a movie, or even getting your nails done. Eventually, she gained your trust back, and you couldn’t have been happier.

January 2017.

“Akira, don’t say that. You may not believe me now, but you are such an amazing person, don’t ever think you’ll never find love again. It’s all about having a positive mindset!” you said, thoughtfully stroking her hair as her head laid on your chest.

“I told you that.”

“You did,” you chuckled, “you should take your own advice.

“Oh, shut up!” you both laughed, and Akira let out a shaky sigh. “Thank you, Y/N.”

“Of course, you don't need to thank me. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

— so this is one of the writings that i wrote in January 😭 it’s been in my drafts and i re-read it once and instantly hated it right after. if there’s any typos please tell me!!

— also i wanna apologize again for putting gmds on hiatus,, i feel so bad 😭 i wanna make it up to you guys but idk how so if you have suggestions pls tell me

warning: the google doc i drafted this post in is seven pages long and I still didn't even remember everything I wanted to say. anyway here's essentially a journal entry on the caroline, or change revival at studio 54

My opinion

I fucking loved it lol. There was one weak link that we’ll get to later but I was NOT disappointed by this production. Go see it.

The vibe

The show was clearly purposefully livened up to make it more appealing to the mainstream, but in a way I would consider almost entirely positive. The appliances were less stoic, more whimsical, flashier and more fun. Instead of mainly standing in place behind their physical counterpart, they dance and move across the stage, interacting directly with other characters in ways that are sometimes metaphorical and sometimes just for fun. At first I wasn’t really sure about having the Moon physically flying above the stage, but by the end of the first act I was completely on board. I had heard it referred to as “intrusive” by a couple of people, but I think I have to disagree. It was only intrusive to me because it wasn’t my expectation; to a fresh viewer I think it would seem perfectly natural. In fact, I think it would seem odd to them that the Moon had ever not flown.

Moments of actual visual comedy have been added too, rather than depending on line delivery. For example, rather than have Rose alone when she’s on the phone with Mr. Stopnik, she’s across the stage from Noah, who is in bed. When she sings “the boy still hates me- I really shouldn’t be talking so loud,” instead of her just catching herself, Noah jerks his head to look at her after “the boy still hates me” and then after a beat she finishes the line and begins walking away towards the steps. At first, this stretches the cord to what you think will be its full length as she arrives at the stairs and pauses after taking a step down, but then she keeps going down the stairs, enters the “basement” area, and eventually stands all the way downstage, with the comically long cord stretched out behind her. I thought it was hysterical.

If you had asked me before seeing this revival whether Caroline, or Change needed to have more comic relief and bright colors and fun silliness, I would have been like fuck you don’t be a coward!!! but in practice it actually works very well.

The cast

Our playbills came with three notices inside: the first announced Jaden Myles Waldman as our Noah, the second gave us our Jackie (Alexander Bello [FROM JOHN MULANEY AND THE SACK LUNCH BUNCH!!! {the one who said he was Marlon Jackson’s son}]) and Joe (Jayden Theophile), and the third announced that the role of the Dryer and the Bus would be played by the cover Quentin Oliver Lee. Everyone else was the usual cast.

Sharon D. Clarke was magnificent. She didn’t read quite as cold as Tonya Pinkins used to, but still cold, sort of brittle. She approached almost all her high notes with head voice and didn’t seem terribly comfortable with them, but I’m not certain whether she always does that, if she might have been sick, or if she was holding back because we saw a matinee. Regardless of the reason, I got used to it quickly; I’d just as soon have a Caroline that DOESN’T destroy her voice anyway. It’s a very responsible approach and, again, did not detract from the performance the majority of the time (and even if it had, the unbelievable richness of her lower register, including her speaking voice, would likely have made up for it). Whenever she spoke instead of singing, you got the sense she was making the most of every syllable. She especially shone during the fight with Noah- the unbelievably measured way she handled those lines left a chill over the room. The pause between each phrase was brutal.

Jaden Myles Waldman was great as Noah. Though as usual with child actors you can very much see the effort he’s putting into his singing, his physical acting was very natural- only once or twice did you notice him actively trying to hit a mark. He was a more lively Noah, still shy, but one you might imagine having one or two friends at school. His entrance to Caroline’s basement at the beginning was energetic, he physically salutes her as the President of the United States, and she wordlessly tells him to stand at ease (it was ambiguous, from the distance I was at, whether she did so with annoyance or with the same scrap of indulgence that allows her to hand him her cigarettes. I would prefer if it was with annoyance, but I could see the utility of making it not).

There were a few times the energy clashed with the book, specifically the moments where Noah says something very ungrounded. “My father is a clarinet” didn’t suffer too much, but I did not buy this Noah saying “I did it… I killed her” and so on. He also spoke “I killed her” rather than sang it, which I’m not a fan of. But like, he’s also a child actor; it’s not really a big deal and he was good the rest of the time.

I could not get enough of Samantha Williams as Emmie. I wanted her to be on stage the whole time. She shone when her acting was allowed to get more physical- her dancing, her body language when playing with her brothers, and her proud, furious, glowing confrontation with the statue in the epilogue (staged with her interacting with the physical washing machine prop, arguing past it, slamming her hands on it, then finally climbing atop it for the finale). For this reason I was disappointed when she held onto the dinner tray for the entirety of her argument with Mr. Stopnik- I kept wishing for her to be able to put it down on the table, to see what she would do unencumbered.

Speaking of which, Chip Zien as Mr. Stopnik, naturally, was great fun. I wished for a little more bombast from him during A Twenty Dollar Bill and Why, but that was really my only complaint. A choice that jumped out at me was to make “let her stay” very forceful- instead of the subtext being “please” the subtext was “come on, really? Let her.” which I think plays nicer with Mr. Stopnik’s general refusal to be polite.

Caissie Levy was the obvious weak link in the cast. Her over-the-top, self-aware performance clashed terribly with the grounded feel of everyone else onstage. I read some reviews on the way home out of curiosity and saw one that called her performance “honest and believable,” which seemed so comically incorrect that I still want to believe it was a joke. She literally pointed at Caroline with both hands on “from now on, YOU keep it.”

If there are some people who should not act in period pieces because they have a face that knows about email, Caissie Levy should not act in period pieces because she has an affect that knows about Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. She was acting like she was on an SNL skit about karens. She was acting like Anna Kendrick. It doesn’t work. Because she is a caricature instead of a person, her moments of open distress fall completely flat. Her voice was pretty though.

I LOVED John Cariani as Stuart. He was perfectly awkward, getting carried away when playing the clarinet (which he is doing for real btw) and coming across deeply stiff and scripted at all other times. I could be totally off here, but I think MAYBE he was specifically making his voice more clarinet-like. I’m not super familiar with his work outside of The Band’s Visit so maybe he just sounds like that though. I also learned during the cast Q and A afterwards that he was already pretty good at the clarinet before the pandemic, but spent the intervening year becoming an absolute boss, came back, and SHOCKED the rest of the cast with how good he had gotten. I don’t really know anything about clarinet performance, but to my untrained ear it certainly was stunning. Also, he was hot.

Tamika Lawrence as Dotty Moffat was very enjoyable, though I think Dotty got hit hardest with the “talk slower so the audience can understand you” thing; she sometimes delivered lines rather slower than felt natural for the character. I loved her voice, especially in Moon Trio, and she had great comic delivery.

Joy Hermalyn and Stuart Zagnit were delightful as the Gellman grandparents. I actively enjoyed them the bulk of the time they were onstage, which is impressive considering these roles can fade into the background a little. JFK has potential to be a slow spot, but it was never in any danger in their hands.

Nasia Thomas, Nya, and Harper Miles were, as you may have already heard, fucking fantastic. Their vocals could not be better and each one handles the fleshed-out interaction between Caroline, the Radio, and certain other characters with gusto. Because of the group nature of the roles I struggle to say anything about them individually, but oh my god they were so good.

Arica Jackson as the Washing Machine was a delight to watch, as bubbly as her costume, but at times I wished her voice was a little less of a light silky pop belt and more of the full-throated fare Capathia Jenkins gave us in the original cast. That said, I think that’s purely a matter of preference and me being stuck in my ways; her vocal performance was very deft and there was nothing actually wrong with it.

Quentin Oliver Lee KILLED as the Dryer and the Bus (and briefly, spoiler alert, Caroline’s ex-husband). I would never have known he wasn’t the principle if the playbill didn’t tell me so. His voice was resonant and sweet, which as the Dryer gave a cruel contrast to his words and body language and as the Bus revealed sincere reverence and sorrow. I never looked away from him for a second when he was onstage. He was a more overtly sexual Dryer- rather than the original where the implication is delivered only through the music, this Dryer postures while manspreading (all the while seated on the physical dryer), caressing his legs and leaning forward hungrily. I would like very much to see how Kevin S. McAllister’s take compares, but I’m delighted to have gotten to see Lee. I am in love with him.

Finally, N’Kenge as the Moon was gorgeous. Her voice was flawless. Her gestures were rather repetitive, but given that she’s sitting in a half-bubble the entire time I think that issue lies with the direction more than her interpretation, and anyway she’s graceful enough that you don’t really mind if she waves her arms the same way a few times in a row. I am also in love with her.

Alexander Bello and Jayden Theophile obviously play bit parts as Jackie and Joe, but they were still great and one of them did a sick flip during Roosevelt Petrucius Coleslaw, which was very impressive. We all clapped, but I clapped first.

The stage

When you walked into the theater, the first thing you noticed was the sound of frogs and bugs. The second thing you noticed was the copper confederate statue, labeled “the south’s defenders,” standing center stage. The pedestal gives away that the statue on stage is based on (but is not a replica of) the real South’s Defenders Monument in the real Lake Charles, LA. The sides of the stage are covered in tall grass and reeds while the center is tiled. Hanging lightbulbs are strewn all about the edges. Above is the “upstairs” featuring a TV and phone on one side and Noah’s bedroom on the other. The two sides of the upstairs begin and end the show joined together, but are separated for the bulk of the run time (the symbolism is not subtle).

At the beginning of intermission the washing machine is left alone center stage; at some point during intermission it is replaced with just the pedestal of the South’s Defenders statue, plus the head and a confederate flag on the floor of the stage. Unfortunately, I was in the bathroom so I didn’t see when/how they switched them or if anything interesting happened :(

My one complaint about the set design and use of stage and lighting throughout the show is that it actually feels quite cool, not hot or stifling at all. Before the show, someone behind me joked that it felt like Pirates of the Caribbean at Disney World. They make things red and hot and small when the dryer is actively singing in the first scene, but not really at any other time. Again, a very minor complaint comparatively.

A brief top three visual moments utilizing the set and lighting:

The Bus’s entrance, in which the back of the stage opens with a blinding light and the bus and his passengers, hidden in shadow, slowly trudge in

Salty teardrops, where real water begins falling onto the back and sides of the stage

Lot’s Wife, in which as Caroline sings the final “flat” she is slowly but ultimately BLINDINGLY illuminated from behind with pure white light, as though being granted her wish and purged in holy fire. You could hear the audience gasping at the absolute splendor of it, I also gasped and physically covered my mouth with my hands (even though I was wearing a mask lol) and obviously everyone broke into applause immediately afterwards

The costumes

The costumes for the human characters are fitting but mainly unremarkable. I think this is for the best; making them any more eye-catching would have been a poor choice. A few costumes are very similar to ones from the original broadway production, like Emmie still wearing a brown plaid coat during I Hate The Bus, while others were completely original.

The costumes for the appliances and the Moon, though, were fabulous. The identical dresses and hairpieces for the Radio stunned every time- my favorite was the blue and silver for Salty Teardrops, but the white Christmas outfits complete with white wigs and the red and black numbers for No One Waitin’ were also gorgeous. The Dryer was perfect, wearing a dark jumpsuit with red-hot coils around his neck and splashed over his arms (the one on his neck neatly evokes a collar). The Moon had three (?) very similar dresses, each of which provided a slightly different effect when she gestured but all of which suggested roundness and grace by means of sleeves connected to the body of the dress. The Washing Machine’s bubbles were a bit of a weak point by comparison, but not distractingly bad.

My favorite was actually the Bus- his costume includes a license plate and headlights, as one might expect, but I was really delighted by the simplest part: an ultra-thin, bright line painted directly down the center of his face, suggesting the light peeking out from the crack between two bus doors on a dark night. It may be because the Bus is already one of my favorite parts, so I am undeniably biased, but I was obsessed.

The changes

The most noticeable overarching change from the original production is that LOTS of moments have their tempo slightly reduced. This makes sense given that Caroline, or Change has a lot of very dense lyrics sung very fast, so I can’t fault them, but it does unavoidably make those moments slightly less high-energy, less frenetic, less of an outburst. For example, “I think it’s a negro thing/A southern thing/A christian thing” is sung slower than it was in the original version, there is a rest between each phrase.

There were slight changes in the music at parts. During Dotty and Caroline, Caroline’s pitch is lower on “Dotty Moffat/high and mighty/going to college/every night.” During Moon, Emmie, and Stuart Trio the Moon’s “dona”s have been altered. And at the end of Emmie’s first bit in the Kitchen Fight, her melody and lyrics have been slightly altered from the furious, rapid “Come on, come on teach me what you know! Mama, teach-” and are now slower and almost desperate: “Teach me, teach me, teach me, mama, teach-”

Other changes were purely lyric-based. “Night, cheap beautiful music” has been changed to “Night, free beautiful music.” And a few very minor wording changes have been made to dialogue parts such as Caroline giving her perspective on Noah’s mother’s cancer. I don’t remember exactly what changed, except for the slight rearrangement of “Sometimes God eat people like a hungry wolf” to “God eat people sometimes. Like a wolf.”

Finally, during 1943, Caroline’s husband actually appears for the flashback. He wears a white sailor’s uniform and dances with her sweetly. They hold hands and romance each other at first, then becomes distant as babies are piled into their arms (and into the arms of the appliances). We do not see them hit each other- it is portrayed through flinches and, when Caroline retaliates, by her slamming a hand down on the washer.

Little Things

Roosevelt Petrucius Coleslaw is always a fun-act-ender, but it’s really emphasized as a whimsical showstopper here with lots of visual interest and even Caroline smiling and participating in the shower of money.

During Rose’s call with Dotty towards the end, Stuart is standing by her constantly trying to nonverbally communicate something to her but getting shut down every time. He’s clearly frustrated with how the call is going, but I couldn’t read what he was trying to get Rose to do- to be more harsh, perhaps?

When Grandma Gellman has Stuart play the clarinet after A Twenty Dollar Bill and Why, he is seated at the head of the table and comically whips the clarinet out from underneath and begins playing in the same motion and it’s really funny.

As previously noted, “I think it’s a negro thing/A southern thing/A christian thing” is sung slower and annunicated more, but there was one more interesting thing- “christian” is emphasized much more heavily than “southern” and “negro”. It lends a little more aggression to the interaction on Emmie’s part while also emphasizing the Jewishness/Christianity dichotomy of the piece.

Inside/Outside had a brief chaotic light show that to me was the only part of the show where the lights and colors went too far. It wasn't overly disruptive though, since the part is so short.

We attended a brief Q and A after the show, featuring Stuart Zagnit, Jaden Myles Waldman, Khalifa White (cover for Radio 1 and 2 and Emmie), and Timothy Quinlan (cover for Stuart, Mr. Stopnik, and Mr. Gellman). The first “question” managed to be a white dude giving a comment-not-a-question about how he “had his own Caroline” and stuff and I thought he came off a real dick but the moderator seemed into his story. Personally, I think if you want points for showing basic human decency to the black maid that raised you, you should probably at minimum write a Tony-nominated musical about her, but that’s just me.

Most of the other questions were good but very basic. The one answer that was pretty interesting was when someone asked about little things the actors picked up about the score that a one-time audience would never notice. Quinlan and White explained to us that after the Washing Machine does her bit begging Rose not to fire Caroline, there is a brief bassoon part which represents Betty “telling” Rose not to fire Caroline. It was unclear whether this was actually coming from Tesori or if it was White’s pet theory (Quinlan noted that White was the one who told him about it) but I thought it was pretty neat either way.

The audience

The audience was so excited to be there! It brought me a lot of joy. There was instant applause the MILLISECOND the lights started to go down. The guy next to me was, I think, competing with me to see who could scream the loudest during applause breaks. Audible gasps occurred at times, especially when Noah turns on Caroline- there were small gasps during his rant, then some BIG gasps after “I hope he drops his bomb on you!”

There WERE unfortunately laughs at “and hell’s where Jews go when they die.” My boyfriend patted me sympathetically on the back as it happened since he knows how I feel about that, but there were at least fewer laughs than you hear on the bootleg and they were more uncomfortable. Plus, Sharon D. Clarke’s acting was so captivating in the moment that I wasn’t able to be drawn out of the scene very much.

Conclusion

I could literally write about this all day but this is already a little excessive. I take credit for psychically willing this revival into existence, now go see it before it closes.

J/B Smut Swap recs!

I come bearing @jb-smut-swap recs! Presented mostly in posting order because that’s mostly how I read them, though first, my wonderful gift fic:

Jaime’s Game by @catherineflowers29 - SOFTEST BONDAGE EVER. I have told multiple people that reading this story felt like getting a warm hug, but with ropes. And a crucial part of the softness is the vulnerability between them, the way they’re so clearly building their trust in each other, taking care of each other, and there’s just a little bit of adorable awkwardness too as they negotiate this new thing together. It made my heart so glowy and happy. Cathy, thank you so much for volunteering to pick this up and delivering something so well-suited to my requests; I could feel the care you took with this and I appreciate it so much! <333

More recs below the cut ‘cause this got long (as did Jaime, HEYOOO); if I missed anyone’s Tumblr handle, please let me know!

Binary Explosive by @sdwolfpup - Okay this isn’t in posting order but I DID read this first and also it’s my blog and I make the rules. Am I biased about this fic because it’s SDW and because it was inspired by one of my favorite due South episodes? Yes. Does that make this fic any less amazing? IT DOES NOT. This is battle couple/mutual competence kink/danger kink at its finest, crackling with banter and absolutely dripping with (literally potentially lethal) sexual tension, all wrapped up in an entirely swoonworthy established relationship. The cocktail of soft and horny here is thoroughly intoxicating, and it’s so much FUN, with just the right hint of crack, and the ending makes me kick my feet in glee every time I read it (which has been, of my own volition, SEVERAL TIMES). LOVE.

Thrust Exercises by @nire-the-mithridatist - STRIP SPARRING. We’ve all said it but also oh my god STRIP SPARRING. WHAT A GENIUS THOUGHT. This is a fabulous combination of fun and sexy, and they’re so FOND in it, too--nire hits such a beautiful note of playful competitiveness and also a little shyness/awkwardness and a LOT of heat and, has been very correctly noted, a VERY wonderfully slutty Jaime. (Jaime’s premeditation regarding their wedding night is both very horny and very sweet/thoughtful, and thus very Jaime, and also his line about how he quite likes her loud face is right up there with my favorite love confessions, as well as being a thing that Jaime and I very much have in common. AGH SO GOOD.)

Second Chances by @firesign23 - I love me some JAB and the setup of this is so delicious, that Brienne is given a second chance at an opportunity she once turned down. This is another one where all three of them just LIKE each other so much--the J/B is so solid and lived-in and warm, and the history between Jaime and Addam is delicious, and the Brienne/Addam has that little thrill of newness and “oh my god we actually get to do this” (there is a kitchen kiss that is GOOD TIMES for me). So much trust and love here, it’s lovely.

crosslines, the scratches and stains by QuixoticChloe - One of two sex bruises fics in the swap, and SCORCHING hot. This whole thing has such a teasing vibe to it, and a sense of dirty discovery within an established relationship, and the whole “we’ve got a sexy secret and we’re gonna torture each other with it as much as possible” aspect was A LOT. Damn.

Diplomatic Relations by @eryiscrye - In which Jaime and Brienne get married and proceed to scandalize/delight/horrify the entire continent with their loud married sex. IT’S GREAT. It’s Eryi’s so you know it’s gonna be super hot, and she really touched on so many of the greatest hits here: cave sex, armory sex, water sex, quiet sex, alcove sex, SO MANY GOOD CHOICES and so much sweetness to go with them, too. And the other characters’ pained/pleased observations were hysterical. SO much fun.

Apart, Together, Together Apart by greenmtwoman - Oof, this one made my chest ache in the best way. It’s so soft and romantic and LONGING and full of equal parts Brienne and Jaime’s devotion to each other and devotion to their respective duties, which feels incredibly true to them. The way this story builds and releases and then slowly builds tension again is lovely, and it’s bittersweet, but very full of hope for their future.

left your fingerprints all over me by @writergirl2011 - Friends-with-benefits-to-dating, yessssss. The banter in this was adorable, and the connection between them was so palpable, and it was delightful to watch them finally acknowledge their feelings. 

Good Long Line of Praises by @aliveanddrunkonsunlight - In which Brienne discovers that Jaime has a praise kink and we ALL get to benefit. Actually the praise goes both ways here, and the result is lovely--they take each other apart at the same time they’re holding each other very closely, and it’s a wonderful mix of sweet and sexy. Another established relationship fic that included so much joy of discovery built over a strong foundation.

Nights Avoiding Things Unholy by @forbiddenfantasies1 - I was lucky enough to get a sneak preview of this one and when I tell you that it has been living rent-free in my mind ever since... this is LUDICROUSLY, brain-cell-incineratingly hot, with so many delicious horny details, but also with FF’s trademark gigantic heart behind it (I feel like heart + hornt is basically FF’s brand and I love this for all of us). Again, you get such a strong sense that these two LIKE each other so much, even when they’re a little resentful and a lot scared about it, and the filth is so full of genuine affection that it makes it all the more devastating. I literally read this and was like “shit, I gotta up my game” regarding my own draft, lol. SO GOOD.

Light My Fire by @wildlingoftarth - While I fully respect and celebrate the union suit kink, I don’t have strong feelings about it, myself, but this fic made me a convert. The painstakingly sexy descriptions here were SO MUCH, and I’m also such a huge sucker for the slightly chaotic camp counselors vibe of this, that sort of euphoria and recklessness that overtakes you when something time-bound is about to end. The banter was adorable, there were so many moments that made me giggle, and of course it was hot as hell too and I’m very glad that these two dorks FINALLY figured it out.

Clothes (un)Make the Man by @aviss - CLOTHES-SWAPPING YESSSSS. I am such a sucker for that and Aviss delivered on it beautifully; seeing the progression of their relationship was so delightful and the feelings built so well throughout, and there were a couple of lines that made me laugh out loud, and, again, both the tension and the smut were super hot. LOVELY.

I’ll never let you go (if you promise not to fade away) by LadyRhiyana - This fic is going to HAUNT ME in the BEST POSSIBLE WAY. For one thing, I have checked the word count MULTIPLE times to make sure it’s not ten times as long because the world here is so vivid and so affecting that it’s like some sort of magic. I adore the setting here, and Cersei’s POV is spectacular--she’s all sharp edges and frustrated longing for the things she thinks she can’t have and I felt for her SO MUCH. Both she and Jaime are just incredibly, helplessly horny for (HOT MECHANIC) Brienne, and I loved the way that LadyRhiyana made it so clear that having Brienne there shifts the balance for Jaime and Cersei just enough that all their spikes can slide together a little better instead of just eviscerating each other all the time--and yet this happens without ever making it feel like Brienne is just a conduit or a means to an end for them; all three sides of the triad feel thoroughly distinct and important (including a very deft hand with the Jaime/Cersei aspect). It’s also EXTREMELY hot, and the Jaime/Brienne aspect has so much softness to it, and Brienne is so forthright and so kind and so curious, and AGH. I loved this.

a grip so tight I couldn’t tear it apart by @janiedean - The other sex bruises fic, and this one ended up (coincidentally, I assume) being a perfect bookend to the other one--if the modern AU is all about sexy secrets, this canon-based one is all about Jaime and Brienne’s pride in each other and joy in not having to hide their relationship, gleefully declaring their love and desire for each other for everyone to see. I was so happy for them!

with those who know secret things by @sdwolfpup - This has been recced widely and DESERVEDLY SO. The amount of CARE in this fic is overwhelming, and it’s full of all of these subtle details that suddenly come into sharp focus at just the right moment to really devastate you, and by you, I mean me. The prose itself is also gorgeous--the description of Brienne in her ad came directly for my throat (as well as some other places)--and it’s beautiful to watch these two surprise and delight and take care of each other. They’re both so GOOD and Jaime is so soft and vulnerable and Brienne is so kind and incisive and THEY LIKE EACH OTHER AND WANT EACH OTHER SO MUCH I CAN’T. The whole thing is lustrous and wonderful and I adored it. 

Today Will Die Tomorrow by HNJ - This fic also DESTROYED me. The way the time shifts are handled so that we slowly put the pieces of the night together and feel the full impact of each moment, the understated delicacy and very obvious love with which both Jaime and Brienne are handled, the multiple lines that made me catch my breath with how TRUE they were, the way their love for each other uncurls and opens up to the light over the course of the story... it’s really gorgeous and just burrowed right into my heart. I also loved that this was a canon-based first time that focused more on Brienne not knowing what to do emotionally than not knowing what to do physically; I’ve read and enjoyed the latter a bunch of times but the former felt really fresh and fascinating; it was an excellent take. 

Hush by @kiraziwrites - I have a thing for quiet sex anyway, and like everyone else, I will be suing kirazi for the fact that this fic left my brain a smoldering wreckage with nary a coherent thought left for the comment box. The sex in this is so deliciously varied and dirty and every bit of it feels somehow decadent and completely necessary at the same time, and watching their relationship build as they try each new thing is wonderful, and there are so many images in this that have burned themselves into the empty space where my brain used to be and taken up permanent residence. I could list MANY, but a sampling: the glacier comparison, and Brienne’s teeth-marks in Jaime’s jacket, and also Brienne DROPPING A CONDOM IN JAIME’S POCKET AND PROPOSITIONING HIM ARE YOU ACTUALLY TRYING TO END MY LIFE, KIRAZI. It’s also so funny and so fond and the fact that it’s literally exactly 5K is such a flex, I can’t even. Gah. TOO MUCH.

we used to wait by @it-may-be-dull-but-im-determined - I was reading things in update order and I kept thinking that I hadn’t read one yet that I could clock as jencat’s, and then kirazi was flailing about this fic and how beautiful the prose was and how strong a sense of place it had and I was like aha without even having read it yet. And this fic is indeed those things, as well as being sexy as fuck; Jen just drags the tension out and out in this very deliberate-yet-spare-yet-somehow-also-lush way until you want to claw your face off (and then she makes it totally worth the wait, too). Their relationship had some wonderful details, too, to show how well-matched they are--Jaime increasing the speed on his treadmill to match Brienne’s, rather than to exceed it, wasn’t what I was expecting and worked fabulously in this context--and the image of Jaime leaning against the wall at a crucial moment was SO MUCH. Whew. Just lovely.

The Waters and the Wild by LadyRhiyana - The last entry in the swap but by no means the least! This was another one where I couldn’t believe how much happened in such a short space; the descriptions were so vivid and cinematic, I could see the whole landscape unfold in my head, and it included some high-quality competence kink, too. We get just enough backstory to be fully invested in this version of Jaime and Brienne, including their delightful hidden-identity initial meeting, and the tension and affection and trust and frustration between them just simmers and simmers until it inevitably boils over and it’s incredibly satisfying. I also thoroughly adored the ending--including Brienne being as indignant as Jaime at [redacted]--and I would buy this movie so fast if it actually existed. 

hello! it's marys-fox-mask (hedgehogian is my main blog, haha)! in answer to your tags on my one 2020 adaptation post; yes, i have read "crippling colin" (as well as a bunch of other analyses), and i find it all so fascinating. tsg really is a thematically dense book! if you don't mind me asking, what's your paper about? how do you feel burnett handles colin's ambiguous disability? have you watched any of the film adaptations? if so, which one was your favorite? least favorite? sorry for the barrage of questions, i'm just excited!

oh my god don't apologize for the questions! I'm just so thrilled to find someone else who's critically interested in SG!

so... I was thwarted by stipulations of "current relevance" in writing my paper—because I'm secretly a Victorianist at heart (although yes. SG is early-Edwardian). So I was looking at SG and disability and the final paper is something like this: what can thinking about why SG is motivated to 'cure' Colin tell us about why the biopsychosocial model appeals today? really: we get that Colin has to be cured because his illness is a source of narrative tension... but why does his mysterious illness function like this—what why does disability necessitate resolution, and how does Burnett's solution achieve this?

So, mainly a focus on the "psychologically constructed" bits of the book. Leaning on some suggestions that Colin is the "resurrection" of Lionel (I think Gerzina suggests this?). Some info on the historical context regarding childhood disability, although not enough on constructions of childhood...

I could go on for pages (and indeed I did), but for risk of running too long, I'll cut myself off there in terms of my paper.

How do I feel Burnett handles Colin's ambiguous disability?

oh boy. before I go off—I'll preface this by saying I'm chronically ill myself and many of my non-descript symptoms show up in Colin. I'll also add that I loved SG as a child, because I think these 2 things are relevant. So it ended up, unfortunately, shaping my initial (and continuing) reaction to becoming ill. I'm still emerging out of the "Burnett articulates the specific take on the biopsychosocial model which drove things like the ME/CFS PACE study" hole which I dug for myself in the paper I just finished drafting, but I think the book, evidently, has a lot of nuance. I'd like to think the intriguing bits about the disabling nature of social experiences of disability (ok quite a mouthful and a truism under the social model) are the parts of the book I walk away with. And to clarify: that's the stuff about Colin being disabled by a fear of disability & by his father's fear of Colin experiencing the same distressing treatment and aspects of embodiment as he does.

I'm at the same time reminded of the quote which I've just lifted from the book:

so long as Colin shut himself up in his room and thought only of his fears and weakness […] he was a hysterical half-crazy little hypochondriac who knew nothing of the sunshine and the spring and also did not know that he could get well and could stand upon his feet if he tried to do it. (Burnett 338)

so. there's that. the nature stuff is intriguing with how it fits in with the return to medical holism that was going on right about then (see: the british ministry of health's new 1919 initiative).

I think ultimately what saves the book for me—and keeps me going back, is that Colin's illness (and illness itself) is over-determined/over-signified. So, it's about masculinity, and class, and agency/anxiety about the future of the nation, and nature, and isolation, and colonialism (and the healthy soil of the motherland). I'd like to think that the cumulative effect of this is that when you step back, Colin's illness begins to approximate the point Sontag is making in Illness as Metaphor when she suggests that—of course—illness is not metaphor and that by treating it as such, we harm the ill. Ironically by the surplus of meaning, illness in SG approaches an utter lack of meaning—it's very difficult for it to hold all these meanings. so, at the end, we're left with Colin. and his mysterious (although not at all according to Burnett), inchoate illness.

and... films.

I will admit I've only watched 1993 and 2020 (and am, evidently, a '93 champion), but I'm interested in the images of polio in the '49 (?) film so I might take a look at it! 2020 is a mess. the munchausen focus was intriguing (if only because it was a bit unexpected and overdrawn), but ultimately didn't add much meaning. I really felt like by making Mr. Craven more visibly disabled, they had an opportunity to look at the 'needlessly distressing disabled experiences' portion (as Holmes puts it). but, alas.

3 POEMS by Dana Miller

MX-76

Sneerwise, I’ve seen better Dearborn, without the metal I’d go on to abort you like any other paperweight hitchhiking across my belly and just that fast Grace Kelly has figured out the new math, I’m afraid and lordess, but you’re a strict equation Despite the munitions manifest under the crown of your abdication I just keep on loving you like caloric restriction and late-70s cocaine stretching myself out like St. Swithin’s Day across your salt lick whole oceans of Tawny Kitaen Ready for my Helen Reddy moment I’d sober up if I were you The flecks of Roberta Flack in me will leash every lime tiger leaping out of your 43rd-floor window with a piano strapped to its back

It Glows Under The Half-Smirk

the things you learn while killing yourself... down the end of your own dick, I got my comeuppance quick. this wasn’t like ingestion of the ancestor.

the things you’ll hear in a drowned meadow... I used to think you were a nice bunch of guys, ever out of cigarettes, packs on packs of lies. you thought you burned all the blooms of my life. shark-faced cars for the shark-toothed wife

the way things will phrase themselves in a dream… the porcelain horseshoes of your bent vision. the drugs in your dance have all ditched me, by and by. what’s left is streaks of lightning-blonde--celestial harlot dye.

no truck now for the very idea of you, the two times needles, the twice j’taime. whyever wouldn’t I get off my face? it’s hard, after all, to have fins in this place, where pelicans regard the curvature of the world, and your doormat-ador sneers-- seven full galaxies of dream on.

Last Lighthouses a riff for the faithless majority

You’ll come to know the type You’ve given them all 13 years or more--full of hummable introspection and the most famous rock stars in the world--to say nothing of your dose-dense soul bandying about your hopes and fears built entirely on bracellae and boustrophedon They will come to your birthday parties and you will go to them at Christmas It will seem the safest and most naturally warm thing in the world to lean your full weight on the concrete of their love (though you might as well be giving birth in the High Arctic) Ta, but how the best ones will swear they love you Til you roundly disappoint yourself and believe It’s only when your weight-bearing hand goes crashing through what you thought was such an indomitable, vertical construction of care that you see it was always made of wet newspaper--and you, my dear, are just a penny gaff girl in the back rooms of their subconscious public houses Then, they’ll quietly sneak round the sticky corners of your rawest self—of the actual show-up time—like white privilege guilt-trippers always do in the face of the real ghetto into invisibility into convenience into convention into covering for him--he is their son, after all (even if they would say they didn’t raise him to act like this) there are twins here for sure, but never once (or ever) a twin flame. To the comforts of conformity, even your last lighthouses will bend Away from responsibility and respectability Away from decency and all their debts you owe Away from everything you thought they’d be weddings don’t count, didn’t you know? Ohhh.......You thought they meant always? worse: you thought they meant like you do—didn’t you? Oh what a laugh-a-minute you are Remember? They even told you how funny and fun you are for parties they don’t admit going to What a lift you give to others, they praise! What a joy to all their days! you should always be around, except when you shouldn’t. and you, precious little idiot, you believed there weren’t any shouldn’ts just because you don’t have any for them—didn’t you? Awww....did you write them a Valentine too? Ha. Sorry, but the joke’s absolutely on you. When you’ve been dead about a week curled up like a conch

on the kitchen floor crying hysterically, on the hour every hour, like a beaten child and every bit as confused watching the door and mapping the bruise This is when you’ll realize that they have always been irrelevant It was only ever your heart feasting on the time their mouse your elephant --trunk and memory, that is. For a flash your tear-gasps will morph into insano-giggles as you imagine telling them to go fuck themselves straight off Then you dream of tricking them into a lunch date where really you’re going to FedEx their whole human bodies, post haste, to the same ruinous wasteland where they’ve so nonchalantly annexed you But you can’t find the address. Even after sifting meticulously through whatever shards remain of your blown-out heart, it isn’t there. Damn. Lucifer probably bought it off Judas and stuffed the only copy in his back pocket for safekeeping. in Hell all the prettiest ones are sooo smart. like they always said you were Funny. Rolling over to try and die one more time again, you will bump noses with the one and only Michael Hutchence, right there stretched out next to you, but not quite how you always dreamed it rather like a canebrake of the afterlife like an invigilator this is autoplatonic strangulation after all Devil Inside and that Oh God, how you love(d) that bacchus boy Oh Mab, how you willed this fall Eventually, once you’ve died all you can die and died some more something invisible will remind you of Patti Smith and you’ll remember that you have to get up off the kitchen floor You still have to get up every day and dress in battered menswear like her so you can write revolutionary poems—but be the kind of skinny only artistic girls can get Even if you don’t yet have a Robert Mapplethorpe to switch stripey shirts with in the paint-spatter of afternoon light Even if you still relentlessly wait for them, sometimes, late later, latest in the grin-less night.

Dana Miller is a giggling wordsmith and mega-melomaniac from Atlanta, Georgia. When not wielding a lethal pen, she adores surf culture, Australian grunge rockers, muscle cars, Epiphone guitars, glitter, Doc Martens, and draft horses. Oxford, England is her spirit-home and Radiohead is holding the last shard of her girlhood heart.

Sooooo, it finally happened to me as well. Tumblr just ate my answer to anon, but well, I had a draft. Here you go nonnie!

I think most current Cas/Destiel fans are Dean/Jensen fans. Period. They beat their chests about Dean apologising to Cas and instead we got Dean forgiving Cas and yet they screamed Destiel. Now the same bunch say Cas dying and Dean saying Cas I love you after he dies is also good enough for them. When Cas has fans like this, who needs enemies. No wonder the writers and show treat Cas so badly. I personally think Misha is not in final episode - he will be shown as a memory / flashback. That's it.

Oh, there’s a lot of unpack here. Spoilers ahead!

I’ll start with the most pressing issue right now. I’m very upset about the show playing “where is Misha” game in regards to the episodes 19 & 20. I’ve seen some positive takes on it like - Cas is so IMpoRtAnttttt, that’s why they are keeping his appearance a secret! Lol no. Like we haven’t heard that one before. And usually, if the show doesn’t mention Cas, it’s because he is not there like it was with the 200th episode or s11 mid season finale. (And fans hoped that Cas is being kept as a secret then) Other take - Cas has different clothes in finale! So what? Keep those clothes a secret, post more trench coat Cas. Some folks think it is done to generate chatter on soc media, which is already happening, true, but also, it’s not a good thing? And other folks think that Cas fans are hysterical, again, because lol duh, of course Cas will be in the last episode because destiel is happening because Cas is important character!

I personally think that all this secrecy around Cas/Misha in the 15x20 is manipulative and cruel. TPTB are intentionally yanking fandom and the longer it goes, the more I’m ready agree with you that we will have very little Cas/Misha in the series finale. Maybe it is already filmed. Maybe it can be filmed with green screen and only Misha on the set. I just can’t wrap my head around the idea that the hook SPN has for the final episode of 15 seasons is the mystery of Where Is Cas. Like, what logic is there? We just killed fan favorite, unofficial third lead in 15x18 but please keep watching the show! He’s very dead! We know you loved him! Have some Mark P in exchange!!!

I mean, the only reason I would be excited to watch 15x20 if Dabb personally assures fans that yes, Cas will be back. Otherwise, why bother? It’s not a secret that a lot of fans kept watching only because of Cas. To kill Cas again and to toy with his fate, again, is just so, so low. We just went through all this emotional rigmarole afters s12 finale. And before that, s10 finale. And before that was 7x01. Cas being killed for good is not new or original. Uncertainty about the number of Cas episodes in every season is not new. To rub this again into Cas fans faces is just plain cruel. What kind of surprise element is there left? Is this how SPN show runners want to be remembered? Sigh, SPN writers are really trying to snatch the title of the worst show runners from those Game of Thrones dudes.

Other stuff under the cut.

You know, I also used to think that most of destiel metas were written by Dean fans. And metas are the tool that frames fans’s opinions and feelings, so the overall feeling, at least for me, was that destiel metas and majority of fans don’t care much about Cas. After every pivotal destiel scene there were plenty of metas that explained why and how the scene is a step towards canon destiel etc. And quite often in the haste to prove it, Cas’s feelings and motivations were ignored while Dean’s explored and justified. Just remember how destiel metas treated “beer run” scene in s11 finale. How much effort was put into dismissing Cas’s hurt feelings, how Cas fans were told to shut up because we are getting destiel soon. It took months for meta writers to admit that the scene was harmful to Cas. I don’t even want to talk about this so called apology in s15x09 and how wrong it was on how many levels. After building up destiel conflict for 3+8 eps, after Dean lashing out at Cas with passive aggressive comments during that time, we got half baked apology for wrong issues via prayer! Not even face to face. (And Dabb admitted that their issues are not fully resolved, meta writers didn’t mention that at all) So yea, I feel you. But I have also been visiting Dean stan blogs, and well, they think that most of destiel metas are written by Cas stans who don’t care about Dean’s feelings at all. Curious, isn’t it? So, now I personally think that most pro destiel metas are written with one goal only - to prove that destiel subtext exists (duh), that it is intentional and it will lead to some kind of canon acknowledgement. They cherry pick stuff that helps to prove that writers are building up destiel and ignore scenes where the same writers insert No Homo or bros only stuff. Notice how Dean and Cas patching up their relationship in 15x09 is followed by a wacky episode where Dean and Sam are super wacky? It happens all the time, after a destiely scene we get a tribute to that other ship.

Next. There always have been fans who were OK with destiel going canon if Cas (or Dean) dies. This fandom in particular loves angst and character death. I’ve my theories about it, but it’s not surprising that these sentiments are getting more popular now. Folks care about the validation of their ship, if Cas dies, who cares because suffering is what matters. I personally think that now, halfway through s15 it’s too late to make destiel canon. There’s no time left to resolve the main conflict, the trust issues. And without emotional resolution of their last conflict, what’s the point? We don’t have another season coming. 

The beauty of canon ship is that they had positive, enriching time together, even if the big ILY happens at the very end, we witnessed them getting closer. And make no mistake, SPN writers did really good job at separating Dean and Cas ever since s8. Half of the time Cas was on the show, he was away from Dean. So, when the shippers are denied actual scenes between Dean and Cas, no wonder they don’t care if Cas lives or dies.

Now look at s15 and tell me if this is something to cherish - all the time they spend apart, all small jabs Dean threw at Cas, Dean blaming Cas for Mary’s death, sending Cas to Hell with Belphagor without a second thought and then chewing him out for making a decision not to die there. And of course the crown jewel of Bobo, Dean telling Cas “Then you are dead to me!”. That’s the stuff soulmates are made of, I’m telling you. /sarcasm/

HIM for the fanfic asks!

H: How would you describe your style?

Direct. It used to be very flowery (it still is a bit more ornate when I write in Italian), but I realised I liked reading straightforward prose and mine followed over time. Now it’s even too dry at times, so I am looking for more balance.

I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?

In theory I don’t believe in guilty pleasures and I’d never judge other people’s tastes, but there are a couple of things for me. Kylux, because fandom discourse really wants to make me feel like I’m a bad person for enjoying them (and it’s hard to shut out because there is so much legit criticism of the films and the industry and of fandom’s obsession with background traditionally attractive white boys and... but I try to remind myself that I can try to be a decent, ethical person in my life and still occasionally read about these human dumpster fires. It’s self-care.)

Also a whole bunch of dub-con(ish) scenarios, from sex pollen to heatfics, because there is something soothing about a character being forced to let go and give in to instinct. My rational brain has to take a short holiday for the duration. 

(And there’s one specific trope that walks the tightrope between being legit triggering and very good for me and I hate thinking about it because it makes NO SENSE. This is maybe more annoyance than guilt.)

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you'd care to share?

[5 hours of hysterical laughter]

...yes.

There’s my plotbunnies tag and then there are over THIRTY files in my Star Wars fics folder. This ask made me want to publicly shame myself so I found the courage to post this thing that has been in my drafts for weeks: look at my wip folder and despair (with brief fic summaries).

[ from this fanfic ask list ]

I got tagged in a few tags, so here they are! (thank u for tagging me!! <3 )

I’m going to tag a few people at the very beggining. if you want to do any of these tags, i encourage you to do so, it’s fun! (if u haven’t already done them, of course lol)

@sevenbangtanbabes @eris0330  @pdfmin @peacheseok  @wastedkookies  @dat-town  @andromedaneedsoxyjin  @def-initely-soul  @seokjinscheonsa

777 wip challenge

Tagged by @dat-town​

the rules: go to page 7 of your wip, go to the seventh line, share seven sentences, and tag 7 more writer-bloggers to continue the challenge.

this is from my magic!AU drafts:

‘What happened?’ Yeri questions, puzzled. Her eyes skim up and down, taking in your whole form, which undoubtedly looks hysterically comical with all that dirt dusted upon.

You glance at Yoongi seeking for some help, for some kind of hint, but he’s completely useless. He simply stares wide-eyed.

‘Um I—

I want to make a potion to make Kevin fall in love with me so I sort of needed to steal this plant from you.

‘I always thought this flower looked beautiful so I wanted to take a sprout and replant it at my place?’

Tagged by @andromedaneedsoxyjin

Gender: female

Star Sign: capricorn

Time: 8:50 pm as i’m typing this

Favorite Bands: nothing but thieves, catfish and the bottlemen, the 1975, years and years; bts, seventeen, monsta x, day6, the rose, pentagon, red velvet, k.a.r.d and a bunch of others the list goes on and on lmao

Favorite Solo Artists: Sunmi, Jessi, Hyuna, joji, Harry Styles

Song Stuck In My Head: Pentagon - Shine

Last Movie I Watched: “Game Over, Man!”

Last TV Show I Watched: “GLOW”

When Did I Create My Blog?: June 2017

What Do I Post: fanfics

Last Thing I Googled: the word “faint”. i wanted to make sure i knew the correct spelling lmao

Do I Have Other Blogs?: Yes, because i have no life. here

Do I Get Asks: sometimes, when i post something new :>

Why Did I Choose My URL: long story short: kyut because of sungkyu, but like cute. tea because of taehyung, but like tea, y’know. so it’s like cute Tae, or cutie, or whatever idk lmao

Following: 175

Followers: 238

Favorite Colors: i dunno

Average Hours Of Sleep: 8

Lucky Numbers: i never noticed particular numbers helping me so idk lol

Instruments: i’d been learning to play a piano for a year, when i was like thirteen, then stopped

What Am I Wearing: a flannel shirt from a thrift shop men’s section and leggings for running. what an odd combination lmao

How Many Blankets I Sleep With: one

Dream Job: i dunno :(

Dream Trip: to Canada probably

Favorite Food: kimbap i guess, or rice in general in any dish lmaooo

Nationality: Lithuanian

Favorite Song Right Now: Pentagon - Shine; Monsta x - Jealous; Shawn Mendes - In My Blood;  Alina Baraz - Electric (feat. Khalid); Hoya - Angel; oh and 5 Seconds of Summer - Want You Back

Tagged by @def-initely-soul

Name: kyu

Gender: female

Star sign: capricorn

Sexuality: i wish i knew lmao

What’s your current wallpaper: bts ot7 in dubai

Have you ever had a crush on a teacher? i don’t think so

If you could be somewhere else right now, where would you be? in a little colourful cabin in the mountains

Coolest halloween costume? i don’t celebrate halloween i’m lame

Favorite 90s show? The Simpsons lmaoo

Who was your first kiss? i pretty much always reject boys when they try to kiss me lol so i haven’t had like a proper first kiss yet

Have you ever been stood up? no

Have you ever been to Vegas? nope

Favourite pair of shoes? sneakers with platforms or thick soles or whatever you call those things lol, because i’m quite short and they make my legs look nice

Favourite fruit: blueberries, but they’re berries, lmao i don’t have a favourite fruit i guess

Favourite book: Just one look by Harlan Coben atm

Stupidest thing you ever done? so i had promised myself that i wouldn’t go study philology and literature and guess what i did lmao i went to university to study precisely that :)))

Element Tag

Tagged by @seokjinscheonsa

RULES: Bold the statements that apply to you, italicize your aspirations, and tag nine people!

AIR: I have small hands • I love the night sky • I watch small animals and birds when I pass them by • I drink herbal tea • I wake to see dawn • The smell of dust is comforting • I’m valued for being wise • I prefer books to music • I meditate • I find joy in learning new truths from the world around me

FIRE: I don’t have straight hair • I like to wear ripped jeans and overalls • I play an organized sport • I love dogs • I am not afraid of adventure • I love to talk to strangers • I always try new foods • I enjoy road trips • Summer is my favorite season • My radio is always playing

WATER: I wear bracelets on my wrists • I love the bustle of the city • I have more than one set of piercings • I read poetry • I love the sound of a thunderstorm• I want to travel the world • I go to sleep past midnight most days • I love dimly lit diners and fluorescent signs • I rewatch kids’ shows out of nostalgia • I see emotions in colors not words

EARTH: I wear glasses • I enjoy doing the laundry • I am a vegetarian or vegan • I have an excellent sense of time • My humor is very cheerful • I am a valued advisor and to my friends • I believe in true love • I love the chill of mountain air • I’m always listening to music • I am highly trusted by the people in my life

AETHER: I go without makeup in my daily life • I make my own artwork • I keep on track of my tasks and time • I always know true north • I see beauty in everything • I can always smell flowers • I smile at everyone I pass by • I always fear history repeating itself • I have recovered from a mental disorder • I can love unconditionally

A bunch of Yuzu asks

Anonymous said:

Could you tell us a little about what happened in the 2012-2013 National? I know that Yuzu won, some people did not like it and something made him very upset, but I only know that. I tried to look for some information in the GS but I did not find anything.

I think you summed up the chain of events pretty comprehensively there. It was the first Japanese National title for Yuzu, which did not go down well with some people. Most of those unhappy folks were supporters of Daisuke Takahashi, who was at the time the top male skater in Japan and a very, very popular figure with lots and lots of fans. I did not witness it firsthand, but I heard that those disgruntled fans took it upon themselves to make a ruckus during the medal ceremony. Plus after that there was plenty of talk circulating about how Yuzu’s win was undeserved. All of which, of course, made Yuzu quite depressed. I think I read somewhere that the backlash extended further when he didn’t medal at Worlds that year. His performance at London was affected greatly by his injury, and his comeback free skate was, by all accounts, an extraordinary effort, but well, die-hard fans just can’t be reasoned with.

Anonymous said:

Do you remember your reaction to the cup of china 2014?

Oh my lord, yes, only all too well. I’m actually having the shivers just from typing this. I remember being confused at first and then worried and then full-blown panicked and hysterical as Yuzu kept lying there on the ice and no help seemed to be coming. I remember thinking that it was at the same time one of the bravest and the most foolish things I’ve ever seen when he insisted on skating his program. I remember biting my nails and practically hyperventilating every time he went for a jump. I remember feeling, I don’t know how to describe it, emotionally overloaded, I guess, when I watched him break down in tears at the K&C. 

I remember vividly that it was the day I decided that this incredibly brave and foolish kid is my most beloved athlete on the face of Earth and that I would forever support him in whatever he does.

Even now I still get the anxiety whenever I see him in warm-up. Why did you do this to me, anon, why?

Anonymous said:

yuzu's 4S is the scariest thing, like you never know when he's gonna land it, and when he does, it's so insanely beautiful?? I was rewatching seimei at aci and his 4S combo was so fast his quad looked like a triple???? this isn't a gif request or anything but I just wanna share my admiration at his speed in the air and I know you'll get it

I totally agree with every of your points, have gone ahead and make a gifset for it, and have gushed my heart out about it too in a lengthy and largely redundant love letter to His Majesty :D If there’s any positive takeaway from that disastrous free skate at SCAC, I’d say it’s the confidence he seems to have gained on his quad Salchow, or as I like to joke:

that awkward moment when you fell on your best jump popped your second best jump and nailed your least reliable quad 

#just yuzuru things 

Anonymous said:

i feel like yuzu sometimes changes his biellman to an a spin if he's not doing well in the program? does the biellman take effort apart from flexibility? or does the a spin allow him to think like, oh what should i yolo later   

The Biellmann position is quite taxing on his back and shoulder and Yuzu doesn’t really need it to hit level 4 on his free skate combination spin, so yes, when he doesn’t feel well enough he will skip it. Like at 4CC this year, he said he was feeling a bit stiff, so he didn’t do a Biellmann in either his free skate or the gala after. Another advantage of switching to an A-spin is that it's an easier position to hold, so it would allow Yuzu to slow down or speed up accordingly to bring his choreography back in sync with the music, in case he missed a beat or two earlier due to a flubbed jump :)

Anonymous said:

I know you mentioned you're currently working on skating skills/spinning tech posts, so if you kind of cover my question in those, please ignore this ask!! there seems to be a varied consensus on yuzuru's spins - some say he's the best in the field at the moment, and I wanted to know if you agree/disagree/other, and if you think his technique has worsened at all in recent years? (thanks for all the magnificent posts btw, i live for them <3)

I wouldn’t say Yuzu is the absolute best spinner in the men’s field right now. He’s one of the best though, that’s for sure :) In a post which has been in my draft since dinosaurs walked the earth, I’m comparing his spins to Jason Brown’s and when I eventually post it (hopefully later today if I manage to make all the gifs I want to make to go with it), you’ll see that my position (no pun intended) is that they’re on the same level.

As to the development of Yuzu’s spin technique over time, I’d like to recycle these gifs:

SP Étude in D-sharp minor, 2011-2012 season:  

SP Let’s Go Crazy, 2016-1017 season:

Doesn’t look like his spin is becoming any rustier with time: flexibility, control, balance, musicality, everything is still there. If anything, he’s been getting better at gaining speed, especially during sit spins, plus both his flying entries and jumps within spins are becoming a lot more stable:

(appreciate also that smooth transition out of the Biellmann - it’s a new feature developed just last season, you know)

hologram and flamingo, superimposed / anatomy of hysterics

uncanny valley. spooky. translucent you are a bunch of hypocrites. you would swear you love me but still won’t buy my book. I am not drinking that coffee with you, nor do I eat that cheesecake I promised you to share with you one day. what?! I cannot possibly humanly supposedly theoretically hypothetically reasonably wait this long. “vinyl” is veritably the strangest word in the whole English language. the more you look at it the stranger it is. I know you cannot marry me for a variety of overwhelmingly silly reasons, but buy my book. It’s almost the same, only twice better. In fact it brings all the privileges of the named arrangement but none of its horrific downsides. I was about to throw a tantrum,                       conduct a scene,                                    an instance of hysterics,                                  a scandal, but– thank you who bought or plans to buy my book; when you have just published something, there is always this great anxiety. *wipes out traces of cheesecake from her cheeks with a tablecloth’s ridge*

I will drink coffee with you and I will eat that cheesecake *another one* that I promised I’ll eat with you one day. sigh. Billy Collins, I hear–and he’s one of the most successful poets at least among those who look like something recognizable as poets, for there are perhaps more successful ones, but their identity as poets is under a sort of question, a pending identity, as it were–Billy Collins sells some 18.000 copies of his poetry books a year, and earns $44.000 a year of royalties–which are ridiculously low numbers for one of the most famous poets alive of the huge English-speaking world. just how much more he’d earn if he wrote prose. or how even more he’d earn if he wrote self-help books. in some sense it is a privilege to be a poet in the Western society, to afford to be a poet. either you have nothing and you can therefore afford to be a poet, or you have to have a lot–a (preferably tenured) position in a good university by the very least, connections, time to and understanding how to submit endlessly carousels of your poems to journals (might be a full-time job in its own right), a lit agent at least, a publisher, etc., etc., etc. poetry is a completely thankless trade, a vain business                           (yet in another sense the most rewarding too).

hologram and flamingo, superimposed

(I am looking for a title for my streams.) hologram and flamingo: invariance theorem (another variant)

my writing career started in another language, another time, and in another country. there I was lucky to be absorbed momentarily, as soon as I gave the first glimpse of myself, into existing writing community. to be sure, an impoverished community it was, a community which had next to no power, no assets, not much of a political voice or any other kind of significance beyond its own imaginings, but a community consisting of viciously ambitious writers who are professionals of the Russian letters for what it is worth.

this community is relatively small in comparison to English-speaking writing communities, but it is also dense and centered around several dying literary journals. I publish my work in these journals and used to have books coming out regularly from publishing houses which predate on these journals as well.

the journals are treasures of writings that are barely read; their authors suffer constantly and viscerally from being un-demanded by the society. plainly put, there are no adequate infrastructures in existence, for the un-reader of said journals also exists, but laments the absence of good literature.

this un-reader dismisses the journals without reading them, because journals are the remnants of the previous epoch, surviving well into the new times in forms that seems to be outdated. (the irony of it, however, that they are just fine–in the Western world such professional journals look exactly the same). it is quite a world. pretty much everything I have ever written in Russian is published, except for diaries and things like that–something that I write for my own endless references.

I moved to the English-speaking world in 2010, and struggled with the language for quite a while (I continue struggling with it, every day is another challenge). here my successes are quite modest, at least they are not in any way in comparison with what I had in Russia.

now is a luminous, liminal moment: I have everything in endless drafts. tons of work. I like this work sincerely. my best pages are written in English, no doubt. however, there is a lot of difficulties with getting it out there. everything requires another round of revision. additionally, the services of a professional editor are extremely expensive, and I have to consult a highly skilled native speaker professional for any of my writings I attempt to advance. I asked friends to help me several times, but they cannot possibly run such a charity, and I am not entirely comfortable asking them all the time. …yes. this is about it. everything that appears in this book (Holy Robots) at some point was given away “for free,” as you put it, that is to say, was posted. I have no secret storages of writings that somehow exceed in mastery or ferocity what you see every day. however, the preparation of the book does involve selection, revisions, polishing, and, most importantly, building of sequences of poems, which is a crucial part. I try to compose my books so that each division in them has its own logic, and together they form a complex but permeable system. I believe the book should have a breathing; for the poetry book it is extremely important to think about the rhythm, architectonics, and harmony of the whole corpus of texts. I don’t know in what degree I succeeded with my task but I tried. a text into which it is easy to slip my old-time dream is fulfilled. when I was asking myself many times a day if I ever master the English language, the image of a remote room, the inhabitant of which would one day perhaps listen to my words in silence, was something that kept me going. don’t forget to write me an explicit report. Holy Robots consist(s) of eight divisions: “Holy Robots,” “Necromancer,” “Emperor,” “Missionary,” “Poems in a Male Voice,” “Alchemist,” “Paper Flowers,” and “Mirrors." Six poems out of the “Poems in a Male Voice”  series were out in Figroot Press web literary journal December 2016. This is approximately one fifth part of all the Poems in a Male Voice. I am happy with this book but I am also tired of it. It took me a long time to put it together because I kept adding poems to two sections, “Poems in a Male Voice” and “Alchemist.” By the end of it I was thoroughly exasperated. I hope I will never write another Alchemist poem or Poem in a Male Voice. I am so done with both, I cannot even tell you. The tomb of the unknown writer Is a faceless obelisk                     {obscene]                     {obsidian] Amidst a deserted landscape, Surviving by pure chance, Rising alone, Throwing a straight shadow Like a sundial For no one to measure time; No flowers, And a path                   [petulant} Overtaken by virulent verdure. Infinite Jest traveled with me to Russia–Moscow and then Siberia–in 2013. It was the only book in English I took to that travel of mine. I rather liked and disliked the book. It is a writing as much fascinating as it is disappointing. Ulysses is another matter; one cannot really dislike it–it is already pretty much a monument covered with beautiful stains of respectable moss. (Who knew it’ll happen so soon.) German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk’s masterpiece is a trilogy consisting of “Bubbles. Spheres Volume I: Microspherology,” “Globes. Spheres Volume II: Macrospherology,” and finally “Foams. Spheres Volume III: Plural Spherology.” Sounds like a life pleasantly spent. “…what Clément describes as a punitive adoration of female singers: "They suffer, they cry, they die.”“ –Alex Ross (”In Extremis,” The New Yorker, Jan.9, 2017) very true in regard to writing as well (Ross is talking about music) the female writer is constantly on the edge. inasmuch as the female writer is her character, she suffers terrible blows from life, even if as a person she’s perfectly fine. she follows through the enfilade unfolding: from one excruciating story into another. it’s a never-ending cascade of stairways, an endless kaleidoscope. the key is to sustain this spectacular falling for years without (or preferably with) the harm to the mental health. everything should fall apart to blow the reader away. if you don’t have tragedies in your life, forge them. exaggerate what little you have. keep them fascinated with the tragic sublime. be a figure of constant emaciation. a silhouette of the unbearable. sustain endless hysterics of writing. be a cascading cry, a carousel of terrible losses. "wake up from a nightmare into another nightmare.” feed vultures of déjà vu. pick worst lovers. pick lovers who would prostitute you on the agora. age tragically in one night. age irreversibly. choose strong betrayers. arrange a failure out of the most enduring friendships possible–a female friendship. bury relatives. divorce husbands. have a drug-addict child. nothing is too gross. don’t forget to die from your own hand.