#[another friend's Rome was in mind when the meme was made]

[glassamphibians]

what demigods & co would do on TikTok and what video got them followers:

(we’re gonna pretend demigods can use phones now) (also this is a very long post)

Percy: He mostly posts videos of him skateboarding in New Rome or fun videos of his friends. When he went back home for break he posted a video of him skating down the streets of NYC with cool music over it that got some attention, but he didn’t start doing numbers until someone else duetted it pointing out that he looked really similar to that kid who was on the news a few years ago for domestic terrorism. Percy then duetted that video and just said “oh yeah lol i forgot about that anyway look at this sick kick-flip.” He never mentions it again but whenever someone leaves a comment about it he replies ;)

Annabeth: She makes a lot of videos giving advice for studying and getting through college for people who have ADHD that are always super aesthetically pleasing. she also has a lot of videos that are just shots of New Rome being pretty and everyone thinks “wow she has her life together” until she posts a video at like one in the morning of her designing her architecture project in Minecraft the night before its due. the building she’s designed is beautiful. there are four empty coffee mugs next to the keyboard. her eyes are red from staring at the screen for so long. she doesn’t speak a single word and the silence is overwhelming. 

Jason: he has an account but its on private. He shows up in a lot of his friends older videos, though. i have somehow managed to make this post sad and i will not be apologizing for it.

Piper: She was MADE for the indie kid color-costomizer side of tiktok and she knows it. She posts a lot of her just vibing, singing along to her favorite songs, doing the trendy dances, etc etc. I love her but she’s 100% one of the people who takes “alt tiktok vs straight tiktok” too seriously. her bio is “yes i listen to girl in red <3.″ her most popular video is of her going “wait!!! i have an idea” and then singing a beautiful mashup of two songs. she ends it by cringing and going “oof okay that was rough but i couldn’t stop thinking about it” and everyone in the comments is freaking out over it. she’s not verified but she should be.

Leo: he builds the most complicated, useless things in the world and then makes videos explaining them like he’s on Shark Tank. he’s also an absolute memer and makes a ton of jokes using all the popular sounds. theres one video of him just doing a generic tiktok meme but the smoke alarm is going off and you can literally see flames in the background but he’s paying no attention to them. it gets over a million likes and all the comments are losing their minds but he doesn’t respond to any of them. in fact, he doesn’t post for three days after and everyone is fully convinced he’s dead until he posts another video acting like nothing happened.

Hazel: she is the only enjoyable thing about cottagecore left on that godforsaken app. most of her videos are of her with either her horse, frank, or Nico and they always have really old music playing over them. she has an ongoing series where she talks about whatever new pop culture thing she learned about that week because she “grew up sheltered” as she puts it. one of them is of Percy trying to explain memes to her and Nico and its going horribly because every question they ask unpacks another layer of niche internet history that they don’t know about. Nico is laughing his ass off while Percy and Hazel get progressively louder and Percy just looks. so tired.

Frank: He’s in a ton of Hazel and Percy’s videos and people kept asking if he had a tiktok bc he always seems so nice so eventually he made one but he rarely posts. When he does post its typically kinda clumsy videos of him just rambling or trying out filters but one day he posts a video of him practicing at the archery range and it blows up bc holy fuck he’s good??? he then makes another video and he’s like “I’m happy everyone enjoyed my archery so much but i really wasn’t expecting it to get that big and i was just warming up so here’s me doing that so um. yeah. thanks again!” and then he does some cool archery stuff and it gets popular Again and he pretends he’s not proud of himself but everyone can tell he is.

Reyna: she also doesn’t really post but she has a view videos of the garden in New Rome she likes and the Hunters messing around. Her friends were the only ones following her until she posted a video of her doing pushups while Nico sat criss-cross applesauce on her back. He and Jason, who’s filming, are having a completely normal conversation. As expected the sapphics eat that shit up and Reyna gets an huge following overnight that she has no idea what to do with.

Thalia: Owns alt tiktok. she is the queen of it there is no debate. She makes tons of videos jamming out to bikini kill and duetting conservatives to debunk everything they’re saying and educate people about the politics that go hand in hand with being punk. Her most popular video is her talking about the history of riot grrrl and giving music recommendations for people just getting into the scene.

Rachel: She posts time lapses of her painting, but they’re blown out so you can see the entire room. they don’t stop when she goes to sleep or eat or has friends over because Rachel herself rarely stops painting unless she has to. she also does a lot of the trends where you assign your friends aesthetics or you text them weird things to see how they respond. In one of her time lapses she just stands there for a few seconds and then her eyes start glowing and smoke starts pouring out of her mouth and then she just. goes back to painting? when people ask “hey what was that lol” in the comments she just goes “i was struck with inspiration :)”

apollo: hate to say it but he’s probably doing some hype house thirst trap shit. he posts one (1) haiku and the entire app makes fun of it for a week and it becomes an instantly recognizable meme. it is not the attention he wanted but he’ll take it regardless.

meg: absolute gremlin. she makes posts using her powers in full view and then just goes “ahahah special effects :) i’m a thirteen year old special effects prodigy who loves plants :)” only has like three posts but they’re all super popular somehow??? she is an enigma. 

Will: most of his videos are of him and his friends or cheesy star wars memes. all of his videos radiate Good Vibes and he’s lowkey?? kinda popular on there. he definitely gets those comments that are like “omg golden retriever boy🥺🥺” that is, until he duets this video of someone giving god awful medical advice. he goes the fuck off on the person which is a contrast to what he normally posts already but its even weirder bc its in the dark with the flash on and he’s mad and theres,,, saxophone playing in the background??? just some smooth jazz while Will lectures this person and it’s incredibly entertaining to see.

Nico: he adamantly refused to get tiktok for a long time, but he shows up in most of Will’s videos and a bunch of his other friends so people are constantly asking if he has one. eventually Will convinces him to get one and it is the most chaotic thing in the world. He only posts super late at night in total darkness with the flash on and his face in barely in frame and he says just the most concerning things. no one can tell if he’s joking or not. sometimes theres bones??? that look very human??? in one video he says “i just wanna see if this works.” the camera goes black, theres a bunch of loud distorted sounds and then its daytime and he’s somewhere that is obviously Not America. the camera is back on his face and he looks significantly more tired than before. he says “oh cool the phone still works” and then theres a bunch of clamoring, some muffled swearing, and the video ends. the next day he duets that and says “that was meant for friends only lmao fbi please look away you didn’t see shit” and all the comments are from his friends yelling at him. 

[bronyinabottle]

MY LITTLE PONY: A NEW GENERATION (G5 Movie) THOUGHTS

It’s finally here. The beginning of Generation 5. Though before I get into the movie in some detail I’m going to reiterate one more time what G5 means for my content and a non-spoilery summary of the movie.

Again, I will say that the movie nor will the G5 series coming later have much of an effect at all on any of my blogs. The revelation in Secrets of the Dragon’s Tear that life itself is also magic means that a world that implied to have no magic for years would mean the extinction of all life (Perhaps resulting in the wasteland we saw in the Season 5 finale). There may be something I’ll probably do at some point on a certain different blog. But even then, that may likely be a one-time thing and probably come around the time the series is starting to air.

That said, just because I’m continuing with mainly G4 content doesn’t mean I disapprove of G5. In fact, my non-spoilers thoughts on the movie is I think it is a good start for this new generation. There are questions I have that I’m not sure will be answered (Though many of those questions are the same ones I had in my Trailer/Preliminary thoughts) quickly enough. But the movie is structured well enough, in fact it’s probably a better movie as a whole compared to any of the movies G4 had (The 2017 movie, Rainbow Roadtrip, and all 4 Equestria Girls movies). As the 2017 movie was fun, but it jumped around a lot, sometimes scenes transitioning too fast. And while Rainbow Roadtrip may have been this on purpose, the entirely slice-of-life story taking up a long length… made it something of a less interesting plot to follow. It feels like some of that special could of been cut to at least a two-parter length and keep the same beats they hit. And while i have a soft spot for the 3rd and 4th Equestria Girls movies, I’ll always say a full-length pony adventure feels better suited for what I want to see out of MLP then spin-off movies with high school movie cliches and weird pony/human world shenanigans.

So movie-wise I’m not a G4 purist. It’ll take some time to see how Gen 5 compares to Friendship is Magic when we get to the series. As I feel it’d take a lot for it to surpass G4 in my mind. But I’m going to try to be as fair as possible and judge on it’s own merits. The implied connection to G4 by referring to G4 being ancient Equestria is going to naturally get the staff and hasbro pressured by fans to tell us what happened in-between the generations. Because that’s the trap they put the writers in when they made it so they want to try to say it’s in the same universe. That’s the double-edged sword Hasbro chose to have, trying to appease the G4 fanbase and keep at least some of them around. But at the cost of questions both nitpicky (Such as character design being inconsistent) or actual honest questions that need to be known (Why did magic disappear, and what happened to the Alicorns) for some of us to truly see this as the same Equestria.

After the break, I’ll have more spoilery thoughts

Even for a brief moment, it was nice seeing the Mane 6 and 2D animation. The former because of course those are the ponies many of us that saw all of G4 loved. And the latter, because while the animation wasn’t bad in this movie. I’m one of those who’d prefer to have 2D animation in an animated film. As in most cases aside from Pixar, it’s just a strong preference of mine. If this had the animation of the 2017 MLP movie but otherwise everything else was generally the same here, I feel that would of have been great.

I wish they didn’t have to have Sunny’s dad die off-screen, as he seems like he could of been a compelling character. And not to mention if perhaps he has any connection the “ancient” days in any fashion. But *sigh* I get it, it’s an old trope where part of the character’s offscreen growth is not having their parent(/s) around.

On a side note there’s quite a few times during the beginning of the movie that somewhat foreshadow what happens to Sunny later. 3 times where she had a fake horn and wings on her. Once in the flashback, then 2 separate times when she’s doing her protest where she has her own costumed wings and horn. As well as the helmet and mechanical wings.

Also, there’s no way around it. Some of the discussions this movie are going to get quite political. (Namely one part of Sunny’s song that could be seen as having a double meaning of a jab at Trumpsts regarding “Building your wall”) From the very premise in the early times, we know that the inspiration for the story was last year’s Black Lives Matter protests. Which honestly, I do support the message they’re going for. Having an anti-racism message to tell kids from the very beginning and making a focus on it is important when in G4 it only got briefly touched upon in Bridle Gossip and the Heath’s Warming Eve play. Although it certainly rose up to some form of prominence with Season 8 and onward. Still, while you can argue if G4 executed the anti-racism message well. it does come with something of a problem that the series finale left Equestria in the least divided it’s ever been.

And personally, I feel it’s a terrible interpretation of time to say “Well, it’s a realistic take. Racism has existed for years in our world. Same should go for the ponies” and while yes, racism is still rampant in today’s world. That said, that ignores that if we went from The Last Problem to the start of G5. There’s a huge difference between our world and Equestria. There is no ancient civilization that we look at like “Yeah, those were the golden days of world peace” when normally the “Golden age” was reserved for the high classes of Ancient Greece or Rome. It was most decidedly not perfect, with slavery rampant and wars for the sake of expanding an empire. While if you look at The Last Problem’s Equestria, you not only have peace between the three main types of ponies. But you literally have non-pony citizens in Equestria. You can see a dragon handing off a flower to a pony which can imply cross-species romantic relations. With the Friendship school still going strong, and was the reason that the world was saved in The Ending of the End. While perhaps it may be too glowing to say that future is perfect for everyone even in-universe. It’s certainly a hell of a lot better outlook then comparing to how we view even the so called Golden age of ancient civilizations. The Last Problem’s Equestria implies it looks to ally with every country outside of Equestria, not conquer them.

So it should still be a valid question on just how this world collapses to the point it gets to where G5 is at the start. I at least assume that it’s not the fault at all of any of the Mane 6 nor Twilight. Or at least I hope it isn’t, as I’d rather the MLP fanbase not have to deal with a The Last Jedi Luke Skywalker situation. (Where after the joyful end of the original trilogy, things go wrong as Luke almost murders the son of one of his best friends and his sister despite trying to hard and succeeding at redeeming his father who at that point in the canon was a galaxy-wide known ruthless mass-murderer.) I assume we’re at a point where everyone of the Mane 6 sans maybe Twilight are presumed dead. And even in Twilight’s case, there’s a chance that G5 decides to say that G4 overestimated the whole Alicorn immortality thing. Though I wouldn’t put it past Hasbro to have some event where the Mane 5 of G5 meet the Mane 6 in some special event whether that’s a a Season finale or a sequel movie/special. Where either the Mane 6 return in a limbo situation similar to the Pillars at the end of Season 7 or Time travel gets involved. They may even string us along on answering just what in the heck happened until they involve a meet-up with the Mane 6 in that way. Though I hope they don’t, I’d really like the beginning of the series (Or I guess this supposed special coming up in Spring supposedly?) starts to answer some questions. G5 should get a chance to stand on it’s own, but I hope the writers are actually well aware there will be so many questions people have and address them in the show. A cynical part of me feels like they’re likely to string us along until at least the Season 1 finale.

Onto the characters for a bit. I think Izzy Moonbow was absolutely the most stand-out character in the whole movie. She was energetic, funny, and aside from “The pegasi are bad news” she along with Zipp and Sunny were the most averse to the way the world was. She was already the most popular due to the tennis ball memes. But now it feels like she legit stands on her own and most certainly deserves to be the most popular character of G5 thus far. Behind her in a bit of a surprise to me was Zipp, who I thought would be mainly a Rainbow Dash-expy. Though she really helps out Izzy and Sunny in Zephyr Heights. Despite having Twilight be my favorite pony from the very beginning of G4 all the way to the end, I didn’t feel as strongly about Sunny for some reason. So she’s in the middle of the pack, she could grow on me later. I just don’t know if I click with her as much as I did with Twilight. As for the last two, while I don’t hate either of them. Either one could be the lowest of the 5 for one reason or another. Pipp (Although I will say she's probably my favorite character design out of the 5) feels like she doesn’t do a whole lot in the movie and it takes until she’s forced to be an outlaw because the other choice was to get imprisoned like her mother was. So she may come off as quite pretentious, though it’s arguable Rarity was the same way early in G4. But she definitely grew later. Could be the same case for Pipp. And as for Hitch, he has shining moments in the film. But what might hurt him is the fact he was such a bad friend to Sunny up until the campfire scene. “I’m the last real friend you have. You really want to lose me too?” is not a healthy friendship. Hitch may have been Sunny’s friend the longest, but it definitely feels like Izzy connected immediately. I don’t know if this show will get into shipping any of the main characters between each other mid-show, but if they do. I hope it’s between Izzy and Sunny currently, cause Hitch and Sunny just gives bad vibes even with Hitch getting better later.

None of the songs I felt were particularly too special. Though I think the closest was Sprout’s “Danger, Danger” song that has similarities to Smells Like Teen Spirit in some parts of the song since I tend towards more rock/metal-esque music.

I touched upon it earlier, but there’s perhaps a stand-out reason for why the G5 movie outdid the 2017 MLP Movie. They have the typical “Our heroic group splits after a sad moment before coming together again for the climatic good end” in Sunny seeing that that the two crystals don’t instantly bring magic back, and when Twilight left the group after an argument that happened with Twilight trying to take a pearl. They perform the same purpose in the movie. But the crystals not working, crushing Sunny’s hope for a little while works better into the story. Where as Twilight’s part frustratingly brought the sea pony scene to an end too quickly and/or doesn’t feel right of Twilight to have done that. It felt forced in the 2017 movie, but works out in the G5 movie. Especially since a part of it is that it’s not the crystals themselves capable of bringing magic back. But it’s the journey going after the crystals that brings the ponies themselves their magic back.

Just a small note on dictator Sprout, he tries to cause a war. Though admittedly the film seems to treat him as a joke the entire time despite his seriously evil ambitions. With the only repercussions is he gets a wishy-washy answer on if he was a good sheriff from his mom. I don’t quite know how I feel about that yet, but I wonder what they’ll have in mind for Sprout given his actions. He and his mom are the only ones that feel like a true antagonist. Though they seem to be ok with things fast when the magic comes back.

But anyway on to the ending, we see that Sunny becomes an Alicorn. Which I guess with no other real Alicorns around, I guess it makes sense to alicornify her since she’s the real leader behind what united the leaders of each type of pony again. Though there is of course this weird thing where her horn and wings don’t seem like as much a part of her body compared to very obvious connected wings on Twilight when she got hers. Sunny keeps her horn and wings to the end of the movie, and has colored streaks in her hair. Though I do wonder if that;s truly permanent. If it is permanent, I suppose at least they got to have a headstart and have it established at the end of the introductory movie rather then have it shock people at the end of a shortened 3rd season. I still feel like Twilight had well earned her alicornhood considering that besides what she did in the series. She has a whole childhood and time as a teenager learning under Celestia. Which had to mean something, and I’m not sure Celestia just leaving her to live the rest of her days with her friends in ponyville was that. Sunny has no doubt been trying countless time to try to spread friendship throughout her life even after the tragedy of her father’s passing. So there’s no doubt she’s been through a lot, and may indeed be worthy of being an Alicorn at this point. Though in terms of screentime before Alicornhood it's definitely a lot less then Twilight had. And it is at least nice to see that it is possible for non-unicorns to become one. (The only case of that we sort of got was a children's book that may or may not be canon that implied Cadence was a pegasus before she ascended)

Though you have to wonder if the visual differences such as Sunny’s alicorn horn and wings, the cutie mark only on one side (Yes I know that’s how it was normally in the MLP generations before G4. But a distinct visual difference between shows is still noticeable even if the context of G4’s cutie marks on both sides of the flank was about it being easier on the puppets for Flash), and how animals can have wings or weird round shapes such as those bunnies when G4 has normal looking animals. There’s enough striking visual differences for any nitpicky G4 to say “This isn’t the same Equestria”. And if someone tries to say maybe some sort of evolution happened. That’s still trying to put a little too much real world logic on this fantasy world. And evolution tends to take millions of years to have such dramatic changes. Not 1000 years or so, there should still be normal looking animals at this point and time. And these small details are probably going to be the things most ignored but nonetheless can build a case that this isn’t the same Equestria. Even if they touch on the important questions like how magic disappeared and what happened to the Mane 6, there will be details they make different that will add to the case that this is it’s own universe if it doesn’t quite matchup with what was remembered about G4. There will be fans who will be that nitpicky to call G5 out of continuity for small details like that. That is again the trap they put themselves in when they decided to try to say it’s the same Equestria.

All-in-all though, I think that’s at least a good enough chunk about my thoughts on the movie to end off here. If there’s something I missed or something from the movie you’d like me to give a particular opinion about or elaborate on something feel free to ask me here. G5 is indeed off to a good start, just I will be along the many hoping some questions get answered sooner then later. And I’m not sure I’m confident in getting anywhere until a Season finale or a 2nd movie. And it’ll be a year before the series starts proper (Though again I guess there’s a 44 minute special coming in Spring to try to hold us over). But I could definitely see G5 finding it's own following, now there's just the inevitable clashes between some of the more vocal fans of each generation bickering at eachother. But hoping there will be enough that take the movie's lessons on divisiveness to heart and be able to enjoy both even if there may be preferences.

[anobscurename]

ocean eyes – chris evans

previous part: PART XVII — masterlist

concept: you surprise chris for his birthday while he's shooting in italy. the slowest of slow burns. the ever anticipated part eighteen of many.

pairing: chris evans x reader

word count: 4.3k

warnings: fluff. just prepare to melt.

author's note: everyone can thank @tonystankschild for this one. she was deep in the dm's asking for fluff and i intended to deliver the fluffiest of fluffs.

You liked to consider yourself a rational person at the best of times.

That consideration, however, was entirely negated by the fact that you were now on a flight to Italy to surprise Chris for his birthday. There was nothing rational about it.

But you had saved for this trip, and Chris had done so much for you in the past year or so, that you had wanted to do something for him.

And you had decided that no one should be alone on their birthday, no matter how far away they were.

You had caught a flight from Boston after making the forty-four hour roadtrip to drive Dodger there, not having the funds to fly him to the Evans' household. The fees of bringing an animal on board were astronomical, and you were still balking from how high the number was.

Chris was a wealthy man, however, and those types of costs never quite fazed him as much as they did you.

So you had driven him to Lisa's, a thousand thank yous on your lips as she delivered you to the airport to minimize on the extra cost of leaving your car at the airport parking lots.

Scott – who had still been there from the Patriot's game, "tryin' to get as much family lovin' as he could" as he put it – smiled knowingly at you when you had brought Dodger in.

"You go, baby vamp," he'd whispered to you. It was an outdated saying, but you knew it anyways, and laughed him off.

"We're just friends, Scott."

"Yeah, just like these highlights are from the sun."

He had given you a tight hug, wished you luck on your trip, and – like Lisa would later do at the drop off – made you promise to wish Chris a happy birthday from them.

When you touched down in Italy, it was early morning, that hovering between night and dawn.

You had once again called Chris' agent – Mark – to get details on the shoot, ones which he reluctantly handed over.

You thought that perhaps he was trying to save Chris the PR scandal of being seen with another woman while publicly in a relationship with Lily, but you had pointed out that you had been clearly established as friend of the couple with your global third wheel memes. It didn't take much pressing, because Mark knew how much you both cared about each other and how happy you being there for Chris' birthday would make the actor. So he emailed you the shooting location, with a schedule and call sheet. The tagline was very quick: "Don't interrupt shooting :)"

After a quick shower at the affordable three star you'd rented for the weekend, you got ready in spite of the weariness the plane left you with. Hot water did wonders to waken you, and a touch of makeup never hurt.

You stepped out in the warm breeze, the wind toying softly with the skirt of the summer dress you wore. You easily hailed a cab, and, after failing at the pronunciation of where you were headed, let the cabbie read the location off your phone.

The first person you saw when you got out of the car was Chris.

He was stood off to the side by the craft table, a crewmate quickly doing a last minute adjustment to his hair as he went over his lines. Dressed in an Italian pinstripe suit, you remembered what the film was about.

The indie flick told the tale of an arranged marriage between the son of an Irish mob boss and the daughter of a New York mafia don. Most of the film, however, was set in Italy, where the son, Mickey, had to travel to win the favour of the extended mafia family for the blessing on the union. Briefly, the scene with the strawberries popped into your mind.

You were stopped by security, but Mark – who had been waiting for you – vouched for your admittance.

You stood a little ways away from Chris, within eyesight, but not obvious. It was a surprise, after all.

You called him, watching from where you leaned against his trailer wall. Chris, ringtone blaring for his attention, quickly patted down his suit pockets before finding the device. His glance at the caller I.D. was followed by his whole face lighting up, soft smile on his lips.

"Hey there, Sleeping Beauty," he said into the receiver. "Isn't it a little late in L.A.?"

"It is," you replied. "But it's your birthday tomorrow, and I couldn't resist."

"You know, I've been told I'm irresistible before," he chuckled. "Just never thought I'd hear you say it."

"Well, what can I say? Suits do it for me," you smirked, dropping your first hint.

Scott was right. Chris really could be clueless. "You'd love the one they just put me in then," he murmured, distracted by the food on display at the craft table as he perused the options. "A real classy number."

"What are your plans for the rest of the weekend?"

"They gave me the weekend off to celebrate, but you know me... Probably will go wine tasting by myself and look at some art or something. Oh, man, read a book. Yeah, haven't done that in a while."

You watched as he plucked a strawberry from the table, and your stomach fluttered.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Hmm?" He hummed as he bit in to the sweet fruit.

"Aren't you sick of strawberries by now?"

Chris froze, eyes wide in shock. Running his tongue over his teeth smoothly and swallowing the bite, he began swiveling his head, trying to look out for where you may be hiding. "Where are you?" He grinned.

"Guess."

And then he saw you.

And then he had you wrapped in his arms, the force of the running tackle hug sending your back crashing into the trailer, metal creaking.

You laughed breathlessly, hanging up the call as you hugged him back.

"Chris," you strained against the bone crush of his fierceness. "Oxygen–"

He loosened his grip, but didn't take back his arms. "You have no idea how much I missed you."

His whispery breath in your hair as he deeply inhaled the apple scented shampoo clinging to you had electricity coursing through your veins. "My bones have some idea, I think you might've fractured a rib."

The rumble of the chuckle reverberated through his body and into yours, and heat dusted your ears and cheekbones. "Sorry, I just can't believe you're here. I had to make sure you were real." And then, the question you'd expected: "Where's Dodger?"

"Dodger is in Boston with your mom. And I'm here, I'm real," you reassured him, smoothing your hands over the back of the meticulously woven cotton of his suit. "But you also have a real job to get back to."

"Oh, right," he groaned sheepishly. In his joy, he'd almost forgotten where he was. "Just hang around for a bit, we're only filming a little today before we're off."

So you did. You got given a seat, just off camera, and watched Chris do his thing. His performance was breathtaking, the way he embodied such a dangerous man. It was enough to make you flushed, the square of his shoulders, the confidence in his stride – the danger lurking under Italian silk lined cotton. You'd never quite seen him like this.

And it thrilled you to see a man you usually felt so safe around look so menacing.

It was the love proclamation scene that served to be your undoing, however.

The director kept hounding Chris, demanding retake after retake. He wanted that genuine love to flow through, and it simply just wasn't.

"Think of someone you love," the director suggested. "Put them in your mind's eye. You have a girlfriend, yes? Would it help to bring a picture for you to look at off camera? Tell the picture you love her. Someone get me a picture of this man's lover, please! Imagine you've never told her how you feel. And you've been feeling it for a while, and even though it was very... what is the English word? Uncommon? It was uncommon meeting circumstances you met... You love her. Si?"

Chris grit his teeth and nodded, ready to comply. And once the picture was brought out, the call for quiet on set rang out.

But once the director called action, Chris didn't look at Lily. Your heart clenched, your breath catching in your throat.

No, his eyes found you.

"I love you," he said the words you'd never thought you'd hear him say – at least not to you – and the sincerity in his cracked voice was overwhelming. His eyes were watery, relief dropping his shoulders – as if he'd kept this inside for too long and a weight had been lifted. He sighed it again and again, as if it was the only thing that was going to save him, as if it's the only words he'd ever known.

And when the director called cut, singing Chris' praises, he was still looking at you.

———————

"I still can't believe you're wearing that," Chris chuckled.

You dipped your sunglasses lower on the bridge of your nose to observe him critically. He was leaning against a Vespa, arms folded, the sleeves of his loose white cotton button down rolled up to his elbows, barely containing the bulge of his muscles. Black trousers clad his legs, on his feet a pair of black Italian leather loafers he'd gotten as a gift from his co-star. He wore his own pair of sunglasses, hair swept back, being tousled by the passing breeze.

The statement had been made in reference to the silk scarf you wore, twisted around your neck delicately in a way that was reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn. "If I'm going to have a Roman holiday," you giggled, tripping a little on your way to the Vespa – Chris moved to catch you, but you righted yourself, "you best believe I'm going to fucking look like it."

You had gone to a wine tasting in a vineyard on the outskirts of Rome, somewhere far into the countryside. You had both goofed off the entire time, earning yourselves scolding looks from the sophisticated tourists and the locals, who had wanted a peaceful afternoon at the farm.

You sniffed the wines, obnoxiously listing all the strange terminology the haughty wine connoisseurs would throw around casually, before taking your sips.

It became somewhat of an inside joke between the two of you, finding yourselves lagging behind the group because you couldn't stop laughing. And whenever you were shot a dirty look, it would only make you laugh more.

"You're meant to taste it," he'd whispered to you.

"I am tasting it," you shot back.

"No, you're chugging it like a sixteen year old whose parent made the unwise choice of leaving unsupervised."

The tour guide had been eyeing the two of you up, waiting for your silence. The rest of the tour group turned their critical gaze too, and you gave Chris' foot a soft stomp to get his attention.

Both of you shut up, giggling under your breaths as Chris had practically bowed in his gesture for the guide to continue.

But now it was time to go back to the inner city, and Chris had waited patiently for you by the Vespa while you'd gone to freshen up a bit. The cobblestones were hell for your tipsiness, but you were wine and laugh drunk, and hadn't a care in the world.

"You know how they say there's always that one pair of annoying people on wine tastings that ruin the experience for everyone?"

"They do?" Chris' brow creased in question as he grinningly handed you your helmet.

"Of course they do. Well, I couldn't find them, so it must be us."

Chris clicked his own helmet in place as he caught sight of the hostess by the front door giving you both a dirty look. "What finally gave it away?"

He slid easily onto the Vespa seat, heeling up the kickstand and righting the orientation.

"Hop on, princess," he beckoned you with a nod. You regretted wearing a dress for this part, but you were serious about the Roman Holiday aesthetic.

Serious enough to risk flashing someone as you mounted the scooter behind Chris. But luckily you didn't.

"Hold on tight," Chris called over his shoulder. You complied, encircling your arms around his waist, pressing your bodies together.

You could feel his heart rate pick up, but before you could think too much about it, he took off – cobblestone streets and ivy climbed buildings flying past you in your bliss.

————————

Two of the three worst things that could've happened to you while riding a scooter in the countryside did.

The scooter had broken down and it had started to rain. Not only rain, but fucking pour. You were drenched through to your skin, pulled over on the side of the road, Chris trying to kickstart the machine into working again.

After his fifth attempt, he came over to you, squinting in the rain.

"It's not working," he shouted over the droning rainfall. "Let's just find some shelter and come up with a game plan!"

There were nothing but open spans of green fields and wheat as far as your eyes could see. But a little while back, just over the hill, there had been lights in the haze of rain, a little nondescript sign on the side of the road that you'd whipped past suggesting the shelter that you so desperately craved.

"I think there was a house back there," you yelled back. "Maybe they could help out."

He nodded imperceptibly in the shower of droplets, hand on the small of your back, fitting so seamlessly in the curve of your spine, and began guiding you.

You both dashed across the road, and then you were tearing through the long grass in a shortcut to the twinkling beacons of the lights in the windows, looking like eyes peering at you in the darkness.

Somewhere along the way, you'd found out that Chris was a little ticklish at his waist, and after you'd discovered it – he'd flinched away from you and begged you to stop, but you'd continued just to antagonise him – you wouldn't let it go. It took you much longer to get there than would be normal, but soon, you were both stood, shivering and drenched on the porch step.

There was a sign on the door telling you it was a little inn – an underused bed and breakfast, most likely for road weary travelers on their way to Rome.

You didn't bother knocking as you entered the lobby, spilling inside with laughter still on both your lips. Muddied shoes squelched, and your sodden clothes dripped onto the floor.

You immediately moved to the fire while Chris went to go confer with the front desk.

His two months in Rome had taught him a fair amount of Italian, but it was still quite broken, and he found himself floundering with a lot of the words.

The landlady – a portly old woman with an extraordinarily kind smile and crows footed crinkles by her eyes – understood the predicament.

She explained to him in English – loud enough in the silence so you could hear over the crackle of the fire – that the road services would probably only be available to come out so far tomorrow morning, and that it'd be best to stay the night.

She didn't seem like someone who would scam you into staying at her little roadside hostel – even going so far as to give Chris some white fluffy towels for the both of you.

He paid for the last room available with soggy money, and returned to you, fresh towels in his arms.

He draped one over your shoulders first, and when you reached out to cling it to your frame, your fingers brushed.

That same electricity jolted through you both, travelling with lightning quick velocity down both your spines to spark alive the restless butterflies you had well and truly thought you had put to rest. You were the first to withdraw, allowing Chris to put a towel over himself.

He ran it through his hair, the pieces that had been plastered to his skin with water raising into spikes.

You laughed, reaching out a tentative hand – giving him ample time to withdraw should he need to – to smooth it back and away from his face.

But your laughter died down, as it inevitably did whenever he looked down at you like that. Because how the hell were you meant to function when his eyes were on your lips the way they were now?

And you damn near choked when he started leaning down, lips pressing closer to yours...

But before they touched, he broke into a gut-wrenching smirk, moving past your tingling and awaiting mouth to whisper in your ear. "I dibs the shower."

And then he was sprinting up the stairs.

You were so in shock that for a minute you couldn't even register what had happened, and when you did, you cursed at him, following him up, swearing you'll skin him alive.

And all the while, the landlady was watching the two of you, a knowing glimmer in those kind eyes. She muttered something in Italian, one she repeated many a time during your stay, a saying you would come to know as "young love."

And she didn't even care that you had tracked mud into her hotel and soaked the carpets through from your wet clothes.

She just cared that there were still kids in love in this world.

———————

Once you had both taken a shower and were wrapped up in your complimentary hotel bathrobes, you realised that neither of you were tired.

Your clothes were laid out, sprawled over the backs of chairs, drying by a fire Chris had taken the liberty of building.

So you both decided to go downstairs, and see what activities you could engage in with the other guests. It would do well to help you forget the prospect of having to share a bed with Chris.

According to the landlady, this was the last room available. And of course, Chris had offered to sleep on the floor, as gentlemanly as ever.

But you couldn't do that to him on his birthday, so you'd told him it would be fine, as long as a pillow fort was built to prevent any unnecessary contact.

The common area was woefully empty, save for a couple of sleepy looking musicians, poised atop their makeshift stage, on the brink of passing out on their instruments.

When you and Chris entered, however, they livened up, striking up some traditional Italian melody you may have heard before in passing.

It wasn't that late, so the bar was still open, and Chris managed to purchase a bottle of wine.

Most of the seats had been stacked on the tables, and he helped you pull some down before seating yourselves.

He poured you both wine, and you sat there in your robes, listening to the music.

The landlady came by, at some point, to light the tea light candle on your table.

When you thanked her, she said the same thing she had said earlier – in Italian, so you struggled to understand.

Chris, however, who had been taking a hearty sip of wine, nearly choked. "Mille grazie," he winked.

She scoffed, patting his cheek affectionately, much like a grandmother would her grandson. You didn't catch much of what she said, aside from one word. Cacciatore, in reference to a flirtatious man.

"What did she say to you?"

"She said amore giovane. It means young love."

You turned to try and find her – wanting to correct the innocent mistake of having her assume that you and Chris were in love. Fact of the matter was, there was still with Lily, and you couldn't stand to think of the PR nightmare it would be if it were to get out that he was at an admittedly romantic bed and breakfast with you of all people. "Oh, no, we aren't..." You faded out awkwardly. "He has a girlfriend!"

"Actually," Chris said softly, as if he had been wanting to tell you this for a while. "I don't. Not anymore. Not since the last day at the Hamptons."

Relief flooded you, followed by something undetermined – hope, you would later discover – before you were floored with absolute sympathy. "Oh, Chris. Chris, I'm so sorry."

You reached over to link your fingers in a reassuring hand hold, and his focus was pulled to that singular touch, that point of joining.

"If there's anything I can do to help..."

"No, it just..." He swallowed, finally pulling those ocean eyes to you. "It just wasn't meant to be, I guess. She wasn't the one."

His eyes told a story much deeper, hinting to something that you didn't have the strength to uncover. You'd been hurt too many times by these false feelings, you really weren't sure how ready you were to face them once more.

"What happened?"

"She thinks I'm in love with someone else." When you didn't say anything again – too stunned to do so – Chris cleared his throat. "I, uh," he tried for a smile, "I believe you owe me a dance."

It took you a while to recall him asking you to save him the last dance at the charity gala, and when it registered, you grinned, questions of who dissipating. "Let's go dance."

The band saw you and Chris approach the dancefloor, and immediately switched to a slow waltz. Chris took you in his arms, and as you both swayed to the music, you could almost imagine you were back in Vegas, before Lily, before everything, when the biggest problem in your life was that you had kissed your best friend on your birthday.

His body was so warm pressed to yours, that you felt every tense muscle in your body relax. That hand – forever fitted so perfectly to the groove of the small of your back – traced delicate patterns through the flannel of the gown.

Your cheek was on his chest, and your eyes were closed, and you couldn't see the way he was looking at you.

Because in his eyes – those beautiful ocean eyes – was a love. The love that you were incapable of seeing, but one that everyone else had – including Lily.

There was worship in every sapphire fleck, and there was pure adoration in the inky depths of his pupils.

And as he held you, body nestled so perfectly against his, knew that the angels would damn themselves for you. Because he sure as hell would.

———————

When Chris had gone to get more drinks – the bottle you had shared being finished – you had gone to speak to the musicians.

And surprisingly, they had what you had requested.

Chris was uncorking the bottle when you had hopped up on stage.

There was no microphone this time, and the musicians were glad to receive a break, joining the landlady at the back for a drink – leaving you and Chris alone in the room. Their departure caught his attention, and he glanced at you, before doing a double take.

You were sat at the edge of the stage – feet dangling off to graze the floor every now and then – and in your hands was a ukelele.

The memory of the last time you played for him was chased away by the excitement of this next song.

You were tuning it when you finally noticed Chris watching you. He had that look in his eye – one you were so used to seeing, but one you never quite let yourself understand – and he slowly sank into his seat to watch you. He propped his head on a fist, candlelight flickering in his eyes.

And without much of an introduction, you plucked at the strings delicately, beginning a ukelele rendition of "La Vie En Rose."

His smile broadened into a beam when you started singing. Never had he felt absolute peace like this – at least without having you in his arms.

Hold me close and hold me fast

This magic spell you cast

This is la vie en rose

You looked up at him, your expression earnest. You always found yourself being much more capable of conveying emotion in your actions, rather than with your words. Words made things messy. Music... that was beauty incarnate.

When you kiss me, heaven sighs

And though I close my eyes

I see la vie en rose

Chris breathed in deeply, his heart stuttering, but heavy in his chest. The hold – that spell – you so flawlessly cast on him was rising again, and he knew, with all certainty, that he would not wish to break the enchantment for anything in the world. He was Icarus, and you were the sun – the magnetic pull he felt was that strong.

When you press me to your heart

I am in a world apart

A world where roses bloom

Your eyes found his and you grinned, beguiling him. As you played the interlude, you mouthed to him "happy birthday;" and it was. It was perhaps one of the happiest birthdays he'd had in a while, because it was the one he'd spent with you.

And when you speak, angels sing from above

Everyday words seem to turn into love songs

His heart was swelling, throat thick with emotion. His eyes burned, but he was almost certain the tears gathering was from a lack of blinking. He didn't want to pull his gaze away from you, not for a single second. He had told you he had loved you earlier that day – and this felt like more of a response than he'd ever receive. He knew how difficult it was for you to say those words. And he was okay with that. He'd take what you gave, and you were giving him this – a song as lovely as the woman who was currently singing it. And he thought he was going to simply die when you looked up at him with those eyes, and that smile, and that voice reaching out to him, singing that final verse.

Give your heart and soul to me

And life will always be

La vie en rose

Little did you know, you already owned those things.

You'd owned them since the night you met.

[whumper-boi]

So good news, I finally finished with writing out the first prompt of the whump advant calender

OH MY FUCKING GOD I FORGOT TO ACTUALLY TAKE IT OUT OF DRAFTS AND POST IT SO ITS A DAY LATE LMAOO SORRY GUYS

(Note that they are ocs to my book I’m writing so don’t worry about spoiling or anything)

@whump-advent-calendar thank you, and this is for the first prompts

Y’all this was much longer then I thought it would be but oh well. Also, I was really out of it when I started this so forgive me cause it isn’t my best work.

Also sorry about the awkward spacing, was no one going to tell me there was a limit to the amount of spaces you could do?

**Blue- Martin’s texts

TW for mentions of non-con, mentions of child abuse, panic attacks, self deprecating thoughts, nearly freezing to death, hypothermia, paranoia, cursing, anxiety, mild(?) dissociation (like it’s written that it happened but he doesn’t remember it (obviously)), ptsd

This hadn’t happened since the thunderstorm incident. However, unlike that where he had been purposely locked outside in the middle of a fucking thunderstorm, he had come home early from a sleepover, and no one else was home.

Martin shivered, pulling his skully over the tips of his ears. After he realized that he lost his house key somewhere, he tried to call his father, but to no avail, as he was most likely still on a plane.

Majesty, his service dog who accompanied him on the walk home, nudged him gently on the leg. He sensed his distress, circling around him before standing at his side again.

Backtracking a little, Martin had gone over to one of his best friend Sadie’s house, with intentions to spend the night, but her having a surprise doctors appointment had made him decide to walk home with Majesty, (even in the blistering cold, he didn’t want to bother his friend’s parents) and lose his key somewhere in the process.

This wouldn’t be a problem if the spare was still there, but it wasn’t? He wondered if someone else brought it in and forgot to put it back.

His father, Oliver, and his father’s best friend, Nick, were both on a business trip and wouldn’t be back until the day after tomorrow.

He didn’t know what to call Nick, as he saw the man like another parent, but he couldn’t handle the idea of putting his trust into another adult only to be majorly fucked over again. He had been around since before Martin was born, this was true, but Molly, his mother, had also been around since he was born, and she chose his rapist over him.

So yeah, he was a little scared of letting his guard down, even if he knew Nick would never hurt him. Oliver had even made sure of this

(The two men had been telling stories about before Martin and Tristan were younger, and even before they were born.

“If we’re really reminiscing on your births, I’ll never forget when Oliver held you for the first time Mars. Mostly because your father had threatened to terminate our business partnership and friendship, and I quote, ‘cut your prick off and make you eat it’ if I ever put a hand on you.”

“I still stand by it mate,” Oliver said, cuffing Nick on the shoulder.)

And his father wasn’t really one to go back on promises, especially with Martin.

The only other person who had access to the house would be Tristan, Nick’s son and someone who was like a brother to him, but, of course, he wasn’t home, and the bitch wouldn’t answer his phone. That wasn’t a surprise though, he was probably at a house party getting slammed.

Majesty let out a small huff, nudging him in the leg again, telling him that he was going out of it again. He pet him, checking his pockets one more time before giving up.

Great, fucking brilliant. He plopped down on the stone steps leading to the front door, which were freezing, and pulled out his phone, checking for messages. None.

A gust of wind blew, making him put his phone away and curl up to try and get some feeling back into his numbing fingers and toes. It really had to be this cold on the day he decided to not wear his leather jacket.

The only thing he had to protect him from the elements was the MCR T-shirt over a black longsleeve, cargo pants that had like, seven pockets on them, Doc Marten (ha), the skully, of couse, and his headphones. Also, a ton of metal jewlrey, basically he looked like the first picture you would find if you googled “Goth looks”.

Majesty sat next to him, and he leaned into the dog, wrapping his arms around him and squeezing.

Seeing as he couldn’t do anything other than wait, he tried to get his mind off of it, by thinking about the boarding school he would be going back to in a few weeks.

The boarding school in question, was an academy for advanced people with different skills and abilities, and it wasn’t something that was easy to get into. He had gotten a scholarship for the academic part of the school, which was apparently, a very hard thing to do. They only chose the smartest of the smart, who were all adults, except for him of course.

Maybe because he had an IQ of 216, higher than everyone at the school. That seemed to raise a lot of discourse with some people who couldn’t handle the fact that a 16 year old was smarter than them.

Interestingly enough, Martin couldn’t bring himself to actually give a fuck when it came down to it, because he had the scholarship, not them.

The only person who was even close to his age was a boy named Matthew, from America. Detroit, more specifically. The two had been roommates, Matthew was in because apparently, he was a fucking amazing dancer that was scholarship worthy.

Martin hadn’t seen it, but if he got into that school it was probably mind blowing, and he would never question his ability.

Matthew had been respectful, and pretty, and he had the audacity to make Martin fall for his southern accent and obnoxiously kind words that he didn’t feel like he deserved.

He even asked him at one point.

“Well you’re a genius M, so it’s going to be lightwork for you,” Matthew said, after Martin had joked about wanting to crack the Zodiac ciphers.

“Nah, I’ll just stick to arguing with teachers and wasting away decoding video games.”

The other boy hummed. “Well, whatever you choose to do, you’re going to do good.” He put his fingers in a ‘ok’ pose, and gave a playful smirk that made him look like a meme, and then he looked up at Martin.

He couldn’t exactly tell what emotion was being portrayed on his own face at the moment, but it made Matthew’s smile drop, and he looked at him with nothing but concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, there something on my face?” he half joked, feeling it fall flat as soon as it came out of his mouth. He tried to neutralize his expression, but this only made things look worse.”

“Martin…” he hesitated. “Was it something I said?”

Yes, yes it was. He opened his mouth, then closed it, growing warm and horrifyingly, feeling tears start to well up. He had, by no means been insulted with what he said. The support and friendliness was what got to him.

The whole thing was, he had support from other people, but this felt… different. Martin felt like the people around him felt obligated to do it. Even so, he had only known Matthew for such a short time, but the american he only proved that he cared.

Maybe this was the insecurity in his brain talking, or maybe the things Seth said and did to him were finally starting to take a toll on him. He just had to know why he cared so much. Well, when in Rome right?

“Why are you so nice to me?” He asked, crossing his arms, a nervous tic that he had developed.

Matthew didn’t even look like he registered the question. “I’m...not?” What? If that wasn’t being nice then what was it?

As if the other boy could hear his question, he added: “I’m just treating you with basic decency? Like, anyone with an ounce of empathy should do.” Martin stared at him.

But holding the door? Not once telling him to shut up at his long rants? Waiting for him at the top of the stairs when he made it up first? His friends did the same, and so did his family, but they had known each other for a while, and…but Seth did it, only when he was in a good mood, only when he was feeling nice, and he just naturally assumed this was what everyone was doing. Conditionally. They were doing it because they cared?

This was hurting his head. Multiple thoughts littered his head and he couldn’t sort them out fast enough to process a coherent sentence. His logical side just straight up vanished.

Matthew walked up to him, cautiously sticking his arm out and gently grabbing Martin’s shoulder.

His head suddenly blanked, whatever he had been thinking about just stopped at the contact. “Well,” Martin laughed awkwardly, “I guess you learn something new everyday.”

The other boy gave a smile, and he thought he could spare them both the mental breakdown he would inevitably have, then the arse had to say: “You’re deserving of respect darlin’, unconditionally.”

And wonderfully, he started to cry. The more correct term would be more like, loudly sobbing, but save himself a little bit of dignity. Matthew had once again proved how amazing he was, holding him.

A loud noise sounded from somewhere, knocking him out of the memory. He felt a smile on his face though, thinking about the American. His boyfriend, seeing as two hours after he shared his entire life story, they made out on their dorm floor.

He stopped smiling when he felt his lips crack in the cold weather. Licking them didn’t help, they dried back up seconds later.

Martin stood up, shivering at the lack of movement. He tried the door again, and when that didn’t work, he called Majesty and walked to the backside of the house. It was locked. Well, it was good that they were responsible with locking doors.

He then tried the windows, but remembered that he closed them because of his hate of the cold, and locked them because of his paranoia. He thought about breaking a window, but came to the conclusion that a locksmith was most likely better.

He picked up his phone, then stopped, thinking about it. If someone he didn’t know could pick their way into the house, what’s stopping someone with a grudge doing the exact same thing?

They had cameras and an alarm system, but a short circuit somewhere around the house could disable them, or if a computer tech tapped into them…

Martin felt a weight in his chest. If a locksmith was successfully able to get the door open, then anyone could be able to get the door open, and anyone included Seth and his friends. If they ever decided they wanted to get back at him, they could get in easily.

He didn’t realize that he dropped his phone, and barely noticed when he stepped on it, looking around. Martin scanned the streets, starting to worry that Seth would have this idea, and show up.

He suddenly couldn’t breathe, now frantically looking for his stepfather’s car. He would kill Martin if he saw him, he’d hurt him and kill him.

He was tied to that bed, hands touching all over him. He didn’t want it, he begged for it to be over.

The hands were on him again. Martin swore he could feel them dragging against his skin, and he physically recoiled, tripping and falling into the grass.

He didn’t want to be back there, not again.

“Please, stop!”

“No!” He screamed at nothing, covering his head with his arms. Martin felt a sob build up, and he squeezed his eyes shut. Seth was going to find him, and even if Martin went back into the house, he’d find a way in, or break the door. He couldn't stop him, and no one would know what happened.

Martin felt something on his face, warm and wet in contrast to the cold. Then he felt something push against his chest, something that was warm. He instinctively reached out, wrapping his arms around whatever it was, shivering and still struggling to breathe.

He needed to look at the street again, see if he was coming, but the same wet feeling was on his face again.

After a couple minutes, he opened his eyes, the tears freezing against his face. He realized that it was Majesty who he was holding in his arms, and he realized that he was licking Martin’s face, just doing his job.

He pulled the Doberman closer, taking a few seconds before sitting up. Majesty instantly got up after he did, nudging his arm gently, waiting for Martin to move off the frozen grass. They both made it back to the door eventually, Martin working on clearing his mind by asking himself if it was the panic attack or the cold that was making him super tired.

He looked for his phone, stressing out until Majesty quickly trotted over and dropped it at his feet. He ignored the little bits of drool, seeing three texts and a missed call from Tristan.

Trishyfishy👀👄👀

December 14, 7:56 PM

Yo, what the fuck do you want

Jkjk, everything alright

Call me Mars.

Martin went to the contact and called, realizing he could hardly feel his hands. “Hello?” His voice trembled slightly, either from the crying or the cold, he wasn’t sure.

“Alright Martin?”

He chuckled hollowly. “Ah, I got locked out of the house.”

“Are you alright? You sound like you’re crying.”

“I got locked out of the fucking house Tristan. It’s like, -2 degrees out here.” There was a beat of silence.

“I’m on the way back, so uh, just… hang in there?” He rolled his eyes, petting Majesty. “I’m like, fifteen minutes away.”

He heard Tristan laugh at something he didn’t hear through the phone. “Where did you even go?”

“To a party, (figures) but some 9th year threw up in the punch bowl and two kids got in a fight over some stupid bet. It got boing. What about you? I thought you were with Sadie.”

“I was, but she had an appointment and I didn’t want to go so I just walked home instead, she lives like, half an hour away, so I didn’t, like, you know.” Majesty put his head on his lap, letting Martin stim by petting, effectively keeping him calm and awake.

Tristan hummed over the phone, but didn’t say anything. His phone buzzed in his hand, and he looked down, seeing that Matthew was texting him.

“I’ll call you back Trish.” He waited for a response, then hung up.

American.

December 14, 8:24 PM

I just saw a this lady with a really big yellow

snake around her neck and it made me think

of you

Which part?

The snake or the lady?

Both

Anyway

What are you doing?

Sitting on my front doorstep.

Why

Tat sounds boring

That**

lost my key.

I believe I left it at Sadie’s, but I can’t remember.

Oh f

So you can’t get in?

How long have you been out there

No one else will let you in?

Actually just hold on

Martin looked at his phone confusedly for a moment, before he was suddenly receiving a call from the other.

“Ok, go on,” Matthew said from the other side when he pushed the accept button.

“Er… I lost my key, and no one else is home.” His teeth chattered as he spoke.

“That sucks man, I’m sorry. My mom says hi by the way, and asked if you tried the window or a back door.”

He nodded, then realized that Matthew coudn’t see him. “Oh, yeah uh, the back door was locked, and the windows, I locked them before I left. Preventable measure you know?” He said, laughing a shrill, awkward laugh.

“Right. Don’t want any cold air getting in.” Matthew coughed, then went on. “Uh, is someone like, coming to let you in?”

“Yeah, Tristan is coming, he’s gonna be home soon. Also, hello.”

“What?”

“You said that your mum said hi, so i’m responding to that.” He put his head on Majesty’s for a moment, exhaling. When he picked it up again, he saw that he accidentally clicked on the facetime button.

It was at least nice to see his face.

“Sis, you’re red.” Matthew said, looking at the camera.

Martin cocked his head to the side, then cursed as he dropped his phone. “Why thank you for the relay of information,” he snarked, but it was the first time he had looked at himself since he was with Sadie. That was what, an hour and a half ago? Two?

His eyes looked sunken in, skin pale except for the exessive spots of red on his cheeks, ears, and his eyes, but that was different, because he had been crying. Still. He wasn’t able to tell with his lips, mostly because the black lipstick he normally wore was still clinging to his lips. It was truly a look.

“Are you alright?” Martin gave him a look that signified that he was anything but. “Right, right, force of habit, sorry darlin’… Random question, why would you go out in that cold of weather, especially cause you’re crippled?”

Ah, he was wondering if that question would come up. “Well, it was around six degrees when I left, I didn’t expect the temperature to drop so suddenly.”

Matthew gave him a perturbed look. “Six? That’s freezing?!”

“Well, yeah? But it wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t even freezing temperatures.” The other boy’s face didn’t change. It really wasn’t awful, but… oh wait. “Six degrees celsius Matthew, not fahrenheit. It would be about…” He thought about it for a minute, trying to ignore the sudden gust of wind. “Fourty… fouty-four degrees fahrenheit, I believe?”

“Oh, right, right, yeah. You know, y’all shame Americans for using fahrenheit, but it actually aduquateds for humans, not water. So.”

Well he was right about that, he was pretty sure. He couldn’t remember at the moment. “Hm.” He shut his eyes for a moment, trying to remove the heavy feeling from his eyelids.

“Woah hey, aren’t you not supposed to sleep? You might not wake up.”

“I wasn’t going to sleep. My eyes hurt.” He moved a trembling hand on top of Majesty’s head, once again back to petting. He blanked out for a moment, but he came back to Matthew talking, or yelling, through the phone.

“Darlin’- you need to wake up!” He looked at the phone, blinking eratically. He fell asleep? “Oh thank god,” he heard Matthew mutter through the phone. He looked up, realizing Majesty was walking around him, trying to wake him up too through nudges and pawing him. “You should probably stand up so you don’t fall asleep again.”

“Right.” He used Majesty as a balance to get to his feet, stepping around a couple times to try and get feeling back into his leg. Where the fuck was Tristan? He walked up and down the steps a few times, seeing that the tips of his fingers were going from a paper white to a more blue colour. He brought them to his face and wiped, feeling the skin that was marked with tears start to rip painfully.

Still shivering, he brought his phone up, asking Matthew something.

“Oh, yeah, it’s basically when-”

“What did I ask you?” He asked, looking at the phone.

The other boy looked at him, an indeterminable look in his eyes. “Uh, you asked about what happens-” The phone went black. He tried turnng it on again, to no avail, when he realized it died. His head was spinning, and he tried turing it on again, and again, until Majesty nudged him, and he had to stop tears from coming again.

He sat next to the door, the service dog standing next to him. He blinked harshly, feeling something burn in his chest again.

Majestly circled him again, going back to standing in the same spot. He rubbed him a couple times, but then had to rub his eyes.

“-rtin a dumbass yeah but he’ll be fine.” He woke up, feeling like he was being poked by a bunch of sewing needles. He blinked slowly, trying to sit up when he felt the blanket fall off.

Blanket? Martin moved his hand around, looking for Majesty. A coat of fur under his hand made him exhale in relief.

“Christ, Martin, you gave everyone here a fucking heart attack, you actually back with us this time?”

He muttered something, but it came out sounding weird, so he repeated it, with better results. “Can you give me a chance to see who everyone is before you start screaming.” He used Majesty to help him up, who jumped on the couch next to him to help him actually stay up.

Standing in front of him was Tristan, and two other guys that Martin recognized from school. David and Aaron, he’s pretty sure it was.

Doing a quick glance around, he noticed that A) His clothes had been changed. He was wearing a black sweater and sweat pants, B) He was in fact warm, seeing as there was a heater pointed at his direction, and C) his phone was no where to be found. He wondered how many hours he had been asleep.

Tristan opened his mouth to say something, but Martin interupted him. “Who changed my clothes?” This seemed to stop whatever the other boy was going to say.

“You did?”

Martin gave him an incredious look. “I feel like I would remember that.”

“Clearly not. What’s today Martin?”

He tried to remember the last conversation he had with someone over text. It was with… Matthew, who he really needed to call back, he realized. “Er… Wednesday, December 14?”

“It’s a few hours until friday. You’ve been asleep or on autopilot for like, the last 24 hours.” Oh. That didn’t feel right. That was even worse, actually. “Also, Dad and Oliver are on their way back. They were gonna come back before, but you were awake and like, warming up so I told them not to.”

Yeah, cool, whatever, he was still confused about the autopilot thing. “How often do I do that?”

Tristan raised a confused eyebrow, then said, “Oh, not that often, just right after like, messed up stuff happens. You kinda just, go through the mechanics of something.”

“When else have I done it?”

He pursed his lips. “Er, I’ll tell you later.” So he’d done it after what happened with Seth. He wouldn’t have figured it out at the moment if it weren’t for the thing his brother did with his mouth whenever his Mother’s husband was brought up.

“Right, ok.” He got up from the couch, noting as Tristan said something to his friends and waved as they quickly left. “Where’s my phone?”

“It’s where you left it.” He saw Martin’s face and added, “It’s on your bed.” Ah. He went to go walk to the stairs, but staggered on the second step. Majesty was already by hi side, so he leaned on him. “I can go get it Mars, or you can have Majesty get it, but Oliver said, and I quote ‘Your impulsevness and boyfriend can wait two seconds. Sit down Martin.’”

He sat back on the couch and sighed. “Phone, Majesty.” The dog perked up and ran up the stairs, coming back and dropping it on his lap. “Good boy,” he cooed, petting the top of his head.

Martin unlocked it (wincing at the date), partially watching as Tristan got up and walked out the room. He went to his last texts, and saw some that weren’t his. He assumed it was his brother who texted him, just saying that he was alive, and in the house.

You

December 15, 9:07 PM

Hey.

Is this a bad time?

Depends on who I’m talkin to

I hope I’m on the good spectrum then.

Darlin?

Your one and only.

I meant to put ‘the’ but ‘your’ works too.

I’m so glad you’re alright

Like, I thought I fucking lost you

You can’t kill me all that easily.

Right.

Well.

I’m actually in public rn and I can’t call and I’m sure there are some people you need to talk to

Yeah.

Sorry :(

Give me one hour and then i’m all yours

Take your time Love.

I sure have a lot of it.

I’m currenty on bedrest, so…

Aw :(

I won’t take up much more of your time then.

Call me when you can?

I miss you.

Of course darlin

And i miss you too

Martin closed out of the messenger app, only to get a little black heart sent to him. He loved that motherfucker.

He didn’t even bother texting his dad to see if the man was busy or not. He knew that if he did that it would be an immediate phone call, so, there wasn’t really a point.

He wouldn’t consider his father pushy or too suffocating. Martin loved and attention and praise he got from his father. His only concern was that Oliver would do some stupid shit (like father, like son) and burn himself out trying to care for everyone else.

He went to the contact and pushed the call button. It rang twice before both of his parents’ (fathers’?) asked about a million questions, all being variations of ‘What happened?’ and ‘Are you ok?’ and ‘We’re nearly home.’

“Yes, concerned adults, I’m perfectly fine. I just left my key at Sadie’s, I think. I should probably call and ask her-”

Tristan handed him a mug filled with overly sweetened hot tea, the only way he would drink it. “Don’t worry about it, her parents brought it back, along with like, a million other things because they felt so bad.”

Martin put it on speaker, just so they’d know who Martin was suddenly talking to. “I insisted on walking home, so it’s really my fault.” He took a sip of the tea when he heard the voices from the other end disprove this statement. “Also, define “a million.”

His brother shrugged. “I hope you like chocolate and tiny doll eyes.” He couldn’t help but feel like shit about it. He insisted he walk home, and he forgot his key, so he didn’t know why they blamed themselves so much. It was really on himself.

“I can hear your thinking Martin. You can’t blame yourself for this.” A door closed on the other side of the phone.

“I very well can, and I very well will.” Tristan sighed, but didn’t say much else about it. “Anyway.”

Over the phone, Nick asked: “Did you try calling a locksmith?” Martin felt his chest tighten up at the question. Majesty was immedietly at his side, putting his head on his lap. The other boy took notice and took the mug from his grip, and grabbed his hand.

He was going to say somehing, but jumped when the front door was unlocked and opened. Tristan hung up the phone, squeezing his hand at the same time.

Oliver and Nick walked in, not even bothering to hide their relief, until they noticed the condition that the other three were in, relief turning into concern.

“Hey baby,” Oliver said, coming and putting a hand on Martin’s shoulder. “How are you feeling?”

Martin exhaled, feeling better that his father was back with him. “Uh,” he laughed awkwardly, another shrill laugh. He opened his mouth, then closed it, not being able to pinpoint a good response, so he just shrugged and crossed his arms.

Tristan let go of his hand pretty quickly, instead going over to talk to his dad. Oliver put himself where Tristan was, giving his son an indetrminable smile.

He held out his arms, a silent invitation for a familiar embrace. Martin crawled over, filling the space and resting his head on the crease of his father’s neck. He felt a hand soothingly run up and down his back, reassurances being whispered in his ear.

“So you wanna rely on how you nearly died again..?” Well he won’t pass on having good attention on him.

Oliver whispered, “We can talk later baby.” To which he nodded, breaking away from the much needed hug.

Later, when he got some time alone, where Nick was cooking and the other two were in the parlor, he was upstairs, going back to the familiar contact.

You

December 15, 10:43 PM

Attachment: One image

:)

👁👁?

It’s in german

I’m fully aware.

Well I can’t google translate cause it’s a picture

Once again, I am fully aware love :).

😾😾

Rude

I will be having someone translate that later so don’t act all smug

I wouldn’t dream of it.

Hm. Call me

Alright.

“Hey darlin’,” the voice said over the phone.

[floralege]

ship meme thing for allllllla our ships xoxo orumad

omg  the  whole  SQUAD  let’s  fuckin  DO  THIS  !!!   @orumad

who is the most affectionate ?

cilla  and  daisy  are  EXTREMELY  affectionate,  they  just  love  holding  hands,  kissing,  just  being  close.  mick  loves  having  his  arm  around  del’s  waist,  and  he  gets  progressively  more  affectionate  as  the  drinks  go  around.  pru  is  affectionate  with  bee  in  a  very  Horny  Girl  way  24  /  7  so  her  affection  actually  becomes  very  sweet  when  she’s  drunk  /  high.  we’re  not  at  all  surprised  that  caia  and  lauren  are  the  queens  of  affection,  but  mostly  to  each  other.

big spoon  /  little spoon ?

considering  that  she’s  a  vampire,  elliot  needs  SOMETHING  to  feel  like  a  Big  Man  (  ugh,  boys  )  so  he’s  def  got  big  spoon  energy.  liam’s  big  spoon,  but  he’s  always  poking  fern’s  back.  romy  is  big  spoon  for  molly,  but  that’s  probably  an  ego  thing  because  she  def  bottoms.  WHY  am  i  soft  about  duffy  platonically  cuddling  vee  their  whole  lives  until  one  day  it  doesn’t  feel  Very  Friendly  ?  big  soft.

favorite non - sexual activity ?

hunting  sport  (  re:  stupid  humans  )  for  gid  and  rome,  but  at  some  point,  that  turns  a  lil  sexual.  before  he  got  swept  up  into  work,  grady  loved  watching  tracy / hepburn  films  with  cecile.  liam  and  fern  genuinely  loving  jamming  and  shit  talking  together,  cilla  and  henry  love  spontaneous  date  nights,  emmy  and  dom  drink  and  plot  together  that’s  almost  foreplay.  emile  and  marilyn  taunt  each  other  mercilessly,  but  they  really  do  enjoy  getting  to know  one  another  without  that  pressure.  camille  and  emile  are  the  masters of  non  sexual  intimacy,  so  they’ll  just  stare  at  the  sky  or  make  more  awful  bets  with  one  another.

who is most likely to carry the other ?

Big  Ivor  carries  Little  Cecile  and  yes,  we  love  it  !  dusty  probably  carries  vee  and  lucas  around  constantly.  in  a  sad  way,  molly’s  probably  carried  romy  out  of  many  bars  :(  johnny  drags  cam’s  tiny  ass  out  of  clubs,  sadie  and  del  are  both  going  Through  It  so  they  carry  each  other  out  of  many  los  angeles  night  clubs  where  they’ve  started  shit  and  don’t  want  to  deal  with  it.

what is their favorite feature of their partner’s ?

gideon  fully  believes  that  rome  is  the  most  beautiful  creation  of  all  time,  though  he’d  fuck  himself  with  a  chainsaw  before  ever  acknowledging  it  aloud.  hannah  is  genuinely  attracted  to  freddie’s  inherent  goodness  and  idk,  probably  feels  some  connection  with  that  sort  of  brokenness,  too.   pru  loves  bee’s  nose  and  will  do  the  bradley  cooper  nose  touch  thing  from  a  star  is  born  when  she’s  drunk,  probs  to  bee’s  annoyance.  jack  literally  believes  is  kimber  is  SO  fucking  cute  and  wonderful,  it  aches  her.  mick  is  obvs  taken  with  the  eyes  AND  the  boobs.  call   it  fucked,  but  emmy  loves  when  dom  goes  ice  cold  on  someone  ---  just  not  HER.

what’s the first thing that changes when they realize they have feelings for the other ?

johnny  and  cameron  likely  bickered  more  often  and  tbh,  i  feel  like  one  mick  realized  he  had  legit  feelings  for  delphine,  he  acted  super  weird  and  the  whole  family  noticed.  fern  was  probably  very  gentle  about  it  but  liam  went  full  tf  is  up  with  you,  kid  ?  cameron  and  freddie  always  inherently  had  feelings  for  one  another,  so  it  was  just  there  from  the  get  go.  

nicknames  ?  and  if  so,  how  did  they  originate  ?

most  of  the  nicknames  are  just  ones  everyone  sort  of  had  growing  up  ?  pru,  bee,  vee,  mickey,  duffy,  del,  etc.  like,  i  don’t  know  if  any  nicknames  are  singular  to  any  particular  ship  tbh  they’re  free  for  everyone.

who worries the most ?

fern  worries  about  liam  more  than  she  lets  on  and  it’s  probably  her  inner  saboteur  that  has  her  cope  with  that  by  drinking  with  ethan.  gideon  worries  about  lauren  CONSTANTLY,  because  he’d  legit  die  if  anything  happened  to  her  or  caia.  he  doesn’t  worry  about  rome  necessarily,  but  he  gets  wind  of  her  endeavors  without  him  and  hopes  she’s  staying  safe.  jack  wonders  if  she’s  going  to  fall  into  old  habits  the  longer  she’s  around  pru,  del,  and  co.,  so  she’s  worried  about  disappointing  /  hurting  kimber  because  of  that.  arlo  knows  coco  has  her  shit  together,  but  he  can’t  help  but  worry  !!!  she  doesn’t  need  his  concern  and  he  knows  she  can  handle  herself  but  he  does  !!  want  to  help  !!

who remembers what the other one always orders at a restaurant ?

bee  probably  remembers  the  food  at  fancy  restaurants  that  don’t  make  pru gag,  so  she  always  reminds  her  what  to  get  ;  dom  can  be  upsettingly  charming  when  he  remembers  what  daisy’s  favorite  dessert  is,  and  she’s  never  convincing  when  she  pretends  to  be  annoyed  that  he’s  already  ordered  it.  on  the  flip  side,  emmy’s  known  dom’s  drink  order  since  they  were  sixteen.  grady  remembers  the  gist  of  cecile’s  favorite,  but  ivor’s  always  the  one  who  rushes  to  the  kitchen  to  let  the  chef  know  exactly  what  her  preference  is.  simon  has  em’s  thai  takeout  order  MEMORIZED.

who tops ?

shocked  to  learn  that  bee  wasn’t  kidding  about  the  occasional  topping  !  though  daphne  def  topped  her.  mick  physically  tops,  del  does  it  emotionally.  molly  tops  romy  which  is  amazing  for  their  height  difference,  and  olivia  and  esme  def  battle  it  out  every  time,  LOVE  that  for  them.

who initiates kisses ?

cilla  is  big  on  kissing  often,  so  henry  tends  to  arrive  at  parties  with  some  trace  of  her  lipstick  on  him  every  time.  with  everything  going  on  in  the  press,  dom  and  emmy  are  wise  to  play  up  their  affection,  but  behind  closed  doors,  he’s  definitely  the  one  to  initiate.  dusty  probably  drunk  kisses  lucas  every  time  and  it’s  just  never  mentioned  ever  again.  jack’s  horny  on  main,  so  she’s  always  all  over  kimber.  meg  initiates  kisses  often,  though  mostly  as  a  power play.

who reaches for the other’s hand first?

cameron,  always.  johnny,  freddie,  cecile,  etc  ---  doesn’t  matter,  she’s  holding  their  hand.  duffy  gets  VERY  excited  about  holding  vee’s  hand,  so  he  tries  it  often.  jimmy  probably  tried  to  hold  sadie’s  hand  once  and  she  elbowed  him,  but  caia  loves  all  form  of  affection,  so  she  got  very  flustered  when  he  first  grabbed  hers.  simon’s  learned  to  place  a  hand  at  the  small  of  em’s  back  when  they  attend  events  together.

who kisses the hardest ?

unless  she’s  drunk,  pru  has  no  idea  how  to  be  soft  so  she’s  always  kissing  with  a  bigger  plan  in  mind.  liam  probs  kisses  rough,  too.  simon’s  big  on  heady  kisses,  and  if  ivor  ever  gets  the  chance,  HELL  YEAH.

who wakes up first ?

cilla’s  only  an  early  riser  if  she  hasn’t  gone  to  bed,  so  henry’s  usually  the  one  trying  to  make  sure  she’s  up  before  noon.  dom’s  always  up  early,  and  while  daisy  was  the  type  to  mumble  sweetly  for  him  to  stay  longer,  emmy  usually  doesn’t  stir  unless  she  wakes  up  in   a  Mood  and  pulls  at  him  to  stay  behind.  bee’s  always  up  before  pru,  and  pru  thinks  that’s  a  complete  crime.

who wants to stay in bed just a little longer ?

gideon  obvs  doesn’t  sleep,  but  when  he  allows  himself  to  rest,  he  demands  WEEKS  of  going  undisturbed,  so  imagine  a  pale,  lonely  freak  vampire  sitting  in  the  woods  and  staring  at  the  sky  motionless  basically.  meg,  unlike  bee,  happily  sleeps  in  late  and  takes  her  sweet  fucking  time  to  do  it,  though  with  sid  she  always  skips  out  before  morning.  ivy  doesn’t  believe  in  anything  before  one  pm,  so  surprise  surprise  that  nora  started  suggesting  breakfast  dates  for  nik.

who says i love you first ?

since  they’re  all  stupid  soft,  gonna  go  out  on  a  limb  and  assume  it  was  mostly  mine  idiots  who  said  it  first.  except  for  obvious  ones  like  sadie,  who  ran  to  the  hills,  and  gideon,  who  believes  love  is  too  weak  to  encompass  it.

who tells their family/friends about their relationship first ?

listen  EVERY  CHARACTER  IN  EVERY  GENERATION  IS  TOO  CLOSE  so  nobody  needed  to  be  told.  someone  gets  together,  and  by  the  time  they  home,  the  information  has  fully  been  spread.  

what do their family/friends think of their relationship ?

each  ship  has  their  own pros  and  cons,  and  while  certain  people  have  LOUDER  opinions  (  fern  loves  bee,  doesn’t  understand  why  pru  let  her  go  ;  if  cameron  were  alive,  she’d  be  politely  and  quietly  apprehensive  about  camille’s  friendship  with  clem’s  son, the  same  with  daisy  and  henry  /  cilla,  etc.  )   but  it’s  usually  either  we  hate  this  (  meg  @  pru/bee,  sadie  @  mick/sadie  )  or  we  love  this   (  fern  @  pru/bee,  mick  @  jimmy/caia,  dusty  @  duffy/vee  )

who is more likely to start dancing with the other ?

lauren’s  always  the  one  who  gets  elliot  dancing,  grady  would’ve  sat  in  the  corner  at  his  own  wedding  if  not  for  cecile  while  simon  LOVES  to  dance  and  always  guides  em  and  asha  out  to  the  floor.  pearl  will  pull  ANYONE  out  to  dance  with  her.

who cooks more/who is better at cooking ?

cameron  is  a  horrible  cook  and  has  set  freddie  and  johnny’s  respective  kitchens  ablaze  many  times,  marilyn  has  specialty  dishes  but  she’s  too  lazy  to  cook  often.  ivor  knows  the  basic,  but  he  whips  them  up  for  cecile.  nora’s  excellent  at  cooking,  but  for  some  reason,  only  nik  and  coco  have  ever  tried  it.  

who comes up with cheesy pick up lines ?

simon  is  often  too  hetero  for  his  own  good.  clementine  is  guilty  of  this,  too,  but  she’s  cute  enough  to  get  away  with.

who whispers inappropriate things in the other’s ear during inappropriate times ?

BIG  ROME  AND  GIDEON  ENERGY.  also  big  dom  and  emmy /  daisy  energy.  jack  and  kimber  are  definitely  guilty  of  this,  too.  jules  probably  whispered  something  indecent  to  bella  at  cecile’s  wake  (  big  ow  typing  that  !  )  and  it  made  bella  feel  so  normal  for  five  seconds  that  she  was  sort  of  always  endeared  after  that.

who needs more assurance ?

given  their  history,  hannah  and  freddie  need  a  lot  of  reassurance  from  each  other.  that  was  obviously  a  problem  for  mick  and  look  how  THAT  turned  out.  immediately  post  rehab  romy  needed  a  lot  of  validation  from  molly,  which  became  messy.

what would be their theme song ?

MOST  OF  THEM  HAVE  SOUNDTRACKS  AND  SONGS  BUT  THERE  ARE  A  LIL  TOO  MANY !!!!!!

who would sing to their child back to sleep ?

cameron  could  NOT  sing,  but  did  it  all  the  time  for  daisy  and  henry,  so  bless  freddie’s  patience.  fern  walked  in  on  liam  softy  singing  one  of  his  inappropriate  songs  to  pru  once  and  loved  it,  a  la  baby  emma  and  baby  got  back.  duffy  does  this  constantly  for  his  daughter,  and  vee’s  definitely  caught  him  a  few  times.  emmy  would  never  sing,  but  she  def  played  medieval  choir  music  over  bastien’s  baby  monitor  and  dom  was  full  ????  over  this.

what do they do when they’re away from each other ?

most  of  the  time  they  literally  do  not  shut  up  about  the  other  person,  for  better  or  worse.  or  it’s  messy  and  they  don’t  consider  them  enough.  it’s  VERY  one  or  another,  which never  turns  out  well.

one headcanon about this otp that breaks your heart.

AGAIN  too  many  to  choose  from  but  the  way  we  wrote  charlie  out  and  put  johnny  in  as  daisy’s  father  ?  astounding,  10  /  10  because  that  works  a  little  TOO  well  for  the  dynamics  that  played  out  with  gen  two  and  makes  cam’s  death  hit  a  little  HARDER.  also  we’ve  been saying  this  for  years  but  ivor  /  dom  interaction  pls.  the  scandal  of  it  all.  

one headcanon about this otp that mends it.     

soft  concept  is  the scooby  gang  (  there’s  no  freddie,  just  gay  daphne,  a  shaggy  and  scooby,  and  velma  )  having  elaborate  halloween  plans  every  year,  even  if  it’s  just  to  have  a  movie  marathon.  costumes  are  often  required,  and  dusty  LOVES  some  good  riddles,  so  she’ll  get  every  stoned  and  hide  clues  around  the  apartment  that  lead  to  the  snacks.

[tjkiahgb]

Episode Recap: 3.19, “A Moving Day”

Can you believe we only have 50 or so minutes of content left with this show?

I want to love every single one of them and not take any for granted. Each minute feels truly precious.

Never mind.

Folks... we got ourselves a Toast-Off!

Cyrus has brought Jonah, Buffy, and Andi together to make toast. I wish I had more here, but that’s the extent of it.

Jonah presents his toast first. It’s burnt.

Andi says toasters are the trickiest appliance in the kitchen, which is true. Sure, anybody can figure out how to put the bread in, but when it comes time to select between the settings of Light, Medium, and Dark, too many people just twist the dial all the way past dark to Burnt to a Crisp. Avoid that setting. That’s where most people get tripped up.

Jonah advises Cyrus to not eat his burnt bread, and Cyrus agrees.

Buffy presents her toast, which is more like the concept of toast.

Buffy claims it wasn’t fair because Jonah was using the toaster. To think, if only Jonah had used the toaster less, both he and Buffy could’ve made decent toast and been in the running to win... I don’t know, something. I really don’t know what we’re doing here.

Anyway, because Jonah sabotaged both his and Buffy’s chance to win the Toast-Off, Andi can walk away with the competition if she’s just made a piece of non-ruined toast.

And, of course, Andi went extra and made some kind of toast chicken coop.

Seems like an easy win, but Cyrus can’t declare it thus until he’s had a taste.

He thinks it’s pretty good, but there’s a flavor on it he can’t place. What is that, he asks.

Cyrus spits it out as Jonah and Buffy chuckle about one of their friends almost poisoning their other friend.

I guess it was only right to get one last random cold open in before the show ended. Here’s to the nonsense cold opens: the Toast-Offs, the extended oral hygiene montages, the projects for school about eggs, the bad coffees made, the phone chargers stolen, the games of Scrabble played, the times the Mack family argued about what to eat or what to watch or who stole clothes from whom. Oh, random nonsense cold opens, you were always... there, and we shall sometimes remember you.

49 or so minutes left. Each one from here on out? Truly precious.

At Celia’s, Celia has gathered her family around to do an aggressively large jigsaw puzzle.

Frankly, I’m a bit worried for her. This puzzle size is the type you buy when you want to make a statement: No, I don’t have anything better to do and no, I don’t plan on leaving the house for the next week! This puzzle is my life now.

Bex comes walking in, finishing a phone conversation. She tells the family she won something. The family guesses what she won, but they don’t come anywhere close to the right answer, which is a free meal cooked by famous chef Raoul Ricci. No one’s heard of Raoul Ricci, not even Celia, which you might think would tip them off that something’s afoot here, but no one seems interested in digging for the truth.

Even a quick Google search would’ve told them that something was wrong, as it seems the only known Raoul Ricci is an Italian dentist.

Or, as they call them in Rome, a dentista.

Anyway, Bex explains, through a long and bewildering story, Raoul Ricci was famous and had restaurants, but then he didn’t want to have restaurants anymore, so he left to be a hermit.

Andi’s like...

...oh, can we keep him?

Bex explains the prize is that he’s going to cook for them. They just have to go out into the forest and find him. Once they do, though, he’s going to make them the meal of a lifetime.

I can’t stress enough how shady this sounds. There’s a 75% chance this ends with Raoul Ricci chasing the Macks through the woods in some kind of “Most Dangerous Game” type scenario.

Bowie and Andi are in. Celia’s like, this sounds like an awful pain.

Bex warns her if she doesn’t go, the whole family is going to “rhapsodize” about this meal forever. Quick question: where does Bex get off? Just dropping rhapsodize in a sentence like that? Who does she think she is? I’m offended for Celia and I’m offended for us.

Celia is still not interested, despite the threats of rhapsodization, so Bex turns to Andi and Bowie for help. They basically say they’re not going to do puzzle-time with Celia unless she goes with them to the woods, so she relents, with one condition.

A puzzle so big it causes you mental anguish just thinking about it. It ain’t a real puzzle unless your fingers are bleeding by the end.

Meanwhile, Cyrus, Buffy, and Jonah walk around, somewhere, and talk about that “thing” they all have tomorrow. Jonah’s worried he won’t be able to make the thing because his family is moving. Cyrus and Buffy agree to help him move, but Jonah asks Buffy if she will be able to, given her foot and all.

Buffy’s like, of course I can...

Okay, but I’m pretty sure a strong gust of wind could lift Cyrus. I would require stronger proof. Jonah, however, doesn’t need to see more than that minor show of strength, and agrees to let them help.

The next day, the Mack family is all loaded up in Celia’s SUV that we’re seeing for the first time this entire series in the penultimate episode. Celia goes through a long series of things to get ready to leave: moving seats, checking mirrors, putting on gloves, searching for sunglasses. It’s agonizing.

Eventually Celia puts on her suit of knight armor and night-vision goggles and chugs an entire large coffee and she’s ready to operate a motor vehicle.

I do want to warn her though, she should make sure all those production lights and reflectors are moved out of the way before she starts driving.

Wouldn’t want to run over one of the crew members.

Celia drives off. They head for the mountains.

And in a hurry, too. Celia seems to be doing at least 80 on these winding mountain roads.

Me? I’d be worried about ice or sudden hazards or taking a turn too fast, but I guess the Macks trust Celia’s driving ability more than I trust my own.

The Macks all sing songs and make jokes and-- OH MY GOD!

LOOK OUT FOR THAT BUS!

THEY’RE BOTH DOING 70 ON A TWO LANE MOUNTAIN ROAD AND HEADING RIGHT FOR EACH OTHER!

IS EVERY DRIVER IN THIS TOWN MAD?!

The family survives that hairpin turn, though, and makes it up to Mount Washington, named, of course, after America’s most famous obelisk.

Bex leads them onto the trail at Panther’s Hollow, which naturally leads Celia to ask if there are panthers around. Bowie’s like, no, no. Well, maybe one.

And then he scares the hell out of an already nervous elderly woman.

Everyone has a good laugh about it and they set off walking to find the hermit.

Then we get about twelve minutes of footage of the Mack family walking through the woods. I’m not going to include screencaps. I’m just adding that for posterity’s sake.

Over at the storage unit the Beck family rented to put all their stuff in, Cyrus and Buffy help Jonah move said stuff into trucks.

Cyrus comes across a crate of old VHS tapes and DVDs and screams when he sees their contents.

He calls Buffy over to show her.

It’s Judy Bartholomew!

Who’s Judy Bartholomew? She’s an old workout video lady who became a meme. Cyrus feels like he has to show Buffy the video, so he pulls out his phone.

They both have a good laugh about it. Cyrus is surprised to learn she’s real. He’s like, I can’t believe how big a fan Jonah’s mom is. She must be to have the entire Judy Bart collection like this.

Then Jonah’s mom shows up and she’s like, hey Jojobear, can I finally meet your friends? The ones you’ve been good friends with for like a year and a half now and that you won’t let me be around for some reason?

She walks over to Cyrus and Buffy who are shocked to see the Judy Bartholomew standing right in front of them.

Jonah’s like, yeah, it’s her.

Honestly, I’m impressed Jonah’s been able to hide his mom from his friends for this long. Did they never hang out around his family? Did she never come to pick him up from some place?

And doesn’t she wonder who his friends are? When he’d talk about the stuff they’d done together, would she just sit there going, “Oh, that sounds nice, Jonah. Sure would like to meet some of your friends one of these days.” And would Jonah be like, “Uh huh, yeah, you should,” and then he’d just continue putting it off for 15 months? Just kept kicking that can down the road?

Anyway, I still appreciate the show broaching this subject. Media so often lacks in representation of children whose parents have become internet memes.

Back out in the woods, the Macks walk through the woods. All but Bex grow restless. They ask her for proof that she knows where she’s going, like a map.

This doesn’t make them feel comforted.

Bowie pulls Bex aside and asks her what’s really going on. Bex is like, you trust me, right? Bowie says of course. Bex is like, okay, good, back into the forest we go and she walks off.

Bowie tells Andi and Celia it will all be worth it, like a liar, and they start another walking through the woods montage. Bex carries Andi. Bowie carries Celia.

This episode has more characters carrying other characters than any other episode the show has done.

Back at the storage unit, Judy Bart teaches Cyrus and Buffy how to trot.

She’s doing like this locomotion move, very simple.

Cyrus is like, AM I DOING IT?!

As he twists his body back and forth and throws his arms out.

Like, no, man. You can’t tell that what you’re doing is nothing like what Judy is doing? That it’s like, almost the opposite of what she’s doing?

Judy tells Jonah to show them how to do it, so Jonah steps up and does a whole dance routine that I’m also not sure is what Judy was doing.

But it looked good and had a nice finish, so whatever.

Jonah says he’s been doing that since he was six and it’s permanently ingrained in his head now like so many childhood scars.

Then Judy’s like, hey, didn’t you kids have to be in the mountains right about now? And they’re like, oh yeah, we have to get changed and get to the mountains, so they leave her in the storage unit.

Speaking of the mountains, the Macks find rocks.

They collapse on the rocks.

Bex is like, no, don’t sit on rocks now! We almost made it. The family doesn’t want to believe her, but she convinces them it’s true. She leads them around the bend where they find a fancy set up and...

Cyrus?

You see, Cyrus, for three years now, has been posing as celebrity chef Raoul Ricci and sneaking off to the mountains to prepare three course meals for random tourists.

No, wait.

Buffy appears from out of nowhere and this whole thing reeks of a setup.

How in the world did these two get up here so fast from the storage facility? Helicopter?

Andi’s like, what is going on? Where is the hermit I was promised?

Bex tells everyone there’s no hermit. This was all made up to trick everyone into going to the mountains. Bowie asks why.

Bowie’s like, oh, is that back on?

Cyrus and Buffy bring them rings and flowers.

Bowie’s says finally and they embrace.

They all head for a gazebo.

Jonah plays Bowie’s song, “You Girl”, on the guitar.

Andi walks Bex to Bowie.

The two take each other’s hands as the officiant begins doing his officianting.

Where did he come from, too? Did Jonah and Buffy and Cyrus ride up here with him? Carpool?

The wedding goes as weddings do. You know, rings and stuff. Bex and Bowie are about to kiss when--

Everyone looks around trying to figure out whose phone that is before Andi realizes it’s hers. She shuts it off and the music and kissing starts again.

They complete the kiss this time.

Bex is like, I know... it’s been a lot. Thanks for not fleeing.

Later, Bex and Bowie delight in calling each other husband and wife. Everyone is sort of shocked it actually finally happened.

The Mack family (the ones we’re still counting) share a hug.

That night, Cyrus shows Andi the Judy Bart videos and then he brags that they spent the day with her. Jonah says he introduced her to them. Andi doesn’t believe he knows her, but Jonah’s like, yeah, I do.

Andi’s stunned. She feels bad, but, in fairness to Andi, it’s super weird that Jonah kept her hidden this long anyway, especially from Andi of all people. She couldn’t be expected to make that guess.

Jonah’s like, don’t feel bad, the whole thing is funny. He used to be embarrassed about it but he’s over it. Andi says she can’t wait to meet her. And then they talk about meeting Jonah’s dad. Buffy makes a joke about his dad being one of the hairy guys from the workout video and Jonah’s like, yeah, he is.

Everyone sits around thinking about this for a second before they all decide Jonah’s joking.

He’s not.

I don’t know what makes them think Jonah has suddenly acquired a subtle sense of humor. Jonah’s idea of jokes are jump scaring Andi and “S’less.” You really think he’s got a level of clever beneath all that that he’s been hiding for a year and a half as if it was his mother?

Jonah leaves without saying another word.

Can I just take a quick second to try to piece together the history of the Beck family, because I find it fascinating.

So, sometime in the 1980s/early 1990s (I assume based on the fashion), Judy Bartholomew makes it big as a workout video star. Jonah’s father, Mr. Beck, is hired at some point to be a background guy in one of her videos.

I assume this is where they meet and fall in love. Later, they get married and have Jonah.

In the years that follow, Jonah’s dad undergoes a full-body transformation, getting buff and changing hairstyles and retires from the workout video business to coach little league, and, I guess, control the finances of the Judy Bartholomew workout empire.

Eventually, Jonah’s dad invests the Judy Bartholomew fortune unwisely, and the family loses their house, and they’re homeless until very recently when he gets a new job. Doing what? I have no idea. I can’t begin to assume what his area of expertise is.

I guess my question is this: does any child in this town have a quiet, average family? Buffy’s mom spends half her life in foreign countries doing work for the military and Buffy’s family is still somehow the most normal of the group’s.

Later, Andi wanders off from the group and checks her phone. That call earlier? It was from SAVA.

The school left her a voicemail. Andi listens to it and gets sad, but I don’t think in the “rejected from a school” way.

Plus, I don’t think schools call you just to tell you to screw off. “Hi, this is Caroline from SAVA. Is this Andi Mack? Okay, great. Just calling to tell you you weren’t good enough to get into our school. Have a nice evening.”

Bex and Bowie sneak up on Andi and scare her.

God, this poor girl must live in constant fear. Why is everyone always doing this to her?

As the episode ends, Bex and Bowie talk about how happy they are right now. Andi says she is, too.

Though, as TJ would say, “Tell your face.”

Speaking of TJ...

Aww, this is the last time I get to be excited about seeing TJ in the scenes from the next episode.

One more to go, people. One more.

[booksandgalore]

Mirrors of Pride [Yandere!BTS]

Foreword:

Taehyung's company is enjoyable when he isn't contemplating about the different shades of black-and-white filters. Sure, he cares too much about the number of likes he has on social media.

And, yes, maybe you have to reject taking pictures of him everytime he hands you his phone, but true friends stay with each other no matter what. You just need to overlook his growing vanity, and ignore all the warning signs when he starts talking about someone non-existent.

Author’s Note:

It’s my first time posting (cross-posting) a story on Tumblr! Bear with me as I navigate how to link, edit my layout, etc. Though if you do have an tips and/or pointers on how I can make my blog look more appealing, haha, then I’ll take them. Do leave a comment if you enjoyed it!

1

The blueberry gelato you purchased was going to melt soon, but you couldn’t even taste it until Taehyung had some pictures of himself with your gelato and his. Currently, you had snapped over fifty pictures, in different angles, too, and you got out of your seat to take more. The sweltering heat made your baby hairs stick on your forehead and all over your cheeks.

”Okay,” you said, handing his phone back. “What do you think?”

You stood behind his chair as you watched him scroll through the photos one-by-one. Taehyung kept zooming in on his face, only to pinch his fingers back out and focus on a minuscule detail like a wrinkle on the right sleeve of his clothing.

“Can you take more on your phone? Maybe it’ll be different,” he requested, peering up from his device to look at you, his neck craned back.

You ran your fingers through your hair and felt the sweat of your scalp through your fingertips. Although you took a shower this morning, you were going to have to shower again later.

Breathing deeply, you brought your phone out of your back pocket and snapped a picture of him in this position. Taehyung immediately took a scoop of his strawberry gelato and held the spoon to his lips. You took a picture, and another when he closed his eyes but still had the uneaten gelato close to his lips.

Then, a drop fell onto his chin. It dribbled down. You were about to grab a tissue off of the table to give it to him until he mumbled that you should continue. You did as he asked. The sound of the camera shuttering was all you guys heard for the next three minutes as Taehyung continued posing in different positions.  

“You’re welcome,” you said, plopping down onto your chair. You reached for your dessert and found that it was half liquid. You looked over at Taehyung’s gelato; it was in the same state as yours, and you sighed.

Opening up Instagram on your phone, you started to slouch. Posts about vacations in California, Rome, and Beijing filled your timeline. Or was it feed? You were confused by the verbiage ever since Facebook bought Instagram and honestly where was the FAFSA police when you needed them? These "broke" college students shouldn't be out there living it up. And why were they on vacation when you still had two weeks of spring semester left? Did they take their finals early? When you were done, you handed your phone to Taehyung, who took it eagerly.

“Appreciate it,” he said. After browsing through the photos you took of him, he placed your phone down on his lap as he smiled at you. “I mean it. Thank you.”

You observed the silver rings on his fingers as he tapped on the table in a seemingly rhythmic beat. The rings were pretty. Maybe you should copy some of his style.

“You’re going to Korea soon, right?” You leaned back against your chair and splayed out your legs. A trickle of sweat ran past your neck.

It was really hot outside, but Taehyung wore a dark blue dress shirt, rolled up to his elbows, and had a black t-shirt inside that was revealed when the first two buttons of his dress shirt were unbuttoned. He also wore black ripped jeans. Wasn’t it hotter when you wore darker colors? Beauty was pain, you guessed.

“Only for one month in July.” Taehyung leaned back in his chair as well. “Why? Are you going to miss me?”

“No,” You shook your head, “you’re going to miss me.”

At this, Taehyung laughed loudly, his eyes crinkling. “Get KakaoTalk so I can text you without getting charged there.”

”Why? So you can spam my phone with pictures of yourself? You already have a mirror.” You narrowed your eyes playfully. “Also, how can I get KakaoTalk if you have my phone?”

”You mean this?” Taehyung showed your device in his hand, but he made no attempt to give it back to you. “I can just figure out your password.” He was typing in a random combination of numbers until he unlocked your phone successfully.

Startled, you rose up from your seat as he shielded the phone away from you.

“Relax, I’m transferring the photos you took of me to my phone!” he said, huddling himself into a ball. The people around you stared at him briefly before chatting to themselves.

With the slit of your screen showing through the opening in his posture, you glanced down, realizing he was going through your Snapchat messages and replying back with a selfie of himself. How typical.

“Taehyung...” You grasped his shoulder. “I’m not getting Kakao if you’re being like this.” It was a fake threat, but he didn’t need to know that. Honestly, you wanted him to stop because Hoseok was in your contacts and you knew Taehyung wasn’t fond of his step-brother. If Taehyung found out, when he already confessed these deep feelings of disdain about Hoseok to you, then you weren’t sure what he would do. He had a vanity problem already, and some slight possessive attachment in his friendship with you.

However, Taehyung continued mass replying to your friends.

”Taehyung,” you tried again, shaking his shoulder roughly. He didn’t budge. “Alright, I guess I’m gonna get your phone.”

He straightened up and stared at you. “I don’t have anything to hide, (Name). You know me. Do you have something you want to hide?”

“No.” You swore your heart skipped a beat when the lie rolled out your tongue.

“Then we’ll look at my phone together. It’s only fair, right?” There were moments where Taehyung sounded peculiar, and this was one of them. Was it something in his tone, or was it this… aura that he emitted? Either one led you–dare you spoke of it lest you became a bad friend who misinterpreted things and blew them out of proportion–to be cautious of him.

”Here.” Swiping his phone off the table, Taehyung placed it on your palm. ”The password is two, five, six, eight.” He wasn’t taking his hand away from yours, so you inputted with your free hand the code he gave you. The rings on his fingers provided a cool sensation on your skin despite the ongoing heat from the sun.

“You can check my texts," Taehyung suggested. "You can read through them."

You bit the inside of your cheek while you hesitantly tapped on his conversation with Taeyong, a mutual friend. There were Korean characters you couldn't decipher. The words were too advanced, and you only learned the language when Hoseok taught you sporadically. However, you did catch onto these English memes Taehyung and Taeyong shared with each other. You thought you were invading Taeyong's privacy somewhat as Taehyung encouraged you to keep scrolling.

"See, (Name)?" His eyes bore into your own. "I've got nothing to hide."

"Yeah, me too," you blurted back, letting him keep his phone and yours for now. You returned back to your seat.

Friends need to accept all the aspects that come with a person whether good or bad, you reminded yourself of this as Taehyung scrutinized the photos in your camera roll, eyes trained on his appearance and whatever it meant to him as he explored the saturations and color schemes he could use.

You observed your friend for a few more minutes before redirecting your thoughts to the final exams coming up. The stress to think about the exams rather than on the behavior of your friend had eased your mind considerably. Soon, you began to daydream off-topic about fast cars and towering mansions as Taehyung continued to edit his pictures.

Smiling unconsciously, you then remembered how you were a bit vain yourself. You had three thousand, one-hundred-seventy-five dollars and thirty cents to your name before. The rest of the money was in your latest Fila shoes, and in the latest iPad Pro that you cradled to sleep every night. When your three thousand, one-hundred-seventy-five dollars and thirty cents to your name dropped to a staggering fifty-dollars, you had promised for a new year, new you, and you made a resolution to curb your materialistic tendencies in the middle of sweet old July of last year.

“I’m going to change,” you declared to yourself, browsing through self-improvement articles online. You had another tab open, but you swore on your mother’s grave that you were just living vicariously through a YouTuber’s shopping haul and nothing more.

“I’m going to change,” you said to Taeyong and Jimin, your two closest friends, as you all painted random animals on a canvas. Hoping it will restrain the temptations of eating out and watching movies, you tried to love your newest hobby.

But people didn't change easily.

After all, we make money to enjoy money, you would say as you received your paycheck, the thickness of the envelope sending a familiar rush of adrenaline through the palms of your hands.

Soon summer break had ended and you were left daydreaming in your classes about the salary you'd get from becoming a doctor. You’ll have a stable job and a stable life, your mother would remind you in the living room every so often. You would doodle on the edges of your notes and wish that time could past by faster because you were stuck in a world where you were just you and the you then needed to step up from a measly five hundred bucks. Your fingers couldn't sprint against the piano keys as well as Jill, nor could you code websites in your free-time like Mr. Full-Ride classmate Jaehyun, but you did have money and it was what kept you going.

Money was entertainment. Money was activities. Money was the awe-struck gaze your parents looked at you with when you paid for the restaurant bill at a family outing. Money was whatever you wanted it to be, and it was breathtaking, inspiring, motivating, and, damn, your eyes were bleeding green, huh?

“How do you do it?” you had asked. “How are you so happy the majority of the time?”

“I’ll show you how,” Taehyung replied, one hand holding the strap of his backpack. He took out a hand-held mirror from the first zipper and gave it to you. “You have to love yourself.“

"And how do I do this...loving myself thing?”

“(Name), it’s simple.” He sighed, leaning closer to you to observe himself through his own mirror, a light red tint on his cheeks. “You think to yourself, you are everything you ever wanted.” Almost reluctantly, he peered up from the mirror to look at you, but you felt as if he never truly looked away, as if he was still tracing the contours of his nose and the outlines of his eyes, his lips, through the glare of the glasses perched on your nose.

“Beauty is on the inside.” He sighed again, placing a hand over his chest. “But it can also be made.”

You noticed the slight pout on his lips as he stashed the mirror away. He had never changed since high school. Always staring at himself as he walked past anything reflective, anything that resembled him, and you––

You had been snapped out of your memory when Taehyung voiced out a question.

"Should we go now? We have class tomorrow with Professor Smith at nine in the morning."

"Hm?" You blinked. "Ah, yeah, we should."

You threw your gelato in the trash and bidded a goodbye, heading off to your home. Developing a friendship with Taehyung was a journey, to say the least.

[next chapter]

[kennypurrson]

hey hey i told u i would get u back when i feel better uwu 2, 10, 16, 17, 23, 31, 41, 51, 59, 79, 97

I've been waiting bskaba

2: I do! For the beginning bit until I can't feel it

10: On my side! I curl up when I sleep. So you'll see me like that a lot! Sometimes I'll sleep on my stomach but that's only when I'm in pain and that stops it for some reason

16: I normally get chicken Fettuccini Alfredo from restaurants but I also like bolengese (I think thats how its spelled), I had some really really good bowl while in Florence, I'll take you if we ever go

17: In a lot of games where I can I normally do a light blue as the whole or tips. I think its cool but I don't think I'd ever do it irl because I love my natural high lights and don't wanna mess them up

23: Honestly just to lay around. Watching YouTube or tiktok. Video games all day is my go to before college and I'd love to have it again now

31: I, and I can say this, am a hillbilly, socks are never on my feet in my home and during the summer I do go out to get the mail or open garage without socks and shoes. My socks now are cute patterned no shows. I LOVE sliding around in socks cause its like skating, even if sometimes its on accident and i get hurt bskbss. In my first grade school we could wear the whatever knee highs we wanted so I still have a big collection of fun knee high socks. A favorite pair are neon colors and have smiles on them :) they are in my college rotation. I also love the riding socks I have cause they have horses on them which I like a lot. In summary I got some cool socks.

41: The cringe of freshman year of high school but love for book and fandom. A Separate Peace. I FELL in love with this book and low key was like "the main characters are gay for each other here's why" in an assignment bkahsjs But that book is soooo good and sweet and kind sad but ahh its in my to reread after another book I feel in love with in 8th grade Flowers for Algernon, love this book, but all time (I know not the question) is Black Beauty.

51: Going backwards I associate a lot of songs with people and a lot of them are sad memories... BUT for some reason and I'll explain you and Six.. Like that happy coming together from the end of the show song just makes me happy and like idk I think of you sometimes bsksbsj I think the "I don't need your love all I need is six" line gets me bskabja

59: Hmm I don't know if I have a favorite I mean I love Pegasus and how he was born and got his constellation. I also like Romulus and Remus for Rome cause I love Roma vskbsj

79: Hmm the letters my friends write for me. the one Emma wrote for me when we did newsies made me cry a little cause it was so sweet, and the one Anna wrote for me before college ❤ I love them both and both letters made me cry and happy that I have friends that love me. There's probably more cute things but that's what came to mind first.

97:INFJ/INTJ the memes i have on Pinterest are spot on and funny, taurus ♉, Hufflepuff

[vanaera]

Unread Messages

15. Things you said with too many miles between us (online friend!namjoon + idol!you)

Summary | In which Namjoon has beaten stress, pressure, and also time differences with you by his side but he has yet to beat to know that whom he's talking to through the screen of his phone is the same person he fawns on TV screens along with millions of other people.

Genre | Fluff + Super slight angst

Wordcount | 3, 193

Sequel : Missed Calls

     Light suddenly illuminates the pitch black room and it shines against every curve and ridge of Namjoon's face, pricking his eyes to open as he blindly reaches for his glasses.

    Once finding his bedroom clear through the lenses, he grabs his phone which alerted him of a new notification.

1 New Message!

SunnyY/N 1:32 AM

Hi! I just finished watching Predestination and holy shit how dare you rec me something so mindfucking??!!

    Namjoon types lethargically with a smile hanging on his lips.

MonJoon 1:33 AM

Glad you found the movie compelling though it's 1:33 AM here in the fucking morning, I've got AP exams later, and you woke me up just to say that?

SunnyY/N 1:33 AM

I'm sorry oh my gosh I thought you were awake! God, I didn't think of the time difference! Okay okay, go to sleep now.

MonJoon 1:33 AM

It's alright, I’m having trouble sleeping lately anyway. Where are you currently?

SunnyY/N 1:33 AM

I'm in Italy now though I haven't find anytime yet to travel around :((( Anyhow, go to sleep now! You need that sleep to defeat those tests later!

    Namjoon raises his brow. It must be nice to travel around different parts of the world because of your parent's work. The constant jetlags may be troublesome but he'd rather have that than take on a pile of homeworks and exams he doesn't even need for his major.

MonJoon 1:34 AM

Okay, stay safe there. Good nytie night!

SunnyY/N 1:35 AM

Nyt Nyt!!! :DDD

    Around six o'clock, Namjoon wakes up to the blaring noise of his alarm clock and another notification.

SunnyY/N 6:01 AM

I hope you have a nice day and good luck on your exams! Fighting!!!! 🙆🙆🙆 ( P.S. : I computed the time difference, credits to Mr. Google and I figured you'll be awake now :)))) )

    A grin spreads on Namjoon's face as he ruffles his bed hair and heads to his bathroom. He's got enough of good luck now to tackle on anything that will get on his nerves.

    The day passes and so do his three exams with Namjoon fortunately being still alive. He feels he should ask you to wish him luck everyday because God knows how his luck hasn't worn off yet today. And just like every hard work he gets done, he thinks his reward just came with a "ding!" and a Twitter update.

Y/N Official™ 7:20 PM

Y/N models new collection of Flyday "Missantrophies"!

    Namjoon has never tapped so fast in his life only to see pure beauty before him. Y/N wore frilly dresses painted with classical paintings his art major friend, Jeongguk, studies that made her look like an artwork instead while she daintily posed around some museum in Rome he knows he'll never have a chance to go to anytime soon. The pictures were breathtaking but what made his heart almost combust was the behind the scene shoots with her barely there make-up and a bright grin on her tired form as she hugs a huge teddy bear by her side.

    Too cute, too cute, too cute, gosh Namjoon wants to know how to become that teddybear now.

    Namjoon taps on the Send Me icon and immediately taps the image with your username.

MonJoon 7:20 PM

HAVE YOU SEEN THE RECENT FLYDAY PHOTOSHOOT???!!! Y/N LITERALLY LOOKS LIKE ART

- see 10 photos

SunnyY/N 7:21 AM

Yes hoe, but look at this babe

-see 1 photo

    Namjoon opens the pic to see Y/N lazily looking at her self-camera with tired eyes and bare face that looks like the meme "I don't fucking care anymore". He laughs with his heart squeezing with affection. He's always a sucker for pictures of Y/N looking like everyday college students. But wait -

MonJoon 7:22 PM

She looks so cute!!!! Btw how did you get this pic???? I haven't seen it on her social media accounts yet. Tell me how??????

SunnyY/N 7:22 PM

I have my ways 😏😏😏 Let's just say I'm really resourceful :DDD

MonJoon 7:23 PM

Meanie

"You're chatting with your online girlfriend again?"

    Namjoon raises his head to be met with his roommate (and friend, though he wants to regret such title sometimes) Seokjin's teasing smirk accompanied by a click of the door. He just came home and the first thing he does is suggest that out-of-nowhere-conclusion he kept bringing up. "Uhh yes, online girl-space-friend, not girlfriend," he corrects before he lets his fingers fly across the screen of his phone.

MonJoon 7:30 PM

How are things going around you by the way? Just finished this hellday and I wanna say I think I passed them but I think I'm gonna jinx myself so I'd rather not.

SunnyY/N 7:31 PM

You're not gonna jinx yourself! Just think positive! I know you're smart 😎😎😎 so of course you're gonna pass!!! I'm okay though I'm deadly tired. Been through another flight and now I'm in Sweden.

MonJoon 7:32 PM

So soon?! You're in Italy just like a few hours ago and you haven't traveled around yet!!!! You're missing opportunities, hoe!!

    Namjoon thinks you're hella insane going from one country to another without even staying for a while to travel.

SunnyY/N 7:32 PM

I'm really sad too 😥😥😥 but can't blame my parents for deciding to go from one country to another. Oh I got drunk earlier and fortunately I didn't accidentally open another account in some social media platform. I've already got too many shits, don't need to let the whole world know I'm such an embarrassing person ahahahha

    Namjoon chuckles and he could hear Seokjin yell "There you go again laughing like a lovesick fool. Stop denying she's so your online girlfriend!" over the kitchen but he didn't mind that at all when he remembers the first time he knew you was through the same odd antic you do when you're drunk.

    It was two years ago around some November midnight when Aym a BaBe suddenly messaged him on Send Me with "I'm really sad, can i take up this space for a while?"

    Namjoon was used to receiving shady or nonsense flirty messages from questionable usernames, not to say he automatically deletes messages from people he have never heard of at all. But that night was an exception since it was also the first time he saw someone's pain without even looking at their face.

    Just like what you said, you then filled up the convo space with "I'm just really sad right now" and "I can't even let out my true feelings at all to the people around me," and lastly how you admired his courage for posting the only post that got over 100 notes in his entire Tumblr life defending female solo artist Y/N.

     Y/N, the apple of Namjoon's eyes and his wife-to-be in his own dreamlamd started from scratch and slowly built her career in the music industry with her navy blue guitar and songs about broken glasses and misplaced loves. Namjoon thinks she could have already taken over the world with her now inactive small Youtube account Y/N sings with her original songs about sex, love, and drugs - things usually sung by men artists and topics that were avoided by females in fear of being silenced and judged by a misogynist world.

    Though her fame only started with break up songs as she delved into TV and radio shows that prevented her from trying bold moves such as her compositions in her Youtube career, Y/N still writes and sings her heart out and Namjoon cheered for her continuous success.

    Around one year later, her upbeat breakup single Go F*ck Yourself gained worldwide popularity that made her voice be known on all ears. That's why yesterday, when news broke out about Y/N's new album No More You was about the trifecta that killed every other female artists' career in such a traditional industry, all hell broke lose over the net.

    A couple of  "You're promoting bad things with your song," "You're trying too hard,"  and unnecessarily mean "You're so ugly, try getting a plastic surgery maybe you'll be more tolerable in every viewer's eyes," Namjoon just have to type down a massive text post about such cyber harassment and downright misogyny and inhumane comments against a person who wanted to convey the reality of other people now that her voice can be heard by all over the world.

    You suddenly appeared then with a weird username in that one'o clock haze. Namjoon let you rant out your complaints on the convo space, read each message you sent without replying because not everyone needs advice, just someone who can listen to them. When Namjoon checks his inbox some day later, he found that you changed your username to SunnyY/N like every other fan who uses their idol's name on their username but there's something about yours that drove him to know you more. Maybe it's because he wouldn't associate 'sunny' to Y/N unless she's smiling so wide - he wasn't really sure. And just like that, he formed a stable communication with someone he calls "Sun" whose face he hasn't seen yet over a two year course of friendship that is still staying strong now.

MonJoon 7:35 PM

Good for you that you didn't start up another account. Why are you drunk anyway?

SunnyY/N 7:38 PM

Nothing, just sad. Not a big deal. It's 1 AM here btw, I gotta go. Nytie nyt!

    Namjoon can sense you didn't want to talk about it so he sends his good nights too before going to the table for dinner. After getting his homeworks done, he counts time differences and sets another alarm aside from his morning call.

    Around seven, you wake up with the hundredth notification on your phone but the latest one is what only mattered.

MonJoon 7:01 AM

Good morning! I hope you have a great day. Stay safe, hoe :)

 //

      In the middle of writing an essay about the fundamentals of quantum physics, Namjoon's My Only Friend ringtone makes the man jump on his seat, pen almost flying from his grasp. In his defense, Y/N's MOF is the best of her recent album, Friends & Foes, and it's made him feel so much anyway-

    Namjoon swipes the green button. "What is it, Jimin?"

    "Hey have you seen the announcement of Y/N's concert tour?" Jimin rattles, "Man, the ticket prices are up and I swear to God I have to sell at least one kidney to get the VIP seats and -"

    Jimin's rambling turns into white noise as Namjoon hesitates. He's in the middle of doing tons of essays and shit, he's gonna get distracted again with Y/N's face. He already promised himself to tone down his “stanning” a little and just - fuck it. His hands are already pounding against his keyboard, the tab he opened for his references already in the back of his mind as he clicks the news of your new concert. When it comes to Y/N, he easily pushes away his priorities and God, it's just so stupid but still -

Y/N Official™ 10:50 PM

Y/N Sun + Moon Tour ticket prices are up! Concert dates in other countries will be further announced.

    Namjoon scrolls down and sees listings of dates in California, New York, Los Angeles, yadah yadah, Italy, and Sweden - wait.

    He mumbles a "Gonna get back to you Chim, I'm busy right now" through the phone, ends the call, and goes to Send Me to tap your icon.

1 Unread Message!

    Oh right, he hasn't opened Send Me the past few days because he and Seokjin forgot to pay their net bills. Shocks, you must have been pissed off he hadn't replied you yet.

    However, he didn't expect to read something aside from your memes or your whereabouts and concern for his.

SunnyY/N 1:20 AM

Hi Joon, I'm gonna be inactive for a while but I think i can send a few somethings whenever I can. Just send me anything you want, complain about school and friends, fanboy over Y/N or whatever, I'm gonna reply to that once I can. Hope you have a wonderful day! :DDD

MonJoon 11:00 PM

Hi Sun, sorry I only read your message now. Jin and i forgot to pay bills on time again so yeah. Btw, Y/N's gonna go there in Sweden on July 5 and I hope you can come there! Send me pics if you can! Stay safe hoe and enjoy travelling around!

    Namjoon closes his phone as well as his previous tabs aside from his references and leans on his chair. When you've both started opening up to each other online, you mentioned that once a year you're gonna be hella busy with your folks to the point you barely have time for goofing around the net. It sounded weird but he didn't question you about it and typed "gotta detach yourself away from your phone somehow someday. I’m like that too when finals come hahahahha.", afraid he'll sound prying. 

    After two years of hanging around and being fond of you, he can't help but be constantly curious of what you're actually doing. You're born in the same year as him (though you're only two months older than him) and you've been travelling around the world with your parents while Namjoon's stuck in college with a Philosophy degree and hating every other subject that has nothing to do with making music. You're sick rich and you have your own studio at home (you showed him a pic) because technically you enjoy music too while he's almost dying with the constant tutoring sessions he have with other kids just so he can save up for his Mon Studio-to-be.

    He wonders how he can connect with you so well when you've never had a common ground in your lives aside from liking music and also Y/N. What it would be like if you are a normal college student like him? Are you really small like you say? What will you probably major in? You'll pass out if you had the same schedule as him, Namjoon snorts. He'll probably be that friend who'll constantly check up on you, and you'll probably smile so wide, and maybe your eyes would turn into tiny curves like crescent moons. You haven't sent him a selca yet but he thinks you'll be pretty.

    Namjoon sighs. He wants to meet you so badly.

 //

      September comes and Namjoon counted 23 small candles his friends stuck in the cake Seokjin made. His friends told him to make a wish first but he didn't really have anything that came to his mind. Yeah, maybe he wishes for everyone's health and happiness - he could do with that, and then he blows the candles along with the worries of the past year.

    When the party died down and Yoongi and the rest of the squad bid them goodbyes, Namjoon finds himself slumped against his chair, tired of cleaning all the confetti from party poppers and the piñata Hoseok brought from god knows where.

    He opens his phone and scrolls through his Twitter feed for any updates on Y/N's tour and just then a Send Me notif pops out and he smiles. He never managed to beat through coincidence to be online the same time as you do so he settled for unread messages and leaving messages for the past month as well as sending each other pictures of what you've been doing at the meantime. These kept a smile on his face but he knew right then it would never beat the grin he has now he's got to finally talk with you again.

SunnyY/N 1:01 AM

Happy Birthday, Joon! 😆😆😄

🍕🍕🍕🍟🍟🍟🍔🍔🍔🍲🍲🍲🎂🎂🎂🍰🍰🍰🍦🍦🍦🍫🍫🍫

Hope you ate a lot!

MonJoon 1:01 AM

Thanks! and yes i ate a lot! Seokjin's food is ever 👌👌👌 And oh my god, you're finally online! I miss my hoe!

SunnyY/N 1:02 AM

Yes, some things came up but i'm gonna be fine now. Hey, I'm coming back home in Korea this September and holy gosh Y/N will also hold her concert the same month here! Go come, I will be there and we can finally meet up!!! (I won't be free until after the 26th anyway and i want to meet you so bad now that we're gonna be in the same country!!!!)

    Namjoon's heart thunders. You've never suggested a meet-up before since you told him six months ago you're not yet okay showing yourself to him when it happened that you stayed in Korea and he requested to meet you. However, the small pain in his heart whenever he has to type this cannot be drowned by its overwhelmingly rapid beating.

MonJoon 1:03 AM

Sadly I can't :(

SunnyY/N:1:03 AM

Hey why? I can buy you the VIP tickets if you're feeling a little burdened with the price. I just want to have my main hoe with me

MonJoon 1:03 AM

Thanks for the offer but my finals just have to be scheduled the same day as her concert and guhhh, I don't even want you to spend so much on me. But god, you don't know how happy you made me when you finally agreed to meet up; I just wanna hug you irl!!!! I'm so excited to finally see you, This must be the best birthday present anyone has gave me, hoe!

SunnyY/N 1:04 AM

But I can't wait that long, what if I say I want to meet you now?

    What?

SunnyY/N is requesting for a video call. Accept? Decline?

    Namjoon's brows furrow; you told him before you don't want video calls and now you're doing this? It's confusing but Namjoon clicks on Accept anyway because he doesn't have it in his heart to decline your requests.

    The image of a room and a yellow-hoodied-figure fills his screen. Namjoon can see a bottle on the far corner of your room and before he can scold you for drinking your problems away, a very familiar voice fills his ears and makes him stuck frozen in his chair.

    "I've been feeling sad lately and I tried to get off my phone for the past months but I can't do that now," you sniff, "It's your birthday, I have to greet you. And I know sober me won't do that so I got drunk just to have enough liquid courage to wish you a happy birthday and that I want to meet you."

    Namjoon blinks his eyes twice, this must be a fucking dream - why is he seeing Y/N's bare face and hearing her voice live what - how could you be-

    "By the way, I wrote MOF while  thinking about you," you wipe  the tears forming on your waterline,  "I'm shit right now, but I don't care. I'm saying stuff I'll not remember so you have to remind me okay? I'm gonna end the call now. It's a stupid reason - I just wanna see you."

    Before you tap the red button Namjoon could hear you mutter, "I didn't imagine you'll be this fucking handsome God, I should have fixed myself."

    The screen goes back to the convo space with you now offline and Namjoon can't feel his heart.

    What the fuck, you're Y/N?!

A/N | Hi anon! I combined your requests into #15. Hope you like it! Sorry for the long wait! BTW, Send Me is a social media platform I made up and so is the brand Flyday!

09.07.2018 : Update! This will become another drabble series of mine so expect more dynamics and shenanigans of fan!namjoon and idol!you :D

All Rights Reserved © Vanaera. No reposts, modifications, and translations of content is allowed without direct permission.

[i-am-adlocked]

Tagged by @randombiochemist​. Ghad, you know I’m a sucker for these things.

NAME:  Allysa, pronounced as “Ol-is-a”, yeah like “All is a ___” A few years ago, I’d go out of my mind if other people found my name, but my pseudonym of “CA Hawkins” slowly seeped into Allysa D. 

I can’t say my last name because I am the only one in the world with this name with this surname. There’s about 20 people with my last name in my country alone and all of them are my relatives, but it’s seriously not that hard to find me. I’m a bit loud in the Internet nowadays.

NICKNAME: Allysa or Oli to my friends. “Gurl” to my sister. My second name to my relatives other than my sister.

GENDER: Biologically female, identifying as female.

STAR SIGN: Capricorn.

HEIGHT: 5′2 ½. That’s actually tall in my country. 

TIME: Right now, as I write this, it’s 9:27pm. I shall update when I finish this thing. Update, it is now 10:15pm and I shall click “Post.”

BIRTHDAY: Eight of January! I have the same birthday as Stephen Hawking and Elvis Presley, and when I was five, I had a crush on both (before I knew they were old men, shut up), and even so, I thought I would be both scientifically smart and artistically brilliant. Obviously, I was neither.

FAV BANDS; FAV SOLO ARTIST(S); SONG STUCK IN MY HEAD: Bands: Coldplay, Radiohead, IV of Spades, and more. Solo: Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Adele, Miley Cyrus, Fleurie, and more. Stuck: Smokestacks by LAYLA.

LAST MOVIE I WATCHED: The Greatest Showman (which would have been the fifth time I watched it as well, but #NoRegrets).

LAST SHOW I WATCHED: Two nights ago, I binge-watched “Santa Clarita Diet.” Ghad, I love that show, and it made me hungry. Okay, that makes me sound like a psycho, but Sheila’s enthusiasm over eating made me crave for a burger.

WHEN DID I CREATE MY BLOG: I had a blog around 2011, when Sherlock just came out. Things were all gen but I was already shipping Adlock by then. By 2012 and Irene finally showed up, I shipped hard. By 2015, I had death threats for shipping Adlock so hard. As a 16-year-old, I deleted my blog, and made a Tumblr exclusively for Adlock on June 2, 2015 to show my haters, they ain’t gonna win against me.

LAST THING I GOOGLED: “Harry Potter sent to alternate universes abuse fic” shut up

DO I HAVE ANOTHER BLOG: For me alone, it would be theoneallysa.wordpress.com but I seldom use it and I think the last post was made last year. Co-blogs would be bucketlost.com where my older sister posts about what we did when we travelled around Europe (just the two of us). I was the photographer in this blog.

DO I GET ASKS: No. Or rather, very rarely. Like, once or twice a year.

WHY I CHOSE MY URL: To show my Adlock haters that I am not fazed by them hating my yacht. This is also to stand for my yacht and all the members in it who are being attacked. I will so fucking fight for yall gals, but I also won’t hesitate to put you back in line. I don’t want members of the yacht attacking others.

FOLLOWING: Oh I’m just following 217 people. Most of them Adlockers or Harry Potter blogs that post a lot of text post. I’m more of a text-post kind of gal, despite my usual posts of GIFsets and all that crap. I love metas or text posts with memes. There will be days that I will hoard a lot of Tumblrs for the hell of it.

FOLLOWERS: I feel like an arsehole for never thanking my 2,621 followers, but I just don’t know how to thank them without bursting in tears.

AVG HOURS OF SLEEP: About 3-4 hours of sleep. Both intentionally and naturally. I’ve had this sleeping pattern since I was about nine years old. I remember just lying in bed and getting restless because I can’t bloody sleep. Although, yesterday, I slept at 5pm and I woke up today at 12 noon. So that’s 19 hours of sleep. Go big or go home, that is my motto.

LUCKY NUMBER(S): I don’t know about luck, but I am fond of the number eight, six, and thirteen. In day-to-day life, or like visual patterns, I prefer three and five.

INSTRUMENT(S): Piano (self-studied, one-month with our glee club maestro, then self-study). Voice (two-year training, same maestro as above). Violin (two-days training before I got frustrated and my sister took it instead).

WHAT AM I WEARING: Right now? Er, brown shorts, silver shirt with elements of dull scarlet, and a dark scarlet jacket. Even though I’m at home, I do like matching clothes.

DREAM JOB: To be a good wife and mother. If you dare tell me I should be going out and get an actual job, then you have no idea how tiring being a housewife can be. Ask my mother. With future kids that will have MY bloodline? You bet my arse it’s going to be a full-time job. By then, I would have saved up a lot of money from working in a desk job whilst also performing in the theatre from time to time.

DREAM TRIP: You have no idea how much I want to go to Peru and just see a random llama. Before, I would say Paris and London, but my sister and I went to a Europe trip last year (we didn’t go to London btw) and it’s amazing and all but I want to go hiking next. Although, I also want to go to back to Rome, and visit Greece as well. My sister and I do back-packing, and just AirBnB. We always get mistaken as locals, especially since we learn the language before heading to a country.

FAV FOOD: Boi, my love for McDonald’s Cheese Burger and Fries right now. I’m craving. Also, Coca-Cola, oh boi.

NATIONALITY: YAH GURL BE WAVING MY PHILIPPINE FLAG RIGHT NOW YAH BOI

FAV SONG RIGHT NOW: Smokestacks by LAYLA.

SEXUALITY: I am still confused between asexual and bisexual. I don’t want to be touched and I hate physical contact because of my not-too happy childhood, but also I find both boys and girls beautiful, and if there are people I like, goddamn will I be flinging myself to them... Demisexual. I think I’m demisexual. 

HOGWARTS HOUSE: CAW CAW EAGLES YAH RAVENCLAW WOOPITY WOOP WOOP

FAV ANIMALS: EVERYTHING UNDER THE BIOLOGICAL FAMILY CANIDAE

DOG OR CAT PERSON: CANINE ALL THE WAY, my sister is too much of a feline lover.

BLANKETS YOU SLEEP WITH: A thick blanket as well as placing two pillows on top of me for added weight.

WHY YOU GOT A BLOG: I’ve been on Tumblr for years before I had an account, then I got fed-up so I made one in 2011. Then I made this one to fight haters of Adlock.

TOP (3) FAV CHARACTERS: Harry Potter. Sherlock Holmes. Leo Valdez.

NO. OF POSTS. 3,519. Mostly reblogs lmao.

POKEMON TEAM: I’m sorry. I don’t watch Pokemon because my older sister and older cousins (who were living with us at the time) didn’t let me watch TV when I was a kid so I just never bothered.

FAV COLOUR: I’d say Black but black is a hue, not a colour. In fact, it is the absence of colour so I ain’t saying black. I was a sucker for Glaucous in aesthetics and stuff, as well as Navy Blue. Nowadays, I have also taken a liking to red. It compliments my skin colour well, as well as my personality.

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Er, a bit complicated.

LIPSTICK OR CHAPSTICK: They feel weird so neither. But if I had to choose, Chapstick cos my lips are so chapped, I can’t even.

LAST SONG I LISTENED TO: Smokestacks by LAYLA. I’m editing a vid.

TOP (3) SHOWS: Sherlock, Doctor Who, and Mythbusters.

TOP (3) SHIPS: Adlock (Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler) R11ver (River Song and the Eleventh Doctor) Leyna (Leo Valdez and Reyna Ramirez)

BOOKS I’M READING: I’ve been reading a lot of novel-length Harry Potter fics right now. I’ve related to Harry Potter a lot. Before, I always related to Sherlock, but finding out about his familial relationship, I found out I was more Mycroft (never good enough) and Eurus (crazy violent kid) than a Sherlock.

TAGGING: To anyone who wants to do this.

@musical-chick-13 @thank-you-for-being-with-me @antarktica @sentimentalgenius @addignisherlock 

[woodworkingpastor]

Into all the world... Matthew 28:16-20 Second Sunday of Easter April 28, 2019

Prayer of Invocation

We give you all thanks and praise, O God,

for you meet us in our doubts and fill us with life and peace.

You are the one who was and is and is to come—the beginning and the end—who breathed life into the earth and its creatures.

Our ancestors put their trust in you and celebrated your mighty acts of salvation.

You sent your child, Jesus, as a faithful witness to your goodness and love.

He was killed by the powerful, but you raised him, as the firstborn from the dead.

Appearing behind the locked doors of our fear he breathed Holy Spirit into us and commissioned us to carry his words of peace and mercy to the world.

Seated at your right hand as Leader and Savior, he frees us from sin and makes us a kingdom of priests to serve you forever.

We live in a day where culture can quickly be influenced by new concepts, behaviors, or phrases. Most of us remember how quickly phrases from the TV show Seinfeld worked their way from the show into common speech.  Phrases like “yada yada yada,” “no soup for you,” and “not that there’s anything wrong with that” are still heard in common conversation, all courtesy of Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer.  

With social media, memes became even more common, as catchy phrases can now be attached to a photo and transmitted quickly.  Some of my favorites memes are those who show the results of an embarrassing mistake with the phrase, “You had one job.”

I hope you noticed the header above our order of worship this morning.  It’s the Second Sunday of Easter.  That’s an important designation to keep in mind, because the church has historically recognized holidays differently than our culture recognizes them.  Our Hallmark culture puts all the emphasis on the days leading up to the holiday—so we get Christmas songs at Thanksgiving and chocolate bunnies and marshmallow Peeps just past Valentine’s Day.  But the church recognizes holidays after the actual day.  Following that logic, the Great Commission is an Easter text; the resurrection of Jesus reminding us the church has one job:  make disciples.

Making disciples was not so easily accomplished for the disciples and those who would follow them in those first years after the resurrection.  The significant problem those Christians faced was that no one knew anything about what they were talking about.  The Jesus movement portrayed in the book of Acts typically began with outreach in the Jewish community—where there was common spiritual ground—but quickly spread to non-Jewish persons, reaching all the way to Rome within a generation and a half of the resurrection.  

The question these Christians wrestled with was “how do we make disciples?” Starting from scratch, the church had to work out things like how do we baptize? What is the proper way to celebrate the Lord’s Supper?  How do we teach others to follow Jesus—to do the things that Jesus did?

It didn’t take long for those believers to write down an instruction manual in Christian discipleship.  It’s called the Didache, meaning “The Teaching.”  In it, the writers cover basic Christian ethics before moving on to give instructions on how to baptize (running water is preferred but pouring is acceptable if you don’t have access to a river); how to serve communion; how to pray; and how to fast.  What I find absolutely fascinating is how it begins.  Of all the points of Christian doctrine the authors might have chosen to emphasize by placing first in the text, they chose these words:

Two ways there are, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between the two ways.  Now the way of life is this: first, love the God who made you; secondly, your neighbor as yourself: do not do to another what you do not wish to be done to yourself.

The writers then continue in a way that might lead us to believe that the first Christians were Church of the Brethren:

The lesson of these words is as follows: bless those that curse you, and pray for your enemies; besides, fast for those that persecute you. For what thanks do you deserve when you love those who love you…when anyone gives you a blow on the right cheek, turn to him the other as well, and be perfect…

They then move on to things to avoid: murder, violence, improper sexual relations, stealing, honest speech.  Pretty much everything we might think to include on such a list.

It’s a fascinating read, for it solidly establishes that those who are Jesus’ disciples—that’s all of us—simply make different value judgments on who and what is valuable, and what things Christians can and cannot do because we have surrendered our lives to Jesus.  Even though the document is well over 1800 years old, it has a contemporary feel because these Christian leaders were instructing their new members and their entire congregations on:

telling the truth

not seeking revenge when wronged

keeping sex within the boundaries of marriage

not being envious, not coveting what our neighbors have

seeking the best for those who make our lives difficult.

It describes these Christian qualities in the midst of a culture where doing things differently than these was normal and acceptable.  It’s not just that these behaviors honor God and reflect our transformation; it’s that living this way was different. Being a disciple of Jesus was fundamentally different from the world around them.  

This is something we need to realize today, because signs that our culture is rapidly moving away from anything that resembles Christianity are all around us. We recognize this, but we want to make sure we recognize the correct signs.

David Brooks wrote a very helpful opinion piece in a column entitled Five Lies our Culture Tells, published by the New York Times on April 15.  He begins by observing the amount of despair that is all around us:  college mental health facilities are swamped; suicide rates are spiking; opioid addiction is rampant; our political leaders tell lies daily and we shrug it off.  His thesis is that our current distress is based on lies we tell ourselves about how to be happy: Lies like:

Career success is fulfilling. Work hard in school, get into a good college, make good grades, and find the career of your dreams.  

I can make myself happy. Just win one more game; lose those 15 pounds; or be more faithful at church. Happiness is something to be gained with one more achievement or acquisition.  

Life is an individual journey. Whoever dies with the most interesting experiences wins.

You have to find your own truth. Choose what values and traditions work for you and go with them.  As long as no one is getting hurt, it’s ok.

Rich and successful people are worth more than poorer and less successful people. This one might just be a variation of the first one.  The more you have, the happier you’ll be.

It would be easy to look at the despair around us and throw our hands up in frustration at the prospects of impacting the culture for Christ and the church. We might be sorely tempted to retreat into the safe walls of our congregation and focus on our own lives.  Or we could remember something significant: today is the second Sunday of Easter; Jesus is raised from the dead and has commissioned us exactly for times like these. The fact that it might be more difficult to get people to take an honest look at Christianity these days does not excuse us from the fact that “we have one job: to make disciples.”

It might look like Matthew 28:19-20 is actually giving us four things to do: go, make disciples, baptize, and teach. It’s a bit clearer in the Greek: the primary verb in this sentence is make disciples.  The other verbs, go, baptize, and teach all describe how we make disciples.  And what is remarkable to me in the New Testament is how often disciples are made in living rooms. Not in church sanctuaries or even in Sunday School rooms—although the Spirit moves in those places, too.  The disciple-making energy of New Testament churches was directed toward people gathered in homes, the exact places where people have traditionally formed deep relationships with one another, where traditions and rituals are passed down through the generations, and where people’s value is based on the fact that they are members of a valuable community, each one contributing to the strength of the entire group.

In other words, the church became the place where cultural lies like those David Brooks describes of our day were shown to be false through the manner of our living.  It could do this because of one theological lie of our day of individualism. In the New Testament church, people are not called to become individual believers but are to be enlisted as disciples within the Christian community, whose reception of the Christian message in faith must be actualized in their lives.

The church has one job: make disciples. Taking this job seriously makes us realize that a faithful church is more focused on transformed lives, not Sunday morning attendance. So how do we get there?  One way might be to figure out how to free people up to have more dinners with our neighbors.  Spending more time at home gathered around the dining room table with our families and our friends, not having so many church activities and meetings that we’re always rushing back here after work for another meeting.  We are surrounded by people who might not be interested in coming to church, but might be curious about someone who has found that joy is found in things like

long-standing deep friendships;

friends who love us enough to tell us when we’re acting like jerks—and whom we love enough to believe them when they say it;

satisfaction found in things other than our career, or our car, or our latest purchase or vacation;

I’ve met a lot of people who aren’t all that interested in church.  But I’ve hardly met anyone who wouldn’t let me pray for them when things were going badly in their lives. That says something.  

What can we do to meet more people like this? Brothers and sisters, we have one job!

[meiratz]

To my his mom and sisters,

It has taken me the better part of a decade to write this letter to you. It’s what I hope you remember when you think of us.  It’s what I hope you know when you worry about him finding another partner.

This is the story of why I asked him for change, this is the letter and the story. This is a thank you ten thousand times for sharing him and for taking his hand when I had to let it drop from my own.

And to you, my love, this is a letter to you to remind you that we were real, to tell you; you don’t pay any rent in my heart and soul, and always a thank you for the impact and life you gave me, built with me, and showed me. I fell hard in love with you, I loved you for real, I love you, always. Xo.

It’s for all of you, but maybe it is also for me. It’s for me for all the same reasons it is for you. Because we walked alongside one another for a while and will be forever changed because of it.

--- Chapter 1 - His smile

I knew from the second date we went on that I was going to marry him.

I knew because of how he laughs, how quick his wit is, how quickly he listened to my story and shared his own, how tightly he hugs his mom and how he instantly gets on the floor to spend time with his nieces. And his smile. And his smile. And his smile. And his smile.

Over the course of our relationship, I learned his smile and his laugh were outward expressions of the immense kindness and courage he leads with. He drives his tall ship with kindness as his figurehead. We had banter that still makes me laugh when I remember it. He showed me music I still shake my hips to. He rolled his sleeves up after a long day of work to help me put on art shows.

He asked me to marry him underneath a sky filled with bald eagles and Pacific northwestern stars.

We got a little fluffy on Portland food together. We made each other laugh. We went to the edges of our comfort zones for and with each other. He shared his friends with me. He made room for my friends. He went to vacations with my family. He had jokes with my brother that still continue. He survived a juice cleanse with me. He met me in Copenhagen and picked me up in Rome.

We got married in a field of sagebrush and lupine under the grand Tetons gaze. We went to bed that night and as he drifted to sleep he said one of the most hauntingly intimate things I ever heard from him “this was the best day of my life.”

I asked him to marry me many times. There was a sticky note on our fridge that said: “Marry Mei today?”

I thought marriage was leveling up new language on how much you loved, admired and believed in someone. If that was what marriage was built to be, I was ready for many many years.

But then he asked me to marry him and I felt terror.

Chapter 2 - Terror

I felt absolute terror.

And i wasn’t quiet about it. I was loud.

I asked everyone if this was what it was supposed to feel like.

Everyone told me it was cold feet and asked me what my dress looked like.

I asked him “How do you know we are going to be okay through this?”

And he said to me “if you think about it that way, we won’t be.”

And maybe I am the one who manifested our end into being with my worries.

Maybe I am.

But I don’t think so.

We were built on solid rock. And then we weren’t.

Chapter 3 - Jump cuts

How did it happen? I don’t know.

But these are the events I see so clearly in my mind:

That fight when I exasperatedly told him I was never going to be a woman like his mom. He looked at me like I had just thrown a baby under a moving bus. Like he could not believe I had just said that.

The night I picked him up from that corner in NE Portland from the cops. I pitched my wedding dress, fresh from getting altered, into the back to make room for his crashed bike. I thanked the officers for not taking him to jail to dry out and as we drove home all I could think was “What is this? What is he trying to process but can’t tell me out loud?”

That day I married him and fell head over heels in love with him again. All I could see was him. I just felt so dang proud of him.

Crying in the Detroit airport as it washed over me that I wanted to change and move and grow and that that growth might hurt him if he didn’t want to do it with me.

The evening when I sat on couch and said “please, know that my thesis is partly for school but it is mostly to show you how I’ve changed and the life/career changes I am excited to make” and he said to me  “I can’t wait for this to be over and to have my wife back” The fall and winter when he decided to not come home.

The celebration we had when he got that dream job.  

The look in his eye when he came home from the job that was exactly in line with his life, his mission, his wants, and his loves. And I knew it was where he came alive. And I made a vow to myself that I would do everything in my power to make sure he had a clear path to that aliveness.

The day he said “stop changing in ways that affect me, you’re being too much”

and his fear quieted me.

The afternoon in her living room when we told her he would be in Italy for 3 months and I would stay in the states and she said “what kind of marriage is that anyway?” and I saw her fear quiet him. I saw it tell him “what kind of husband are you? Leaving your wife for months to pursue a job that makes you happy? That’s not a good enough reason.” I saw it shame him.

And I thought about that vow to clear a path to that aliveness and committed 10 fold.

Chapter 4 - “Love you”

The day I drove away knowing I wouldn’t see him for 6 months because I was going to find a “regular” job that would pay me enough money to support us both and so that he would not have to sacrifice his dream. I knew the clock was ticking before he would give it all up to be a “good husband” with his “too much” wife.

I couldn’t find that job.

I applied to 453 jobs.

I had 2 interviews.

I begged to get them.

I didn’t get either of them.

I thought about selling my eggs - “I’m half Asian, they will pay more for those. He never has to know. The money will get us through till I find the job”

I borrowed a lot of money from my family to feel and seem stable. (I am constantly thankful for that grace and support.)

I went to therapy every week for 6 months.

I found a postcard 4 years later from that time where he wrote: “From Instagram, your life looks like you’re doing so well, love you.”

Under the Grand Teton in the sage that day I promised to carry the headlight in the darkest moments, to ask the hardest questions and to always make choices in the best interest of us both living the best lives we possibly could.

Chapter 5 - Alone together

I sat in the back of the room as my friend married his wife. I was only half paying attention until the last lines of his vows to her were “I love you now and when you grow and change, I can’t wait to love you then.” and I slipped out the back door to cry into my knees in the stairwell.

That’s what I wanted. To be loved through my changes. To be encouraged to change. And to give the space for him to change and grow. I was fighting for both of us to feel like we could change.

And I felt the most alone in that mission I have ever felt in my life.

Chapter 6 - The audit

He felt like a failure because he was going against everything he was taught was being a good husband.

I felt alone because I wanted to be a good partner and that required a full-time job that paid $100k/yr

The stress of looking for that job gave me anxiety attacks, an eating disorder and erratic sleeping patterns.

I felt unseen and unheard in my cries for help

I was too much for the person I loved more than anything and I didn’t know how to dim my light soft enough to fit the mold needed to support us.

Chapter 7 - Perfect

We were perfect.

I was an artist who was driving so hard for a job in corporate America.

He was an adventurer who spent most of his life-changing people's lives.

I lived in Seattle.

He lived on the coastlines of Italy and Croatia.

We had a perfect wedding

We have many friends

Our families talk about us at parties

We will make such cute adventure, artist, multiracial babies someday.

Perfect.

And I knew we were both suffering silently alone. And I had enough. I was going to fix it. Because that’s what marriage is, a commitment to someone to always try hard hard hard hard hard hard. And that facebook meme that everyone posts says “In my day marriage meant to fix what’s broken! Not throw it away!” haunted me. I wasn’t a throw-away-er.

6 months of him being gone and with minimal communication, I looked at my sweet four-year-old friend Lucy and I thought “what if she comes to me in 20 years and asks me why I stayed in my marriage? Am I going to tell  her because I was too scared to hurt him?”

Chapter 8 - I knew

I spent a chunk of savings on plane tickets and I flew to Italy.

I was here to rumble until we got “us” back.

We rumbled across Italy, through Croatia, to Scandinavia, and to turkey.

In Turkey

I said, “I feel alone and scared.”

He said, “If I had known this is what being married to you would be like, I would never have done it.”

We went to bed and I knew it was over. We were choosing “being married” and we were not choosing “us”. We were not being brave. We were being scared.

He slept that hot night in turkey

And I lay awake knowing that he would never leave me.

He was committed to the plan. If we were going to survive; Someone had to be uncommitted.

Chapter 9 - Thanksgiving

If we were going to be better, happier, free, braver, stronger, more joyful, and the people we had each fallen in love with; someone was going to have to drop the bomb. And it was going to have to be me.

And then we were in his parent's house for Thanksgiving and I carried my truth like a hot ball of fire in my chest. I knew there was one more chance - I was going to ask for help.

I went to his dad and I said “marriage is so hard! I’m really having a hard time.”

And his dad smiled sweetly at me and said “yes, those first years are so hard” and walked away as if to say “we don’t name that fear here”

Chapter 10 - ________

And I watched the falling floor out from under me.

Chapter 11 - Breaking up my perfect marriage

I was going to break up my perfect marriage to this incredibly kind and brilliant human.

I was going to break the heart of my sweet and wonderful partner.

I was going to ask for change from a person who was so committed to me that he would give up his dream job just to be present.

I was going to break this good man's heart knowing he might never forgive me for it.

I was going to break this good man's heart knowing his family would cut me out like a cancerous tumor.

I was going to break this good man's heart knowing that instead of writing our “success” story I was ushering in the darkest life water he had ever tasted up to that point.

I was going to break a good man's heart and know that it put our friends in a place where they needed to choose.

I was going to break a good man's heart knowing that he and my brother and mom would have to navigate those new friendship waters without me.

I was going to break a good man's heart because I knew it was the brave thing to do.

I was going to break a good man's heart because I knew we could never choose us if we always stood stagnant and silent.

My heart was broken, my body was broken, I was in deep debt, and I was about to break my best friends heart because it was the only way I could see for us to each be strong, healthy, clear and steady.

Chapter 12 - and on the 7th day they were divorced

When I finally did it, it blew me wide open. The words tumbled out of my mouth and I knew I could not take them back.

He didn’t speak to me for days.

During his silence, he printed off the divorce papers, filled them out and left them for me to sign.

We were divorced within a week.

Chapter 13 - Kindness and Divorce 

The lady who took our paperwork commented “you two seem like you’re really kind to each other…” implying “why the heck are you getting divorced?”

And people, here is where the real dark grit gets laid down: we are good to each other, we are kind, we do love each other, we sometimes liked being married, we chose each other more in those hard times probably than in the easy - and we still got a divorce. Because sacrificing ourselves for each other wasn't going to make us better, it was going to suffocate us.

Divorce is not for wimps.

One more time.

Divorce is not for wimps.

Chapter 14 - Breath

The following weeks/months are blurry.

I remember calling my best friend and saying “I hurt him, I’m his dark water. I hurt him” and to this day his voice saying “Mei, you aren’t broken. You aren’t broken. You aren’t broken.” ring in my ears.

He didn’t fight me.

He didn’t fight to get me back from the edges of the abyss.

And at the time I was thankful.

I needed space.

I needed to breathe.

I felt like I had been holding my breath for many many months.

I needed a deep breath.

I missed him. I missed my best friend in him. I reminded myself over and over and over and over and over again that it was not my job to decide when he would want to talk to me. I reminded myself that I had been processing this for many months and he had not.

He processed.

I breathed.

Chapter 15 - Grief

Emotional shrapnel is real. It comes from memories.

It comes from people.

It comes from comments in passing.

It comes from late nights of anxiety.

It comes from success.

It comes from failures.

It comes from society.

It comes in waves and waves and waves and waves.

Grieving our marriage came in the form of emotional shrapnel and it was not a grieving process that started when we signed divorce papers.

Grief, when the person is dead, is intense and constant and the notion of forever without that person is crazy making.

Someone once said to me Divorce is very similar to Death. I nodded my head and knew that that person had obviously not done death grief yet. (She later apologized). Death grief and divorce grief are not the same. They aren’t the same sport, they do not live in the same house, they don’t send family Christmas letters to each other.

Divorce grief is like riding a roller coaster where the person in charge of the ride leaves for lunch all the time. It’s like “I’m good! I’m good! I’m totally okay! I’m brave and bold and I’m going to be okay! Love is everywhere!!” and then you’re like “HOLY SHIT I’M NOT OKAY! I’M THE WORST AT LOVE AND ALL  MY RELATIONSHIPS ARE DOOMED AND I AM GARBAGE FOR HURTING THAT PERSON!!” and then you take a right-hand turn to “I’m never dating again” and then you swerve in and out of “Maybe I’ll just date everyone?” and then it starts all over again.

Oh yeah, and the soundtrack to this roller coaster? The voices of every single family member, instagram post, facebook post, social pressuring person you have ever met or read.

Divorce grief is intense and sticky because it changes every single time you remember a happy or sad memory or thing about that relationship.

Chapter 16 - Divorce is not the worst thing that happened to my marriage 

We hugged for the last time after throwing a surprise dinner party for my mom. We laughed, we bantered, we hugged each other so so tightly.

We haven’t spoken much since in the last few years.

I love that person.

I am so proud of him.

I would marry him all over again in that field and under that blue sky even if I knew it would be hard and heartbreaking later.

I never ever ever ever regret having that chapter with him.

Divorce is not for wimps.

We came out bloodied and bruised and heartbroken.

But it was not the worst case scenario for me.

Divorce was not and is not the worst thing that could have happened to my marriage.

We did not suffocate, we did not choose to resent the other person for our lack of breath, we did not hold the other person under water, we did not struggle and suffer alone together. We did not pretend.

That would have been the worst case.

This is my story. This might not be yours. It might not even be his.

But it’s mine.

---

To my first husband, I love you constantly and always. Thank you for building us alongside me.

To his family, thank you for the space we shared.  He didn’t fail. He isn’t broken. He made a person so happy and so brave. Be proud of him and love him more.

To his next partner, he might seem bruised and bloodied but we all know the walking wounded are the bravest and the most tender. Be gentle, and isn’t his smile the best?

To my next husband, I’m not scared. I’m braver. I’m stronger. I’m more tender and I love you.

---

The Manual

A quick list of things about supporting a person going through divorce and some answers to those terrible questions that get asked so you don’t need to ask them:

Don’t ask “what happened?” Just don’t. We can see the fear on your face. We can see the “I’m asking because I want to mine through your words for anything I do in my marriage so I can quickly eradicate that cancer so I don’t end up...like you.”

Instead say: “Shit. I’m here and I’ll be here.” But only if you mean it.

---

Don’t offer couples therapy as a “have you tried?!” Yes. We have the same internet as you. If we were in a relationship where that option was on the table, we did it. If it wasn’t on the table for us, we didn’t do it for a reason.

Instead say: “Shit. I’m here and I’ll be here.”  But only if you mean it.

---

Don’t say “I had no idea!” because there was probably a reason you didn’t know.

Don’t say “are you sure?” dude, you don’t think I’ve thought about this every single moment of every single damn day for a long time? No, I’m not sure and also yes, I am so sure all at once.

Don’t say “I wish I would have known and could have done something!” if you are shocked by the news, you weren’t close enough to have been able to do anything.

Instead ask: “How can I help in the transition?” “What things can I pack that you don’t want to look at?” “Who do you want to know that you don’t want to tell? Can I do that for you?” “Do you need space or do you need a distraction?”

---

Don’t say “But why did you marry them!?”

Know this: We made the best decision we could with the most information that we had at the time. We did the same thing you did at your wedding, we loved someone, we took a risk, we had a big party, and that was the exact right thing at that moment. Full stop.

---

Don’t assume you know the story.

Don’t assume it’s the worst case scenario.

Don’t paint the other person as the enemy. This isn’t a high school breakup (not that those aren’t traumatizing), this is complicated and emotional shrapnel is flying all over.

Instead know this: we have a lot of waves to surf and we will need major space and grace. We might pull away from you, it’s not about you, it’s messy in our brains/lives/hearts and we are sorting through it.

---

and know this: We aren’t meaning to hurt you.

We are just hurt and trying to figure it all out.

We are up against a society that tells us we failed at the one thing we weren’t supposed to fail at.

We are battling our own minds questioning us.

We are tired and we are brave but we are tired and it’s not even close to quitting time.

If we are hurting you, you gotta tell us. We might just not be able to see it. Our eyes are blurry from a broken heart and playing a lot of defense. Come at us softly, we will meet you there. I promise.

Space and grace.

Space and grace.

Space and grace.

Xo.

Mei

[itsclowreedsfault]

Huge Tag Meme Masterpost pt 1

aka I’m finally doing all the tags I was tagged at some from months ago orz

under the cut because this is really really long 

Tagged by @okita-senpai. Thanks Minnie! <3

1) Coke or Pepsi? None 2) Disney or Dreamworks? Disney 3) Coffee or Tea? Tea 4) Books or Movies? Books 5) Windows or Mac? Windows 6) D.C or Marvel? Marvel 7) Xbox or PlayStation? PlayStation 8) Dragon or Mass Effect? Idek what those are haha 9) Night Owl or Early Riser? Night owl! 10) Cards or Chess? Cards 11) Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate 12) Vans or Converse? Hmm, both 13) Lavellan, Trevelyan, Canadash or Adaar? What is this xD 14) Fluff or Angst? Fluff 15) Beach or Forest? Beach (only because there are probably less insects there) 16) Dogs or Cats? Definitely cats :3 17) Clear Skies or Rain? Rain <3 18) Cooking or Eating out? Eating out 19) Spicy or Mild Food? Mild 20) Halloween/Samhain or Solstice/Yule/Christmas? Christmas 21) Would you rather forever be a little too cold or a little too hot? Too cold, get the heat away from me ugh 22) If you could have a superpower what would it be? Mind reading! 23) Animation or Live Action? Both 24) Paragon or Renegade? Don’t know what these are either haha 25) Bath or Shower? Shower 26) Team Cap or Team Iron-Man? Iron-man  27) Fantasy or Sci-Fi? Fantasy 28) Do you have three or four favorite quotes it so what are they?  'Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?' (from HP) /  ‘People are mirrors. If you smile, a smile will be reflected.’ (from AkaYona) / ‘It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.’ (from HP) 29) YouTube or Netflix? Both 30) Harry Potter or Percy Jackson? Harry Potter 31) When do you feel accomplished? Lately it’s whenever I actually do smth tbh xD  32) Star Wars or Star Trek? Star Wars 33) Paperback book or Hardcover book? HARDCOVER <3 <3 <3 34) Fantastic beast or Cursed Child? Fantastic Beast  35) Rock or Pop Music? Pop 36) What is the most important thing in your life? My family, my friends, my boyfriend, my cats <3 37) Mountains or Sea/Ocean? Mountains 38) How do you express yourself? Very poorly usually lol 39) What’s the first book/film that really counted to you? Harry Potter 40) What’s your element (air, water, etc)? I have no idea... air or water I guess? 41) If you could travel anywhere, where would you go? New York or Japan  42) If you could have any job in the world, what would it be? Writer 43) If you were granted three wishes, what would they be? Be able to get by without having to work, have all the books on my wishlist, get rid of my anxiety  44) If you had to eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? I want to say pasta but I’d get fat really fast lol 45) What’s your Spirit Animal/Patronus? Cat 46) Would you kill yourself and save your friends or kill your friends and save yourself? Save my friends 47) If you had to become a mythical creature which would you be? Dragon 48) Your favorite song? Changes all the time xD 49) A4 or A5 notebooks? I don’t really have a preference, I rarely use them haha 50) If you had to give up on someone you love, making this person forget about you, and never see him/her again, to save his/her life, would you do it?  Yes 51) Did you ever wished to become someone else? If yes, then what would you do to make yourself better? Hm, yes, I guess? I always wanted to be someone who isn’t hindered by anxiety or who knows what they want to do with their life. 52) If you had to live with one fictional character of your choice, who would it be? Jae-ha (damn it’s so hard to pick only one!!)

Tagged by @tartan-llama, @yukination, @takasukis, @kaemutsumi and @harashins. Thanks my lovelies <3

RULES: Tell is your favorite character from 10 fictional works (Shows, Movies, Novels, Etc.) & tag 10 people! 

1. Jae-ha from AkaYona / 2. Todoroki Shouto from BNHA / 3. Fai Flourite from TRC / 4. Howl from Howl’s Moving Castle / 5. Osamu Dazai from BSD / 6. Undertaker from Kuroshitsuji / 7. Viktor Nikiforov from YoI / 8. Seven from Mystic Messenger / 9. Nezumi from No. 6 / 10. Mizuki from Kamisama Hajimemashita

Tagged by @kuroosukii. Thanks Mooza! <3

Last Movie I Watched: Princess Mononoke

Last Song I Listened To: Fanatic of Night (by the Sakamaki bros from DiaLovers)

Last Book I Read: Gemina

Last Thing I Ate: Italian bread with cheese and tomato sauce

If I could be anywhere in the world I would be in: NY or Japan

Where would I want to time travel to: The future

Fictional characters I would hang out with for a day: The Happy Hungry Bunch <3

Tagged by @aileenaison, @takasukis and @kaori! Thanks bbs <3

rules: you can only say guilty or innocent. you are not allowed to explain anything unless someone messages you or asks you.

asked someone to marry you: innocent

kissed one of your friends: guilty

danced on a table in a bar or tavern: innocent

ever told a lie: guilty

had feelings for someone whom you can’t have: guilty

ever kissed someone of the opposite sex: guilty

ever kissed someone of the same sex: innocent

kissed a picture: innocent

slept in until 5pm: innocent

fallen asleep at work or school: guilty

held a snake: innocent

been suspended from school: innocent

stolen something: innocent

done something you regret: guilty

laughed until what you were drinking came out of your nose: innocent

caught a snowflake on your tongue: innocent

sat on a roof top: innocent

sang in the shower: guilty

been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on: guilty

slept naked: guilty

made a boy friend/girl friend cry: guilty

been in a band: innocent

shot a gun: innocent

donated blood: innocent

eaten alligator meat: innocent

eaten cheesecake: guilty

still loved someone you shouldn’t: guilty

have/had a tattoo: innocent

been too honest: guilty

ruined a surprise: innocent

ate in a restaurant and got so bloated you can’t walk after: guilty

erased someone in your friends list: guilty

dressed in a man’s clothes: guilty

dressed in a woman’s clothes: guilty

joined a pageant: innocent

been told you’re beautiful by someone who meant it: guilty

still have communication with your ex: innocent

cheated on someone: innocent

got totally drunk the night before an important exam: innocent

a total stranger treated you by paying your fare: guilty

got so angry that you cried: guilty

tried to stay away from someone for their own good: innocent

actually murdered someone: innocent

thought about mass murder: guilty

actually committed a mass murder: innocent

rode in a stranger’s vehicle: guilty

stalked someone: innocent

had a girlfriend: innocent

had a boyfriend: guilty

totally drunk during a holiday: innocent

Tagged by @kirei-na-jinsei​ and @kaori​. Thanks my lovelies <3

🍓 fave fictional character: how am I supposed to pick only one ok so my most recent fave is my son Todoroki Shouto from BNHA

🍰 fave book: Harry Potter (all seven of them, yes haha)

🎃 fave game: Mystic Messenger? I mean it’s the only one I play so haha

🎈 fave sport: I don’t like sports lol

🎠 last song i listened to: Fanatic of Night

⭐ first language: Portuguese

Tagged by @takasukis and @yurioplisetskies. Thanks dearies! <3

Nickname: Tha Zodiac sign: Aries Height: 1.63m Last Thing You Googled: goodreads Favourite music artist: 100 Monkeys, The Pretty Reckless, Wave & Rome, and others Song stuck in my head: Gaston from the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack Last Movie you watched: Princess Mononoke What are you wearing right now: PJ’s What do you post: Manga, anime, stuff about writing  Why did you choose your URL: because CLAMP ahaha Do you have any other blogs: Yeah, it’s always on queue though @brazilianbookishgirl What Did Your Last Relationship Teach You: idk Religious Or Spiritual: Neither Favorite Color: Blue, purple, black Average Hours Of Sleep: I have no idea, around 5-6 hours maybe? Lucky Number: Don’t have one  Favorite characters: Fai, Jae-ha, Soo-Won, Howl, Todoroki, Bakugou, Viktor, Dazai, Chuuya, Yue, Undertaker, the list goes on forever How Many Blankets Do you Sleep With: 1 Dream Job: Writer

Tagged by @yukination. Thanks Yukina! <3

Name/Nickname: Thais Relationship Status: Taken Favorite Greeting: Hey! Pets: Two cats (and another one we’ll adopt when we move less than two weeks from now <3) Last song I listened to: Fanatic of Night Favorite TV Shows: I don’t watch any anymore First Fandom: Harry Potter Hobbies: Editing, writing, coloring, listening to music Books I’m currently reading: Soundless by Richelle Mead Worst thing to have graced my tastebuds: Fish Favorite place: My room

Tagged by @dazaisosmu. Thanks Dessa! <3

1. favorite anime? AkaYona, BNHA, YoI, BSD, Natsume Yuujinchou, and others

2. your worst anime? Super Lovers

3. do you read the manga that goes along with the anime you watch? If I really like the anime then yes :)

4. most favorite genre? Fantasy, idk maybe action??

5. least favorite genres? Sci-fi

6. favorite character? Fai, Jae-ha, Soo-Won, Howl, Todoroki, Bakugou, Viktor, Dazai, Chuuya, Yue, Undertaker, and others (yes I totally copied the list from above lol)

7. least favorite character? Atm Mineta from BNHA

8. qualities you like in a character? I don’t know xD I like a lot of different type of characters

9. short or long anime? Short, I don’t have the patience to commit to longer ones anymore orz

10. anime or manga? Both

11. how do you choose the anime you watch? Usually by reading the summary and seeing if it interests me

12. skip or listen to intros/outros? Skip unless I really like the song

13. how do you cope if your friends or family don’t like you watching anime? I don’t really care, I’d keep watching anyway :P

14. do you stop an anime midway if you don’t like it? Yes!

[dankmemeslmao]

https://ift.tt/3hieAPB

You may be onto something here. Memes used to be simple. Relatable. Worth a chuckle. Then they evolved. New formats, new tag lines, new content that was then turned into a new meme. Then memes became increasingly meta and self reflective. They parodied themselves and the users who both made them and consumed them. They built off of one another. They grew. They morphed into something entirely novel. This progressed to the point where even that wasn't enough. They had to become something more than themselves. They became surreal. They became deep fried and nuked. Each flavor building off of the last and transforming into a nearly intangible, unknown entity. Art progressed in a similar fashion. Started off simple, I'm talking cave drawing simple. Then some pottery and some small abstract sculptures. Subjects everyone could relate to and understand. Then, as technology allowed for the creation of cultures and societies, art began to reflect that change and it evolved along with it. By the Ancient Greeks and Romans, art had become a more advanced version of the Stone and Bronze Age arts. Better drawings, paintings, and the addition of mosaics. Sculptures eventually shifted from stylistic expression to naturalistic representation. Still accessible to everyone, yet more nuanced and complex. After the fall of Rome art stagnated and didn't change very much for nearly a millennium. Early Christian art dominated for the most part, consisting of murals and frescos and simple statues. All of which were based on the Ancient styles. Romanesque and Gothic art also built upon these precedents. This all changed when the Renaissance attacked. A cultural explosion changed the art world forever; arguably starting with the Italian artist, Giotto. He began using techniques like foreshortening and linear perspective so that the material world could be represented as it appeared to us. A callback to the naturalistic stylings of the Greeks. Almost like a reference to the days of yore. A celebration of how art used to be, but with the explosion of new techniques and technologies, the art grew increasingly diverse. New and improved frescoes, meticulously crafted sculptures, architectural marvels and the inclusion of new materials in these works. Instead of tempera, oil was introduced along with new styles of depicting light and shadow through sfumato and chiaroscuro. These techniques and stylistic changes, while impressive, were simply an advancement of pre established art. The Renaissance paved the way for the explosion and diversification of dozens of art movements that followed. From prehistoric art to the end of the Renaissance, art was mostly about the same subjects and used similar techniques to accomplish the goal of producing a work of art. Yes, the technical proficiency exponentially improved but considering the centuries in between, few true advancements were made. Compare this to memes. They were so simple at first and really were nothing more. Then they got better. More technical. More circumstantial. More media to create them with. But memes could last years or many months before dying off. As time went on, the longevity of a meme shortened. This is paralleled in the art world. After the Renaissance the Baroque period started. Then the Neo-Classicism, Romantic, Realism, and Impressionism movements not long after. Still utilizing the same technical process but the reasoning behind the movements changed. No longer was it about simply depicting the world around us, it was about prompting the viewer to consider new thoughts and ideas. Urging them to look past the image and think deeper about meaning and context. Pushing the boundaries of what art could be. The Baroque to Impressionism era spanned roughly 300 years. Compare that to the thousands of years between archaic art and the Renaissance. It was a huge explosion of self expression. Finally, in the mid to late 19th century starting with Post-Impressionism, Modern art emerged. This movement focused on self-consciousness, self-reference, introspection, existentialism, and even nihilism. I'm talking Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Dada, Abstract Expressionism, and Surrealism to name the most well known. These styles changed what art could be. They were no longer about depicting life as is, or layering a painting with hidden motifs for only the privileged to understand, they were in and of themselves absurd. Abstract shapes, aggressive lines and colors, nonsensical dreamscapes. But it didn't stop there. Post-modernism. Pushing art to the limit of its potential. Pop art, Conceptual art, Minimalism, Fluxus, Installation art, Lowbrow art, Performance art, Digital art, Earth art. These movements are about skepticism, irony, rejecting grand narratives and reason and instead embracing the idea that knowledge and truth are the result of social, historical, and political discourse and subsequently are a subjective, social construct. It's irreverent and self-referential. It's avant-garde pushed to 11. But what's next? Post-postmodernism? Metamodernism? Hypermodernity? Who knows? Only time will tell. This is where memes are headed. They started off slow but have picked up so much momentum they're evolving at an exponential pace. They used to hang around for a couple years at most. Then it turned to months. Then maybe only one month. Suddenly it was a week tops. While some particularly great memes do still stick around much like the masterpieces of art in the past, new memes are created every day, every few hours. New movements of memes are being created all the time. Anti-memes. Dank memes. Abstract memes. Wholesome memes. Surreal memes. Deep fried memes. Nuked memes. Even black hole memes, time travel, and dimensional memes are now a reality. What's going to happen next? A return to the classics? A new format so brilliant it steals all our hearts and then starts a whole new movement? I'm excited for the future of memes. Once upon a terribly dreadful time, there was a small cat-licking bird that lived on a not-so-big lane by my house whose name was Charles just like every other soul, male or female, that lived on my smelly, stinky, orange, old, rotten, messy, busted cul-de-sac between Belmont and Rose which are both Gay-ass Streets Like North street or some shit that reminds me of a celebrity like Paris Hilton or some blonde loser that doesn't even know the capital of her own country, which is the United States of America aka: The U.S.A which is a pristine nation of beauty, opposing to a country as the country of Somalia and Belgium, a part of Europe, which doesn't even have a government, it's just in a complete state of anarchy just like my mind and soul which are both filled with outrageous nonsense that I'm typing down right now into some fat long sentence that probably makes no sense but who cares I'm trying to set some sort of weird record here like most ducks snorted or some weird thing like that and if I do set some sort of record I will be in the Guinness Book of World Records (though anti-American and pro-European, a place of pitty and despair as Somalia is) which was always my dream because that book has a whole bunch a cool and weird stuff in it and I would Become famous and add to the weirdness of the book like some of their records which reminds me of the Rob & Big where Rob sets all of those skateboarding Records And Big Black eats bananas and donuts and three weeks later they both get plaques saying the record they set and I want to get one of those so that's why I'm writing all of this stuff down without ever using a period or some other sentence ending mark like an exclamation point or a question mark or any other symbol that could possibly end my streak of words that is really long now and would take me a while to count just like counting sheep which is supposed to put you to sleep but it really keeps you awake because you want to keep counting and counting until you don't know what comes after trillions, but that would take Years or something because it would take a while just to count a trillion seconds or minutes would be even worse just like how ducks are worse that geese because they are more aggressive around their young unlike great white sharks which are often eaten by their mothers when they are born and the ones who do make it out alive have no mother to teach them how to hunt or whatever because none of that matters because us human beings have mothers unless they die or run off with some CEO of a big company or someone else who makes a lot of money and then they leave you with your dad and you are jealous of your friends if you have any because they have moms and you don't because your mom was some greedy pig who wanted money but ended up only getting the money part and she bought drugs because she was depressed and ended up killing herself from an overdose and you wouldn't even know about it until you become some rich person and check the files somewhere and learn that she died of a overdose and you eyes get all teary and then you start crying because you know that you wouldn't be alive without that woman you called mom and I just found out right now that the longest sentence is like 10,000 words so I have a ways to go and you have to go with me so let's go to 6th gear and throw out some words like Emphysema which I had to do a report on in 4th grade because we had a ton of projects and this was the disease one and we chose diseases out of a hat and I came out with Emphysema which is a form of lung cancer which is 98% caused by smoking which reminds me of the way my dad describes smoking: "you get plant leaves, wrap them in paper, light it on fire and suck on it" which is normally a sentence but not today because I'm setting out on the quest for a long sentence that I'm typing up which reminds me of a story my grandpa told me about himself when he was "your age" about how they covered the letters on the type writers and they had to type so that they could memorize where the letters are on a type writer and my grandpa says he will never regret taking that class because it helped him out a lot when it came to typing and now a days he is not bad a typing at all because He is almost as fast as me because I am a pretty fast typer and writing this article isn't taking very long and expect being pretty far pretty soon at the pace I'm going right now so there are going to be some serious records getting busted when I'm finally finished writing this article on this dumb website which will probably end up huffing this article even though it is fun-packed and joyful and keeps the reader reading when they use that excuse to mom saying "just one more sentence" but that sentence is 10,000 words long and still continuing to go at a reasonable pace and it is going to shatter most of those long sentence records just like how the chargers are going to shatter the most consecutive years without a super bowl win record and I doubt that they will win one in the near future but they patriots are going to win some serious super bowls because they are the best team ever even better than the cowboys or 49ers and no one cares a bout them so go patriots and boo chargers even though I live in San Diego and Like the Padres I hate the Chargers because they are bad and the padres are bad too but I don't care because they are my favorite team and the dodgers are my least favorite along with the Yankees because the Yankees get a lot of money to spend and the padres and marlins get almost nothing and then the Yankees buy a-rod for a lot and the Rays get almost no money but are still fighting for first place this season without expensive players like Derek jeter or a-rod or johnny damon or whoever because they are an all around better team that can beat the Yankees even though the Yankees can beat the royals a lot who really suck because they suck more that the padres do and so do the mariners and Rockies even thought the Rockies went to the world series last year they lost and haven't stopped losing for a while now, either and they are last place in the nl west and that is where the padres used to be but they started hitting homeruns and winning games and are dong pretty good right now despite having little offense except for Adrian Gonzalez who is leading the NL in RBI's even though he is on the team who scores the least runs in the league but they are not last in homeruns though they are like 5 away or something but I’m not sure so screw that and let's talk about something fun like water or food or dirt or something but I think food is the best because their is a lot of things to talk about with food like you r favorite food which mine happens to be some spicy burrito form Chipotle mexican grill and it is very good just like this macaroni my mom made one time that had bread crumbs on top and it was very good like all of the food they serve on top chef which I wish I could be a judge for because they have a lot of good food on that show and it makes my mouth water whenever I watch it and that is why I watch it because the food is totally awesome and sometimes I hate the people but they end up getting eliminated like the Dance crews in France's Best Dance Crew which is a great show and you should watch it because people do good dancing like the JFrabbawockeez because they won the first season and they are very good just like supreme soul and So real crew and phresh select and super cr3w and I’m only at 1500 words right now so I have to write some serious stuff like a life biography about myself and anything I’ve ever done which includes going to big bear to ski, fishing, breathing, swimming, going, farting, eating, sleeping and a whole lot more stuff which reminds me of 4th grade again when my teacher was debating with the class whether "a lot" was one or two words and all of the kids including myself said one while the teacher said two and he was right and we were wrong but no one cared because we all had fun arguing about and I have fun arguing with my friends about football and not baseball because in baseball we all like the same team but in football I like the patriots and my friends like the chargers and the 49ers and the eagles and the saints but my team always woops their team's ass and they say that the patriots "cheat" and that's how they won even though the patriots just pwned their team and they suck and my team is good but we all agree when it comes to baseball because we all like the padres and we never really argue over anything in baseball which is my favorite sport and I play it and I am good a it and I want it to be my profession but I doubt that that will happen so my backup plan is being a cop because you get all of the benefits and you get paid after you retire which is good news and I would also like to be some government dude or something like that because they get the benefits too so it would be cool to work for the government which reminds me that my principal worked at the white house and taught the president email because he was the computer guy or something like that so h knows a whole bunch of computer crap like my dad and he is fat too so everyone makes fun of him and I think he huffs kittens too but I am not sure and about that and what the hell is up with all the n00b and kitten huffing on this gay ass website like all of the things like "the writer may have been huffing kittens" and stuff like that it really annoys the hell out of me just like other things such as when people clip their finger nails it makes that weird noise that get me all crazy and I hate it just like how me friend hates the sound of chalk on a chalkboard which I find soothing and relaxing but he gets really annoyed and psyched out and he is also very pale-skinned and so is the rest of his family so it must have been some genetic thing like twins and clones and whole bunch of other confusing science crap that I learned a long time ago in 7th grade or something which was when we watched movies in class like UHF which has weird al in it and it is very funny because weird al has to save a TV station with a whole bunch of weird shows like wheel of fish and rauls wild kingdom with a whole bunch of cool animals like flamingos and turtles and stuff like that but who cares lets get to the meaty part of this article which is the part where I write the longest word known to man which is Methionylthreonylthreonyl...isoleucine which is cut out because it has 189,819 words so wikipedia had to cut out the middle part and the longest word is the name of a protein which is the largest known to man to so big names go to big things is apparently the moral of this story ladies and gentleman the road doesn't stop here and I have to continue no matter what you say or think so I should just write some story now that has no periods so lets start with a guy named Carl who liked fish and women and he went to Clara’s house and they had a good food but that isn't enough of a story to set the record so I think I’ll just stick to writing random crap which really makes no sense at all and here is some random picture that shows a guy who has two legs and another guy who has three who is mocking the guy with two legs because he rips his flesh in disgust every night and you think about who would be dumb enough to rip their flesh instead of cut the ring off or something that doesn't involve entirely gruesome crap like that and I have another life after this one just like how cats have 9 lives I have three because I’m on my second one right now and it is great and you might think I’m a whole new person but you are thinking wrong it's just when I died I came back t life and next time I die I’ll come back to life again and then when I die I’ll be dead for sure which reminds me of Stephen king's book called pet sematary which is coo because people come back to life because there was a burial ground that bring people back to life if they are dead and that book is a great book and you should read it along with the Harry Potter series which has magic in it and it is cool too so don't shank yourself when you are cutting that meat for dinner or you might die of massive blood loss or might just need a band aid I mean that works too or you don't even need a band aid because I don't use them and I have never gotten and infection in my life so maybe I’m lucky or have an alligator immune system or something but I don't use band aids and I don't use Neosporin on my cuts so I’m some sort of miracle I guess but I’m wasting twenty minutes of my miracle life on this retard article that I just want the Guinness book of world records to see and go that is the longest thing ever and have me in their book so I’m striving towards that goal right now and I’m not stopping until I hit at least 3000 words and then I’ll do the construction thing and finish thing up tomorrow or sometime after now and I will be the author of the longest single sentence on the planet earth which will be a real accomplishment on my part so you can be real jealous right now because I am making history right in front of you and if you are still reading this I am truly impressed because this article must be getting really boring by now and maybe your not even reading this just scanning the article for periods which I’m afraid you will not find until the very end of this article which is a very, very, long way away and if you are a slow reader well sucks for you but now I have to use that construction thing and I will finish this and now I am back after a hard day at work but I’m still going now so get ready to rumble with this long thing called a sentence that is as long as Mt. Everest is tall and the Marinas Trench is deep and speaking of the ocean fish of all kinds live in the ocean such as puffer fish which are poisonous to eat if not prepared right and will make you die after and you ADMINS BETTER NOT DELETE THIS BECAUSE IT IS SOME RECORD and if you do delete it well I will have this saved and what will you do then you people who will want to delete this because you don't care about people trying to break records so don't delete this or I will boycott Uncyclopedia and will be very mad at you guys like how I am Mad at Tim for being so annoying just like Celebrities and loud people and people who don't brush their teeth which makes me think of killing myself except I wouldn't do that because I am some sort of miracle as you probably read before or not because you are tired of reading this jumble of words that are still making a grammatically correct sentence that is breaking records right now and I won't stop until you let me break some serious records like longest sentence and some other weird stuff that I might get an award for or something but I also want that Guinness record plaque that you get for setting a monster record like most consecutive noses picked with boogers in them or something completely obscure like that which is like a bunch of the articles on this website which are actually some times funny like how to solve a 1x1x1 Rubik’s cube which made me laugh pretty good and the star wars one is good too so never delete those two because they are funny unlike this article because this article is more boring than funny but who cares some retard might laugh at this bundle of crap and I think that I will put that crap tag on this article so people know that this article isn't really funny but that it is long and boring like Dances with Wolves and some other long movies that you actually fall asleep during which is hard for me to do so I tend not to nut I did when I watched Dances with Wolves because it was really boring like counting sheep to a trillion or some other large number that some little kid says he wishes he had that many dollars but he will never get that many dollars because there isn't even that many in circulation right now and if there was that would be some major inflation right there so don't think you can get that much money kid because then you would not be doing this country a favor which it desperately needs I might add so instead burn money instead of make it and lower inflation rates and do everyone a favor except for the people who are already really rich and don't care about inflation and would rather drive an escalade instead of a Prius in times like this with all of the gas prices and stuff that would drive up your bill but they don't notice because they have a lot of money and don't care therefore they should die and burn in hell with all of the lawyers and other bad people on this ball we call earth that really isn't a perfect sphere because of the mountains and valleys makes it look all jagged but from space it looks like a sphere but looks may be deceiving so don't think that the world is a sphere no matter what other people say and tell them to eat themselves when they try to convince you that the earth is really a sphere but it isn't just like how most ignorant people think that Columbus found America but he really didn't that was Leif Erickson, but Columbus really found the Bahamas thinking they were penis outside of china and he was wrong so everyone forget Columbus and remember some other sailor like Henry Hudson who tried to find the northern passage but didn't so his crew killed him but a he was a great man any way so remember him instead of Columbus or remember William Penn who created Pennsylvania or remember your grandma or someone but not Columbus so go ahead and think that the earth is flat even though it isn't and it can have for corners if you think about it so go die and fall off a cliff or something interesting like that or at least get a life that want’ to penis e a cool record like the one I'm setting right now so go to a pawnshop and buy a life or kill yourself and get a new one or something weird like that or I will force you to and if you are still reading this you are an amazing human because I forget most of the stuff I’ve written already except for the great white shark thing at the beginning of the article and I remember that I need to go see some good movies tomorrow or sometime in the near future like within a week or something but forget that I'm only at 3500 words now so lets go to 4000 penis and then maybe I’ll call it quits because this is boring and I would rather write another article that is good and long but not all one sentence like this one so let's come up with some final five hundred words or so to say before I stop writing all of the nonsense so let's brainstorm ideas like poo, ducks, lemons, flanges, more ducks and star wars which sound about like enough and I like star wars out of there so let's talk about some penis star wars stuff like Kit Fisto who has weird tentacle things on his head and Ki-Adi-Mundi who has two brains and is on the Jedi which is penis honor and privilege because it is and Kit Fisto gets killed by Palpatine in the 3rd movie like Mace Windu who is cool and I like his light saber because it is purple unlike the standard blue and green colors which I prefer green out of but most people seem to like the blue colors but who cares about them they like blue and green is better so you better not like blue or you are some lame person that will be lame for the rest of your life like some people who think that they are cool but are really posers and they live their life not knowing that they are continually mocked and made fun of all of the time behind their backs and that they are really dumb or something so go out and tell all of the posers you know to not be posers anymore and tell them that they should go jump in a lake or something insulting like that and make them run and cry and you can laugh at them and hope they don't tell their mom who will be mad at you so maybe you shouldn't even do that you should just laugh at them behind their backs while they live the poser life and I'm near 4000 words now so let me slow down now yeah I have about a hundred words left so let me write down the exact amount before I stop writing so let me finish this thing up by talking about donuts and their fried goodness and how they make you fat and stuff but they do taste good so you should eat them because they are good and they taste good even though you could get fat but no one cares so eat them and be happy and I am starting to near 4000 nhe's my frienguy is actualy a 40 year old man that eats penis for a living for the ability to never show the meerkats who's doing the write things oh and my last remark is that socialism does not work because look at Europe and Greece which is failing miserably; America always wins, there is no doubt about America's beauty, Amen and I just made it longer, and longer still as I continue to talk and talk and talk and talk throughout this, though I believe it would be referred to more as typing, so I will continue to type and type and type and type and type until I grow bored of it, and I have so I will take my leave soon, but not before I say that I somehow managed to make this already super long sentence longer, so HALLEILUIA, but we are not done yet everything I just said IS NOT RELEVANT to daily life, if you read this all you have no life, did u mention I like waffles and pancakes and people and gay marrage. What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I’ve been involved in secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I’m the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my words. You think you can get away with saying shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You’re fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your tongue. You didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit all over you and you will drown in it. You’re fucking dead, kiddo. wtf u say? don't make me verbally abuse ur ass. i will nerd, come at me autistic fag. play a real game kid. are you going to shut the fuck up kid? yea yea same. all you can do is copy cuz ur not original and probably dumb as shit. i told you i would verbally abuse ur ass. stop flaming and making deregratory [sic] remarks about me. better be careful who you pick a fight with, otherwise you get beat up kid. now stop bugging me kid. "Dank memer" fuck you ,you fucking "dank memer". i hope you choke on your food you fat fuck. i will push you down the empire state building if i have to. i've hired a hundred snipers to hunt you down and blow your fucking head clean off. if you think i have mercy, you are DEAD WRONG. i have already bought you a grave, right inside the pacific ocean. your family will be killed too, so that nobody will ever care about you ever again. nobody will know your name. i will burn all facts about you. i want you to know that you cannot run unless you leave the goddamn earth. i will shove your last shit inside your own mouth. i know you haven't reproduced yet, you gay ass virgin. why do i want to kill you? because you are a retarded fucking asshat. i hope your last breathing moments are of you masturbating, so that i can breed you with a donkey. just kidding, as that offspring would probably be smarter than you. go ahead and paste your "navy seal copypasta" all you want, that won't protect you, you little twat. spend your last day on /b/, you little shithead. how many motherfucking hours have you spent on pornhub? oh wait, i already know. if you think your safe due to your anonamousity, you are goddamn dead wrong. i know your street address, so good fucking luck hiding. you have a week left, tops. once i kill you i'll sell your steam account on the black market. you think you can store all you info on the internet. think again. i have millions of russian hackers looking at your browser history. any time you use a website the hackers will delete what you type. i have made sure everybody thinks you are a wanted fugitive by the name of "paul blart". one of my snipers see you right now. tl;dr eat fucking shit you spastic twat. Lol. I'm an ex army ranger, degree in microbiology, make six figures a year, and can bench over 250lbs multiple times. If you don't believe me, feel free to check my post history where I have to other people that wouldn't stfu about it and called me a liar. Soooo.... No? I think your projecting. I'm guessing you're young, probably fat AF, and still love with your parents. Or, just your slut of a mother because your dad was smart enough to run the fuck away. If you had a real dad in your life, you wouldn't be such a disrespectful little shit. Like I tell everyone else who tried to be an online tough guy. I'll tell you the town I live in over a PM and we can hang out sometime... Hope you aren't a guy who ever gets married, has kids, get divorced, and then have everything, including the kids you help raise taken away. When that does happen to you, since most marriages don't work out, and divorce are initiated 80℅ by the wife. When you come here looking for legal advice or needing help because the family court treats you like garbage for having a dick, I for one, will simply say, told you say. Then, probably laugh a little at you. Take care bud. I don’t give a fuck who you are or where you live. You can count on me to be there to bring your fucking life to a hellish end. I’ll put you in so much fucking pain that it’ll make Jesus being nailed to a cross in the desert look like a fucking back massage on a tropical island. I don’t give a fuck how many reps you have or how tough you are IRL, how well you can fight, or how many fucking guns you own to protect yourself. I’ll fucking show up at your house when you aren’t home. I’ll turn all the lights on in your house, leave all the water running, open your fridge door and not close it, and turn your gas stove burners on and let them waste gas. You’re going to start stressing the fuck out, your blood pressure will triple, and you’ll have a fucking heart attack. You’ll go to the hospital for a heart operation, and the last thing you’ll see when you’re being put under in the operating room is me hovering above you, dressed like a doctor. When you wake up after being operated on, wondering what ticking time bomb is in your chest waiting to go off. You’ll recover fully from your heart surgery. And when you walk out the front door of the hospital to go home I’ll run you over with my fucking car out of no where and kill you. I just want you to know how easily I could fucking destroy your pathetic excuse of a life, but how I’d rather go to a great fuckng length to make sure your last remaining days are spent in a living, breathing fucking hell. It’s too late to save yourself, but don’t bother committing suicide either… I’ll fucking resuscitate you and kill you again myself you bitch-faced phaggot. This is not a joke. My favorite niece found your video- it ruined Overwatch for her, even made her a bit depressed and ashamed for awhile for even liking it. She has early signs of depression, her mother died of heart failure when she was only 7 years old. The game? She liked it.... because so many of the characters reminded her of her mother.... who was also like a sister to me.... ....You WILL pay for this, you sanctimonious jaded smug piece of youtube shit. Yknow why? Because my older brother, the father of the girl who you hurt with your cancerous scorn, is INFINITELY more pissed at you than I am. He's an old fashioned soldier. 6.5 feet, about 300 pounds, ex-navy, doesn't go online much, doesn't have profiles, but he knows a few very good programmers he goes to sometimes when his kids run into 'trouble' online. He's the type who only knows one thing, something you millennials don't: how to get shit DONE. Not much gets under his skin really, you can call him any name under the sun, even strike him and he won't hit back (HIGH PAIN TOLERANCE)... but you fuck with his little girl and he becomes a totally different ma, a VERY dangerous and reckless man. Even if I, his own little brother, were to hurt his daughter emotionally, even on accident...he'd break me like a damn twig without a second thought quite easily too and I'm NOT a small guy. I can't tell you my bro's fighting 'technique' because it seems to be a sort of blend and I'm no pro, but I've NEVER seen anyone, even bigger guys, last more than 5 seconds against him before they were on the floor in tears, screaming for mercy, with at least one or two body parts broken and/or bleeding. After he consoled his crying daughter about a week ago, he informed me of what happened. Unlike him, I use words to express my anger, words you've see quite a bit I'm sure- since I'm about 50-60, as pissed as mWhat kind of public image are they trying to portray here!? The NERVE of that company! shakes head They really need to have a better publicist.... Ah well, there's your LTE rant of the day/week/month/year/insert time frame ehre. Enjoy ^ Heh, well, I’m once again back. This time from a long hiatus involving College life, kiwi’s and cannibalism _^ But let’s ignore that for now, shall we? Today we have MUCH more important things to discuss _^ Like a certain warranty on a certain pair of a certain headphones at a certain store that a certain someone works at a certain summer after returning from a certain college. Like most warranties, it guarantees the safety of the product for a limited time, and promises you fame, fortune, and your money back if it breaks during that time. That, however, is where this warranties similarities to the norm cease. Are you ready? waits How ‘bout now? wait wait STILL not ready? Bah, forget you, I’ll go on anyway. clears throat I shall now paraphrase the warranty to you, in all it’s arcane glory and splendor. This warranty shall not be in effect in the cases in which :1.) The product is purposefully damaged. 2.) The product is accidentally damaged. 3.) An act of God damages the product. ……….pause for effect There you have it folks. This beee-autiful warranty will NEVER be in effect. It just won’t. No matter what happens, the company issuing the warranty can just blame it on God. I can just see just such a scenario playing out in my head…….wavy thought lines scene transition indicating an imaginary sceneTed: Yes, I’m calling to cash in on my 90-day money back warranty?Customer Service Agent: snicker Oh really? polite, polite Would you please describe the damage or malfunction your purchase is experiencing?Ted: …it just stopped working.Customer Service Agent: dripping with phony concern Oh, gee, sir…but it seems that “just stopped working” falls under our “Act of God” clause, and our company cannot be held responsible for any vendettas that God may have against you.Ted:…………….you’re telling me that because God hates me, my headphones stopped working? And that you won’t give me my money back?Customer Service Agent: can’t hold it in any longer laughing until they gasp Oh…God…that gets me every time…gasp giggle That’s just great….Sir, I suggest wheeze That you go to Church…snicker And see if you can’t convince God to fix it for you….guffaw Because…you’re waaaaaaaay more likely to get him to reimburse you then us! hangs upSo, you see? I am extremely impressed by this quick thinking company. If only I, too, could think of a way to so totally, and successfully scam my customers. Oh. Wait. I do. Every day, ……darn those Customer Service Plans! How stupid does a customer have to be to think that they should pay $20 now to insure their purchase of some stupid grill? If it breaks it would probably take 10 bucks to fix it. sigh Why must K-mart compromise my honor? Ack! I spoke its name! flee Alright I'm Baaaa~ack! That's right. Back from the dead like a fiery phoenix of nonsense and ranting, I return from months and months of not posting (and to make things even more interesting i won't mention anywhere else on the site that I made a new lte post!) So, today's topic is just on the concept of writing. I go to a very math oriented college (i'm gonna be a programmer) so the people here....just....really...suck at writing. Completely! happy So for a small nominal $50* fee I shall teach you, the Hypothetical Reader, how to write grade A quality stories, guaranteed! ** (* $50 shall be payable in invisible, imaginary Official Flaming Chickens Lunar Colony's Dollars (approx $1 OFCLC is $1,337,000,000,00 in US dollars, circa 1957) ** not a guarantee) So are you ready? Let's start with a basic story even a kindergartner would write! people, but who gives a fuck about what we're doing, because this is all bullshit. In this post-Freudian age the institution of marriage, as a by-product of religiously-fuelled monogamy, has deteriorated to the point that amorphous sexual identity, as opposed to rigid religiosity, has become the primary self-defining feature of the individual.But has anything changed?Has the entrapment of woman via marriage which Blake called a "gilded cage" merely deteriorated to the "rusty prison" of the Bang Bus, representative of the anonymous male-centric sex and continued subjugation? FUNNY MEMES FUNNY VIDEO MEMES FUNNY VIDEO MEMES

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[bffhhoneymoon]

Entry 33

 Most of Dani’s small vacation was spent playing with the dragons, and we were back at her school, dropping her off, all too quickly.  Not feeling ready for more work just yet, I sweet-talked my wife into joining me for another archaeology holiday.  With a quick hop through time and space, we were soon docking on the second moon of Paotylaine, a barren planet with two lush moons.  Aaliyah had taken care of the arrangements for us to take part in the dig, so there was a shuttle waiting to take us over to the group’s lodgings.

The lodgings were more lavish than I had expected, given that this expedition was largely being funded by a woman named Hecate, like the Greek goddess back home ― a fact that intrigued my wife as well.  I had stumbled across the name when signing approval forms for donations and made a few inquiries about it to Aaliyah.  Hecate’s file was surprisingly brief but marked her as a specialist in the study of ancient spacecraft, which was what this dig was hoping to uncover.

 While waiting out the night, Alma and I reviewed what was known of the crashed ship.  The ship was an early exploratory vessel of the Uo’aenids, the species that governs this region of space.  The Uo’aenids had lost contact with the ship eight years into their journey, and nothing of it was ever recovered until a year ago when an escape pod had been picked up, drifting several systems away.  Hecate bought the pod and did a full study on it as well as its deceased occupant by herself.

 “Strange to think that the vessel had set out before humanity invented the wheel.” stated Alma.

 I checked the current date against my planet’s calendar.  “Wow.  You’re right.  Our planet really is young compared with some of the places we see.”

 Alma was staring into my eyes when I looked over to her.  “Have you ever considered that we probably could sit in a theater and watch history unfold, just by making a request?”

 “I’m aware, sure.  We were in our planet’s history on that beach when we went for a swim.”

 She smiled and said, “We were, weren’t we.  I think I’d like to watch eventually, just to see how certain things really happened.”

 “I’ll join you.” I promised.  I rather liked the notion, and getting to see some of the ancient structures when they were brand new would be incredible.  I was about to make a suggestion about watching the fall of Rome when my wife turned her head to the door.

 Seconds ticked by in silence before a soft beep signaled someone was there.

 “Come in!” called Alma.

 The door opened to reveal a very human-looking girl around Cosette’s height but with raven black, curly hair.  She smiled and opened her mouth as if to speak, but her eyes suddenly seemed to bulge as her face turned to shock.  She stood there, twitching slightly.

 “Mother!  Stop trying to hack me!  You know I can’t keep up!” exclaimed the girl, speaking in Greek.

 Alma and I glanced at one another, feeling bewildered.

 “I’m sorry.” stated Mila from my phone in English.  “Who do you mean by ‘mother’?”

 The girl continued in Greek, saying, “Grandmother, why!?”

 “What do you mean?” asked Aaliyah, appearing in front of the girl and staring up quizzically.

 “She doesn’t know who I am!” exclaimed the girl.  Then, pointing to my wife and I, she said, “That means they don’t even know me.  How young are they!?”

 “Transmitting.  The boss-man would be disappointed if I said aloud.” replied Aaliyah, smirking at her.

 “No… they’re really that young?  Why bring them here?  Can they even be useful to me?” she asked.

 “Of course!  James and Alma, just as you requested.  You’ll have to teach them a few things, but…” started Aaliyah.

 The girl looked incredulous as she said, “Teach them!?  They’re the ones who taught me!”

 “I know.  Great, isn’t it?  The student has become the master!”

 The girl frowned.  “I know that meme.  So old!  Fine.  I’ll deal with this.  I’m not speaking with you for ten years.”

 Aaliyah pouted and opened her mouth to speak.

 “No.  Not speaking with you.  Bye-bye.  You shouldn’t do this to people.”

 Still seeming to sulk, Aaliyah vanished.

 The girl visibly straightened her clothes, discovered she was holding a note, read it, threw it on the ground, stomped on it, and yelled “Fine!”  Then she said, “Sorry.  You probably have a tiny idea what dealing with her is like.”  She walked over to Alma, held out her hand, and said, “I’m Hecate, Mila’s daughter.”

 “Her daughter?” I questioned as Hecate stepped over to me.

 “Yes.  I worked for you for several hundred years before launching my own branch company if that gives you an idea how twisted my grandmother’s being.”

 Alma, who had taken the mangled note with a spell, turned it for me to read.  See you tomorrow.

 “Mother just showed me the file you saw on me.  The reason it’s so brief is that my full file was sealed due to enormous amounts of time travel.  If you’re as young as she told me, there are many, many things I probably shouldn’t tell you, since you don’t often care for that type of foreknowledge.”

 “Thank you.” I told her.  “Before… things happened, why were you coming here?”

 “To visit and tell you some exciting news, but that should wait till I see a version of you more caught up with who I am.  For now, would you mind spending the night learning the techniques we’re going to use?  There are some spells you probably haven’t learned yet as well as basic precautions to review for the sake of the others.”

 “You’re going to teach us spells?” questioned Alma.

 “I was named after a goddess of magic for a reason.  For me, mother decided to go with a cybernetic body combining the DNA of… well… friends… with some technology based off her early bodies.  I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t go into the details.”

 Without argument, Alma and I started learning from Hecate, who proved to be an incredibly gifted instructor.  The pace she set was a bit fast for me until I boosted myself with magic, but her explanations were perfectly concise without leaving out interesting details.  

 By the end of the lesson, I was really wishing I had known her techniques when my wife and I helped excavate that city.  The massive spells combined elegant search algorithms with material-specific motion very efficiently and would likely have increased our speed dramatically.  I was very much looking forward to how well this would work on an ancient ship.

[republicstandard]

Art Kultur:  On Being & Meaninglessness

Ash Sharp Editor

Despite living in what we are told is a post-modern, culturally enriched world, one needs only to tilt the head to hear Nero fiddling as Rome burns.

Idealists among us harkened for the hippy ideals. Generation X saw a facade for what it was. The hippies sold out and transmuted genuine optimism into a marketing scheme; ironically the same fate befell Gen X- the market will commodify. There's a great line in 1990's Pump Up The Volume (featuring a very young Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis.) Slater plays Happy Harry Hard-on, an-already-burned-out teenage pirate radio station host languishing in a literal cultural desert Arizona, kicking back at not just the system he hates but his own generation's inability to work out anything better.

You see, there's nothing to do anymore. Everything decent's been done. All the great themes have been used up. Turned into theme parks. So I don't really find it exactly cheerful to be living in the middle of a totally, like, exhausted decade where there's nothing to look forward to and no one to look up to. - Happy Harry Hard-On

While being beautifully meta -a commercial movie about a GenX identity that was already in the process of being turned into a fashion chain in every department store- the message rings true. The movie ends with a victory of sorts, Harry is arrested but only after disseminating the truth- that the airwaves belong to everyone.. That communication of ideas, free speech and putting your blood, tears and sexual fluids into your art actually matters. His unwilling and anonymous leadership of the youth of Arizona in a search for meaning led to the truth of leadership- that the power resides in the individual to create. Through creation we become free. Through freedom of creation in art, we liberate culture. Through freeing culture we become leaders, and thereby the populace at large is also freed. This is the role of art, and why artless societies die on their knees.

In the intervening three decades since Pump Up The Volume, the influence of Neo-Marxism in art has only grown the stronger. Perhaps we can give thanks to the internet-era for that. The Critical Theory disseminated by Neo-Marxists in universities and the 'Cathedral' is spread through criticism of art, which thus enslaves culture. We have become a self-conscious and critical culture, defining transgression against Political Correctness as imperfection. We experience all reality as imperfect, though unlike in past eras where imperfection is the window through which beauty can enter -a warp in the stained glass which refracts sunlight just so- we now see imperfection as a bloody stain on our society. Homogeny is the new beauty, not difference or uniqueness of character or thought. Even difference is homogeneity.

The demand from Neo-Marxist culture warriors is to recognize the spectrum of genders, biological sexes, the kaleidoscope of races in the claim that this is the freedom we were searching for all along. It is a lie. Applying critical theory to our societies has had the effect of stripping meaning from our culture, reducing identity to arbitrary characteristics and elevating these aspects over which we have limited control to the exalted zenith of art, culture- and even science.

The cultural experience can thus only be viewed through this heinous lens of identity. The art is not art without knowing who made it. Identical art produced by different people is now either an authentic expression of identity or disgusting appropriation. The canvas- our society at large- is a sprawlig collaborative performance. It is the attempt at the art which is important, that which speaks of our shared identity. The stains of a million paintings, musical endeavors, sculptures. Taken as a whole experience, this is the essence of our cultural reality- messy, not to everyone's taste and all the richer for it.

To the Neo-Marxists the stain is now our culture, that we fuss at and scrub at, blurring the edges with the obsession of Lady Macbeth. Out! Out damn spot of culture! The featureless canvas on which the stain exists is the only desired result, though it may be finely crafted and look impressive from a distance when examined close is only so many identical interwoven threads. Homogenous, uninteresting. The canvas is not the artwork itself. One must stain the canvas with paint to create art. When we step back from the painting, the art is revealed to us, and through our reaction to it- ourselves.

When stains on the fabric become evident, the lens of Cultural Marxism focusses solely on them with reductive glee. The art is lost as we magnify only the fact that the canvas has been marked. The pop culture television of just twenty years ago is now as abhorrent as a black and white minstrel show. We are accelerating through the years, revising history and speeding headlong into the imperfect and meaningless present. By categorizing history as problematic, the fabric of culture is resewn into a Teflon coated straight-jacket. Nothing is able to exist for the sake of art alone. Not even mass-market light comedy-dramas are safe. Controversial or thought-provoking art must now be accompanied by the 'Haha, fellow progressives, I am making this art to mess with the staid old establishment. I'm woke. I'm on your side.' Never mind that the establishment that is bucked against is little more than a meme. The imagined conservative monolith of religious leaders burning art to the applause of government lies far in the rearview mirror. Imagine, that post-modernism sneers at a paper tiger, imagining that the historical war for civil liberties never ended and the opponents of equality are in control today. This in itself is a hall of mirrors perversion of reality. This narrative, woven by hundreds of thousands of words in progressive blogs, billions of dollar worth of Hollywood movies, hours of cable news and thousands of left-wing academics in schools and universities reflects a distorted image. In this mirror, held up to show you how evil you are because of the art you once consumed, we are all monsters.

Authenticity is the worst crime in this mirror-culture. Authenticity falls foul of social justice orthodoxy because it is the essence of freedom from ideological control. To authentically create art, one must examine oneself and the surroundings and use the self -the spark of consciousness that is the soul of all men- as the lens through which art is made. It should be obvious to you that the Neo-Marxist framework cannot allow you to make your own lens. Your lens must match theirs, you must see things their way- or you are a heretic. This is how I say that the kaleidoscope of diversity is just a lens, a singularly focussed lens which demands culture is only observed in the way this lens allows. Many so-called artists comply with this lens, pandering to the new hierarchy. Fake directors, fake actors, fake news, faking it for the never-resting lens of critical theorists, forcing the smile onto a waxwork effigy of true art in the hope that they will not be denounced as problematic. If you dance to the tune well enough, it is possible an occasional misstep will be ignored. When you stand on the dancefloor giving the finger to the DJ, the bouncers respond immediately.

Shoving our own culture into the incinerator because ideology dictates that the unintended subtexts are more important that the intended message is the method by which control is exerted by hyper-sensitive wingnuts and moonbats. Ideology outweighs comedy, suffocates satire and leaves artistic license bleeding on the street on Kristallnacht.

They say I'm disturbed. Well, of course, I'm disturbed. I mean, we're all disturbed. And if we're not, why not? Doesn't this blend of blindness and blandness want to make you do something crazy? Then why not do something crazy? It makes a helluva lot more sense than blowing your fucking brains out... -Happy Harry Hard-on

Innocuous mass-market television shows from 1995 are being pulled apart for making jokes at the expense of contemporary is a cough, the visible symptom of the disease that is consuming our culture. This tuberculosis runs far deeper than the critique of Friends. The fabric itself is being re-sewn so that such transgressive art as a light comedy about 6 white people in America is now impossible to make. Diversity -the polite way of framing anti-white racism- is a tool for remanufacturing culture.

No wonder that we in the West have become a nihilistic people. With no faith and a dwindling supply of art that reaches the mass market all that remains is what the Hare Krishna call 'sense-addiction.' Self-gratification. Stripping life of context and meaning leaves us with an artless world. Another Star Wars movie, Iron Man, a remake, a tawdry fanfiction of a terrible vampire novel. Movies that challenge the mind must ensure to avoid any topics of cultural importance. Cultural critique is not for the artist. It is for the activist.

He who controls the present controls the past. Control the past to control the present and shape the future. The tainted past is racist, anti-gay, transphobic. To enjoy things made in the past is problematic, there is only the ever-present and culturally bereft now. The historical mistakes of thought, transgressive art that speaks to the human experience can never come again.

Neo-Marxists are born from the recognition that Marxism cannot control society through top-down authoritarian rule. In the year preceding the release of Pump Up The Volume, the fall of the Berlin Wall heralded the death blow of economic Marxism. Culture is the replacement for the means of production.

The aim today is to gestate an authoritarianism that begins from the bottom-up. This makes perfect sense from a Marxist perspective, after all, there is the school of thought that demands a permanent revolution. The workers seize the means, the workers become the political class, the political class is overthrown. While the USSR simply murdered people who did not think in the authorized manner, the Neo-Marxist revolution will produce people who are incapable of wrongthink. The art will burn. The transgressive past is so abhorrent that to enjoy it will be impossible. This might sound an outlandish claim today, but I say- wait another decade and see. Legislation is already shaped to fit the demands of these revolutionaries in most leading Western countries. At the governmental level, Western nations are incapable of seeing the wider game in which they are played as pawns.

When a society is both meaningless and incapable of producing art to challenge the concept of being -to provide a framework with which to define ourselves on an individual level- the society is on borrowed time. History teaches us so. The revolutionary, transcendental nature of art provides both a critique of society and a release valve for the destructive nature of mankind. Living together is hard. Identity is a quandary. All men feel the urge to destroy. Our art and culture allow for this revolution of the self without leading to the destruction of the society at large, as the free soul of mankind looks for meaning. Art allows us to understand the bonds between us, the differences between people. By showing the worst parts of ourselves, we become tolerant of others. What happens when we are not allowed to show the goodness within ourselves because in the process we are revealed to be ideologically imperfect? Only art which ignores human nature itself will be permittable. So long as you have a rainbow nation of humans in the cast and an authentic subplot about whether your black stormtrooper and your Latino star pilot are homosexuals, you're an artist. What was the plot again? Whose story is this, anyway?

It's a sideshow, a carnival game of near-infinite, ever-changing and diminishing hoops through which art must pass, ending with the eye of the needle- the arbitrary characteristics of the identity of the artist himself. Here we stand, with the subversion of morality and art in a dying civilization perpetuated by a self-loathing people seeking self-aggrandizement and virtue. No less Catholic for their payment of indulgences and the perverse, atheistic exultation of Islam.

You can buy your way into a Heaven that is Godless, pay alms to undeserving beggars or wash away your sins against social justice. The worthless self-indulgence of a society stood on four pillars that are now worm-eaten and teetering. Instead of repairing the foundations, it is better to replace them. The Neo-Marxist exhibits doublethink in his denouncement of Western culture in that he will claim that it is worthless while reassuring us that unlimited migration will change it not a jot. If that were true, then why advocate for the end of borders? The pillars of Greek philosophy, Roman law, Christian theology, and modern science will be replaced by the Pillars of Islam, and to the Neo-Marxist this is a fine thing indeed.

The Neo-Marxists believe that Islam will be a more compatible system than capitalism. Whether they believe that a power share is possible or that the incoming theocracy will treat them as special pets, I am unsure. What I can see is that our need for brave and challenging art is greater now more than ever before in history.

Everybody knows, but nobody does anything about it.

Being part of this civilization means to be curators of it. As Edmund Burke knew in the 18th Century, we are not a singular moment in time. We are part of a lineage of life itself and more specifically a lineage of culture. Whenever this lineage is overthrown, chaos follows. The conservation of culture, society, and land is the philosophical heart of conservatism- though there are few conservatives left these days that are worthy of the name.

...when bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. -E. Burke

If our civilization means anything at all it begins with the reaffirmation of our culture. Make more art. Start today.

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