#Google cross image search has changed and as someone who used it as I use breathing it's been absolutely heartbreaking.

[kyouka-supremacy]

Does anyone know where I can find the good quality version of this image? It's so frustrating because when cross searching on google it'll tell me the original quality is 850x478, but I can't find a way to download it in that quality. This is another version of the image (I'm guessing it's Mayoi promo art):

But I liked the clean white background one...

[mewmedic]

A Deal with the Devil

Someone on the Lolita fashion subreddit asked what we can do about newbies who do not know how to find clothes outside of (the well documented scam site) Devil Inspired. I wrote the following in response and thought it was worth cross posting here.

To be very blunt: most people are too illiterate to read pinned posts (even though that should just be basic reddit etiquette) and too lazy to move their eyes to the area of their screen where there is a link to a guide that answers their questions. You can't fix stupid at a certain point, once people get stuck in their ways.

Really, the only action we could do would be to change the subreddit banner image at the top to say "PLEASE DON'T BUY FROM DEVIL INSPIRED. READ A GUIDE ON HOW TO BUY FROM TAOBAO." We probably need a pinned post saying the same thing in the title, with an explanation of taobao in the body and links to some guides. That may be absurd, but I truly think its the only bullet we have left in the chamber. Even then, most people will ignore it. It really sucks that this subreddit has become the Devil Inspired Customer Service Hotline.

There are just too many people (some millennials but especially zoomers) who lack the ability to use the internet properly. With the "enshittification" of google, people now expect human beings on reddit to answer every single one of their lingering thoughts. But let's be real, the "let me google that for you" situation existed for a decade before google started to suck. Devil Inspired is the first result when googling lolita fashion because they pay to have good SEO and be at the top. Most people are not internet savvy enough to google "[store name] scam" or "[storename] alternatives" when they encounter a new store online. That's not even getting into Devil Inspired shoving sponsor bucks down influencer's throats so they can vomit advertisements back out onto their naive audience.

I understand why a normal western person would know nothing about taobao. However, anyone with intermediate internet experience should be able to tell that Devil Inspired does not manufacture the clothes they sell. No one makes that wide of a variety of styles that quickly, plus the wide variety in photography styles (and they sometimes forget to hide the original store's watermark.) Next, they should know to reverse google image search photos from Devil Inspired's catalogue. Their last resort should be to go to the "find this dress" pinned post on this subreddit. Then, if they discover there that the dress is from a taobao store they could just google "how to buy from taobao." But they don't do any of these things because the average internet user does not know they can.

Just a few days ago we had some one here ask to be spoonfed information about gothic lolita, something they could easily find themselves. When some one kindly gave them a link to the lolita wiki, the OP had the nerve to complain because they don't like Fandom wikis. I fucking hate Fandom and have a personal beef with them, but I wouldn't complain being spoonfed information for free from there. That person will never comprehend why people created fandom wikis in the past and they definitely won't understand why it's very hard to leave Fandom wikis. I am including this recent experience to illustrate why Devil Inspired is not the only problem here, people's attitudes just plain suck some times.

TLDR: We are fighting an unwinnable battle against people's illiteracy, refusal to learn, and Devil Inspired's fat stacks of marketing cash.

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Elf on the shelf and pedo on the net

Merry Christmas/Holidays, everyone!

So I think you know what this post is going to be about. The one comic, that has become a christmas tradition at hypocrisy's blog.

Released mere days before Christmas of 2016 -which Dobson likely considered ruined, because it was Trumps first Christmas after he won the election 2016- the comic shows two male stripers, with one pondering that the reason he joined the profession, may be related to some rather “unsavoury” kinks he developed as a result of a Christmas tradition.

Now being from Europe, I myself didn’t even know of the “Elf on the Shelf” until I saw this comic. Though a quick google search made me realize, why that was: The entire idea of putting an elf doll on the shelf to “watch over the kid” wasn’t even a thing until a children book came out in 2004, that promoted the idea. The real take off of the Elf being around the first half of the 2010s and since then having managed to creep its way into the popcultural subconscious.

Yeah, if you can’t tell, I am not really a fan of that thing, based on the designs I saw. Also the idea of “surveilling” your children to see if they are naughty or nice feels rather creepy. And I grew up in a culture that accepts the idea of good old Saint Nicolas and his henchman Rudolph/Krampus putting the bad ones into their place via spanking or worse.

However, Dobson managed to make the concept even creepier by virtue of relating it to a masturbation punchline. Which in turn makes you just ponder, what the heck is wrong with Dobson?

So, let us just dissect this thing quick, before it sours any positive Christmas mood.

First, Dobson supposedly did the comic, because in his opinion the “Elf on the Shelf” sends a strange message to kids…

And to be fair, a lot of kids seemingly hate the creepy little doll and “experts” have called it out at being psychologically damaging. Going so far as to say the toy “normalizes” the concept of constant surveillance and that it would be okay. Which personally I think is a bit of a stretch, but not entirely inaccurate also. So making fun of the concept of the doll, totally okay with me. Heck, Teen Titans Go did an entire episode mocking the thing.

But Dobson’s attempt of making fun of it, just crosses into genuine creeper territory, for one simple reason: Sexualization of minors.

Look, I don’t believe Dobson is a pedophile -though his poor choice of wordings on twitter posts and certain aspects of art pieces can give the impression- and the situation Dobson shows in the comic is not explicitly pornographic. After all, we don’t see the kid like buttass naked pumping the bike pump while the elf stares. I now give you five minutes to hopefully delete that mental image with enough eggnog at your disposal.

But it still turns “sexual”…

An implication that is not very subtle for a couple of reasons.

First, the person asked and thinking back to the Christmas tradition is a male stripper. A job in the sex works. By the way, respect for people in that job (independent of the sex) for being able to work without feeling objectified (or too much) and managing to keep a decent body shape. Hope also for your safety out there.

Which I am not just saying because Dobson incidentally tries to mock male strippers in the comic in my opinion. After all, we all know Dobson hates men. And when men aren’t some MRA morons or fat misanthropic nerds, they can’t be anything but dumb male himbos or potentially depraved homosexuals who got kinky by perverting a Christmas children tradition.

Yeah, I am stretching here a bit, but we are talking about Dobson. The guy was always more than open to the idea of making gay men the butt of some joke in Alex ze Pirate.

Am I really supposed to believe he changed that attitude?

But back to the comic. The second reason why obvious the entire thing has sexual undertones as punchline… just look at that face

That is the face of someone masturbating under the blanket. The sultry eyes, the blush on his face, one hand under the cover while the other is above, bitting his lip… if that thing were animated, I bet the kid would be moaning and I could report Dobson to some authority.

And yeah, that is really what the entire creepiness of the comic boils down too. The face of the kid that leaves no other room for interpretation except “a sex pun, based on a “Christmas tradition” targeted at really small kids. With the final panel feeling like Dobson likely had a good laugh at his “joke”, thinking others would react the same.

Well, the reaction doesn’t seem to have been what Dobson hoped for, cause he would later release the following tweet.

Two things to that: First, I think the reason people were “confused” Dobson (confused likely means here, asked him if he is a pedo), was that they kinda didn’t want to think you were going into that “sexualized” territory because that would raise more red flags than you obsessing over KorraSami. And would have also felt rather out of character for you, cause of how prudish you become at the subject of sexualization.

Second, accusing others of lacking imagination and that therefore little things like that comic stump them. Dobbitch, I have read every major comic you ever made, if anyone lacks imagination, it is you. Your mental capacity for imagining stuff is lower than of a braindead person in a coma. And the fact that a self declared “child friendly” webartist focuses most of the time on the punchline “character X is thirsty”…

even if the character in question is underaged, makes me think you are enjoying Belgian porn on the sideline.

Overall, the comic is just creepy. But not in the way that it makes the doll itself creepy and therefore the butt of the joke. Rather it makes the artist behind the comic creepy, because he tries to imagine a scenario where that thing causes someone to spring their first boner.

The sad thing being, Dobson could have easily made the comic creepier and funnier at the same time, fi he just had put the focus of the comic on the puppet and not the kid. For example, of all the things in the world, I think Family Guy could make the joke of a creepy elf puppet work, if it played out like that: Lois puts an elf on the shelf for every kid in the house, including Chris.

Chris goes to bed, camera focuses on him, turning around, the puppet is cut off from you.

Chris says “good night”  to the elf.

Zoom out to show the shelf, now it is Herbert the creepy neighbour in an elf costume on the shelf saying “Night, Chris”

There. Now if you excuse me, I need to take a shower. Not necessarily from reviewing that comic, but because I actually wrote out a Family Guy joke.

[tom-foolery-incorporated]

Have you heard about this game called”What in hell is bad”?

One google Image search later-

As someone who is both a character design nerd and demonology loser... Why the does he have both the cross of St. Peter and the Star of David? I notice each character has their own symbols which is meant to correlate to common occult symbols. The problem is how these symbols have changed in use. I did multiple papers and a presentation on the art historical implications of demons and monsters for my minor in art history and seeing the Star of David/Hexagram/Seal of Solomon on a demon character kind of irks me even though that is not by any means what the creators seem to be getting at. (I am not Jewish nor an expert on demonology or occult symbolism so I can't say if this has antisemetic implications or not but it does make me raise my eyebrows a bit)

I'm pretty picky with my otome games TBH. I might be interested in this when it comes out (if it hasn't already) especially with the cheeky horn/phallic symbolism they seem to be having with the length part of their bio. This also feels kind of like a rip-off of Obey Me with the premise revolving around romancing the sins. Maybe I'm just being too critical of something I know jack and shit about but I do have chronic horny disease for demons so maybe I'll try it out.

[fashion4standusers]

Everything you need to know on FFSU!

(FASHION WEEK CHALLENGE IS HERE!!)

Contents:

-Tag guide for searching/filtering (including triggers and spoilers)

-Post submission info

-OC Friday submission info

-Canon fan art submission info

**IMPORTANT: PLEASE DO NOT INTERACT WITH MY BLOG IF YOU’RE USING THESE POSTS FOR YOUR THINSPO/E.D./PROANA BLOG. THIS CAUSES HARMFUL CONTENT TO GET INTO MY FEED AND POTENTIALLY MY FOLLOWERS’ FEEDS.**

Tag guide to help you navigate/choose what you want to see!

triggers will be tagged as both “cw ____“ and “tw ____”.

spoilers will be tagged as “(full part title) spoilers”, i.e. “vento aureo spoilers”, “stone ocean spoilers”, “jojolion spoilers”, etc.

”MUSE” tags: refer to a specific character who would wear the piece in question or have the same vibe it has.

“ART” tags: specific canon characters featured in a piece of fan art

“ART: stand swaps”: stand swap designs

“ART: other media characters”: non-jojo characters reimagined as stand users

”OC” tags: muse tags but for my personal OCs.

”looks for ----” tags: refers to a specific part that the piece would fit in.

Part 1, Phantom Blood: ”fighting vampires”

Part 2, Battle Tendency: ”protecting a precious red stone”

Part 3, Stardust Crusaders: ”traveling the world”

Part 4, Diamond is Unbreakable: ”hunting a killer”

Part 5, Vento Aureo: ”taking over the mafia”

Part 6, Stone Ocean: ”breaking out of prison”

Part 7, Steel Ball Run: ”a cross country horse race”

Part 8, JoJolion: ”tracking a mysterious fruit”

Part 9, The JoJolands: "a tropical heist"

”ffsu.txt”: text posts of mine; usually PSAs about changes or updates to the blog, or just general shitposts of mine.

“psa”: blog announcements

”oc showcase”/”oc fridays”: drawings of people’s JJBA OC’s.

”fan art tag”: people’s art of canon JJBA characters.

”my art”: art made by me :)

”ffsu.help”: signal boosts for medical and emergency fundraising posts.

”not fashion”: everything that is not about fashion and clothing, including memes/shitposts, signal boosts, and reblogs of textposts and memes.

”nsfw-ish”: fashion posts that contain somewhat suggestive content; this will include underwear/lingerie, suggestive posing, and exposed chests, but you won’t find any pornographic content or depictions of genitalia.

”request”: people asking for specific types of outfits for specific characters, usually as help to design their own OC.

“calamariposting”: posts about Calamari, the blog mascot :)

Post submission guidelines!

You can submit posts in a couple ways: tag me in an existing post for me to reblog, send me a post to reblog via DMs, submit photos through the “Show Me Stuff!” link on the homepage (click the three bar logo in the upper left corner-- this is the preferred method for sending photos that haven’t already been posted by someone else!), or send an ask with your photos.

If you want your submission tagged for a certain part/character, leave the names in the tags or include it in the text of your DM/ask!

If you submitted something and I haven’t posted it, it’s because I’ve already shared that piece/post!

Try to avoid anything super explicit-- see the “nsfw-ish” tag explanation above for the extent of what’s allowed!

Please include a source for your image(s)-- this should include the designer’s name at the very least, but years/seasons, publication info, model/photographer/stylist names, and all other information is also greatly appreciated. Alternatively, you can include a link to where you found the picture if that link is for the creator’s website/store, a magazine article, or some other kind of helpful and informative source. If you found it on Pinterest, don’t send the Pinterest link-- send the outgoing link that the pin leads back to. If you’ve tried and failed to find a source via reverse image search, Googling, etc., then you can submit your images with “Source needed” as a last resort.

OC Friday submission guidelines!

I won’t accept AI generated images. You might send me something without knowing it’s AI, and that’s okay, but just know I won’t post it and I encourage you to look closely any any off-looking images before you submit. Here's a post I've made to help with that.

I don't accept art of pre-existing non-JoJo characters or designs as fashion posts. For example, if you send me "X from the Y franchise reminds me of a JoJo character!" or "This fan art of Z from the show Q is wearing a cool outfit!", I won't count it. If you can find the real-world fashion that inspired those designs, feel free to send those instead!

Any kind of character art is welcome!

There’s no limit to the number of characters you can submit.

You can either tag me on a post or submit art through my main page, but I recommend tagging so that people can find your blog more easily!

I'll also be going through the OC tag and picking out characters from all around Tumblr! So it'll (hopefully) be a mix of submissions and non-submissions.

Any quality of art is welcome, just be sure to give proper credit if you're using any kind of base or if the art is commissioned from someone else.

I’ll post whatever you guys send eventually (barring of course any unacceptable/hateful content).

Feel free to send me posts of other people’s OC’s as well, as long as it’s on Tumblr because I won’t repost art from another platform.

Fan art submission guidelines!

Submit art of canon JJBA characters wearing alternate outfits from what they wear in the series-- art of canon outfits don’t count! I’ll make an exception for alternate outfits from official art (i.e. Jolyne/Bruno/Abbacchio in their Fly High with Gucci outfits) as long as it’s not the character’s primary outfit within the story.

You can send your own art or other people’s, but it has to be from Tumblr bc I won’t repost art from other platforms.

The clothes can be from this blog or not from this blog! (but it does make me very happy when you draw stuff I’ve posted)

There won’t be an official schedule for sharing these posts but I’ll try and get around to all of them eventually

[camelotsheart]

It’s time for me to go to back to spiraling apparently, because my brain refuses to let me stop thinking about the symbolism behind ygraine’s sigil until i actually jot it down. so, here we go.

I guess the first and obvious question that needs to be addressed is what kind of bird is on the sigil because - let’s not kid ourselves - many of us had the faint hope that it would be a Merlin, which unfortunately after a few google image searches, doesn’t quite fit the bill. I’ve come to the conclusion that it is most likely a phoenix because 1) the bird on the du bois crest looks like a phoenix, 2) the phoenix is a symbol of immortality through death and resurrection, which happens to three members of the du bois family - tristan, ygraine (at least in spirit form) and arthur, and 3) the phoenix is commonly used to symbolise the sun, and this fits with the symbolism of the sigil.

The sigil is in the form of a sun cross, which is an ancient european symbol (ancient as in originating in 7000 BC) for, you guessed it, the sun. If you look closely to the sigil, you could infer the golden carvings on the four rods as light rays, and the petal-like patterns on the border of the circle as the sun’s corona. Here are various sun cross symbols:

The four rods symbolise the equinoxes, and therefore the sun cross as a whole represents the changing of the seasons as well as the sun. The relation to seasons then reminded me of the concept of the wheel of fortune as well as the silver wheel. (Word of warning: if the above meta was already far-fetched, the meta below is going to be really really far-fetched). 

The wheel of fortune or Rota Fortuna is an ancient greek concept on the nature of fate, and it’s fickle and volatile nature. When upright in tarot, it’s used to symbolise change, cycles, destiny, luck and unexpected events. While researching this, I realised that a metaphysical wheel is, in fact, mentioned in Merlin. This is in regards to Gwen being consumed by the Mandrake Root and being “bound to the silver wheel for all eternity”. The silver wheel in mythology is actually a feature of the goddess Arianrhod, whose name literally means “silver wheel” and is mentioned in the same episode as the owner of the Cauldron of Arianrhod. The following is a description of her:

Arianrhod was also called the Silver Wheel because the dead were carried on her Oar Wheel to Emania (the Moon-land or land of death), which belonged to her as a deity of reincarnation and karma. It is said that Arianrhod hosts the dead between incarnations, giving them rest and peace before rebirth. Each initiate’s soul is said to withdraw between incarnations to her constellation in the Aurora Borealis called Caer Arianrhod. (x)

(This is absolutely unrelated but I’m screaming at the fact that the Boötes constelation which has the star Arcturus which a few scholars say was the source of King Arthur’s name is right next to Aurora Borealis)

There are many interesting (merthur) metaphors (if you guys thought this wouldn’t turn into merthur do you even know me) I can draw from all of this including the correlation between the story of Icarus (the imagery of a winged figure flying towards the sun) to that of Merlin and Arthur. How the sun cross being used to symbolise earth in modern times almost seem like a union between camelot/albion (symbolised by the earth) and magic (the sun, a symbol of life and light) - there is magic at the heart of Camelot. How the phoenix which could technically symbolise both Merlin and Arthur is trapped in the centre of the wheel that symbolises fate (especially considering how in 5x10 Kilgharrah refers to death as a 'cycle of life'). And How it’s so fitting that the gift is from Ygraine - someone who’s life was taken because of magic, while Arthur is then protected in the arms of magic itself; an interesting parallel to both the destructive and life-giving properties of the sun.

[goldenwitherphoenix13]

Its time for a probrably wrong union X theory!

Welcome to my first ever attempt at a theory.yall are here to watch ne be wrong. Lmoa.

Union X is coming to an end and its time share with you my big end game theories connecting the dots of kingdom hearts 3 and Re:Mind to Union X. And that is by using some solid evidence from the games and from the light novels. Yes. I'm going there.

This first bit is to do with the idea that Vanitas is the Darkness that possessed Ven in Union X. Now, this could easily be disproven right? Well I think I can actually bring validity to it.

Fist there's the obvious evidence that Vanitas claims that "what I am is Darkness" in Kingdom Hearts 3 and hes been a part of Ven longer than he thinks, he was only extracted is something he mentioned in Re:Mind. This can be written off by him being all the pure darkness in Vens heart, but could be taken as him being the entity darkness.

Ok. So, remember how I said I would talk about the light novels? Well, in said light novels, Vanitas is said to originally have no face/true corporeal form, having the form more like dark Rikus outfit thing, but thanks to Sora touching Vens heart, he gained a more humanish form.

Well.... darkness in Union X...

uhhhh....They have... no form. Just a cloud of purple and black with a figure resemblent of a human form in the center, if you look closely.

And if it were extracted from Vens heart by Xehanort to make Vanitas, that means darkness returns to lay within Ven dormant after the Union leaders defeat it, even when he travels to the time of Birth by Sleep! That or it has left remnents of itself within him to ensure darkness will follow into the future. Either way, it or part of it was in Ven until Xehanort took it away along with the natural darkness of his heart.

But if that's the case, then that would mean Vanitas wasn't technically a part of Ventus, but had resided there so long that that's what he believed. Because memories are stripped when they time travel. Does that effect darkness? Making it thinks its always been Vens darkness and Vens Darkness alone all this time.

Now for things to get a bit wonkey

There's still a big question lurking. What the hell is up with Dark inferno X? (chi pronounced key) its picture is below.

The bio from Re:Mind states "The darkness that erupted out of Ventus's heart and turned into an aggressive heartless. But the voice that was heard at the time intimated that it was "darkness" itself. What did that mean..."

INDEED WHAT! 

Well, let's not forget the basic rule of the Kingdom hearts universe. If your heart is lost or Overcome by darkness it becomes a heartless. 

Xehanorts heartless, Ansem, possessed Riku in Kingdom hearts 1 when it became a weak heart like spirit... who's to say other heartless who are strong enough can't do the same thing? And the design... who is one person with similar attributes like... a scarf, that Ventus at least encountered or knew?

Ephemer.

Quick point I'll refer to later, but remember, we see Ephemer help Sora with the light of the past later on in kingdom hearts 3. The keyblades all come to life with the hearts of the fallen weilders and stuff and Sora surfs them because video game. Now, this bit is a little confusing. What was Ephemer doing in the white void? Was that a ghostly form of his nobody or something? An appiration? Just his ghost? The moment he arrived in the future?

Well, the moment of him arriving can be crossed of I think. Where did he go if that were the case? Ephemer appearing in that moment does throw a spaner in the world, but I might be able to pull it out and fix the theory prediction.

My theory for this part is that the Ephemer we see in KH3... is Ephemers nobody in a ghost like form waiting for his heartless, Dark Inferno X.

His heartless must of found a way to hide or travel through time and went to hide within Ven's heart like Ansem did to Riku, but it has to be after Vanitas was removed. Otherwise, Dark inferno X would of been extracted by Xehanort too. The entity of darkness or its remnents, however, was with Ven when he travelled through time.

I think the best answer is Ephemers nobody died in the travel or after, is now a spirit, and helped the heroes of light. He's just waiting for his heartless to be destroyed so he can return as his somebody. And now that Sora has defeated it... who's to say we won't see him soon.

Oh and I think the secret Dark Inferno X boss in 3 was just a test for the remind one and went through a minor design change. Image comparison below, pictures from Google.

Kh3 Re:Mind

The unversed floods did the same thing between birth by sleep, bbs final mix and 3 after all going blue to purple and back to blue (I like them purple).

I really don't want to believe that it was Strelitzias heartless and that she might be able to return. I'd rather her remain a permanent death like the keyblade wilders of Union X, Master Eraqus and Master Xehanort. Its nice having a concept of death in Kingdom Hearts.

Where was I? Oh yes. I think Dark inferno X is Ephemers Heartless.

Now for one more problem. How Dark inferno X got to Ventus.

From what I see, it has 2 routes.

1: use the Ark and escape into the future. This leaves only a broken pod in the Union X time so Blain can not join the other leaders. Ephemer just has to wait. The only problem here is how Dark inferno X located Ven and got into castle oblivion without a hitch. Though I guess it did have 10 years to look.

2: hide in someone's keyblade. We've seen hearts contained by keyblades so I don't see why it can't happen again. A curse to the masters defender. I think it atratches its heart to the keyblade and thats how it escaped into Ven. When Aqua left him in Castle oblivion, the heartless snook away and hid within him, waiting for Vens heart to arrive so it could hide better and we could get the scene in Remind.

Either way, thats where Ephemers heartless would reside until it was reawakened.

So, to summarise what we've discussed into a timeline.

The Union leaders battle and defeat Darkness. Maybe temporarily, maybe for good. We don't know until its too late. It probably starts talking about some cryptic stuff, quoting things yet to be heard, who knows. This is where I believe Darkness overtakes Ephemer and turns his heart into dark inferno X (hence why it introduced itself to Sora as Darkness in Re:Mind. In a panic, Skuld and Blaine probably carry their unconscious friends out and flee to the ark, the time travel pods, darknesses remnants inside Ventus's heart and stays dormant until they are brought out. After waking the other 2 up and healing them Skuld, Lauriam and Ven go though the Ark pods, possibly joined by Elrena, and Blaine then stays behind and searches for Ephemers nobody. Hoping to reunite and reconnect the dark inferno X to Ephemer. 

Dark inferno X then hides away or travels to the future. I mean, I don't expect it to fit in the ark pods, but it might hide away in there or something. If it does then heres the first scenario.

There is one broken pod left. Blaine does his best to fix it, but its not safe enough so Ephemers nobody dies going through and it ends up as a spirit thing, waiting and searching for its heartless. Oh! And Blaine doesn't figure out how to properly build the things so he decides to remain in this time.

Dark inferno X then searches attaches to Ven to hide away.

The other scenario is it hides away in masters defender and slips by then. Blain sends Ephemer through, but since he's a nobody, things don't go smoothly and Ephemers Nobody probably dies in travel.

The generations pass and everything happens.

Dark inferno X is defeated by Sora.

The end game is coning.

And that's it. That's the whole theory. Here's to hope the Union leaders come out on top in the Union X finale, Sora is saved in the next game and Ven finally gets therapy once he recovers these memories. Actually let's order therapy for everyone! 

Also speaking of Ven, Nomura, if you hurt my boy again, I'm gonna punch you.

Theres a reason I made this cringy meme! (art of Ventus by me its one of my older arts of him)

Phoenix out!

(Ps: reply or reblog with inaccuracies)

[tinyboxxtink]

Hey so loved your black magic series! I read your post about using REE/Rafael. I’ll read anything you write but this idea to me is RPF and kind of squicks. ☹️ Maybe if you use another character he played? Nevada?! Someone sees “Barba” doing something super bad and they’re all “omg omg” and think it’s Barba? 🤷🏻‍♀️

I hear you, I do. HOWEVER, I made a "Version" of Raul Esparza in this story that is 5 years younger, and...I hate to say it, "more" famous?

IDK I wrote a 'prototype' chapter last night, so I'm gonna put this to you. I assume/hope you're an avid reader and I can gauge the public consensus, but also I want ALL my readers to be happy!!

So here, read this and then tell me if you still find the idea "Squicky".

That goes for anyone else! Maybe I should put my tag list in here....

The way I wrote him though anon, I truly feel in my heart that it's not RPF, because like I said RPF freaks me out as well.

Before you already go in skeptical, let me set up the plot I had planned. {As told to @madamsnape921 in an IM:

the thing was gonna start that someone sees Rafael proposing to the reader, and tells a tabloid that Raul Esparza is engaged to some rando. Because they think that it was him. And then Rafa, the reader and Chloe start to discuss on how either it's a multiverse thing, or a doppelganger thing because it turns out that Rafael and Raúl are very similar, like personality traits and the Broadway dream, except that Raul's childhood was basically the opposite of Rafael's so Chloe THINKS that Raul is Rafael from a "multiverse".

Right and then Raul goes to Rafael's office to confront him and then the reader and Chloe are there to take Rafael out to lunch and they're like holy shit!

And Rafael is super uncomfortable with the idea of the reader EVER being in a show with Raul because obviously they're like the same person and Raul probably has more in common with her

Oh and also Raul is five years younger, and thinner. So then Raul's like you shouldn't listen to him, I could really help you with your career.

Annnnd that's all I have so far.

Okay so read this really and tell me you honest opinion.

Screw it putting the tag list:

Tag List

@madamsnape921

@lolliepopsicle

@chasingeverybreakingwave

@milkshqke

@wanniiieeee

@word-scribbless

@gibbs274

@sassyada

@aprildecker-blog

@bookishfanfic

@stars-in-the-skies-world

@stars-trash-18

@omgsuperstarg

You were walking towards the exit of Central Park hand in hand with your now fiancee, when all of a sudden two giggling girls came running up to you.

“Oh my god!!!!! Raul we didn’t know you had a girlfriend!” One of them started squealing.

“Fiancee,” He corrected. “Wait I’m sorry, what? Did you just call me Raul?”

“Uh...yeah, duh,” One of the girls made a face. “Raul Esparza?”

“What?” You bursted out laughing. “I’m sorry, you think he’s Raul Esparza?”

“Um, we know he is,” The other one crossed her arms.

“Um, no he isn’t!” You wrapped your arm around Rafael protectively, as if the two girls were going to kidnap him or something.

“I can promise you ladies, I am not-- whoever you just said,” Rafael assured them.

“Why are you doing this? Are you trying not to embarrass your lady friend here?” One of the girls made a weird face at you.

“Wha? No--” Rafael tried to defend himself but the girls were already clearly ticked off.

“Wow, I have heard of actors trying to get away from fans but completely pretending to be another person, that’s pretty low Raul,” One of them glared at Rafael.

“Yeah, it wouldn’t have taken you much effort to just take a selfie with us,” The other one added with a scowl.

“I...um--” He looked to you for help, but you just shrugged. You had no idea how to handle such a weird situation.

“I guess we can take one--” He offered.

“Oh no, forget it now,” One girl scoffed.

“Yeah, jerk!” The other one stomped her foot and they both sauntered away angrily.

-----------

“...What the hell was that?” Rafael looked at you in utter confusion and disbelief, you just gave him a “wtf” smile.

“I have no idea baby--”

“Oh my god, are you guys ok?” Chloe suddenly came running up behind you. “What the hell did those teeny boppers want? To rob you with water guns or something?”

“No they-- they wanted a selfie?” Rafael was still confused, trying to figure out what just happened.

“A selfie? With you?” Chloe snorted.

“No-- With Raul Esparza,” You looked at her with a confused smile. It was pretty entertaining to think that your fiance looked like a Broadway star.

“I don’t get it, you said that I didn’t even look like him!” Rafael looked at you.

“I mean I said I didn’t see it, and that you were more handsome,”

“....Yeah well you might wanna rethink that answer babe,” Chloe’s eyes were wide as she handed you her phone. She had googled RAUL ESPARZA, and the images that popped up were-- Rafael’s face.

“Oh my God…” You whispered, showing Rafael the phone. He quickly pulled out his own and started searching for himself. You handed Chloe back her phone and did the same. Pages and pages of articles about Raul Esparza’s shows, and accelaides, and all with Rafael's face plastered all over them.

“He’s….me,” Rafael whispered in horror.

“He looks more like you than you do!” You teased, he looked at you with a very serious face. Clearly he was not ready to joke about this yet.

“Holy shit. This is some multiverse shit,” Chloe muttered as she went through her Google search.

“Excuse me?” You asked her.

“You know, the multiverse theory? There’s an infinite amount of universes in every decision anyone ever makes.”

“Meaning…?” Rafael asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Chloe raised an eyebrow. “Raul could be Rafael, if he hadn’t given up on his Broadway dream,”

“Oh my god,” Rafael started laughing. “Chloe, did you get loaded in the park or something?”

“Oh okay, so you have a better idea, big brain lawyer?” She crossed her arms.

“He might not, but I do,” You piped up, showing her your phone.

“Doppelgangers?” Chloe read with a face.

“Yes, it’s a fact that there are 5 people in the world with the EXACT same face,” You continued reading.

“And he just happens to live in New York, where Rafael lives? AND is on Broadway, the one thing Rafael gave up?”

“Look sure it’s a million to one shot that those events would line up, but what’s more plausible: Doppelganger or ‘Multiverse’?” You looked at Chloe, who looked at Rafael, so you turned to Rafael as well.

“...Wha--are you asking me?” He asked.

“I mean it is your face,” You shrugged. “What do you think, baby?”

“I’m leaning towards a doppelganger, sorry Chloe,” He shrugged as well.

“Yeah well, you’re probably right,” Chloe nodded as she read her own phone, still on Raul Esparza info. “Most likely because he’s five years YOUNGER than you,”

“WHAT?!” Rafael grabbed her phone; as he read it, his face fell. “Oh God, no…”

“Wha--What does it matter how old he is, Rafa?” You furrowed your brows.

“Or the fact that he’s clearly thinner and more attractive,” Chloe added with a smirk.

“CHLOE,” You scolded her. “What the ever loving fuck?”

“Well, I’m just saying-- Look at them side by side,” Chloe had a photo of Rafael from some mayor’s ball next to Raul Esparza at the Tonys, both in tuxedo’s. You wouldn’t admit to Rafael but Raul was definitely thinner, and...he looked a lot younger. It was probably Botox or something you were sure, but still….

“Okay but again WHY does it matter--?” You wanted to change the subject.

“Are you kidding me? Y/N-- This is what you want to do!” He gestured to Chloe’s phone.

“....I don’t want Raul--” You started.

“No, you want to be on Broadway though!! And, and what if someday, God forbid, you end up in a show with this guy? He clearly already has a leg up on me compatibility wise, and as Chloe so kindly pointed out, a leg up on me age and attractiveness wise, and--” Rafael started ranting and rambling, talking lightening fast, as he did when he got upset or excited.

“Whoa whoa whoa whoa, back up there counselor,” You put up a hand to his face. “Are you actually insinuating that if I worked with Raul Esparza, that I would magically fall in love with him?”

“Don’t say it like that,” Rafael was triggered by the mention of magic and love.

“Okay but I’m not even saying ‘magic’ magic, I’m just saying-- What do you think because he’s an actor, and younger than you I’m just going to think I’m better off with him? Just because he has your face?” You gave him a small “oh honey” smile as you placed your hands on either of his face.

“No, but if you have to play his love interest, and you spend every day with him, it might blur the lines--” He started grumbling.

“Rafael, baby--” You shook his head in your hands. “I am still in SCHOOL. I am nowhere NEAR being in a Broadway show as a freaking techie, let alone a love interest starring opposite Raul Esparza,”

“Yeah, I mean this guy is huge-- 3 Tonys, 2 Emmys, an Oscar--” Chloe rattled off, but stopped when she realized you were glaring at her. “What? I’m helping!”

“...See? He’s far too famous for me,” You pressed your forehead to Rafael’s.

“Right, and I’m just the lowly ADA,” He muttered.

“Lowly my ass, Rafa,” You hit him playfully. “You are the most respected ADA in all of New York,”

“I’m the only ADA of New York,” He made a face.

“Not true! Just the city,” You beamed, proud of yourself you did some research once you had gotten together.

“My point is Rafael,” You now put your hands on his collar and pulled yourself into him. “You are all the acclaim I need,” You kissed him softly. “You’re my everything, I mean for fuck’s sake you just held a one man flash mob to propose to me! Let’s Raul Esparza do THAT,” You laughed, hoping to make him feel better. As his scowl melted into a smile, you knew you had succeeded.

“That was pretty romantic wasn’t it?” He beamed, proud of himself.

“It was EPIC,” Chloe chimed in, for good this time.

“Your voice is beautiful by the way,” You had forgotten in the midst of all of the romantic hubbub to compliment him. “I’m really sorry you had to give up Broadway,”

“Yeah, well-- apparently some part of me didn’t,” He gestured to his phone.

“Well he doesn’t have me,” You pointed out.

“He doesn’t know what he’s missing.” Rafael grinned as he pulled you into a deep kiss.

“Now can we please just forget about--” You hesitated, deciding not to mention his name again. “Anything else, and just focus on our engagement night?”

“Well, I suppose--” He nodded as he put an arm around you, and the three of you continued to walk through the park.

-------

Across town in a swanky New York Penthouse, an alert went off on Raul Esparza’s phone. He had it set to notify him any time his name appeared in a headline on the internet. He glanced over and picked it up, reading the notification. As he read it, his eyes widened and his face grew red. He stood up and yelled to no one in particular,

“Who the FUCK is trying to impersonate me?!”

[g3nosarchive]

ok i genuinely think a lot of other people have this problem but stop inserting yourself when xyz issue is mentioned. when someone is telling you that a person, a celebrity, some franchise is harming their identity or anyone’s identity as a minority, or part of a certain race or religion or anything shut the fuck up and accept it.

they do not need to know your emotional attachment to said thing, your disbelief, your horror, your personal experience - we didn’t ask for all that. we know just how bad it is, cus yk it harms us maybe? we’ve already gone through the cycle of being angry and indignant and now we’re here trying to get you to understand in the hopes that as a friend you do what you’re meant to do when you became friends with us. we are not your constant ball of anger to use whenever you find something that’s “crazy, unbelievably, shockingly” once again, a hate crime, when you decide you want to feel angry and care about it.

more under the cut bc i talk too much

by doing that, you’re making an issue that you didn’t even know about suddenly yours. ask yourself, what is the purpose for telling anyone all that? to get them to sympathize with you personally so you can get a pass because you didn’t know? of course you don’t know, of course you’re unaware, that’s the whole reason why you’re being told in the first place. do not water down the issue or even try to play the ‘everything has some issue like this so there’s no point in going this far’ card. especially as a white person. the reason why you don’t know primarily is because it doesn’t affect you and it doesn’t cross your mind.

when you watch a show with a black character, you don’t care about how off the character design is or how stereotypical and borderline racist the comedy gag surrounding said character is. when you listen to your favorite white music artists or watch your favorite movie with a majority white cast, white staff, white team, and white theme, you don’t care to analyze just how outdated and stereotypical the way that token asian character is portrayed. some of y’all don’t understand and will never understand the mental struggle and awareness forever plugged into the brain of lgbt and/or poc, especially black people when we consume anything, when we go anywhere, when we meet new people, to constantly catch those micro aggressions and know what to avoid.

so when someone tells you insert classic hot mess is racist and you should stop supporting it, one of the worst things you can do beside outright rejecting it is to defend it and insinuate that we don’t know what we’re talking about, that we need 30 different sources to prove it all, that you don’t think (for example taylor swifts dream colonized africa mv) is bad. you try to say the thing or person that is actively promoting all this homophobia, racism, transmisogyny etc needs to be kindly educated, is trying their best, will learn soon enough, just wasn’t educated, will do better in the future (esp looking at u kpop stans). does their apparent regret but refusal to properly apologize actually matter? the damage has already been done.

that in itself is a privilege i could never have. i don’t even try being a fan of any major white celebrity or any kpop group because i guarantee if i search up their name with ‘racist’, ‘sexist’, ‘homophobic’, ‘transphobic’, ‘cultural appropriation’ behind it something or some image is bound to show up. you will all say “oh they haven’t done anything yet” but when it comes out that they did, they have, and they do not care about who it affects, suddenly it’s a bombshell dropped on you out of nowhere.

it’s not that hard to spot these things actually. if your fav is constantly putting themselves against people of color, saying shady shit about non cishets while being a cishet themself, saying one thing and doing another, or has been silent when their voice was expected to speak up, shouldn’t you notice? y’all will reblog all these posts but in reality only 10% are actually reading and listening and actually digesting this information for future use.

and i think the thing that pisses me off is this is all from personal experience where i’m speaking from. over the past 2 days the amount of times if i’ve heard about the “tea that dropped w meghan markle” is ridiculous and annoying. a girl texted me and i sat there and i realized that she does this on a daily basis to fuel my anger and get me to validate her own useless anger. of course i knew about it and i wasn’t surprised at all - she’s still a black woman.

almost every black blog on here, when they get big enough, deals with some sort of weird shit surrounding their blackness. if you get big on speaking about issues you are now this emotionless token ‘smart black person i can actually trust’ to use as your replacement for google. this is not to say asking questions is bad, but it is so easy to pull up some of the shit you guys ask for. some people get called slurs directly, targeted for being too black or not black enough, attacked for their features and etc and someone mentioned this before but the only people that care in those situations are other black people themselves. white people will have blm in their bio but turn the other way the minute some anon starts acting up in their mutuals’ inbox, calling them a dark1e because they felt confident enough to post some selfies. and then you get sad when we dont go to you for any kind of support? 

i’ve stated sometimes that asking me questions on issues and things is okay, but one of the main reasons i say that is because whether i say it or not, i’ll be asked questions and expected to know everything and i am your personal walking encyclopedia and ofc it’s natural for me to have all this information in my head, as if i didn’t research it myself. but then i think about the numerous amounts of people that specifically say not to ask them this shit because it really does tire you out, that they don’t want to have to deal with this in any space but they still get them. 

and then the ones that don’t even know themself so people will use them as an example and say “well this person didn’t know and they’re ‘marginalized identity’ so it should be fine for me too”. good god just apologize, show that you really care, change your behavior and move on. do you think it was fun being asked the statistics for george floyd’s and other black peoples death in class? that you were being inclusive and giving me a chance to show off my intelligence, to prove to others that i really had something up here and you were my greatest star eyes white friend that gave me that chance? i cant close my posts like this properly but i want you to think about that shit and actually ask yourself if you’d do that. a lot of you will read this and think “i’m not that type of racist” “i don’t have those deep seated prejudices in me” yes you do. you just haven’t been called out on it.

for all the shit ive dealt with above, if i’ve ever talked to you about this before dont come to me to apologize i do not need it and you are not the only person i’ve received this from. i guarantee you that there’s about 20 other people i’ve thought about while writing this post considering i’m a black person in the real world, so keep your guilt to yourself an deal with it

white people don’t add on to this

[laketaj24]

Happier

Author’s Note: Ahhh, I got no Finan requests but I had an idea, so here it is. I hope you enjoy it!I just google searched the image, kudos to the creator.

Pairing: Finan X Reader

Warning: None

Cookham. It had been years since you’d been to the place, two to be exact. Stopping there had simply been an earmark on your journey to the North. But that earmark had rendered had a small issue, a toddler-sized one. You docked the small boat, and the guards were up on their feet in seconds, walking over to you. “Halt.” They called accessing you.

You tossed the burlap sack to the dock and then climbed over yourself. Your son, Alden, reached up to you, clasping his hands to be picked up. You lifted him and placed him on your hip. The journey from Wessex had not been perilous, but the thought of actually touching your feet to the soil for the first time in two days seemed all too comforting.

“State your name.”

“I am Y/N.” You cleared your throat. “And this is Alden, son of a warrior who lives here… Finan.”

The two men turned their heads inquisitively, and then a boisterous laugh escaped. “Oh, this is too good.” One jeered the other jokingly, pushing his elbow into his side. “Come.”

You found nothing funny; it was never your intention to return back to Cookham, but traveling with your son made it hard not to. There was no way to have something of your own without the threat of an attack, either from Dane or a man seeing you as vulnerable. You’d have to come to Cookham to live.

They opened the gates of the estate, and immediately you were greeted with a familiar face, a friendly one that was always found in Sihtric. The broad smile on his face was accompanied by a hug. “Y/N!” He took the heavy bag from you. “Welcome back.”

“Thank you, Sihtric. It is great to see you are well.”

“Well, as you can be with two children.” He looked down at the small childbearing the same dark eyes and head of hair as his father. “Speaking of which, who is this little man?”

“He is Alden.” You paused. “Son of Finan.”

Sihtric stumbled and then caught his balance looking Alden over. The tiny cross on his neck and play sword on his side, he had all the bearings of Finan. “This is,” He chuckled. “A sight to see.”

“Is he here?” You said, ignoring the hint of amusement in his voice. “I wish to speak to him.”

“He lives there.” He pointed to the quaint stone brick house next to the Great Hall of Uhtred. “but give him a minute, I think he’s busy.” Sihtric walked to the door knocking twice and then waiting for no response, just giggles and the sound of a mess being made as things clanged to the floor.

Impatience growing thin, you opened the door witnessing the bare ass lady scurry under the covers and Finan standing with his mouth agape. “It seems a leopard cannot change its spots .”

“What the hell?” He squinted his eyes at Sihtric. “You couldn’t have handled this better, could yah?”

“She was determined,” Sihtric smirked. “I will fetch us some ale. I think you are gonna need it.”

“Get out.” You hissed at the woman. “Now.”

Finan dressed, sliding his pants on and skipping the shirt. “You have some nerve,” He complained, watching the woman get dressed. “Hurry it along with love, the woman has a temper.”

You narrowed your eyes at her, covering the eyes of your more than prying son. “You heard him.”

She left the three of you standing in his doorway, and you pushed your narrow finger into his chest. “I regret even coming here.”

“Then why’d you come?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You don’t have to, I am not giving it. You left in the middle of the night. Treated me as I was some whore, then you barge back in here with an attitude and a wee lad thinking everything is fine. Well, it’s not, what do you want?”

“I did not treat you like a whore.” You folded your arms over your chest.

“You left silver on my clothes.”

You cracked a smile seeing him flustered. “I,” you suppressed the laugh that was begging to be set free. “It was the silver you gave me Finan. I told you I didn’t wish to take anything from you. I would never treat you like a whore, even if that is what you are, I didn’t want to take your silver. You always complain about never getting paid.”

“I am paid plenty.” He rolled his eyes. “That’s my cross.” Finan pointed to Alden.

“And he’s your son, I figured he was best to wear it.”

“My son?” He cocked a brow. “Horse shit, he’s…” He looked upon him and shook his head. “Oh, fucking hell.” He grumbled. “Y/N, what am I supposed to do with him? I would be a shite father, you know?” He paused, and even though he said nothing, you knew what he was thinking. His father had been cruel.

“I don’t think you would be.”

“But you-,” He paused. “Oh, fuck. Sorry. I just-, Does he eat?” He pushed his hands through his hair. He squatted down, touching the small cross and then his cheek. “What’s your name?”

“Alden.” He answered timidly.

“Well, do you eat?” Alden didn’t answer, so Finan peered up to you. “I have soup.”

“Eating sounds nice, we’ve traveled a great distance.” You took the small cloak from his back, and he grabbed your leg. “Say hello to him, Alden.”

“Hello.” He waved.

“Good, sit down while he gets you food.” You didn’t want to sit, you were stir crazy. You had thought over every single outcome of returning here. Alden needed a father, there were things in this world he needed to learn you could not teach

“So, you returned with a surprise.” Finan took the bowls and filled them with the beef stew. Then handed Alden a spoon.

“I wanted to come sooner. But…”

“Save your speech.” Finan sat across from Alden. “I am sure you rehearsed it a million times, but it’s not necessary.” He pushed a bowl in front of the empty seat. “Sit.”

You sat next to him. “Why?”

“I do not need a reason to be a father to my child, other than he’s my child.” He exhaled. “I might not be the best.” Finan shrugged. “But you two can stay here.”

“Thank you.”

The awkwardness lasted for three days, and on the fourth day, Finan and Alden were attached at the hip running through the estate, causing havoc for everyone they came across. “Hold your sword up,” Finan said, lifting the wooden sword for Alden. “Now hit him.”

Alden swung his sword at Uhtred, who seemed unbothered by the toddler, using him as a practice target. “Harder, you're Finan’s child.” He teased.

Alden got a running start and swung at Finan. Finan dramatically fell to the ground in front of Alden with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. Alden erupted in giggles before he lunged at Uhtred, who followed Finan’s behavior. He lay beside his friend's arms stretched. Alden turned to Sihtric and set his eyes on him. Sihtric playfully ran circles around his friends before Alden caught up to him and hit his leg too. He fell on top of them. Osferth held his hands up in defeat when Alden set his eyes on him.

“Spare me, young lord.” He joked.

Alden climbed over the three men to Osferth and held his hand out. He, unlike his father, didn’t say many words, but he liked Osferth a lot. The two of them headed over to the food, leaving the men where they lie. You shook your head with a wicked smile on your face as Finan jumped up and ran over to you.

“He defeated every last one of us, without blinking an eye.” Finan looked over you. “Did you teach him that?”

“It was all inherited.”

“You’re right. It’s good blood it is.” Finan huffed. “I know you might not believe me… but I missed you around here. People are happier with yah around.”

“Is that so? It’s confusing to think that you missed me, from what I have been told a different woman warmed your bed while I was away?”

“It was loneliness Y/N, spare me the judgment. Had I know there was a chance you’d return, I wouldn’t have bed anyone.” He admitted cutting his eyes over at you.

“I am sure.” You hit him with the rag you were using to clean the place he called home. “Osferth teaches him good manners, which is a good thing. He will have to learn them from someone.”

“Do not do that.” He groaned.

“Do what?”

“You know what you’re doing. Switching matters. I wanted to speak to you about how I’m happier with yah here. And for the fifth time today, you ignore me.”

“I tend to ignore the lies, it makes things easier.”

“I tell you no lies, I have not had much in my life to be happy about, just my family here and you… and him.” He watched Alden. “I feared I’d leave no mark on this earth, and you gave him to me.”

“Well, he’s all yours through and through.”

“And what about you?”

“I am my own.” You shrugged. “It’s all I’ve ever been, all I want.”

“How can I change your thinking?”

“Change it? it’s hard to bend the will of a determined woman.”

“Then, I see I have I some work to do, stubborn woman.”

Tags: @ceridwenofwales​ @whenimaunicorn​ @titty-teetee​ @supernaturalvikingwhore​ @geekandbooknerd​ @captstefanbrandt​ @pokeasleepingsmaug​ @carlya65​ @therealcalicali​ @sparklemichele​ @earthsmightiestasses​ @stardustnthings​ @dangerousvikings​ @greennightspider​ @awesomerextyphoon​ @allonesharingonebreath​   @rabeccablake​ @savismith​ @kittybites-94 @naaladareia​ @umnoyeahno​  @riottkatt​  @ariellostatci​ @funmadnessandbadassvikings​ @marvelousthronewars  @thevikingsheaux​ @prettythingsworld​ @miahelizaaabeth​

[soyeahitsmiddleearth]

Return Her pt. 1

The Company (and friends) x Reader

Not being from Middle Earth has brought you some amazing moments, but this should’ve been expected.

You knew going into Mirkwood after Gandalf’s warnings was a horrible idea, but for some reason you didn’t think to stay behind. 

First everyone went nuts, yourself included (you could barely remember your own name at some points, it was ridiculous). Then there were the spiders, thankfully you got to avoid being webbed up by those disgusting arachnids but you got lost on your way to help.

By some luck you found everyone while they were attempting to leave their confines of the webbing, but then the spiders came back so your luck didn’t feel so good anymore. 

You guys kill a bunch, Kili gets separated… oh, and there is also the elves who are speaking in their own tongue.

The blond elf who appeared to be the leader of this merry group of losers was talking about one of the swords you all acquired after everyone was searched (the only thing they found on you was a small weapon and your backpack from home, also a smack to the hand that was frisking you) when he noticed you. 

The male elf mouthing off to Thorin stops his little liar thief speech abruptly though when his eyes fall on you and your strange clothes and weird colorful backpack held by the elf who searched you.

“You. Come here.“ 

Uh oh.

Simply staring at him dumbly for a few moments, you turn your head from side to side and then point at yourself. “M-Me?”

He nods his head once, annoyance and a trace of amusement showing on his face. You twiddle your thumbs together and shrug your shoulders, taking a step forward only for a large hand to pull you back, “What do you want with her, pointy eared freak!” Hisses Dwalin next to you

The elf says nothing and continues to stare you down. 

Everyone is looking between the two of you at this point, and you begin to feel that all to familiar mixture of anxiousness and awkwardness creeping up on you. “Um… I’d rather not…”

He still stares, as if he’s looking into your very soul. “I will not repeat myself.” Now he just looks annoyed. 

You huff indignantly and shake Dwalin’s hand off your shoulder, “Fine! Whatever.”

You shuffle over awkwardly, ignoring the protesting of some of the others as you go to stand next to Thorin and in front of him.

His intense blue eyes drill holes into you as he sizes you up, “An odd human girl with 13 dwarves. Clothes I’ve never seen before and a bag that is otherworldly. Interesting.” You do your best to hold his gaze, keeping your face as blank as possible.

“That isn’t any of your concern.” Thorin states next to you, but the elf still doesn’t turn his leer from you.

So what do you do?

What you do best. 

“Is that a dagger in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” Your expression doesn’t change as you say this, face remaining neutral as he falters.

Ding ding, Y/N 1, this guy 0.

“Excuse me?” He looks to be shocked by what you say, but you only shrug your shoulders as some of the others behind you laugh. 

But your witty victory is short lived because now everyone is being hauled off to some elf kingdom where you’re sure Santa must live.

When you go to rejoin the others though, the blond elf puts a hand on your shoulder and states in a demanding tone, “You stay with me.”

Thorin turns quickly upon hearing that, “Leave her be, elf! She is one of us, and she will remain by our sides.” Some of the others shout their agreement. 

The elf doesn’t listen. 

And thats how you end up trailing behind the tall elf right in front of you while some of the others (Thorin, Fili, Dwalin, some others) look back to make sure you’re still there from time to time.

It warms your little ole heart! If only you weren’t all being led to imprisonment that is.

When the elf palace (you aren’t quite sure what else to call it) comes into view, it takes your breath away. Yeah, these guys are kinda assholes, but the architecture is astounding! 

You couldn’t keep the awe from showing on your face, and when the elf glances back at you he chuckles. “Never seen an elvish structure before?”

You saw Rivendell which was also lovely, but they’re both beautiful in their own ways you suppose.

Yeah this guy is the enemy, but you just can’t keep yourself from mumbling how stunning it all is. He laughs again, seemingly a bit more friendly towards you than your dwarven companions, and continued on his way. 

Upon entering the structure, you find that the outside is not nearly as awe-inspiring as the inside though.

The twisting trees and twinkling lights inside mesmerize you. It’s so grand, you almost forget that these elves are basically abducting you from your company by keeping you separated so far from them.

Your eyes fall upon the red-headed elf who helped out Kili, and your mouth runs before you can stop it. “Woah, shes freaking gorgeous." 

At your sudden speech the blond male elf guy looks down at you with confusion, his eyebrows knitted together. "What?" 

"Er, your friend over there is really pretty.” You restate, looking away as a flush darkens your face. 

He doesn’t get a chance to say anything else before said she-eld falls into step with you and the blond.

She says something in that Elvish language of theirs and looks down at you, and once again you speak before thinking. 

“Excuse me, do you have a map? Because I’m afraid I’ve gotten lost in your eyes.” It’s cheesy where you’re from, but here you’re a damn poetic genius. 

Her face tints red at your words and she looks up at the blond guy briefly before looking at you again, “I-I’m sorry?" 

"Oh, forgive me that was so forward. I just can’t help myself around someone so lovely.” Yeah, you’re laying it on thick, and it seems to be working in your favor pretty well cause she’s blushing and- oh, is that flattery you see?

“I don’t think I’ve ever been addressed in such a way…” She states breathlessly, looking at Mr. Blond again. 

“How is that possible? My dear you have got to be the most beautiful-" 

"Y/N!” Thorin states sharply, looking at you completely baffled (and he’s not the only one).

A pout comes to your face at the one word scolding, but you get the hint. “Man… Freaking Thorin…" 

You look straight ahead and ignore the glares and confusion from your friends, crossing your arms over your chest as you continue to walk along silently. 

"What a cute little thing.” She comments after a moment of observing your sulky form, reaching down to ruffle your hair. And, embarrassingly enough, you find yourself leaning into her touch slightly.

Hell yeah, this bitch is in. Maybe too much…

Yeah she actually is drop dead gorgeous, but you’ve gotta get these fools trust so you can crush them later. It’s essential to your 45 step escape plan. 

“Me?” You ask, actually feeling a bit nervous to be getting as good as you gave. “C-Cute?" 

There’s no time to answer verbally, because suddenly they split the group into Thorin, and everyone else, but you can see from their faces that it was meant to be taken seriously. You remain standing with the elves, a bit shy and confused as to why you haven’t been led to the others yet. 

Some of them give you looks of concern, but you only flash bright smiles each time you make eye contact with someone. You can tell a few of them are annoyed with your lack of fear for the situation, but you hold onto the hope that Thorin will use his brain.

You break away from the elves and begin to follow after where the majority of the group is headed, but a firm hand landing on your shoulder stops you in place.

Glancing up at the blond elf, he only shakes his head, "You will go with him”, he nods his head over to Thorin.

The confusion shows clearly on your face, but you listen regardless and change your course as you join the leader of the group. 

When you step up beside him, he looks at you with deep set confusion, “Why are you not with the others?" 

All you do is shrug in response. 

And then the two of you are being brought before the king.

At least that’s what the blond elf said because all you see is a woman on a chair- 

Oh, wait. No, no, that is the King. 

Turns out, you’re quite the jokester because you make yourself laugh with this line of thinking which earns you a sharp look from Thorin and two pairs of confused elf eyes on you.

You clamp your mouth shut and shrug your shoulders again, and then you and Thorin are being left with the elf king.

When he gets up from his chair you’re shocked by how tall he is. Even the other elf who was bossing you around doesn’t reach the height that he does. 

When he begins to talk to Thorin about things you care little for, your gaze wanders away to view the lovely scene before you. The structure of this place is simply amazing. There is nothing like this from your home, all you had were huge neighborhoods, strip malls, and google images that provided you with things not even half as pretty as this. 

While you gaze around someone clears their throat which effectively breaks you out of your little trance.

You turn your attention back towards Thorin and the large (and very pretty) elf quee-king.

Much to your dismay they’re both staring at you expectantly.

You blink your eyes a few times and stare dumbly as you rack your brain for any clue as to what just occurred, but you only draw a blank. "Um… ‘sup?” Thats all you could come up with? Really? 

You mentally berate yourself for not paying attention, but it only seems to amuse the blond guy. “Interesting. You are not from here, are you?” He asks curiously. Thorin’s expression is sharp, and your eyes lock on him for a moment because you don’t know how much to reveal.

He shakes his head. 

“Well obviously not. I’m a human. Have you not seen my ears? Or my height? Or anything?” Your sarcasm earns a snort of amusement from Thorin, but it seems that the king only found your sarcasm funny as well.

“You know what I mean. And the look you two shared only answers my question for me.”

You release a long and over dramatic sigh, crossing your arms over your chest. “Well.. It’s not your business where I’m from. So stop being lame and let us leave." 

He stopped listening though and turned back to Thorin, "Where did you find such a person? Because I can most definitely tell that she is not from Middle Earth.”

Thorin only turns his head away and responds to something else probably stated while you were busy. He starts ranting about abandonment and how he wasn’t helped. He yells something in one of their languages, and then Thranduil is all up in his face.

“Do not talk to me of dragon fire! I know… its wrath and ruin.” The king makes a weird face and you find yourself become uncomfortable as his face warps and reveals horribly scarred skin.

“I have faced… the great serpents of the North.” He then steps back and stops leaning over as his skin quickly returns to normal. “I warned your grandfather of what his greed would summon. But he would not listen. You are just like him.”

Two guards seize him suddenly and you protest loudly, “Hey! Leave him alone!” You only get ignored.

“Stay here if you will… and rot.” They start dragging him down the stairs and you move to follow after, but the booming voice of King Thranduil stops you. “Not you. You stay where you are." 

Thorin yells at him in his tongue, then yells out in an outrage, "She comes with me!” He only gets hauled further away as you look between him and the blond elf who is standing at the steps to his throne.

You take a few steps forward towards where Thorin is being dragged off to, but your arm is grabbed and yanked back towards him harshly. 

The king under the mountain continues to rage on until he disappears out of your sight, the hand on your arm not releasing you even after he is gone. 

You turn a glare up at the king and snatch your arm away, “What do you want? I have nothing to say to you!”

He only smooths his robes back down and steps away. "You and I have much to discuss…“ 

Thorin regains his composure long before he reaches the dungeon down below, not wanting to alert his company of his obvious distress. Though he does brood more than usual and the constant scowl on his features immediately worries those looking upon him. 

"Where’s Y/N?” Is the first thing he hears after he’s shoved into his own cell. He looks over towards the area the question came from and sees Kili standing there with his hands on the bars. 

“That pointy eared pixie wouldn’t let her come here with me.”

Someone exclaims their anger loudly in a cell not far from his, but he only continues. “That elvish garbage refused to let her come with me, and when she tried to follow he grabbed her arm as if he had any right-!” He cuts himself off and sits down, hands clenched into fists as he thinks about it.

The others yell out their own anger at that, and then Ori speaks up softly, “What does he want with ‘er? She’s only a human…" 

Balin speaks up next, "Does he want to know about where she’s from…? Perhaps that be the reason right there! She speaks oddly and her clothes are suspicious”

Nobody wanted to even think about that. If you refused to give them the answers they wanted, what would they do? 

Everyone is undoubtedly sharing the same dark and worrying thoughts. 

“Mahal…" 

They all understand the feeling.

[lillupon]

So, I've got a very long rant/opinion here and Idk really know how to say this without coming off kinda bad but I'm gonna say it anyways. I agree with the fact that the seventeen tag has been kinda dry lately on most fanfic places, but it's really only in the smut area. It's the sane way with other groups too I feel like. All of the nice little innocent tags are boomin to this day and thats completely fine. I think the smut tag is dry tho bc lately I feel like a few social issues (like sexualizing people and disrespecting them and their identity) have crossed over into kpop and have been ?blown out of proportion? Lately there's been a rampage of people who like to say that writing smut about someone is disgusting and is dehumanizing because people want to assume that it would make the idols uncomfortable which could equate to some morality issues on how you are reducing someone only to their body without their consent and a bunch of stuff like that. It kind of pisses me off bc this is fiction. About grown adults. Clamping down on horny people who simp over hot asian men isn't going to solve the issues we face in real life. I think a shit ton is wrong with the world we currently live in, and deciding to come after something that isn't even real bothers me. Like what does that actually accomplish. But yeah, I think thats a reason why smut has been dying down. I mean, on youtube almost every video about unpopular opinions, or things they dont like about kpop will include something about shipping idols in fanfics. And then everyone in the comment section will talk about how its all fine and dandy in moderation, but once people start writing smut it's crossing the idols personal boundaries. It's something I've been seeing a lot more often and I think people who are interested in writing smut are being turned away from it bc we've gotten to a point where people are being called disgusting for having fantasies.

Hi Anon, thank you for sending in this Ask. 

I want to preface this by saying: when I write or talk about Mingyu and Wonwoo fucking on my blog, it is a fantasy. I am not speculating about what the real Mingyu and Wonwoo might be like in bed. I am imagining the versions of Mingyu and Wonwoo that I have created in my head, that exist only in my stories. None of it is real. I understand that this can be a blurry boundary for some people. But for me, the separation between fantasy and reality is well-defined. Now, on to your Ask!

You’ve hit the nail on the head with this one. You’ve also touched on many of the issues I have been struggling with myself as of late. It’s difficult to argue about morals since everyone has a different set of values, as well as different comfort levels. Some people think real person fiction (RPF) is a gross invasion of privacy. Others are fine with it. And others don’t care one way or another. There is no single answer; I can only offer my answer. Which means, of course, people are welcome to disagree with it, or parts of it. 

In this essay (LOL But forreal: this is an essay), I will be sharing my experience in the k-pop fanfic community from 2014 to present, the etiquette I personally abide by as a reader and writer of RPF, as well as my stance on RPF in general.

I started reading and posting fanfics back in 2014/2015 on a website called AsianFanfics (AFF). Obviously, no one on that site had a problem with RPF, since AFF is a platform made specifically for sharing stories about Asian celebrities. For many years, I read and enjoyed RPF with zero guilt. I scribbled away by myself in my own corner of fandom and curated my own content. I didn’t interact much with other fans, readers, or writers. I didn’t have a Twitter, and I only used tumblr to reblog memes. As a result, I’ve been able to avoid a lot of anti-shipping discourse, as well as purity and cancel culture. I had no idea there were so many negative opinions about RPF. It wasn’t until I became active on the subreddit r/Fanfiction last year that I learned about all the discourse surrounding RPF. 

This newfound ‘awareness’ does make me feel guilty at times—but only because after mulling this over, I still don’t think this is something to feel guilty about.

Here’s what I remember, first and foremost, when I create and consume RPF: fanfics and my favourite ships are fictional, and fiction is fantasy. This is basic etiquette when it comes to RPF, and most people in the k-pop fandom understand this. Delusional fans exist, of course, but they are not representative of the entire k-pop community. 

Another point of etiquette is to keep fanfics within fandom spaces. I would never push my fics into celebrities’ faces, or go around claiming that my fanfics are accurate representations of a k-idol’s life or personality, in any way, shape, or form. I would also discourage directing ship-related questions to official accounts, or bringing them up during fansigns or other face-to-face interactions; I believe that in these instances, shipping does have the potential to strain real-life relationships.

So with basic etiquette out of the way, let me share my approach to RPF in general.

As much as we like to think we know our favourite celebrities, we really don’t. All we see is their public persona. And this public persona is intentionally controlled, managed, and curated by a team of people: directors, tabloids, editors, makeup artists, publicists, etc. How “real” are these celebrities? We are so distanced from them that they may as well be fictional.

I draw from the public persona that idols project, and I work them into my own writing. But at the end of the day, these personalities are my own interpretation. My interpretation is probably nothing like an idol’s actual personality. I just use the “public persona/character” that idols portray as inspiration for my own stories, which are set in wildly different universes.

More than anything, I think of k-pop idols as “actors” in my fic. You know how when you write an original novel, you scroll through Google images, looking for the perfect person to portray your original character? RPF is literally that, except you might build upon pre-existing dynamics and personalities.

When it comes to explicit fanfiction, two main concerns are prevalent: one of consent, and one of sexualisation.

If we argue against explicit RPF due to lack of consent, we should be willing to apply the same lens to all explicit works. How do we know that the creator of a movie, book, series, etc., is okay with us using their characters in our stories, explicit or not? We don’t. Perhaps some creators encourage fanfiction, but don’t want their lovingly crafted characters engaging in sexual acts or experiencing trauma. We just don’t know. I feel this line is even more blurred when we talk about characters from movies or TV series.

Let’s take Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, as portrayed by Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan, from the Captain America movies as an example. I am willing to bet that when people consume and create explicit fanfiction about Steve and Bucky, they are imagining Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan in their heads. I doubt many people are imagining the 2D cartoon versions of Steve and Bucky, even though they’re technically the exact same characters. Why? Well, it could be because movies are more readily and easily consumed than comics, and so people are unfamiliar with comic book Steve and Bucky. But it might also be because fans find Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan attractive. Is this really any different from RPF, where fic authors make up everything about a celebrity’s life?  

When readers and writers of fanfic talk about how hot Steve Rogers or Bucky Barnes is, those comments are about Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan’s bodies. When reading explicit stories, fans are going to picture Chris and Sebastian’s bodies in their head, doing sexual things. Can we say, “Well, it’s not really you, Chris/Sebastian”, when in a way, it is?

The reality is, people are going to thirst over celebrities, regardless of whether or not explicit fanfiction exists. They’re going to post thirst tweets on Twitter. They’re going to talk to friends and strangers online about how hot [insert celebrity name here] is. They’re going to fantasize about dating and having sex with their favourite celebrity. Or, as it is in my case, they’re going to make up stories in their heads about their favourite idols dating and banging each other. People are going to do all of this without ‘getting consent’ from the celebrity. Cracking down upon and shaming writers of RPF isn’t going to change any of that.

To be honest, I’m not sure why people think it is disgusting to imagine sexual scenarios about real people. It is okay and normal to have these kinds of fantasies. I suppose the alternative is to fantasise about having sex with cartoon characters instead? It’s a very binary way of thinking to say that if you imagine/write real people in explicit scenarios, you are immediately sexualising, dehumanising, or objectifying them. There is more to dehumanisation than writing smut about our favourite celebrities. For one thing, you can love someone and appreciate all parts of them, and still want to fuck their brains out. And generally, fanfics come from a place of love—love that is not only sexual in nature.

Is it the sharing aspect inherent to fanfiction? The possibility that a celebrity might stumble upon explicit works about them? The chances are very low, I think, of the k-pop idols I enjoy writing about coming across my English fics. But I also believe in curating your own content, and that applies to celebrities too. Perhaps a celebrity should not go searching for fanfics about themselves. And of course, people should not show celebrities their fanfics, unless invited.

Another argument I hear against (explicit) RPF is, “How would you feel if someone wrote fanfiction about you?” First off, I don’t like this argument because there’s a difference between someone who decides to be a public figure versus someone who decides to remain a regular private citizen. Celebrities should and do know what they’re getting into when they choose their occupation. (This is not to say, “They are celebrities; sexualise them all you want because that’s what they signed up for.” Here, I am only acknowledging that people might have sexual fantasies about celebrities they are attracted to. Presumably, celebrities are cognizant of this.)  

If someone (whose existence I am not even aware of, mind you) decides they want to write explicit fanfiction of me in some tiny corner of the Internet, I wouldn’t care so long as: (1) they don’t shove it into my face, and (2) they don’t harass me and ask invasive questions about my personal life and relationships. It’s not hurting me or negatively affecting my life, so it wouldn’t even register as a blip on my radar. When fanfiction remains within its appropriate spaces, it is largely harmless. 

Now, if a k-pop idol were to ask their fans to stop writing fanfiction about them, would I? Yes, I would. However, I can’t imagine that happening. Judging by the number of ‘sexy’ concepts, fanservice moments, and variety shows such as ‘We Got Married’, I am certain that k-pop idols realise they are the stars of many fantasies—some of which are explicit in nature. Considering the prevalence of shipping in the k-pop industry, I would argue that shipping is subtly encouraged.

It’s sad that so many talented writers are shamed out of fandom, or feel that k-pop cannot be the medium through which they tell their stories, or explore their sexuality, or cope with trauma, or simply have fun. Professional works and Hollywood love their RPF—readers and writers of fanfics should be able to, as well. 

As you said Anon, “clamping down on horny people who simp over hot asian men isn't going to solve the issues we face in real life” (this is a lovely sentence, by the way). The kind of person who dehumanises another and reduces them to a sexual object will do so some other way, if not via fanfiction. I don’t think the issue of fetishisation can be fixed simply by telling people not to write explicit RPF. In my experience, people who read and write RPF are more respectful and thoughtful about these things than the general public. We’ve all seen the general public say highly sexual things about celebrities in the media and to their faces, or tag celebrities in their thirst tweets. Are these things less invasive than fanfiction? Personally, I don’t think so. And in my opinion, there are more pressing and damaging issues in stan culture than fanfic.

In conclusion, I don’t think there is anything wrong with creating and consuming RPF, both explicit and non-explicit so long as we:

Remember we are writing fiction

Keep RPF within its appropriate space, and

Do not harass celebrities about their personal lives and relationships

RPF is not for everyone. There may be people who enjoy RPF, but draw the line at explicit stories. This is fine. Everyone has their own personal preferences. What is not fine, however, is attacking people for creating things you don’t like. I’m not sure what kind of moral crusade people are on and what they hope to achieve by shaming writers of RPF, explicit or otherwise. Ultimately, fic authors are writing a fantasy. It’s not real; no one is being hurt. I think it’s important for people to curate their own content, and AO3 makes it very easy to filter out explicit works and unwanted tags. 

Maybe this is me trying to justify my own participation in explicit RPF—I don’t know. What I do know is that I love k-pop, and fandom is an important part of my media and entertainment experience. I adore the k-pop idols I write about, and I just want to imagine them being happy and getting lots of love and orgasms. Let a bitch be horny, goddamn… 

Some bonus fun facts!

At the time I am writing this, on AO3:

26.2% of Stray Kids fanfics are rated M or E

26.3% of Seventeen fanfics are rated M or E

29.0% of Merlin fanfics are rated M or E

34.9% of Captain America (Movies) fanfics are rated M or E

40.1% of BTS fanfics are rated M or E ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Coincidentally, I saw this post on Reddit this morning: Can we have a RPF positivity post?

[shuahoonie]

you. [tom holland] - three.

PAIRING: tom holland x female!celebrity!reader

SUMMARY: ah, to be young and in love. it sounds great if only you and tom were actually dating out of pure love and not for the sheer reputation of your careers. it also should be great if you two actually got along, but life isn’t that easy.

WARNINGS: mostly swearing! mentions of alcohol! a bit of fluff, a bit of angst. it’s haters to lovers / fake dating au so take that information as you wish!

WORD COUNT: 1632

SONG INSPO: our lawyer made us change the name of this song so we wouldn’t get sued - fall out boy  

A/N: aaah, hello babes! i have been writing a lot since the new year ngl, it is so refreshing to just write and not stress about stuff. although that’ll change as i head back to university tomorrow [technically today lmao] and face a shit ton of papers and readings!!! anyways, happy reading and enjoy part three!

gif credits @peteparkrrs​

vanessa’s masterlist | preview | one | two | four | five | six | seven | eight | eight.5 [interview excerpt] 

“Why, I found a solution to your problems, my dears.” Zoë smiled, almost too sickly.

You were starting to get anxious. Is it your manager or is it because of the coffee? Probably both.

You waited for her to continue and what she said afterwards almost made you spat your drink.

“You and Tom will fake-date for damage control,” Zoë said as if it was the most obvious solution.

“I’m sorry, what?” You asked, practically choking on your drink. Has she gone mad?!

“You,” Your manager pointed at you “and Tom” She then gestured to the devil sitting beside you “will be acting as a fake couple.” 

“God, please tell me this is just a horrible dream.” You practically begged as you closed your eyes, trying to convince yourself that you’re just asleep and this, whatever this is, will be over as soon as you open your eyes. 

“How did you two end up to this conclusion, may I ask?” Tom asked, equally appalled at the resolution that was dropped in front of you two. 

“It’s the only thing that made sense after the theatrics that you two pulled,” Matthew spoke up. “Setting the illusion that you two are secretly dating and got into a small fight last night, which ended up with Y/N pouring her drink on Tom.” 

“That was a small fight? What if we had a big one?” Tom scoffed “Will she kill me then?” 

You smirked at him. “Why, that’s the first thing that I liked from all of the nonsense you just said.” 

Tom rolled his eyes at you. “I still don’t see how dating for publicity solves what happened last night,” Tom spoke up, in which you had to agree. None of it made sense after all. 

“Then how exactly are you two going to explain the scene from last night?” Zoë asked with her arms crossed. 

“I’ll be glad to confirm to the world that Tom Holland is an asshole since he called me a leech,” You said almost nonchalantly. People were starting to paint Tom as the bad guy in the narrative, and all four you were aware of it. 

“No one will be telling anything,” Tom jeered. “No one will be telling anything because it’s none of their business. They shouldn’t care about these things in the first place.” 

“Hate to break it to ‘ya, bud, but see this?” You showed him your phone, the screen showing Twitter’s trending tab and there it showed over a hundred thousand tweets about you two. “People made it already their business.” 

Tom massaged his temples. “What, are you on board with this idea now?” 

“Fuck no,” You hissed. “As much as I hate to say this but Holland’s right, we don’t have to anything about this.” 

“You two don’t have a choice,” Matthew commented. “If you two chose to disregard this, the people wouldn’t let this go. It will always be asked in interviews, they would only speculate more.” 

“God, why did you even go to that specific club.” You grumbled at Tom. “Of all clubs in Los Angeles.” 

“Why are you putting this on me? None of this would’ve happened if it wasn’t for you!” Tom argued. 

“I wouldn’t have done what I did if it wasn’t for your stupid mouth!” You were fuming. 

“Look, it’s a win-win for both of you. Tom will clear up his image by giving an impression of how your little couple’s argument escalated. As for Y/N, she’ll be receiving a lot of publicity for this. It’s good for a rising-star to have this much publicity.” Zoë proclaimed. 

“Jesus, you really are a leech,” Tom mumbled under his breath. However, you still caught it. 

“Call me that one more time and I swear you’ll be going home with not only ruined clothes but also with a bruise on your precious face.” You threatened, narrowing your eyes at him. 

“So it’s settled then?” Matthew asked, “You two are going to do it?” 

Tom just shrugged, probably defeated knowing he won’t stand a chance in this argument. He does have this reputation to uphold and he’s not going to let someone ruin it. 

You, however, felt too brave. You shook your head no and said, “You can’t make me.” 

Zoë raised her eyebrow at you, taking it as a challenge. “Try me.” 

“Remember to hold hands, kids!” Zoë said giddily as she waved goodbye. 

“I am going to kill her,” You gritted in between your teeth as you left the building with the devil quickly fixing his hair. 

“I might actually take you up on that and add my manager into the mix,” Tom grumbled and adjusted his shirt. Tom decided to leave his jacket at the office and figured that a white shirt paired with denim pants was enough. He claims that he looks toned down and his outfit is so casual that people might not notice him. 

You begged to differ. Even if he is just wearing a plain shirt and the most basic denim pants, Tom will still attract people’s attention. The fabric of his shirt clung to his body like second skin. It shows how fit he is and you weren’t one to deny that. 

No matter how little effort Tom puts in regards to dressing himself, he still looked good. That annoyed you. 

“Okay, so the first thing to get this ship sailing-” Zoë stopped and turned to Matthew, “Hah, get it, Matt? I learned it from the internet. Apparently, a ‘ship’ is slang for relationship.” She raved. 

“Oh, that’s sick.” Matthew agreed. 

You let out a huge groan. “God, it’s like watching my parents learn internet lingo all over again.” Not to mention having flashbacks of your early internet days, stumbling over Tumblr with ‘Destiel’ mentioned everywhere. What a time.

Tom, on the other hand, had his face buried in his hand. He seemed like he was equally embarrassed and frustrated with this entire situation. 

“You two are going to have lunch together at this newly opened restaurant. It’s not far from here, don’t worry.” Zoë stated. She mentioned the name of the place, also adding the fact that you and Tom had to walk there. 

“You want us to walk?! This whole area is crawling with paparazzi.” Tom noted. 

“You two will be fine, they can’t hurt you.” Zoë dismissed you two. 

“The restaurant is a couple of blocks away,” You pointed out after searching the place on Google maps. 

“See it as a quick exercise,” Matthew implored. “You two are young, you’ll manage.” 

So here are you both now. You were walking with a complete asshole, who’s apparently now your boyfriend, on the way to this restaurant and waiting to be devoured by paparazzi. 

It was a quiet walk if you two were being honest. You expected more irritating remarks from Tom and you were ready to give out your snarkiest replies, however, you two were now walking in silence. 

It was actually a nice day in Los Angeles. It wasn’t too hot and humid, unlike most days. It wasn’t also that busy in the streets, which is odd, you thought. The day was perfect-too perfect.

Well, it was until you saw a man with a camera hiding behind one of the parked cars along the street. 

Tom seemed to take notice of the figure you just saw and put on a neutral face. “It’s showtime,” Tom said under his breath, loud enough for you two to hear. 

You two were walking alongside each other with close proximity, yes, but you weren’t going to hold hands. As much as to Zoë’s dismay, you thought and restraining yourself from rolling your eyes. 

You could hear the clicks of the camera and with every step, it seemed like the number of clicks multiplied. It only made you feel uneasy, you felt your chest tightening. 

You suddenly wished that you never agreed to this, no matter how much they pressured you. You didn’t mind your state of fame before. A handful of people recognize you from the Sci-Fi Thriller, Alchemist. You were also known for your Twitter and how you absolutely gave no fucks with whatever you tweet. Zoë had a problem with that before, but she just let it go since your account says a lot about your personality. 

However, none of that bothered you. You liked that people recognized you but still managed to get on with your life without getting disrupted. 

Tom glanced at you, noticing how you seemed like you were out of it. He could sense that you were taking deeper breaths than you did before. He frowned, Is she not used to this? Tom wondered. He carefully thought of what to do and just mumbled “Oh, fuck it,” and reached for your hand. 

It caught you off-guard. Oh boy, did you react so rashly. 

“What the hell are you doing, Holland?” You asked as you yanked your hand back. 

“I’m trying to help you,” He grumbled as he took your hand again, holding it firmly this time. “You looked like you were about to have a panic attack. I figured you’d rather have your attention somewhere else.”

“What if people see and-” 

“And what?” Tom cut you off, “They assume that we’re dating? Aren’t we supposed to be, princess?”

You weren’t expecting Tom to wrap his hand around yours nor did you expect him to help you ease your nerves down, so you ended up staring at him. You were trying to figure out what kind of stunt is he trying to pull now. 

He turned his attention to you, his brows knitted slightly. “Why are you staring, princess?” He chuckled softly, amused at the confusion painted on your face. 

What are you trying to do, Holland? You thought. 

TAG LIST:  @thomasthetankson @autty0314 @marvelous-tswiftfan @averyfosterthoughts @theolwebshooter @jackiehollanderr @sltwins​ @herondalescecilys​ @notjustpenandpaper​ @ihopethatwemeetinanotherlife​  @sectusempried​ @gothicwidowsworld​ @heartofholland​ 

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 265: Tamaki What Did You Eat

Previously on BnHA: The heroes began their invasion of the Ol’ Villain Marriott. Down in the basement, Re-Destro was all “what’s going my fresh villain citizens, what a beautiful day, well I guess we should start that meeting” and they were all “WE’RE UNDER FUCKING ATTACK” and he made a face and I laughed. Class 1-B, Edgeshot, and Midnight then jovially killed some people, and then we cut to Dabi and Hawks! Hawks was all “sorry it has to be this way Bubaigawara but I’m gonna have to arrest you” and Twice got all Harry Potter in that one scene from the Prisoner of Azkaban movie, and then he did the thing, and fucking Hawks just fucking stood there and DID NOTHING. So now he’s gonna have to fight 100,000 Twices I guess, and meanwhile Dabi is running up the stairs on his way to intervene and somehow make things even more chaotic. Also either Hawks or Dabi thinks heroes are scum, and I’m still not clear on which. But basically it’s safe to say that angst is on the way, friends.

Today on BnHA: Tamaki turns into a horse. I have questions. Dark Shadow fights fucking Re-Destro and fucking destroys him in like two seconds flat, like holy shit whaaaaat. Then Tokoyami just hops on inside of Fatgum like a goddamn marsupial, and spends several pages like this, during which I completely can’t focus the entire time but I do remember that we learned that Machia won’t be joining the fight because he apparently only listens to Tomura, so that’s convenient I guess. Then we cut to Twice and Hawks (I literally typed out “Dabi and Hawks” just now and had to go back and change it, so you can see where my mind is at), and Hawks defeats Twice and is all “guess I’ve got no choice” and is seriously going to kill him (hahaha what the fuck), but then DABI FUCKING BURNS THE ENTIRE ROOM DOWN WITH EVERYONE IN IT WHILE LAUGHING AND THEN THE CHAPTER JUST ENDS. I feel like I just got slapped in the face.

so before we start, let me just mention that I got a ton of asks and messages about the whole “HERO SCUM” line, and I appreciate everyone keeping me up to date on the twists and turns of our wild little fandom lol. so as you all probably know, in Viz’s translation of the last page they had Dabi saying the line (“Twice, this isn’t your fault. as always... scummy heroes are to blame”). so naturally everyone was either like “whaaaaat!” or “I KNEW IT!!”, but then Caleb went and deleted his original tweet saying that it was Dabi, and replaced it with a new tweet, the gist of which was basically “I don’t fucking know either” and admitting he wasn’t an authority on the matter. so to sum everything up, we basically don’t know and will never know until the anime airs this in about three years’ time, or until the only man who can actually clear this up decides to stop drawing weird mushroom men for five goddamn minutes so he can clarify for us

anyway, so in the meantime it’s time to see who’s having angst this week! probably everybody! let’s just assume it’s everybody and save some time

ohooo so we finally get to see why they had Tamaki and Tokoyami in the vanguard, eh?

(ETA: gotta say, “you” is an awfully impersonal way to address someone whose entire body you are shortly going to stuff inside your little quirk papoose and tote around like a fanny pack.)

honestly this isn’t much of a mystery though lol. Tokoyami is obvious, and with Tamaki it’s probably because of his kraken thing if I had to guess

...excuse me sir is this leading where I think it’s leading

sir. Mister Gum, sir. please do not tell me you are actually about to lead these children into the building and down into the basement. first of all the thought of you and Tamaki in yet another basement is already giving me PTSD so no thanks. and second of all, ???!?!?!?!?! [gestures incredulously to the two children] ?!?!?!???? [emphatically taps my computer screen with the wiki page showing their respective ages] ???!?!?!?!?!?! [gestures wildly toward a picture of Gigantomachia I pulled up just now in a google search. yeah that’s right. Gigantomachia!! you all forgot about him didn’t you!! well guess who didn’t forget about him?? that’s right. so you’d better explain yourself right the fuck now, Fatgum. oh wait I’m still talking in action brackets whoops]

holy crap is Tokoyami giving orders lmao

well look at you. a general, huh? somebody must’ve told them about his little maneuver at the Battle of Taanab

so now some generic villain guys are all “HOW’D THEY FIND OUR SECRET PATH” and “WE MUST DEFEND IT” and I sure can’t wait to watch them get their asses kicked three panels from now

OH LORDY

EVERYONE TAMAKI HAS JUST TURNED INTO A HORSE. I IMMEDIATELY HAVE SEVERAL QUESTIONS, THE MOST PRESSING OF WHICH ARE (1) WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO HIS PANTS, AND (2) DOES THIS MEAN TAMAKI ATE A FUCKING HORSE. PLEASE STAY TUNED AS WE URGENTLY INVESTIGATE THESE NEW DEVELOPMENTS

lol and the cow horns too. why though. just completes the look I guess

loooooool he’s all “apologies, but please remain still” who are you, Tuxedo Mask??

LOOOOOOL

by the way, I almost skipped right past this, but the text says Tamaki will be a sidekick at the Fatgum agency starting “next year”, which presumably means “in a couple of weeks because the school year is about to end.” our boy is graduating! I’m so proud, and also really pissed off about Mirio all of a sudden, just throwing that out there. how much longer must his dreams be put on hold. where is the justice. man I need a minute

okay! anyway so now Tokoyami is just running into the basement alone!! hooooo boy. I know it’s dark down there and that’s presumably why they’re sending him of all people, but still. hooooooooo boy

ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS NO WAY

IS TOKOYAMI GOING TO TAKE ON FUCKING RE-DESTRO AND IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING AND WHY THE FUCK IS NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN SUDDENLY PLAYING

KDSFLK;L’LLL

AM I IN THE RIGHT MANGA. DID DARK SHADOW REALLY JUST GROW NINETY FEET TALL AND START WRESTLING THE SAME FUCKING GUY WHO ALMOST* BROUGHT DOWN THE ENTIRE LEAGUE OF FUCKING VILLAINS

*except he didn’t, let’s be real. didn’t even come close. but still, on paper the hype looks real good!!

AND DO RE-DESTRO’S ROBOT LEGS SOMEHOW FUCKING CHANGE SIZE ALONG WITH HIM. CHALK ANOTHER ONE UP FOR THE MYSTERY BASKET. PUT YOU RIGHT NEXT TO “BUT FOR REAL THOUGH DID TAMAKI ACTUALLY EAT A FUCKING HORSE”

OOOOOF

LOL DETNERAT’S MERCHANDISE REALLY IS TOTAL SHIT. CAN’T EVEN HANDLE A LITTLE CLASH WITH A GIGANTIC SHADOW DEMON

by the way, check out that one guy in the bottom right corner who just totally doesn’t give the least of fucks. he’s fresh out. he wants to know how much longer this is gonna last so he can go home and get back to playing the new Animal Crossing. did you know they added a new crafting feature. can’t believe he’s stuck here at this boring meeting. this man genuinely doesn’t seem to be at all aware of anything that is currently happening around him and it’s amazing. added to the box of questions

oh man. I don’t quite understand what is happening now but I keep expecting Gigantomachia to just pop up out of nowhere any second and I can’t fucking stand it. Horikoshi please stop showing us these close-ups of destroyed walls

OH GOD OH GOD!!!

(ETA: what a casual fucking line implying that Tokoyami genuinely believed that there was nobody in THE ENTIRE LEAGUE OF PLIFF who stood a chance against his latest super move. don’t mind him everyone, he’s just been lowkey biding his time to become the strongest member of class 1-A offscreen while his loser classmates were having dramatic family dinners. how many High Ends could Dark Shadow take out I wonder. why did I suddenly get a mental image of Toko losing an arm only to sigh and nonsensically quote Shakespeare or some shit before wrapping Dark Shadow around the stump and getting back to the asskicking.)

NO TOKO NOT THE ANGRY BALD MAN, HE’S TALKING ABOUT SOMEONE ELSE!! OH FUCK OH FUCK

LMAO

:) :) :) can we maybe get my solemn bird son out of this fucking DEATH BASEMENT right the fuck now. can we do that, please

holy shit!?

:) :) :) I can’t decide whether I trust these panels or not. why is he so confident. does this mean Machia really will be sitting out the arc, or is a trap. help

(ETA: I guess it’s okay for now. ... dammit I’m still suspicious sob.)

also, Tokoyami’s “?!” face is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen though. the fact that he’s physically incapable of altering his expressions no matter what is true comedy gold here

NEVER MIND, THOSE WERE THE WORDS OF A CALLOW YOUTH WHO KNEW NOTHING OF TRUE COMEDY GOLD

WHAT A FOOL I WAS. PLEASE PARDON MY IGNORANCE. SO HERE WE HAVE TOKOYAMI’S MONOEXPRESSION BIRD HEAD STICKING OUT OF FATGUM’S JOLLY BELLY FOR NO REASON, WHILE FATGUM IS ALL “DON’T YOU FEEL LIKE WE’RE KICKING TOO MUCH ASS AND SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN”, AND SOME OTHER POOR GUY WITH SCISSORS HANDS IS JUST LYING THERE DEAD IN THE BACKGROUND. MY GOD. I’M IN AWE OF THIS

dfkjkjk oh noooo

“does this young man amuse you,” Horikoshi says as he darkly pencils in the disturbingly concave shadows of Fatgum’s ridiculous fucking quirk. “are his ‘magnificent fellow’ bird antics pleasing for you to watch. I guess it sure would be a shame if I gave him some... angst”

but for real y’all I genuinely can’t take this at all seriously when Tokoyami’s head is still stubbornly and persistently poking its way out of Fatgum like a goddamn baby kangaroo in every fucking panel

we are entering another Tokoyami+Hawks mentor flashback and this is still all I can think about. why is he even in there. why is any of this happening. Tokoyami really just flung Re-Destro into a wall and then climbed inside of Fatgum feet-first so they could run along to freedom. just fucking ensconced himself. do you think it’s cozy in there. do you think Aizawa would fall asleep

hey Toko please stop having ominous thoughts about my other bird son

have you ever heard of an announcer jinx. “now here’s a guy who the fans have loved since the moment he was first introduced. and if you look at the stats, fourth place in his first popularity poll, which was taken only ten chapters after his introduction. heck, he’s so popular they even went and gave him a role in the second movie even before he appeared in the anime! it’s undeniable that this young man has a bright future ahead of him, Al.” now you listen here. I don’t at all like where this is headed and it needs to stop right now

anyway so of course on that note we are cutting back to Hawks

so we’ve confirmed that Hawks has his hands full just melting all of the new clones as they come, and doesn’t have the speed or the excess feathers (or the conviction? :|) to go after the original and put a stop to all this

or you could just ignore everything I say ever because immediately on the next page Horikoshi is all “actually he’s winning lol”

anyway but it sure would be a shame if someone were to run in and set you on fire right about now. that probably sounds sarcastic but it actually would be really bad lol please don’t set Hawks on fire

(ETA: motherfucker. goddamn. fucking --)

and now Hawks is making clones of his fellow League buddies oh shit!! but right when I was about to scroll down I noticed that Hawks is carrying some sort of recording device?? or communications device?? in his hand very conspicuously in that last panel? and so what is going on here, exactly?

oh shit and never mind about those LoV clones

that’s all well and good Hawks, but I need you to please just be very cautious and aware and proactive about not catching on fire okay. watch your six

oh my god oh my god

“now here’s a guy whose rise in popularity was unexpected but just a real pleasure to watch. he just really cares about his friends.” “you said it; he really came into his own a couple arcs back. twenty-third in the most recent poll, and the fans all love him.” fffffff Hawks isn’t a killer Hawks isn’t a killer, I can’t hear you lalala

LA LA LA

maybe... he’ll just... punch a small hole through one of his lungs... ...

...

or... a large hole... ... ,,,

oh THANK GOD he’s jumping on top of him. so clearly he’s fine because Shounen Rules. that’s right, this is a manga where Toga survived blowing up from the inside out and Jeanist survived being murdered and stuffed into a tote bag. (right??) why am I so tense I hate this!!

HEY WHAT IS THIS

or you could just KNOCK HIM OUT??? ?????!??! did they not teach you that in peewee assassin league?! Hawks

I DON’T LIKE THIS I DIDN’T SIGN UP FOR THIS!!

STOP SHOWING US TWICE’S SAD THOUGHTS YOU BASTARD NO I DON’T LIKE THIS YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE ME CRY SO STOP!!

GODDAMMIT HORIKOSHI I FUCKING HATE YOU

“HERE’S A SERIES OF PANELS WITH TWICE CRYING AND THINKING ABOUT TOGA WHILE HAWKS HOLDS A FUCKING KNIFE RIGHT ABOVE HIS EYE,” HORIKOSHI SAYS WHILE IGNORING EVERYTHING I SAY AND DISABLING ALL COMMENTS ON HIS TWITTER, PROBABLY. WOW I JUST LOOKED IT UP AND APPARENTLY YOU CAN’T DO THAT? DAMN, TWITTER REALLY SUCKS, BUT ANYWAY

FINE THEN DABI YOU CAN SET HIM ON FIRE!!

JOKE’S ON YOU ASSHOLES, YOU CAN’T HURT ME IF I CAN’T SEE THE LAST PAGE OF THE CHAPTER THROUGH ALL MY TEARS

FUCK

[SLAMS HANDS ON TABLE] THE FUCK WAS THAT

DON’T YOU EVEN DARE, HORIKOSHI. I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANY “BUT YOU GAVE HIM PERMISSION”, COME THE FUCK ON, YOU AND I BOTH KNOW THAT DIDN’T MEAN SHIT AND I WAS LIABLE TO CHANGE MY MIND YET AGAIN ONLY A PAGE LATER AS PER USUAL! WHAT SORT OF TWISTED MIND WOULD DECIDE THAT THE ONLY WAY TO SAVE TWICE WAS TO SET THE ENTIRE ROOM ABLAZE AND THEN HAVE DABI GLEEFULLY STOMP ON HAWKS’S FACE. WHAT KIND OF SICK MONSTER WOULD DREAM THIS UP. THIS ISN’T HOT AT ALL. HOW DARE YOU

ALSO WTF DABI, “HERE I COME TO RESCUE TWICE” WHILE BURNING HIM ALIVE AS WELL, JESUS CHRIST THESE FUCKING TODOROKIS I SWEAR TO GOD. DID YOUR BRAIN CELLS CATCH FIRE TOO

I CAN’T BELIEVE I WAITED ALL WEEK IN A FUCKING LOCKDOWN FOR THIS SHIT. THIS CHAPTER WAS A FUCKING TRAIN WRECK, AND I DON’T KNOW IF I WANT TO THANK ITS STUPID CONDUCTOR, OR PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE. it’s not the manga we need, but it’s the one we deserve. I guess

[cherry3point14]

Stranger Than Fanfiction: Ch 3

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Dean x Reader Warnings: Meta baby. Pure meta. Word count: 2,100. Chapter Summary: Your google search turns up something unexpected. A/N: No author in this one for... reasons. Also this one is kind of short and lame. A means to an end if you will, but trust me, Ch 4 is a doozy. P.S it’s nearly 3am so Chapter 4 will be up when I wake up, ya dig.

Ao3 if you prefer

It’s almost funny how dramatic the voice in your head wants to be about those suited criminals and yet it doesn’t care to elaborate on anything important. Like, say, your imminent death. The mention of it was so casual, calm, but a couple of weirdos want to pretend to be insurance adjusters and suddenly it’s all pretty prose and run-on sentences. Flowery language about broad-shouldered men in roaring muscle cars that are going to change your life. She’d kept going while you’d interviewed Maggie Hall. She’d harped on and on about how you couldn’t stop thinking about them.

Of course, you couldn’t stop thinking about them, she wouldn’t shut up about them.

After an entire monologue about the way the paper felt in your hands and could never be replaced by computers—purists are the worst—you finally get to leave. That's when you get some respite. You’re walking out into the late afternoon sun and thanking Maggie for her time and it's bliss. Maggie's story sounds a little off, after years doing this you have this gut instinct for when you should investigate further. Funnily enough, you have drama in your life that you’ll submit a valid claim anyway. Just so you can get this cursed case out of your hair. You might even hurry it through the system before the thing has the chance to kill you.

You’re still not sure how a case could kill you. You’re a pencil pusher at best and the interview with Maggie is an excellent example of the majority of your fieldwork, obviously excluding the criminals at the start. Unless your demise is death by papercut.

For now, you’ve given up trying to fathom out the voice you’re hearing, especially since she's chosen to once again go radio silent. If she won’t say anything useful, like say how not to die, then you were going to have to figure out how to skip ahead on your own. Since she kept talking about the imposters you’d met that day, they seemed to be an excellent place to start.

CNK 80Q3. Ohio plates. That's as much as you know without google.

That evening you set yourself up in the same way you would to work from home. There's a desk in the corner of your dining room with a chair that offers enough lumbar support for the longest of research sessions. Although it’s your personal laptop and there’s not normally a large glass of wine sitting next to you when work.

After it powers on you’re assaulted by the usual pop-ups; windows you forgot to close last time and your emails. Procrastinating is not a new routine, and you’re on a mission, so they all get minimized instead of closed completely. Then you open a new browser window and a stark google homepage stares back at you. A hopeful new beginning.

CNK 80Q3. You’re genuinely surprised that she hasn’t started talking again to describe the change in the air as you type in the plate number. Or some drivel about the way your fingers emphasize each letter and number. It’s all there happening anyway, making the moment foreboding, but your narrator doesn’t seem care.

The first row of results are images. Weirdly its images of the license plate itself. That doesn't strike you as odd at first glance and then you think about it a little more. Why are there so many pictures of this particular license plate? Who is running around taking these pictures? You're pretty sure if you typed in your own plate number there would be no pictures of it. And then you see some shopping results where you can actually buy the plate. While the online shops might explain the images, it only really poses more questions. Why are so many people buying that license plate? What’s so special about it?

You take a sip of your wine before you scroll further, savoring the taste as well as the way it relaxes your shoulders. You don't own any 'fun' novelty coasters that say it but you're inclined to agree with the statement you've heard before. Wine really does make everything better.

You’re not yet into the murky depths of page 2 but you’re far enough down the page now to make it past the sponsored results. These links come thick and fast from websites that all seem to have one word in common. Supernatural.

Then you see your salvation. A page called Supernaturalwiki—the link is simply titled: Impala—and you stop scrolling, a grateful sound slipping past your lips as you do. Wiki, you know that word. Like Wikipedia. Wikipedia has references and moderators', clear and concise explanations. This was the easy way out you were looking for.

That’s what you hope as you click on the link anyway. Your naivety lasts all of twenty seconds before the page loads. With its stock image of a 1967 Chevrolet Impala, and a quote about it being the most important object in the universe.

Or it's the most important object in some books at least.

Further clicking and longer sips of wine reveal it’s a series of books called Supernatural—with the title of the wiki you should have seen that coming. These were story after story of ghosts and demons and angels? There are pages that describe monsters, urban legends, and two men. Sam and Dean Winchester. They each have dedicated pages with their whole lives mapped out.

Sam and Dean are fictional brothers and apparently the heroes. Each of their respective profiles begins with an illustrated image from book covers, and then a series of quotes that contradict those pictures. Then their lives are intricately detailed, or should you say they are chronologically recorded according to each book. You would read their histories in full if it wasn't for how tiny the scroll bar is, indicating that these profile pages are ridiculously long.

You sit back in your chair and take a deep breath in the hopes of it being soothing. Or answering all your questions. It does neither. You have no answers and more stress.

This went beyond two men pretending to do your job now. Those guys were driving around in a car with fictional license plates. What was this? Some weirdly immersive cosplay? Was that something Sam and Dean did in the books?

Even so, those two guys weren’t roleplaying at comic con, they were actually in that woman's home. If you hadn't arrived they could have done anything. They could be doing anything now.

There's a ding from the kitchen which means the frozen meal you’d thrown in the oven is ready. Not that you stop thinking about this while you go and grab it because the more you think the less sense everything makes. Like why is a narrator who, until now, was obsessed with those guys, so very silent all of a sudden?

Back at your desk with hot food, you head back to google to see if you can buy these books anywhere because knowledge is power. Unfortunately, not even Amazon has copies. It’s only when you add the term “ebook” to your search do you find a Tumblr blog with links to download all the files, split into two categories. Published and unpublished. There are a lot of Supernatural books and from the looks of it there’s an equal amount of drama over how the unpublished ones got out.

You start downloading them without consciously making a decision to read them. Downloading kind of happens because your macaroni cheese is too hot for your mouth to handle yet, and your hands still need something to do. Besides you didn’t necessarily need to read all of them, if they were truly terrible you’d delete the files. No harm, no foul. But if this was the only way to get answers then you and your kindle were going to be pretty busy this weekend.

“Morning Laura.” Nobody likes Mondays, yet you have a little bounce in your step having made your usual green tea, got dressed, and driven to work in complete and utter silence. In fact, you’d heard nothing all weekend. The caveat was that, yes, you’d spent all weekend reading those books.

You liked reading and without discrimination. Trashy romance novels at the airport? You betcha. Fantasy books thicker than your mattress? Sure thing, order a pizza. But a mystery? Well, those were your favorite. Of course, the detective needed some sort of sketchy backstory and there had to be a fishy amount of red herrings. Most importantly there had to be something to solve. It was an elevation of your day to day life and you always get sucked in. In your job, you try to solve the most benign mysteries; people faking insurance claims. More often than not there isn’t even a mystery to solve, someone really did slip and break something. So, a mystery that grabs you out of nowhere is like a promotion for you, a challenge.

That had been how those Supernatural books had dragged you in. Ghosts and ghouls you could take or leave, you might have stopped reading if that’s all there was. Then this Carver Edlund went and put in that damn side plot about their missing father. It was too enticing, addicting. From the cryptic disappearance to the indecipherable journal of clues. John Winchester would be the death of you.

Or case 24-01 would be. The jury was still out on that.

And now it’s Monday. You’ve heard nothing more from the voice in your head—it may have been a low-level case of carbon monoxide poisoning—and the boys are so close to figuring everything out you can taste it. Technically they know John is alive by now, you finished Shadow some point yesterday afternoon and felt yourself choke up at the emotional goodbye with a father they just got back. But they still have no clue what he's up to, which is a hideous funhouse mirror reflection of your own life. Hopefully, by the time they figure out John’s game plan, you'll have your life figured out too. And fingers crossed figuring everything out will involve staying alive as well.

“You look like you’re feeling better this morning.” Laura is her perky self, always a little too happy for this side of 9am.

Oh right, you went home sick on Friday. You should remember things like that. “I think it was a bug or something I ate maybe.”

“Sure, sure. One of those convenient Friday bugs.” She winks at you.

If she accused you of that say, last week, you’d have laughed it off given that's a thing everyone has in common; trying to skip out on work. So, that's what you try to do this side of the weekend. You push out something that hopefully resembles a regular person's laugh like you’re in on the joke. You have to fake it because you’re still thinking about Providence. The book you’d finished that morning instead of watching the news. You’re still wondering if Sam is starting to move on after Jessica. 

Needless to say, you understand now. The many fan blogs and the artwork you’d glanced at before you started reading. All those things that you’d disregarded as an unhealthy fascination for a bunch of books. Now you’re one of them, obsessed. Walking into the office with your kindle tucked in your bag and Salvation just begging to be read.

This goes beyond finding John. That plot got its hooks in you but you’ve known John was alive since Home and you’re still reading. You could also blame this on your general love of reading except it goes beyond that too. Honestly, it’s hard to pick one thing. They’re really great books. Sam and Dean have such turbulent lives but they still have each other. They’re snarky, lost, angry, and caring. They’re both so different but the sibling relationship is so real. And the stories go beyond a new monster every book, there are these huge interesting story arcs that you couldn't stop reading if you tried. John Winchester had been the first example of these addictive plot points, but not the only one.

“Y/N?”

You snap your head up, “sorry, sorry.”

“I was only saying you’re going to be here all day then, lunch?”

Even though Laura must see the decision on your face she still pretends to hope until you start speaking. “Actually I have a lot to catch up on so I’ll probably be working through. Tomorrow?”

She smiles brightly and nods, “sure thing.”

As bad as you feel about lying to Laura she has presented you an opportunity. Everyone thinks you were sick on Friday. They even think you're behind on your work and they don’t know you’ve already conducted the initial interview. Which makes your decision to sit at your desk and prop your kindle up next to your screen even easier. Nobody would notice the difference between you concentrating or reading. If you skip lunch you might be able to get to Bloodlust out of the way too.

Continue to Chapter 4.

5eva tags: @divadinag @darthdeziewok @fluentinfiction @witch-of-letters @supernatural-teamfreewillpage @magnitude101999 @alexwinchester23  Dean babes: @thewinchesterchronicles @akshi8278​ @bloodydaydreamer StrangerThanFiction tags: @jaylarkson

[mashounen2003]

Here is the text of the video, translated into English. Seriously, check out this video, this guy is awesome.

"Conspiracy Theories" by Guille Aquino.

Posted on June 27, 2019.

--------------------------------------------------

Warning: if you're influenceable, you need to watch this.

--------------------------------------------------

Alright, before we start, I want us to welcome and applaud our new friends from the CIA, the FBI, NASA, the former SIDE -today, the AFI-, the KGB, Interpol, and the lazy virgins at the troll centre on Miserere Park, who are surely already watching this video because today we're gonna talk about...

Conspiracy Theories.

We all know some: the humans didn't go to the Moon, the 9/11 was a self-attack by the USA's government, Bin Laden never existed, Walt Disney is frozen, Elvis Presley is alive, the Simpsons predict the future, Marcelo Tinelli went to a famous hospital with a famous object inserted in a famous place on his body, and Dengue and Zika fever were created by Bill Gates who genetically modified mosquitoes to depopulate the Earth because it most likely was easier than making work that "Internet Explorer" bulls*** he sold us. But let's get to the news: in early 2019, YouTube modified its recommendation algorithm to avoid promoting conspiracy theories and false information. And let's stop here because I want us to become aware of the magnitude this matter took on and how this little joke of the conspiracy theories videos completely went to Hell.

Think of it this way: YouTube, the second most trafficked website in the world after Google, with over 30 million visitors per day and over 1.3 billion users -almost a third of all people connected to the Internet in the world-, where 300 hours of videos are uploaded per minute and almost 500 trillion videos are viewed per day, had to change its own recommendation system because all of us were watching too many videos denouncing that Lali Espósito is an Illuminati:

Video excerpt: [with obvious robotic voice] "Also, at the second Number Ten, she covers one of her eyes again, obviously symbolizing the All-Seeing Eye."

And I'm very sorry to tell you that, in today's world, if YouTube has a problem, we all have a problem.

Conspiracy theories are the Internet's new porn. In fact, if you filter the words "conspiracy" and "theories" by the number of views, the most viewed video has 36 million views. THIRTY-SIX! MILLION! VIEWS! That's like putting together the total populations of Belgium, Greece, Cuba and Jamaica, and then lighting a giant reefer to everyone and making them watch this video of people saying the Earth is flat:

Another video excerpt: [Channel 13 interview with Flat-Earthers, recorded in a park in Buenos Aires] "I pour water into this dish... Look, I pour water, and it stays, you see? But we pour water into the globe... and it goes down, people."

Okay, now we're gonna go over some of the most popular conspiracy theories of recent times, and we're gonna try to deconstruct the psychological profile of the average consumer of the conspiranoid world.

--------------------------------------------------

We'll start with everyone's favourite...

The Flat-Earthers.

Excerpt of the second video: "This first meeting began to be announced in the groups I followed on YouTube. (And the tattoo you have there, what is it?) This is the flat Earth, the Sun and the Moon."

The Flat-Earthers basically hold the theory that the Earth is not actually spherical, and they claim Galileo Galilei was an old smoke-seller blabbermouth who often played into the Far-Right's hands, cut his hair in an old-fashioned barbershop and used the 1610 telescope mainly to bed with chicks. And I have nothing personal against the Flat-Earthers but I find it difficult to take them seriously, mostly because much of their scientific hypothesis can be explained with this blooper.

Excerpt of another, different video: "There's an inflatable pool filled with water and with two people in it, a third person suddenly jumps into the water, and the pool deforms and overflows on the other side, as one of the two previously present people also falls over the edge."

(Images from the film "Armageddon".)

The truth is that the "flat Earth" theory has one fundamental premise, and it's the same one that supports 100% of conspiracy theories:

There's a power above us that manages everything.

Governments, lobbies and other de facto powers are capable of lying on a massive scale, just as intelligence services, the New World Order and FlyBondi hostesses do.

Excerpt of the second video: "(And you can't see the curvature of the Earth from the plane.) Uh... I travelled by plane to Bariloche, and no, I didn't see it. There's some aircraft glass with a small magnification or something that changes your perspective, due to the thickness of the window, and because aircraft glass also has something."

Alright, stop, let's not turn this into "Point at the crazy assholes and laugh" either, right? Well, yes, a little- But we go beyond that! We're better than that!

Why do so many people choose to believe we're puppets of an evil system? One might say that, in the absence of a sense of real control over our own lives and in the face of the desolation of living in a seemingly random, chaotic world, believing there's an external force exerting control is, to some extent, comforting. Yes, phone the Vatican.

And according to a certain old white upper-middle-class snob who teaches at Harvard University, conspiracy theorists share several or at least one of the following features: they're paranoid, radical, extremist in their opinions; they aspire to a feeling of superiority, and basically, they feel special for possessing information that exceeds the common citizen. Yeah, it's like the row for an indie film festival.

Umberto Eco even said:

"The control syndrome invades us. When someone claims to have a secret, their strength is not in hiding something but in making people think there's even a secret in the first place."

And I didn't understand a f*** because I've never read a book in my life, but it sounds ultra-mega-hyper cool. I dare you to deny it!

So who would be the most likely to believe in these kinds of theories? People who had bad experiences in life, people in search of an answer that would rescue them from a deep existential crisis, and the most important: people in search of a place of belonging.

Excerpt of the second video: "Well, no, this opened a door for me to start thinking more, to question things, about a supposed alien invasion."

Wait, stop right there. Excuse me, but if I'm an alien and I have the power to cross the universe in a spaceship, with my own army and the ability to colonize a celestial body, I don't even waste my time invading a paper-thin planet. Give me a round planet or give me death!

And that's when the contradiction comes into play. Because if you believe in one conspiracy theory, you immediately start to believe in all of them. It's like the weed. Even the refutation of a plot fits within the plot itself: for example, if you believe Lady Diana was killed by the British Crown, you're also prone to believe Lady Diana is actually still alive.

(Woah, Mind Blown... She was totally killed anyway, sorry.)

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Good, let's move on to the next one:

The Anti-Vaccination movement.

Okay, here we come to a key point, since clearly there are the "harmless" conspiracy theories and the... rather dangerous ones. We've all heard someone say vaccines may cause autism in kids. Now, I'm clearly a specialist in absolutely nothing, and I ain't gonna explain why you guys have to vaccinate your children, so I better recommend to you the websites of any Ministry of Health or Wikipedia, so that you later visit them and find out how very important it is to inject legal drugs to your sweet little angels. And it's not to detract from any position or to err on the side of bigotry, but if you're an anti-vax and your baby coughs next to me, I swear I'll kick their head off.

(Tack! That bag of germs...)

And after all, that's why we invented Democracy!

(Ha, of course not, but...)

In fact, I dunno who gives a f*** about this but maybe someone will find it useful: I follow a pretty simple method when it comes to ideologically locating myself regarding any issue. And this is:

Always do the opposite of whatever Gisela Barreto says.

Gisela Barreto: [speaks with a flag in the background] "Vaccines show up, and they show them to us as something that heals us. Actually, they're part of our death."

(Seriously, she came this close to being in the Avengers.)

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Okay, and now let's move on to one that touches us all closely (at least here, in my country):

Hitler in Argentina.

It's the conspiracy theory ensuring that, after losing World War II, the Nazi leader, the most disgusting dictator and genocide in Human History, came to live incognito in our country. And I ask myself: what the heck did we need to shelter Hitler for? The birth of Alejandro Biondini, who's pretty much our local version of Nazism, was imminent:

Interview with Biondini in 1991 by Mariano Grondona in his program "Key Time":

Grondona: "Would you condemn Adolf Hitler?"

Biondini: "No, we vindicate Adolf Hitler."

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Okay, question: is it possible to keep a secret on such a large scale for so many years? Well, the Math says no. Seriously! I've read that a physicist at the Oxford University (Where else?) took the "humans didn't go to the Moon" theory, and then this guy created a mathematical calculation based on the number of conspirators involved, the time elapsed since the conspiracy, and the inherent possibility that a plot would fail.

For example, in the case of Apollo 11, 411 thousand NASA employees were involved, and according to the variables this physicist analyzed, the lie should have been known in less than four years; half a century passed, and no employee denied the mission. What does this tell us? Well... they were threatened and killed off, of course! It's obvious! [imitating Mirtha Legrand] Stanley Kubrick was not in the coffin! Nobody saw him. Nobody saw him!

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Gimme more!

Famous people who are actually dead.

For example, Paul McCartney. On the cover of the album "Abbey Road", he's barefoot; a clear subliminal message that the real one died and was replaced with a stand-in. (Why?!) It sounds silly, but the rumour got so big that McCartney himself had to go out and publicly deny it... Although come to think of it, he also came out to congratulate the butchers who named their butcher shop "Paul Mac Carne" ["Paul McMeat"], so maybe he's truly a stand-in and, to top it off, looks like a raisin.

Excerpt of another video: "Well, thinking of different names, someone said "Paul Mac Carne". And well, he, being a vegetarian, says the idea was very good, started laughing and sent us a greeting."

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I love this one:

The Reptilians.

It's basically the theory that there's a race of amphibian aliens [Wait for a second: aren't they called "reptilians"?] living among us for centuries and hiding their reptilian features behind human faces.

(Oh, you were telling me they're not actually aliens because they were born here?)

Excerpt of the 1996 movie "Mars Attacks!".

And who discovered this? David Icke! Or "Ique". An unsuccessful former soccer player and sportscaster. (How can you be unsuccessful as a soccer sportscaster?! All you need is a suit!) It's like believing in a religion where your Pope is Diego Latorre.

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Now, I know what you're thinking: after all, how dangerous can all this get? I mean, no conspiracy theory has someone popular to represent it, no spokesperson of ridiculous and implausible plots has reached a truly important position in today's world.

Bah... There's actually only one.

The President of the United States of America.

That's right! Donald Trump, once the leader of the most powerful country in the world, had come to power mostly by throwing out fake news and conspiracy theories. And here are some:

Barack Obama is an immigrant.

Trump: "And I just say: why doesn't he show his birth certificate?"

Global warming is a myth.

Trump: "Obama is saying all of this has to do with global warming and I say all that is a hoax..."

Gisela Barreto was right.

Trump: "At two and a half years old, the baby, the beautiful baby, went to get the vaccine. Now he's autistic."

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Okay, then... Conspiracy theories. For what? Well, in the case of Trump: influence on public opinion and accumulation of power. In the case of people who upload videos to YouTube... What do you think? A profitable, monetizable business! In fact, there's the conspiracy theory that we're actually making this video about conspiracy theories in order to have lots of views and earn buttloads of cash. (We'd never do that!)

And finally, a much deeper, inherent aspect of the human condition:

The need to believe in something.

The world is divided into two types of people: some think everything happens for a reason, everything is a sign, and perhaps there's also a magical entity organizing things for us; the other half of the people think we live in a desolate world without meaning or messages, there are only atoms randomly colliding with each other, and the Universe gives no f***s about us. Which of these two groups seems happier to you? Which one do you belong to? Which one would you like to belong to? I choose to join the conspiranoids! And listen to this, I know exactly what's going on:

The New World Order organized the Lollapalooza at the request of the Illuminati, who wanted to marketingly manage Lali Espósito, who actually wears a mask and underneath is "La Mona" Giménez, who's not actually a monkey but a reptile and has drank all the wine to get immunized against the vaccines at the request of Gisela Barreto, who was born in Corrientes just like Barack Obama, who claimed to have killed Bin Laden, who's actually alive and was driving the car that crashed that night and carried Chano Charpentier, who taught driving to Lady Diana, who was actually Mexican and was assassinated by Donald Trump, who was matched on Tinder with Hitler, who lives in a nursing home in Recoleta and has glaucoma, so he's hitting the reefers with Biondini, who is actually a hippie and a fan of León Gieco, invented global warming and, when being in a bad mood, takes a bus and goes to dinner at "Paul Mac Carne", where they invented the extra-thin Provoleta cheese, which coincidentally has the same shape as the Earth, which is actually flat!

*sigh* Knowledge is power. Quiero creer.

Soundtrack: State Anthem of the Soviet Union.