#But I will be goddamned if I don't give it my best and most honest shot.

[the-cooler-king]

One of those texts I kind of need to sit on before I decide how I'm going to word it.

I never know how to start these, but I always have an idea on what to say. Your opinion of me actually matters a lot & the implication that you believe that I lie to you or I'm not doing enough is kinda hurtful. It comes across to me like my effort is worthless to you & that what I want doesn't matter at all. I wouldn't bring it up if I didn't think you cared, and I know you're going through a lot and shouldn't have to worry about me, but I'm getting mixed signals that are really throwing me off. What do you want from me? Am I asking too much of you and you don't know how to tell me? I sincerely want to be there for you, regardless of what it looks like to get to that point, but if you don't want me there you can tell me! What you want matters just as much, if not more, to me. I'm not the kind of person to be hostile about things if they don't work out. I don't want to be another source of stress or negativity for you, and I don't want you to be afraid of being honest with me. I constantly question if you're just too nice to tell me you aren't interested anymore, and even if you are, I might need more reassurance than you can give me because I don't think I'm very worth it to anyone for anything. If you don't think I'm trying hard enough then tell me what I need to do to change that! I'm at the point of just not knowing what I bring to your life, if anything at all. You don't need to deal with me on top of everything else, so, I'm sorry for this. Even if you don't text me back I'll feel better once I get it out there. The only thing I've ever been afraid of is not communicating exactly how much I care about you & how much you mean to me - even if it doesn't matter to you, or you don't believe me. If there comes a day where we aren't in each other's lives anymore for whatever reason, I don't want either of us to question what could've been said or done differently or regret not doing more.

[gamergirl-niffler]

Hello! Hope you are having a nice day! May I request for a Kyojuro and/or Haganezuka x fem!reader (separately) who is particulary clingy and loving with them?

I did my best! I hope you will enjoy it! 💗💗

Kyojuro/Haganezuka with clingy fem!reader

🔥Kyojuro Rengoku🔥

‌This man is just as clingy as you are!

Of course, he is clingy! He is in love and there is no better way to show it. All Kyojuro wants to do is to spend every possible moment, having you as close as possible.

‌Cuddles are must for the both of you

It doesn't matter if it's you hugging him or him hanging on you. Both of you love cuddles because there is nothing better than the warm embrace of a loved person.

Kyojuro loves to hug you tightly after every mission, your closeness is the best reward. This feels wonderful when the mission was successful, if it wasn't... Kyojuro will cling onto you. Just be there for him and hold him tight.

He will do the same for you. Every achievement of yours, big or small, is worthy of a tight hug.

The same happens when suddenly fortune turns on you. You can cry all you want, and he will hold you to maybe make it a little better, to show that you are safe and loved.

‌BIG on PDA!

He is not ashamed to show off his love to you.

You can be doing something, maybe talking to other Hashiras or simply enjoying the day, and suddenly Kyojuro is holding your hand, kissing your cheek or forehead, wrapping his arm around you.

Walking hand in hand with you makes him feel proud! Look everyone! I love and I am loved!

By being clingy, he shows his affection... But sometimes jealousy as well.

Of course, trust is a big foundation of your relationship. He trusts you, and you trust him.

But even jealousy manage to sneak between the two of you.

You are talking to Tengen a bit too enthusiastically and a little bit too long? Kyo is there to give you a kiss or simply hug you... Just in case.

You aren't any better! Let's be honest, Kyojuro's beauty is unusual, which draws attention... Female attention…

Once you notice some girl showing interest in your man, you are glued to him! Just nuzzling to him with Innocent smile, showing that he is taken.

‌Bed cuddles! 

Those are MUST just as the regular ones! Both of you get ready for bed and it's a cuddle time.

You are the little spoon because holding you like this gives him the feeling he is fulfilling his duties as a caring partner. Having you close and drifting off to sleep after a hard day is a dream come true.

Morning cuddles are just as fun! Both of you are just as sleepy, muttering a quiet 'good morning' and arguing about five more minutes!

He is just a big teddy bear that loves to hug and be hugged.

🔪Hotaru Haganezuka🔪

‌He hates how clingy you are... But he secretly loves it…

Hotaru isn't the most clingy person. There are stuff more important to do than cuddling all the goddamn time!

On the other hand... He will never admit to it, but he actually enjoys it.

He didn't experience much of a love in his life, not to mention he is kinda difficult person to be around. You are a little miracle that decided to give him a chance, and all those little actions from you feel so good and warm. 

‌Cuddles are a must for you... For him, not really.

Don't get him wrong! He loves it so much... But he isn't going to show it. 

Hotaru will even complain and give you a little grimace, but never push you away, accepting every hug you are willing to give him when the two of you are out of your house.

BUUUUUUUT

It is so much different when the two of you stay home. He will take it all without a word of complaint. You can hang on him whole day and he will even return some hugs.

PDA is not for him...

He is a specific person, he doesn't like to draw much attention to himself or you, so PDA is out of the question.

Let's be honest, there also isn't much need for it. Everyone knows you are his S/O and no one really wants to get into a fight with him.

Sometimes he gets soft

There are days when even he needs some love.

During those days he actually enjoys how clingy you are, and he is just as clingy back. 

He hugs you back and lets you play with his hair, actually whatever you want, you can do and will not hear a word against it. 

Of course, all of this only at your shared house.

Bed cuddles! 

Firstly, you have to get him to bed!

Once it's done, and he is calm, it's so much nicer. 

Hotaru wraps his strong arms around you and cuddles you to sleep, letting you do the same since you love it so much and how can you say no to that?!

In the morning, he is actually more clingy than you are. 

He pulls you back to bed when you try to get up, muttering things like. "Come back here" or "You are staying with me for a bit more."

There is no way to escape his grasps, both arms around you and face hidden in your neck make it impossible to leave the bed. You are his favorite little spoon.

[myths-tournaments]

Awful Characters Round 4 (2/4)

Propaganda under the cut!

BENNY

The first thing that happens in new vegas is that benny fucking shoots your character in the face, steals your shit and leaves you in an open grave. Benny is by all accounts a bastard. He kills you, steals from you, he killed his last boss, he is the single most duplicitous man around. His gang are all about honesty- except him. He's a lying, cheating bastard. The guys who helped him catch you? He skipped on paying them and left them to get shot to death. His new boss, mr.house? He stole his robot, broke it open, got someone to reprogram it and decided to use it to TAKE OVER THE WHOLE OF VEGAS. Benny literally kills people, lies to people, steals their shit and takes charge. That's all benny does. He gets fucking CRUCIFIED if you don't help him out just because so many people fucking hate him. And yet. And yet. Benny is the single most compelling character in the whole game to me. He's just a little guy! He's just there! You can get shot in the head and come back and he goes "what in the goddamn" and then if you try and flirt with him he's like "uhhh sure? Okay?" And leaves you a polite note in the morning. He's fancy. He wears a stupid suit. He has a tiny gun with shitty bullets. He's catholic. He talks like an old timey news presenter. Literally nobody else in the entire game does that. He's got an intelligence of 3. He's my funtime boy. My silly little man. He's so funny. The antagonist in this game is a guy dressed like a tablecloth who looks at all times like a confused dog who doesn't understand what a tv is. And like. He's compelling. He robs from you, shoots you, but…. he never seems to actually wish you harm. He kills and robs and lies but like. He apologises for doing it to you. When he sees you again he doesn't attack you, he's just… confused. He tries to defuse the situation. You can convince him to talk to you, alone, with no guards and it's not that hard. If you spare his life, he doesn't go after you, like. Even if you sleep with him he doesn't take advantage of that and kill you, even if you try to. He… he just leaves. He gives you an apology. If he gets kidnapped by Caesar He just… apologizes again. He tells you his whole plan to take over the city, too. He thinks he'll die, and he wants something of him to survive. He's happy that you made it. And if you let him free, he just… leaves. He knows he's beat, he doesn't want to cause any more trouble. He walks out and leaves. The NCR will kill you if you cross them. The legion will crucify you. House? He'll blow you the fuck up. But benny, the guy who lies and cheats and schemes, he's honest. He's polite. He's… harmless. You can kill him with a single shot if you want. And he can't kill you. He doesn't kill you the first time, and he'll never really hurt you again. Benny just wanted to win. When he knows he's beat he just leaves. No lingering, no harm, he's off, off into the desert heat, and never seen again. Isn't that just insane? like have you ever known an antagonist so polite? He just leaves!! He offers you a drink!! His plan is genuinely probably the best one for the people of new vegas!!! He's. Benny is Benny. Anyway if you want to see some REAL propaganda go to the blog letmebegaytodd and look in the #benny tag. You'll Understand < https://www.tumblr.com/letmebegaytodd/717051175751614464/in-another-life-i-wouldve-really-liked-just> <- look at this shit man

AZULA

Azula explicitly considers herself a monster. She says needlessly cruel things to her brother and friends. She kills the show's twelve-year-old protagonist and masterminds the idea of burning down the entire Earth Kingdom to force them to submit to Fire Nation rule. I have absolutely seen people get called abuse apologists for thinking she's a cool character. But she's also a (canonically) mentally ill fourteen-year-old who was raised by her father to see her ability to be weaponized as her only value. Her mother, arguably the only adult in her life who could have had a positive impact, had a strained relationship with her because she was more difficult than her brother, and then disappeared when she was nine. Her uncle, who was her brother's main healthy role model, took absolutely no interest in her. She watched her father belittle her brother for years and eventually throw him away when he failed to meet his expectations, so that was a threat she was always facing. She really had no chance. And she also has moments that suggest she wants some sort of meaningful connection with another person. She lets her brother take credit for killing the Avatar so he can come back from exile, even though it means she'll be bumped back in the order of succession and offers him advice that seems genuine. Her spiral into a mental breakdown starts when her friends betray her. She's just a much more interesting and multifaceted than a lot of the fandom gives her credit for.

[dzvelinaskebiyars]

Okie dokey to give you some ideas...

May I request baji having a little sister whose a decade younger than him (like he was born in 1990 and she was born in 2003)? May I ask how would he (and by extention ryoko treat her?)

(Ofc if you don't like it or requests are closed rn please disregard it. Have a nice day :)))

I LOVE THIS!! Thank you so much for requesting!!

❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

If Baji had younger sister, I feel like he'd try to be best brother. He genuinely would be so happy because he had to spend like 13 years as an only child and being only child is really lonely. So he definitely would be excited to have a sibling.

He'd definitely introduce her to his friends: Mikey, Kazutora, Draken, Mistuya and Pah-chin.

I like to think that he'd ask Mitsuya for advice since Mitsuya has little sisters and he'd gladly give Baji advice.

I feel like Baji often would give his sister piggyback rides very often and have her in his hands.

He'd be encouraging his sis when she'll be starting to take her first steps. He'd be like "Yes yes YES YES YOU'RE DOING WELL!"

When she's so little, he'll read bedtime stories to her and fell asleep with her.

He'd have a beef with a toddler if they take his sister's toy. Toddler is a kid too like his sis? So? So what? They took her toy!

He'd be so understanding and supportive to be honest.

He definitely would teach her things about fights and talk about Toman with her.

Watching movies together and for some reason his little sister ended up liking the goddamn horror movies which creeps him out.

Despite him being older, I feel like he'd play fight with her like a damn child her age.

He'd let her style his hair and probably would end up with the most ridiculous hairstyle.

For Ryoko, she'd be on the ninth sky from happiness to have another kid and she'd raise her with love and affection.

She loves her kids so much, they're her world and reason to live.

She'd give both of them equal affection and attention, tho the youngest would need more attention obviously, but Baji would help her because he loves spending time with his sister.

Lil sis: big brother, I'm going to be just like you!!

Baji: NO! No, no, no please mom is going to kill me.

Ryoko, just entering the room: Why would I kill you?

Baji:

Lil sis: I want to be just like big brother!

Ryoko: Honey no-

Because let's be fr. Baji has...questionable habits. I'm pretty sure you'd also be worried if your kid just decided to be like her big brother who burns cars when he's hungry.

____

Lil sis, 14 yo: You're 27 years old, stop acting like a grumpy old man!

Baji: Fuck you.

____

Baji: Im giong wih my friands.

Lil sis: Okey but why this late?

Baji: Jutro touman.

Lil sis: Jutro? You know Bosnian?

Baji: Non

Lil sis: French too?

Baji: Whst are yu sei?

Lil sis: Sei? Italian?

Baji: Fuck you.

Lil sis: At least you can curse correctly!!

[again-and-then]

Part two of my Hazbin Hotel redesign/edits

as usual, design commentary under the cut

Alastor: Hello Red Man, bane of my existence. there are many things about Alastor's design that work and many that don't. Personally, I'm not one for the full reworks some people prefer but I've got some notes. First of all, a darker color for his suit. More bloody serial killer, less strawberry pimp. glasses are better than a monocle. I did want to adopt the deer color pattern for the face, you know to make his deer symbolism a little more notable than fluffy ears and a pair of forks taped to his skull.

Niffty: I'll be honest, I think Niffty's design is fun. she was a delight to draw. my only change is the little spikes on her legs and elbows to further sell the cockroach theme. she's so adorable and quirky when she stabs people to death.

Angel Dust: My personal enemy. I put Angel in the category of 'Zoophobia era designs that Viv refuses to properly update'. I've never liked Angel's design, especially his head. kinda looks like a lima bean with hair taped to it. Also, Hell's most famous pornstar has practically no ass? Please bitch. I did my best to give him a slightly more believable figure and proportions (despite him still being 60% leg). spider floof because I've made my opinions on bowties clear.

Cherri Bomb: a solid design, but a bit too chaotic and quirky. Her usual look screams party girl, not chaotic arsonist anarchist. really, just needed a nice jacket and some color tweaks and she looks a thousand times more like a girl that regular fights and kills over territory.

Vox: Viv. Vivenne. Vivzy. Miss Pop. fucking... please, stop with the tiny hats and bowties. just... Why was Vox wearing a three piece suit with coattails, just to make a vague shark reference. the man is already a goddamn TV. you seriously want me to believe that Vox, the man who prides himself on pushing modernity and the man who works with the Fashion overlord that hates old fashioned outfits is going to have such a dated look? please. This was probably the most heavy lifting I did in the redesign department. kept the spirit of the look but just made it a touch more modern.

Velvette: This bitch perfect. no fucking notes. work it darling. just a personal preference, I think her best look was her first appearance in the show with the bang and ponytail, rather than the more common twintail&outfit combo.

[pardonmydelays]

clancy tour (watching a livestream) essay 🙏

anon, this question made me so unbelievably happy omg. i just can't get around to the eras tour essay, however, i do feel the need to write, so we're doing this instead.

for the context: i woke up at 5:30 today to watch the livestream of clancy LA show. no, i wasn't there in person. but mentally i was.

please, listen to this incredible playlist while you read my essay (no one's gonna read, it mark my words):

i have decided we will just go through the entire setlist. i don't want to make this too long but i wanna talk about EVERY. SINGLE. SONG. let's fucking go.

OVERCOMPENSATE

so this is when i started crying. who the fuck cries on overcompensate, you would ask... well, me, apparently. i honestly think this is the best opener for both, an album and a show. this song gives me so much serotonin i can't even explain it. i'm always worried about tyler tho because his entrance looks dangerous (the jump, the jump, I AM TALKING ABOUT THE JUMP!). nothing bad happened tho, thankfully. i also noticed he was wearing the other version of clancy jacket today, the one with the hood. not that it's important, but it kinda is. for me at least.

HOLDING ON TO YOU

ok, so if you know me you probably know this is my ultimate favourite twenty one pilots song. and the live performance is even better with the crowd stand at the beginning (i swear to god, it's so incredible to me how much trust tyler has for the clique), clancy mask and lightbulb mic (you can tell tyler has a lot of fun with it), and my favourite part - josh's piano backflip during the bridge of the song. fucking iconic. what's not to love.

VIGNETTE

first thing i want to talk about is the insane transition from holding on to you to vignette. honestly, all transitions are so fucking amazing on clancy tour, it's impressive. now, tyler's little dance during this song is one of the most adorable things i've ever seen (he is such a cat omg) and and and! NEIL BANGING OUT THE TUNES!!! i'll be honest with you, because of this part vignette became one of my favourite songs from clancy and definitely one of my faves from this tour.

CAR RADIO

another one of my favourites. car radio will always hold a very special place in my heart, it's so relatable to me. it makes me so happy that we have a chance to see it being performed in clancy costume (and clancy mask!!!). and when tyler teleports at the end! (also i think he's wearing a totally different jacket in this clip which probably means he has three different clancy jackets, i have no proof tho so i'm just gonna shut up. the video is from LA night one tho. not my show). here's another clip, you can see how he teleported here.

THE JUDGE

ok, so for those who don't know, right before every show the fans in their incredible outfits are being filmed while singing the judge together and every night they show a different video of them singing first verse + chorus and then after that tyler comes out with his ukulele to finish the song. it makes me cry for no reason at all. yes, i cried today too (it just makes me so happy to see all the clikkies singing together and they all look so beautiful always). so what happened today? content warning glitch happened during fan video, you can watch it here, then blurryface tweeted this:

i am losing my goddamn mind over this, people on the livestream were losing their shit when this happened, I STARTED CRYING LIKE A GODDAMN FOOL BECAUSE I'M SO FUCKING EMOTIONAL ABOUT EVERYTHING THIS BAND IS DOING. ugh. i was so right to watch today's livestream. something's gonna happen soon guys. they are warning us.

(i added CUT MY LIP to the playlist but technically it's the judge/cut my lip mashup so there's really not much to say about it)

THE CRAVING + TEAR IN MY HEART

the transition. the goddamn transition!!! it's honestly so fucking cool and probably one of my favourite parts of the tour. i absolutely love all jenna's songs and everyone who says they should not be on the setlist, fuck you forever. in this house we stan all jenna's songs. i usually cry on the craving and tyler is being so silly during tear in my heart - this is my favourite thing in the world. plus, do you really hate the sound of ukulele???

BACKSLIDE

ok, i actually started crying as soon as i realized we're singing backslide now. i love this song so goddamn much, it means the world to me. at one point it was my favourite song from clancy. the chorus breaks my poor little heart every single time and live performance of this song is so emotional... especially at the end when tyler is on his knees (the video is not from tonight's show but it's my favourite one from backslide, please watch it, his vocals here are INSANE). it's like crying for help. i wanna kill myself now. i relate to this song so much. also, backslide is the reason i decided to buy clancy tour tickets, so there's that.

SHY AWAY

oh, thank god this one is on the setlist. you know how much i love scaled and icy and i think out of all the songs from this album shy away is the best one to put on the setlist because the live performance is always so fun!!! don't you shy aWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!! the scream is absolutely fucking everything oh my god. actually, i just love when tyler screams. but don't we all.

HEATHENS + NEXT SEMESTER

ok, now don't hate me, please, but i was never the biggest fan of heathens (i don't hate the song, i like it, just not as much as the others. i probably wouldn't cry if it wasn't on the setlist). however, the transition (again!!!) from heathens to next semester is the best goddamn thing in the entire world and i am losing my mind every single time i come across any clip of this moment. please, watch it, this is everything!!! one question tho: i know tyler was playing bass on the platform for next semester and he didn't do that today, did he just stop doing this recently or is it because of what happened yesterday during the show? (not during this song tho, or at least i know nothing about it, but it seems like LA fans absolutely cannot behave and he was definitely being more careful today, more about it later tho).

ROUTINES IN THE NIGHT

oh boy, this is my vigilante shit for real. remember vigilante shit performance from the eras tour and how everyone was losing their shit when they saw taylor doing the choreography with this motherfucking chair? yes. it's basically that except tyler is fully dressed. which is even worse maybe (y'all know how i feel about his clothes for some reason). one of my favourite songs from the album, but after seeing the live performance for the first time i became absolutely obsessed with the song. i was genuinely scared today because this is basically what happened last night in LA (i swear to god people are acting like fucking animals) and i noticed that tyler was being much more careful this time: he wasn't coming so close to people, and honestly good for him. he didn't even let them touch him during this part. i can't blame him. i feel so bad for what happened. hope he's ok.

ADDICT WITH A PEN + MIGRAINE + FOREST + FALL AWAY

my favourite mashup in the entire fucking world. but before we get into it, please this is so fucking funny and adorable. so basically, before playing the mashup, tyler sat by the piano and he said "currently i'm temperature hot. so i would want to take my jacket off, i promise not to turn on all the dads tonight" and then this happened. poor guy didn't know what to do LMAO. he's such a cutie, please watch the video, he's so adorable i can't. he's also the funniest person on earth. back to the topic, the mashup... i am such a slut for their old songs and this mashup is absolutely fucking insane. the song i love the most out of those is, of course, forest. according to tyler, this song is so old it basically doesn't exist. fuck you, tyler joseph. i can't believe i'm going to hear it live tho, holy shit. i will be fucking SOBBING during this part, i just know that.

MULBERRY STREET

this is such a fun song to play live and one of my favourite moments. you can tell how much fun tyler has each time they play it, also this! this is everything!!! he's always so happy when this happens, he trained us well hahaha. it's so fun omg. can't wait to be a part of it. this has always been one of my favourite songs from scaled and icy so i'm glad they decided to keep it on the setlist.

NAVIGATING

get in, losers. we are entering the lore now. ok, honestly, this part of the tour is absolutely everything to me. torchbearer with his torch? and clancy jacket?? coming to pick him up so they can perform while dema is burning??? AAAAAAAAAAAAAA. oh my GODD. also, navigating is so special to me (i picked this url for a reason) and live performance of this song is fucking fire. watch it. watch the clip. just watch the goddamn clip, will you? we all know this song is on the setlist because of josh, so everybody say thank you josh. also you can tell tyler is very emotional about this song and i just wanna give him a hug. oh my god. i can't wait to hear it live. this will fix me (it will probably make me worse).

NICO AND THE NINERS + HEAVYDIRTYSOUL

the MOTHERFUCKING transition!!! i know i say this a lot but i am such a slut for all the transitions on this tour, oh my god. they are so good. also i absolutely fucking love how we're still in the lore and also, the visuals are absolutely incredible, and also, nico and the niners is one of my favourite songs (the one that got me into their music actually) and also heavydirtysoul live is INSANE and also-

MY BLOOD

ok, i'm sorry, i keep forgetting that this song is on the setlist. it's not one of my favourites (don't fucking hate me, i like it, it's just not my fave). i will be very much singing it at the concert tho cause it's so good live. not much to say about it tho.

OLDIES STATION

boy, here we go. so i started crying at the very beginning of the song and honestly i have no idea how i'm going to handle this live. i am so very normal about this song. it means everything to me. the worst part of it tho was when during the song tyler said "thank you so much for using our music. you've saved us in ways you'll never know". OH MY GOD. i started weeping even more. it's like... their music saved US but we also saved THEM and i need 3-5 business days to recover after that. good lord. listen, i love slowtown and i'm sad that it's not part of the setlist anymore, but i love oldies station a hundred times more and that was a good change me thinks.

FAKE YOU OUT + GUNS FOR HANDS

putting those two together just because i can and i will. vessel is such a great album and it makes me so happy that those two are on the setlist. screaming "our brains are sick but that's okay" with the entire arena is going to fix me, for sure. also, here's the clip of tyler messing up the lyrics (he basically went kjbufbfkkjejkebfkjk after that lmao). can't blame him. the rap part is so fast. i died tho. he's so funny, please.

LAVISH

i can't even begin to explain how happy i am to have this one on the setlist. it's the funniest moment on tour and i love watching them being stupid on stage. also, jOsH iS sHiRtLeSs. the walk, THE WALK LMAO. the best choreography you've ever seen. i just love seeing them so silly and happy and this is everything. i paid a lot of money to see this live. i'm definitely not gonna regret this.

RIDE

so the thing i love about this tour is that every single night while performing this song tyler brings a different kid to sing the chorus with him (it's the equivalent of giving the hat during 22 on the eras tour i would say). tonight we had an adorable girl named callie (if i'm correct). she did so well! also i was giggling so much when tyler said she's cute (he was giggling too hdshfbhekj). i just love watching him with kids, it's so sweet!!! also she had a great beanie with band's logo, i want one too. please watch the clip of them singing together!

PALADIN STRAIT

i was crying. i was crying so much, i love this song and the live performance is so emotional. i put the song bandito on the playlist, because there's this moment in the song where tyler is singing the bridge of paladin strait and josh is singing bandito at the same time and OH MY GOD. DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT MEANS FOR THE LORE??? THIS IS SO CLEVER AND I AM LOSING MY GODDAMN MIND EVERY SINGLE TIME I THINK ABOUT IT. please, watch. this is sick as fuck. you don't understand. do you even understand? OR AM I THE ONLY ONE I KNOW???? i'm sorry i just can't i can't i am defeated i am absolutely insane about this part. also, the ending when they are showing the clip of paladin strait music video combined with other clips which looks like a flashback from clancy's life and his never ending battle with nico? the fuck??? and then we go straight to...

JUMPSUIT

the motherfucking coat. not gonna say anything else. just. the coat. oh dear lord. now i am temperature hot.

MIDWEST INDIGO

now my favourite part of midwest indigo is tyler taking off his coat very slowly. because he fucking knows what he's doing. but also, this song is so special to me. i know he wrote it as a love letter to ohio and i'm not even american but somehow this song always makes me think about my hometown. the live performance is so great. the beginning with the bass! he's adorable!

STRESSED OUT

"i don't want stressed out on the setlist it's so overplayed" kill yourself. i love stressed out because i have good taste. it's fun. it's a great song with great lyrics and you fuckers hate it only because it's popular. just shut up. shut the fuck up. in this house we actually enjoy listening to good songs. i personally want it to be on every setlist. if stressed out has no fans it means i killed myself. i'm dead. i'm gone. stressed out defender forever and always. also clancy tour version is incredible. just watch it and shut the fuck up.

TREES

again, i was so scared about my boys because of what happened yesterday in LA. people are fucking animals. i'm so glad, because tyler actually decided to call them out for this and seems like it was much better today. but still. guys please, behave, cause if you're not gonna start acting responsible they are going to stop performing like this. it's still insane compared to the opening night of clancy tour where people didn't even come closer until tyler told them to. i also just noticed now that tyler's t-shirt had black font today (the previous one had red font) for the first time. i think i was just too tired to notice this before. there's not much i can tell you about trees, because you just simply have to be there to understand. it's a perfect song to end the show (for those who don't know: they always close their shows with this one), it's something i experienced live once before and i can't even compare it to anything. i wasn't even crying. my soul literally just left my body. trust me, there's absolutely nothing like trees live. i can show you thousands of clips and it will never be enough. nobody does it like them. seriously. this is the moment. the moment of all moments. i am in fact crying now...

TO SUM IT UP:

great show. 10/10. would recommend. i'm going to see them live in 223 days. this is the thing that makes me want to stay alive. yes. i need to stay alive for this. whoever sent me this ask, thank you. it means the world to me. i need to talk about them because it's the only joy in my life now. they are the reason i want to push on through. also, if you made it this far, thank you. i love you. and i'm sorry.

[mistress-lou]

Neir Automata charachters react to meeting a human (you)

Requested by me self indulgent writing :)

9s

Let's be honest the first time you two meet he probably shrieks

And not a small one like a really high pitched excited bird screech

After your ears were finished ringing and you could finally hear him he bombards you with questions and at first you answer them politely to the best of your ability

"So is it true humans don't rust?"

"Well no but we go through something similar called 'aging' pretty much our bones become more and more fragile over time our skin begins to sag and we have trouble moving around and we usually have little to no energy by the time we reach our 40's."

"Wow you guys have it rough! But can't you all avoid the effects of 'aging' by doing routine maintenance and replacing all of your the parts of you that are irreparably damaged?"

You have to explain that while yes keeping up to date with your body to keep it healthy and doing your best to get rid of all of the impurites inside your body can help you can never really stop the effects of aging

He doesn't really get it but is both surprised and happy to know that your body can heal minor injuries on it's own. But still keeps a close eye on you anyway

Reads all the codex that he can find on humans no matter how small it may seem he doesn't want to risk it especially after knowing you can't just replace all your broken and corrupted parts like other androids can

Starts to carry a small notebook around with him where he writes your conversations, your personal interests, allergies, eating habits, sleeping schedule, and even your bathroom breaks (yes gross ik but he wants to know when him and 2b should take a break from adventuring so you can relax)

Definitely likes to gossip with you about other YoRHa members and especially how much of a pain their commander is (which is often quickly silenced by 2b)

Ask about 2b and he'll talk for hoooours

Like he won't shut up about her goddamn you'd think he'd at least have filter and stay a bit more quiet when she's only like 5 feet away

Poor guy obviously has big crush on 2b

Although he does sometimes make some flirty comments to his operator too so maybe that's just how he is?? Or maybe he just likes those two in particular because he's close to them

Although he never really talks to you that way but that's fine though!

And 2b never says anything about it so maybe she's just not paying attention or maybe she likes it.....? Your not sure androids are hard to read especially 2b even though you guys are relatively close now

2b

Just no

The moment she saw you she literally turned on her heel and walked the other way

9s had to grab her and literally beg for her to hear you out because she just wanted none of it

After a few minutes of convincing she agreed to listen to you she thought you were a runaway android at first so she wanted to leave before she might've recieved any orders to bring you back or (slight spoilers) execute you but she decided to hear you out for 9s's sake

Was very surprised when you told her you were a human she didn't believe you at first but after telling her what year you were from, details of the day machines attacked, and a confirmation from YoRHa, she finally decided to beileve your story

Was very annoyed when her new mission was to escourt and protect you while she there on earth completing her main mission

Most likely only kept you around because of 9s and 6O's begging

Very quiet anytime you ask her questions she gives very curt short answers

"So...how are you doing today 2b?"

"All my diagnostics and sensory functions are all green."

"Err..okay how about mentally are you okay?-"

"I don't get tired and all my core and brain functionality are working fine."

"O-oh okay well how about-"

"Machines ahead get back with 9s!"

"But they're like 100 ft away we can just go the other way- wait!!"

"...ugh"

Everytime you complain to 9s that you think 2b just hates you he just constantly reassures you that 2b is just like that and to just give her a little more time to warm up to you

And after travelling with her for a bit it seems like she was starting to warm up to you

For instance any time you tell her she's going to fast she'll slow down, and if your hungry she'll go fishing or go hunt a boar, if your sleepy she'll turn around and head back to the resistance camp.

If you bring it up she'll say she needed some more supplies or she needed some repairs

Won't admit it but she likes having you around because you make 9s smile so much. She loves overhearing your guy's conversations where you guys just laugh and talk (lmao mommy 2b)

Although she hates when you both gang up on her and beg her for a break or to go fishing (totally not an excuse so you and 9s can go play in the water)

She always agrees though (she's a softie and she can't say no to you two)

If you ask her to carry you she will mostly because she knows how much less durable your body is than hers

9s will most likely get jealous and ask for one too and she has no problem with it she'll just pick both of you up and walk off to the resistance camp for rest (although she does find your guy's constant giggling annoying)

A2

If you thought 2b was bad A2 is something else

The moment she saw you she thought you were a member of YoRHa and tried to take your head off you were lucky and somehow managed avoid her attack by a hair

You frantically explained that you had no idea who YoRHa was and that you weren't an android but a human

She of course didn't beileve you and turned around and left you there ignoring your pleas for help and explanation of what was happening and what happened to earth

Although something was telling her to stick around and watch to see if were telling the truth

So she did she tailed you watching as you scurried away from machines and hid from androids because according to what she heard you say "they're both the same all gears and metal."

Which did secretly tick her off because: How dare you compare us (androids) to those machines!!

After a while of watching you she couldn't tell if you were just reallly dedicated to your role or if you were actually telling the truth

But your luck had to run out eventually

You tripped while running away from three small stubby machines and a goliath biped it was because you were extremely underfed and dehydrated mostly because you could barely find any places to fish or get any fresh water without their being an android or machines watching it and you could never rest more than thirty minutes because you could always hear the loud shuffling and bangs from the machines walking around

So as the goliath raised his arm for the final blow you closed your eyes finally relieved that your days of scavenging and living in constant fear was over

However the end never came you heard a loud thud and whoosh of wind around you as if something had blocked the attack from the biped

Who would have the power to do such a thing?

You heard a series of more loud bangs and slashes and then eventually you heard 4 loud thuds and then silence except for footsteps walking towards you and stopping a few feet next to you

You kept your eyes closed and played dead in the hopes for whatever killed them wasn't very bright and thought it killed you too

"...."

"...."

"Hey I know your not dead I can see your eyes twitching get up or do you want me to leave you here for more of those things to come?

"N-NO!!"

"Then get up"

You did as you were told and followed her back to an abandoned building in the forest close to where you first met her and she was surprisingly kind and told you to rest while she kept watch over you maybe it was her seeing how exhausted you looked (or maybe how slowly you were lagging behind her on the way here gave you away)

But you took her offer gratefully and quickly fell asleep

After waking up the next day with what felt like the best sleep of your life you saw a2 standing over you with a make shift plate made out of bark with moose and boar meat and a cup of water in the other

You gratefully accepted them eating your food rather quickly (choking a bit a few times) and left with A2

After a bit of questioning she explained why she attacked you and (eventually) that she had been following you and you in return told her how you woke up and then accidently ran into her

Your journey with A2 was quiet but fufilling in a way...?

You guys avoided YoRHa members and she taught you how to look for traces of life and where to find running water (sorry but i see her being kind've like a nomad she has to get water somewhere right?) and you told her all about your life in the human world before machines

Like 9s and 2b she keeps a close eye on you and makes sure that your always well fed and well rested so you won't accidently hit anything to hard or cut yourself then fall over and die

And while you explained to her you dont die that easily she'll still make sure you where away from anything sharp and dangerous

Mosst of the time she just grabbed you by the back of your clothes slinging you over her shoulder and just walking around that way

oh how romantic!! 💓 (your pretty sure you say this to cope with idea that she might see you as baggage or worse a pet but you do you)

Operator 6O

Let's be honest the only reason you'd end up in operator 6O's care was if 2b couldn't handle you anymore and decided to kick you out and send you to the bunker

Which says a lot because she never fails a mission (wth did you do???)

But it's not all bad if anything you have it a lot easier you don't have to walk and walk till your feet feel like they'll fall off, you don't have sleep on the cold hard floor (if you were too far from the resistance camp), and no more life and death battles with the machines

Well not you, you just stood there and watched as 2b and 9s did all the work but you where a great source of emotional support :)

But the bunker was pretty nice if you liked being swarmed and bombarded with questions from all the YoRHa members in the bunker and maybe sometimes subtly touched and groped by them

Thankfully 6O is a little more calm than the others and she'll always ask for your permission before she touches you

But like 9s and the rest of the androids she'll still ask you a ton of questions

Her favorite things to talk about are flowers, animals, fashion, makeup, and skincare

If you know a lot about these topics than hallelujah!! You guys are going to be the best of friends!!

Pretty much a girly girl and if she was born in our modern world she would most likely be a very popular influencer or makeup artist and with her bubbly personality she'd probably have a few thousand if not million followers

She's really good company and she even teaches you how she does her job and you even help around when the other operators are compromised or sick (undergoing repairs) at the moment

Plus androids hearing your voice helps boost morale so it's a win-win

2b is also a favorite subject of 6O's because she considers her to be one of her closest and dearest friends (even more so after she sent her a picture of the desert rose and she does talk about that a lot) so complaining to her about 2b wouldn't do anything she'll probably do the same thing as 9s or just change the subject

And while operator 6O and you were talking another operator came over and gave something to 6O something about a 'gift from 2b'

And inside was a small pouch of makeup!! Goodie

A few 100 years old but hey it's still there!

While she was excited for the gift she didn't know how to use it so of course she looked over at you and gave you the saddest most desperate puppy eyes you'd ever seen

"Hey Y/N can you help me put this on please??"

"Err i'd love you too but i don't think that's safe it expired- well a few hundred years ago.."

"It's okay I'm sure it'll be fine our skin is really durable so it's fine!!!"

"That's not point-"

"Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease please-"

"ALRIGHT ALRIGHT!! Geez..."

Doesn't matter if you have a lot of experience or no experience with makeup she still wants your help

But don't purposely make her look bad please it'll break her heart :(

And after your done helping her apply her makeup (which looks pretty good) she is absolutely ecstatic she loves it and then she insists that it's your turn to do your make up

You do your best to try and explain that your skin wasn't like hers and that it could probably cause a lot of damage to you if not kill you

She'll be really disappointed but understand and she'll just sadly put it away

After a few more days of seeing her eye her makeup and then your face you eventually decide to give in and let her put makeup on your face but only if she helps take care of you if things go wrong and she happily agrees

She did really good actually but you only keep it on for about thirty minutes before you feel your face getting extremingly itchty and take it off to see it gave you a really bad rash (but thankfully that's all it did)

She kept her promise though and she had managed to make some rash cream after finding a recipe in the YoRHa database

And even better the cream was really effiective your rash disappeared in about a week but you told her you'll never be putting on century old makeup again and she wholeheartedly agreed this time

[beguilingcorpse]

PLEASE tell me some of your favorite sandwiches...i work at a diner and i get one free sandwich per day and i almost always get the exact same thing. gimme something that will deeply bamboozle the kitchen staff

thank you for this ask. i am so sorry for the sandwich tangent that it inspired. this post is in fact so long that i have to put it under a read more tag so it doesn't reach Do You Love The Color Of The Sky notoriety. also this has been written as, like, a general cooking guide instead of Things You Can Order At A Diner, but otherwise feel free to show this post to your kitchen staff and watch their minds crumble

to build a great sandwich - a truly Fucked Up Sandwich - you must first understand that a sandwich is, at its core, just some bread with stuff on it. as a disclaimer, i don't mean to diss the classics. they're around for a reason. i just know that PERSONALLY i am a little bit sick of the same second grade lunchbox sandwich, and PERSONALLY i prefer to push the boundaries of simple food preparation into the realm of the eldritch and unknown.

the sandwiches i make are different every time. you may have heard the old adage "cooking is an art." that is partially true, sometimes, kind of. cooking, for me, is more like a four year old getting access to paint for the first time and losing their whole goddamn mind about it. i want you to let go of every rule you think there is. make things up. go crazy.

the bread of the sandwich matters only insofar as it can support its fillings. i tend to use plain ol whole wheat, but honestly, you can use whatever you'd like. my big piece of advice here is to think about the structural integrity of your design. much like a bread engineer, because that's what you are. if your fillings are wet or gelatinous (hold on, we're getting there) you NEED a crustier bread. sara lee won't cut it. some people like fancy bread with herbs and shit. i see the bread more as a canvas than as part of the painting, but like, there are no rules. go ham.

speaking of ham. this is the section where you expect me to disavow lunch meats. i shan't. pre-sliced meat is a brilliant (and cheap!) way to provide the basis of flavor for your sandwich AND to make sure you get enough protein. if you're vegan or vegetarian, you'll have to skip this step, but that's okay because it's not an integral part of the process. that being said, i think it lays a solid foundation for the whole sandwich's raison d'etre.

pairing with a good cheese is a classic for a reason. i stay away from american - it melts beautifully, which makes it great for grilled cheese, but it also has an artificial quality to it that i don't really vibe with. swiss, provolone, and cheddar are staples, but honest to god, any cheese can be made to work if you build around it. (side note: the best grilled cheese uses american, pepper jack, colby, and a tomato. season the OUTSIDE of the bread with butter, red pepper flakes, garlic, and a dash of oregano. fry up an egg and put it on top and oh baby. ham optional if you want some extra protein.)

ok. you have your basics. now i need you to take a look around your kitchen and GO WILD.

one of my Go To Combinations is turkey, swiss, and a fruit jam (i like apricot). it is EXTREMELY good and easy to make, and the jam gives it just the right touch of sweetness to complement to mellow flavor of the turkey. if you're like, "oh, wow, you put JAM? on a SANDWICH??? ARE YOU OK????" you need to stop reading right now. the shaggy-like combinations that i concoct may be too strong for you, traveler.

if you like sweet foods and want to lean into that, keep exploring Fruit Road. jams and preserves work wonders. fruit butters are also nice for a more savory touch, but can get expensive and/or seasonal. you can also go for Fruits themselves: thinly sliced apple + ham + brie (or swiss, if you can't swing a more expensive cheese) is a godsend. most fruits belong on a sandwich tbh. grapes, tangerines, bananas, pineapple: it's all about the right context.

if you want to go Even Further Beyond, Fruit Road takes you right down to Sweets Avenue. honey works on most sandwiches, and - hear me out - will cut the tangy, eggy flavor of mayonnaise. it's easy for honey to overpower, though, so i'd say to go for a little before tasting and reassessing. plain or vanilla yogurt also complements fruit really well without being overpowering. if you REALLY want to go sweet, i like marshmallow fluff + bananas + peanut butter for protein. i've yet to find good vegan alternates to these, unfortunately - agave nectar would work in place of honey, but play around and see what you can come up with.

if you want to go savory, then Aromatics Boulevard will make sure you get substance and flavor. basil is an underrated addition to sandwiches, as are green onions, garlic (jarlic works great for this, don't @ me), and cabinet spices. you might need to try a little to get the proportions right, but chicken + mozzarella + plain yogurt + curry powder is frankly a godsend. i also lovelovelove a good sauce; nando's perinaise is usually region-specific, but it's creamy and tangy and goes with everything and i'm obsessed with it. get creative with what you have!

ok. this is my secret ingredient. come here. lao gan ma is chili oil, but with chili crisps in it. it is the single best ingredient in my kitchen. it's not expensive, a jar of it lasts forever, and you can find it at almost every asian grocery store. it is the perfect kick of spice to add to a sandwich. plenty of heat but not overpowering, and with a mostly savory finish. god it's so good. i scoop it with a knife to avoid most of the oil and spread just the crisp over the sandwich. crunchy, spicy, savory. mamma mia.

those are the BASICS of what i can give you. if you've read this far and you actually make a Fucked Up Sandwich PLEASE tag me in it, because odds are i'll try it. be bold. make a potato salad + tangerine + tahini monstrosity. (i haven't tried that but maybe it's good???) anything is a sandwich if you're brave enough. if you're still looking for inspiration, i get a lot of ideas from traditional tea sandwiches, which are usually ~3 ingredients and can get absolutely hogwild.

if you want more specific recipes or combinations then reach out and i can send you a list, but i hope that this gave you the tools and confidence to go forth and wreak havoc. have fun stay safe eat sandwiches!

[spicyvampire]

Hi, since GMM has many Thai BL series, just wondering, do you have favorites from them? If you do, do you have 10 you like most so far?

I do not have the best relationship with GeeMeeMee but over the years they have provided some tasty bls here and there, I'll try to give you a little top 10

1.Not Me (2021)

To me that's like the best GeeMeeMee show ever made, great activism story, all the storylines are compelling, it gets accidentally funny with the twins stuff and the fact that Yok the resident arsonist is tryna fuck that cop so bad, but with Yok's help Dan finished realizing that he was part of a system that was beyond fixing and it was better to get himself free of it than staying, honestly has one of the best storyline and character development ever written in a bl

2. 3 Will Be Free (2019)

A gay mafia son, a stripper and a gogo bar manager walk into a bar, shenanigans ensue. To this day, the only GeeMeeMee show to have given me an endgame throuple and frankly one of the only cannon throuples we have in bl

3. Moonlight Chicken (2023)

By god Wen fucked that old man in the chicken shop, but in all seriousness this bl probably has the best breakup storyline I've ever seen in any media ever, it's a truly masterpiece; also we saw the story of a deaf character who uses sign language and that's not something you see often in bl tbh, wish we had more Gaipa and Alan but you take what u can get

4. Cherry Magic Thailand (2023)

Honestly this one took me by surprise, I'm not a fan of remakes but they did a really good job adapting those japanese characters to a Thailand setting while keeping some of the japanese background there, and go a bit further and deeper than the original did with some of the characters

5. Wandee Goodday (2024)

This one was my obsession for the last few weeks, unfortunately I think the show lost some momentum around the middle of it, and it needed more balance on some stuff, like one of Dee's big trauma wasn't even resolved even if they showed it affecting him pretty severely at least twice, while we spend like almost the whole 2nd half of the show on Yak's, overall very silly and enjoyable and also nice asexuality representation which is not something you see often in bl

6. The Eclipse (2022)

I'm not really a high school boy bl type of person and I usually avoid them but they got me with this one, I think Akk's storyline ressemble Dan's a lot in the sense that he had to realize he was part of a system that is bad and is using him to maintain a bad status quo and then had to free himself from it even if that's all he's ever known, Ayan is of course of a great help with his flirtiness, shenanigans and overall fuck the rules attitude

7. Bad Buddy (2021)

Thai bl's Romeo and Juliet, what I loved the most about this one was the attention put on the dynamics of Pran and Pat and their respective families, and how even if they didn't succeed in changing their fighting parents minds, they stayed together and continued to love each other because at the end of the day, the love was between them and it had nothing to do with their parents

8. He's coming to me (2019)

I love me a ghost story like any other guy, so this was right up my lane, I gotta admit it's been like 4 years since I've seen this so I don't remember the storyline clearly, but it left a good impression on me, so much that years later I still think of it as good

9. Only Friends (2023)

Top 10 messiest friend group ever created, this could have been higher on the list if they didn't do Boston dirty in the very last goddamn episode of the show

10. Dark Blue Kiss (2019)

I honest to god remember nothing about the mains but this show has the best coffee shop au in the ql universe and it's from 2019, SunMork chemistry is just firing all over the place, definitely my favorite Gawin ost too

[thecameronchronicles]

Just Another Reason

TW: Smut. Language. Breeding Kink. Rough/Dom! JJ.

SUMMARY: JJ’s jealousy brings you both in verbal rivalry once again, only this time, with a specific confession changing everything…

WORD COUNT: 1800

REQUESTED

Anonymous asked:

Can you write on where JJ and reader are bestfriends and JJ thinks reader is in love with Rafe and they have an argument where reader tells JJ shes in love with him. They fuck and JJ has a possessive and breeding kink to show her who she belongs to?

Just Another Reason 

It began as a joke. The accusations that your heart and focus was on that of Rafe Cameron. Of course, you didn't help the theories made by your best friend JJ, as you loved to rile him up. The way he became flustered and passionate, insulting Rafe and even your own 'stupidity' had quickly crossed a line it never had before. Such a line that the other pogues had vanished from sight in knowing better than to try and stop either one of you as it would only bring the anger towards them. For that, the living room of The Chateau became the sight of a verbal boxing ring of sorts as you sparred with pained words keeping veiled feelings in check by such cruelty. 

"You really think I would love Rafe?! He's hot but-" 

"Oh really?!" 

"Yeah, I have eyes, JJ...but you can be hot and an idiot. Like I would ever let him touch me-" 

"He sure thinks he can with the way you do everything but open your legs for him-" 

"Because I like to make him think he could. My own kind of high to know he wants me but will never have me..." 

"And why not entertain the idea then? If you like that high so much-" 

"Because I have feelings for someone else! Ones that I honest to God can't fathom why I do because he drives me up the goddamn wall!" 

"Is it Topper? Kelce?" His anger now subsided into nervousness, "Oh God, is it John B?" 

"It's you! I would never entertain the idea of Rafe or anyone else because I'm in love with YOU JJ! Stupidly-" He didn't allow you a second to retract those words or ruin the moment before your lips were taken against his. Breathless from the surprise, your skin was set on fire from his touch alone as he guided you close to him while also leading you to the direction of the closest wall. 

"You love me?" His words were almost pained, if not inflamed with humor or even patronization, "Then you're gonna show me..." You were dragged out of view of any curious pogues and into the bedroom, with the door slammed by his hand. 

"You're gonna prove to me I'm all you want...And you're gonna start by letting me see what's mine..what you've been teasing me with in all those paper thin bikinis-" He bit his bottom lip as you began to obey before only snapping the elastic fabric of your suit instead. 

"I don't know, JJ...Now that I've thought about it.. Rafe might-" 

"You say his name again and you won't get to come-" He explained while taking hold of your jaw, his second hand rocketing into your bikini bottoms and jean shorts. 

“I am going to make it crystal clear if I have to just who it is who belongs to you-”

“Ahh….”

“WHO gets to hear THOSE dirty little moans…” He quickened still. 

“And who gets to be so deep inside of you that the only thing you’ll ever fucking know is how it feels when I make you come…” He turned you away from him, hands greedily in descent over your breasts and back to your sex, only brushing it into a tease as he surprised you with a toss to the bed, but a lift of your hips making it accessible for him to focus on your ass. His palm came over the natural curve, your soft skin exposed by the grip of his fingers pulling your bottoms down, but only to your knees, before a hard slap made you wince. 

“Nobody will even have to ask who gets to fuck you because they’ll see it for themselves. MY handprints on this perfect little ass. MY cum dripping out this pussy,” He explained, fingers in depth within your sex, circling and sourcing for where you were most affected, “And MY name from your lips.”

“Yours.” You breathed, wanting to give him anything and everything as long as it meant his remaining touch. It was addictive as it was contradictory in care and cruelty. He was aggressively needy in the perfect way to make you feel wanted in a way you weren’t aware you even needed until now.

“You sure?”

“Yes…JJ…I’ve always been…” He slapped your ass again. 

“Then you’ve been wearing all those little bikinis for me? Been bending over so I can envision THIS?” He asked with yet another smack. “You at this angle just for me?”

“Yes…”

“But you realize that I’m not the only one who is able to see you when you act that way, right?”

“JJ-”

“SO…” He rounded a kind rub of his palm to your battered skin before offering one more slap on either side. 

“I have to keep this ass red so everyone knows when you bend over like that and wear suits like this that I am the only one who gets to make good on that perfect angle…” A grip to your hair brought you up against his chest, your eyes made to lock to his in a way that made you dizzy for a multitude of reasons. 

“Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

“Yes…”

“Yeah?” You nodded to his need for validation while his thumb came to a brush at your bottom lip. 

“All of you?”

“All of me, J-” He carried his touch to your breast, untying the top that teased him as he spoke of it, before leaving you completely bare for him. 

“Perfect…” He breathed, momentarily lost from his domination as he basked in how soft and warm you were within his hand. He’d imagined it just as often as you had and without the need to rush, he fondled and twisted the new skin that was, per your submission, his new possession. 

“JJ…” You whimpered as he began to tease your nipples, the sensations making you arch against him, as he was quick to correct this need to be away from him.

“I don’t think so, sweetheart..” His hand  was back between your legs as the other was firmly wrapped around your neck once again. “I get to feel every little shift your body makes…every breath-”

“JJ!”

“Every desperate little squirm…” He scoffed into your ear. “I get to make you come…”

“Yes! Please, JJ! Make me come!” You were forced with your cheek at a rest to the sheets beneath you. 

“Then you’ve gotta take my cock, princess…YOUR cock…”

“YES! PLEASE!” You begged as he tugged at your hair, keeping you from suffocating beneath him, while you would be able to feel him inside of you. The thrusts were manic and sporadic, a broken pace leaving your breathing equally as erratic, before you would feel him purposely slow and still, all to feel you clench around him. 

He was edging you.

“JJ!”

“You desperate for it, princess? Want me to make you come?”

“YES!”

“Desperate enough to let me come inside you? Give you my baby and make sure everybody from Figure Eight to The Cut knows who got you nice and knocked up?” The idea made your stomach twist into anxious excitement-the exact kind that would be expected at the crest of a rollercoaster. The fear of what was to come, but the thrill of the ride it would be. 

“Yeah?” He brought you back to his chest, turning your jaw to where you could face him and make out the high spread across his expression.

“Yeah?! Then beg me to do it…tell me what you want from me and you’ll be sure to get it, sweetheart.”

“Fuck me, JJ!”

“Already doing THAT princess, gotta tell me what you want next…” He chuckled between his own words as you struggled to formulate anything but moans as they came from each thrust continuing inside of you in companion to the flicks made of his finger across your clit. 

“I want you to come inside me…I want you to have your baby, JJ! Give me your cum so I can be pregnant for you!”

“You want it real bad don’t you, I can feel you clenching me so tight-”

“YES! PLEASE!”

“Beg one more time…just so I really know you want it. Want me-” Your fingers wrapped around the back of his hips, digging your nails into the naked skin beneath, before you obliged. 

“Please, JJ! Give it to me!” Although it may not have been the description he wanted, he would act in compromise before turning you to face him, knees pressed to your chest. 

“Then you’re gonna watch me do it baby, watch me fill you up so deep with my cum that you’ll be pregnant in no time.” You nodded, his hand to the back of your neck as he forced your forehead against his. 

“Fuck!” You belted beneath him, his depth, his heavy breathing, his touch-everything worked in perfect unison to pull you to that edge. 

“Come with me-” He grunted behind clenched teeth, fingers tightening at the back of your neck. 

“I'm close, JJ!”

“Oh, I know…why do you think I am?” He scoffed before leading you over that precipice and spilling over him, his own release quick to follow. And yet, he continued. 

“JJ-”

“Every last drop, princess…gotta make you a mommy so everyone knows you’re taken care of…By…ME…” He pulled your ass higher, forcing himself even deeper, as your mouth pulled slack from the sensations of pleasure behind overstimulation. 

“I need to make you come again…I need to hear it again…” He was suddenly absent from you, his fingers acting as a quick replacement before his tongue was at your clit. 

“I wanna wear you, princess…so come nice and hard on my face so everyone knows who I belong to…” Your eyes rolled as he worked you into perfect harmony, your body in contractions to the excess of pleasure as a familiar rush of ecstasy came to you in waves, his fingers only stopping when your back arched and you pleaded with him in pain. 

But his fingers would now come to your parted lips. “Suck ‘em, clean baby…I like to share.” He smirked, doing the same to your sex, pulling the mutual slick to his fingers and feeding it to you once again. 

“Just another reason to fucking love you.”

“Just another reason to love fucking you.” You added as his brow cocked. 

“I love you, princess.” He spoke in the break of yet another kiss. 

“I love you too, JJ…”

Taglist: @hopebaker @iovdrew @penny4yourthoughts @magnificantmermaid @pickingviolets @lovedetlost @trikigirl271 @maybankslover @slut4starkey @slvtherinseeker @obxiskewl @obxxrxfes @bluesongbird @slut-era @ailee-celeste @rafesbae @camilynn @bethoconnor @pankhoeforlife @pankowperfection

[augment-techs]

prompts based on lines from fanfics that hit different after the tenth read

Slayer, Slayer, Monster Killer//Into the den//A blazing Inferno//Defender of the Innocent

Cauterize the wound.

Blood quickly began to fill the water.

Blue tint surrounding the lips.

He'd take jazz over a symphony, rock over jazz, and a crazy buscar in the tube station creating something insane with a violin, a beat box, and a pedal drum over rock.

I also wrote a gay version, if anyone wants it.

The thinness of the shoulder bothered him.

The curse was simple but badly done; convoluted and too mixed up with his own energies to be easily removed.

"Your parents are fucked up. I'm serious, that's Fucked Up."

With a coat like blood. Like cherries. Like candy.

"...Correction...I might be bleeding."

It was the best protection he could give.

"I can't believe you just called your own behavior petty harassment."

Cleaner than he'd been in eight months.

"Go curse somebody else. He doesn't belong to you--you can't have him."

Never had to initiate a virgin before.

The thought was idle.

Imagine if you will...

"The game is over. Do you understand?"

He was pissing blood.

"You asked for respect, I'm giving it to you."

Too tired and weak to fight properly.

"I haven't felt any strong emotions since I was a kid."

"What color is the sky right now?"

"So they will be the same age. So they can have adventures."

"I'm done keeping secrets for you."

"Sure. Why not take away the last thing I have left."

'Pretend.' It rattles in his brain.

No wonder people talked.

"Although this totally explains why you were in love with me like once a year for three years in a row."

"No, I do not have a scrunchie."

He'd never been brave enough.

"It's basically a game of sexual preferences."

It wasn't the personality serum, but it was some form of mind control.

It had been so goddamn long since they had heard any sort of tune at all.

"It's one of my grounding techniques."

"Please. Never say anything like that again."

He was also good at being randomly, devastatingly kind.

"I bet I could pick you up. Wanna see if I can?"

"I will not elaborate."

Carefully lit gym thirst traps.

He bit his fist, dried his eyes, and didn't make a sound.

"Because I am through with you. You aren't worth the effort."

Sees them glimpsed in mirrors and reflective surfaces; and the newest ones most often.

"Thanks for letting me feel alright for a bit."

It was homemade, and heavy, and hurt.

"You're not afraid?"

It was just as well.

"If I planted something on him there's a chance it could get lost."

"You're too good for me."

"Please. I don't want you to disappear again."

With an awkward, coltish sort of grace that makes her look decades younger than she is.

'Strange' is a family trait.

"Just want to rest with you. This is good."

"I shot my dad when I was fifteen."

Refreshing. Invigorating--where the fuck are these words coming from?

"Go find a nice ditch to crawl into and die there, not on our floor."

"I'm used to the cold, darling. Don't worry. There are worse things to endure."

"They gave us twenty dollars for nothing."

"Amazing, for once, your remarkable ability to repulse and horrify women saves the day."

"...Okay, okay, don't look at me like that; I'm a huge asshole. But not in that way."

"Like organizing your pornography collection."

"I just need some time. Right now, I don't know what I'm feeling."

They started it out like the leads in a bad B Movie.

"I said that about Jaws. That movie was terrible by the way."

"You're still my first choice."

Three years in the womb.

To be honest, they'd expected to die.

Looking back on it now he felt like the biggest idiot for not realizing what a huge Red Flag that had been.

"You want to come with us?"

"Back then I didn't even know about consent."

"If my dad ever comes back from his 'business trip' you kill him and we're even."

They have no idea what their Tragic Backstory is, so they make up a new one every time someone asks.

Don't want to train today? Too bad, you either fight the giant centipede or DIE.

"They ain't that bad compared to some of the shit I've eaten."

"I hate being brainwashed. And mind controlled. And sold, and handled without asking, and...being a thing for people to have."

"The research I took to find the gag I was thinking of was very uncomfortable. No, Google, I don't want BDSM gags, please stop giving me that option."

"I have a room and extra blankets. You'd probably fit into a few of my shirts, too."

"You're not trying to burn my apartment down?"

'Oh. Oh, it's going to kill me.'

"You refuse to take a shot at Adolf Hitler because you are not a murderer."

"Because she totally didn't punch that guy to defend your honor, and you totally didn't swoon."

It's a perfectly common ingredient in a lot of cultures! There's blood pudding, blood soup, blood tofu--that's a real thing and it's delicious.

"Did you just make them tell us about their sexual awakening?"

It's red berry jam. It's not really blood at all. They just call it that to make their kids think they're tough blood-eating warriors.

"Now stop having a crisis about being an eldritch abomination."

And that's exactly why broken bones are a testament to their mercy.

"I've been gone a long time, haven't I?"

Seems like a normal breakfast, right?

They are not friends. And yet.

"They're innocent. They never asked for any of this."

"I thought you loved me, but you're just like everyone else."

The candies are always gone within a day.

Backpacking across the end of the world.

"I should be worth, like, at least two goats. Or even one of those cute mini pigs, maybe."

"Apparently I'm from the past and you're from the future."

"Well, I drove an ice cream truck and didn't die."

The common areas became populated with candles, dishes of salt near the doorways, little piles of pennies in crevices.

The small bruise they expected to see is not small at all. It's huge and almost black and it's spread against the entirety of the left side of the stomach.

"You mean because you beat the shit outta me? Nah. I've got a pretty high tolerance for getting beat up. Seems like I just end up friends with them, even when I lose my S/O to them."

[joyce-stick]

Suzume Isn't Gay, But We Liked It Anyway

Despite not being as gay as Shinkai might have tried to make it during its development, Suzume is still quite a good film which we enjoyed immensely on account of its characters, compelling narrative, visual beauty, thought-provoking themes, and the improvements observed over Shinkai's previous two films. So this an essay about Suzume, about why it's good, what its themes are, and our glowing recommendation.

Transcript under the cut.

Previous video essay/transcript: Audrey's Best Girls Winter 2023

If you're on desktop, you may find this more comfy to read directly on our Tumblr site.

If you enjoy this essay, please consider following us here or on any other platforms, and/or donating to support future works via our Patreon or Ko-fi.

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Citations!

Baron, Reuben. “Director Makoto Shinkai on the Anime Artistry of Suzume - Exclusive Interview.” Looper, Static Media, 12 Apr. 2023, https://www.looper.com/1254434/director-makoto-shinkai-anime-artistry-suzume-exclusive-interview/.

Brzeski, Patrick. “Makoto Shinkai on How Anime Blockbuster 'Suzume' Reflects the Current State of Japan: ‘the Most Honest Expression I Could Put on Screen.’” The Hollywood Reporter, Penske Media Corporation, 7 Mar. 2023, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/makoto-shinkai-interview-suzume-anime-berlin-2023-1235329404/.

Pulliam-Moore, Charles. “Makoto Shinkai Wants Suzume to Build a Bridge of Memory between Generations.” The Verge, Vox Media, 15 Apr. 2023, https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/15/23678724/makoto-shinkai-suzume-interview.

Jackson, Destiny. “Director Makoto Shinkai on the Tender Resonance and Maturity of Making 'Suzume': ‘I Think about How to Dig Deeper so I Can Emotionally Move People in My Vicinity.’” Deadline, Penske Media Corporation, 15 Apr. 2023, https://deadline.com/2023/04/suzume-makoto-shinkai-japanese-anime-weathering-with-you-your-name-1235325691/.

https://twitter.com/ao8l22/status/1513116464210919425

https://twitter.com/moogy0/status/1592346490315640836

I had a few good reasons to assume I would hate Suzume.

We've seen three of Shinkai’s films. Yes, those three. We liked Your Name quite a bit when we saw it in theaters, but its flaws became apparent on a rewatch a few years later. We did not like Weathering With You, which made its flaws apparent to us rather immediately. Never watched it since watching it the first time, but, I don't know, maybe we'll go back to it.Still, thinking about that film had us pissed off for a little while, although we're less pissed off now, for reasons we might get to later. So, when we went to watch Suzume, I was reasonably expecting to hate it, or, even worse, enjoy it, while seeing some intractable flaw in it that ticked me off immensely about it.

And… I found none! I mean, maybe I'll think of one later, but my current opinion of Suzume, as I write this hours after having seen it, (and speak it, 'bout a couple days after having written this) is that it was a pretty good film with a lot of breathtaking visuals, funny moments, some emotional bits, and no real huge flaws to speak of. In fact, not only does this film lack the biggest flaws of its predecessors, it's also got a few things about it that I appreciate more.

First thing I liked immediately: Girl. I mean, her name, is the title. It's no secret that we of the joystick system appreciate beautiful anime girls, and this particular such beautiful anime girl is good, both as the protagonist of the film who does all the proactive things to save the guy, which is different from the last two movies where the guy did all the stuff. I'm not gonna pretend like Shinkai is suddenly some kind of feminist icon now for correctly giving a female character some goddamn agency, but: it's a nice touch for us personally, given that… we like girls. It helps that Suzume is emotional and interesting and funny and has a pretty good arc through the movie and her voice actress does a good job- no, we did not watch the dub. I'll probably talk a bit more about her later, but I think she's good.

I think it's important to mention with regards to this girl, that she was, apparently, supposed to be gay. This information came to light in the English speaking anime community after a Japanese entertainment journalist tweeted a tweet sayin’ as much, and then professional translator Moogy went and tweeted about it in turn, citing this journalist as a source. I can’t find that this chain goes back any further than that, although I tried to out of personal interest, because, if I had, then I would’ve been able to write that into the Wikipedia page- which, I DID CHECK, and it briefly mentions that -

Okay, so, since writing that, another, Wikipedia-admissible, source, in the English language, emerged, in which Shinkai is interviewed, and confirms this to be true. So as such, I added that information to the article, with that source. Look. There it is! And it’s still there, probably, unless someone removed it while I was making the video.

In this interview, the interviewer asks Shinkai directly about this, and he says, “I’m surprised you know it! I’ve only told Japanese interviewers about it!” Clearly Shinkai is unaware of the power of Moogy. So, he goes onto say, that, yes, it was his initial idea for a companion, and that the theoretical character who Souta replaced would’ve been Suzume’s onee-san crush; that’s how I’m taking this whole ‘sisterhood romance’ thing. He thought he’d done enough with the boy meets girl thing, and he wanted to try doing something else.

His producer rejected it, because, in Shinkai’s translated words, “You may be tired of these romantic stories, but your audience loves it,” which, I believe, is a polite way of saying “I don’t think a gay film will sell.” The chair thing was chosen to “not make it too much of a romance”.

Shinkai further says— and this part kinda gets me— that he doesn’t think the story would’ve changed if it had been gay, or if Suzume had been a boy or non-binary or whatever. Quote:

“It's not necessarily the context of male/female; it's about a human overcoming something. In my future films as well, I want to focus on that human story as opposed to too much commentary on gender or sex.”

So, my reading of this response, and, take this with a grain of salt because it’s only my personal interpretation, is that while Shinkai was interested in making a gay film as a change of pace, he did not consider it important enough to insist on. There were other things he wanted to make the movie about, and he didn’t want to die on the gay hill.

And, y’know, that’s a shame, but I think it’s fair enough. I would have liked to see the alternate timeline where no one stopped him from making the film gay, but if it wasn’t already clear, I like the film that we got, and I don’t fault Shinkai for having other priorities as a director, like, for instance, getting his film funded and keeping his job. And honestly, I can halfway see the merit in not making it a gay film, because then it’d be a lot harder to, y’know, address the themes, without addressing whatever gay discourse there’d be that overshadows the themes.

I don’t say this to be like, “ooh, the film would’ve just been gay and that would’ve been bad,” it would’ve been good for the film to be gay, I just mean that a lot of the time people are more concerned about there being representation rather than the quality of the story in which the representation exists and it becomes the gay thing, rather than, the thing that happens to be gay, and that’s not always great. I mean, I guess we are getting a little bit of that just off of the knowledge that the film could have been gay, but at least I don’t have to think about talking about it too much past this point, because it’s, y’know, not actually in the film.

Shinkai said other stuff, too, I guess, about the animation and how the characters have different color palettes for daytime and evening and night scenes, which explains the very convincingly presented amusement park scene, that happens at night! So that was interesting.

Anyway, that’s the addendum I have about that, I’m gonna go back to the rest of this:

I have no idea if this would've been good for the film or not, but we have a different video being written about gay pandering, so, let’s move on then I guess!

The second thing that we liked was the film's opening minutes. And to explain why this is, I need to give a bit of context, I think. So, in short, after the 2011 nuclear meltdown and earthquake that irreversibly forever changed Japan and the life of all the people living there (and also delayed Madoka Magica's finale), Shinkai apparently decided that he wanted to make a bunch of films about it. About three so far, to be exact. Which, y'know, is not a bad motivation for making films. It's certainly a better motivation than I had to write this video

So, as such, his last three films are a novel fusion of wacky comedy, coming of age romantic melodrama, and disaster film. Your Name and Weathering With You had really slow buildups to the disaster part of the disaster film, to the point that mentioning it is almost a spoiler, but I'm going to assume it isn't because everyone has now seen those films. So they have a whole first half where it's just kind of weird supernatural romantic comedy slice of life hijinks but then it abruptly tone shifts in the second half.

This is actually, I think, the source of both of these films' major issues. It's kinda cool to watch them the first time and then see the story's tone shift when the mid movie plot twist happens, introducing the big disaster scenario aspect of the story along with it, but the drawback to that approach is that you have, in essence, a movie whose plot twist is that it becomes a different movie. This both contributes to the odd tonal whiplash and also means that the supernatural disaster part of the film is weaker and not as well fleshed out as it could be.

Suzume, on the other hand, smartly introduces the main conflict of the story in the first act of the movie. This choice is good. The serious existential threat to Japan stuff that the film is about is the immediate focus of the film. This allows for a more balanced tone, as then the movie can comfortably use its comedic parts to add levity to its treatment of that harrowing topic, rather than the existential stuff comin' in like a sledgehammer to break a previously comfortable tone- which, I should say, IS a thing you can do, and IS a valid choice to tell a story, I just don’t think it was necessarily a choice that Shinkai handled well before. The pacing is much improved, as the supernatural aspects of the film are more evenly developed and the story has more time to explain itself. Mostly. There's like one scene I don't get. I’ll get to it?

Anyway, the end result of this choice is that Suzume feels like a much more focused and complete film, rather than two halves of different films. Aaaaaand, I appreciate this! A lot. I can see this choice maybe maybe maybe making the movie less interesting to some people, because it's paced more like a normal movie than Shinkai's other previous two romantic comedy disaster movies, but, hey, I think it's nice that Shinkai seems to be growing as an artist and a writer and a filmmaker, who made a normal movie that didn’t leave us confused, and disoriented, and confused, about what it’s about

Other things I like… I like the visuals. The animations and backgrounds and visual effects and the CG are all pretty fire. Suzume is generally a really beautiful film! We all knew this, but, really, it's really good. I like the chair thing. I like the way that the chair is animated. Apparently the animation of the chair was inspired by Luxo Jr., y’know, the Pixar short that became the origin of the Pixar lamp, and… yeah, I can see it. It definitely does have that old Pixar vibe of “inanimate object moving like a very real human inanimate object” that that has. I just like the way the legs move, and the way it emotes so convincingly with these subtle but credible motions.

There’s one scene involving a roller coaster that- that scene is incredible, that’s definitely one of the most visually novel sequences in all of Shinkai’s films that we’ve seen. I like the character design of the guy, Souta, also? When he’s not a chair, I mean. I dunno. The last two guy characters in the last Shinkai films looked like generic anime boys, but this guy looks like the kind of guy who I can believe a woman would find attractive. I like the look of his hair, I like how grizzled he is, I like his long gray coat, I like that you can look at this tired hunk of a man and immediately see that he’s been places and that he’s carrying some shit with him. Bonus points for that he looks like one of the Monogatari exorcists.

As for Suzume! Well, her design is maybe a bit generic, but… she’s a girl. It’s not like our standards are too high for girls. She’s supposed to be an ordinary girl, and, y’know, in this movie contrasting with this dude and then this chair, that works out well. And also, I appreciate that she rotates her outfits throughout the movie. My headmates and I love to see a woman change her clothes, not necessarily directly. I’m just saying, that denim jacket thing she had going on in Kobe, and when she lost her shoes in Tokyo and then borrowed Souta’s boots? Specifically borrowing the boots, because, the only pair of shoes that we own looks like this:

It’s a small thing, but like, Shinkai couldn’t make Suzume gay. Widespread trans representation in anime is a bit far off. I might well be eating off the floor conjuring table scraps pointing at a woman in a man’s shoes and saying “oi, isn’t it gender?” But like, 1, it’s a woman wearing a man’s shoes, and 2, yes, it is gender. And we like the gender. You cannot stop us! We did get to see the movie a second time with a friend, (thank you for seeing the movie with us, and reviewing our script!) and she insisted that the boots are femme coded, and, we disagree, unfortunately. I’m sorry, we cannot see these boots as anything but gender.

However! It is Shinkai’s fault that Onimai exists. That scene in Onimai is definitely influenced by that scene in Your Name. We know this because Nekotofu said so in interviews. Onimai is very good and based and funny, and this is a fact upon which I, and all of my headmates, equally quite agree. It’s nice to agree on something with all of yourself. SPEAKING, of the opening scene in Your Name:

Shinkai did not sexualize Suzume. So, if you hated that scene of Your Name, there’s none of that! There’s no chair peeping on Suzume or anything like that. So, if that knowledge helps you somehow, now you know.

Long story short. Should you watch Suzume. Well, yes obviously. By the time this video comes out, or, by the time you're seeing it, its theatrical run might be over, but like, if it’s not, then, yes, I recommend going and seeing it, like, today. And if it is, then remember to see it whenever it’s on blu-ray or streaming services or your local cat-themed anime distributor. Shinkai made a normal movie. I hope he makes an abnormally good movie next time. I believe in this man. Again. Somewhat. It’s not like it really matters what I say or think, but I do also hope that his next movie is just gay. I won’t matter, to me, or, to us, if his next movie is just a carbon copy of Suzume, but gay. I mean, he got away with making a heterosexual Your Name once after making the heterosexual Your Name. There is nothing stopping him. Except for the pigheaded businessmen who he may have to argue with.

Anyways, that’s that, I guess I’m going to talk more specifically about the plot now, so, if you didn’t see the movie, then, leave, now, if you care. If you did see the movie, or do not plan to see the movie, then, uh, don’t leave. Please. I’m going to put the Patreon credits here. It is not the end of the video. Please do not leave.

Intermission for extra thoughts and Patreon credits!

Hello everyone. This is Audrey, of the joystick system. The name of the brain that I’m the lead woman of. We’re still a plural system, as I’ve not forgotten, thanks to Luci and all my headmates.

As I already think I said, we saw Suzume a second time with a friend. As of this speaking, it continues to play in movie theaters, at least where we are, although it’s not showing nearly as often and probably not in as many places. Nonetheless, if it’s still playing in your area, I obviously very much recommend it. If you have the time and money to see it a second time after seeing it the first time, I think you should see it a second time. Because it’s good!

One thing I’d really like to change about this video, overall, is the tone of it. I think it came off way too much as “oh yeah, Suzume’s actually pretty good”, because I walked in with muted expectations, and then walked out feeling like it was pretty good but also kind of waiting for it to hit me that it’s actually bad… And, no, no, it’s an absolutely fantastic film and I imagine is probably going to line up with our top 5 movies of the year. Although, it’s not like we watch a lot of movies, so it probably won’t have too stiff of a competition. A different friend of ours saw it, and they absolutely loved it and had a lot of really good things to say that just made us like it more- so, yeah, no, Suzume is fantastic. Please watch Suzume. If you can.

I think I also should say, I disagree pretty strongly with the assertion that Suzume is “the same film” as Your Name and Weathering With You. As I’ve already said, the structure is much more cohesive in how it introduces the plot without the plot becoming the plot twist of the plot, and also there’s just a lot of improvements on writing and characterization and storytelling and the film is generally much more tonally consistent than either Your Name or Weathering With You. Sure, it’s a similar overall plot to both of those films, but I think there’s just as much merit in iterating on old ideas as there is in introducing new ones, and Suzume does a healthy amount of both. Maybe it’s a remake of the same movie, but if that’s so, Suzume is definitely the best version of that movie, and I think the growth Shinkai went through as a director and writer to get there is crystal clear.

And as I hope I’m about to make clear, the thematic weight of the film is much stronger as well. The decreased focus on the romance subplot helped a whole lot in that regard, I think, to bring the themes into greater focus, and like, gosh, is the film REALLY THEMATICALLY GOOD on top of being so well structured and written and visually spectacular. I walked into Suzume expecting it to be bad, I spent like two weeks while writing the script and making the video trying to think of flaws in this movie, and I can really only think of like two, which are one, that it’s not gay, and two, that some minor plot details are maybe a small bit inscrutable.

But neither of those things actively bring the film down! It’s just great! And, if we had the time to watch the film a third time and then do a complete rewrite of the script, I’d probably change the tone I took with it, but y’know what, I gotta say a thing, I’ve left people waiting long enough, this movie won’t be in theaters forever, so, it’s good enough, and good enough is perfectly good enough.

Also. The music was really good. It was a lot less intrusive than in Your Name and Weathering With You. Those two films really love going all ham on their mid-movie insert song sequences? In Suzume, the music is, the musical score, which is really really good and is used really extremely effectively in, specifically the chair chase scene, and the amusement park scene, and the opening of the film, and the big Tokyo scene, and really the whole film. It was just really very good.

And, other than that, I think I mentioned everything I wanted to mention in the script, so, uh yeah, that's that!

So, before we get back to the video, channel housekeeping. I don’t think we’re going to be able to keep doing videos, at least not regularly, as things are going. If you’re not already aware of the disaster life we lead, we’ve been aimlessly floating around quasi-homeless and unemployed, for about our entire adult life, and spent around three years crashing at a friend’s place, for longer than we should’ve been because of executive dysfunction, burnout, and general mental illness. And also money.

Most of the stuff we’ve been making our videos with, including our desktop PC, was stuff we got before we were quasi-disowned by our parents, almost, uh, six (note: four or five) years ago? and the rest of it is stuff we have, very not hyperbolically, emptied our bank account for because we kinda needed it. So, if that stuff breaks, and it’s going to eventually, we’ll be on even more hiatus until further notice. Obviously this is pretty untenable, so, we’re going to have to try to get a job, and I don’t see great odds of that working out for our transgender neurodivergent failwomanchild self, and it’s obviously going to mean we have less time to make videos and write things. Naturally the stress of our unstable situation has already been doing that job, but. Y’know.

So, if you want to help even our odds: Ko-fi or Patreon. That is currently our only steady source of income, and even a little bit extra would make a pretty big difference for us day-to-day. You can send us monthly donations through either, although, they take a smaller cut on Ko-fi, so, there’s that. Ko-fi is also the place for giving us money one time as opposed to regularly.

As for what you get out of this, well, besides the obvious your name here and access to our discord, you will earn our gratitude and also we will feel indebted to you, which will lead us to try our best to keep making things. And also if you ever encounter us in person, we’ll give you a hug, if you want one, as long as you’re not, like, creepy about it.

Is that everything? Um. Yeah. That is everything. Here's all the names of all the important people who...

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Intermission over!!!

Okay, so, spoilers.

Plot of this movie! I’m just gonna steal bits of the Wikipedia summary, because I don’t want to write a plot summary myself and get waylaid.

Suzume Iwato is a 17-year-old high school girl who lives with her maternal aunt in Kyushu. One night, she dreams of searching for her mother (who, it's inferred later, died in a tsunami) as a child in a ruined neighborhood. The next morning, while headed for school, Suzume encounters a young man searching for abandoned areas with doors. He then is cursed to turn into a chair by a kitty cat who desires love and she runs away from home with him, and he explains that these doors in all these abandoned places are doors to an alternate dimension that occasionally let out supernatural beings called worms that do earthquakes, and they need to do the right rituals to close the door properly. So their journey across Japan to prevent the earthquakes and also get Souta back out of being a chair, thusly begins.

First of all, I think that Shinkai did an excellent job conveying the pain of losing one’s mother. I say this, because, uh, we have also lost our mother, and grieved her loss. She’s not dead, in case you’re wondering, she’s just a worthless piece of human garbage. So, I guess it’s a little perverse to compare our being estranged from our shitty nuclear family as a result of the events of our entire life up until we were twenty to Suzume losing her single mom in a natural disaster when she was four, but I can’t pretend that the former experience did not lend itself to us empathizing with her, in general. Like, we did definitely cry. That’s a thing that we did.

I also like how cleanly the movie conveys this information within a few minutes. Like, you get the opening sequence of the small Suzume searching for her mother in the Ever After, and then she wakes up a seventeen year old, and you hear her address the woman who is her guardian by that woman’s first name, and it immediately clicks, "ohhhh… orphan, got it, got it, got it," and yeah. In contrast to the previous two films where Shinkai took half the damn movie establishing what these characters’ lives and their relationships with their friends and relatives were like, this kind of storytelling efficiency (which, is present throughout the film, in establishing Souta's relationships as well) is impressive.

And like I said, I like the immediacy with which the plot begins, with Suzume meeting Souta, being asked about the ruins, and then going to check them out herself. I like that there's not a whole album of insert songs in this movie, no fancy opening cinematic, no big deal montage, just a smash cut to the opening title card while Souta and Suzume are trying to close the door in the old bathhouse. It's clean. It's real good.

So, then Suzume tries to patch Souta up when he gets injured, and then he gets cursed by this cat to become a chair, and then the movie gets further good! Suzume runs away from home to help Chair Souta capture this important cat that's supposed to be keeping the earthquakes from happening. And this greatly aggrieves her aunt Tamaki, who's just been trying her best her whole life and everything and I will say, um-

I'm going to get to that!

So, one thing I have to say specifically- I had not read any details about Suzume's plot or interviews from Shinkai before seeing it, and I kind of got the whole deal immediately with everywhere that an earthquake comes out of being an abandoned place of gathering. A closed bathhouse, school, amusement park. This all feels very harrowing to see onscreen- as an American! even though it's clearly intended as commentary on Japan's population decline, because, uh, have you heard of dead malls

If they ever do an American live action version of Suzume, it'll be about them visiting abandoned shopping malls, probably. please do not do that

But yeah, like, we live in Portland, Oregon, and compared to having grown up in pre-covid Philadelphia most of our life, post-covid Portland feels like a ghost town. Like, it's not actually, there's obviously still people who live here, and I don't mean that derogatorily because we love Portland and we'd like to keep living here, if possible, not the least because we get easy access to HRT. But like, there's a lot of closed and abandoned places in Portland, so many empty areas and business that have been boarded up and closed to the point that at times, wandering through downtown Portland almost feels like living in an open world video game where most of the buildings don't have designed interiors.

Places that all clearly closed within the last three or four years, with their signage up and everything. Places that are left in stasis to lie disused or else be reclaimed by the homeless until the homeless get chased out by the cops. It's all just really… eughf. It makes us sad to see this place, this whole country really, be stuck in this kind of disgusting degradation while our government fails to provide for us, let alone adapt to the challenges ahead of us, just leaves all these places where people lived, where people are living, now, to stagnate and stand like zombies of a past we can't go back to

There’s a scene in Heathers, one of our favorite movies of all time, where the main antagonist J.D. has a whole emotional reflection on how the stability of this franchised commercial convenience store enterprise has kept him feeling like there’s continuity in his life, and like, yeah, that’s kind of a feeling.

[Video ID: J.D. (played by Christian Slater), a black haired edgy looking teenage boy of about 16-17 wearing a long black jacket, paces about the convenience store "Snappy Snack Shack", speaking in an affected hard to place accent, to Veronica Sawyer (played by Winona Ryder), a brown-haired teenage girl of around the same age, who is wearing a grey dress that exposes her shoulders accompanied by a blue flower brooch on her chest, and black overalls)]

Veronica: I see you know your convenience speak pretty well.

J.D.: Yeah, well, uh, I've been moved around all my life. Dallas. Baton Rouge, Vegas... Sherwood, Ohio. There's always been a Snappy Snack Shack. Any town, any time, pop a ham and cheese in the microwave and feast on a Turbo Dog. Keeps me sane.

Veronica: Really?

Like, it’s eugh, because, obviously as an anticapitalist, we kinda dislike these sorts of places, the shopping centers, the strip malls, the gas stations, we're against all of this bullshit on principle these places are all kind of intensely hostile to… life, in general.

But also, these places are a part of the world we live in, and they are stable! Relatively. They are kind of the only way we've known the world to be. And it’s sad to see that stability be ever so more greatly upset by the pandemic and the… everything, with nothing on the horizon to replace it. And if and when we see this kind of stability disappear completely, it’ll be sad, even if it’s replaced by something better. We’ll probably miss something about wandering these gross, heavily commercialized disgustingly homogenized nightmare places that’ve been cannibalizing our communities this whole time. Yeah, we hate it, but... it’s where we live, and we’re not immune to nostalgia.

Nostalgia is just a nicer word for grief

And this same very such eughf feeling is very much echoed in Suzume. There’s this deep and palpable grief for these places and the people who used to live here felt in this film, and inherent in expressing that grief is Shinkai’s expression of the, y’know, important stage of grief, i.e., acceptance. Because, to close the doors, Suzume and Souta have to not just, close it, but also think of all the feelings and experiences of the people who used to live in these places, and then… let go.

When the amusement park scene happens, the ferris wheel starts moving, and Suzume is drawn in by the image of the ghosts of the people who once rode it, Souta starts yelling for her to stop, to not go in- not the least because she can’t see what she’s doing and is putting herself in danger, but also because she cannot go back. Those people who used to sit in that ferris wheel, laughing, crying, living, in this place, cannot come back. Suzume can’t go back. This past can’t be gone back to.

Okay, so, one thing I missed when I saw the film the second time. When Suzume was drawn into the Ever After through the ferris wheel door, she was seeing herself of the future in there, and that, was foreshadowing the end of the film. I’m keeping this part anyway because the emotional impact of that scene was still as described even if this plot foreshadowing bit was something I missed the first time seeing the film.

I read a few English language interview articles with Shinkai talking about Suzume right after seeing the film, both because I wanted clarification before I ran my mouth on two things. 1, I wanted clarification on what the cat wanted. I’ll get to him. 2, I wanted to be sure my interpretation of the doors thing was on point, which it was. Shinkai talks in one of these interviews about how when covid was happening and Japan was still trying to have the Olympics happen, it felt really irresponsible and bad, and he did not agree with this. He says, and I quote,

“You were opening this new door and not sure of what’s on the other side without bringing closure or understanding or coming to terms with what’s behind you. I want to say a lot of the Japanese population felt the same way. There was this kind of awkward air about us, and it really wasn’t time to open new doors without first reflecting on what came before us.”

And like, yeah, I agree. I just really, really agree with this. It is indeed what I took away from the film before I read this interview. Suzume spends this entire movie reflecting on the past and trying to grow beyond that and ultimately the one door that she opens, on purpose, is the one that she decides to open intentionally after reflecting on what brought her to this point and deciding what she needs to do and

Eugghhhh

I’m just saying, it worked. It really did work. For us, at least.

Now, to be clear: Japan and the United States are two different countries, and, while there are similarities in how the pandemic left our societies, they're ultimately two different societies, and I don't really know jack shit about Japanese society- I'm just relating, my feelings, of my experience, uh, our experience, as an American, to the feelings that we took away from Suzume.

And... even if I understand this all right. If the people who need to see this sort of message saw it, or, like, took that away, or acted on it when it did... that’d be nice, but ultimately I don’t think that Suzume will move any politician or other person in power making these decisions in Japan, or any country, enough, or in the right ways, to have any impact on policy. But y’know, Shinkai’s just a guy making movies, and I’m just one of the various split personalities of a deranged F-list anime YouTuber, so whatever. Such is life. It’s at least a nice sentiment.

So, the other things, in no particular order. I did cry a bit when Daijin, the cat, got sucked up back into the keystone. He’s hard to like at the start of the film, for, y’know, the reasons why he is, but ultimately when you consider that like… he’s been trapped that way, the same way as Souta spends trapped as a chair, for years? Centuries, for all we goddamn know? Once that clicks, it’s really hard to not empathize with him. And yeah, he might be a god now, I guess, but who knows if he was a person before, or, what even, and just, I think, I think if you spend god knows how long as a sacred relic keeping Japan from being destroyed by earthquakes, you at least, at least, maybe, maybe deserve, if nothing else, a little pet.

[pets microphone]

that was your little pet.

In one of the other interviews Shinkai did, he talked about how Souta becoming a chair, and also a Keystone sealing away the earthquakes, is intended as a metaphor for the experience of pandemic lockdown. It’s not a directly equivalent analogy, but, like, it does make sense! Souta is being forced into a position of being confined, to keep this dangerous and virtually uncontrollable force of nature under control, for the greater good and long-term preservation of society. And when you consider that Daijin was in the same position for gosh knows how the hell long, it makes it a lot easier to empathize with him! He wasn’t being malicious, exactly, not, willfully anyway, he knew that vacating his position was putting everyone else at risk, but, he did it anyway cause he just kinda snapped, like, fuck this, I want to go outside! That does make a lot of sense! Also it sticks out, also, when Suzume screams at Daijin, because that’s, y’know. It’s a whole scene. I feel like I want to say something about this! But I can't really land on anything to say about it? But yeah.

I think the whole thing with Suzume needing to sacrifice Souta midway through the movie is really well done. It’s extremely funny to me that Shinkai apparently thought to stress this point of the movie as how important it is for her to make this difficult choice because of how people criticized Weathering With You for not really being meaningfully critical of the consequence of Hodaka un-sacrificing Hina? And also that Hina never really gets a choice in being un-sacrificed, far as I remember, so... [whispers] that’s a little unintentionally sexist,

but whatever. I’d have to watch the film again, and I don’t feel like doing that right now

Suzume’s aunt, Tamaki. I do like her. She’s a pretty level-headed guardian, as guardians go. I like that when she finds Suzume and Serizawa in the car, and sees that going to this door is important to Suzume, she’s not immediately like, “fuck your feelings, we’re going home”? She’s curious about the child under her care. She’s concerned in a way that she’s willing to not only go all the way to Tokyo, but also to follow Suzume the rest of the way to see what's up because she clearly understands, logically, that even if she doesn’t know what it is that’s compelled Suzume to go this distance, it must be something that she needs to sort the fuck out in order to move on with her life, and that’s kinda good?

Although I should note that while she clearly sees the pragmatic value in not fighting Suzume on this, she’s also pretty reluctant to. She has a line where she’s like to Serizawa while Suzume is asleep, let’s turn the fuck around and go back, she’ll give up. So, y’know, Tamaki’s at least more open-minded than our mom was!

Speaking of that. There’s this one scene in the film, where Tamaki loses her shit at Suzume. Goes on screaming on about how she hates Suzume and wants her life back, and then she runs off to Serizawa being all like “I think I’m losing it,” and it’s a whole thing. On our first viewing, this scene felt a little out of nowhere. It was a whole sudden shock to have this intense scene happen and then also its pivot back into the magical realism aspects of the film with the black cat’s appearance, which confused us a bit cause I don’t think that was really explained at all.

But, watching the film a second time, and seeing the arc of Tamaki’s frustration reaching its peak with the benefit of hindsight, it made more sense that she’d come to a rope’s end and flip out like this. She’s been chasing her niece all across Japan, she’s ridden for several hours in a busted convertible in the rain, she doesn’t even have a proper explanation, her coworker has raised to her that this might be a kidnapping scheme- I get it. It’s a scene that I get.

I still do not understand the role of the large black cat though. Our friend agreed that that part didn’t make a whole lot of sense. So, that didn’t change.

I think the reason why it felt out of nowhere to us the first time is because it was entirely too familiar to our real life experience. In the middle of Tamaki’s rant, Suzume responds by saying, “but you said, ‘you’re my daughter,’” referring to when Tamaki first took her in, and said that. And Tamaki snaps back, “I never said that.” Our mother also did this exact thing, vehemently denying that she said and did things that we definitely remembered her saying and doing. (There's a word for this, it's... it's called gaslighting!) Living with someone who denies you this much, who makes you question your memory and your sanity and your general perception of the world this much, by forcing their own grief onto you like this, is just… really, simply, awful.

Throughout our childhood, we heard our mom say similar shit to us numerous times. That we were a horrible incorrigible child, that she hated us for ruining her family, that she wished she’d aborted us— all those sorts of things. The tone of Tamaki’s unadulterated rage in this dialogue was all too familiar to those memories. So, yeah, on both viewings, we were, very uncomfortable. Even knowing it was coming the second time around, it kinda caused us to actively recoil in our seat, to the point that our friend who we were seeing it with noticed our reaction and held out a stuffed animal she’d brought with her for us to pet.

So, um, yeah, that specific scene may or may not have triggered the PTSD that we may or may not have.

Tamaki does apologize for this later!

And she also, debatably, gets a bit of a pass for this since she’s not Suzume’s mother, and thus cannot reasonably wish that she had aborted Suzume, but can instead wish that she’d not done the unambiguously good deed of keeping Suzume out of the Japanese child welfare system, which, I can’t imagine is a good experience for a child. I don’t imagine any country’s child welfare system under capitalism to be a good experience for a child, but, y’know.  Well, we’re also kind of entirely opposed to the traditional family structure and the basic premise of parents in general, because giving only one or two people total power over a vulnerable young human life is not an ethical tradition to have in any case, but… eugh. That’s something for some other video.

In an interview with Deadline, Shinkai talks about this scene, specifically quoting the “give me back my life” part, and he says that on some level, all parents feel that way to their kids. And that while he acknowledges that it isn’t by any means acceptable to ever say that kind of stuff to a child, it is, y’know, a feeling that is there that he poured into it, and that he wanted to be there, for the parents in the audience who ever felt that way and regretted it. This is how we found out that Makoto Shinkai is apparently not single and does in fact have a child.

He also says, in this other interview with the Verge, that, he wanted the film to provide for an opportunity for people of different generations to emotionally connect with each other. So, in that context, I really understand why this scene is here. It’s serving the purpose of setting up that emotional bridge, that door between Suzume and Tamaki, these characters of two different generations who ultimately come to understand one another, with the hope that audiences in a similar emotional position might come away from the film having felt some sense of healing by way of, y’know, getting that. And also Shinkai talks about how the idealized nuclear family structure is not a thing that’s tenable or possible for a lot of families in Japanese society, and, it’s not very tenable for a lot of people in American society either!

So I recognize the intent of this scene. I think it’s commendable, even. If there is a parent and child out there who saw Suzume together on whom this had the intended impact, I think that that’s wonderful. I sincerely hope that they exist!

Even still… we, were a child, who regularly had this sort of thing said to our face by our real life mother, and tried, in good faith, many times over the years, to repair our increasingly fraught relationship with her, and failed. I am deeply, regrettably cynical about familial relationships because of our traumatic experience with our own family. Our mother is not the sort of person who would come to meaningfully empathize with us through seeing this film.

And we really fucking hate her, so… yeah, this scene is difficult to watch. It’s difficult for us personally to feel any sympathy for Tamaki when she’s saying that kind of stuff to Suzume, and once it was over I could only really kind of feel glad that it was over.

But! It’s not like it’s the film’s fault that our parents were bad. I don’t think our reaction was intended. It just happened! It just happens sometimes that different people other than who the thing was written for react to things differently. That doesn’t make the scene bad, or any less valuable to include. And I do think that Tamaki’s relationship with Suzume is portrayed pretty well and with a surprising degree of nuance! It’s good! Tamaki is a good character and she means well! And I do like what Shinkai said in that Verge interview about wanting to portray other family structures.

However I think that their relationship would work better if she was gay, because honestly, that entire “get out of my life” speech would hit a lot more and probably work a lot better in the context of being directed at a gay teenager rather than an assumed heterosexual one. But, hey, we thought we were heterosexual for most of our life, so, who’s to say much of anything!

Was there anything else I forgot to talk about? Um…

We cried at the end of the film, both times we saw it!

And also, while this film couldn’t have improved our relationship with our mother, it did serve as a very good bonding experience with our friend. I’m really glad we took her to see it. She really liked the scenes where Suzume sits and steps on Souta as a chair, that that was clever, that they took the opportunity to get away with that with him as a chair. And she also agreed that the chair in general was really well portrayed visually. She also cried! at the end. the heterosexual chair film made a lesbian cry. uh, two lesbians, cry. I’m not going to say anything more than that.

Thank you to everyone who watched this entire video. I have an excuse to do a bad job editing it now because there’s not that much footage of Suzume available and it’s all gonna get me copyright striked anyway

To summarize, Suzume Good. Suzume. Watch Suzume. I’ve been Audrey of the joystick system, and I did not hate Suzume. Thank you. Goodnight

[astroprompts]

✧ — 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐒 𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐓𝐒 [ 𝐏𝐓 𝐈𝐈 ]

“I'm knocking off work early to pick up some groceries. Wanna come?”

“You are such a shithead, you know that?”

“A lot of times, people do the things they do because they can't do anything else.”

“I am seriously going to punch your goddamn lights out.”

“You know nothing about my life.”

“I wish I knew all the constellations like you did.”

“I don't know how much I've told you, but I didn't have the best childhood.”

“When someone does all that stuff to you, it can make you do some bad things to yourself.”

“I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people who do.”

“You're an extremely good and smart person, [name].”

“I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you spend a lot of adulthood being vaguely stressed.”

“Maybe I'm just the most recent failure in the line of failures that is our family.”

“Alright well, guilt thoroughly tripped.”

“I forget that we live in separate realities.”

“That's vague. And disconcerting.”

“That all sounded a lot more badass in my head.”

“I'm sorry, but what expertise have you brought to this thus far?”

“We'll be here all night if your dumb ass is in charge.”

“I didn't choose to be born into this society.”

“You know, and I probably don't have to say this, but just because something happened in the past doesn't mean it's going to happen again.”

“I'm not saying there's a ghost, but old stuff that just got torn up seems like ghost central.”

“Dude, we're gonna get tasered or something.”

“I am blaming you if this goes bad.”

“Don't to go sleep angry. You'll have bad dreams.”

“Who's the best vermin? You are!”

“I do not trust you with any part of this process.”

“This isn't fun. This blows.”

“I'm going to break something.”

“My mouth tastes like broken dreams.”

“I have to grow up a bit. You have to let me change.”

“Remember the time I almost burned down the school?”

“Well, tonight was a complete bust.”

“This thing is gonna really freak some kids out.”

“I've had these horrible nightmares that feel really real, and I think something really bad is going to happen.”

“Things are like, monumentally screwed right now, and no one in power gives a shit. Or they're actively making it worse out of spite or profit.”

“I hate everything right now.”

“I sure hope nobody saw that.”

“Weird!? That was not weird! That was a crime!”

“I dunno, stress does weird things to people.”

“Listen, I don't believe in ghosts. But I believe in you.”

“Sorry. That sounded funnier in my head.”

“I can't come up with any explanations that aren't nuts.”

“I could use like five naps. Five good naps in one nap bucket.”

“You making, like, three dinners at once?”

“Good dinner makes everyone feel better!”

“Don't ever get seriously injured again, okay?”

“Before I knew it... I was on top of him, smashing his face in with the bat.”

“Something broke. In my head. In my life.”

“Why the hell are you out here by yourself?”

“Even if this was somehow all in your head, which it isn't, I would still back you. To the actual God's honest end.”

“Alright, lets go die or something. But hopefully not.”

“I know this won't save me in the end. But I don't need it to save me forever... I just need it to save me now.”

“I don't even believe in hell and I hope all they go straight there.”

“I think you get taught that you have a lot more control of the world than you do.”

“Sometimes you need someone to be the thing you don't have.. Even if it's something you're supposed to already have.”

“I don't want us to just be part of some horrible story.”

“I want to like, grow giant and pick you all up and carry you someplace safe.”

“Not gonna sugarcoat it, I hate my job.”

“In my experience, the big things don't teach you anything. But they make you something.”

“There is not one person on God's earth who doesn't love tacos.”

“Thanks for saving me last night. Like, repeatedly. ”

[myths-tournaments]

Awful Characters Round 2 Part 1 (5/8)

Propaganda under the cut!

SHEN JIU

YES he abused a child and killed an entire manor of people, but it was probably only one child and allegedly the people sucked. Surely this is not behavior deserving of being turned into a human stick or having your body possessed by a weeb. I love him because sometimes mean people are fun and also who can resist a good redemption tale (he deserves one).

BENNY GECKO

The first thing that happens in new vegas is that benny fucking shoots your character in the face, steals your shit and leaves you in an open grave. Benny is by all accounts a bastard. He kills you, steals from you, he killed his last boss, he is the single most duplicitous man around. His gang are all about honesty- except him. He's a lying, cheating bastard. The guys who helped him catch you? He skipped on paying them and left them to get shot to death. His new boss, mr.house? He stole his robot, broke it open, got someone to reprogram it and decided to use it to TAKE OVER THE WHOLE OF VEGAS. Benny literally kills people, lies to people, steals their shit and takes charge. That's all benny does. He gets fucking CRUCIFIED if you don't help him out just because so many people fucking hate him. And yet. And yet. Benny is the single most compelling character in the whole game to me. He's just a little guy! He's just there! You can get shot in the head and come back and he goes "what in the goddamn" and then if you try and flirt with him he's like "uhhh sure? Okay?" And leaves you a polite note in the morning. He's fancy. He wears a stupid suit. He has a tiny gun with shitty bullets. He's catholic. He talks like an old timey news presenter. Literally nobody else in the entire game does that. He's got an intelligence of 3. He's my funtime boy. My silly little man. He's so funny. The antagonist in this game is a guy dressed like a tablecloth who looks at all times like a confused dog who doesn't understand what a tv is. And like. He's compelling. He robs from you, shoots you, but…. he never seems to actually wish you harm. He kills and robs and lies but like. He apologises for doing it to you. When he sees you again he doesn't attack you, he's just… confused. He tries to defuse the situation. You can convince him to talk to you, alone, with no guards and it's not that hard. If you spare his life, he doesn't go after you, like. Even if you sleep with him he doesn't take advantage of that and kill you, even if you try to. He… he just leaves. He gives you an apology. If he gets kidnapped by Caesar He just… apologizes again. He tells you his whole plan to take over the city, too. He thinks he'll die, and he wants something of him to survive. He's happy that you made it. And if you let him free, he just… leaves. He knows he's beat, he doesn't want to cause any more trouble. He walks out and leaves. The NCR will kill you if you cross them. The legion will crucify you. House? He'll blow you the fuck up. But benny, the guy who lies and cheats and schemes, he's honest. He's polite. He's… harmless. You can kill him with a single shot if you want. And he can't kill you. He doesn't kill you the first time, and he'll never really hurt you again. Benny just wanted to win. When he knows he's beat he just leaves. No lingering, no harm, he's off, off into the desert heat, and never seen again. Isn't that just insane? like have you ever known an antagonist so polite? He just leaves!! He offers you a drink!! His plan is genuinely probably the best one for the people of new vegas!!! He's. Benny is Benny.

Anyway if you want to see some REAL propaganda go to the blog @letmebegaytodd and look in the #benny tag. You'll Understand < https://www.tumblr.com/letmebegaytodd/717051175751614464/in-another-life-i-wouldve-really-liked-just> <- look at this shit man

[minijenn]

Jen Tortures Herself With Every Dreamworks Animated Movie Ever: How To Train Your Dragon

Fucking FINALLY I can gush about this goddamn MASTERPIECE of a fucking movie, and the source of my newest obsession cause oh my god, ya'll oh my god this FRANCHISE is RUINING ME and it may not be why I decided to understake this entire Dreamworks watch to begin with (for better or worse, but worth it to get to watch through this trilogy again).

We focus on Hiccup, a young viking who's out of place among the other dragon-killing vikings on Berk, especially his stern father, Stoick. During a dragon raid one night, Hiccup accidentally shoots down a Night Fury, said to be one of the most dangerous dragons of all. Slowly but surely, however, Hiccup secretly befriends this dragon, which he names Toothless, while in the midst of dragon hunting training alongside Berk's other young vikings, Astrid, Snotlout, Fishlegs, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut.

So this story is so damn good, so fucking good, its so simple, so rooted in the emotions of it all, of Hiccup being torn between wanting to live up to his father's expectations while also growing closer with Toothless and coming to sympathize with dragons in general. As a result, we get some of the strongest emotional highs and lows in really any Dreamworks movie, and it all works so well and flows so beautifully. In fact, this story doesn't even need an antagonist like its two sequels do (i mean it kind of has one in the Red Death, but its more an obstacle to be taken out above all else), it's source of conflict really is what I just described above and it's so well-crafted on every level.

Hell, everything about this movie is. The characters are all phenomenal, it's not wonder this spawned two sequels and several shows (you should watch Riders/Defenders of Berk and Race to the Edge btw, they're great). Hiccup is one of Dreamworks' best leads by far, a genuis little ball of sass who is just as loyal as he is stubborn. The other teens don't get a ton of focus here, but Astrid does, and she's great, starting out as our usual Dreamworks tough gal before eventually softening up to Hiccup heading into the third act. Also, can I just talk about Stoick for a sec? They could have done this man so dirty, could have made him the usual angry father who doesn't understand or care about his son, but he isn't. He cares so damn much about Hiccup, and it shows, even if he claims to be embarassed by him, even if he seems like he wants him to change, he still loves his son to hell and back (which makes what happens in the second movie so much more tragic, but we'll get to that). And then of course, there's Toothless, who is just... absolute Baby. I love how catlike he is, and how, much like Hiccup, he's also kind of a sassy little shit in his own special way.

The animation, golly, its so pretty, The flying scenes are this franchise's bread and butter and they are just a delight to watch. The character designs are some of Dreamworks' best, especially on the Dragons. They all look so unque and have their own little quirks that make them all special. Toothless especially is animated so well. They give him these cat-like mannerisms that bring so much charm to a character that doesn't speak a single word. It's fantastic.

You know what else is fantastic about this movie? THE MUSIC OH MY GOD. This may just be the single greatest score in ANY Dreamworks movie. It's GOD TIER GOOD. The entire franchise has amazing music, but most of the themes that repeat throughout the next two movies started here and they're all so beautiful. Seriously, give this score a listen if you haven't, its just... amazing.

The whole movie is amazing! I honest to god love everything about it so much. It's such a strong start to what I think is Dreamworks' greatest franchise, to a world and characters that I am literally obsessed with now send help, and to a series that I'm so very excited to be revisiting for this watch through. Please, if you've never seen How to Train Your Dragon, do yourself a favor and watch it now. You will not be sorry.

Overall Rating: 10/10

Verdict: (gestures vaguely at Hiccup) LOOK AT MY SON

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Next Review (Shrek Forever After)

[pinkorchidsinspring]

Ivy is so so gay, to explain let us lyric analyze:

How's one to know? I'd meet you where the spirit meets the bones, In a faith forgotten land

Hoax: “your faithless love’s the only hoax I believe in”

A complicated relationship with religion is not something lacking throughout gay culture.

Taylor is more than likely referencing her own struggle with her relationship to a religion not approving of her sexuality.

Your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, Tarnished but so grand

The lovers touch while beautiful, was a sin, and wrong in the view of most but to Taylor this touch was amazing despite being tainted with those ideas.

Oh, goddamn, My pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand, Taking mine, but it's been promised to another

This is probably a reference to the "adultery" being committed here, because the narrator has a fiancé/beard.

Oh, I can't, Stop you putting roots in my dreamland

She can’t control this love.

Her dreamland of “Folklore” is based in her real, honest, raw emotions.

She can’t stop this lover from being the reason for this dreamland.

I wish to know, The fatal flaw that makes you long to be, Magnificently cursed

Being gay has never been easy, and early on makes everyone who is gay in any way, wonder why they can’t just be straight. Taylor has most likely dealt with her own version of internalized homophobia shown in the original version of “Picture to Burn”: “Go and tell your friends that I'm obsessive and crazy, that's fine; I'll tell mine you're gay”.

Clover blooms in the fields, Spring breaks loose, the time is near, What would he do if he found us out?

This whole paragraph just gives forbidden gay love, and screams I don't want to care what other people think in this moment.

Crescent moon, coast is clear

Again with the hiding in “coast is clear”

Associated with feminine energy??? Combined with the coast is clear??? Yep, screams hetero.

Spring breaks loose, but so does fear

So very gay. Very gay. Come on. Sound like recent political events in America? With the turn of a new season, fear, specifically fear of being caught together, or the media finding out becomes more relevant than normal.

He's gonna burn this house to the ground

This male partner/beard is going to ruin their relationship, completely out of fear of what would happen if the truth of who she loved came out.

I'd live and die for moments that we stole, On begged and borrowed time

Even though this love was kept a secret, it was still Taylor’s whole life at the time.

These moments were "on begged and borrowed time" due to outside pressure. Possibly the pressure to be straight, and to appear straight, and not have longing looks directed at your "best friend".

So yeah, it's a fire, It's a goddamn blaze in the dark, And you started it, You started it, So yeah, it's a war

You Are In Love: “You understand now why they lost their minds and fought the wars”

The Great War -so LGBTQIA

She finally understands that she has to fight through societies pressures to keep the love of her life.

It's the goddamn fight of my life

What would be so hard about being straight and in love with Joe Alwyn? Especially when you’re only known for writing break up songs about “men”…

Most recently while introducing “Dear, John” Taylor told swifties that : we should not “feel the need to defend [her] on the internet against someone [we] think [she] might have written a song about 14 billion years ago."

There are many things that don’t allow this song to have a hetero explanation. These are the things. <3

My other song analysis’ if you’re interested <3