#oh god also fucking [REDACTED] and [REDACTED]... both of which i had to stop reading fics for bc i was making myself too sad
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WHY MUST I ALWAYS GET INTO THE SADDEST FUCKING SHIPS WHY DO I KEEP DOING THIS TO MYSELF
#frankie yells#like fucking. sure any ship can be made sad if you try harder enough but also. fucking. why must it always be tragic little gays#im not complaining but also i keep fucking doing this to myself man why do i keep making myself sad over fictional gays 😭😭#like do i just only interact with the shit that makes me sad??? do i only really get engaged with sad fics etc. for them????#is this a me problem????#like. um. griddlehark. destiel. hannigram (sort of). ash/eiji. satosugu. aziracrow. zukka (in certain directions). shory. aaronneil.#most of my ao3 bookmarks are me sobbing my eyes out...#OH WAIT ALSO FUCKING. REDDIE 😭😭😭😭😭 I KNEW I WAS FORGETTING SOME BUT OMG REDDIEEEE#me like what if none of the mfs had a happy ending together? what then?#like babygirl are you okay??? why do you always want to be so sad??#oh god also fucking [REDACTED] and [REDACTED]... both of which i had to stop reading fics for bc i was making myself too sad#like genuinely there is a certain very long fic that i had to put down bc i was making myself depressed#OHMYGOD I FORGOT WANGXIAN AND BINGQIU.... honestly mdzs and svsss in general... kicking my feet 1 moment and sobbing the next#there are sooo many ships in both of those that make me so very sad... too many to remember or list atm tbh#i should go to bed 💀 lmao#it's too late for this nonsense ans i shouldn't have been watching destiel and hannigram compilations in the first place... of course im#just making myself sad...
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When you read this it will be 12am in my timezone, meaning it's finally my birthday! Hooray!
Below the cut will be my reactions to these four men celebrating my birthday. Artem's gonna be last because best for last of course!
So without further ado let's see stuff.
Luke
Puppy dog boy is so fucking sweet.
He's all like, I'm a detective of course I kept your birthday surprise under wraps and then he gets these puppy dog eyes like oh my god.
AND HE SINGS HAPPY BIRTHDAY IN ENGLISH THIS IS PERFECT. AND HE SAYS HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!
god he's so fucking sweet.
His present is TEARS! TEARS! I CAN USE THESE ON REVISITNG YOUTH THANK YOU!
oh and the energy and your mats are lovely too, much appreciated. <3
Vyn
HE HAS HIS GLASSES OFF AND HE WHISPERS IN MY EAR HELLO???
i am not down bad i am not down bad I am not down bad
HE ALSO HAS HIS COAT OFF????
im not a vyn oshi but oh my god.
thank you for praying for me. please pray to protect me from becoming uhhh down bad
I KEEP STARING AT YOU BECAUSE UHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU
he's not wearing them on purpose goodbye
lulu ruru has died
god why am i at my grandma's while doing this I am DYING
STOP FLIRTING WITH ME PLEASE I NEED TO BREATH
he too has gifted me similar things as Luke. i will eat well during revisiting youth. artem will show up at my doorstep and NOT MARIUS
oh speaking of him.
Marius
Man his english is pretty good. He says surprise.
he's so fucking cocky.
he designed THAT MESS of a cake? oh my god.
can we talk about this fucking cake?
i like sweets and shit but he put EVERY SWEET IMAGINABLE ON THIS FUCKING CAKE
I DO NOT NEED THAT MUCH
PLEASE PUT THOSE SOMEWHERE ELSE
PLEASE DO BETTER CAKE DESIGN
rant over
okay i feel a little bad now cause he's never celebrated somebody else's birthday before.
unless he's pulling my leg in which case fuck you.
NO WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT HE LICKED THE CAKE OFF HIS HAND
GOD WHY DOES HOYO KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING
NO STOP STOP STOP YOU ARE NOT MORE DELICIOUS THAN THE CAKE I AM LOYAL TO ARTEM I AM A LOYAL ARTEM OSHI I AM LOYAL I AM LOYAL I AM LOYAL
SPECIAL EVENT NO NO NO SOS SOS SEND ME HELP
lulu ruru died x2
he also got me a present with the same stuff pog
alright the inevitable has arrived. will i screech or will I die?
probably both!
Artem
I screenshotted everything but am not gonna post it all because I actually care about you, who may just not be reading this part anyway.
Okay the cake. This is the art of perfection. The bow. The choice of colors. The flowers. Everything is perfect.
I did not forget my birthday Mister Wing sir I'm just admiring...other things!! yeah!! other things mhmhmmhmhm!!!!
i promise i'm not that down bad
No way Artem just glanced at her employee form he probably had a mental breakdown begging Celestine to help him plan this entire thing. I see through you mister man.
Of course you didn't poor guy. This is what happens with two rocks. Take more initiative. <3
AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAAHAH he just felt like it MY ASS.
Celestine totally put him up to this thanks queen.
I will eat that whole cake thank you. the stomachache will be worth it.
NO STOP FEEDING ME NO NO
lulu.exe has broken. please restart your device.
man he's just r92weuhiueqahiduqhwaiuhdqiwuOjhd
yes yes get as close as you want artem <3 <3 <3
artem if you actually knew me in real life you'd probably NOT want me to be myself to be honest
or maybe you're into that who knows you're only [redacted] years [redacted] than me
i didnt screenshot the other guys presents but I screenshotted his because I have favorites
anyways fun birthday! mhm mhm very very fun
now i have 30 tears. now all that's left to do is wait for revisiting youth...
OH and you can access my ask box here! I'm holding an ask me anything for my birthday so if you wanna ask me something...ehe~
#tears of themis#tot#birthday#tears of themis birthday#artem wing celebrates my birthday#very pog#i love this game#happy birt
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watch your six - part four
pairing: eventual bucky x reader (still a slow burn but it’s getting closer)
warnings: some violence but not really, men being creepy, language (one f bomb), also badly written speaking while crying, aaand i think that’s it
word count: a little over 2300
a/n: aaaah it’s part four babes!!!! the response to this has been so positive i’m in love with y’all!!! <3 <3 <3 i’m still way behind on my classwork and going through a terrible break up but we’re pushing through here
p.s.: my requests are still open if y’all want me to write yall something! aaalso, there’s a bucky short coming tomorrow ;)) <3
series m.list
ray’s m.list
**********************************
This strange man’s hand was still caressing my hair as he smirked down at me. Running has hands up to the root and then yanking my head upwards to face him directly. “When I speak to you, you look me in the eye, little one.” Not one to show my fear, at least not to men like him, I scoffed. Thick brows shot towards his hairline and a twitch in his jaw as he clenched it. The hold he had in my hair gave him leverage over me. I winced as he lifted his arm to bring my face closer to his. A small whimper escaped the back of my throat, saliva gathering in my mouth. “Don’t test me, little one.” I sneered then spat in his face, the wet substance sticking to his face across his nose and cheek.
Bringing a hand up to his face to swipe the thick liquid from his skin, he glowered as he pulled his palm away. Then several things happened at once. The man forced a harsh breath out and then I was facing the ground with a sting on my left cheek. A gasp left my lips, he just slapped me. Who the hell does he think he is? I shook my head and then leveled my gaze with the man’s. I’m almost positive that my cheek is sporting a bright red handprint that does nothing for my complexion.
“What the hell man? What was that for?” I groaned while attempting to soothe my throbbing cheek on my shoulder. I mean, was it kind of justified? I did just spit in this man's face. No, he totally deserved that. After releasing his grip on my hair, he transferred his hands to the sides of the chair I was chained to. The metal scraping along the concrete floor caused a loud screech to reverberate through the small room.
“I said not to test me, bitch.” the man growled out as he pushed my chair onto the back two legs. I’m starting to think that this is a bit more serious than I originally thought. “Now, you’re going to sit here like a good little bitch and tell me what I want to know.” He retreated only to grab the chair that Suits used. Slamming against the pavement he straddled the chair with his forearms resting on the back.
“How many missions did you participate in?” I released a groan and rotated my head, leaning my head back.
“I already told your friend,” I tilted my head to speak directly to the absolute jerk-wad of a man in front of me, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The man quirked an eyebrow and clenched his jaw. He rolled his neck, causing the bones in it to crack and then stood. He walked to the other side of the metal table that sat in the middle of the room. The sound of a zipper caused me to snap my head to where he was standing. The tactical vest he was wearing dropped to the metal surface allowing for a loud thunk to flow through the room. He stretched out his shoulders and swung his arms out in front as if he was trying to increase the blood flow. I’m the one who’s literally tied to a freaking chair, what does he need blood flow for? My breathing quickened, calm down, don’t show any fear. He popped the knuckles of his hands and approached me.
“I’m not a patient man.” He bent at the knees and leaned his face closer to mine. Exhaling into my face, he maintained eye contact with me. “And you’re not acting like the good little girl we both know you oh-so-desperately want to be.” I rolled my eyes at that, apparently that was the wrong thing to do in this man’s face. His left eye twitched as he stared at me.
“Do you think you could back up? Your breath reeks, man.” I have no concern for my own well-being do I? The man’s head tilted to the side and then he wolfed out a gruff laugh. He shifted his weight to land on the heels of his feet and threw his body into the laugh. It was a bit disconcerting to see this man laughing so wholeheartedly in a situation that didn’t feel funny to me. Another blow to the side of my face was issued, however this time he didn’t stop. Several open handed hits were delivered, all the while he was resetting my head back by grasping my chin. My breathing was becoming labored, my chest heaving up and down in a frenzy. He gripped my chin and jerked it upwards so he could stand at his full height to tower over me.
“How many missions did they send you on?” He demanded, increasing his hold on my face surely leaving sickening bruises that would match his fingers perfectly. At some point, tears began running down my red cheeks.
“I don’t kno-ow what you’re talking ab-about!” Tears streaming down my swollen face, “I s-swear to god, I don’t know wh-what you mean!” Choked sobs were preventing me from breathing correctly. The man grabbed my shoulders and shook my body.
“Calm the fuck down and speak clearly.” Small hiccups were escaping my mouth without permission. Why am I letting this guy get to me? What the hell is happening? “How many missions did they send you on?” I broke down again, fat tears leaking out of my eyes.
“I ju-just want to go h-h-home. I s-swear I don’t kno-ow anything!” I shouted in his face. He glowered at me and lifted his hand from my shoulder. My whole body tensed as I readied myself to the impact.
“Johnson.” The door burst open, stopping Johnson from landing another hit. “This is not what you were supposed to be doing.” Suits walked back in the room. Johnson backed down, lowering his hand and turning to the new member in the room. “Sir, I was told to interrogate the prisoner.”
“Yes, Johnson, interrogate her. Not beat her to a pulp.” He gestured wildly with his hand. “If the boss found out you were doing this, he’d have your head on a platter.” Suits took steps closer toward us and Johnson shrunk into himself. “Get out of here before I call him about this.” Johnson nodded quickly and left the room quickly, leaving his tactical vest on the table.
I was still quietly crying while strapped to the metal frame of the chair. Suits approached me while pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket. He raised it to my face and I jolted backwards away from his touch. “Easy now, I’m only here to help.” Is he seriously pulling a good cop, bad cop routine on me right now? He wiped my cheeks of the salty remnants, “Now, how can I help you besides that?”
“You co-could let me go h-home.” I tried to say without stuttering, clearly unsuccessful. I didn’t want to show my emotions but really at this point, could it get worse?
“Awe, girly. You know I can’t do that until you tell me what I want to know.” He began to drag the chair next to me, back to the opposite side of the table. This created an obstacle between the two of us, which made me slightly more comfortable knowing he wouldn’t be able to reach me as quickly.
I heaved a sigh, “but I don’t know anything.” My weeping had come to a definite end, making way for frustration. My face heated for a different reason than being struck several times.
“See, this is where we disagree because I know that you’re lying to me.” He shook his finger in my face and I scrunched my brows together, flicking my eyes between his finger and face.
“You’re kidding me. I told you I don’t know about any missions.”
“Oh really? Then who’s Gemini?” He reclined in his chair, looking smug. “Actually, you know more importantly, who is Libra? The whole thing is just fascinating to me.”
“I don’t know what any of that is. I swear to whatever you want me to.”
“Then why do I have this that says you do.” He held up the manila folder that he first walked in with. I shrugged my shoulders.
“Whatever is in there is lying to you.” He cocked his head to the side and flipped the folder open. He removed a photograph from the folder and placed it on the table in front of me. Staring back at me, was a slightly younger version of myself with shorter hair. A large X was drawn across the whole picture and underneath it read the words ‘Agent Libra.’
My eyes widened, “I have never seen that before, in my life.” Suits sighed heavily and then began flipping through the rest of the papers.
“So what is the Svengali?” He threw out another paper and I glanced down at it. It looked like a typed report of some kind. Much of it redacted by thick black lines. The words Libra, Gemini, and Svengali were visible amidst the sea of dark ink.
*****************************
A ping sounded throughout the room causing the screen of the phone to illuminate. A metal hand reached for the thin device.
New mission alert. You’re needed. Meet at the compound.
Great, this is just what Bucky needed to keep him distracted. Sleep never came easy to him so he was spending copious amounts of time trying to catch up on what he missed out on. Steve told him to make a list and Sam kept rambling on about some gay Marvin man? Bucky much prefered to do things on his own. He hasn’t had help for over ninety years, why should he need it now?
Throwing on his leather jacket as he began to leave his apartment, he checked the pockets for the keys to his motorcycle. He also made sure to grab his gloves. Even though T’Challa and Shuri were good enough to give him a new vibranium arm, Bucky still wasn’t too keen on being stared at in public. It was better for everyone if he just kept the arm tucked away as much as he could while around strangers.
He did one last once over of his apartment before locking the door behind him. He jogged down the stairs towards his bike. It definitely was his pride and joy, it was the first thing that he bought with his own money since 1943. His apartment was courtesy of Pepper Potts, no thanks to Tony’s complaining. Tony and Bucky had eventually worked out their differences, to say the least. Tony still hadn’t fully forgiven the Winter Soldier for killing his parents, and neither had Bucky so they were agreeing to disagree.
The ride to the compound from Brooklyn wasn’t a hard one. It gave Bucky time to appreciate the scenery around him. Slowing to a stop at a four way stop just outside of the compound, Bucky dropped his feet to the tarmac below, stabilizing the bike between his legs. He tilted his head back and felt the warm rays of the sun on his face. Warm was something that Bucky was still getting used to, it was easier in Wakanda. He had his own hut, voluntary therapy sessions, and easy-going check ups with Shuri in her lab.
Everything was simpler in Wakanda, but what Bucky missed most from Wakanda was the stability. He didn’t have to worry about missions, or keeping up with Steve, or the crushing guilt that he felt whenever he saw Tony. After parking his bike at the facility, Bucky made his way to the meeting room. Dark wooden tables in an L-shape appeared in his view. Steve and Sam were standing in front of the large monitor that was displaying images of an unknown, yet familiar looking woman.
“Tony, we don’t know if she knows anything.” Natasha said, apparently trying to rationalize with someone else in the room.
“Natasha, we don’t know that she doesn’t not know anything.” Tony shot back, Sam turned slowly and opened his mouth with a confused expression on his face.
“Tony, we aren’t in an episode of FRIENDS. This is serious. We need to decide if this is worth pursuing or not.”
“Wilson, that’s all well and good but we have to acknowledge that this woman could get us our first real break in our search.” Tony explained while taking deep breaths.
“What are we deciding?” Bucky interrupted as he plopped into one of the chairs. Now that Bucky has been given his freedom back, he’s able to display a difference between his mission self and his regular self.
“This woman here,” Steve gestured to the woman on the screen, “is a member of the Virago. It’s an international branch of SHIELD that was believed to be infiltrated by HYRDA years ago.”
“This is the agent code named Libra. Her last mission was with another agent code named Gemini. The mission report has since been lost to us. All we know is that Libra and Gemini were instructed to watch a Svengali safehouse. Apparently something went wrong and only Libra made it out alive.” Tony added, “Which is why we need to find her and see what she knows.”
“Tony! There’s no guarantee that she has any knowledge of this mission.” The redhead stressed as she leaned over the table towards the man she was speaking to.
“I think we should find her.” The words left Bucky’s mouth before he could stop them. All motion in the room stopped.
“Um, did the Manchurian Candidate just agree with me?” Tony questioned as the rest of the room remained quiet.
“Look, I’m not necessarily agreeing with you.” Bucky started.
“Nope, can’t take it back.” Tony mused, “Already said it.” Bucky sighed and shook his head.
“Why do you think we should go after her Buck?” Steve inquired. Bucky’s brows furrowed and he shrugged his shoulders.
“I think I know her from somewhere.”
#watch your six#bucky fanfic#bucky barnes fanfiction#bucky barnes x reader#bucky x reader#james buchanan barnes#bucky x you#eventual bucky x reader#female reader insert#Sebastian stan#bucky barnes#bucky x y/n
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This is for @bardingbeedle who yelled at me in the tags and then on messenger and ultimately inspired me to write some “lorge soft steve” and tbh who am I to refuse. (also high-key inspired by this masterpiece of fanart I RBed [again] earlier today)
(takes place shortly after the events of Avengers Assemble episode 2x07, aka the best fic none of us ever wrote)
(heed the READ MORE!)
***
Tony is hustling from one meeting to the next, all but literally running into the kitchen for a cup of afternoon coffee, when he spies Steve Rogers bent over the communal living room coffee table. That in and of itself isn’t exactly outside the realm of normal Steve Rogers activities—the man does love a good brood, even if he won’t admit it and doesn’t do it as often as he used to.
But Tony wracks his brain for possible reasons why Steve would be hunched up around the shoulders like he’s expecting a body blow any minute and keeps coming up empty. Not even fresh coffee makes his synapses fire faster. Did they forget his birthday? Impossible. Did someone send Captain America hate mail? Uh, doubly impossible, especially because Tony’s got lawyers screening their mail for that kind of stuff (they’ve got more than enough pressure in their day-to-day lives, time-slip dinosaurs and age regressions notwithstanding).
Maybe Steve found a piece of upsetting news, or some fact of modern history that isn’t sitting well with him? That’s a lot more likely.
Before he can remind himself that Pepper’s waiting in his office to put him on a call with the president of MIT—something about a commencement speech, if memory serves—Tony is sauntering into the living room, nonchalant, tongue already prickling with some smart remark. He’s got it all written out in his head like a perfect line of code up until the moment he’s standing in front of Steve and sees the expression on his face.
“Whoa, who ran over your puppy?”
Tony winces, wishing for the millionth time that his mouth and his brain could work together simultaneously, but no. Worse, Steve doesn’t even answer him—he just frowns harder, if that’s even possible, and folds in on himself like his shoulders alone don’t take up half the length of the massive couch. Tony lowers the hand holding his coffee and blinks.
“Steve?”
“Oh!” Steve jumps upright, and quick as a flash moves something vaguely folder-shaped behind his back. “Tony! I didn’t hear you walk in—don’t you have a meeting right now?”
Something in Tony’s chest squeezes at the sight of that smile and at Steve’s impeccable attention to detail. But really, ever since the incident with the Time Stone, when he’d jolted back into his adult body and come to in Steve’s arms, he’s felt completely knocked off-balance. Now everything about Steve Rogers—the man, not the superhero—is a revelation. Every smile, every word, every look has Tony tripping over his own feet, tongue, thoughts. He may be back in his adult body, but he’s never felt more like a prepubescent teenager with a crush, fidgeting in place under Steve’s gaze.
“It got postponed,” he lies, because whatever has put that pinch between Steve’s eyebrows is way more important right now. “What’s up?”
“Nothing!” Steve replies, too loud and too quickly. Tony gives him a look. Steve flushes, shrinking in on himself even further, like he wants the couch to devour him. “Uh, nothing important. Just an anniversary I forgot about.”
Now it’s Tony’s turn to frown. He likes to think he’s got a solid mental calendar of important dates for all of his teammates memorized at this point—Natasha’s move-in, Bruce’s lab incident, Sam’s SHIELD acceptance, Steve being found in the ice—but none of those are today.
“Got room for one more?” Tony asks, nodding at the scant space next to Steve on the couch when the man gives him a questioning look. Steve’s cheeks immediately go a charming shade of pink, which churns the coffee in Tony’s empty stomach with a vengeance. Steve shifts to press himself against the arm as Tony moves to sit down next to him, almost crushing the folder Steve had hidden earlier in the process. There’s a gasp, and a lightning-quick hand, and then Steve, pale and breathless, is holding a manila folder against his chest like it’s the secret to the Super Soldier Serum.
It’s weird—Tony knows Steve trusts him, and vice versa. They wouldn’t have solved the riddle of the Time Stone if they didn’t trust each other. So to sit next to Steve, who’s gone from morose to terrified in the three minutes since Tony walked into the room and feel a wall between them is jarring. And upsetting. He’s only been nursing this crush for a few days, and Steve’s not that perceptive…is he? Maybe he is. Maybe this is Steve weeding out Tony’s feelings before they’ve even had a chance to grow.
Tony shakes his head at the thought. No, Steve’s a lot of things, but cruel isn’t one of them.
“Care to share with the class?” he asks, gently so he doesn’t spook Steve. It seems to work: Steve relaxes, tension falling from his shoulders as he eases into Tony’s presence. He takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, but keeps the folder pressed securely against his sternum. Tony tries hard not to steal a glance at the way Steve’s shirt pulls across his broad, thick chest as he breathes.
“It’s nothing.”
“Cap, if it was nothing, you wouldn’t be trying to Honey-I-Shrunk-Myself into the couch right now.”
Steve Rogers in active wear doesn’t cut quite the same figure as Steve Rogers in full Captain America regalia, it’s true, but that doesn’t mean he’s small. Like this, he’s just as large and has just as much presence as he does in uniform; it’s just…more human. Less Captain, more Steve. Both are devastating in their own way, but only Steve—friendly, blushing, awkward, unassuming Steve—makes Tony acutely aware of the distance between their bodies, down to the last electrified hair.
Catching his own breath, Tony puts his full mug on the coffee table and drops his hands into his lap, turning his head to watch Steve chew on whatever words are fighting to come out. Be patient, he tells himself. Whatever this is, Steve’s struggling with it, and Tony can have some tact when he wants to.
Finally, Steve closes his eyes and sighs. When he lowers his hands, the folder goes with them. Tony glances at the cover and almost swallows his tongue.
“Is that—?” Steve makes a noncommittal sound, like a ‘yes’ but softer, uncertain, like he’s not sure Tony’s reaction is a good one. Tony swallows his excitement with a wince. “Is that the Project Rebirth file? I told Fury to give it to you a long time ago, but I wasn’t sure he did.”
Tony is so preoccupied looking at the folder he doesn’t hear Steve’s gasp or notice his eyes lock onto him. “He did,” Steve replies quietly after a pause. “But that’s isn’t…that’s not what this is about.”
That’s kind of a surprise. The sudden appearance of the Project Rebirth file would explain Steve’s face and body language, but if it’s not that…
Steve hands the entire folder over to Tony without another word.
“Uh,” Tony gapes, too awestruck to achieve any kind of higher brain function.
“Look at the date,” Steve says. It’s not an order, just a gentle request, but it doesn’t prevent a shiver from rippling down the length of Tony’s spine. If he was hyperaware of the space between their bodies before, it’s even worse now with Steve leaning every-so-slightly toward him and reaching out a hand to point directly at the date written on the faded label.
22 June 1943
Tony blinks. “It’s the anniversary…of you?” He opens the folder without a second thought, and the first thing he sees is a picture of Steve. There are other things in the file—sheaves of what look like medical reports, heavily redacted memos, and carbon copies of typed letters—but the only thing Tony can focus on is Steven Grant Rogers circa 1943. The Steven Grant Rogers of before.
He’s touching the photo before he can stop himself, being so, so careful as he traces the narrow shape of the man in the photograph while the real, supersized thing sits next to him.
“It’s the first time I’ve really had a chance to sit and think about what it was like, before,” Steve says, unprompted. “Everything happened so fast once I got the serum, I didn’t have time to just…take it all in. And then I went into the ice and—well. You know the rest.”
All skin and bones, this man, back then. But the jut of his jaw is the same; the serum didn’t change that, or the flinty stubbornness in Steve’s eyes, or the proud set of his shoulders, just daring the world to try and fuck with him. Tony smiles—Steve before the serum is like a matchstick, short and thin and always one spark away from bursting into flame. He really didn’t change a bit.
When Tony finally looks up from the photo (not gazing, of course not), he sees Steve’s expression has gone pinched again, his arms now crossed in front of his chest.
“Alright, there’s that face again. Out with it, Cap.”
Steve really shouldn’t bite his lip—it’s bad for Tony’s health. But Tony’s comment does get him to smile a little bit, which is good. “I guess…it’s been over seventy years since I got the serum, but most days I still feel like that skinny guy in the picture.” Tony watches him as he speaks, taking in the faraway look in Steve’s eyes, the shrinking posture, the downward turn of his mouth—who says I can’t be observant, Tony thinks—and wishes he and Steve were the kind of friends who hugged outside of catastrophic cosmic events. God knows it looks like Steve could use one, as wound up and tense as he is right now.
“I’ve broken so many things by accident because I keep forgetting I’m this, now,” he says, gesturing broadly at himself with one hand. Frowning, Steve uses that same hand to brace his forehead, elbow dropping down onto his thigh. The man is the picture of misery, and Tony aches to comfort him. It’s a physical pull in the pit of his stomach, urgent and needy—like if he doesn’t get his arms around Steve Rogers right this second, something important inside him is going to malfunction.
Tony shoves his hands under his thighs and nods. “Dr. Erskine could turn you into a super soldier,” he says softly, “but he couldn’t erase the first 27 years of your life.” He doesn’t speak his next thought aloud—that if there was in fact a way to erase those years, Tony would have signed up for the very first clinical trial. It’s a grim thought, and not something Steve needs to hear right now, but it’s been on Tony’s mind ever since his brief return to adolescence, and it’s a hard one to shake.
But what Steve heard seems to help. He peeks at Tony through his fingers and swallows loud enough even Tony can hear it.
“Yeah,” he rasps, “something like that.”
“What else?”
“What?”
“What else is bugging you? About this?”
Steve lowers his hand and stares at Tony. Stares. It’s such a feeling, being stared at by Steve Rogers, Tony can feel the heat climbing up from underneath his t-shirt. Even the arc reactor feels a bit warmer in his chest.
“How could you tell?”
“You’re still doing your level-best impression of a Shrinky Dink, Cap,” Tony replies. “Kind of hard not to notice.”
“I have no idea what that is,” Steve laughs, a hoarse, dry sound, “but you’re not wrong. I guess…I don’t know. It’s hard to put into words.”
“Try.”
Seriously, when Steve looks at him like that—like he did when Tony soared through the air as Iron Kid, all awe and pride and warmth—Tony feels capable of anything. Anything. He’d bottle that feeling, if he could, just like he’d bottle the color of Steve’s hair in the afternoon light coming in through the living room windows right now, all warm, pale yellows shot through with gold. If the photo in the file were in full color, Tony would bet his fortune Steve’s hair would be the same shade it is now.
Because Steve Rogers has always been perfect. Damn him.
“I still feel small,” Steve says, and any thoughts of hair and perfection derail abruptly. Looking into the middle-distance past his nose, he continues, “I don’t fit in this body. That doesn’t make sense, but—it’s like the super soldier is a mold, and I’m just there rattling around inside it, too small to fit. Does that—does that make any sense?” He looks at Tony imploringly, begging him with his eyes to understand. Tony feels that tug again, worse now, to wrap his arms around Steve and hold him tight. Call it returning the favor for the other day with the Time Stone, call it acting on his crush, whatever.
No one so large has ever looked as small as Steve Rogers does right now.
“It does,” Tony croaks.
“Really?”
“Really. I mean, how do you think I feel inside the suit?”
Steve makes a sound at that—not a whimper, not a gasp, but something hovering between the two that splits Tony’s heart right down the middle. “I never thought of it that way,” he whispers. “But that’s it. That’s exactly it.” Visible relief fills Steve’s lungs and makes his entire body go lax, leaning closer to Tony in the process. Tony, of course, is hyperaware of Steve’s size—everyone except Thor and Hulk is small compared to him—but now he’s equally aware of who’s operating the Cap-suit, so to speak.
“The only difference is, I can take my super-suit off,” Tony says, pinching the underside of his own thigh to cut off a laugh—Steve hasn’t seen The Incredibles yet—and continues, “you can’t. That’s bound to make a guy feel uncomfortable, even you, Mr. ‘I can handle anything you throw at me.’” He elbows Steve a little, good-naturedly, for emphasis, and gets a full, beautiful smile for his efforts.
God. Skinny or huge, Steve Rogers is gorgeous. It really shouldn’t be allowed.
“Yeah, good point.” Face still split by a smile—I put that there, Tony preens—Steve leans against the back of the couch and sighs. “There are things I miss, though. About being small. I didn’t think I did, until…” He glances at Tony, then, and there’s no missing the blush creeping up his neck.
“Until?”
“The other day,” Steve replies. “When you de-aged, and I—when we—” Tony bites his tongue so hard he’s pretty sure he tastes blood. Don’t interrupt. Let him get it out. Steve laughs breathily. “When I hugged you, I was so glad I was in a position to protect you, physically, like that. But later on I kept thinking about how much I miss being the protected one, sometimes. Not always, but. Sometimes.” Steve looks at the photo and sighs. “I keep thinking about what it felt like when ma looked after me when I was sick, or when Bucky put himself between me and the bigger guy because he knew I couldn’t take another hit…sure I resented it a little, being so weak, but I liked…that.”
“You liked being cared for.”
The look Steve levels at Tony could drive away a storm.
“Yeah,” he husks. “I did.”
“And now that you’re—” Tony waves a hand at Steve’s everything, “—this, you think you don’t, what, deserve care?”
“Maybe?” Steve blinks. “I don’t know.”
“Cap—Steve,” Tony says, putting his hands palms-up in his lap so Steve can see all of him. No threat, no judgment. “Everyone wants to feel cared for. It’s human nature. And just because you’re superhuman doesn’t mean you’re inhuman.”
Damn if those therapy sessions Pepper forced him into aren’t paying off big time right now. If the sheen in Steve’s eyes is anything to go by, Tony’s hit the nail right on the head.
“Oh,” he breathes.
“Yeah,” Tony smiles. Butterflies be damned, he moves the project file onto the coffee table next to his now-cold mug and turns toward Steve. Slowly, he opens his arms. “C’mere,” he says, so quiet only Steve would hear if anyone else was around. As it is, they’re alone in the tower, and Steve doesn’t hesitate—one moment Tony’s arms are empty and the next he’s got 240 pounds of solid muscle curling into his chest and Steve’s tucking his big head under Tony’s chin like the world’s neediest Bernese mountain dog.
Thankfully, Tony’s arms are just long enough to fit all the way around Steve’s massive shoulders. And even if they weren’t, he’d find a way to make it work.
Knees knocking together, feet brushing up against each other on the carpet, Steve shifts and adjusts until he can wrap his arms around Tony’s waist. Once he settles in, he sighs right into the notch at the base of Tony’s throat. “Thank you, Tony.”
“Anytime, big guy,” Tony replies, softly with a warm smile he thinks Steve can’t see.
#bardingbeedle#steve rogers#tony stark#pre-getting together#stevetony#stony#stony fic#superhusbands#rachel writes fic#HAPPY JUNE 22#KINDA#ignoring the fact that I'm posting this at 0130 on June 23 :3#insecure steve rogers#insecure tony stark#tony and I see the same therapist lol#stovetuna writes#and yes 22 June is apparently the MCU date of Project Rebirth#PERFECT TIMING
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TFATWS episode 1 rewatch commentary
The first scene was so beautiful. I loved that we didn't start directly with the fight sequence. It feels way closer to the quiet beginning of CATWS and I love it so much.
The title is also SO NEAT, music's on point too but hey it’s Henry Jackman the one thing I’m sure it’s going to be great overall is the score.
The choreography is AMAZING, really well shot. Sam shielding himself with only one wing was MA-JES-TIC.
“WHAT'S UP” EXACTLY SAM EXACTLY
I did feel so uncomfortable in regards to the military aspect of it. Not that I was expecting anything else, but both here and in Captain Marvel the military we're good guys < 3 propaganda is so blatant and ugh:/ At least there wasn’t a literal recruitment spot like with CM.
The yellow filter in the Tunisia scene BYE please stop with the yellow filters 2k21
"I've been working with the Air Force for six months now" So, did Sam even catch a break at all after Endgame? Or did he just throw himself to work like SOMEONE did after being iced for 70 years. Hmmm? Sam????
"Essentially, these people, they want a world that's unified without borders" OH NO! HOW AWFUL, how evil of these bad guys smh
Joaquin: SO about Steve
Sam: :)))))) nope
"Moon stuff" SAAAM
#1 cry with Sam's speech, full on chills.. Fuck. Me. His voice about to break before saying thank you bYE.
Shady politician: "It was the right decision" (FUCKKKKK YOUUU)
Rhodey: *press any key to doubt *
I need someone to analyze the different curation of the two exhibits pretty please
NOT THE PHOTO POST-AZZANO JFC. That photo is my weakness, Bucky sweetie (also I find hilarious that usually when there are articles about Stucky and/or #givecaptainamericaaboyfriend they aaaalways use that photo LMAO)
In case someone wants to read the transcription of the texts about Bucky: "In 1944, while on a mission to thwart a Hydra weapon transport in the Alps, Barnes was thrown from a train and believed to have been killed in action. It wasn't until 2014, over seventy years later, that it was revealed that Barnes was alive, having been found by Hydra operatives. Captain America himself (i can't read) the effort to bring Barnes in only to later aid in a escape from custody having been convinced of his innocence. Steve's loyalty to his old friend, coupled with his refusal to sign the Sokovia Accords, led to the dissolution of the Avengers and drove the Captain into hiding with other like-minded Avengers including Natasha Romanoff, Wanda Maximoff, and Sam Wilson. The current whereabouts of Barnes remains unknown, habing been labeled a fugitive following his escape from custody."
"current wherabout unknown" but not the government, interesting. Also, pretty good summary of CACW from the public's perspective, although one of the things I always wanted to see explored was the public's reaction of the fallout of them going into hiding after Civil War (which I'm hoping we'll get to see a little bit of in Black Widow).
Interesting point about the 70 years without having Captain America. Clearly the sacrifice play wasn't enough this time to fuel the nationalism so they went with a squeaky clean John Walker instead.
Sam saying the shield belongs to Steve I'm going to cry now excuse me. Sam. Sam sweetie.
The No. 1 Captain America comic in the display ugH fuck yes
See this is how you do a cameo that has actual meaning. Thank god for Malcolm Spellman being a competent writer. That scene was so well written.
HAVE YOU PRAISED ANTHONY MACKIE'S PERFORMANCE TODAY?? Holy shit that last shot fucked me up.
I'm loving the use of the wide shots, especially in the flashback. The camera movements are in synch with The Soldier's state of mind and mission focus, so good.
EVERYONE STAND UP FOR THE NATIONAL ANTHEM aka The Winter Soldier theme composed by Henry Jackman.
Without a doubt the most brutal TWS fight scene there has been, People involved in Punisher and John Wick are involved in this and it SHOWS.
For the record, still stands that the only time we've seen him chocking someone with his right hand instead of the metal arm remains the Maria Stark assasination. I know it's probably because of blocking and the way the shot was composed but the implications are still bone chilling. God.
Uhhmmmm I'm very ambivalent about the "Hail Hydra". On one hand, it was 100% fanservice and the internet is probably going to go insane over it, and the dead way Sebastian Stan delivered the line. Good shit. Buuut what I love about CATWS is the way Bucky never, ever ever, mouths Hydra rethoric, and even when Pierce tries to gaslight him with it, it's just an empty effort. The Winter Soldier isn't doing anything because of ideological loyalty to Hydra, even if it's product of brainwashing, it's just sheer dehumanization. They don’t need him to say the words because he’s just An Asset. There are people who have put it more eloquently but yeah, I rather go with the fanon interpretation of that aspect.
The music growing louder with the shot of the keys. GOD.
I'm fine this is fine.
#2 cry with the therapy scene of fucking course.
The government monitoring Bucky is noooot going to end well lmao.
"We need to know that you're not gonna * slowmo stabbing motions *
Bucky: * nodding along slowly *
I laughed out loud.
"It's passive agressive" I love him.
The way this scene just sucker punched me in the face, made me weep and then had me cracking up. Amazing.
Therapist: You can't do anything illegal
Bucky: yup yup check checkity check. What IS considered illegal tho?
*aggresive tablet finger pressing *
"Then why isn't it rule number one?" Bucky your Steve is showing.
I love the close up shot. I'll keep saying it. It's so good.
"I'm James Bucky Barnes" yeah you are🥺
That smile is nightmare fuel LMFAO I love it.
Uhm the way I'm kinning Bucky it's not funny anymore damn
That whole “are you lashing out at me” rambling is really reminiscent of the bar scene in CATFA and how he lashed out at Steve after Peggy left. Uhm yeah fuck.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" "Peace"
"That is UTTER BULLSHIT" "You're a terrible shrink"
yeah ugly crying to ugly laughing speedrun for me
"You're free" "To do what?" jesus. That entire scene. #3 and #4 and #5 cries for moi.
Ugh that Brooklyn shot. Someone needs to do a gifset compairing it to the one in CATFA asap.
"It's like Monique but it's got a "U" in there for uniqueness" "That's absurd" LMAO
"You can't keep fighting with your neighbors" uHM * redacted redacted i'm shifting into 1940s mode abort abort *
"Nobody passed 90" "So young. Such a shame" FGADHGA
🥺🥺 yes flex those flirting skills good for you
"It's a dance to this things. You can't… you gotta warm up and I haven't danced since 1943. Feels like." #6 cry I completely broke down into tears with that.
This Yori storyline is going to punch me in the face with a metal fist. Great!
The TWS theme when he looks at Yori fuuuuuck.
GREAT LET'S GO TO LOUISIANA THAT WAS GETTING HEAVY.
Those shots of Sam in the car. Immaculate. Showstoping. Yes.
Marvel, what if instead of promoting the military industrial complex you put a lot of publicity about cars?
"Uncle Sam!" LMAO subtle.
Everyone trying to have the wings lmao same.
I've only had Sarah for a day but etc. Brooklyn 99 meme
Good mirroring about Steve and Sam family's legacy. Good shit. Goooood shit.
Sam is trying so hard ouch my heart. I can't imagine how painful the scene with them reuniting must have been. He 100% still feels a lot of guilt about being gone for those 5 years (and even longer before that).
"Maybe it is time for us to move on" uuuuuuuuuuh
"To the rescue" "Always" 🥺🥺 i love them so much already
That shot outside the restaurant is so beautiful. Can't wait to see the night scenes in Madripoor tbh.
"I tried the whole online dating thing. It's pretty crazy". Uhm well that is something that Bucky Barnes has now said. In canon. Damn.
"It's a lot" "You sound like my dad" LMAO
Every Bucky fanfic trope speedrun with this scene
"Wow you really can drink" OH you have no idea
Just realized we don't even know her name, well.
"You have any siblings?" "I have a sister" THE WAY I SCREECHED. We're definitely getting Becca
Well that escalated quickly. The important thing is to try?
I can't deal with this BUCKY SWEETIE #8 cry right there fuck
The wardrobe department is KILLING IT, there's such a difference between the outfits of the shows vs how ugly and generic it usually is.
"ThEre is NO such thiNg as on time. You're either EARLY or LATE . picK One" lmao the way he delivered that line
At first I thought the flag smashers had thrown two cars out of a window LMAO
"I don't know how jurisdiction works here, but I'mma have to place you under arrest" uhm yikes. The way they changed Joaquín Torres backstory to just random army nice guy #1 is not sitting well with me, what can I say.
Sam's wings motions I LOVE HIM YOUR HONOR
Fuuuuck this guy.
"Funny how thing's always thighten around us" "Look, I'm on your side. After all, he's a hero". This script is C R I S P as hell, great fucking job.
"I don't care, I'm not gonna quit" "What are you trying to prove? And who you trying to prove it to" SHIT HSIT SHIT!!! UGH amazing. Look it's not necessary to say the show's questions out loud but how they flow between the conversations is still very satisfactory without feeling in your face about it. Inner conflicts have been set up fucking perfectly everyone * claps *
Ugh here we fucking go. I knew this was how the episode was going to end but my stomach still dropped like a rollercoster. God.
The score is on point. Damn. Damn.
God, Sam.🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺
The captain america franchise's visuals in the credits are always so amazing.
Also, does anybody know why Mackie isn't first in the billing? Uhm what's that about?
ANYWAY CONCLUSION THAT EPISODE WAS SO FUCKING GOOD LIKE HOLY SHIT. I love them so much. The balance between the personal conflicts and the political aspect (although the military aspect is still very much yikes) was on point and it was overall a joy to watch.
#tfatws#tfatws spoilers#i'm so happy rn#sorry for the ramblings i just wanted to have it all written down#sam wilson#bucky barnes#captain america#tfatws commentary
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i am curious, as someone who’s only exposure to arthurania was reading jane yolen’s young merlin as a child, would you mind saying why hnoc is a bad adaptation? i’m super curious but no worries if not <3
this has been sitting in my inbox for months bc i kept telling myself i needed to write a full essay with proof from medieval lit to make myself feel smarter. however, since i’ve recently lost all credibility bc i can’t articulate points to save my life, and since i’ve realized that i could answer this in a just a couple paragraphs, now seems like the right time to answer this ask. sorry for the wait.
under a cut bc length
also warnings for mentions of racism bc this is hnoc we're talking abt and sexual assault bc this is med lit we're also talking abt
the basic problems are pendragon polycule itself, the story beats of the album, the fridging and lack of characterization of morgan le fay, the clear influence of pop culture arthuriana, and whatever the fuck happened with gawain/e.
pendragon polycule is... just not a good take. there’s a bit in the lancelot-grail abt arthur viewing lancelot like a son (and lancelot not giving a shit abt him). also arthur knew his parents for years before lancelot was even born. plus lancelot just Doesn’t care abt him and i can’t stress this part enough. arthur repeatedly tries to have guinnevere killed, mostly in the lancelot-grail, and guinn didn’t really have any say in marrying him bc she was a teenager. lancelot and guinnevere is a lot better but that’s not saying much. guinn doesn’t exactly treat lancelot too well... like at all, BUT it’s not intrinsic to their relationship and is completely caused by medieval misogyny and i’m all in favor of modern retellings saying fuck that. but also lancelot has multiple pseudo-canon boyfriends (this is med lit after all), and one pseudo-canon husband so like... there were better options. (also lancelot’s husband is basically in a lavender marriage with guinnevere’s maybe girlfriend who most authors just eventually forget abt as the story progresses).
this next one is a problem with a lot of modern arthurian works bc the inclusion of elayne of astolat is too much to ask apparently. the grail quest isn’t tied to the fall of camelot, it just happens to be one of the last grand adventures the knights of the round table have. the event that traditionally sets off the fall is the death of the maiden of astolat/the lady of shalott/elayne of escolat/she has a lot of names, her story has a few variations but usually she either is cursed to stay in a tower and weave and only be able to see the outside world through a mirror positioned across from her window, until lancelot rides by and she rushes to see him out of the actual window and her mirror shatters, setting off her death, or she lives with her father and brothers and takes care of lancelot bc he was injured for a time and she gets to go on adventures to find him and she’s friends with gawaine and she dies bc lancelot rejects her and this version’s a lot more fun but also more happens which makes it harder to explain. the way her story ends however, is that she dies after she makes arrangements for a glorious boat to drift from astolat to camelot carrying nothing but her dead body and a letter explaining that she died of love for lancelot du lac and the court mourns the death of such a beautiful and young maiden (her age varies a lot but i’ve always read her as a young teenager at most). but the important thing is, camelot is doomed from the moment she washes up on its shore bc she’s an omen of the end and has symbolic meaning and all that, the maiden of astolat washes up on camelot’s shores, the court mourns the loss of a maiden in her prime and she marks the end of camelot’s prime as well, morgan le fay reappears after being presumed dead and warns arthur of guinnevere and lancelot’s affair, aggravaine and modred conspire to bring lancelot and guinnevere’s affair to light, they succeed but lancelot escapes, guinnevere is to be burnt at the stake and lancelot rescues her, killing aggravaine, gaheris and gareth (gawaine’s brothers) in the process, gawaine drags his uncle and camelot to war bc he was driven mad due to the loss of his brothers, lancelot accidentally kills gawaine, his best friend and maybe boyfriend (i have RECEIPTS), and gawaine forgives him on his detahbed while lancelot and guinn rejoin arthur, meanwhile modred, who practically had the throne handed to him, usurps and invites the saxons in, camlann happens, and camelot is destroyed. no where in there is the grail quest.
morgan le fay is honestly the most questionable part of the album bc there’s not a single text where she dies. like.... at least with eurydice in udad she died in the original... there’s no basis for morgan dying. also she is NOT modred’s mother and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar, she interacts with him once in the vulgate bc she had three of her nephews over and that’s IT. it’s a horrible take which originated in the mists of avalon by marion zimmer bradley who is an honest to god monster for reasons i don’t want to trigger tag this post for. also she’s one of the most dynamic and thought-out characters in the entire canon and they just made her a watered down morgause (modred’s actual mother, morgan’s sister, canonical milf)... there was no reason for it to be her apart from the fact that she’s more well known......
pop culture arthuriana is,,, one of my least favorite things. no, morgan wasn’t modred’s mother, no, morgause wasn’t abusive but her husband sure was implied to be, no, aggravaine didn’t kill his mother, that was gaheris, he loved his mother, you’re only saying that bc he has a reputation as the “evil” orkney, no, the once and future king is not a good descriptor for arthur, stop making me read it, no, morgause wasn’t the one to initiate the thing with arthur resulting in modred, no, lancelot and arthur weren’t friends, no, tristan wasn’t a self-centered asshole, tennyson is a fucking liar, no, galahad didn’t have sex or want to, he’s one of the first ever explicitly asexual characters out there, no, galahad’s conception was NOT consensual, lancelot was tricked, and no, elayne of astolat wasn’t galahad’s mother, she’s implied to be younger than him. those are just the big glaring ones, but i swear it’s bc of arthuriana’s reputation as a mythology and the connotations belonging to that word (no one true canon (which is true but there are still things that just AREN’T canon, not completely written down, passed by oral tradition) that causes ppl to see mediocre modern texts and go “oh. well this is abt as close to the original as i’m going to get” and don’t bother to look into so much as malory (who i only name bc he’s one of the most well known medieval authors with the most commonly used storylines, don’t read malory kids, he’s a mediocre-at-best writer even by medieval standards). the big perpetrators of modern arthurian tropes are the books the once and future king by th wh*te, who is a shitty person and lets it bleed into his writing (which isn’t like... nice to read or anything, seriously why do ppl love this book so much it doesn’t have redeeming qualities), and the mists of avalon by marion zimmer bradley (it’s poorly written, the story is a mess, and mzb is honestly a monster and one google search will tell you that), and unfortunately the writings of tennyson, which are mostly good but he clearly didn’t read the povest (a later text that’s also my favorite, known for significantly improving ppl’s opinions on tristan, isolde and co.) before deciding he hated both tristan and isolde and he has HORRIBLE takes on them. high noon over camelot is SEEPED in pop culture arthuriana and i think it would have been so much better if the band had read so much as a SUMMARY of the events of le morte. it’s evident in the song “the once and future king” bc it’s,,,, literally named after one of the worst books in existence. it’s shown in the morgan le fay thing, and it’s shown in the pendragon polycule thing. and hell, i think you can even explain away the lack of elayne of astolat with pop culture arthuriana, bc ppl have had bad takes on her ever since th wh*te combined her character with that of ela*ne of corbenic, and the band probably went “huh, let’s write lancelot’s abuser out of this” and they would’ve been right to do so if that’s who elayne of astolat was.
the final big issue is gawaine, the closest thing the genre has to a protagonist, he’s pretty much canon bi and, in some texts, arospec, he’s a dashing knight of great reknown and he derails every romance to steal hearts, commit murder, and make out with every knight and lady mentioned. and in hnoc he’s... racist. that’s it. it’s,,, almost completely unfounded by the arthurian canon and shows a major misunderstanding of his motivations (like i said earlier, he wants to avenge his brothers bc there’s a reoccuring motif of how much the orkneys value family). i say almost bc in one text it’s his motivations for killing palomydes but i’ve never heard it mentioned by name bc that’s just what it’s known for. most arthuriana fans just look away from it except when critiquing hnoc but that one text is an outlier, shouldn’t be counted, and i highly doubt the mechs made hnoc gawain how he is bc they found this text. it’s just a bad text.
hnoc has,,, quite a few more minor issues, such as villainized ladies of the lake (their ONLY crimes were sealing away merlin bc he tried to assault teenage nimue/ninniane (proto-nimue/vivianne from the vulgate), and that one time vivviane/ninniane kidnapped adopted baby lancelot), assigning brain to merlin (y’know,,, the predator who helped arrange the [redacted] of arthur’s mother and tried to assault a teenager,,,) although merlin is portrayed in a positive light throughout modern arthuriana so i don’t think they knew, giving a song to pellinore, who my perception of has been forever altered bc i was introduced to him through malory and the explanation of torre’s conception, which you can just look up “sir torre arthurian” to find out abt if you can’t just Guess, if they wanted a song abt the questing beast palomydes was Right There AND has been associated with the questing beast for longer, but once again i don’t think they knew.
also namedropping a bunch of knights in the fiction is... it Suggests a bigger world full of all these other stories but they just don’t work bc the world of hnoc wasn’t designed in a way where the appearance of half these characters would make sense. like,, tristan is referenced as dying in the grail quest in the same sentence as bedevere (one of the characters who is known for almost always surviving), but tristan Isn’t one of the knights who dies on the grail quest, his possible deaths (ignoring the potentially happy ending of the povest for a second) are either being murdered by his uncle, king mark (bc mark married tristan’s gf to try and get tristan killed and also to spite him), bc he was driven into a fury bc of tristan and isolde’s affair, or he’s injured and only isolde (the best healer in the world) can save him so he sends for her and if the ship he sent for her is supposed to fly white sails if she’s there, or black sails if she’s not, and the ship flies white sails but his wife (also named isolde) says it’s black sails (the why depends but usually comes down to jealousy), and so he gives up bc he thinks all hope is lost and usually succumbs to his injuries, either way isolde dies of a broken heart over his body. there’s no way for the tristan and isolde story to play out like it’s supposed to in the world of hnoc, just as there’s no way for any story with gawaine (and Oh Boy are there a lot of stories with gawaine) or pretty much anyone else, without severely altering the canon.
of course, there are still parts of hnoc i like a lot, most of the music i adore and i just like the idea of space cowboys and the secret good hnoc that lives in my head. and it has one of my favorite characterizations of galahad, even though galahad hnoc is nothing like galahad arthuriana. it’s not GOOD but i like it and it’s fun to turn my brain off too, and i’ll always value it as my introduction to arthuriana.
also there are modern arthurian tropes i do like such as characters being genre-savvy/knowing they’re fictional/knowing they’ve done this before (which hnoc does wonderfully!) and bedevere-as-the-storyteller (everyone say thank you lord tennyson).
WOW that was longer than expected, i feel very passionately abt this, when i was planning to write a fully sourced essay i meant to include a bit at the bottom with recommendations to get into better arthuriana and i think i’ll keep that in this post.
if you like hnoc for the arthurian music i’d like to suggest heather dale’s arthurian music to you, she does occasionally fall into the trap of modern arthuriana (some parts of lancelot and arthur being close, morgan as modred’s mother), sometimes she’s just wrong (galahad at lancelot’s trial, a lot of tristan and isolde), and her stuff is kinda straightwashed sometimes (sir gawain and the green knight, for example) but i’d be lying if it wasn’t catchy, and it’s not quite as bad as hnoc adaptation-wise. culwch and olwen is pretty accurate (albeit abridged bc culwch and olwen has SO many tangents), as is lily maid (it’s abt elayne of astolat!).
if you liked hnoc for king arthur... in space! then may i recommend to you my own fanfic? it's not posted yet but the second i finish writing the first chapter i'm going to make a Big Deal out of it that'll be impossible to miss!
if you want to learn abt arthuriana through tumblr-osmosis like i did at first, i’d like to recommend the love of my life @acegalahads, first and foremost (it’s me on a sideblog i’m just obsessed with myself), and i can’t recommend my arthuriana mutuals over there, @/gringolet, @/merlinenthusiast, @/jcbookworm, @/elayneofshalott, and @/elaineofascolat (the elayne urls have been popular recently), also i know for a fact that my mutual-in-law, @/itonje makes great arthuriana posts that i look forwards to whenever i open the tag.
here are a few good reference posts, a quick guide to the characters, a guide to characters of color, and a much more comprehensive intro to arthuriana post with even more texts linked to it.
if you want to ease into med lit, i’d like to introduce you to pre-raphaelite poetry, alfred lord tennyson and william morris are my favorites, although tennyson can’t be trusted with tristan and isolde. the poem the lady of shalott is basically a rite of passage for arthuriana fans, although when it comes to tennyson’s writings abt elayne of astolat, i prefer lancelot and elaine, which is part of his much larger story, idylls of the king. for morris, don’t trust what he says abt aggravaine killing his mother, but my favorites of his are sir galahad, a christmas mystery, which sounds like a shitty disney sequel, and palomyde’s quest, which i blame for my love of palomydes (that and the one bit of the povest where he asks tristan to be his greatest enemy and that he wants nothing more, gay ppl,,,,).
if you want to read abt lancelot and his husband, there’s the lancelot-grail cycle, which i believe was taken off of archive dot org and i think i found it on @/tobeisexhausting’s blog but don’t quote me on that.
the povest, which was a religious experience for me and i can’t reccomend enough if you want to like tristan and isolde, is here, i don’t know who scanned it but i think i found it on @/lanzelet’s blog
the dutch texts are just good in general, here’s a link to their section of a(n unfinished) site for hosting various texts by my former mutual @/reynier (who’s no longer on tumblr). i’d like to recommend lancelot and the white hart specifically bc it’s mainly just just gawaine being gay for lancelot.
if you want older works, here’s my scan of the history of the kings of britain, and here’s culwch and olwen and pa gur.
oh wow this is even longer than i thought it would be so i’m going to wrap this up by saying that i always love to talk abt arthuriana more than anything if you have any questions or just are curious!
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i did an A:TLA rewatch and took notes because that’s just what i do, and here’s the notes if anyone wants to see my thoughts
i haven't watched atla since about a year before korra started airing, so like, around 2011. i should also mention that i never watched korra through to the end, but i guess i'll do that after this. if i feel like it. i do know that the biggest bottles were never popped
i have such a clear memory of the first episode. it must've been on nickelodeon pretty often, even though when it was airing, i only watched it occasionally. i remember they also aired the library episode super often.
aang's voice is so tiny and sweet
i gotta turn off my dumb adult brain and put my dumb kid brain back on so i can better appreciate the nickelodeonness of it all
sokka and zuko's first interaction.......
zuko's intimidating approach and then his tiny teen voice
SOKKA AND ZUKO'S SECOND INTERACTION............
zuko's like "i'm going home." with aang. he must be feeling an incredible mixture of feelings, thinking he has the avatar and can reclaim his Honor. but he also must be terrified to go back, and in disbelief... fortunately he's not going home like he said and there are even more confused feelings in between
i just remembered that iroh's voice actor dies between seasons :(
thinking a lot about dante basco... no thoughts in particular, just a lot of them... and how he shipped zutara lmao
"my troubles cannot be soaked away!"
hei bai looks like a ben 10
mounts list (added to as i progressed through the series): zuko's rhinos. earth armored ostriches. metal noshing mole. north pole goatyak. azula and friends' fur geckos. sabertooth moose lion if you're not a wimp. appa-sized beetle. moose with aquatic features. Eel Hound.
you can't out-mom-friend katara. even when she's yelling and being reckless
it's true... airbenders are weak to nets.
the n*tfli* captions are making several mistakes. eat my ass ne*f*ix and hire me to do flawless captioning instead you dumb fucks
YEAH! even by episode 13 in season 1 we already know zuko is a good boy! well also by episode 12. and earlier. well i've seen the series before.
i've just learned that zach tyler eisen is the voice of aang and i have to give him huge props for having the perfect voice. i pay a lot of attention to voice acting, usually in a nitpicky way, and i've never heard an english voice actor whose voice is perfect on the level of ikue ohtani... and when he was like 12 years old. incredible. i'm not being remotely sarcastic
i gotta be 100% honest. i had completely forgotten the existence of zhao and that he's actually a pretty important character, at least in season 1. also his voice actor is pretty good. generally the voice acting is good in this show, and i'm picky.
god the animation where aang makes one catapult catapult the other is so good. also appa just picked up and grabbed a guy. with his fist. wait how many toes does appa have? is that 18 in total? also appa has scutes on his ventrum. anyway i love that appa can pick up and grab a guy but generally chooses not to. gives it more weight when he does choose to
zuko tells turtle seals to be quiet and then touches them unkindly :(
zuko busted out of katara's ice orb instead of melting it :\
zuko put his hood up like iroh told him to but aang just has his naked bald head in the snowy cold :(
seeing zhao grab and bag the moon spirit fish made me feel sick. such a foul act
god. the quality rope. i noticed sokka mention it and was like, "was this a chekhov's gun or a red herring" and then a few minutes later there was a pointed pan over to the quality rope.
anyway examining the quality of the voice acting here leads me to a thesis i might gather evidence to prove: american english voice acting for cartoons is far higher quality than american english voice acting for anime dubs. or is that just something obvious that everyone already agrees on
anyway anyway, the episode ended without the quality rope being put to use. unless i missed it, which is entirely possible.
jesus i heard azula's first lines and got an instant flashback to all the tumblr drama about grey delisle and her tumblr account and how she pretended it wasn't hers or something let's just erase all of this from my brain right now
this is kind of out of nowhere and borderline inappropriate but i'm glad characters in avatar are illustrated with nipples when they're shirtless... it always disturbs me a tiny bit when shirtless characters are depicted with zero nipple, not even a hint of nipple. (Aladdin.) not just because it implicitly stigmatizes something everyone has, but also because this scenario always plays in my head where it's like, a little kid sees a cartoon character without nipples and they think, "so i'm not supposed to have these..." and they start feeling weird and bad about themself... all you need to depict a nipple is a single unobtrusive dot. nothing visually offensive or explicit about it.
even to an audience who doesn't understand any cultural context, you can't not see the significance of zuko and iroh cutting off their topknots...
fandom seems to see sokka as the silliest one when in fact at least 40% of his entire role as a character is to be the tsukkomi
underrated moment: "you've got an elbow leech." "WHERE?! WHERE?!"
zuko should be a good boy and only steal if it's from pirates
stealy zuko stealing money and buying iroh a teapot !
god i forgot what a tiny baby voice toph has... so tiny
zuko trying really really hard but doing a bad job hammering (tears)
azula set up zuko and mai for a lucky sukebe...
when zuko's mom told him not to forget who he is, she didn't mean to remember that he's a prince and an heir as he revealed to the unsuspecting earth kingdom village. she meant to remember that he's someone with at least the base level of empathy and compassion, unlike most of his immediate family...
i still think aang's voice actor did a great job but i bet it sucks to be a young boy doing an excellent young boy voice and then when you grow up a little and presumably experience some puberty you just Cannot do the young boy voice anymore. hopefully in most cases where that happens, it's at least not abrupt
placing a bet that the writer for episode s2:e10 (the library) is different than most of the other episodes. i don't like it very much, at least in the first several minutes. if it's a name i recognize from the credits of several other episodes, i might be a bit disappointed in them. seriously, there's one stinker after another. and with such a great concept of an episode...
i didn't recognize the name of the guy who wrote this episode so i thought i was right but no, he wrote a bunch of episodes. must have been off his game for this one... either that or i'm in a very unforgiving mood and don't realize it... also when i went on wikipedia to look at who wrote which atla episodes, i learned that the animation for the show was split between two animation studios, and they're both korean. ah, i guess that doesn't mean all the animation took place overseas, as DM movie has a headquarters in the US. according to wikipedia.
oh, they're BUZZards... i get it... i gotcha.
aang with a vengeance is both scary and sad to see. but he does understand that property damage is nothing compared to a life
people who love azula are the exact same as people who love vriska: [comment redacted]
they have american birds in the avatar world. i keep hearing an eastern wood-peewee going "pee-pee-uwee" in the background :3
the serpent's pass seems geologically implausible.
sokka should really get face paint all over his face when he kisses suki. or like, the cartoonish image of when someone is covered in lipstick lip smacks, but it should be suki's makeup color
appa's been through so much and now he has to meet a boarcupine?!?! fortunately he still knows how to pick up and grab... but still :(
he touched appa's scutes and read them like a palm...
longshot translated his meaningful stares into out-loud words for katara and friends
zuko forgot that azula always lies :(
zuko should know that being redeemed in his father's eyes is the opposite of what he wants...
i LOVE aang's passionate tsungi horn dance
there are spring peepers in the fire nation
god the dripping of the rotten clams is so excessive
you know how ultrasonic humidifiers can create water vapor without heating it into steam, by vibrating it super fast? let's try that with waterbending, it'll be cool
two different bad guys have been skipped across the water like a rock
i love the fake time lapse of cleaning the river... and it showed how with pollution in real life, stopping the source of the pollution is not enough. it needs to be removed as well
sokka deserves LOTS of credit just for being able to handle a boomerang.
GOD THE SLOW PAN OVER THE BEAUTIFUL SWORD (in 3:4)
sokka also deserves LOTS of credit for being able to admit he doesn't know everything.
i managed to forget that zuko turns his back on iroh, while remembering that at some point, iroh gets buff
the voice of sokka's master is the voice of the boulder. right? right? no? are you kidding me? i suck at this
seems like kissing azula would have immediate consequences, like something melting
zuko is poorly socialized
zuko still forgot that azula always lies. even when she's being somewhat humanized in an episode like this.
so avatar roku had earthly attachments he did not let go of, presumably. such as his wife. did he have unfettered access to the avatar state? that's what i would ask him during this expositionfest if i was aang.
so sozin could do heatbending... that's amazing. i think i missed that the first time around.
that's right, zuko came back and his hair is long enough, but he hasn't recreated his topknot.
hawky is the only atla animal that poops on camera.
if you're gonna bend sweat, you might as well bend spit, and it's a little easier to obtain
wait so... is combustion man also a heatbender? i'll have to look into it later. [looked into it later: the avatar wiki has termed it "combustionbending?" are you shitting me?]
ooh it's the bloodbending episode! i'm pumped.
someone made a post about how when they watched this show and they were a kid they were thinking about how the characters are hot, and now they're watching as an adult and the characters are all tiny children... that's how i've been feeling. also season 3 episode 8 aang's voice sounds a little bit pubertous.
anyway damn this bloodbending episode is outright traumatic. good shit
oh, now zuko's topknot is back.
appa's armor covers each individual toe <:3c
i seriously misremembered the course of zuko's character development. and the timeline of the invasion in general. but now i understand that zuko has to tell his dad to eat shit face to face.
watching zuko's "zuko here" practice speech hurts 100% as much as it did the first time i saw it. and when he's delivering it to the gaang it's impossible to watch. i didn't put my hands on my head-- they just went there unbidden.
i kinda can't help picturing dante basco's face every time i hear zuko talk. the whole time. it's sometimes not optimal to know the faces of voice actors. especially when you're like me and you're not good at pushing out unwanted mental images.
what the fuck, combustion man? he just loves assassination so much you can't take back any orders. also i can't help but imagine that if you put a slice across his third eye his combustion would be fully inhibited. well i guess that's not a problem anymore.
i like that the gaang are a variety of heights, and that they're all noticeably shorter than most of the adults they meet. it just makes it feel realistic
if it was a US max security prison and prisoners were escaping they'd probably just fucking murder them
i love how when mai starts up the gondola again and azula is like "what is she DOING!" and ty lee just makes an "iunno" noise
tfw your best friend abandons you because you wouldn't let her murder her own brother
chit seng didn't get to free his girlfriend and best buddy :(
funny how azula seems almost docile when she's getting everything she wants. typical narcissist. well ok not the least bit typical.
sokka ate the rose. i remembered this scene Too clearly. but i didn't remember that.
um... was that the full moon? when katara bloodbent that guy? i should've looked at the sky... i went back and looked and still didn't see if it was the full moon. maybe the wiki knows. i don't care enough to look it up properly.
i was wondering when the melon lord would show up
none of the teens understand the obvious solution of defeating the fire lord by beating him INTO SUBMISSION (or oblivion) instead of killing him. just like in every anime fight ever. it's over when you acknowledge you've lost or you can't fight anymore, not when you die. (for the #1 best example of ending a fight the right way, see the way luffy defeats crocodile.)
so i know aang's gonna defeat the fire lord by essentially hitting him with a forced purification beam to the face and make him realize the errors of his ways or something. the fun part is how we get there
bumi bending entire houses through the air
aw i forgot the turtle island didn't have a cute face.
jyong jyong firebent a jet platform to fly around on?!
i guess the firelord can fly around like bakugou katsuki
i forgot that aang took away his firebending... and sokka hops up to him like "well, look at you, buster"
i'm glad i decided to watch this again. even if i didn't do a great job paying attention tbh. well i did spend a bit of time carving a little wooden spoon while i was watching. anyway i was thinking i wouldn't move right on to korra but rather read some of the atla comics that i know exist but have never read whatsoever. i wonder if i can find them in some kind of library...
i found the comics illegally on the internet and read a whole bunch (up until the end of the "zuko finds his mom" arc). i didn't write my thoughts down as i was reading, so i don't remember them. that's how my worthless brain works. i do remember that i found the comics satisfactory as an accurate extension of the show, and that i feel ambivalent about how azula is written/treated in the comics.
i don’t know if i feel like rewatching korra yet.
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all of the oc asks? (i’m on mobile so asks are weird)
oh!!! okay okay uh which oc oh no uhhhhhh Enny again!
how does your OC act around different people and how does their personality change to match the environment they’re in? how do they act with: friends, family, strangers, children, or their lover(s)?
Enny is a sliding scale. with the mains, she’s spiteful, cold, and just flat out mean, carefully choosing her words before speaking so everything comes out the way she wants it to. with alt Kodi, she lets any exhaustion show and she’s more relaxed, talking about her interests more and casually teasing him. with Echo, she’s vulnerable and, while still restraining her emotions, tries to at least express things through a more emotional lens- and she’s WAY more honest with him than a lot of people. with [REDACTED], she’s more playfully snarky, both teasing and calculating during their games and just generally teasing outside. she’s also extremely soft and relaxed around him, watchful but not really wary. with strangers, she’s tense and her voice actually has more inflection than most times because she’s using more intense tones for their benefit- usually she’s more deadpan (when her voice does get a tone it stands out), but that tends to drive people off. she doesn’t trust strangers so she just acts to blend in. in emotionally-charged scenarios she’s either loud or very quiet depending on the emotion- if other people are angry she goes quiet, if SHE’S angry she gets loud, when she’s happy there’s not a lot of volume change but she taps her fingers or sort of moves in place, and when she’s worried or upset she fiddles with things in her hands or digs her nails into her arms. that’s more body language than personality but!! I like those details!! make me happy.
does your OC prefer to take the lead or follow orders? with everyone or just with certain people? is there a reason for this?
Enny prefers to be in control, taking the lead. she had Zero Control when she was younger and in order to make sure that never happens again tends to force her way into positions of power. can’t be hurt if you’re the one at the top. once she’s comfortable around a group this fades but she always at least likes a say in everything.
how easily is your OC embarrassed? what subjects make them flush and why? what event has made your OC the most embarrassed they’ve ever been?
she’s not embarrassed by a lot. being made fun of gets no embarrassment, getting caught in a ramble isn’t as embarrassing as it is frustrating that she lost track of how long she was talking..... but oh boy the topic of love. she shows love and care through actions so hearing someone she cares about just bluntly say “I love you”? fucking WILD how could they just SAY THAT like it’s a FACT that’s not how this works why do they love her what the fuck. that’ll get her flustered. feelings and shit. she’s also highly embarrassed about her creepypasta self-insert fanfiction from years ago but that will never see the light of day again so it’s no big.
does your OC have any triggers? why do these things trigger them? what are they like when triggered and how do they calm down after?
slamming doors, people yelling (specifically adult men), and her old name, but only when it’s used in reference to her- seeing people talking about main Aila isn’t an issue, but being called Aila herself makes her a little panicky. in a certain au, the distinct Mind player teal is a minor trigger as well. the first three are because of her father’s abuse, and the last one is because of an incident with a Mind player that uh. didn’t go great. slamming doors make her freeze up and she stops breathing entirely until she can calm down, people yelling makes her close to tears, frozen, and again not breathing, as well as leaving her unable to speak until a bit after she’s calmed down. her old name also makes her freeze up for a moment. enclosed spaces help her calm down because they feel like a safe zone since she can see what’s coming and she used to hide in her closet. select trusted people also help her calm down, like alt Kodi, Echo, and [REDACTED], but alt Kodi helps the most by just being there since she associates him with safety, too. Echo does NOT apply to the Mind player teal and he’d just make things worse for that specific one because of the situation.
are there any emotions your OC doesn’t know how to deal with, doesn’t understand or hates having to feel? any reason behind this?
...most? Enny DESPISES feeling afraid and has a real rough time calming down when startled, and she hates feeling like she’s helpless. she doesn’t understand love for a while, too, and affection with her is weird and she can’t deal with it. she also hates feeling jealous or envious mostly because it’s a reminder that other people got to have things she didn’t. she doesn’t understand love because she’s repressed as fuck and she can’t deal with feeling any sort of affection because she’s never really gotten to express it or felt like she got it back from other people.
does your OC have any skills that people wouldn’t expect them to have? do they have a hobby or pastime that others would consider strange or weird? how did they learn this particular skill or pick up this hobby?
!!! I mean, it’s weird for Enny, but she can paint! she learned how to paint from Cece before the ship got built and it was her first true “downtime” hobby that she stuck with. she can also carry a tune surprisingly well! what’s more surprising is that she DOESN’T know how to play chess.
how well does your OC take care of themself? do they tend to put others before their own well-being and if so how often? what is their favorite way to pamper themself?
she.... is not good at taking care of herself. she doesn’t exactly put other people before herself? she’s just not good at self-care. the ship got her a proper meal schedule, and sure, she brushes her hair, and those are two points in her favor and both things she has up on me! but her sleep schedule’s fucky because of nightmares, she doesn’t always actually take time to relax, she doesn’t think positively of herself, she doesn’t do things for the sake of enjoying herself, and she slips back into Consumption habits more often than most people on the ship, if not all of them. her self-care is occasionally going to stay in alt Kodi’s room or the other way around to swap snack stashes and vent and just hang out. it’s calming for her. sibling bonding time.
what are some of your OC’s favorites? favorite food, color, season, stuff like that! give some general simple facts that tend to get overlooked!
Enny loves dark chocolate, black licorice, autumn, rainy days, dark blue-ish grey, and bubblegum. she likes cola sodas and small spaces, and prefers pens that click over pens that have caps. she also writes in pen rather than pencil, and she was left-handed before she taught herself to be ambidextrous! she prefers enclosed spaces over open areas because she can’t keep an eye on every direction in an open area. she also prefers audiobooks over reading words and loves mysteries, and likes thunderstorms :).
does your OC like to sleep alone or do they enjoy sharing their bed? have they been to any sleepovers? have they ever been camping? what did they think of the experiences if so?
she gets real fond of sharing her bed, exclusively with people she really trusts. [REDACTED] has shared-bed privileges. she’s never been to an actual sleepover and she’s never been camping! she has stayed at alt Kodi’s before, without any of the sleepover activities, and that was always nice.
when your OC says “I had a bad day” what does that tend to mean? is it really as bad as they’re saying or are they being a bit dramatic?
if she says “I had a bad day” she had a BAD DAY. she does like to be dramatic sometimes, but when talking about her day it’s exactly as bad as she claims it is. a bad day is “I got attacked by something/someone and feared for my life and stayed shaken all day” or “I had nightmares again last night and couldn’t calm down so I spent the entire day trying to hide away and then someone had to come calm me down and they saw me panicking and I Don’t Like That” or “a Mind player impersonated my therapist and took some of my memories and called me a horrible person just like my father and said I could never be redeemed”.
is your OC a good liar? how easy is it for them to tell lies? what is the biggest lie they’ve ever told and did they ever get found out? on the other hand, what is the biggest lie someone has told your OC and did they believe them?
she’s an excellent liar when she wants to be. lies are easy to tell and easier to explain for her. the biggest lie was probably during the Main Timeline Incident when she tried to convince Hope that the Time players were acting fucky and needed to be taken down- that one went over pretty neutrally because while Hope didn’t help her, she also didn’t go tell everyone because she wasn’t sure if that was the truth or not. if not that one, her accidental lie claiming she was in love with Kell because she just straight-up Did Not Know that wasn’t love. or the lie to herself that she had Absolutely Zero Attraction To Girls. repression’s a hell of a drug. the biggest lie she’s been told would probably be the aforementioned Mind player pretending to be Echo. that one was SO FUCKED and she fell for it. or, again, her convincing herself she didn’t like girls at all nuh-uh no way.
how religious is your OC? do they pray to any god(s) or do they not believe in that kind of stuff? what is their view of religion in general? where do they believe people go when they die? if your OC is not religious why not and what do they believe in otherwise?
she’s not religious at all. she’s neutral on religion and has a number of death theories- one is just straight-up SBURB dreambubbles because SBURB’s real so why not. another is you join the ranks of the horrorterrors when you die. in the same au as before she became an Actual God and dead players did in fact start showing up at her door so uh. that. that’s what happens. she guesses.
what is something from your OC’s past they’re the most ashamed of and why? what is something they’re really proud of? and lastly what is something in their past that could make them shake with dread?
she’s ashamed of how she used to treat Kell and alt Hurlii, and also kind of ashamed about... being abused? she knows she’s not the one who should be ashamed about that one but. :/. she’s also ashamed of jumping straight to “put main Kori out of commission” with the Main Timeline Incident. she’s proud that she’s made it as far as she has and just surviving, and also proud that she’s been able to open up to Echo and get therapy for her trauma. I think we all know what could make her tremble at this point though.
what does your OC do on their days off from working, school or whatever else it is they may do? do they enjoy relaxing, shopping, hanging out with friends? what is a normal day like for them?
she used to hang out with alt Kodi whenever she could, but on the ship, she goes and hangs out with [REDACTED], distracts herself with busywork, and spends time with her crewmates. she’s trying to be more social.
what was your OC like as a baby? what were they like as a child? a teenager? an adult? how do you think they’ll develop ten years into their future? twenty years? will they live to old age?
she baby. as a kid she was pretty quiet- one of those “pleasure to have in class” sorta kids who did their work and kept their mouth shut. she didn’t have a lot of friends. she got snarkier as she aged and became sort of a bully; she was still quiet, but the quiet angry type. as an adult she mellows tf out after getting therapy and still works on y’know, being a person, but definitely starts accepting herself a lot more and starts being The Trusted Adult. she’s going to provide a safe area for kids and accidentally adopt them along the way babey. she definitely grows to old age as a god tier :).
does your OC have any bad habits? does your OC have any addictions like smoking or drinking? how did they fall into these habits and why?
if digging her nails into her arms counts, that’s a habit. she also relapses into Consumption more than the others- frantic note-taking and knowledge absorption to an extreme. she doesn’t really know how the arm thing got started, but something about the sharpness of digging her nails in was supposed to ground her or something, and now she doesn’t even notice that she’s doing it. so it doesn’t work anymore and just leaves marks sometimes :(.
what does your OC think is their best trait? what is actually their best trait? what about their flaws? are they one to admit these flaws or do they like to pretend they’re perfect?
Enny thinks her best trait is her problem-solving ability, but I think her best trait is her resilience. both are very good, though! she has plenty of flaws and she doesn’t like to bring a lot of them up, but she admits them more than she thinks she does. she’s VERY aware of them though. she thinks she’s selfish, aggressive, deceptive, and generally unpleasant to be around. she thinks she’s way worse than she is tbh.
What is your OC like in bed-
sleepy. that’s it. Enny does NOT fuck.
what’s a sentence that would make your OC’s day better? one that would make them laugh? one that would make their day worse? why? what words would you have to say to them to completely ruin their day?
depends who’s saying it! a simple invitation to hang out from some people would improve her day, but from others it would make things far worse. generally, a compliment doesn’t hurt, or an “I like being around you” or something. she tends to laugh at things that are light jabs at people and sometimes sudden tone shifts. most mentions of her past would make her day worse, and any mention of her dad is a no-go. if you want to ruin her day entirely, compare her to her father.
how much effort does your OC put into their looks? do they care much about how they’re dressed or what their hair looks like or are they not bothered? could they be considered a snob or a slob?
she puts probably an average amount of effort into her looks. depends on the day and what’s going on and how she feels, but it’s generally consistent. she keeps her hair neat, makes her outfit match, enjoys having the option of makeup with no one to say whether she should or shouldn’t wear it, and just goes about her day. but she doesn’t spend too much time on it. I’d say she’s somewhere in the middle. more snobby than me, but I’m a massive slob :P
what additions would your OC make to their body if they could? let’s say, if they don’t have a tail would they want one? wings? horns? do they wish they could shapeshift?
!!! I’ve gone over this in a roleplay before! she honestly doesn’t know what she wants because she’s never thought about it before, but if she happened to suddenly and mysteriously gain shapeshifting she’d spend a lot of time just trying to find anything that felt right without being her original form. eventually she’d settle back into her og form with minor changes, maybe dye her hair instantly or something. definitely dye her hair. she’d totally fuck around with a monster form too. and I mean, who would say no to shapeshifting? she would like having the option to change everything at the drop of a hat. to not be herself, and then be herself again, and then maybe try out a snake tail and have fun with that, and then-
what inspired you to make this OC? how long have you had them? how have they changed in the time you’ve been developing them?
originally she was just for a fun “opposites” AU, and I’ve had her for about... 2 years? 2 years. what really made me latch onto her was a suggestion from a friend :). she’s gone from a one-off character who was primarily bitter to my favorite good good child who is still SO BITTER but wants to do good things. plus I like her more than Deux now and that was NOT the case back then.
what traits of your own do you see in this OC? are they a little bit self-inserty? don’t be shy, we all put parts of ourselves into the creations we love!
we both get panicky at slammed doors and at people yelling, along with feeling vulnerable when we can’t keep an eye out in every angle. we’re also both ace. a lot of her interests are the same as mine, and her finger-tapping, nail-digging, and pen-clicking are all from me. we also both have to think about our facial expressions, though they come a bit more naturally to me than to her. we’re both real fond of [REDACTED], we both like monsters, and we both have too many thoughts at once. her general demeanor isn’t really me, though. she mostly took all my little details. oh shit we both wear glasses too :P and we both changed our names.
what is your personal opinion of this OC? do you love them or are they your trash child? are they your baby?
I love her so much. you don’t understand how much I love her. she’s absolutely my favorite child!!!
are you writing anything with this OC or planning on writing anything for them? do you RP with them or are they just for fun to mess around with?
I both write stuff with her and RP as her! she’s my faaaavorite. I write about her in AUs (horrorterror Enny, monster AU, superhero AU, etc.) and in canon, and I’m hoping to write more once I have more time on my hands! she’s also my D&D character in a current campaign. and I rp her on her character blog @eloquentbarrister :P
how important is this OC to you? are they a character that’s helped you through some pretty tough times or could you scrap them without feeling a thing?
she’s, uh... she’s real important. I vent through her a lot and thinking about her calms me down.
do you enjoy working on your OC or are they a bit of a chore? we all have that one character who is hard to develop!
every day I think to myself “hm, what does this action say about Enny?”, so when it comes to her I love working on her! I could write essays about her! her goals are vague in certain aus which is the only bad part but so are mine, really.
ramble a bit about this character!
that’s all I’ve been doing this whole time :P but!! she’s so good in every AU. learning how to be vulnerable and talk to people. learning how to be comfortable with herself. giving a huge middle finger to her past, at first trying to run from it and anything she did back then, and then going “yeah, that was a thing that happened, and it was fucked up, but I’ve come a long way”. she’s so good. she’s SO GOOD. monster AU Enny is fun too bcause the plot goes from “various monster kids relentlessly interact with the changeling kid until she considers them friends and the changeling learns to trust robot dad, learning how to play an instrument along the way” to “changeling becomes best friends with a god, does some drugs in the woods, and then watches the apocalypse go down with a big ol smile”. D&D Enny is very good because she’s a halfling warlock with a fun affectionate relationship with her patron and won’t stop adopting children despite barely being an adult. she wants to kill the gods and it’s very fun and cool tbh. also HORRORTERROR ENNY......... KILLS ME.......... ughhhh I’d love to ramble about her but I’m also WRITING her and wanna share that writing y’feel? just. aaaaaaaaa. Enny “Enlightener” Delmirain’t!!!!!
#ask#egby says shit#AAAAAAAAA TY ANON!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE RAMBLING#this took SO LONG bcause of other stuff but I adore talking about my characters!!!!!#my ocs
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If le petit prince Crowley is your fourth favorite thing about Good Omens fandom, I implore you to share the first three! (Also, what fictional character do you have the same energy as: I can't figure it out because I associate people too strongly with their favs! DO YOU have Crowley energy? Is that what the kids these days call "vibes"? But if I got creative I could absolutely justify saying you have Crowley energy anyway so moot point!)
Oh god. I don’t know if I have Crowley energy. I certainly have ‘asking-too-many-questions, wanting-to-sleep-for-literal-years, past-me-constantly-inconveniencing-future-me’ energy, but I don’t know if I can claim that certain je ne sais Crowleyness of him. He really is relatable for a demon though, right? Like, I too just want to drink wine with my friends and have my plants be verdant and be left alone by my boss to FUCKING PINE. The cute girl I like that I rudely turned down because of my rude brain posted an internal profile to the department the other day and I was just sitting at my desk going ‘OH NO, SHE’S STILL CUTE AND GREAT, FFFFFFF.’ I’ve done this to myself, but then so did those dummies.
Anyway! KL’s Top Three-ish Favorite Things About Good Omens Fandom 2K19!
3. How it just fucking, rose from the depths!! I was mostly a lurker in Good Omens fandom back in the late 00s. I wrote some (VERY BAD, DON’T FIND IT) fic and I roleplayed Crowley in a multi-fandom game where he got to terrorize Cesare Borgia a bit, but I didn’t really feel like I was a part of it. Probably because I was in Too Many Fandoms at the time. But now this has happened and I’m just. SO. ECSTATIC. There’s so much new art and fic and headcanons and discussion-and and and-for this book turned tv show that I absolutely love to pieces and have for YEARS. There’s so much art in particular that I queued that Le petit prince post a month and a half ago and when I saw your ask I had to stop and go ‘WAIT, WHAT WERE THE OTHER THREE THINGS??’ My queue is groaning. My drafts folder is burgeoning. MY PLANTS ARE WATERED AND MY ANGEL IS FED.
And mainly, mainly my favorite thing about all of this is that I haven’t seen a single person try to make a distinction between book fans and tv fans or “real” fans and “new” fans. We’re all just in here crying about these idiots (and I certainly mean Crowley and Aziraphale, but also everyone else HEY ANATHEMA, HEY I LOOOOOOVE YOOOOOU) together and it’s beautiful and I’m so happy.
2.5 The David Tennantssance. Look. I’m just. If you need me I’ll be huddled in my blankets re-watching that whole four seasons of Doctor Who again and also everything else he’s ever been in. Just yesterday Audible informed me they had a voice play of Carmilla with him in it and I cackled to myself in my bed for close to a minute. Like yes, lesbians, vampires, and David Tennant, the true trifecta of common interests.
2. ALL OF TIME AND SOME OF SPACE. Don’t get me wrong, there was always fanwork for Good Omens that utilized historical moments (for all the characters I believe, because why not). Especially that much detested fourteenth century. But now I feel like that cold open gave us carte blanche to just go ape shit by breathing a little more context into those moments. Never have I been so pleased to see so many people utilizing their hyper specific knowledge/education/interests/upbringing when it comes to depicting these characters because it all works! It’s all on the table! Pick a time period! Pick an occupation! Pick a favorite dessert or type of flower! Pick a PLACE IN THE SKY BECAUSE CROWLEY HELPED BUILD THAT NEBULA. God, I am never going to get over that stupid, single line. I am here for Crowley among the stars, especially outside of time and space. TV!Crowley hits so many of my buttons and I AM ABSOLUTELY LIVING.
1.5 ALL OF ART HISTORY IS AN OPEN BOOK. God you guys, I am just, never getting over fandom’s decision to redo EVERY PIECE OF ART with Crowley and/or Aziraphale in it. It’s AMAZING AND BRILLIANT THANK YOU ALL. I’M JUST SO HAPPY. And I’m still trying to think of a reason to ask fandom to redo John White Alexander’s Isabella and the Pot of Basil with Crowley because I am IN LOVE with the lighting in the fucking painting and of course I want to put Crowley in it.
1. Gender? I don’t even know her! WHAT DID I JUST SAY ABOUT MY BUTTONS? Because like, what even is gender? Fuck if I know. I once asked a salesperson at Kiehl’s that after they apologized for trying to sell me on a men’s moisturizer and they did NOT have an answer either! (Probably they thought they did not get paid enough to deal with that, but I don’t care what side of the store the moisturizer is from, my man, just moisturize me! *spritz spritz*) I’m just out here living in the world being both fine with and affronted by the way strangers read me day in and day out like. It depends, but also WHY DO THEY HAVE TO?
So I love every fucking discussion post about Crowley’s gender presentation in the show and outside of it. And I imagine much of that was the work of the costume department with notes from GNeil et al, but it works because, honestly, why would non-euclidean beings give a toss? They have to blend in, so they do, but for all they’ve come to love us they’re not us. Which leaves them free to do whatever, which fandom has fucking run with. My heart grows another size every time I see art or fic of both Crowley and Aziraphale (especially Aziraphale, hedonist extraordinaire) depicted in a way that embraces that, however the artist or writer chooses to depict it.
And outside of the aesthetics of it, at the risk of being Serious here for a sec, I love the way that lets other fans explore and express themselves. Here are these characters that canonically love humanity but sit outside of it, so why shouldn’t they navigate those spaces of gender and sexuality to the fullest? For research or business or pleasure or whatever? (I mean, also, more angels-are-monsters interplanar weirdness in your sex scenes 2k20, but that’s a separate issue.)
And I think they as characters should be allowed to do that in the works we create with them because I feel like it’s a very human thing to want to explore and for some people fandom is the safest place to do that. I’ve always been a big proponent of fandom as catharsis, or even as expression of joy that can’t be shared with the outside world for whatever reason. Which is why I go so fucking feral for Michael Sheen telling off jerks on the internet who think fandom is loving this thing The Wrong Way. Mostly, the wrong way to love something is to assume your way is the right and true way when [rant about the nature of art and ownership and belonging redacted]. Kindly fuck all the way off indeed.
Anyway, I want people to feel safe to find themselves. Honestly, this is a selfish desire, because I’m in my 30s and I also just want to be safe to keep finding myself for however much time I have left. And I think this is a canon and a fandom sort of uniquely positioned to allow for all of it. So we should continue to celebrate that.
#z-bot#errrrr...this is a lot#sorry not sorry#i just have a lot of feelings about#good omens#and also gender and art and the way all those things interact#also i apologize to the dude from kiehl's for being so insufferable#because i've worked retail and i'm sure he's had customers who complained about that#but in my defense it's fucking weird that anyone cares what side of the store their moisturizer is from
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Me Laughing
must’ve been one hell of a joke
Preamble
So, I was in the middle of writing a piece on [redacted] when Poppy released a 27-minute video of herself laughing. Naturally, that took priority. Sorry for my absence, this post took some time. And by “some time,” I mean “45 hours.”
This may be the best thing I’ve written, but it’s also the most insane thing I’ve written. In fact, I would label this post as ‘maddening.’ It’s possible you won’t be able to look at Poppy the same way again. I know I don’t. You can’t unread this, readers beware, [other dramatic warnings], etc., etc.
Descend when ready.
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I thought “Concrete” was pretty #wild, but “Me Laughing” takes the cake. This video is pure lunacy, and I mean that somewhat literally since Poppy does laugh at what appears to be nothing for almost half an hour.
Due to the sheer insanity of “Me Laughing,” I’ve put together a handy little collage to help readers follow along. Behold: my barely passable Paint skills!
the pic for Section 4 basically explains everything
Before we begin, I need to address a few things. There’s at least, like, nine people who read this stuff, and while I can’t say that I envy you, I can say that I appreciate you. Thanks for sticking around.
However, there’s a funny thing that happens when you know you’re writing for an audience. You feel pressured to adapt your style. I feel the need to be a little more careful about some of the things I say, but that’s probably for the best. Hopefully this extra care will result in more coherent posts, but I doubt it.
This post will be long. Partially because “Me Laughing” is long, partially because I’ve padded this out with shaky theory about how the world works. Guess that’s no different than my other posts, but still, feel free to tune that out if you’re just here for the Poppy stuff, though maybe you’ll find some of it interesting.
I tend to write authoritatively, which may be misleading because I’m not always confident about what I’m saying. I simply enjoy taking things to their natural conclusions. Typically, there’s something interesting at the end. Or, at least, a premise insane enough to make writing about it enjoyable. See, for example, my post on “Concrete.” This post won’t be much different, maybe just a little crazier.
Now, I’ve got a funny feeling that some people may think I am “reading too much into this” or that Poppy’s work “isn’t that deep.” Hey, I get it. Those objections are completely understandable. I was once there myself, but now I’ve moved away from thinking that way. I’ll do my best to explain why.
From what I’ve seen, aesthetics (roughly: the study of art) is a total battlefield. Nobody agrees on anything, everybody thinks that only they can ‘properly’ understand art and that everyone else is wrong. There’s people who think beauty is objective, there’s people who think “no, that’s stupid, beauty is obviously subjective,” and there’s even the people who outright deny that aesthetics exists. Recently, we also had the pleasure of witnessing the aesthetics debate become another facet of the everlasting culture war. Think a line from “Play Destroy” sums my thoughts about that up: “oh boy!”
Needless to say, it’s a massive shitshow.
Despite my rather war-torn depiction of modern aesthetics, it might be a good thing that we can never ‘understand’ art. I hear that’s, like, part of the point. If art was ever ‘solved,’ well, we’d be faced with the idea that there is nothing ‘special’ about being human, that we’re just sacks of meat bumbling around with no purpose. Then everybody would, like, die or something. Truth hurts, art heals, let’s stay alive.
Anywho, I mention all this because there’s no rigorous way to determine how ‘deep’ a song (or any piece of art) is. You can’t just take a stick, poke it into some art, and say: “yep, this Poppy song is 75 [metres/fathoms/hands/whatever nonsense unit] deep!” Besides, nobody even agrees what ‘artistic depth’ means, and most attempts to define it flounder. If you listen closely, you can just faintly hear Goodhart laughing.
This is also why people who think they can ‘objectively’ analyze art are dogmatic blowhards. Any amount of rigorous thinking reveals that our standards for what make art ‘good’ or ‘bad’ are entirely baseless. No, seriously, it’s a case of channeling your inner Socrates and repeatedly asking ‘why’ until the other person throws their up their arms, leaves, and stops answering your texts.
We don’t even know what art is, so thinking you can ‘understand’ art and judge its ‘depth’ is pure arrogance. At least, until someone finds a way to math that shit. “Sounds solipsism.” Well, ya gotta start somewhere.
Now, does this mean we should also throw up our arms, say: “screw it” and return to binging Netflix and eating foods that you know aren’t good for you but you eat them anyways because they make you feel good and that’s what you need right now? Well, no, actually.
Even if we aren’t 100% sure what art is, or what we should do with it, there are some theories on art that I would call: “pretty not-terrible.” Some people have spent their entire lives thinking about these things and their insights are fascinating. However, I’m not here to talk theory. If you want to learn more, go pick up a book or something, nerd.
Anyway, one time this German guy said: “without music, life would be a mistake.” He also said that looking at things from multiple perspectives is pretty neat, so that’s what we’re here to do. Turns out art is kinda fun and spending a bit more time thinking about it pays dividends.
See, art just wants to be understood and so does Poppy. I want to give her and Titanic the benefit of the doubt and take them seriously as artists. While I don’t think everything they produce is God’s gift to earth (see: [redacted]), I do enjoy the majority of their work. Plus, the abstract and absurd nature of their content means writing about it is a blast.
Whether I truly believe any of the interpretations I come up with is irrelevant. Hell, I’m not even sure half of what I say even remotely resembles what Poppy and Titanic envisioned. But, that’s not the point. Shallow readings are a dime-a-dozen, see: Genius; I’m here to provide something better. To show that Poppy’s work, or any art, really, can be a whole lot more fun if you spend even just a teensy bit of time analyzing it. Hopefully I can also provide some of the tools to do so.
Enough rambling, let’s get into it.
Intro
At first glance, “Me Laughing” seems like Poppy doing cute ASMR for 27(!!) minutes while simultaneously trolling anyone who expected a video titled “Me Laughing” to be about anything different. Sure, but that reading gets a ‘B’ for ‘Basic.’
Yes, Poppy and Titanic often troll their audience. See: “A live Interview with Poppy.” But the trolling is both part of the delivery of their message and part of the message itself. So while “Me Laughing” looks like a simple ASMR troll video, I’m going to argue that it’s not.
Previously, Poppy released videos like “Delete Your Facebook” and “I’m Poppy.” Fun vids, but they’re made of looped clips. Thirty seconds in and you’ve watched the whole thing. Consider: “Me Laughing” is 27 minutes, but no parts are looped, it’s all original. As always, I’m just here to ask: why?
Since “Me Laughing” is not made up of looped clips, but is instead all original content, there is an inherent progression to the events. Each segment is unique, and when considered sequentially, pieces from each section build on each other to produce an artistic whole.
Yes, that’s a fancy way of saying it has a ‘story.’
Also, if you’ve watched the video, you’ll know that something just feels ‘off.’ If “Me Laughing” was ‘just’ Poppy ASMR, why does she constantly focus on a single point in the distance? What’s with Poppy’s frequent stares into the camera? And why the fuck is she wearing latex?
Clearly, something else is going on.
Detailed Summary
Let’s recall what actually happens in “Me Laughing.” Hopefully this recap will convey a sense of what ‘else’ exactly is going on and make the insane claims later on in the analysis a tad easier to swallow.
“Me Laughing” starts off pretty normally. Sections 1 and 2 are mostly Poppy laughing, as promised. Even in these early sections, however, we can still pick out some peculiar things.
In Section 1, and throughout the video, we see Poppy looking upwards as she laughs, as if she was remembering something funny that happened. Or as if she was thinking about something for a while and suddenly found it hilarious. “Maybe Poppy just looks upward when she laughs.” Doubtful. Try doing it right now. Feels weird, right? Whatever, moving on…
Next oddity: there’s a strange transitioning shot at the start of the video and between Sections 1 and 2 where the camera sweeps over Poppy’s latex-ed body. “Well, maybe Titanic just thought it would be cool to do it like that.” Yes, but why did he think it would be cool? Why that transitioning shot, out of all the possible ones? What purpose does it serve?
Also: Section 1 was a very steady shot, probably filmed using a tripod, or whatever fancy word camera-people use. However, the shot for Section 2 is shaky. Like, weirdly shaky. Maybe even too shaky. And this isn’t the only section filmed this way, half of “Me Laughing” is too. “Well, maybe Titanic can’t hold a camera steady.” No, that doesn’t seem right. We know Titanic can, in fact, hold a camera steady, or, at the very least, he possesses the means to take a steady shot. See: literally all Poppy videos. No, the shaky-cam is intentional. Again, I’m just here to ask: why?
Now, I don’t mean to tip my hand too much here, but to me, the camera’s sway resembles the unsteady gaze of a curious observer. Perhaps one who is timidly stepping around the beheld, drinking in all the angles. Recall my post on “Touch Poppy.” With steady camera shots, it’s easy to forget someone is on the other side, but with unsteady shots, it’s downright impossible to ignore, e.g., “wow, that shaky-cam is really noticeable. What is this, a shitty sequel to the Blair Witch Project?” Perhaps these sections were filmed this way to emphasize the presence of an observer. As for why such a thing would be emphasized—well, we’ll get to that.
Around the 3:30 mark, Poppy shakes her head and clearly utters a, “m-mm,” as in, “nuh-uh, no way.” This gesture is repeated throughout the video. I’ll let you think about that one.
The video continues, and at 3:52 the camera lazily pans down, focusing on Poppy’s body and cutting her head out of the shot for several seconds, similar to the transition shot from Section 1 to 2. Thirty seconds later, the same thing happens. Guess this isn’t just Titanic diversifying the shot composition. It’s also about this point where attempts to pass “Me Laughing” off as anything resembling a ‘normal’ video start to fall apart.
Poppy’s sitting position in Section 3 is both clever and hilarious. It shows her whole get-up, highlighting how absurdly tall her platform shoes are. She also flip-flops her feet back and forth several times as if to further emphasize her mega-shoes. Why would she wear such crazy shoes for a simple video of herself laughing?
That’s not all that’s ‘off’ about Section 3—this is also the first section where Poppy stares at a spot in the distance for a prolonged period of time. In several instances, she quizzically tilts her head to the side, not unlike a faithful dog trying to decipher commands from her master. At 6:23 we also get a clear “huh,” a noise of acknowledgement, of understanding. Further, Section 3 has several stretches of silence where Poppy is no longer laughing. She just sits there while you watch. It’s… unsettling.
Section 4 is shot in a similarly shaky-style to Section 2, but this time with Poppy sitting down. Also, we see instances of Poppy focusing on something off in the distance both when she is laughing and when she is not, as was the case in the previous sections. However, there are some weird things about Section 4 that set it apart from the others and further develop the video.
Around the 8:38 mark, Poppy utters a “mm-mm-mm” sound while shaking her head and staring off into the distance. It’s fairly clear that she is communicating with something off-screen. Perhaps entities that are invisible to us. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say these off-screen entities are the things making her laugh.
We will see more evidence of Poppy supposedly communicating with invisible beings later, however, this is bordering on fetishizing Poppy’s lore as opposed to analyzing her artistic message. If you’re half-learned on Poppy lore (which, you better be, considering the fact that you’re reading this), this would be like focusing on the identity of ‘They’ instead of the significance of ‘They.’ Another example would be focusing on the ‘origin’ of Poppy, e.g., is she an android? Who is her creator? Etc., instead of asking why someone would create the artistic work of Poppy in the first place and/or considering the implications of said work.
If you’ve read anything else I’ve written, perhaps you’ve noticed that I try and stay away from acknowledging that Poppy even has lore. I want to take Poppy seriously, not literally. Or, in “pretentious asshole” terms, to consider her work artistically, not canonically. There are many reasons for this and I didn’t just get here randomly overnight, but that’s for another post.
Edgy ranting aside, there’s another part of Section 4 that I’d like to point out. Before this section, there was only a single instance of Poppy looking into the camera (happened in Section 2), but in Section 4, she frequently looks into the lens, acknowledging that an observer is present. She shoots this observer a flurry of dark and mischievous glances. Then she laughs.
Section 5 features more head shaking, distant staring, etc., but it is also a relatively sad section. Poppy laughs very little, and frequently looks down. Yes, a pun. Poppy has been laughing for most of the video, so why, all of a sudden, does she seem so sad?
Section 6 is shot shakily and close-up. I mean, really close-up. Like, right-in-her-face close-up. To the point where the camera is often out of focus. We’re also given a blatantly voyeuristic sweep over Poppy’s chest as the camera shifts position around her. Further, there are several instances where Poppy looks deep into the camera, with what I refer to as a “model pout,” where she slightly parts her lips and opens her eyes wide. Recall my post on “Computer Boy” where I talked about the fan-idol relationship. That lustful look? It’s for you, except everybody knows it’s not.
Quick note: I will elaborate on this when I talk about “You’re Too Close,” but it’s important to stay mindful and know that despite some uncomfortably voyeuristic shots in “Me Laughing,” it doesn’t necessarily mean that the video, or anyone who worked on it, is, y’know, perverted or something. Depicting the voyeuristic nature of idolism is how we talk about the voyeuristic nature of idolism, the same way that depicting racism is how we talk about racism.
The problem is that nowadays, we are trained to think quickly, not critically. Your initial response (also called your ‘knee-jerk’ response) to Poppy’s work shouldn’t be your final response to it. It’s important to consider context and think carefully. Ask yourself: why would Poppy choose to show you this? What does she want you to think about? What is she trying to tell you?
Section 7 is where things start to get really fucking weird.
Previously, I said that there was something darker lurking in “Me Laughing,” and Section 7 is where this darkness begins to manifest. The segment starts with Poppy having another one of her imaginary conversations with demons or whatever where she nods her head and gives some “mm-hmms” in agreement. Shortly after, she looks right at the camera and laughs in your face. Not only is her laugh absolutely maniacal, but it seems completely sincere too. This section really relates the feeling that you are not in on the ‘joke’—maybe the joke’s about you.
Section 7 also provides a sense of violent foreboding: a creeping feeling that something is going to happen to you, but you don’t know what that ‘something’ is, and you have absolutely no power to stop it. What really drives this sense of helplessness home is the way the scene is shot. At one point, the camera spends a few seconds just looking at Poppy’s hand. This emphasizes your lack of control. You are completely at the mercy of the camera’s whims. You only see what is shown to you. Then, as the scene closes, the camera is put down in front of Poppy, and, after a few tense seconds, she slowly reorients her body and starts crawling towards you. Luckily, the camera is picked up before she reaches it—you were saved, but what if you hadn’t been?
Oh, right, I forgot to mention: Poppy didn’t laugh much in this section.
Section 8 is a more amped-up version of Section 6. We get Poppy staring deep into the camera for almost the entire scene’s duration. Her lustful gaze relates a feeling of vulnerability, like you are spying on a defenseless little girl, but at the same time, it feels like she is giving you one last dose of what you want before she brutally murders you.
Section 9 is fairly straightforward. We have Poppy staring at a fixed point in the distance as if she is receiving orders from her alien overlord. We also get several rapid glances toward the camera, as if her orders somehow involve you, or as if she and someone else are sharing gossip about you right in front of your face.
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…And then Section 10 happens.
Poppy says: “goodbye.”
In Section 10 we have a bit of a climax. No, not that kind of climax. Well, unless this essay is really doing it for you.
The first interpretation of Section 10 is fairly basic, Poppy is waving goodbye because you’re about to die. Obviously, whatever scheme she and her invisible monster friends cooked up is going to be carried out, and it’s probably going to result in the destruction of everything, yourself included. This is sad, probably, but she seems to find it highly amusing. Again, I’m not a fan of obsessing over canon or lore, so I’ll tackle this one slightly differently in the analysis, but I do think this reading of “Me Laughing” is at least semi-faithful to Poppy and Titanic’s vision. This interpretation also serves as a very nice teaser for P3. I mean, if “Do you disagree?” has told us anything, P3 will have a lot of destroying.
The next reading of Section 10 involves the objectifying nature of idolism. Yes, the $5 words are starting to come out, brace yourself. Anyway, in this section, Poppy giggles as she waggles her hands around, back and forth then forth and back, as though she is using her hands for the first time. Almost like a shiny, new automaton discovering its motor functions. It’s cute, but silly. And by silly, I mean overly silly. You have to remember that Poppy is played by a woman in her mid-20s. Reminds me of some lines from “Hard Feelings”: “my arms and my legs are so stiff / Is that the way you wanted it?” Or, rather, is this how you want her to act?
At the end of the section, the camera moves right up to Poppy’s face and she looks at you and just… stares.
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And stares…
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And stares…
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She knows.
Finally, we get to Section 11, which would be my main argument against the totally boring ‘Poppy communicating with demons’ reading. Poppy is seated, again, with her arms wrapped around her thighs. Note again the sense of her smallness and vulnerability transmitted by her sitting position. Also note the way the shot is filmed, with the camera looking down on Poppy and frequently swooping in for close passes.
And then, in the last two seconds, something really bizarre happens. For a brief moment, some foreign object enters the shot, just in the very corner. Now, I’m about to make a weird argument, be wary of it. Other than the random piece of equipment entering the shot, “Me Laughing” does not end off on a noteworthy moment. Just Poppy sitting there, looking up at the camera. Plenty of instances of that. The video could have easily been trimmed by 2 seconds and nothing would have changed. We can also (probably) assume that somebody carefully reviewed this video before it was uploaded.
We’re left the possibility that those last two seconds were left in the video for a reason. And that reason is—
Hey, wait a minute, was that a mirror?
Analysis
“Me Laughing” is a really interesting video, and you can have a lot of fun if you spend some time looking into it, so that’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’ll tackle it from several different angles, watch for the switches.
Quick words of warning here: I’m about to use the words ‘parody,’ ‘satire,’ and ‘sarcasm’ interchangeably, a practice some would refer to as: “really fucking lazy.” Frankly, I don’t give a damn, I’m not a professional, I’m going to type my silly words anyway and you can’t stop me.
As content loses any sense of shame in attempting to draw your attention, nuance withers away and it becomes harder and harder to differentiate parody from parodied. For example, is “Old Town Road” criticizing the state of the music industry or embracing it? Now, I’m positive that Lil Nas X has the self-awareness of my pug when he’s lapping up his own boogers, yet I personally couldn’t write a song that so perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with modern music. So, is “Old Town Road” a parody or not?
This is where someone ripping off Westworld would say: “if you can’t tell, does it matter?” to which I would answer: “yes, yes it does.”
Context may be fleeting, unreliable, and arguably nonexistent, but I still believe it’s possible to differentiate parody from parodied, it just takes a little more effort. See, I think “Me Laughing” is satirical as hell, especially considering its context within Poppy’s body of work and how it compares to mainstream internet content.
First, consider that the frankly-titled video “Me Laughing” was hyped up for three days before it ‘premiered’ on YouTube. Hilarious, but also incisive. Who waits three days to see someone laugh? “Well, I did.” Ah.
The sarcastic nature of the video also shines through in the description, which reads: “A motion picture starring Poppy.” There’s a tired, yet necessary, statement here on the continuing degradation of internet content. What won’t people eat up?
We all know Poppy’s no stranger to sarcasm. See: “Bleach Blonde Baby” or “Poppy loves Politics.” She will often refer to her videos as “high quality internet content,” while uploading videos of herself eating cotton candy or ‘ooo-ing’ at things. With “Me Laughing,” a video where she laughs for 27 minutes, Poppy further questions where the line is regarding what content people will happily consume.
Fun story: I’ve seen people call “Me Laughing” ASMR. In fact, I think I did, at some point. Huh, I should probably change that. This isn’t totally wrong, but know that “Me Laughing” takes so many shots at ASMR you’d think the video shared a set with Sicario. And, if that’s the case, they could have saved some money and just filmed the video in my neighborhood haha… hah… ha… (seriously though I’m in danger)
Considering “Me Laughing” as a genuine ASMR video would obviously be antithetical to Poppy’s entire body of work. Recall lyrics like: “Poppy is an object.” No, “Me Laughing” is much more than simply Poppy recording cute ASMR.
Poppy has been questioning the nature of people’s ASMR obsession since her first YouTube video, “Poppy Eats Cotton Candy,” where she had the mic uncomfortably close to her throat so her little gulps and coos were clearly audible. What leads to people wanting to hear these things?
Zoom out: many of Poppy’s videos are about obsession. Forget that and the point will fly right over your head. Let’s now reframe the question: why would people want to hear such intimate sounds from Poppy? Answer that and “Me Laughing” will make a lot more sense.
What I’m about to say next will be very dense because it will outline the thesis of a large part of Poppy’s work. Sorry, hopefully it’s still readable. I’m still developing my interpretations of her work, and I promise to expand and explain them more in the future.
I’m also sure some fans will want to stab me in the neck with a rusty spoon for this post because it’ll appear like I am directly criticizing them. In reality, I am actually insinuating that Poppy is criticizing them, but nuance is dead, knee-jerk reactions reign supreme. Whatever. If you react that way, it means you’re so eyeballs deep in obsession that you fail to realize why Poppy courts your obsession in the first place. Poppy’s work entices fans to obsess over her, but it also berates those who do so.
Note that this is all as a means of criticizing the status-quo. And guess what: fans are part of the status-quo. It stings when you realize your idol’s criticisms are actually about you, but I’m not convinced Poppy is malicious. She wants you to be a better person.
This is my best estimate of her thesis: the nature of the objectification of celebrities is rooted in a sexual obsession—that is, a desire for their bodies. Pun intended. Objectification stems from fantasizing over what the celebrity shows you, which is almost always physical, or at least results in the fantasy manifesting itself as a physical representation.
In other words: “everybody wants to be Poppy.”
Poppy recognizes the inherently sexual obsession with figures in the ASMR community. She wears latex in “Me Laughing” to draw attention to this. It’s as if she was saying: “this is what you’re here for, right?”
Note that obsession is inherently progressive. It grows and grows, eventually leading to fans voyeuristically observing the objectified person’s intimate bodily functions. This culminates in “Me Laughing.” Poppy knows what you want, but as payment, she’s going to leave a nagging feeling in your brain that somehow you have done something wrong. That you shouldn’t really be watching this video, but she knows you are.
Recall Titanic’s comments about making people slightly uncomfortable. Consuming is harder with a lump in your throat. The key to understanding Poppy’s work is to ask why she wants you to feel uncomfortable. What about your behavior does she want you to realize?
Earlier in the post, I mentioned that I’m not a huge fan of the whole ‘Poppy talking to demons about destroying the world’ reading because it comes dangerously close to obsessing over her lore. Lore is like history without the usefulness, so I’m going to ignore it. Regardless, I said I would use that interpretation for something more interesting, so I’d like to ask:
What makes someone want to destroy the world?
Throughout “Me Laughing,” Poppy shoots dark glares at the camera. There’s something sinister in her eyes, something genuinely evil lurking in her gaze. We know she obviously has an immense disdain for the status-quo. What else would lead to lyrics like: “down, let it all burn down / burn it to the ground”?
Preceding any cries of “viva la revolución!” or “apocalypse, now!” is an implicit judgement that what is left of the world is either not able to be saved, or not worth saving. That tearing everything down and beginning anew is preferable to salvaging what remains. To reach such a mindset, one would need to see modern society with such disgust and be so disenchanted with our current world that it no longer appears worth preserving. One would also need to have given up hope on the ability for people to come together and solve their problems. To have lost hope in humanity’s ability to adapt and overcome. To think that perhaps our problems have become too big for us to solve, that perhaps we have finally dug too deep a hole to climb out of.
Again, people don’t reach a hopeless mindset overnight; it takes many steps to descend into the darkness. But, the numpties on r/GetMotivated tell me, “every journey begins with a single step,” so let’s take one together.
In a tweet, I mentioned that “Me Laughing” was also about absurdism. No, that wasn’t a typo for ‘absurdity.’ I may write ridiculously deep-dives into Poppy lyrics and lore, but I try not to waste words.
Anyway, let’s play a game. I call it the “imagine something real quick because I need to prove a point” game.
Imagine being stuck in a system. Yes, it’s cliché to use the word ‘system,’ and any time you do, it carries the connotation that you are some conspiracy nut, e.g., “you can’t trust the system man!” I understand all this, please just bear with me and let me use the word, it’s useful. Anyway, you don’t like the system because a lot of the system is bad and it’s slowly, but surely, getting worse. The cracks are starting to show and the whole thing is poised to come crumbling down. Okay, that’s not good, you want to tell people about this. To warn them. However, in order to obtain a sizable audience for your message, you need to first succeed within the system, and to do that, you need to play by the system’s rules.
Okay, no sweat, you release some pop songs. There’s a couple of them that people really dig. Unfortunately, the songs people like don’t contain much of your message. They have a watered-down version of it at best. That’s a little sad, but oh well, at least you’re getting some sort of message out there. Hey, maybe if you make the music video really weird, people will realize there’s something more going on! Hm, that didn’t seem to work either.
So you release some YouTube videos too. Some of them are pretty biting, especially that one on politics. Should get people thinking, right? Hah, no, wrong. People like them, yes, but not for the reasons you want. They like them because they’re “weird” and “addictive” e.g., “its 3 AM on a school night and I’m still watching Poppy videos why can’t I stop lolol.” Imagining that the videos contain some sort of Illuminati-esque hidden message to decode is preferable to examining the real-world implications of the work. Plus, like, there’s experts for that, right?
Anyway, a couple albums and hundreds of videos later, you have a sizable following, sweet, now you can transition to doing what you’ve always wanted to. Change the persona to something a little truer to yourself. Make your message a little clearer. Finally, you have the power to change the world like you always promised you would.
Uh-oh, Houston, we’ve got a problem. Your audience listened to you for X, but now you’re giving them Y. It’s not a total loss, though. You have a lot of loyal members in your audience, and they like your new stuff too. Doesn’t matter what you make, they’re loyal, they’ll watch/listen/whatever to it. Their dedication has become investment which has become even more dedication. In fact, they’ve been following you since the start, when you were first trying to get big. “Yes, but I was trying to get big because I wanted to spread a message and to do that I had to make compromises to grow an audience so people would liste—“
They also have their own ideas of what you’re saying, plus, like, they make neat art, here, check this out, please give this a listen, look at this, read this, please, please? “Hey, nice article. Wait, the next one is how many words?!” And you keep every piece of fan art because it really does mean a lot to you. “Wow, I appreciate it, that’s beautiful, thank you. Oh, what? There’s even more?” Hey, if you have spare minute, could you give a shout-out to my friend? It’s her birthday. “Sure, hold on…” It’s also my birthday tomorrow, could you give this post a like? “Um, okay, just give me a minut—“ Also, could you answer my DM on Instagram? It’s important. And after that there’s only 100 more to answer! kk thanks! “Wait… one second… whoa!”
Now you’re releasing Z, hopefully that will get your message across…
…
…
…
Wait—what was your message again?
…
…
…
Oh no.
…
…
…
Somewhere along the way, probably between performing [this] and signing [that], the essence of your message was lost. Whatever remains has been drowned out by the noise of the system. If we’re talking decibels, notifications are loud, problems are whispers, and these days everyone’s got ear plugs.
Thinking about problems is hard, thinking about them for too long is sad, being sad is uncomfortable, hey, look, Taylor Swift just dropped a new album, that “Lover” song is dope, let’s look at memes.
So, you want to change the system. But to change the system you need power. To get power, you need an audience. But the only way to get an audience is to make content that gets rewarded by the system. And the content that gets rewarded by the system is that which is easily digestible for a large audience, i.e., devoid of substance. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I don’t think “Turn Down for What” resulted in much positive social change. “Well, maybe the system should reward content that is creative, challenging, and conscientious instead!” Ah, yes, I see what you mean. So, you want to change the system…
Pass the mic, Camus, I’ve got a real knee-slapper for ya. Oh, right, guess I’ll just grab it myself.
These days, we’re faced with a new kind of absurdism, one which involves recognizing that societal systems are getting worse and need changing, while simultaneously recognizing that you are chained by said systems, and thus, powerless to change them.
This new absurdism describes the maddening exercise in doublethink where people wrestle with the knowledge that they should be Making The World A Better Place but also the knowledge that they cannot possibly live in a way that satisfies such capitalized phrases. The end result is a mental tearing fueled by impossible societal expectations and the inevitable guilt of failing to live up to them.
After a while, people stop fighting. They give up. They give in. When enough people throw in the towel, all that’s left is to hold on tight and enjoy the ride, e.g., the trajectory is set, all aboard, no, there aren’t enough seat belts for everyone, must have been one of those damn cost-saving initiatives.
“Yeah, that definitely sounds absurd. So… what do we do about it?”
Well, sometimes all you can do is laugh.
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princeescaluswords replied to your post:
Alex Summers, after the most recent of 128979889...
Why don’t you write Marvel? You couldn’t possibly do any worse and I could use the laughs!
Lol, its a nice dream, but realistically I don’t think there’s any universe in which Marvel would ever let me write the X-Men.
Like, my very first story would probably have Bobby refreezing the Arctic while Storm heads up a team of elementals to combat climate change. And then a Republican senator and a Democrat senator would go on TV and make a bipartisan show of expressing their gratitude towards mutants for helping save the planet and this is the real future of humanity, this is them all building a world where they can live side by side in a mutually beneficial -
And then the broadcast would cut off because Cypher just hacked every satellite worldwide and said “all your binary codes belong to me now, resistance is futile, blah blah” before turning the camera to Sunspot who’s all decked out in his snazziest suit and dressed to the nines. Roberto yawns and flips the whole world off and says “LOL fuck you, the X-Men are done with respectability politics, we took a vote and our democratic process actually works, we don’t have a fucking electoral college. We only saved the planet because it happens to be the planet we live on, dipshits, nobody did it for you, you’re still cordially invited to go extinct. Or you can play nice and try getting along with the rest of us for a change but good luck trying to make Sentinels happen again, lmao, funding’s gonna be an issue for you pretty soon I think.”
He turns off the camera and goes back to planning his and Sam’s wedding, because look, I have my priorities, okay.
Then Mystique unleashes her new Fellowship of Evil (Same Name, But This Time Its Evil as in STFU, Its Ironic U Assholes) Mutants that she’s been recruiting from the ranks of the young and disenchanted. Overnight, the market is flooded with gold and gems transmuted from ordinary materials by mutant powers, as well as a bunch of shit ‘liberated’ from the coffers of the 1% via her Fellowship’s alliance with her son-in-law’s Thieves’ Guild. Value plummets instantly, and then technopaths join in the fun, crashing every banking system worldwide.
“Whoopsie, I broke capitalism, money’s worthless now, vive la revolution, everyone eat some fucking cake,” Raven sing-songs merrily from the chaise she’s lounging on while eating grapes. The city outside her window is burning. Meanwhile, a fiddler is playing nearby. She calls him Nero, because Aesthetic.
“Oh relax,” she rolls her eyes when Remy attempts to frown at her disapprovingly. “I had my teleporters evacuate the city before I set it on fire. I’m not a heartless monster, you know.”
“You mean you didn’t want to spend the next ten years dealing with your children yelling at you about innocent civilians and how could you,” Remy says dryly.
Mystique just shrugs and eats some more grapes. “Or that.”
Far-right dominated police forces and white supremacist militia groups attempt to forcibly establish martial law, except mostly they’re just standing around clutching their heads and trying to cope with the mother of all migraines as a gestalt of telepathic minds headed up by a Cerebro-powered octet of Jean, Emma, Betsy, Rachel, Quentin, and the Stepford Cuckoos psychically screams FAKE NEWS!!! into their brains every time their CO’s attempt to bark out new orders.
“Best school project ever,” Quire shouts. Emma smirks.
“Extra credit to the first person to psychically leak the full extent of just how extensively governments have invaded their citizens’ privacy with surveillance extremism in the name of national security.”
Jean attempts a half second of chastisement, but with them all linked this closely, there’s really no way to hide that she’s mostly just amused. Oh no, she and Emma are seeing eye to eye on something and there are witnesses and everything. The revolution was a mistake.
Atlanteans and mutant hydrokinetics team up to shove the worst oil and toxic waste and trash spills up onto the shores of every beach marked ‘privately owned’. The mile-wide ‘island’ of plastic debris that formerly sat in the middle of the Pacific is now parked off the coast of Malibu.
There’s a twenty foot demon from Limbo sitting in the Oval Office. It burps. Illyana beams and boops its nose. “Good boy.” It wags its tail and breaks the Oval Office.
Kitty and Kurt direct teams of similarly powered mutants in raiding the top secret R&D facilities of major pharmaceutical companies for all their research on diseases that never made it to mass production because they decided those treatments or cures wouldn’t be profitable in the long run because healthy people don’t need to spend a ton of money on medical care. Teams of healers are standing by to vet the viability of various research, while Hank, Cece and other mutant geniuses are already working on filling in the gaps on all the projects that were shutdown and Forge, Madison Jeffries and tech-based geniuses are converting existing infrastructure into the necessary machinery to take over mass production of these drugs, prosthetics, and sweatshop labor in general.
Speedsters and teleporters are redistributing food and stocking up the millions of properties worldwide that have just been sitting there empty for god knows how long, useless. Colossus is standing in the smashed remains of a mansion with his arms crossed sternly while a man who is definitely not meant to resemble the CEOs of either Tesla or Amazon or look like some kind of Musky Bozo hybrid cowers on the floor.
“You are a very stupid man,” Colossus says. “Why are you wasting billions funding research into space travel when there are aliens with a strong grasp of the technology in the ships that brought them here on every superhero team on Earth? You could have easily provided the Earth with working and widely accessible space travel by now if you weren’t so miserly.”
“Yeah,” Juggernaut says behind him, scratching his head. “Aliens have been coming and going from this planet for like fifty years. There are tons of fancy spaceships anyone could’ve just reverse engineered and mass produced by now. How come nobody’s ever done that and we’re all just acting like space travel is some far-off dream when everyone we know’s been to space like at least ten times?”
“Stupid people,” Colossus rumbles again. Musky Bozo wets himself and Piotr sighs and shakes his head. He didn’t even touch him.
Cyclops and Wolverine and their teams of bruisers are already done with the ICE facilities and have progressed to busting open prisons and liberating all nonviolent offenders. They inform everyone else that they can appeal to a panel of telepaths to read their minds and see for themselves that they’re innocent.
“Guilt determined by mind-reading?” Someone asks. “Lots of potential for sketchiness there.”
“Absolutely,” Scott says. “Which is why laws about boundaries and oversight have to be established. For now, its a volunteer basis only. Nobody has to get their mind read, but its an option available in the meanwhile as we sort out a better system for determining who’s been imprisoned for crimes of premeditated malice and abuse and who’s just been railroaded by an unjust and biased system.”
“So this is your new utopia, huh?” Sneers the prison warden, from the floor where he’s on his ass with a busted face because, idk, Reasons.
Scott just shakes his head. “No. It’s merely a start.”
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, but if its broke and you wanna fix it, you gotta start somewhere,” Logan says gruffly. “Shit was broke. This is ‘starting somewhere.’”
He and Scott share a very Passionate look of camaraderie. Rogue sighs loudly.
“Just fuck already, jfc.”
Logan grunts. He already offered, but apparently all Personal Business must wait until after the Revolution was over, because a Scott Summers who put himself first was very clearly an impostor, so its not like Logan could even fucking get mad considering Scott putting in a pin in sucking each other’s faces after their We Were Both Dead But Now We’re Not and Also What the Fuck Was Up With Us For the Five Whole Years Before That reunion was what confirmed that it was definitely the Real Scott’s tongue in his mouth.
“Alright, let’s move it people,” Logan barks, clapping his hands. “There’s three more joints to hit before sundown. We got a timetable here.”
Jubilee squints at him suspiciously. “Since when are you efficient?”
“Mind your own fucking business.”
At no point does anyone suggest they erase the most sacred sites of all the world’s major religions and call them all fake or randomly resurrect a bunch of dinosaurs and release them on unsuspecting and innocent populations, because those are terrible ideas and make no sense and just because they’re stinkin’ commies now doesn’t mean they’re fucking morons.
Also, nobody grows a ridiculous beard or stops using shampoo or starts wearing flip flops or robes, because apparently those are not actually essential components of being a stinkin’ commie or even just a garden variety peace-aspiring socialist. They checked. Extensively. It was almost a dealbreaker. Emma, Monet and Roberto all threatened to side with the Capitalist Pigs if that was not thoroughly clarified before proceeding any further.
Thus ends my first issue. I email Marvel the script. They email it back, almost entirely redacted in red, with the note “This isn’t quite what we were looking for. Do you have anything about a new cure for mutants, maybe?”
I email them back: LOL NO. MAGNETO WAS RIGHT.
I am promptly fired.
I go back to ranting about how Marvel sucks on the internet.
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Do you have podcast recommendations?
OH BOY DO I
buckle up, buttercup, here’s everything i’m subscribed to
(edit: dec 2018 updates in blue!)
Fiction:
within the wires- all time fave. season one: starts weird, gets AMAZING. lo-fi sci-fi (if you liked upstream color, you will love this. they’re nothing alike, but it’s the closest in vibe i can compare it to.) season two: incredible worldbuilding. no other podcast has ever made me want to like. take notes. STUDY it. there’s so much going on in the background, but the A story is still so good.
the magnus archives- second fave. just Excellent and Creepy. i’m in love with martin blackwood’s wimpy ass.
wooden overcoats- FAVE. PERF. HILAR. i have never wished for something to go full rom-com so hard in my life, and if this show doesn’t end up with some funn/chapman nuptials i might literally die (and then they could fight over my corpse!) this show is a DELIGHT
the bright sessions- also great. superpowered people who love each other. lots of Drama and Feelings. adam hayes is my son.
the far meridian- so good i’m fucked up ab it. if you like the bright sessions, this a similar energy, sort of
alice isn’t dead- another good creepy story. a bit of an american gods feel, but less about gods and more about monsters and missing persons. (seriously, the monsters are so good, it’s some great horror.) tbh i didn’t love the final season, but the book is great.
bubble- cute and fun!
station to station- creepy, but on a boat! i just want to be nelly cochrane’s best friend.
girl in space- not very far in yet, but decent. closer to hard sci-fi, with fun solarpunk vibes. caught up and i like it!!
2298- crosses over with girl in space
wolverine: the long night- good! but not mind blowing or anything, just good
mabel- casual psychological intrigue that evolves into spooky florid grotestquery which then ascends to almost high fantasy. starts GREAT, kind of loses it after a while, but the last season finale was really good, so i’m still in. LOVED the infinity mirror mini!!
alba salix, royal physician- the axe & crown miniseries between seasons is everything!! i wish gubbin was my grumpy troll uncle
here be dragons- it’s got sea monsters, so i’m in
tides- again, sea monsters (-ish), but also spaceships!
the white vault- SNOW monsters!! but tbh i’m really worried this isn’t gonna get weird enough, but i’m sticking with it
archive 81- i just finished the first season this morning, and the main voice actor isn’t great, but i’m going to keep listening bc it’s weird and interesting (even though they [redacted] the [redacted]). i quit this one ugh
Non-fiction:
another round- currently on an indefinite hiatus but go back and listen to everything they’ve already put out bc they’re literally The Best
who shot ya- movies! new eps go up on fridays, but i save them for monday mornings so i can start my week off right. that’s how great it is. i would die for ricky carmona (not really, but i’d maybe give him a kidney if he asked). the hosts are all crank 2 stans.
gastropod- just the best podcast about food that i’ve found. fun and interesting. good hosts.
#WizardTeam- black girls talking about harry potter, chapter by chapter (i’m reading along for book six! but in spanish.)
revisionist history- i want to be malcolm gladwell when i’m fifty.
the a24 podcast- only a few episodes in, but hit that subscribe. great conversations between filmmakers/entertainment people.
food heaven podcast- more food stuff, good info and inspo
history is sexy- it’s history but it’s fun and they say fuck
the cracked podcast- some great topics but tbh i’m mostly just here bc i have a crush on alex schmidt
conciencia azul- cool chats ab marine biology. LOVE when the host asks ab scientists’ fave animals in their area of expertise, they always get a little flustered and it’s adorable!!
fathoms deep- i listened to the first three episodes like a year ago and it was so great i had to stop bc i want to listen to it WITH (a rewatch of) black sails (that i will start imminently!) halfway through this now, and i love anything black sails ofc, so it’s fun! they often miss some serious aspects of the show in their discussions (esp regarding race and sexuality), but they do also hit points i’ve never considered before, so i’d recommend it.
the invisible network- cool nasa info
misc:
hostile worlds- it’s both fiction and non-fiction, it’s weird, but it’s good space shit. got silly bits and facts.
rusty quill gaming podcast- i started this at the beginning of this magnus hiatus unsure if i’d be able to finish it all by the time it came back. i binged it all and caught up in like a month. i love them. it’s fun. fave gaming podcast i’ve listened to!
outliers- another rusty quill, had to start it after catching up on rqg. it’s cool though! history, but not boring
bonus note of advice:
do not listen to the black tapes. it’s not good and the ending is not the payoff you want. it is deeply unsatisfying and not worth your time. go for the magnus archives instead. i stand by this
and i’m always open to more recs- you can probably get a good idea of what i like from this list!
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SPN 5X4 The End
ehehehe
ohohoho
hehehe
oh this is gonna be FUN!
oo nice fade in
"god's plan for you" oh heh
he was confused
Cas on the phone is so funny to me
thIS IS THE "voice says I'm almost out of minutes"
HE'S SO DISGRUNTLED IT'S SO FUNNY
"i'll just-" *awkwardly looks at hung up phone* "wait here then"
HE LOOKS SO DISGRUNTLED AND ANNOYED AHAHAHA
hello mr messenger of god
oh huh it IS actually Sam
ope Dean's just Numb
Dean calling out the revenge is a nice touch tbh
"I think the way we(I) was raised made us weaker" IS SO MUCH! it'S! SO MUCH
"always used against us" aaosfhdsf'
I wish someone could analyze this without the...thing happening
BOY he's numb and tired
oho and he wakes up in a decrepit bed
It'S VISION TIME F U C K E R S
o huh Chuck's in this one
good horror imagery with the lil girl
ah you can notice the legs
CROATOAN! OH B OY
shit they REALLY set it up
R U N
god I love this needle drop
2014..
ah the radio! interesting
ah Zachariah!
"no more sports"
hits different now
oh THAT's why the kid looked so disoriented
Dean getting pissed at the Angel Powers is so fun
ah GOD not bobby
hunter journal!! hunter! journal!
C H I T A Q U A
ooo he found the car and it's totaled
that's how you know shit went down
DEAN VS DEAN
G A N K
you can Kinda tell there are effects
he looks SO DONE
green vs blue feels important idk
THE PANTIES THING
what does the target demo think of this, what do they
"Sam didn't make it" LIE
ope they got Super Separated
Trauma huh I never thought he'd say it
"you don't trust yourself" "no" heh
he's the leader, he's not used to it oop
D E A N OH MY GOD
cas..!
HIPPIE ORGIE CAS!
THE WINK?
boy you can tell the Drugs
WHY IS HE LOOKINGDOWN?
the one finger thingggg
he'S SO LooSe AHH
THE ONE HAND BEER THING IS FROM HERE?
"It's a pretty messed up situation" THAT DELIVERY KILLED ME
...is..he pitching his voice dOWN?
boy hE IS C O LD
is there something in..the whiskey
THE OCLT?
"I'm gonna kill the devil" ok cool?
AHAHA HE FUCKED UP HIS LOVE LIFE OH THAT'S FUNNY
Cas is enjoying this AHAH
fEarLeSs lEadEr
god I LOVE THIS WAIT HE'S ACTIVELY TEASING HIM?
"oh so we're torturing again" is a nice line
...I...Wait
Was...other Dean jealous of past Dean or betrayed or
wAHT
it...second in command
they just..banter?
"I want you to see something" is a lot like what Zach said
"say yes" ope
the angels aren't listening
ow
"never actually thought I'd lose" o w
the like..deep meaningful looks at each other are SO IMPORTANT
"hoard toilet paper like gold" AHHHHH
you want some? pfft
oh THAT'S HARDCORE DRUGS
aw Dean..tries
so..so..how did cas..how..did he know if not looking at the soul
human
uSELESS IMPORTANT THERE
ah so he's just...given up entirely
he's so clearly not happy about it either
he sacrifices people, right?
Ah he knows when he lies
he's more self aware than he thinks
"i've seen them in the mirror" O P E
W HY THE FOCUS ON CAS WH Y
lights out Dean
SAM IN LUCIFER SUIT KILLS DEAN HOLY FUCK
THE EYE CONTACT
HELLO DEAN!
I DO like the white suit tho
what is lucifer's angle here?
of course he has daddy issues OF COURSE
cast me out despite my care...feels important
the "why blame me" is like..present in both lucifer and this but WILDLY different damn
"i get what the other angels see in you" ?
it's also GREAT to see Dean not like...shuttering when there's emotion
like he's crying and scowling! good!
"always end up here" "you're wrong" "see you in five years" OW
HOLY FUCK AM I CRYING
Look Dean's A low trust person, I know it's the framing, but I see it, yk?
HIS FACE WHEN DEAN BLIPS OUT
THE LIL SMILES
NEVER CHANGE
ah the reunion
how ... much time has passed
"i'm whatever I need to be" bro
and then Dean never told Anyone
his lesson learned is stay with his brother and forgive
"we keep each other human"
"thank you" Dean's the father/authority/mother figure
"we make our own future"
1. needledrop. I'm just cataloguing all of these. This wasn't a particularly poignant or Sticking one, but I rly did like the "Vibe" it got. Like doesn't stick with you, but jettisons you into the story, good, we like that.
I do think a good needle drop should be more invisible unless it explicitly needs to be visible, and Renegade was SUPER jarring, while all of these work even if you don't know the context of the song.
2. disaster. Listen. Watching this and also the other deserted town plot line after the panorama's been hitting is like. It feels more correct? It feels super close to home and plausible. Like the toilet paper thing? I know that was memed, but I also think actual thought was put into the world building of the disaster.
hell maybe that's why I cried
3. Cas... he is human, right? how did..he tell it was Dean? He WAS LOOKING DOWN
I swear everytime I go "nah it can't be That blatant" it just pulls out all the stops
other than that, the "I'm fine but clearly not" thing he had going on...he picked that up from Dean, right? Also the juxtaposition of this vs the previous episode is so important I feel? like it's not actually him, it's as far from him as you can get
also he was Dean's second in command? like Very Clearly his second in command, clearly liked making fun of him? what the FUCK were we supposed to read into that? gotta go read all of DTA now jESUS
also Disgruntled Castiel and "We had an Appointment" Castiel? top tier, I LOVE THIS FUNKY LIL ANGEL! AND I LOVE THEIR DYNAMIC! IT'S SO GOOD!
4. Dean. ok I'm in no way qualified to talk of all of these or be coherent but I've got
When confronted with someone who knows him, Dean tends to put on FAR less of a mask, and he knows his own tells better than the person he projects should(this was a common trend, he knows what he projects and knows himself in order to unknow himself)
he lies to himself in the mirror(as in, implied he practices his lies in a mirror) but his Lies SUCK, as I've said before, so what's the lie(it's gotta be his persona, it has to be, his entire persona is a performance, that's why he keeps getting caught, rig-)
(also cuz he hasn't been socialized like...at all, but that's something else)
I don't know if it's he prides himself on it, but compassion and helping people is clearly his Top Priority(After Sam cuz of the trauma ofc). Past Dean is genuine, caring, even if he tries not to be, and the fact that Future Dean ended up so cold is probably the most jarring part out of all of it(Dean put Cas above the other girl he slept with..on purpose, right? did he figure out that him and Dean of the future are [redacted]? like WHAT WAS THA-)
The angels liking him..I think again, it's because of the sincerity he tries to pretend he doesn't have? The righteousness that Isn't Cool? that's my theory. Like he Is what he's said to be, but he tries to hide it so ends up not doing it(why Cas gets pissed)
Dean has Deep Seated Trust Issues, because as someone with those, it's very clear, I don't make the rules. he basically doesn't trust the angels on Principle and Vibe alone I think (as he should they're shady as FUCK)
5. Sam+Dean. ok one, that thing about the beginning where "I think the way we were raised made us weaker." BOY that one hit. like It's something both of them have to grapple with and I'm SO pissed we didn't get there
Dean confronted by Sam possessed by Lucifer, saying there has to be another way where Sam ends up dead is also important. Like I think letting Sam go probably would be something he needs to do, but being forced into it, he Repels it, yk?
tbh that entire "see you in five years" scene broke me, I have to go lie in a corner
5. something about belief? ok so Chuck is not to be read as God yet, I don't think(It was cas but Sexual Tension so) but the only angels left that didn't Peace Out are Cas(who fell for Dean "humanity" ) and Lucifer, who according to this lore, fell because he opposed it. The fallen, "bad" angels. I wonder where Anna would be in this scale actually. God is still not present, the angels...forsook this world? but why would they care? I don't know man. That sense of abandonment, dread, and "there's nothing left" (cas in particular) felt important and indicative of Trauma, but I can't pinpoint which one
oh boy
#pawswatchesspn#5x4 the end#this episode made me happy and also made me cry#gave me a lot to analyze and a lot of moments that I simply want to watch again#unsurprisingly this one HIT holy FUCK
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ye olde liner notes
A whole bunch of meta for The Truth or Something Beautiful, which @magcretia and I posted two months ago? Sure why not?
It’s hecking long, so more under the cut....
Elaine: so I guess at this point (almost 2 months later) this is more of a retrospective, yeah? But we both want to take a look at how this thing happened, so it's all good.
Kath: Yeah, I mostly thought it’d be useful to us as we’re working on this big WIP of [redacted] where there’s gonna be some intense feelings to kind of take some “emotional inventory” for Taako and Lucretia, and maybe also ourselves? And remind ourselves where we came from and where we’re trying to go.
E: I think we were both pretty wiped out after finishing this, so a little distance is good. I’m trying to remember what the bit was where we decided, fuckit let’s just publish after trying to cut and then put back blah blah blah? Was it “But we — we keep choosing Forsake,” ? We cut because it seemed like a weird turn, but then it turned out to be important?
K: I think it felt like a beat we were hitting without it flowing naturally there, which happens sometimes? But I think with these two, there just isn’t always a flow, because they’re in their own heads so much and say so little of what they need to say aloud. So a lot of times it just comes out abruptly and feels uncomfortable, which isn’t pretty, but it’s true to life. And a LOT of writing this was uncomfortable, I think.
E: Ok, I’ll just dive right into that, then. We both went into this thinking it was going to be an easier conversation than Find the One Safe Way and NOOOOOOOOPE.
K: YEAH UHHH LOL.
E: I had this moment of absolute low where I thought: we broke it, the thing that we thought we’d fixed, we absolutely just broke it, and personally (hi overidentifying with Lucretia) I just kept thinking WOW that was a mistake bringing up Lup.
K: Yeah, I had that same feeling, and I remember talking about it with you like “do we scratch this? Are we really going to keep this?” and I think it was that uncertainty of letting Taako and Lucretia do what they do, the same way we wrote Safe Way, that was scary.
E: these chucklefucks. And the moment where Lucretia dives to the bottom of the pool and, look, I try really hard to stay away from the suicidal stuff when I write Lucretia, I’m just too soft to really handle it, but I was right there in it. (which was super surreal having those feelings at work, LET ME TELL YOU) But I had to trust that “no way out but through” was going to work.
So, ok, this “How could you not do something?” hit me, personally, so hard I could hardly breathe, because duh, of course. sigh
K: So, that all started from your coke!Taako fic, The Mirror, which really stuck with me for… clearly a long time, for a lot of reasons, but I hadn’t really explored those feelings until I started writing my longfic, Another Beach Year. And in ABY, in a scene that I never finished and probably never will, Taako has a nightmare that’s actually a memory of Sizzle It Up days, where Lucretia was watching him from the crowd (as she did in The Mirror) and she sees just how messed up he is, how poorly he’s doing, and she does nothing. And I think that stuck with me even though this series isn’t necessarily in either of those continuities, and I wanted to incorporate that, because I feel that a lot of times the Taako and Lucretia conflict is boiled down to the “you made me forget my sister” thing, and that’s not the whole thing. At least for us, (ESPECIALLY for us?) it’s, “you were my best friend, and you did all that, and you knew I was doing badly, and you still didn’t do anything.” And I think Taako didn’t know how to articulate that in any way that wasn’t accusatory, but it was (and I am biased) perhaps deserved? Definitely necessary, regardless.
E: So I think what made that as difficult as it was on my end was that she felt bad about what had happened, but what she was sorry for wasn’t the thing that was hurting him the most. She thought she knew but she had no idea. I don’t even know how to articulate the dawning horror of “I’ve been sorry about the wrong thing this whole time” except I guess how I actually did? And I think of Lucretia as someone who very much wants to be able to fix things, to make a plan that comes through and improves everything, and to be hit with “this is bad and I can’t do anything about that” is a heavy hit.
K: Mmm. I think it’s hard for Taako to admit that he’s hurting at all, so when he does, it’s kind of a “well I guess while we’re doing this, I’ll get it all out” deal. And so he has all of these feelings about the forgetting, and about Lup, and about a decade being essentially a shell of himself, but what we’re bringing to the table here is this added dimension of their relationships with Magnus, and consequently their friendship with each other. So I think it’s almost easy to lose sight of what exactly he’s hurting about and default to the Lup stuff (and, wow, yeah, there’s so much more there that in True Taako Fashion, even I am avoiding) but fixing the Lup stuff still won’t fix the Lucretia stuff, because he has his memories back. It’s not the forgetting that’s hurting him now, it’s the betrayal.
E: “it’s hard for Taako to admit” — so this. At one point, I was questioning whether he really would have pruney fingers (from the pool) because the amount of actual dialogue wasn’t long enough, and one of the curious things about this whole thing is how much goes unspoken. They take soooo much time to say honestly the briefest things. It’s tremendously frustrating, on some level, because god just say a thing already but it’s also artistically satisfying because it feels true to them, that they dance around their feelings until something just breaks. Usually because I have Lucretia just blurt out some godawful thing. (There’s a bit in the WIP where it’s WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT, but I just feel it.) Of course Lucretia would ask if he’s talked to Lup, and then instantly regret having asked.
K: Oh no girl she didn’t ask, she just abruptly said “I’m sorry about Lup,” which is maybe? Possibly? The worst thing she could have done in that moment. Which makes for good radio but not a good emotional state LOL.
E: Ha, I was thinking about the bit later.
K: YEAH. TWICE. OK LUCRETIA. I think it really does attest to how much she wants to fix things, and all her good intentions, but she can’t do it her way. That way doesn’t work with Taako… They’re the same in that they can’t handle being blindsided with feelings, but that doesn’t stop either of them from doing it to each other? And that’s why these conversations keep happening with the intensity that they do, is they have such a hard time navigating those feelings in the first place. To which we just say, at this point: these chucklefucks.
E: With so much love, but yeah. I can’t believe we thought this one was going to be more lighthearted. Because they were less defensive, maybe? Safe Way they were both on guard because it was a planned encounter, but this was accidental.
K: And they were getting along. For pages, it was like, wow, fuck, this feels good, they’re chatting? Laughing? Together? And then it was, (and wow this is a theme, huh?) talking about family, and ultimately Angus, that caused this whole… thing.
E: There’s so much I have to say about Angus in [redacted], because I’ve fallen headlong into the idea that out of all the adults in his life, Lucretia and Taako are the most parental. But even here, he’s almost a proxy for all this other stuff that’s hanging between them. The theft of the silverware ends up being about what Taako is like on his own, and how Lucretia made her friends into her employees. Angus as a kid on his own is both a thing that Lucretia feels guilty about and a reminder to Taako of his own childhood, and being a kid with Lup.
K: And that was something that I really only scratched the surface of here, because I think that feeling runs deep for Taako. And I think it’s not only why Taako winds up as the parental figure that he is in our timeline, but it’s also why he is so insistent on doing what he can to give Ango a normal life, or to somehow make up for the time Ango spent “alone,” so to speak. It’s hard to articulate, but Taako definitely feels a kinship with Ango in that way, and I think he is projecting some of his own feelings about his own hardships of childhood onto Lucretia? In the way that he blames her for… kind of many things lol. It’s something I want to explore separately later on, for sure.
E: Something that I’m noticing on re-read is that they have this common thread of “you’re the only person I can tell how shitty I know I am” — that might not be exactly it, but something in that neighborhood. That they look at themselves and think “I’m not a good person,” and everybody else is yeah yeah whatever, but they can say it to each other. Which is kinda fucked up, but interesting.
K: YES. I think for Taako it’s mostly “I can say I’m a shitty person to you because there’s very little shit that I could do that’s worse than what you did to me!” Which, yeah, fucked up and interesting lol. And for Lucretia, probably “You already know I’m a shitty person and are the first to tell me so, so I’ll say it anyway”?
E: I don’t think she means it to be calculated, but there’s definitely an aspect of “I’ll admit to it before you accuse me” on her part. I also sometimes see a bit of “you helped make me this shitty” from Taako. And for both of them, they feel like they’re comparing themselves to the people they see as whole-heartedly good, ie Magnus and Lup. (Having this set in Magnus’s yard turned out to be a hell of a thing.)
K: Yeah, I think Taako is a bit more calculated about it, but also I think he’s always been quicker to admit that he’s not really good. (Justin saying “Taako’s not a good person, though, Taako’s not a good person,” on air was like. A LOT to take in. But also, my qualms with Justin’s Canon are well known lol.) I don’t think Taako’s a bad person. I think I summed it up nicely through Kravitz in The Way We Really Are, where he basically says “we’re not good, we’re not bad, we just are.” I think Taako really needed to hear that, especially considering he is Constantly Comparing Himself to everyone else around him, and he honestly believes everyone around him is just… Good. Capital G Good. It’s hard not to compare yourself to your twin.
E: They both have this comparison thing that WOW do I relate to, and actually that circles all the way around back to the thing that was such a difficult editing experience: Trust or Forsake. It was sort of a sideways swerve in the conversation, but it’s such a good metaphor. That they’re both good at calculating the odds and thinking in a very pragmatic way, but then experience the feelings backlash later. They’re both coping with the “rush of shame”, as you put it.
K: I was about to say, I always seem to gravitate back to the robot world, with Taako’s “Am I the only pragmatist here?” and how that was the only time we ever saw him actively disagreeing with Lup. The fact that he was almost angry with her there really stuck with me, and subsequently how he conceded after and promised (with the rest of the team) not to get “scary” like that again. It stick with me, and because of that, it sticks with Taako. I think he feels guilty for a lot of stuff that he knows had to be done. And for that reason, he and Lucretia have a lot in common.
E: That’s one of the core theses of our work together, this commonality. And it’s always such a visceral pleasure to play on that in the interior monologue. Maybe most of all in the new things/good things bit? (Bringing in Kravitz always makes me cry.)
K: Any excuse to bring in Krav. And it was really nice for me to tie him in with a callback to one of your pieces (which you gifted to me!) that was also mentioned in Safe Way. We’ve done a lot of talking outside of our works about how the seven, but particularly Taako and Lucretia, didn’t wind up with the lives they expected, but they wound up with something new and good, and I think that’s a big part of how Taako arrives at his conclusion of “we can’t fix this but we can build something new, maybe.” He knows the power of these new good things, and perhaps the Newest and the Best thing is Kravitz.
E: As I’m thinking about this, and rereading that part in particular, I’m actually reminded of some personal conversations that we’ve had, and this conclusion that they get to resonates: there’s a lot of Bad Shit in the past, and we’re/they’re kind of broken, but there’s enough good now to keep going. Which is a pretty …….. weird? conclusion to end up at, but for me personally it’s oddly hopeful. That it’s better to keep trying than to give up.
K: For sure. I think part of what attracts me to Taako as a character is that he’s the embodiment of the “third option.” Like, no matter how much shit is absolutely fucked, he finds some way to break the game and get the hell out of dodge (and sometimes save the day. But only sometimes.) And I think despite the fact that he struggles so much afterwards (and… basically all of that is my own doing bc lol projecting on fic) he still manages to find a lot of good. It reminds me of a thing you tagged me in that said something like “you don’t have to be hopeful about the future, you just have to be curious enough about what could happen if you stick around” which really rang true for me personally. And for Taako, I think it’s almost a matter of “well, my life was buckwild enough so far, might as well see it through.” (The ravishing boyfriend is a plus, tho.)
E: And honestly, Kravitz’s presence in Taako’s life is something that Lucretia cherishes as well, not that she can take credit for it, obviously, but seeing him happy makes her feel a little better about how everything went down.
K: Absolutely, and I think that gratitude comes through in some small moments in both of our individual works, as early as To New Beginnings which I wrote in October (!) and perhaps even before that? But I feel like there’s this unspoken understanding, almost, between Kravitz and Lucretia (which also came through in Copper for Your Thoughts, in a way) that I think comes with the territory of being the wise characters they are, always laden with such gravitas lol.
E: To zag on you: THE TEA? (which, actually, I’ve never had rose tea, I don’t think? But you made it a Lucretia thing in To New Beginnings at least, and it crossed over into this continuity.) This is another “third option” that changed the whole thing, and I love it.
K: Hah, I never even thought about the symbolic “third option” for tea. (There’s a lot of threes with these three, lol.) Rose tea tastes how roses smell, and it’s weird, but I’m kind of into it? It just always felt like a Lucretia thing to me. BUT YEAH THE TEA, I was having him transmute the juice into tea and I was gonna have him make rose tea, but he already did that in Safe Way, so I was sitting there musing for a minute and thought, oh, what if they had Magnus’s tea? (Oolong, if you’re playing along at home.) And then it hit me: oh, I don’t even know what kind of tea Taako drinks, because he’s always making two cups of whatever the other person wants, which I then raised to you outside of the doc, which then we were both just kinda like “oh… fuck… that’s a thing now” lol.
But I do want to go a little deeper into that, bc I think about it a lot, how Taako isn’t good at saying how he feels. This is known. And that’s another aspect that draws me to him, because wow, fucking same. I used to have quite a knack for naming my emotions, and then somewhere along the line I kind of lost that. And it’s not just about the negative. It’s absolutely a Thing to have a hard time showing people how you feel positively. And I think a lot about that in my own life and have done musing on “love languages” and all that jazz and I think for Taako, he does that in really subtle ways. Doing little things that he almost hopes people won’t even notice. He doesn’t want that “aw that’s so sweet” reaction. He just wants to make that person feel good and move on— which is quite different from the showboating Taako from TV. It’s an interesting contradiction that was so nice to be able to explore so naturally here. Lucretia’s spent a century with him and it hits her all at once that she’s never had the tea he likes, because he’s always taking part in hers. It’s so meaningful and says so much about him. (And maybe he’s not as Bad as he thinks.)
E: And she absolutely notices, first with the mugs — which AAAAAAAAAH the Moon’s Best Director mug, please — because it’s such a little detail that shows that he’s paying attention to her and to her relationship with Magnus, and then the tea and what that means. Again: trust. That she’s going to not try to protect herself or hide from him, she’s going to trust that she can be open and let what happens happen. Ok, I also have to say, we haven’t talked much about the actual process of writing, but the part where Taako says he’s sorry, I read that in the grocery store and then I just wandered the aisles in a daze for like 10 minutes trying to even figure out her response. (In the vein of “leaning into the feeling”, that sound that might’ve been oh or no was literally me in the frozen food aisle.) But they pull back from that brink so quickly! And I think what we’re both noticing in really digging into this again is how actually unresolved it is.
K: I am a big fan of Observant Taako, who cares very deeply but won’t admit it. Even if he’s not in a good place with Lucretia, I think at this point he’s moved forward for his own sake and everyone else’s sake enough that he can appreciate that she makes Magnus happy, and at least that much they will always have in common.
But um, yeah, that apology. It’s loaded, and it’s (appropriately) multi-dimensional. I had Taako feeling sorry during Safe Way, and not understanding why, and not being able to say it. And so here, he feels it again, and he’s ready to say it, but he still doesn’t know why. And it partially comes from a personal place, but it also comes from a lack of emotional literacy when Taako is taking stock of his own feelings? It’s a complicated apology that (you pointed this out, really) he thinks is surface-level for the emotional distress this conversation caused (re: “you spooked me” etc) but in reality it’s more than that. But the rest might be [redacted] here bc I’d like to explore that more in later installments. But yeah, the way they wrap up is… more unresolved than I ever realized? Like reading this back, they didn’t talk about half the shit they brought up, they kind of just threw it out into the arena. Which, for Taako, is more of a “well nothing else is gonna budge til I talk to Lup” thing.
E: In a way, it’s good to see how everything is still so half-formed, because it resonates so nicely as we get into [redacted]. It makes some of the interpersonal weirdness? unevenness? that comes out make actually a lot more sense. Also, if I may say it again for the Nth time: THESE CHUCKLEFUCKS.
#taz fic#my fic#writing about writing#actual tag: these chucklefucks#fwiw writing this influenced a scene we just worked on#so yay us?
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Given Michael’s love for the Ruiner 2000 I would love that Knight Rider AU. (You know the one.)
Michael [Name Redacted] ~hardcore criminal who gets recruited into the Roosters new law enforcement agency program after shit goes spectacularly wrong for him one day and he walks into an ambush.
Gavin’s the main brain behind Michael’s new partner, and it turns out that he has an Arch Nemesis in the Vagabond. (This is discovered over the course of his ~adventures, because of course it is.)
Michael agrees to work with the agency because he figures they’re his best bet of figuring what the hell is going on with his life. Also, sweet car?
He gets a new identity to go with his new face. Rolls his eyes when he sees they game him possibly the best/worst last name in “Jones”, but hey. Whatever.
Goes around being a do-gooder for a bit. Meets up with the Mobile Operations Platform or MOP for short (lolololol) after missions to bicker with Gavin and give Matt a hard time and so on and so on. Bonds with the others working for the agency and reluctantly admits to himself it’s not so bad working with these assholes.
And Gavin, okay.
He’s this annoying little shit always with his questions about Michael and his partnership with the Ruiner (let’s just call it MOGAR, because it makes me laugh). Also, the utterly stupid, ridiculous hypothetical questions he comes up with and God, he cannot stand the guy.
Really.
Except you know, for the time spent in the lab when MOGAR’s on the fritz after a rough mission, watching Gavin work. Arguing with this A.I. he helped develop. Catches him playing games when he can’t sleep, mind going a mile a minute and holy shit, he’s so fucking bad, better show him how it’s done, right?
Taking him for a spin in MOGAR when they’re testing out upgrades - new missiles/speed boosts. The fucking parachute, that kind of thing.
Gavin getting caught up in trouble every so often and Michael and MOGAR coming to the rescue. And that, of course,results in Michael trying to teach the idiot to defend himself?
Montage scene of Michael teaching him how to throw a punch, how to shoot - all the things that require them being in each other’s personal space and the like. Empty shooting range at some Rooster base or a city they’re stopped in for a bit.
Michael fighting it because he knows it’s a bad idea, but he’s gotten so damn fond of Gavin over time. May or may not have ~feelings for him, and vice versa but they’re both too dumb to do anything about it?
AND THEN.
They get word the Vagabond’s been seen again in Los Santos after going underground for a bit. He’s been gangs and crews apart and whatnot and they think he’s setting up to make his move, do something big, and Michael, okay.
It’s never sat right with him, the things they say he did. Less and less so the longer he spends working for the agency because how could he do what they say he did?
But he must have, because it’s in the files they showed him that first time, the ones he convinced Gavin to help him find. Try to piece together a picture of the kind of man this Michael [Name Redacted] was through the old records and reports various law enforcement agencies have of him.
Gavin keeps looking though, because this is important to Michael and he has the feeling something’s wrong too, but he doesn’t say anything. Just does what he can to help Michael.
The thing, though, is that if his records and files are a hard read, the Vagabond’s are worse.
Nothing redeeming to be found about the guy anywhere, but Michael can’t shake the feeling that’s wrong too.
Call it a gut feeling, whatever, something isn’t right.
More ~adventures on their way to Los Santos, Michael getting more and more restless because everything feels wrong and he doesn’t know why.
Gets his memory back in bits and pieces, little flashes here and there that don’t make sense and just end up frustrating himself. Stupid useless brain, and then they get word something’s happening in Los Santos, where all of this started.
His superiors want him to take the Vagabond out before he succeeds at whatever he’s planning, and he can’t tell them no because on paper he’s an absolute monster.
Gavin and Matt and the others get all worried because Michael’s not acting like himself. (When Gavin says so, it’s all Michael can do not to laugh in his face because how the fuck would Gavin know that? Michael doesn’t even fucking know.)
There’s a fight, and Michael takes off for a drive in MOGAR while the MOP is stopped somewhere to refuel and take on supplies and whatnot.
When he gets back a day or two later the thing is on fire, and holy shit, what the fuck happened???
His superiors tell him it was the Vagabond and Michael is like, well all right then, guess this is it - and then Matt runs in. Tells him the Vagabond has Gavin because of course he does.
Michael doesn’t hear whatever else his superiors are saying after that, just looks at Matt who looks like shit. Has his arm in a sling and look, has his arm in a sling and exhausted because the attack on the MOP was not a gentle thing, people died and the Vagabond has Gavin and goddamn it.
So he sneaks out while his superiors are making plans - plans Michael already know won’t work, will get Gavin killed - and Matt stops him.
Does the thing where Michael and MOGAR are leaving the Rooster base and have to slam on the brakes because Matt’s the kind of idiot who’d stand in the middle of the road in their way. Didn’t consider for a moment Michael and MOGAR might not stop in time, so Michael gets out and starts to yell at Matt -
“Holy shit, dude, that was close.”
Michael’s so fucking angry because Matt shouldn’t be here, should be back at the base not getting run over -
And Matt is like, “So, Gavin didn’t have time to install them, but he came up with new upgrades for MOGAR. Also, he found some stuff you need to see?”
They go to a ~secret Rooster base where Matt and some of the techs from the agency install the upgrades and Michael goes over the files and whatnot Gavin found.
Something that looks like a cover-up, like the cops in Los Santos are dirty. Did their best to make Michael the scapegoat for some horrendous crimes and he wants to believe it, but he doesn’t have the time for that now.
Tell Matt to keep the files somewhere safe, not to tell anyone about them and takes off to rescue Gavin and maybe get some answers. (Knows exactly which on is the top priority, easy decision in the and.)
And then he gets to Los Santos and MOGAR helps him track Gavin down and then there’s the ~tense confrontation between Michael and the Vagabond.
This little cat and mouse game in the warehouse Gavin’s being kept in (fuckin’ cliché bullshit). Just when they get to the ~dramatic showdown they hear something being knocked over and some British idiot going, “Shit.”
Both of them looking over to see Gavin trying to get his foot untangled from old rope or wires or something and doing a terrible job of it. Falling on his ass and muttering to himself because that’s just perfect, isn’t it?
Michael looking at the Vagabond because the guy just sighed, probably one of the few people who truly understand what a goddamned pain Gavin is. Probably should feel like that’s something they agree on, because Arch Nemesis? But, uh.
Also Gavin, who finally notices he’s not alone and freezes. And then looks annoyed - with them.
Yanks his foot free and stomps over, gets up in their faces and they back up because he looks genuinely angry and that’s startlingly rare.
And then Gavin starts yelling at them, demanding to know what the hell they’re doing.
Michael and the Vagabond sharing this look because, uh, Arch Nemesis???
Gavin sighing like they’re the idiots.
Pokes the Vagabond in the chest, “Did you not read the files I sent you?”
Turns to Michael and flaps his hands, “And you! I told Matt to give you the files if something happened, don’t tell me - “
There’s this little tremor in his voice because, again, that attack on the MOP was not a gentle thing. It occurs to Michael he might not even know Matt survived, and oh,shit.
“Uh, yeah,no. He gave them to me. Kind of had other things on my mind, though? Like this asshole kidnapping you, maybe?”
The Vagabond snorting, arms crossed as he looks at Michael like he’s the idiot, and okay, goddammit. Michael is an idiot, but this time he doesn’t know why?
And then Gavin explains that he fond out someone has something very, very bad planned for Los Santos (the ~world, but Los Santos is a good start) and intends to place the blame on Michael and the Vagabond?
Started by framing them for all the crimes that are in their records and whatnot
He and Matt discovered the cover-up not too long ago, but the moment they did Gavin cut Matt out. Tried to keep him out of it, refused to tell him what he’d found because it’s ~dangerous. Someone needed to be there to take care of MOGAR and Michael if the baddies realized they were on to them, you know?
And he found a way to get into contact with the Vagabond (not all the the people working for the Roosters came from a law enforcement background, after all). Has been sending him all this information when the baddies realized what was going on and decided to put a stop to it, and hey. If they can pin the blame on the Vagabond, all the better right?
The Vagabond showing up when he found out and grabbing Gavin in the confusion when people were trying to kill him very, very dead. Running out to this safe house he’s been using and waiting for Michael to show up.
Michael just listening and being so confused because why? Why him? Why this weirdo in the stupid mask?
Gavin faltering, not meeting Michael’s eyes, not meeting the Vagabond’s.
“Because we were partners,” the Vagabond says, looking at Michael. “And you said - “
He stops, anger leaking into his voice and says, “You said you’d stumbled onto something. The reason the cops were after us so fucking hard, said you knew what was going on. Said you got a call from a an old contact, and then you fucking died on me.”
~DRAMA~
Gavin and the Vagabond filling Michael in on what they’ve found - because they’ve been working together for who knows how long now. Trying to get to the bottom of things, and it’s super ridiculously bad action movie?
Like.
Michael and the Vagabond being partners for a while, but not the monsters the baddies are trying to make them out to be. Not the guy Michael’s been reading about for over a year now, this twisted fuck who’s done horrible things and laughed about them - because that’s a thing all the files and report agree on.
This asshole delights in the chaos and destruction he caused. This laugh he’s heard that were recorded by news cameras or a bystander with a phone and no common sense. This laugh that’s made appearances in Michael’s nightmares. This thing that’s so close to the one that bursts out of him when he and MOGAR are perfectly in sync in the field, fucking up whatever stupid plan the baddie of the week has set up. When he fucks with Gavin or Matt or any of other Roosters.
And now he finds out that he’s not that fucked up asshole, that he never was. That the Vagabond isn’t the monster they told Michael he was, either.
Oh, they were never nice people, that’s for fucking sure, but they’re not depraved fuckers either.
The Vagabond staring at Michael as he talks, like he’s looking for his old partner in Michael’s new face. Trying to see if he’s still in there or if he’s someone else entirely, a stranger.
And this is the thing neither Gavin or the Vagabond tell Michael because the Vagabond made Gavin fucking promise, or else.
That whole partners thing?
True in more than one sense of the word, but you know, no reason to rip that old wound open again, right? Not when Michael doesn’t know, doesn’t remember, and there are more important things to deal with.
(Gavin wondering why everyone he knows is so stupid? Like Matt and that nice agent Jeremy at the one of the Roosters’ bases the MOP tends to stop off at, and now this? Also, ouch, his own little heart, but you know. Not like Michael is interested or anything, so...)
Michael agreeing to work with the Vagabond (and Gavin) to clear their names. Getting in touch with Matt and various sources and coming up with a plan of action and spending the downtime being awkward idiots together.
Because you know, The Vagabond is still a notorious criminal, and Michael is law enforcement now. (Technically, although really he’s just not a raging douchebag when he stumbles on situations here and there or gets handed an assignment. Does the Right Thing even though it gets him yelled at most of the tie for his...unique way of resolving things?)
And Gavin is just acting like nothing’s strange about this at all?
Pushes the Vagabond around in the man’s own space like it’s nothing, like he wouldn’t kill him for it, and oh, God.
Michael having a heart attack every fucking time Gavin does it the first few days? Until he realizes the Vagabond’s actually amused by the little idiot. Is giving him shit and fucking with him for shits and giggles. That the guy seems to like Gavin, God help him. (Gavin hasn’t started in on his stupid questions, too busy trying to untangle this mess, but it’s only a matter of time.)
Michael and the Vagabond having those weirdly awkward moments together when Gavin’s working on/with MOGAR or sacked out after pulling an all nighter.
Michael trying to figure the guy out and vice versa because Michael wants to know the kind of guy he’s dealing with here since everything he was told is a lie. And Ryan, he’s doing the same because this isn’t the Michael he knew, and he has to remind himself of that too many fucking times because he is, where it matters, and it’s fucking hard remembering.
The two of them fighting and Gavin and MOGAR pointedly ignoring the pair of idiots being angry at each other for the wrong reasons.
More ~DRAMA~ until they start to get along, act like a team.
Michael taking the Vagabond out for a spin in MOGAR, Gavin screeching in the backseat because Michael drives like a maniac.
Eventually they get to the point where they’re ready to bring the baddies down, The Vagabond and Michael and Gavin and the people they trust to be on their side in this, and they go do the thing.
Everything goes to shit immediately, but that’s okay because they planned for that? (Maybe not Gavin getting grabbed by the baddies, but you know.)
Car chases and explosions and things on fire - so many things on fire.
They get to the device or virus or whatever the baddie was going to use for his ~evil plan, and head baddie makes his escape using Gavin as a human shield.
Leave the Roosters to deal with rounding up the baddies hired muscle and handle clean-up while they do the Hero Thing.
More car chases and explosions and things on fire - many more things on fire.
End up chasing head baddie through his company’s office building taking out cannon fodder hired muscle along the way.
Keeping score for each one they drop - dead or incapacitated - and Michael wondering if this is what is like with them before. Anticipating each other and covering their weak spots without having to think about it, that kind of thing -
And then they get to the baddie - on the roof of the office building with a waiting chopper because of course.
Why break his terrible cliché streak now?
Typical stand-off with Evil Villain Monologue. Michael and the Vagabond letting the baddie confess everything, otherwise how would they ever clear their names?
Best to have it recorded and all, and Gavin watching Michael and the Vagabond for his cue because he’s not helpless.
After they get what the need out of the baddie Gavin puts some of the training Michael gave him to use and gets himself free and out of the line of fire.
There’s this pause where the baddie realizes he just lost his leverage, is facing two people he’s tried to kill at least once (came damn close with Michael). These very dangerous men he’s been framing for horrible crimes for a while now, and that’s probably not good, right?
Especially when he went after their friends, allies, too. Went after Gavin.
And the thing is, the Michael from before, the one the Vagabond knew, wouldn’t have hesitated to put a bullet in this fuckers head. (Not a nice person, after all.)
The baddie tries to use that against him, twisting the things Michael did. Telling him he’s gotten soft, working for the Roosters. Isn’t the killer he used to be.
Goes on and on and on, and Michael just stares at him, lowers his gun and listens to the idiot gloating when he goes to check on Gavin. Turns his back on this piece of shit.
The baddie’s getting more and more agitated, spitting insults and threats because money talks, and he’s rich a million times over, a billion. He’ll be out on good behavior within a year. This is just a setback. They can’t stop him, he’ll be back for them, for that stupid pet scientist of theirs -
The other thing is, the Vagabond from before, the one that Michael used to know, wouldn’t have hesitated to put a bullet in this fuckers head. (Not a nice person, after all.)
The difference between them, of course, is that the Ryan now is colder, sharper without Michael there to give him a reason not to be.
And this man, this pathetic little bastard took Michael from him, and is threatening to it all over again. To hurt Gavin, who he likes for some unknown reason, and Ryan?
He doesn’t hesitate to put a bullet in the bastard’s head now.
Doesn’t have to after the baddie snaps when they don’t react to his insults or threats. When he pulls a gun and starts to swing it around to bear on Michael and Gavin.
Just pulls the trigger and down he goes along with all the twisted little plots he carefully crafted.
Michael meeting his eyes, both of them knowing the bastard wasn’t going to leave here alive anyway. (Not nice people, because that comes back to bite you in the ass and you do what you have to in order to protect what’s yours.)
They call in the Roosters for additional clean-up and get the hell out of there. Go outside to find MOGAR waiting for them and start driving off into the sunset, as you do when these things are over -
But then Gavin is like NO. Tells MOGAR to take them someplace for medical care because Michael and the Vagabond didn’t get through this mess unscathed. Are a little beaten up, a little shot, and so on and only idiots don’t get those kind of injuries seen to!
Michael and the Vagabond turning that right back around on Gavin who isn’t exactly a vision of beauty himself, what with getting knocked around to keep him in line and such.
Debriefing and all that fun stuff happens, the Roosters working with various law enforcement agencies to clear everything up.
Get Michael’s name cleared along with the Vagabond’s and their shady allies too. Get them pardoned of their crimes for saving Los Santos/~the world.
Michael not sure what to do now because a lot of shit happened, and he’s not the monster he thought he was, but he’s not this ~hero the Roosters tried to turn him into.
The Vagabond intending to vanish somewhere, but Gavin is very much intentionally stalling him with Matt’s help. (That whole whole mess of Michael and the Vagabond, and without any ~peril on the horizon maybe they can do something about that. Gavin’s seen the way Michael keeps looking at the Vagabond, and vice versa and it would be nice if they did something about it???)
Also, there’s talk of the Vagabond being an asset the Roosters would love to have on their side, if he can be convinced to sign up, so...
Gavin making himself scarce because it’s easier all around that way. Buries himself in his work, tweaking MOGAR’s systems and the like. Asking his opinions on new weapons and such.
Doesn’t expect Michael and the Vagabond to corner him one night, ask him why he’s been avoiding them.
“The fuck, Gavin?”
And Gavin, all right. He’s tired and worn down and maybe not quite healed up from the whole saving the world thing. Maybe gives himself away, gestures at Michael and the Vagabond who are working towards something. He’s honestly glad for them, but he’s got work to do so if they could leave him to it, that would be lovely.
“Holy shit, you’re an idiot.”
“What he said.”
Gavin looking at them all confused because they’re not wrong, but an explanation would be nice and all?
And then the awkward confession and leaving it up to Gavin if he’d be interested in two emotionally stunted criminals -
“You’ve been pardoned - “
“Not the point, asshole.”
- and if he is, maybe stop by their quarter later to watch movies with them.
“Netflix and Chill?”
“Shut the fuck up, asshole. Bring bevs if you decide to show, and not the cheap stuff.”
========
Gavin totally does show up, and he totally brings the cheap stuff.
Michael recovers his memory a little at a time. Has moments where he struggled to reconcile his past with his present, but he manages. Has Ryan and Gavin and MOGAR. The rest of the Roosters.
Ryan may or may not tinker a bit with MOGAR’s weapons systems, poke at the A.I. Gavin and Matt are developing for future agents. May or may not help Michael out on missions. Absolutely terrifies new agents and science staff, makes friends with that nice agent Jeremy.
Matt may or may not make a move at an office party at some point, may or may not make Michael and Ryan a few hundred dollars richer thanks to the betting pool.
#mavin#myan#mavinwood#freewood#technically not a fic#vagrant fic#knight rider au of my heart#i've been watching old ah videos and this is the result#ALL the terrible cliches#this is what happens when you grow up on 80s television#¯\_(ツ)_/¯#i'll work on prompts after i get some sleep#<33333333333333333333!
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hello it is once again time for my end of the year wrap up. this should be... interesting
january
finally finally got to have a happy apartment experience!!!!! tried out tea drops which are dope. there was a fair amount of stress revolving around APO induction and the musical rehearsal, but we made it!!! partied hardy (the infamous tess in the washing machine incident) kelli was watching always sunny more often than not. i wore some arguably bad clothing but ya know. gays. we tried to take off my closet door (it did NOT work). the beginning of the goose saga! there was a sleet storm so kelli and i made some popcorn and watched mike birbiglia’s new special. darci, kelli and i went out to eat and then ended up in babcock playing air hockey before watching videos with kai who was on duty. PEP BAND???? some good memories formed there. dogs in the library! got bullied by my library boss to put gas in my car and i sent her a video of proof that i did it “daddy long legs” “stop. what?” “the musical” (i do love timothy) i actually practiced my instrument lol wild. WE (becky, celeste, timothy and i) WATCHED SPIRIT and got wildly drunk -- the origin of “[redacted] [redacted] who???” which is my favorite joke.
february
MORE PEP BAND im actually really glad i spent my last few college months dicking around with the band. one man drumline!!! kai made some good tiktoks in our apartment! miss hanging with them it was really fun. oh i hung out with sam and celeste watching movies “he was a boy, she was a dolphin, can i make it anymore [strangled dolphin noises]” OUR MICROWAVE HANDLE BROKE OFF while kelli was gone man that entire apartment was falling apart (hey dumbass grab from top) -- a list of things that were broken in our apartment: fridge light, front entry light, showerhead, phone. the birth of the beans insta!!!! got hit on when i was at taco bell with timothy by being accused of being trans (taco bell guy was not far off to be fair). oh the improv posters as compared to the posters i built for an organization fair. went out and got daRUNK at what appears to be wandas. really struggled with my period. cut hair with kelli n darci. MOZZ STICKS. “you still a lil bitch???” oh we did kpy pal-entines!!! where we ate good food and watched the princess bride!!! i received the plush goose. there was a possible bombing at the bank next door to where we rehearsed for band. aw i went on a tommy’s date with becky that was cute. they tried to STEAL the QUESO. disagreed with a curb and still have those scars. worked a horrible gig at the theatre. closing shifts at the library baby! middle school tours EW more library dogs! fish hooks song oh my god. drunk mash nights!!! i rewatched HAVEN and had lots of feelings. actually got drunk alone a lot which was Bad. however michael malloys birthday! watched choir concert at work lol. stats final whilst drunk!!!! becky got a piercing
march
here things go downhill rapidly. hit up the trains at least once. oh late library nights with timothy!!!! the best nights i miss hanging with him while at work. struggled with my car. went on a college sponsored adventure to a back alley farm. SCURVY FEARS. opening shifts that were lonely. oh celeste played plague and named it covid and won lol yikes. the infamous apartment cone. we stayed up long enough to see the sunrise on literally the last day in college I would ever have. that was good. I FOUND OUT KELLI HAD GLASSES im still pissed. came home indefinitely. went to st patty’s day at brookes with karrigan and that was SO much fun (this was before things seemed real) the best part of that was the irish pub owner who happened to have a son that went to my college. got my mom onto tik tok. took a gay lit class. can’t believe i took daily fckn walks around the pasture who was i. hosted virtual meetings for apo and played around with the closed captioning. that was fun. shaved my moms head lmaooo. worked on my capstone which im like super proud of? i wish i could have directed it but say law vee.
april
BAGPIPE CORPS INTERNATIONAL. virtual band wreaked havoc on my animals mental health. my grandmother would always bug me while i was working which i understand now was misplaced love but it was so irritating at the time. we had library meetings once a week or so that was vital to mental health. hosted a really fun “panel” about queer identity for my queer lit class that was able to educate a lot of people. having a capstone class with am*lia was a nightmare. watched a cirque du soleil show for free and lost my mind. wrote a comedic monologue that i suffered through. suffered through papers and projects. worked on a project with celeste and kelli and we had SUCH a good time. i hosted several jackbox nights for both apo and kpy. that was SUCH an exhausting experience. also uno and drawful with the uno group (kelli would win 100% of the time). ranted about group projects lol i struggled. OH THE MOVE OUT DEBACLE i really went off the deep end. kelli’s virtual birthday!!!!
may
we had so many good jackbox nights. academic showcase and honors convocation happened wherein i was name bronco award winner and that really wrecked me too lol. we had a sunday crew hang out for library workers. clarinet game night too! i tried so hard to build community during covid and im not altogether sure i accomplished it but ya know whatever. watsky broke the record! made my “aced it” grad cap which was so FUNNY and still is tbh. becky taught me how to do makeup. took grad pictures at an abandoned farmhouse lol OH MY GOSH BEAUX ARTS AND APO SKIT i was so proud of that night and annette said it was the best one we’d ever had. wish i had done more but we did it boys. also got VERY drunk for it lol completely redid my room. bc it was NASTY. the way i write papers is so SO funny to me. had our last capstones class and then dressed in grad outfits for our last lit meeting . graduated and got all my stuff from college finally. went shopping with timothy, had el puerto with becky (i think?). oh the infamous miller moths UGH shit is nasty. THE FORMING OF BANJO SHRIMPS occurred on may 24 2020 and that was the absolute best thing to come out of this year. started working at my dads agency which was the absolute worst thing to come out of this year. attended my first protest in cos which was good and healthy. started protesting regularly after that. my most poignant memory was laying down in front of city hall and chanting “i cant breathe” for 8 minutes.
june
it snowed???? i was angry. part of my job was reading my dad’s email and there was some WACKO shit in there. went to brookes for pride as a surprise which was cute n fun. had a horrible interaction with a client. the appearance of the bigfoot statue!!!! we had a vanilla beans hang out. there was a WILD storm that literally made my hide out in the office.
july
went on a bonkers rant about america bc fuck this place. helped mom out with homework. we had several clients get divorces which was messy. went to a Bad party where i was angry the whole time. went to the top of pikes peak with my grandma and saw many much bigfoot things. we got a GOOSE he hated us so much. oh there was a night where darci and kai came over and we hijacked kelli’s spotify and communicated that way it was SO funny. took a video of the dichotomy of man bc of my long ass leg hair and short ass head hair. shaved my head to the BONE and tried dragon fruit. GOT NIKO ON JULY 24 my sweet sweet boy lil bat looking motherfucker. got denied for life insurance for mental health reasons.
august
went back to hc for a birthday “party” and to see the band. did a lot in that weekend (stayed with timothy’s family, helped becky move, met kelli’s look-alike, saw timothy and karlie’s new house!!! had lunch with kellis family which is closest to “meet my parents” i think i’ll ever get lmao). got my prof headshots and hate every single one of them but more for self esteem reasons lol. neighbors got goats and my mom lost her marbles. got trapped in traffic on the way back from hc. niko had crackhead energy. oooooooh documented gender crisis. ma got more chickens. went to a birthday party for a high school friend and was just... so out of my element. its weird. took off my grandma’s bathroom door bc she had knee surgery. started a full time job as my grandmother’s caretaker (love working for the family business lol).
september
went to breckenridge with a friend!!!!!! spicy times lol. cleaned the cupboard. had a birf. turned 22. cas finished her drugs!!!! and felt much better. we did a charcuterie board for my birthday which was very fun. Got a mixer set!!! went to hc for homecoming and graduated!!!!! surprised celeste and hannah with a celebration party for them (it was a lot of fun). came up with my BEST joke (summa cum laude). got called tf out for my gender crisis via tarot. got the goose game!!!! played the goose game!!!!
october
applied to chicago center!!!! will now be working there for a year!!!! this was the first documentation of banjo shrimp nights. surprised my dad for boss day by working with the team to fill his office with balloons. house sat for dad’s friends. started taking showers in the dark. went to celestes and made PASTA wow got very drunk and while she slept i just explored a strangers house. voted!!!!! wow. finally (finally) started to accept that i was maybe agender. had a snow day but i couldn’t work so that was fun. had halloween with banjo shrimps where i dressed up as david rose. that was SUCH a good night. participated in ace week!!! then, dressed as radar for actual halloween and had monumental. worked a volunteer haunted house and like... actually did pretty good?? felt like a real adult!!!!
november
so many things happened in november. i finished miraculous ladybug on netflix. had another bad interaction with a client bc the customer is always wrong. shaved my head. PRESENTATION NIGHT to distract from the election lmao what a good time. had so many emotions about the election. then biden won and we lost our damn minds -- video called with celeste and becky to celebrate (with the reminder that we know that this doesn’t solve everything but it was such a huge sigh of relief). started watching the last kids on earth. made more PASTA and soup! got my GHOSTY TATTOO. kahoot night with the banjo shrimps lol. watched the supernatural finale with kelli (what good memories) rewatched 3below good shit. got the chicago job so i quit being an insurance person!!!! brooke came for thanksgiving!!!
december
i dont wanna talk about it but i finally started watching unus annus (theres an archive its not the same but it provided me wild amounts of serotonin). “call that invisible split dye”. crimmus. had a video call with people from high school i rarely if ever see. this entire month has been a fuckin blur my guys but i’m so excited for what’s next. in two days i will be in an apartment in chicago. i will be reunited with my best friend in a little under two weeks. i cannot emphasize enough how excited i am for this next chapter. so yeah. that was my year. im sure there was more memories but that’s what the sideblog is for lol
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