Hey there - following your watch of the untamed, would you watch a second, very promising BL Chinese drama? Such as... Word of Honour? Asking for a friend... Who is me.
You're reactions are just that fun to watch. That and I don't know a lot of other YouTubers willing to film reactions for amazing Chinese dramas.
Hope you're doing well.
I’m verrrry aware of Word of Honor, believe you me.
Asian BL Dramas will most likely show up on the next list for a long reaction series, yup. That gives me time to change things up on the channel for a little bit, and in Word of Honor and Immortality’s case it gives them a chance to actually air and get english subtitles. And in the meantime I have plenty of Untamed-related videos to make, so the channel won’t be that bereft of Asian BL greatness. <3
I. AM. HERE. FOR. YOU'RE. ONLY. A. BOY. SERIES. A Merlin/HP crossover with Merlin in place of Harry. Malfoy and Hermione are a delight and I sense a VERY nice kinship to the Arthur/Gwen thing so *hint hint, wink wink* and you pull off Merlin so artfully. Your Weasley twins are sublime, Ginny is PERFECTION and I'm loving your interpretation of Snape who I couldn't stand before. I've no idea where you're taking this but I'm intrigued. Will you bring curious Ginny in further? What comes next? :)
She’s part of the Circle now, so of course, she’s coming in further! There’s so much coming up next haha! And thank you <3 I’m very glad you noticed *wink wink* I’m hoping to get the next chapter done in the next week.
*sucks in breath* I MISS YOUR TWEETS! But I hope you're resting and enjoying the time away. Also, can you make sense of the senseless? Why would arrow bring back snooze? My TL has started to do their thing and- oh wait! THAT'S why you're taking a break.
Oh man. I bet the TL *is* “doing their thing” with this news. I can almost see the yelling and proclaiming that it’s the worst thing they haven’t yet seen. Does make me glad I’m keeping my distance. Because I can catch wind of news like this here or Instagram or Facebook and (especially if I find it out here) I feel like I’m more able to draw my own conclusions about it rather than be swept up in the angry mob. Conversely, I can react my own way and then keep scrolling to find the beautiful content that is the reason I’m here at all (hint: It’s Olicity) without every single post being a remix on the same ol’ outrage.
Anyhow, Twitter aside… you asked why they’d bring Snoozan back. Well, I’ve not being doing a lot of deep speculating about the final eps of the season but I’ve seen enough to glean that Oliver is arrested and on trial, presumably on suspicion of being the Green Arrow. If I’m correct in this assumption, I’d probably be more surprised if Susan didn’t make an appearance. In fact, I’m a little surprised she didn’t pop up at the beginning of the season when the news first “broke” but probably Carly was busy doing other things.
I can see a scenario that, if the bombshell isn’t dropped in the middle of the courtoom (DRAMAAAA), that Oliver might go to Snoozan (shoot, maybe Felicity is the one who makes the call) to arrange an exclusive interview, giving her the scoop. Because she knew who he was and kept his secret. Which brings up the fact that that particular storyline was never really tied up. She learned he was the Green Arrow last season and Oliver got her to promise not to write a story on it. It was a bit of foreshadowing, I thought at the time. And it could be that they’re finally playing this out.
I know we hate Snoozan, but Oliver doesn’t. Whether we think he’s a chump for not hating her or not, he doesn’t and you’ll see he rarely ever hates the women in his life later on, even if they’ve betrayed him. In fact, he might think he owes her one for keeping the secret and for the completely perfunctory way he dumped her after she was abducted by Prometheus. It would make sense and, dare I say it, I wouldn’t hate it. I never really hated Snoozan as a reporter (well, I mean, I hated her but it was a “love to hate her” type of thing), I mostly hated her as Oliver’s girlfriend. And she’s not that anymore. I think the chances of Oliver locking eyes with Snoozan at a press conference, ripping his wedding ring off and throwing it over his shoulder as he elbows through the crowd to sweep Snoozan off her feet is pretty small, right?
Shoot, if we’re really lucky, we’ll get a moment where we see her have to digest the fact that Oliver and Felicity are happily married and that she played the part of the “unsuccessful rebound”. 😂Hey, I can dream.
And girl, I miss you too. Hit me up here more often (and try to avoid Twitter when things get dank cuz…. that’s not good for your heart).
Oh that’s so sadistic: Jon having to watch his parents be near-caricatures of themselves. And the whole LL shtick... I can only imagine him wondering how. Or why. You know, after he’s chucked up his lunch. Welp. Abby. Nothing is written? Well, you have her name carved into stone at some point and weirdly, I thought: Oscars! But I wondered if you would. I'll have to think about that one. Actress, writer, singer...
Actually, I did kind of start writing some Legacy time travel shenanigans...
Kinda like so:
Turns out, it doesn’t hurt to get shoved the wrong way through a hole in the space-time continuum. It’s more like an unbearably intense cosmic tickle. Undignified, verging on pain, but you’d feel like an asshole if you complained too loud.
No, what hurt was falling four feet and landing in a wasteland of crumbled concrete and broken glass.
Next to me, Tish materialized in a crackle of blue fire six inches above the ground. Then she thudded onto the debris-strewn asphalt with a yelp, half pain and half terror.
“Tish!” I yelled, or tried to. What came out was more like a croak. The fall had knocked the wind out of me.
A cloud of choking gray dust surrounded us, and I couldn’t see farther than a few feet. Somewhere above us, glass shattered. I scrambled to wrap myself around Tish, and what felt like little needles rained down on my back. Glass tinkled onto the sidewalk all around us.
“What’s happening?” she gasped under me.
“Fuck if I know!”
Then the ground began to rumble and shake under us.
Someone grabbed my shoulder - a college-age kid with dark hair buzzed short, wearing jeans and a red hoodie. Our eyes met, and I knew him. It was a face I hadn’t seen in years, and never like this.
“Uncle Roy?” I half-whispered.
He didn't even hear me. He was attempting to drag me to my feet, but as I outweighed him by twenty pounds and I was clinging hard to Tish, it wasn’t going very well for him.
“Come on!” he yelled over the screech of metal and the screams echoing up and down the city street. “Let’s go!”
Tish scrambled up with me, and we followed him to a little square of green half a block away. With a jolt, I recognized it as Washington Square Park, on the east side of the Glades. But it was surrounded on all four sides by hulking public housing projects, which couldn’t be right. A strip mall bordered Washington Square. There was an Ethiopian restaurant in it.
Then the earth shook beneath us again, and all three of us crumpled. I covered Tish’s head and as much of the rest of her as I could, and we pulled up handfuls of grass, clinging desperately to the heaving ground.
When the tremors finally stopped, the first to his feet was Uncle - no, not Uncle Roy.
This guy was not my Uncle Roy, though he would be someday. This was Roy Harper.
He found a patch of my shoulder that didn’t have glass embedded in it, and he laid his hand there. “Hey, you’re kind of cut up.”
God, he even sounded different. I remembered his voice a whole octave deeper.
Sitting up next to me, Tish stared at him.
He knit his brows at her. “You all right?”
She nodded mutely, and I was grateful for her silence. My brain was whirring a thousand miles an hour, and we didn’t need to say the wrong thing before we understood the situation.
“You caught some glass too,” Roy said, frowning and reaching for her left arm. All along the back of it, where I had left her uncovered, her skin was studded with red. He mustered up a smile for her, and it was startling how soft it made him look. “I guess he missed a spot.”
The viscerally terrifying rumble had been replaced by the wail of sirens, and the night was bright with firelight and flashing blue reflected off columns of smoke. I cleared my throat. “We need to get out of here.”
“The New Basin Canal bridge is closest,” he said, turning on the spot to orient himself. It was difficult in the wreckage. With every other building half-crumbled in the streets, nothing looked familiar.
“Yeah. If it’s damaged, we move on to Almonaster.”
Roy gave me a strange look, but wordlessly he helped us to our feet. The skin of my back pulled, and the fabric of my shirt pulled harder. It felt like getting stung by a bunch of wasps all at once.
It was not a long walk to the New Basin Canal through the roiling dust, but it took a subjective eternity. Twice we rerouted around blocked streets, and three times we stopped at the sight of a hand or a pair of shoes in the rubble. Dug them out. Couldn’t do anything for them.
So it was almost a nice change to hear someone yelling for help.
There was no discussion. Roy didn’t ask us to follow him to the half-collapsed corner store. He just veered right and gave us a purposeful look. We went to work clearing debris from one window, and our hands were scraped raw by the time the owner and her two grown sons crawled out. All of them were bleeding from somewhere, and the shorter guy had a concussion, but at least they were walking wounded.
Dazed, they fell into Roy’s wake just as Tish and I had.
At a shelter hastily thrown together in a high school gymnasium just across the river in Gentilly Terrace, we caught our first glimpse of the news coverage. They replayed Moira Dearden Queen’s warning at least a dozen times.
“May 15, 2013,” Tish said quietly, sitting cross-legged behind me on a cot, waiting for EMS to get around to us. “That would make it thirty years to the day. Do you think the - the metahuman planned it that way?”
“Don’t know, baby.”
“If he could throw us this far back, there must be a way to throw us forward again.”
“We’re going to figure it out,” I said rotely. “Can you at least get the big chunks?”
She picked glass from my back, and all around us it continued to be, bizarrely and depressingly enough, the fifteenth of May, 2013.
It was eerie, the way the details of the world were subtly off. Our phones didn’t work, and when we asked to borrow a stranger’s, he handed us an ancient iPhone. Every cell number I had memorized reached an error message. The streets were full of old model cars, emergency services’ equipment was decades out of date, and SCPD’s uniforms didn’t look quite right to me.
Eventually someone came along with tweezers, sutures, and sticky bandages to take care of my back and her arm.
Our first night in the past was spent on the gym floor in donated sleeping bags, alongside several hundred other newly homeless Starlingers. Between us, all we had in the world was whatever cash we happened to be carrying, four utterly useless credit cards, and the torn-up, bloodstained clothes on our backs.
“We could go to your parents,” Tish whispered to me, lying on her side with me practically nose to nose. “Or Mr. Diggle. They’ve seen enough weird. They might believe us.”
From what I’d learned of this night in our family’s collective memory, no one we knew was likely to be accessible. Either Dad was still kneeling next to his best friend’s dead body, or he was passed out from blood loss while Dig worked on the arrow wound that had completely perforated his shoulder. Mom was probably frantically googling his symptoms, holding the sterile instruments, or silently praying he wouldn’t die. Aunt Thea’s mother was just dragged away in handcuffs. And Captain Lance - holy shit.
Here in 2013, Captain Lance was alive. He was somewhere out there in the city, probably directing survivors to shelters at that very moment.
“Not tonight,” I murmured, squeezing both her hands. “Maybe not for a little while. None of them are going to have the bandwidth for a couple of strangers claiming to be their relatives from the future.”
“I suppose I wouldn’t, if I were them. So we just make it through the next few days, and we figure out what’s going on here. Then we go to them and...” She sighed. “This is not going to be any fun at all, is it?”
JB I've got to ask (think I missed the deadline so if you don't answer it's 100% ok): what are your thoughts on the possible involvement of the baby-mama in 5.23? I think we all knew about William (Ken spoiler dude who can't help himself, PLEASE DUDE HELP YOURSELF IN FUTURE), but the inclusion of BM was still a surprise to me, though its prob shouldn't since its her son. Your reviews/analysis etc are something I've always enjoyed so thought I'd ask. Have a good day - sizzle reel cometh!
It wasn’t a surprise to me. Not really. I expected William to make a return. I think, through no fault of his own, he played a significant role in the Olicity break up. So I always thought Arrow should include him in the rebuild. Oliver is never going to be complete until his son is in his life. Including Felicity in the decisions and treating her as a real partner when it comes to William is also pretty damn key to their relationship healing and being successful in the future.
As for Samantha, well… where William goes so goes her nation. If he’s kidnapped or whatever then I’d expect we’d see his mother since, ya know, she’s his mother. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s kidnapped to Lian Yu. Maybe Chase just grabs everyone Oliver has a relationship with and throws them in a bag. Like evil Santa or… The Grinch.
I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, but saying that real life is a bit hectic lately would be a huge understatement. This year has been a challenge and a struggle, and I can honestly say one of the bright constants through the whole time were both fics and fanfic writers.
Also, I want to say I have read a lot of fics this year. And I mean A LOT, and there were so many amazing ones, which is why I usually shy away from these kind of recs in fear I’ll write a list that’s going to turn out way too long, or that I’ll accidentally forget someone.
However, there are a few stories I feel the need to mention, because as the title suggests, these fics seem to own my ass. Big time.
Every single one of these hit me like all the best books always do, right in the gut. They tell you you’re not alone, or show you the mistake you unknowingly keep repeating, or describe a feeling you yourself cannot find words for, or just run you over with the sheer amount of feelings that overwhelm you. And I needed all of that, this year maybe more than ever.
(Also, a huge part of this post was obviously written before 2017 started. It was supposed to be posted before too, but my chaotic schedule and a bad cold delayed my perfect plan a bit.)
(This turned out to be a long post, so I’m putting the rest after the cut)
The Predator by @supersillyanddorky06 (WIP)
Now, Matty knows (in great detail) exactly how obsessed I am about this story. She and her stories were the reason I stepped out of my closet lurkdom and onto this wild ride called tumblr.
There are many people who share my love for The Predator. I mean, there’s hate, there’s heat, intrigue, mystery, danger, sex.. Every chapter raises intensity to the next level.
But there is so much more than that, so many layers of both story and characters that Matty keeps feeding us drop by drop, making us thirsty for more.
All Worthy Places by @yellowflicker09011996 (finished)
This one has a special place in my heart for so many reasons.
What Anita has done with the season 5 and how she painted Felicity’s healing journey broke me again and again.
This story is painful to read at times (to put it mildly), it hurts your soul as it goes, takes you places where you feel helpless and desperate, takes you to a place so dark you are not sure you’ll be able to find your way out. (spoiler alert: you do. Felicity does. Because this kind of healing takes time, and the show will never even come close to it as detailed and nuanced as Anita did. I’d recommend this to anyone struggling with (parts of) current season. It’s cathartic, it’ll make you cry, it’ll break your heart. But it will heal it in the end and it will be so worth it.
Incedent Proposal by @ruwithmeguys (WIP)
This one is.. unlike any Olicity fic I have ever read. It is brutal. And I mean brutal. The whole premise of the story is unimaginable, but yet.. once you start reading it, it sucks you in and there’s no coming back.
It is dark and vicious and cruel and violent; definitely not for the faint of heart. Chapters are long (such a delicious treat for a fic lover!) and I’m very glad this one’s not finished yet, because I’d be tempted to binge read it, but believe me when I say, binge reading this one would definitely be unhealthy. Some recovery time between chapters is very much needed.
What Wouldn’t I Do by @ruwithmeguys (WIP)
Now, this one wasn’t even supposed to be here. Because I haven’t even started reading it until three days ago, plus I told myself I’d only put one story per author.
But I devoured it in the last three days and my dear god. It is so very emotional, so crazy and intense and soft; the fighting scenes will make you want to bite your fingernails and some other scenes will melt your heart, some will make you raging mad, some will make you giggle.
It’s only missing the last chapter and Jessica cannot write it soon enough.
(additional note: I know there are people who would not appreciate the portrayal of both Lance sisters in this story because they are not painted in the best light, so if that might be an issue for you, just skip this one)
Blood Hands by @dust2dust34 (WIP)
This may not be a new story, but judging from Bre’s scarce appearance on twitter, and her occasional mentions od NaNoWriMo and Blood Hands (not to mention that whole refurbishment thing from a few weeks ago) I’m absolutely sure that she’s cooking up something amazing and I cannot wait to start reading it.
(I may or may not have re-read Blood Hands a few times by now)
I’m still putting it on my 2016 list because it does own my ass, and I will wait for updates as long as it takes. (Bre, I found more than one white hair in the past year. Please, don’t make me go all grey before you finish Blood Hands)
Forever Is Composed of Nows (finished) and Pieces of Always (WIP) by @so-caffeinated and @dust2dust34
I never thought (and never wanted) to be sucked into the whole kids/next generations kind of fic. Ever. But this was written by Janis and Bre, and at the beginning there was that delicious season 2 UST, so there was no choice to make; of course I started reading it when the first chapter was posted. I haven’t stopped ever since. Every new chapter made my Monday feel less like a Monday, and for a grumpy such as me that says a lot.
Now their split timeline has become my second canon (if we take the show canon as the first one). Somewhere, sometime, in one of these realities, things happened just like these two described in their story.
(I have no idea how I’d react if Oliver and Felicity ever got a kid (or kids) on the show and call them anything but Jules, or Ellie or Nate. I love those kids as if they are my own. And William, a adore that boy too!)
After more than 50 chapters under my belt, after all the plot twists, all the tension, angst, tears (god, the tears), it’s fascinating what has become the distinctive feeling I associate with this fic - the feeling of sheer warmth and love. Reading each new chapter fills me time and again with the same fuzzy happiness around my heart that makes me want to hug all the people just because.
Do not misinterpret that this means this is a fluffy fic. It is not (even if there are some fluffy parts). At least not if fluff is what you’re after. After so long, I am smarter than to read any of the chapters in public or without a box of tissues nearby, so consider yourself warned.
I am forever subscribed to this verse, and looking forward to all those multichapter sequels Janis and Bre promised.
I just want to send a huge panda hug and an even bigger THANK YOU to all of you amazing people/writers. You’ve made my year special with your astonishing stories and’ll be forever grateful for that!
Your HP/Merlin story is amazing. Particularly liking this new Ginny/M possibility - Merlin's reactions to her are everything and vice versa! - and the inclusion of Hermione within a Slytherin friendship, which might lead to more plot angst which is always good 😊. I'm happy how you've represented Ron. Unfortunately I was never sold on him and his reactions in this feel spot on. Happily waiting for what happens next (not an actual ask)
Why thank you so much! I was a little nervous about Ron, to be honest, since he’s not really part of the Golden Trio in my story but I didn’t want to “bash” him either. I’m really glad to hear that he feels realistic and all that. :D And I’m ALWAYS a sucker for plot angst, haha!
Last thing! The idea of an ageing Olicity hurts me, and I know it's my lingering (yet forever present) naivete but I'd love to know whether they do anything other than enjoy life in future? They're so clearly proud of their children and of each other. So, though I know they complete each other, I hope they continue to be happy...
I can’t promise smooth sailing from here on out. They’re both in the business of managing crises, their son works a high-risk job, and they have no shortage of enemies old and new who would be happy to give them trouble.
And they are aging. They are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven.
On that note, here’s a scene from chapter three of the current draft:
“Here’s the thing,” Mom says, spreading her hands. “Most of my advantage is knowing this business so well, but I’m not at the bleeding edge of technology anymore. I haven’t kept up with innovations in quantum computing, and honestly it’s a whippersnapper’s game.” She sinks into her chair and gives it a slow, sad spin. “I’m getting old and slow and set in my ways.”
I don’t like the direction this conversation is taking. “We’ll mount your glassbook on a walker.”
She tips her head back on her neck. “And I’m going to be sixty.”
That math doesn't add up. “Not for three years, you aren’t.”
“But it’s there," she says, gesturing up at the exposed ductwork overhead. "It’s waiting for me.”
“Yeah, okay, and I’ll be thirty.”
“Oh, God, don’t say that,” Mom says on a groan. She turns to Tish. “I was dropping him off at kindergarten yesterday. He was clinging to my leg and bawling his eyes out, and he snotted all over Hobbes.”
“I don’t think that ever happened,” I tell Tish. “She must be confused. Age-related dementia.”
Mom’s fond smile fades, and for a moment she looks her age. “Look, honey, I can’t do this forever.”
