#I found a edit of him on Tiktok and became obsessed

[ur-fav-alien]

Question:

Would anyone be willing to tell me Danhausen’s lore? Like from his debut to AEW to now? Or at least send me some videos to know more about him?

He’s super cool looking and I’d like to get to know more stuff about him. I’m not into wrestling at all so I’m new to all of this stuff lol

[luxlisbons]

Voulez-Vous? - part i

Mencken's ego takes a hit when Harriet's eye wanders to the newly elected French president. In response, he engineers a grand state dinner, turning diplomatic affairs into a battlefield of jealousy.

part of the "before there's hell to pay" universe: part i - part ii - part iii

pairing: jeryd mencken x original female character. 4k

warnings: affairs, unhealthy relationships, dubious morality, explicit language, age difference, smut, religious imagery & symbolism, unprotected sex, pov first person, the french

a/n: lmao so... this idea came to be thanks to @rxgirlie and i's obsession with a current french actor known for playing a lawyer in a film (iykyk), so picture him as marcel reynaud (who will make his appearance in the second part). thank you so much to Kels and my friend Lu @nyheartbreak for proofreading and encouraging me to post this.

Read on AO3.

It all started with an online poll. The Buzzfeed type of crap you read while waiting for the clock to strike 5 pm in your crummy little open space office. 

“The definitive list of the 10 hottest presidents”

Usually, despite his very alienating politics, Mencken would place number one. What can I say? Everyone loves a bad boy, especially one they can fix with sex. Attention was brought to his steely gaze, the danger and confidence he exuded in his speeches, and his past as a 90s rock band member:

“Okay but 90s Mencken??? Twink goals, honestly😍”

“Mencken got me like 😱🔥”

“I never thought I'd say this, but Jeryd Mencken, you're kinda hot 😅 “

“He is such a silver fox zaddy 🦊”

His unofficial title became “Silver Fox in Chief”, and it gave us tabloid fodder for when we wanted to deflect from his racist dog whistles and controversial actions in D.C., which was a lot of the time for very obvious reasons. We were like puppet masters pulling the strings, orchestrating this wild media circus around Mencken. It was a classic ATN move, redirecting attention from the messy stuff and instead shining the spotlight on Mencken's supposed charm.

We brainstormed catchy hashtags and encouraged people to share their favorite Mencken moments online. It was all about creating a narrative that suited our agenda – making him this irresistible figure, a distraction from the serious issues at hand. We knew how to play the game, and damn, did it work. The internet ate it up, and suddenly, Mencken was not just a president; he was a phenomenon.

The internet had found a new obsession; fancams flooded the internet– from the way he adjusted his tie to the subtle glances he threw at the camera during press conferences. TikTok became a breeding ground for creative edits, with old concert footage seamlessly synchronized to modern pop hits, each video racking up millions of views and fueling the ever-growing fandom. 

Twitter experienced a constant Mencken presence. Anytime the president made a public appearance or donned a new suit, his name would surge to the top of trending lists. The online obsession transcended political boundaries; even those who vehemently disagreed with Mencken's policies found themselves unable to resist his allure.

His press conferences were now attended not just by political journalists but also by entertainment reporters eager to capture the latest juicy details about the "hottest president" phenomenon. Mencken, bemused and enjoying the attention, tried to redirect the conversation to policy matters, while also stoking the fires with quips and acknowledgments of his sex symbol status.

His fanbase (which consisted of both ironic and genuine fans) even created a nickname for themselves: the “Mencken Fuckers”. They organized themselves into a formidable online community. They created fan art, fan fiction, and even fan-made music videos that further propelled the president into pop culture stardom. The group's ironic name didn't deter their dedication; they wore it as a badge of honor, unapologetically reveling in their unconventional admiration for the leader of the free world.

One such video caught my undivided attention while doomscrolling through TikTok late at night. It was one created with candid moments in which I appeared beside him, laughing and talking with Lana Del Rey’s song “Let The Light In” playing in the background. The chemistry between the both of us, set against the dreamy soundtrack, fueled speculation and excitement among the Mencken Fuckers. It both amused and mortified me how close to the actual truth they were.

Caption: "Is it just me, or are these two looking like the ultimate power duo? 👀💼💫 #CloseEncounters #PoliticalChemistry"

Comments:

1. @ShipperSupreme: Move over romance novels, this is the love story we didn't know we needed! 😂❤️

2. @CuriousMinds: Are we witnessing the birth of a new power couple? 👫💫

3. @LaughingWithLana: Lana Del Rey's song just makes this whole thing even more iconic! 🎶🔥

4. @Daydreamer_Deluxe: I ship it! 😍💘 Who needs reality when we can have this fantasy?

5. @RealityCheck: Wait, are we calling them #Menkenriet or #Harren now? 🤔

6. @CupidInTheComments: My arrows of love have found a new target! 💘🏹

7. @PoliticalLoveAffairs: Move aside, political drama; we're here for the romance! 🇺🇸❤️

I couldn’t help myself, I sent the link to Mencken, who after some technical wrangling on his part “I’m 54, of course I’m not gonna have Tik Tok installed for fuck’s sake” finally saw it.

The ringing of the phone cut through the silence of my empty apartment, startling General Meow from her nap and sending her scurrying toward the living room. I sighed, muttering to myself about the timing, and picked up after the first ring, feeling like a good little lap dog.

"Hey there, Mencken," I greeted, smirking to myself as I imagined his perplexed expression on the other end. "Ready for a little adventure in the world of internet?"

Mencken's voice echoed through the line, confusion lacing every word, "Harriet, what in the hell is going on? Why are people shipping us? Are we supposed to be getting something delivered?"

Suppressing a laugh, I explained, "No, Mencken, it's not about deliveries. It's a term they use on the internet when people want two characters or real people to be in a romantic relationship. They call it 'shipping.'"

There was a brief pause before Mencken asked incredulously, "Shipping? Like cargo and ships?"

I chuckled, covering my mouth to stifle the laughter. "Not quite. It's short for 'relationship.' They think we're the ultimate power couple, Mencken."

"Is this some kind of secret code or a new political term I missed in my briefings?" Mencken's confusion was palpable.

I couldn't help but tease, "No secret code, just internet slang. They're imagining us as this influential and glamorous duo."

Another pause, then Mencken's voice returned, this time more incredulous, "You're telling me there are people out there who think we're having an affair? With each other?"

"Yep, that's the gist of it. Welcome to the world of shipping, Mencken. It's a strange place," I replied, my grin growing wider. “And they've even given us a ship name – #Menckenriet. Catchy, right?" I couldn't help but enjoy the absurdity of it all.

Mencken sighed on the other end, probably shaking his head, "I can't believe this is happening."

"Embrace the fame, Mencken! Who knows, maybe we'll start a new trend in political shipping," I teased, still grinning.

There was a long-suffering sigh from Mencken. "I don't have time for this nonsense. I have a country to run."

"Your loss, Mencken. #Menckenriet could've been the political love story of the century," I quipped. 

As I prepared to hang up, he interjected with a serious tone, "Wait, do they actually know about us... you know, being intimate?"

My playful demeanor faltered for a moment. "No, Mencken. It's just speculation and fantasy. They don't know anything for sure."

Mencken sounded relieved, "Good. Let's keep it that way."

But before I could end the call, he added in a soft voice, "Clear up your schedule. I'm gonna drop by during the weekend." 

Since Rome, Mencken's hard veneer had chipped away. He made more time for me, wasn't as mean – well, still an asshole, but, as he put it, "Your asshole, sweetheart.” 

“Well, aren't you so romantic,” I mused mostly to myself, a wry smile playing on my lips.

“Yeah, well, I figured life's too short to be a constant jerk. Besides, dealing with you is marginally less irritating than dealing with most people," I couldn't suppress a laugh. High praise, indeed. Looking forward to the weekend then.

As the call concluded, I imagined Mencken shaking his head and muttering, "I'm too old for this." I let out a loud hyena cackle which leaves General Meow staring at me with her wide green eyes.

______________________________________________________________

And then the French presidential election happened. 

It was a tight race between three players, each one from a widely different part of the political spectrum. On one hand, the far-right candidate, the heiress of the National Rally, Marine Le Pen, was Mencken's pick. On the other hand, the incumbent President, Emmanuel Macron, stood as a centrist, aiming to maintain stability and balance in turbulent times. The third contender, Marcel Reynaud, a charismatic socialist from the left, caught the attention of many with his passionate speeches and a boyish yet distinguished appearance, with graying hair that hinted at wisdom beyond his years, reminiscent of a Dostoevsky prince.

As the campaign unfolded, Marcel Reynaud's popularity soared. His fiery rhetoric and genuine connection with the people resonated across various demographics. The public, weary of the traditional political dichotomy, found in him a fresh and appealing alternative. The French, tired of voting for the lesser of two evils, began to rally behind Reynaud, drawn by the promise of a new era and genuine change.

Reynaud's physical presence added an extra layer to his appeal. Imagine a man with rugged charm, grey tousled hair that hinted at rebelliousness, and piercing blue eyes that conveyed both intensity and empathy. His speeches, delivered with conviction, echoed a vision of a more inclusive and socially just France.

Election day arrived, and the people of France turned out in record numbers. The results trickled in, each update intensifying the suspense. When the final count was announced, it was Marcel Reynaud who emerged as the victor. The socialist left candidate had secured a historic win, breaking the stronghold of the traditional political forces.

As the news of his victory spread, so did the memes, fan art, and adoring posts dedicated to Marcel Reynaud. Internet users affectionately dubbed him the "French boyfriend," and hashtags like #ReynaudRevolution and #MarcelMania trended worldwide. He quickly dethroned Mencken as the hottest president online, captivating not just the French public but garnering attention on the global stage.

The internet was flooded with swooning comments about Reynaud's “elf” vibes, and fan accounts dedicated to his every move and policy decision multiplied. Memes comparing him to heroes from literature circulated, portraying him as the embodiment of a modern-day romantic lead. His charisma had transcended politics; he had become a symbol of a new era, both politically and personally.

______________________________________________________________

Mencken was not impressed. Despite being in his mid 50s, he still was a petty child underneath it all, mad about the spotlight being taken off him and given to a soy boy from France of all places. 

The ping of random texts, accompanied by a distinctive ringtone reserved exclusively for him, never failed to jolt me with a thrill, whether I was immersed in work or drifting off to sleep – a Pavlovian response he found pathetically endearing.

M "Just saw another damn article about Marcel Reynaud. 🙄 Apparently, he's the new poster boy for socialism. What a load of crap."

H: "Oh, Mencken, you're just jealous that Reynaud's stealing the limelight. 😏” 

M: "Another day, another interview with Reynaud. 📰 Can't escape the guy. Do you think he practices that brooding stare in the mirror?"

H: "Maybe he's born with it, maybe it's political strategy. 🤷🏻‍♀️"

M: "Thoughts on Marcel's new hairstyle? 💇‍♂️ Trying to figure out if he's attempting a political rebrand or just desperately needs a barber."

H: "Maybe he's channeling the winds of change through his hair. 😂 At least he's keeping things interesting. You should try it sometime."

M: "Harriet, tell me you didn't fall for the hype. 🤨 The French might adore their 'heartthrob,' but I know you have better taste."

H: "Of course not, Mencken. I only have eyes for the 'old and grumpy' type. 😉 

To that last text he replied with a hilariously outdated “fuck yea” meme, highlighting how out of touch he could be sometimes.

______________________________________________________________

In one of our romantic getaways,  (if you can call secretly meeting in a pre-swept room with Secret Service agents hanging outside the door romantic) he once again brought up le problème. 

We had dinner from Dorsia’s to-go in my apartment, with General Meow eyeing our food from her own seat at the table. I tried to make conversation but Mencken's answers were clipped, a subtle giveaway that something was amiss. I took it all in stride, already accustomed to his mercurial moods. I knew that he was stressed about something and that once we fucked, he would relax and the tension would dissipate.

Wanting to make up for missing a couple of our dates, he takes me for a drive around the city in a sleek black car with tinted windows, a partition separating us from the chauffeur. The sound of muffled traffic and a bossa nova playlist was our soundtrack, as we furiously make out like teenagers on their way to prom. He’s quiet except for the sighs that escape his lips. I get needy and he likes it, petting me the same way he does my cat. The similarity does not escape me. His hands begin to go lower until they eventually find my hot center and he smiles against my mouth as he realises I’m not wearing panties. Mencken's voice, low and husky, breaks the silence as he whispers, "You always know how to keep things interesting, Harriet."

I respond with a teasing smile, my voice a breathless whisper, "Well, Mr. President, I aim to please."

His fingers continued their exploration, tracing patterns of fire on my clit. “Mr. President? You're playing a dangerous game," he murmured, his lips trailing hot kisses along my neck as he slips two fingers into me.

The combined sensation sends shivers down my spine. I cry out of pleasure and I am thankful for the soundproofed privacy the partition offers us. Eager to reciprocate, my hand instinctively moved toward his belt, but Mencken halted my advance with a gentle yet firm grip.

“Not here, better in the hotel room,” he whispered, his breath warm against my ear. The promise of what awaited us hung tantalizingly in the air.

Our destination was a high-rise hotel he had booked, soaring 68 floors into the city skyline. It was quintessentially Mencken, reveling in the sensation of being the most powerful man even during sex. The car eased into a lull inside the hotel's basement parking lot, providing a moment for me to compose myself while awaiting the Secret Service's assurance that the coast was clear.

Mencken eyes me mockingly. “You do realise they all know what we’re just doing in here and what we’re about to do in that room”.

I roll my eyes and reply, “A girl has to keep some secrets. Adds to the intrigue, doesn't it?"

He smirks, a glint of amusement in his eyes. "Well, let them think what they want. It's not like we've ever been ones to play by the rules."

With a final nod from the Secret Service, Mencken opens the car door, ushering me out. The hotel's opulent lobby awaits us, and I can't help but feel a rush of excitement. The atmosphere is hushed, with the discreet professionalism one would expect in such an establishment.

He is rough, manhandling me immediately after we cross the threshold of the room. 

The door closes behind us, and the plush interior of the room envelops us in a cocoon. The dim lighting casts a sultry ambiance, amplifying the energy that crackles between us.

Mencken turns to face me, his eyes filled with a hunger that matches my own. With a swift move, he captures my lips in a kiss, his hands roaming possessively over my body. In the intimate space, he pins me against the door, a delicious urgency in his touch. His kisses travel from my lips down to the curve of my neck, igniting a cascade of shivers. The feeling lights me whole like a star. He grabs my hand and leads towards the floor to ceiling windows, the quiet city completely unaware of what is about to unfold. Mencken's eyes lock onto mine, a silent communication passing between us. With a heated intensity, he guides me onto my knees, the plush carpet beneath feeling cool against my skin. 

My hands find their way to his belt, fingers working deftly to release him. His cock is already half hard, forming a wet patch on his boxers. I pull them down to spring him free and my tongue reaches out in anticipation. In that moment, the world outside seems to fade away, leaving the two of us suspended in time. His fingers tangle in my hair, a silent encouragement to continue the exploration. As my lips inch closer to their destination, I can feel the heightened tension in the room. His arousal is palpable, the air charged intensity. I wet my mouth, preparing to take him in, and our eyes lock as my lips envelop him. A shiver runs through Mencken's body, and the room echoes with his moans of pleasure.

As the sensations escalate, Mencken's husky voice breaks the silence. "Harriet," he says, a blend of urgency and pleasure in his tone. I smile at him, as much as one can smile with a mouthful of cock. Yet, he knows—I look at him with such adoration as if I were in prayer and him my patron saint. The city outside may slumber in blissful ignorance, but within these four walls, I hold the most powerful man in the world in my grasp. 

I alternate between licking his length and kissing his tip, his skin flushing to a delicious shade of pink. “Adorable” is definitely not the best adjective to describe him, nevertheless it is the word that comes to your mind. Yes, this man who can be quite vicious and spew the most hateful vitriol can also exhibit a human side. In those rare moments when it's just the two of us, away from the public eye, I get a glimpse of a softer side that few get to witness. This only eggs me on, and I fasten my maneuvers until he can barely keep standing still. 

Just when I’m about to finish him off, he jolts me up and pushes me into the bed, covering me with his body, engulfing me. He stays still for a few seconds and places his wedding band covered hand protectively over my neck. He stares at me deeply and suddenly feeling self conscious I look away. 

"Harriet…” he murmurs, his voice a low rumble. His hand moves towards my chin and commands me to look straight at him. “Look at me, please”.

And I do.  His thumb brushes gently over my cheek, and he leans down to place a soft kiss on my lips. "You're incredible, you know that?" he whispers, his words a mixture of admiration and desire.

He seems more expressive tonight, a departure from his usual sour demeanor. “Yeah, I am very well aware of it, thank you for the reminder.” I decide to inject a bit of humor into the situation. While I appreciate this more open side of him, it's honestly weirding me out a bit.

He rolls his eyes, “Don’t get cocky.” 

“Shut up. Quick, kiss me again, old man.”

He smirks, leaning in for another kiss. Our lips meet, and the intensity between us reignites. We make quick work of our clothes, and he has me on all fours facing the window. I try to push away the thought of him imagining fucking the city in that egomaniac head of his. As he roams my body, I focus on the sensation, letting the pleasure wash over me. The position lets him get in much deeper, which combined with one hand pulling my hair and the other spanking me on the ass, makes me go crosseyed and incoherent. 

“Oh shit, fuck! Oh my god”, I gasp in between moans. This goads him into increasing his thrusts and to reply with possibly the most cliche response ever.

“Nope, just me”, he snarls.

“Ugh, just shut up and fuck me, you asshole”, I groan out both in pleasure and cringe. 

He pulls me up while still inside me so my back is against his chest. His calloused fingers come to rest on breasts and my clit, both rotating and pinching me in exquisite pleasure. Inside I get hot white and my vision goes out as the tautness that has been growing explodes. Mencken follows closely, my pussy milking him until he comes inside of me.

The soft glow of the bedside lamp bathes the room in a warm aura as Mencken and I fall in tangled limbs. With the air thick with a heady mixture of contentment and the smell of sex, Mencken, typically stoic post coitus, couldn't resist diving headfirst into banter.

His eyes wandered to the ceiling, contemplating the subject that had crept into his thoughts. "You know, I can't help but think about the French election."

I turned to him, raising an eyebrow, feigning innocence. "Oh, so now you feel like talking. Do tell. Is there a particular candidate you find captivating? Is this why you were so broody this evening?”

Mencken's lips curved into a smirk, his eyes glinting with mischief.  “Marcel Reynaud, the so-called heartthrob. I fail to see what the fuss is about."

I propped myself up on an elbow, ready for the snarky exchange that was bound to follow.

"Well, Mencken, not everyone can appreciate his charm. Or perhaps, you're just not into the whole 'French boyfriend' craze?"

Mencken scoffed, dismissing the idea with a wave of his hand.

“Oh, please! He's just another commie with a mediocre appeal. Looks like he belongs in some sad Eastern European gay porn."

I couldn't help but burst into laughter at his blunt assessment.

"Oh, Mencken, you have such a way with words. I suppose, in your eyes, only right-wing politicians can be easy on the eyes?"

Mencken grinned, his snarkiness unwavering. "Exactly."

Teasing him further, I continued, "Well, you can't deny he's got a certain je ne sais quoi. Maybe you're just jealous that the internet's boyfriend title slipped away from you."

Mencken scoffed again, feigning indifference, “Jealous? Hardly."

Chuckling, I replied, "Of course not, Mencken. Your appeal is far too sophisticated for the masses."

“Wait, you really find him hot? You have the most powerful man in the world in your bed but you still are thinking about some third-rate European lefty? He isn’t even a full president, he has a fucking prime minister!”

“Woah there, I thought you weren’t jealous.”

“I’m just disappointed in you. Really, what happened to your taste?” 

He has a plane to catch the next morning. So when he has enough rest, (“I’m an old man, remember?”) he fucks me once again after eating me out, another habit he has picked up from Rome. During the week I have to wear turtlenecks and scarves to cover up the love bites he left over my chest and neck. Immature asshole.

______________________________________________________________

His administration suddenly became very interested in US-France relations. I could practically see the cogs turning in his mind, the wheels of diplomacy greased with a hint of jealousy. The irony wasn't lost on me—the leader of the free world, concerned about a romantic rival from across the Atlantic.

One evening, as we lounged in my apartment with General Meow resting on his lap, Mencken couldn't resist poking at the issue. “Any thoughts on how we can improve diplomatic ties with France? Perhaps organize a state dinner, or maybe I should visit him on a diplomatic mission?”

I exhale a sigh, knowing exactly where he was going with this. “You're the President of the United States. I'm pretty sure there are more pressing matters than cozying up to Marcel Reynaud just because your lover thinks he’s hot.”

He grinned, a playful glint in his eyes. "Well, I just thought it would be a shame if our relations suffered due to my charming French competition." 

And so it was decided, a state dinner was on the horizon, orchestrated not just for diplomatic reasons but also as a subtle way for Mencken to flex his presidential prowess in the face of a perceived rival. It was not lost on me that, deep down, this was more about asserting dominance. Men and their petty egos.

In the weeks leading up to the state dinner, Mencken's text arrived, a blend of formality and subtle suggestion. "Pick something nice, my dear. You'll be seated with me and Marcel. Let's make it a spectacular evening."

[katarriinn]

Converting my work friend and getting him a crash course of fandom

So, I work as a receptionist in office building... i am the first being you see when you go in, so i have lots of time. Through out the months i made a friend with a guy here from one of the company. We became friends because I've never seen someone being so gay and loud and funny. So queer people just know each other and bond.

Well today, after we talked many times about the new ATLA because i am obsessed and in the midst of writing a fic i told him about just the show. His bf knows it so i invited myself to rewatch The tales of Ba Sing Se as you know i want my soul crushed and i want to see his soul crushed for the first time. But for introduction into tropes, ships, fandoms, AUs and other great magical corners of our creative imagination, i started with Harry Potter. As once everyone knows HP and second it is just my heart. Well to the actual day today. I asked him what pairing he thinks i pair in HP. Firstly he guessed Straight ships like Hermione/Harry then i said it is not straight so he thought of Harry/Cedric or jokingly Hagrid/Dumbledore after that he said "If you say it is Harry and Malfoy, well i don't know about that" so i of course said, well that one is correct. (we were texting btw) He sent me a gif of shocked pug then wrote "Not that! Malfoy is slimyy!" then proceeded to send me the old Drarry edited photos. For a few texts he mocked the idea but then i sent him few fanarts and tiktok edits and he was like "okay...i see it now." So basically when he went on a break, i gave him a crash course of the terms and then he proceeded to send me fanarts he found and OMG ILOVE IIIIIT!!!!!!!!

[gikii]

Harry Potter characters playing Genshin Impact

Harry:

• started playing first, convinced the whole school to play too

• got addicted to the gacha aspect of the game

• there's no way the kid would have been able to get some heroine at hogwarts, so gacha addiction it is

• spent a lot of money on the game

• like A LOT

• used the money left by his parents cause he needs to crown all the characters

• the people at the bank are starting to get very concerned about his spending habits

• mains childe, they are both menaces

Hermione:

• thinks games are a distraction from her studies, yet this game is the exception

• playing helps here unwind somehow

• actually started streaming her gameplay

• didn't want to show her face so she became a vtuber

• of course her avatar is half-cat

• she quickly gained popularity (i mean she of course is gonna be the best whatever she does)

• mains itto

• i mean she does not have any buff hot dude around, girl needs her eye-candy

Ron:

• he sucks

• but still has fun

• kept playing for months accumulating exp before realising his ar didn't go up because he didn't do the ascension quest

• did it and suddenly the game was too difficult for him

• ftp player 'cause no money

• harry helps him farm for artifacts like the good whale he is

• chongyun main

• 1 time bought 100 fates, realized too late they were the wrong kind, lost months of saving

• didn't talk to anyone for 3 days

• eventually harry gifted him a welking moon

Draco:

• started playing to beat potter

• in the end got hooked on the game

• loves the freedom of exploring, helps him forget momentarily the pressure from his family

• ftp player, but sometimes spend some money on the game

• kaeya main

• they both are insidious little shits

• and i love them both

• lost his 50/50 to qiqi at least three times

• diluc still hasn't come home

• takes pictures of the prettiest sceneries

• has them as his computer homescreen ofc

• actually went to a convention once in the muggle word, let me say that day was just HECTIC

Pansy:

• she is a business woman

• realized a lot of pure bloods don't understand shit about muggle games

• so she started making a tons of different accounts with different mails

• did a good amount of pulls in each of them

• then sold those accounts for way more then their worths

• she tried playing the game for herself

• but she doesn't have the time, she is too busy making bank

Luna:

• started playing

• forgot her password

• doesn't know how to retrieve it

Fred and George:

• started playing at the exact same moment

• they wanted to go at the same pace to see the same scenes at the same time in two different screens

• Fred picked Lumine, George Aether

• ofc their plane failed after half an hour cause they got too bored

• but they kept playing on their own

• they are both menaces so ofc their parties have to represent that

• Fred's party is only catalyst s

• George's only bow users

• harry actually wanted to kill them when he found out

• they don't build shit, somehow they are lucky enough not too die every battle

Ginny:

• zhongli main

• with him in your party (and his shield) you can fight everything and won't die

• that's her playstyle

• she started playing to impress harry

• actually stayed for all of the hot guys

• she reads fanfiction

• a lot of it

• mainly bl ships

• she probably has un unhealthy obsession with it

• made a tiktok account just to scream about her faves

• now makes a lot of edits

• her main ships at the moment: zhongli/ childe and kazuha/scara

[decidedlyundecidedgirl]

Summer 2020 I was only vaguely aware of Tom Felton to be honest. Being a Potter fan, I knew him of course as the Draco Malfoy. But other than that, he really wasn’t on my radar.

Now here I am, 18 months into a Tom Felton dedicated TikTok account, (TikTok has a lot to answer for in this whole thing) an ever growing amount of photos saved on Pinterest, money parted with quicker than you can say ‘You’re not in Hufflepuff are you?’ when announced Tom will be starring in a west end play, eagerly awaiting his latest goings ons and a cushion with his face on (but we won’t talk about that.)

So what is it about Tom that’s made myself and many others be caught under his spell?

Well where do I begin, let’s start with his adorable, kind, funny and incredibly endearing personality. The way he has been interacting with fans through social media is very special and pretty rare.

His lives on Instagram have captivated fans with his personal, down to earth, funny and sometimes chaotic approach. He sings,plays guitar, and he introduced us to his dog Willow. (Who happens to be equally adorable.) He still embraces all things Potter and sometimes allows fans to join his lives (with varied results!)

I began following Tom on Instagram after #dracotok gloriously entered our lives in late summer 2020. #dracotok (incase you don’t know) was a huge trend to appear on Tiktok featuring a collection of videos dedicated to Draco Malfoy. POV’s (point of views) were particularly popular and still are.

To cut a long story short I began watching his lives and became hooked pretty quickly. #tomtok soon followed #dracotok with Tom himself interacting with the Draco videos and posting his own TikTok duets with fans. So the obsession deepened. I found myself wanting to make edits and things only got worse better. I’m sure this is a similar story for many others!

There are now countless creators on TikTok making Draco and Tom content. The #dracotok tag has 25.1 billion views with #tomtok at 982.7 million. Which gives you a rough idea of how much this blew up!

But why? Well when dracotok first happened we were in the middle of a global pandemic. Our lives were far from normal so Draco Malfoy POV’s became the perfect escapism we desperately needed.

Tiktok also of course works by showing us more and more of what we like, so once you like one Tom or Draco edit, you will be shown more. So does this feed the obsession? Absolutely! Do you like him more because so many others like him? Probably. Herd mentality if you will.

The above for me has definitely changed what would usually be a fleeting celebrity crush into much more entirely. Although I'm very aware that these things have influenced my feelings. I know it wouldn’t be enough to make me feel this way for this length of time. So I believe my affections for Tom are real and long may they continue! (Totally have this all under control of course!..)

Now let’s talk about the elephant in the room…Yes, Tom is kind,funny and endearing but he’s also, let’s be honest, freaking HOT. Like seriously fine. I’m not sure I’ve been this attracted to someone I’ve never met before.

Tom may not be someone you immediately find sexy. In fact he’s totally not my usual ‘type’…My usual preference is brunettes.. But it’s not just about looks. It’s about, well, pretty much everything he does.

The way he acts,plays golf, skateboards (yes Emma, I get it.) plays several musical instruments and writes his own songs, his little habits, his voice, his walk, his HANDS. Let me repeat. HIS HANDS…..

Sorry where was I?.. Oh yeah so basically Tom Felton is the whole package. I’m not saying he’s perfect. Nobody is. I’m not saying I actually know the real him. But as celebrity crushes go this will probably be like nothing else you’ve experienced.

I usually lose interest in almost everything quickly, but at this point I’m not sure I could stop being interested if I wanted to. Don’t get me wrong, me and Tom have had our ups and downs. I get mad at him…usually for no reason (he’s obviously unaware of our ‘fight’ and doesn’t know I exist..) sometimes real life is busy, sometimes Tom is quiet. But it always comes back again strong as ever.

There’s so much more I could say about Tom and the possible reasons he’s had such an effect on myself and many other people (maybe he really IS a wizard?)

But why not go and check out his socials for yourself. But be prepared… to fall in love.

Article written and owned by decidedlyundecidedgirl.

Photos all courtesy of Pinterest.

[headcanonsandhijinx]

Breaking Point

Edit: this was originally called ‘Wild Angst Oneshot’ as I couldn’t think of a name, but due to a great suggestion by Narutofan8762 on AO3, it’s now titled ‘Breaking Point’.

I was scrolling on tiktok and saw an acting video with an audio that was from Supergirl, basically yelling at someone who had abandoned her and my brain immediately went ‘Wild yelling at Hylia!’ So I had to try and write this, and then I turned it into a Linked Universe fic because I’m kinda obsessed.

Under the cut, because as usual, my oneshots tend to get pretty long, pretty quickly...

***

She was cold.

That was all he could think as his heart thundered in his chest. She was cold in his arms.

He had finally defeated Calamity Ganon and as the beast finally disappeared from the land that it had long tormented, she had appeared. Zelda was finally free.

He had been running towards her before he even realised and had pulled the princess into a hug with repeated apologies falling from his dry, cracked lips.

Zelda had wrapped her arms back around him and managed to speak into his ear before she went limp in his arms. He had let his body move down to the ground to keep her cradled in his arms, but it was too late.

As soon as he took her face in his hands, the light left her eyes and she breathed her last.

That was how he stayed for hours. In the middle of Hyrule Field, with the body of the woman he was supposed to protect as he cried and her final words repeated over and over in his mind.

“You have nothing to apologise for, Link. You saved us all”

***

Several hours later, found her body draped across his lap, with one of his hands gently holding the back of her head and the other wrapped around her back, while he rocked back and forth as he cried out his grief to the world. He had sat there and screaming and crying for hours over her body.

Then when morning came, he picked up Zelda’s body, called over his horse and began the long trek back to Kakariko Village.

***

Impa had been distressed to see the princess’ body, and it wasn’t helped by the state of Link’s injuries that he had neglected in his grief. A broken arm, 4 cracked ribs, scrapes, bruises, and a concussion.

Impa had insisted that he stay in Kakariko while he healed and the funeral was planned. The time seemed to go by in a blink and before he knew it, the day of the funeral arrived. In a strange turn from the blur of the past few days, the ceremony seemed to last longer than the hundred years he’d slept as Link watched the body of the one he swore protect be laid to rest.

Link was just thankful that the gravesite had been moved from the original plan to bury her near the remnants of the castle, but he couldn’t bear to lay her body to rest in the place where she’d been trapped for a hundred years. She was being buried by the pond atop Satori Mountain. Link had regained a memory of visiting it with Zelda and she’d been amazed by it, so he had brought up the idea of burying her there with Impa, who had agreed to his signing and changed the plans.

Once the ceremony had concluded, Impa had invited Link stay in Kakariko and after a while, he had surprisingly accepted the offer. However, Impa didn’t tell him that she was scared he may do something drastic and he did, just not in the way anyone expected.

He just stayed in the spare house he was staying in, seemingly okay with secluding himself away from the rest of the world. Thoughts of his failure and weakness became his only constant companion as he wouldn’t leave the house for anyone. No matter who came to see him, he wouldn’t answer and if someone journeyed inside, he wouldn’t reply to any questions. And the more they tried to help, the more he pulled away. Eventually, Impa had to ask everyone to keep monitoring him but to leave him alone, out of fear that he may run away and never been seen again if they pushed too much.

They still tried to help, but in little ways that included minimal interaction, if they even saw him. Food would be left outside the door for him and it would be eaten, but only just enough to keep himself alive. He would train and practice constantly during the day and the nights where he couldn’t sleep for fear of failing Hyrule again, often passing out in the middle of the floor sometimes for desperately needed rest.

And that was the way it stayed for six months. A constant cycle of self-loathing and punishing himself for not being good enough.

Until a gang of travelers had walked into Kakariko.

***

“We’ve been walking for ages.” Wind complained as he panted with his hands on his knees and he wasn’t the only one. The group had been walking for almost an entire day and still hadn’t found a settlement or village to rest at, and they’d found this Hyrule’s Beadle who had given them directions, but the group was questioning how accurate they were.

“Well Beadle said Kakariko was this way and he said it wasn’t far, but I think he was just trying to get rid of us before Sky bought all his bugs.” Warrior joked as he stood beside Sky, who elbowed him in the side.

“Come on, he said we should be there by midday if we were quick enough and then we can rest there.” Time chimed in from his place walking at the front of the ground. There were several groans but no more complaints as they continued walking.

It was around two hours later when they finally saw the entrance to this Hyrule’s version of Kakariko Village and upon seeing it, the groups let out several sighs of relief as they journeyed inside.

There were only a few people around the village from what Twilight could see. As he walked in, he spotted a man painting, a little girl sitting by a fire, another younger girl running around and some guards standing in front of a set of stairs that lead up to a building.

“Okay, we should ask later and see if we can find this Hyrule’s hero.” Twilight suggested as he turned around to face the rest of the group, who were all surveying the village as well.

“You’re looking for the hero?” A small voice came from behind him and as he turned, he saw the little girl that was running around a moment ago.

“Yeah, we are. Do you know where he is?” Wind asked the girl.

“Yes, but daddy says he’s ill so he never leaves the house.” The little girl answered before they heard another voice and a man came over to join them.

“I’m sorry sirs, I hope my daughter wasn’t being any trouble.” He said as he looked down lovingly at the girl.

“Oh no sir. She was just telling us where we could find someone that we are looking for.” Time replied.

“Well, perhaps I may be able to offer you some more assistance. Who are you looking for?” The man asked kindly.

“We’re looking for the hero, presumably goes by the name ‘Link’.” Legend spoke up and it was quite jarring to see how quickly the smile left the man’s face.

“You should all come with me.” The smile didn’t return.

***

They’d been herded into a house at the top of a long staircase after that and introduced to this Hyrule’s Impa. She had quickly filled them in on the situation as much as she could and it was a lot to take in.

The land had been decimated by this Hyrule’s Ganon and had suffered for a hundred years, until Link could finally defeat him. (she hadn’t told them about Wild’s death. That would be something for the boy to explain on his own terms. Impa tried to give him control over the very little that he had a say in. She wouldn’t take this explanation away from him too.)

They’d then been left alone in the room and were trying to think of how to approach this new Link when Legend spoke up.

“You heard how they talked about him! How are we supposed to break it to him? Huh, just dump it on him when these guys have said that he’s ill.” Legend snapped. “Hey, we’re all reincarnations of the hero and we’ve all defeated some kind of evil that has threatened our Hyrules. Now Hylia is grouping us all together on a new quest so we can figure out who is behind all these black blooded monsters and stop them. If she’s brought us here then we need you to help us. You’ll probably need to say your goodbyes because she’ll make you join us whether you want to or not. How does that sound?” He snapped sarcastically, already done with the situation.

But nobody spoke, not even to scold him for his outburst and Legend turned around to see this Hyrule’s Link standing in the room’s doorway, presumably having just heard his rant about their quest.

Fuck.

But that wasn’t the worst part of the situation. The worst part of the situation was this Link’s appearance.

The group didn’t know what was worse about it. The painful looking scars that covered part of his left cheek creeping up to cover his ear and snaking down his neck to presumably cover his body as well, or the blank look of numbness on the boy’s face. He had walked in with Paya as he stared into the distance at nothing, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings as he stood there. Warriors had been closest and he recognised the look in this Link’s eyes. It was the look of someone who had completely given up and retreated from the world. He’d seen it on lots of fellow soldiers on the battlefield and off it. Men who’d retreated into their heads because the war was too scarring.

That was when the new Link had pulled something from his belt and vanished in shards of glowing blue light, teleporting away before anyone could even say anything.

“Great. Now what do we do?” Wind questioned, unsure of how to precede.

“I fear there is nothing we can do, apart from wait for his return.” This Hyrules Impa spoke up. “Link knows how to hide when he doesn’t want to be found and the more we try to force our company into him, the more he resists it.” The group were reluctant to accept this at all, but eventually conceded after Impa told them that he would probably return soon, once he got his head around what was going on and came up with a plan. (She didn’t tell them that she was even more worried about Link then they were.)

***

Link walked through Hateno Village as he headed towards the house he had bought almost a year ago, hoping that one day he may be able to take Zelda there. However, that would never happen now.

The wooden bridge beneath him creaked as he moved across it. His eyes now set on the item before him that was his reason for coming here at all. He strode fowards and wrapped his hands around it before it vanished in streams of blue light into his slate. He opened the map, selected his next location and disappeared.

Leaving Bolson and Karson behind as they looked at each other worriedly. They hadn’t seen him in months and he hadn’t even seemed to hear them calling his name.

***

He walked inside with the sledgehammer he had taken from outside his house as he set his sights on the aim of his journey.

The statue of the goddess Hylia, in the Temple of Time.

The goddess who had ignored her peoples suffering. Who had left her people to die. Who had let everyone he knew die. Who had ignored Zelda’s prayers and pleas for her help with her dormant powers, and had ignored his silent pleas for years.

Who was now demanding his help again, threatening to rip his world away from him once again if he refused.

Walking to the base of the statue and shifting his stance, he swung the hammer into the side of it. Before pulling it back and hitting it over and over and over again, parts of the ancient statue crumbling to the ground as the hero released his fury.

“You were supposed to protect us! You were supposed to protect your people! Protect the land and people you created!” He screamed the first words he had said in months, his voice hoarse and rough in his throat. “You were supposed to protect her! She trusted you, she believed in you!” His voice cracked and his throat ached as he yelled, unused to being used at such a loud volume.

Then he stopped and let the head of the sledgehammer rest on the floor as Link realised something.

“I... I believed in you.” It was practically a whisper.

“I trusted you.” It was louder now.

“I trusted you! I thought you’d help us. I thought you’d help me, but you abandoned us! You just left us all to die! You let me die!” He couldn’t breathe because he had trusted her and look where that trust had gotten him.

Nowhere.

“I lost everything.” He thought outloud.

“Do you hear me? I’ve lost everything because of you and your stupid quest!” His ears were ringing as he started screaming again as the hammer was back striking at the statue of the goddess even harder then before.

“I lost my family!” A family he couldn’t even remember.

“I lost my home!” Another place thats memories were lost to him.

“I lost everyone I’ve ever cared about!” That was something he could only assume. He must of had a family at some point, maybe even some friends? He just didn’t know.

“Daruk” His back throbbed with phantom pain in memory of how hard his congratulatory back ‘pats’ were. How loud his voice was, even when he was trying to be quiet.

“Revali” Even though they had mainly been at odds with each other, Link still remembered a few things. The way he would preen whenever he got any amount of attention, or the sound of his wings gliding through the air.

“Urbosa” The sound of her voice rang through his ears, how she’d always sounded so confident and sure of herself. How proud she was of her people and her culture.

“Mipha” The girl he was supposedly in love with, and he could barely remember anything about her. He could remember how soft her voice was but how she was also incredibly fierce in battle when defending those she loved, but that was it. There was practically nothing left.

“Ze-Zelda!” He hit the statue so hard that his hammer shattered into pieces, as he thought of the few things that he could actually remember about her. The way her eyes light up when she talked about the Shiekah technology or a rare species of animal or flower. The way her nose would slightly scrunch up and her eyebrows would furrow when she was annoyed at him. The way her hands shook when she held him as he died in her arms.

“I’ve lost everything because of you! I have nothing left anymore! I’m done. Do you hear me? I’m done with you!” He was no longer screaming, but he wasn’t done yet.

Looking up at the partially ruined statue before him, he dropped to his knees among the stones that now littered the floor. And dropping his head into his hands, he took a deep breath, before he threw his head back...

And screamed.

It was long and loud and every time he ran out of breath, he just took a deeper one and started again. The screams were haunting, heartbreaking and full of grief because Link, after years of mounting pressure, trauma and incapacitating grief, was finally breaking down.

***

When Link awoke he hadn’t realised that he’d fallen asleep, or more accurately, that he’d passed out after screaming for hours. His throat was sore and he felt like he was drifting in that weird feeling numbness that usually occurred when he had a breakdown, although they had never been this bad before.

He looked at the destruction around him and to his surprise, he didn’t feel guilty about it. He’d expected to feel guilty like he always did these days, blaming himself for everything that went wrong. Even if he knew that, logically, there wasn’t any possible way that he could be responsible for it.

But this? This left him feeling hollow instead. Because there was nothing left of him anymore.

He was tired and emotionally drained and he wanted to stay here in his Hyrule. He didn’t want to be forced into being the Goddess’ pawn again, and yet he had no choice. He never had a choice when it came to the Goddess and her will, that was a lesson he learned a long time ago.

He took a moment to breathe and took out the sheikah slate to teleport back to Kakariko.

‘Time to face the Goddess’, he thought as he tried to prepare himself to once again succumb to the Goddess’ wishes and relinquish any thoughts of freedom.

It wouldn’t do any good to imagine a luxury that he would never be granted.

[maemi324]

Black Coffee

Hey there friends! It’s been a while hasn’t it? Today i come at you with a new piece for a new My Hero character! Well new to me writing him.  Here we have....Villain Deku! Inspired by this tiktok! https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJUywn9t/ it just screamed Villain Deku to me. This is my first time writing him, so if he seems a little OOC, that’s probably it.  Here are some songs I listened to while writing this 1. headless waltz- Voltaire 2. Don’t go by the river- Voltaire 3.House of Myth, Such horrible things, Gorey Demise, Grave Robber, Greatest Show Unearthed, Aim for the head, Buried Alive- Creature Feature 4. Spooky Halloween Mashup, Syndicate: Underground- Cover by Peter Hollens. Warnings: Robbery, Guns, violence, let me know if theres more I need to tag please! Only edited by me, so I’ve probably missed some stuff! With that! Let’s get into it!

Dawning light streamed in through the windows, the scent of coffee heavy in the air, steam from the hot drink you made rising softly. Soft music flowed through the room, other employees taking the chairs off the tables and whipping them down. 

You sipped your drink, your eyes barely staying open as you leaned against the counter.  It was far too early to be awake. Pain flashed through your mouth as you reluctantly swallow, your tongue protesting not only being burned but the now cool air that touched it. 

It was too early for your own nonsense. 

As the sun rose in the sky customers began their daily migration to the bean and leaf juice they all craved. Thankfully it was still rather early, only a handful showing up, and even fewer deciding to take a seat and enjoy their purchases. 

“I can help whoever’s next?” you call out, closing the cash register and looking up to the new customer with a bright smile. 

Bright viridian eyes stared back into your (e/c) colored ones, ones that you hadn’t seen in a very long time, since middle school in fact, his green hair cementing just who he was. Recognition dawned in his eyes. 

“Y/N?” “Midoriya?” 

A surprised laugh bubbled up, catching you by surprise, “I haven’t seen you in months- years even!” a short glare from your manager got you ready to enter in his order. Taking a peek behind him you saw that the line had lengthened considerably. “Y-yeah, it has been quite a while hasn’t it?” He stated his order, as you typed it in and gave him the total amount. He must have been pretty tired still as he stared into your eyes. You waved a hand in front of him, snapping him out of his daze as his face flushed a deep red, frantically digging his hand into his pockets to fish out his wallet- where had the damn thing gone- oh it was in his hand already. 

Even after all these years, Midoriya was still just as much of a spaz as he’d always been. He moves to the drink pick up location, leaning against the counter as you made his drink. “I wish I had more time to talk, but with the line growing…” 

“Well What if I came back later today? Or tomorrow?”  You prepped the cup, adding a drizzle of caramel to the sides, offering him a kind smile

“Yeah, I’d like that,” 

You handed him his drink and sent him off with a wave. A disgruntled Karen decided to ring the service bell as you hadn’t jumped back to take her order. 

Why did it have to be a Karen?

Unfortunately you were unable to see him later on that day.

However, just as you turned the sign from closed to open that next morning, you were surprised to see those same bright eyes aimed at you. 

“Well, you’re here quite early” you teased, opening the door for him as you walked in. It would be a while yet before people came into the little shop. He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes looking tired with circles under his eyes, “It’s been a long night,” He laughed off your look of concern, “Just work, nothing too terrible! I just thought I’d swing by earlier before I had to get back to it” 

Your coworkers paid no mind as the two of you walked to the counter as you made him and yourself a drink, taking a seat at one of the tables. No one was here and wouldn’t be here for a good half an hour. 

“So tell me, how have things been? Is your mom alright?” 

“Huh? Oh! Yeah she’s doing fine, still at the same place! She’s retired now actually” “Oh, good for her! I hope she’s enjoying it” you sipped at your coffee, thanking just about everything that you didn’t burn your tongue in front of him. 

“But what about you Midoriya? Last I checked you were wanting to become a hero?” While it would have been hard to be a quirkless hero, It wasn’t impossible. It probably wouldn’t get you ranked in the top five or even the top twenty, but so long as you were a good hero, what did rank matter? 

His eyes shifted from contentment to something a bit more sad, a deep sadness that surprised you. Just as quickly as it appeared, it was gone, a hesitant laugh served as a cover. “Well, I did try, but eventually I just gave up. It just hit me that no matter how much I worked, I’d just be in the way of the pros. I could do some things sure, but...it’s not...it wasn’t enough. So I took a step back and found myself getting into computers, fixing them up, making sure they’re running properly. It’s...It’s nice” 

You place a hand over his, an overwhelming urge to comfort him raced down your bloodstream. His hand jolts at the sudden touch, but he doesn’t bat your hand away. “I always believed you’d make an incredible hero” it made you feel guilty that you hadn’t been there for him when he clearly needed someone, anyone even just to listen to as his one and only dream crashed around him. 

“I know you did, I appreciate it (Y/N),” he offers you a more content smile, “But I’m happy where I am now, really! Plus if I was a hero, I might not have met up with you again” 

You let go of his hand, though not before he gives it a gentle squeeze, picking up your drink and taking another sip. 

“I’m glad to see you're happy though, you said you were fixing computers?”

“Yeah! It’s not a big thing really, just a little repair shop. Clients bring me their various electronics, I clean them and fix them up! It can be really challenging sometimes, especially when it’s an older model! I swear I’ve seen some that I could have sworn were from the early nineties!” 

You listened as he rattled on about his clients, his eyes lit up, a subtle blush on his cheeks as he talked with his hands. More than once you had to back away from getting a straw to the eye, but you hardly minded. 

It became a regular thing, He’d come to the shop at various hours of the day, typically right at opening, on your break, or right as the last customer shifted out the door. You always had his favorite drink ready for him, though you had to fight him to keep him from paying. You didn’t mind after all, paying for his drink. He somehow always managed to sneak in the exact amount into your pockets or purse before he left, leaving you to discover it when he was far and unable to take it back.

The ass.

The more you met up the more open he became, you both talked about work and your grievances there. Now you were talking about anything and everything, TV shows you’d recently watched, movies you were excited to see, stupid stories about Karen's getting owned was a personal favorite. 

However His favorite happened to be the news. He was still hero obsessed as he’d always been. However, there was a more...critical insight into it. 

“Ugh” he huffed out, turning his attention from the TV, though muted, the subtitles were still on. It was currently showcasing Endeavor, how he rescued some civilians from a collapsing apartment building, from a disgruntled worker who had turned to villainy when kicked out of their apartment. They decided to take revenge on the landlord, though it quickly turned to chaos as the entire complex crumbled.

“What is it?” You paused from chewing on the straw to take a sip, “ is it Endeavor?” You knew damn well it was, but it was better to let him process through his words. “Yes! Look at him, smug as can be. He doesn’t even care about those people he rescued, He’s shown no comfort towards them, not even a glance to the children he’d saved. He acts as if he’s too good for them. A real hero would be reassuring, give a sense of calm to everyone involved in a rather tragic turn of events”  he sipped at his drink angrily, nearly choking on it as you patted his back.

“ You mean a hero like All Might?” you offered, knowing that the hero had a special place in his heart. 

Instead of the perky response you would have expected, his lips turned to a thin line, staring into a far off place beyond the TV.

“Yes....just like All Might” 

Figuring he was still going through the appalled emotions from Endeavor, you didn’t press the matter, turning to focus on something else, his latest client, or even a Karen you had encountered earlier that morning. He took your bait readily, eager to listen.

It took you awhile to notice, but during your lunch breaks, on the days he didn’t come in early, he would always be watching the news. He’d rip them to pieces with a barely concealed snarl. He’d rant and rave, while keeping in mind the other customers. He talked about the villains even, and how they were people as well, forced into unfortunate situations, where were the heroes then?

As much as you would have liked to stay in the hero worshiping normalcy, the more he went on the more you began to realize, heroes were actually rather corrupt. You could feel yourself becoming angry alongside him. Why did they do that? What about the people they were rescuing? What about these so-called villains?

You shook your head from your thoughts, looking down to see your next customer that afternoon, a young girl no more than ten years old just out of school and looking to buy a snack and a small drink. 

You sent her off on her merry way, happily sitting down at a table and munching on her snack. Checking your watch, you realized it was time to take your lunch. You sat down at your usual booth and waited for Izuku, sipping at your own drink.

The bell by the door went off, your eyes instinctively looking to see who had entered. Time slowed down as three men came in, guns at the ready and masks pulled over their faces. The first had a black mask, the second having a red one, and the third having a white one.

“Alright! Nobody moves, and no one gets hurt!” the first one shouted, as horrified shrieks went off in the small shop. “Put your hands up and go over there!” he motioned with his gun to collectively gather in a corner. You obeyed along with everyone else in the shop.

The second one aimed his gun steadily at the barista at the register, “No! Not you, you’re going to fill this with all the money you have!” He threw a bag over at the barista who shakily picked up the bag where it had landed, tears running down her cheeks. 

The third held out a bag to the gathered group, “ Put anything valuable in here! Watches, Jewelry, Money, Phones, all of it!” He shouted, an elderly woman shakily began taking off her earrings, another gentleman taking his wallet out. 

The young girl stared with wide eyes, tears falling rapidly down her cheeks, face red as she tried to be quiet, but her hiccups would not allow her. When red looked over at the little girl, her wails increased tenfold.

“Hey! Shut up before I give you a real reason to cry about. You don’t want that do you?!” he shouted, taking a step forward the girl took an extra step back as she put her arms out in front of her to protect herself.

“I said QUIET!” he raised his hand.

Your body moved on it’s own. 

You took the hit for the young girl, your cheek stinging from the impact. That didn’t matter, not over the safety of the little girl, the roar of your heartbeat thumping against your cheek.

“What the hell?!” “Just leave her alone! She’s a little girl, she’s just scared!” You held your arms out, effectively blocking her from view. The elderly woman took the girl to her side, watching for the slightest movement from the robbers.

“ So you want to take her punishment? Is that it brat? Fine,” He shoved you down to the ground easily, glancing over to the young girl, “Take this as an example of what happens when you disobey me!” 

You couldn’t hear anything, your sight blinded as well as his foot collided with your stomach, sending you rolling across the ground. He pinned you down as he punched you, over and over again, arms, stomach and your face, seeing stars as your head hit the ground.

Izuku...Izuku please....

You didn’t know what you wanted from him, whether it was to save you from the pain somehow, or to not show up at all in fear he’d try something heroic like you did. 

The shop doors burst open, a cloth or tape like substance shooting out from someone you couldn’t see, wrapping quickly around the robbers, dragging them to ram into one another, the shock of it making them let go of the guns they held so tightly onto. You faded in and out of consciousness, even though the sounds of battle continued on.

It was all a blur as you slowly came back into reality, sitting in an ambulance being checked over by a nurse. The other heroes who had arrived stood before you, scolding you for your actions.

“What were you thinking?! You put yourself and the girl at risk! They could have made you watch as they hurt her!” 

What was I supposed to do, let her be beaten?

“There were so many other things you could have done! Next time think through your actions before you do anything!”

What could I have done? You fail to mention what else I could exactly do. I didn’t even know what I was doing.

But you didn’t say that. You took the abuse as the nurse began to shoo them off, proclaiming that they’d made their point, nothing more could be said. It wasn’t long before the nurse gave you your results. You were a bit battered but otherwise alright, you’d bruise like hell but you amazingly didn’t have a concussion. Once you were home you were to Ice the bruising spots. With that they sent you with your things back home.

Upon entering your home you changed out of your clothes, something bubbling under your skin. It felt so up close and in your face you couldn’t decipher it. You changed into some incredibly soft shorts and tank top, wincing as you moved to change. 

The silence was too much in your apartment, with shaking fingers you called the only person you could.

“(Y/N)?” “Izuku..” something in you snapped as you heard his voice, a sharp gasp turning into a sob. “(Y/N)? What is it, what’s wrong?”  “I...Can...can you come over? Please? I...I don’t think I can over the phone”  “What? Yeah, Yeah of course, I’ll be right there!”  You gave him your address and hung up after that, flopping onto your couch and hugging a pillow.

It only took him twenty minutes to arrive, but it felt like forever and a second simultaneously. The swift knock at your door startled you out of your blank and racing thoughts. He was dressed in casual clothing, some jeans and some random white button up, a thin green vest over top. Your vision blurred as he stepped in at your allowance, going head first into his chest as you sobbed. He grunted from the impact, but wrapped his strong arms around you regardless. “ Shhh, shhh, it’s alright, I’m here. I’m here” he cooed softly into your ear, “ Here, let’s go to the couch alright?” You nodded but didn’t let go. You shuffled your way to sit on the couch with him, only parting to readjust his hold.

“There was an attempted robbery at the shop today,” you sniffed, resting your head on his shoulder, “ There was a little girl there...she was so scared, she was crying. The...one of the robbers got angry at her, which made her more scared. So I...I took the hit for her”

He lifted your face gently, examining the forming bruise. His frown showed his worry, but he didn’t comment on why you ran to this girls side, “ I was wondering about this black eye I see” You nodded, continuing your story, “Yeah...He didn’t like that I’d taken the hit for the girl...so as an example he beat me up. I don’t remember too much after the ‘heroes’ arrived.” you spat.

“But the heroes arrived and saved everyone, that’s good right?” he prodded. If you had been more aware, you would have heard the underlying tone in his voice. He didn’t really believe the heroes had done well, not with how you spat their name as if it was venom. 

“They told me i was stupid for putting myself in front of the girl, that I should have done something else! What else was I supposed to do? My body moved on it’s own! They could have tortured the girl to get a rise out of me, or hurt the both of us…” As you said those words, another sob tore from your core. “Maybe they were right, maybe I should have just...I don’t know. I’m so sorry I didn’t think of anything faster.”

Izuku cut you off gently cupping your face in his hands, thumbs softly brushing away stray tears. Your eyes refused to meet his.

“Oh darling, look at me,” hesitantly you looked into his eyes, filled with concern, determination and...something else you couldn’t quite place, but it was so soft...so powerful. “You’ve done nothing wrong, you are perfect darling. Without you, that girl could have ended up beaten, or worse!” 

The endearment was new, but not unwelcome, his words wrapping you in a soft blanket of safety.

“You did nothing wrong, you are perfect, everything about you, you’ve done nothing wrong. So please, don’t apologize” You leaned forward to hide in his chest as his words brought a fresh wave of tears. He gently rubbed your back, taking care if you so much as winced to move his comforting circles. 

“It isn’t right that they lectured you. You had just gone through a traumatic event, you needed reassurance, kindness. You aren’t trained to be a hero, you acted on instinct. An instinct that hardly anyone else in that room had. They acted so wrong to you” he whispered, “Those ‘heroes’ are what's wrong with the hero society as a whole. Things need to change”

“But I don’t know how to do that, or where to even start” you whined, your hiccups slowly dispersing. 

“Join me” 

Wait...what?

“Join you...I don’t...I don’t understand…” You look up at him, searching for any hint that it was a badly timed joke. You found none. 

“When I told you I worked with computers....I wasn’t lying, but only technically. You see, I work with this group, as a hacker. We’re going to show the world what these heroes really are, and the need to fix them. The roaches will have nowhere to hide, not from the public, and certainly not by the hero commission”

That was...quite a bit to process. He was a Villain?! All this time?! 

You were shocked, your heart sinking to your stomach. “Why...why didn’t you tell me?” You knew why the second you said the words...but you needed to hear if those were the same words he’d say back. 

“If I’m being honest darling...I was scared. You were always so kind, so soft hearted, to learn you were talking with a villain? Plus, it wasn’t like I could just...tell you in the shop right?” the corner of his mouth lifted up into a slight smirk, though it quickly vanished.

You thought back to today, how angry the heroes had made you. How many others did they tell the same thing when they were just trying to help? How many children paid the price? How many people? 

But the feeling of fists landing on you echoed back in your rapidly increasing heartbeat. You couldn’t do that again, not against a villain, not against heroes, not against anyone!

“I...I’m not cut out for villain work Izuku, you see what happened to me! I...I couldn’t go through that again...I don’t want to go through that again”

He pressed a soft kiss to your forehead, warmth blossoming from the spot. “You don’t have to, just...supporting me is enough, more than enough” he took your hands in his, gentle circles rubbed into them. “You wouldn’t have to quit your job, or move, or anything, just knowing you support me? It fires me up, I have to do this, for you, for everyone, to right the wrongs that have been done. What do you say?” his green eyes were lit up in hope.

Your hands squeezed his, “I do.”

[saffiealbright]

well, looks like i accidentally deleted saf’s intro post, because i thought it was a muse photo post (lol @ me). so here it is, rewritten! i’ve added/edited some trivial things, too, so here we go!

(ellie bamber, she/her) - have you seen seraphina albright? saffie / saf is in her junior year. the computer science major is 22 years old & is an aquarius. people say she is ambitious, candid, petty, and headstrong. rumors say they’re a member of hastings society. i heard from the gossip blog that she hacked into her schoo’s grading system and changed her grades to prove she could get into yates without her family’s help. (tessa. 24. pst. she/her.)

name: seraphina ivy albright nicknames: saffie, saf, sera, ser, s age, birth date: 22; february 14, 1998 hometown: new york city major, university: computer science, yates university sexuality: pansexual 

past

“she debated our civics instructor so hard that he conceded so that he could go outside and take a smoke break.” “i watched her hack all of her ex’s social media during our cyber security class. didn’t look up from her laptop once.”

and that’s me, john booker rutledge.

no, it’s serphina ivy albright

seraphina is the daughter and only child of ethan and annabeth albright—a new york state senate field representative and a british transplant museum donor/philanthropist. (making it canon that saf has a few british english speaking tendencies—word choices, cadence, pronunciations, etc.)

does albright sound familiar? saffie is cousin to darby and leo (and the late james) albright through their fathers. ethan albright works for his brother, the state senator.

throughout her young life, both sides of the family were very tight knit. they’d take holidays together, have weekly dinners, attend events side-by-side.

all of this change after ethan and lucas got into an altercation. one moment they were standing in the hall, talking business and having a drink. the next they grew hushed and moved into a nearby home office. by the time ethan left his relationship with his brother was irrevocably broken.

no one knows exactly what happened in that room, but the parents will swear up and down that their side was in the right. this caused a deep split between both sides.

still, in order to maintain the image of a loving family and well-oiled machine, ethan continued to work for his brother. the only times everyone would really see each other, though, were briefly at events, during necessary business, and at james’ funeral.

you’d think the latter would’ve brought them together, but it didn’t!

saffie was slowly influenced not to like her cousins, her parents likening them to their parents in, well, not the nicest ways. to put it simply, they told saf that it’s probably best if she didn’t trust them.

being the young, trusting kid she was, she took their word for it. even if the whole ordeal revealed sides of her parents—of the entire family—that she began to strongly oppose.

teenage years / personality shift

suffice it to say, seraphine wasn’t a big fan of what she found made the albrights the albrights. for years she strove to impress her parents and meet their incredibly high standards: look perfect, speak correctly, present yourself with impeccable poise. learn three languages so that one day you can speak to a number of high-ranking business officials. pick up piano so you can “spontaneously” play at events and gatherings and impress your peers (oh, it happened! time and time again!).

a childhood nearly wasted, by saf’s standards. it wasn’t until she entered high school—about the time the debris settled from the family split settled—that she began to branch out and discover what she enjoyed. what she wanted to spend her time on.

her friend group expanded to those outside of her prestigious school, rapidly expanding her small world view and perspective on just about everything.

very quickly saf saw her path—and it wasn’t acting out like darby or grasping at the idea of perfection like leo. it was not giving a fuck. her family’s problems seemed abysmal compared to everything else happening in the world.

around this time she gained an interest in two things: the world and the computers it’s so obsessed with. thus her passions for current events/world news and computer science began.

quickly she became the black sheep within her household, a fact as amusing to her as it is frustrating for them.

look—all saf wanted to do was go about the city (and her life!) on her own terms. go see live music, attend her own peers’ parties and events, and god forbid have some time for friends.

an unspeakable offense in her parents’ perspective, especially because at this point her grades began to go down. it wasn’t that she wasn’t smart—she had the makings of any upper east side prodigy—she simply focused them elsewhere.

secret

that being said, by junior year it hit the girl that she’d need to step things up. attending yates, her father’s alma mater, was still the goal despite her own falling out with him. it was a damn good university and she had a deal to make. if she could get in on her own, she’d study there on her own terms. doing what she wants.

and you know what!? she did! after cheating her way through the system. lol.

it started with hacking one teacher’s grading system to change a few grades. then, slowly, it grew. midway through the year all of her teachers were lauding her turn-around. by senior year she was a “model student.”

cheers to the TAs for the assist! they did all of the actual assignment grading. saf bargained with them to not to say anything.

in the end she got her yates acceptance letter in the mail, packed her suitcases, and ended up in preaker.

present / personality / little facts

now she’s studying computer science and taking extra classes that capture her interests.

at the same school her estranged cousins attend. fun!

gave calloway, her father’s society, a big pass. went with hastings.

some quotes to capture her personality:

i hate it when people ask, “do you trust me?” like... don’t call me out... the answer is no.

if you have beef with me it’s one sided, because i literally don’t care

some tiktoks for more of a feel: one, two, three

so, yeah, she’s a bit apathetic and no-bullshit and that might be a bit polarizing to some!

but she genuinely doesn’t try to be mean to people. she’s just, uh, blunt. lol.

the type to write in sharpy in a bar bathroom stall, but it’ll say something like, “damn, you’re mad cute”

can’t drive for SHIT! always took taxis, public transport, and town cars in new york. probably learned how to drive a little... while in the UK... so, the opposite-sides-of-the-street thing disorients her

fact: she’s naturally a blonde and dies her hair red. every few weeks it looks like a blood bath in one of the hastings bathroom sinks/showers.

fact: when she’s about to do just about anything with a computer she does the violet baudelaire thing where she pulls her hair up into a messy ponytail

the rest i’m just!! figuring out as i go luv!! x

[oopsiedaiseyy]

OWL HOUSE SEASON 1 REVIEW

Scroll down for actual review

Just realized that I never did any updates on watching The Owl House!

I’m already nearly done with season 2 but…

Here’s my review of season 1!

But… first I wanna talk about how I came to watch the show.

Anyway I actually never heard of the owl house much before watching it and I used to think it was annoying and badly written (even though I hadn’t watched it yet, honestly I don’t know why I hated on it. I didn’t ever say anything online but when my sister talked about it I would say that I didn’t like it) the first time I saw it was back in 2020, I was in the hospital my mom turned on the TV in the room and The Owl House was playing. I kinda knew what it was but not really. I only saw the end on an episode. The one where King writes a book. The episode ended but I was just amazed.I thought it was cool because I had never seen a Mexican in a cartoon before, at least not one like me. I’m Mexican but I’ve always thought that I was weird. The only “representation” I ever got was that show Maya as Miguel. Which I didn’t get to watch much ether. And when I was younger I was souped into anime and fantasy so seeing a Mexican Girl. My age acting like me On screen was pretty big for me. I never watched any more then that. That one snippet

I had other things on my mind then watching that show, my medical condition

Then

Earlier this year I found out about Tangled the series, I watched it because of Varian, as most people did. I knew I was like to the fandom and thought the fandom was dead tbh.

UNTILL I found out there is a fandom alive and kicking on TikTok a lot of people make TTS edits and are all mutuals. Of course I join the group and made lots of Moots. Thing is when your moots are editors you get more then just one kind of edit.

Thus I saw a lot of The Owl House edits and…saw Hunter same as when I became obsessed with Varian.

I only started watching the other day and already got through season one. And I liked it a lot more then I thought I would!

Read here for actually review

To put it simply i like it. ANYWAY ONTO REVIEW

Ok first I really like Gus and Willow specifically Gus is my fave character (hunter is tied with him currently)

The first episode was kind a turn off for me. It just doesn’t set up for how the show progresses. Maybe that’s just me but it plays out as if it’s from a totally different show.

I feel like the introduction to each character was also done well. One thing this show is good at is make you question your own judgement

I would meet a character and like them at first and the dislike them when the revel how they actually act.

But not in the typical Disney twist villain way, in a good way. Like you could kinda tell as your get to know them but… you didn’t question it at first till it was to late.

Heh kind like reall life. And they do the same with character i originally didn’t like. What’s his name. The one who presented to be a human expert? Yeah they managed to make me like him after be deliberately saying that I hated him. Props to the writers on that.

I am pretty good at realizing when stuff is going to happen in a show I’m sure most people can relate. You see the gun on the wall and know it’s going to be used later in the episode.But even though I realized this stuff the realization is just as surprising as if they revealed it in the show.

The plot is in my opinion really good. And I don’t cry over shows. But… It did get a few tears out of me when Luz Started to cry when she got home after losing Eda to Lily. What made it wors was king asking where she was. It upsets me a lot

I like amity and Luz’s blossoming relationship but I’m disappointed we didn’t get to see mor of Amity’s side of it.

Hooty has no purpose and we should burn him

Ok I don’t mean that

…

Ok I do mean that but COME ON

I know he has a friendship with Lily in season 2 which honestly made him more bearable but then she left and he want back to being annoying.

Uhhhi add more in I think of more but that’s my review so far. At least on season 1. When I finish season 2 I’ll also talk about that.

[snickwrites]

quarantine hcs | song series edition

am i bored? yes, but i’ve also wanted to to headcanon how my song kids deal with quarantine. when i was washing dishes and really thought about it, i amused myself so now i wanna write it down.

ignore me, as per usual.

WENDY CAIN.

it would drive her absolutely mad

but shes also a little freaked out at the health connotations, so shes very serious about following health protocols, like she laminates them and spreads them all across the house + rooms

therefore, welcome clean freak wendy

obsessively cleaning surfaces, is seen furiously scrubbing and spraying

but she looks absolutely adorable whilst doing so; like, shes got a bandana on, shes in gloves, maybe a summer dress ( because quarantine hits just when its summer dress season ;-; ) if shes feeling up to getting dressed a bit

shed still do her regular walks, but keeps it around the house and liminal spaces she knows doesnt have much humans

she already does walk by herself even before quarantine hit so its ok

would start getting into the bread-baking trend

house is constantly smelling like freshly baked bread, mans in love all over again

would absolutely try and keep herself busy by planning through it and asking leon to join with some activities (if shes quarantining with leon, if shes not, she’ll video call him all the time, and isnt afraid to say how much she misses him)

if she is quarantining with him, they plan dates once a week and dress up all fancy

my girl will probably start sending letters like shes from a past century w/ gifts for friends

she’ll take up all kinds of hobbies too omg, baking being the primary (will obsess over making the best bread, like, legit. Michelin quality fucking bread, your honour), some sewing (enough to make a few clothes, cute), and even botanical (quits while she’s only kid one plant. my girl doesn’t have a green thumb, sad face)

if she’s not quarantining with leon, will cope better than his ass lmao

will prolly bond a lot with her parents, map out movie nights and game nights (her stepmother is competitve as fuck and its hilarious)

LEON SONG

mans ok with it honestly

doesnt leave the house much so??? sure might as well

also gives him an excuse to take long naps with wendy in his arms so-

as long as he has internet, books, and food, hes ok

seriously, this man would be ok

would seriously get fat tho, bc if hes quarantining with wendy, man wont forget to eat since shes in charge of the kitchen

if he’s not quarantining with her tho, oh boy

will absolutely break down, have wendy on video call 24/7 he doesn’t give a flying fuck

this man cannot function without her being phyiscally present

as soon as quarantine restrictions get a little less tight enough for him to leave the house, you bet your bottom dollar this man is rushing to get to her period. he’ll either take her to his house or he camps out at hers, he doesn’t care as long as she’s within reach

co-depent motherfucker

JAMES BRACKHAM

oh man, he’d go insane on the first week

he’d get into all kinds of crap

he’d replenish all the movies/shows he’s missed, would start cooking, be active on social media ( esp when he started working out; phew, mans horny, in need of release, send help )

honestly. would get ridiculously horny

would work the fuck out

mans gonna get built

will learn creative recipes tho and get really good at cooking food

built af? cooks well? H-word?

please, a thirst trap

QUINN FONG

would get back to teenage quinn: mangas, animes, shows, films, and prolly start webtoons herself

would send thirsty photos to james just for the hell of it

will dye her hair numerous times, pls save her poor roots

would get into makeup trends

will do the tiktok trend of like, cooking food from different eras

but will not cook ordinarily, still too lazy

will get into tiktok

both pranks + dances

will lose it after the first few months, she’d be so lazy

will video call all her friends bc she misses them

pranking government agencies get intense and more ridiculous

will befriend someone from each agency; cia, nasa, mi6, and even mossad

will start a dnd group w/ them

FARIS HAMEL

god, i see this man get bombarded with video calls from family members, pls save him

would lose it in a month but will not show it

will also become a gym nut

boi would meet the gang after quarantine looking jack as shit

oh my go,d he’d go into an online shopping spree addiction

and since he only really spends expesivenly on particular things, it gets out of hand fast

like, intervention status stat!

pls, he’d also start journaling

but he sounds like a mid century polish boy afraid of the plague outside of his house

gets obsessed with cleaning as well

CORDELIA SONG

another online shopping spree addict

will completely refurbish her house, pls

new !! outfits !!

will be that annoying friend/relative who wll constantly call/video chat bc shes vv lonely, no matter how close you are to her

she does this daily

will dress up everyday, regardless

social media presence? uh, yes pls

will probably start lives just bc

most likely to be drunk before 3 o’clock

BONUS:

+ KEI TANAKA

hes surprisingly ok with it too

he’ll start cooking more and more than going for takeouts, will shyly have a more social media presence, prolly get into a dnd group (Accidently gets on quinn’s tho whew), and go for the shows/films he hasnt got time to watch

will not walk away from online relationships tho

chill about it

will actually forget how much he misses human interaction until like, someone calls him or like, he passes by his neighbours

will pamper himself tho

buy some bathbombs, some bath salts, oof, get some face masks

mans coming out of this looking young as shit

will start a random hobby?

mixing cocktails? do puzzles?

+ DOMINIC PRINCE

man will prolly lose his mind

one week? nah, third day this man has given up on life

will be the MOST annoying; will call anyone who doesnt drop his calls bc he craves human interaction

will play music like a madman

start watching some musicals

sends rando ass gifts to his friends only to fuck with them, followed up by an actual decent gift

will legit start adopting left and right

mans found an ad and became feral

come end of quarantine, he introduces his 12 new children

[deborahaphillips54303]

The 'Bon Appétit' Test Kitchen and the Myth of the Happy Workplace

The Bon Appétit Test Kitchen and its so-called "cinematic universe" has been described as follows: a "bright spot" in a "sea of garbage," the "internet's favorite cooking show," a form of "Sunday therapy," "an unstoppable force," "meme gods," and even "a Green New Deal fantasy," whatever that means.

Every night, "I check in with the chefs at Bon Appétit like I’m catching up with old friends," Louis Peitzman wrote for Buzzfeed in 2018. Another piece from earlier this year claimed the secret to Bon Appétit's YouTube success was that "everyone is just so damn likable." And having been graced with the crew's presence at the company's "Best Weekend Ever" late last year, writer and Who? Weekly host Bobby Finger recalled, "I felt not just starstruck but crazy. I mean actually deranged!"

Those are just the fawning articles. The Test Kitchen also has fan-run meme pages, an official merch store, two subreddits, and two more devoted specifically to personality Brad Leone and Gourmet Makes star Claire Saffitz. Saffitz, the kitchen's most beloved host, has been described as "the internet's collective crush," about whom people say things like "I would die for Claire" and imitate for Halloween or TikTok fame.

Man Repeller reported late last year that the channel was the fastest-growing in YouTube's food space, with more than 40 million views per month and over 5 billion total minutes watched. It currently has 6 million subscribers. As its hordes of doting fans propped the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen on the highest pedestal, the magazine's staff turned into micro-celebrities, their interpersonal dynamics became objects of obsession, and overall, the workplace was seen as a wholesome culinary ideal. What the Test Kitchen's cult of celebrity obfuscated, however, is that the Test Kitchen is just that: a workplace, like that of any other large—and therefore likely imperfect, if not problematic—institution. So honestly, what did any of us expect?

As the world found out in industry-shaking fashion this week, the reality of the Test Kitchen isn't the bastion of good that its stans have willed it to be. Last weekend, writer Illyanna Maisonet posted an exchange with Editor-in-Chief Adam Rapoport in which he effectively told her that Puerto Rican food wasn't trendy enough for the magazine to cover, and it read as another example of the brand's diversity problem. On Monday, after writer Tammie Teclemariam posted an old photo of Rapoport and his wife Simone Shubuck dressed in costumes centered on Puerto Rican stereotypes (in the photo, which Shubuck captioned "#TBT me and my papi #boricua," Rapoport wears a silver chain and durag), staffers blew open the door on the company's toxic culture, which has been emotionally and financially unsupportive of people of color. Rapoport—who, amid claims of brownface, maintains that he did not color his skin for the image—resigned the same day.

As assistant food editor Sohla El-Waylly wrote on Instagram on Monday, not only was she hired for her role at the rate of $50,000 per year despite her 15 years of experience (and the high cost of living in New York, where the company is located), but she was "pushed in front of video as a display of diversity" and not even paid for those appearances. Per Buzzfeed, El-Waylly and other hosts of color weren't paid for their video work, which is arranged through contracts with Condé Nast Entertainment, while white video stars were compensated. As the floodgates burst open, Twitter users soon dug up drinks editor Alex Delany's old internet history, which included a 2013 Vine of him saying the F-slur, a Confederate flag cake he'd posted to Tumblr, and a series of sexist tweets.

A damning report from Business Insider on Wednesday showed how far the brand's problems extended. From conversations with 14 former and current staffers, writer Rachel Premack concluded that BA was a "locus for exclusion and toxicity." Ryan Walker-Hartshorn, Rapoport's assistant for close to three years and the only Black woman on staff, was repeatedly denied raises from her $35,300 base salary and treated by Rapoport like "the help," in her words. "There is a big difference in terms of how they monetarily value the white employees versus the people of color," El-Waylly told BI.

On YouTube, BA's channel landed at exactly the right time. Compared to other food channels, which increasingly felt over-produced, the Test Kitchen videos were less polished; they had more personality; and they made the filming and editing processes clear. BA's videos resonated philosophically as well. Saffitz's Gourmet Makes, in which she attempts to recreate popular processed foods, is visibly an arduous and frustrating multi-day process, and at Mashable, Morgan Sung described Saffitz's series as an example of "probably the healthiest, most productive way to approach issues," while Quartz called her the "ultimate life coach."

Though the Test Kitchen's transformation into a celebrity force has been good for business, it's also set things up for exactly the reckoning that's happening now.

As with the recent situation involving Alison Roman (who got her start at BA), Chrissy Teigen, and Marie Kondo, the Test Kitchen's growing popularity and prestige outside the insular food world has complicated our ability to talk about its issues with clarity. Just as the bigger conversation about Roman and who tends to profit from cooking global food (the answer: white cooks) was largely portrayed as just a celebrity "Twitter feud," the changes at BA have been framed as the oversimplified result of a "brown face photo sparking anger" or the resurfacing of a "racially insensitive photo." The celebrity culture of the Test Kitchen begets the treatment celebrities get at gossip rags: reductive, lacking in nuance, and sounding the alarm for critics of "cancel culture." It's more than that, though.

The Test Kitchen's gargantuan online presence overrode its offline truth, as it projected and leaned into what people wanted to see, which was an Office-esque sitcom in which a friendly band of coworkers snickers behind the bumbling boss's back. As writer James Factora suggested in a tweet preceding all of this, perhaps the Test Kitchen's popularity is related to the widespread obsession with The Office. While Factora's tweet reads tongue-in-cheek, it's not wrong, and the love for the show perpetuated the illusion that a toxic workplace can be laughed at and lived with.

The Office has funny moments, but in a way, it led society astray. It suggested that a bad boss who makes clumsy, insensitive comments and makes life hard for employees can be a point of humor, instead of a toxic presence that could be booted. Who does that benefit except bosses? As BA turned the Test Kitchen into essentially its own sitcom, with each cooking star becoming an Office-esque talking head, it furthered the false notion of the perfect workplace, and people online were quick to gobble it up. The interactions between co-workers, even when off-putting, became meme fodder and pushed stans to throw their support behind their chosen star.

The idea that everything gets bad once it gets big sounds like a line ripped from Portlandia, but it is a maxim that applies to everything from emo bands to hashtags to dog breeds to cooking hosts. The higher the platform we give something, the more it can fall, and the discourse around the Test Kitchen seemed unprecedented in its fawning, at least within the food sphere. (Though we might have learned from situations like the downfall of Mario Batali.)

When we laud any product or person to this extent and make it an object of cultural obsession, it becomes easier to ignore the flaws and the parts of the conversation that don't fit what we want to see. This is true for the Test Kitchen, which could never really have met the inflated expectations of goodness that stan culture built up around it; people saw the perfect workplace because they wanted a perfect workplace. The problems at BA are institutional, but stan culture allowed people to compartmentalize the Test Kitchen as something separate and authentic.

In response to all of this, BA's parent company Condé Nast—a 111-year-old company with 6,000 employees globally at the start of this year—has announced that it will be "accelerating" its first ever diversity and inclusion report. On Tuesday, Amanda Shapiro, the editor of BA's Healthyish spinoff, became the brand's acting deputy director, and on Wednesday, the editors of BA said in a statement, "We want to be transparent, accountable, and active as we begin to dismantle racism at our brands."

Still, former staffers have identified Shapiro and other remaining BA employees as complicit in "toxic" behaviors. Despite calls for Matt Duckor, Condé Nast's head of programming for lifestyle and style, to step down over the unfair pay system and his mocking tweets about the gay community, he remains employed, as does Alex Delany. Both of them have issued social media apologies. With this new context, though, the joking tweets and fawning memes about the Test Kitchen don't hold up as well.

No surprise, Test Kitchen stans have responded to this all with even more memes and lionizing statements: "Update: we went to war for Sohla from the Bon Appétit test kitchen," reads one popular tweet. The height of the pedestal hasn't changed, though who's on the pedestal has. But as Bon Appétit changes, will its fan culture change also? To grapple with all of this new knowledge, it should.

Follow Bettina Makalintal on Twitter.

via VICE US - undefined US VICE US - undefined US via Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network

[cyberpoetryballoon]

The 'Bon Appétit' Test Kitchen and the Myth of the Happy Workplace

The Bon Appétit Test Kitchen and its so-called "cinematic universe" has been described as follows: a "bright spot" in a "sea of garbage," the "internet's favorite cooking show," a form of "Sunday therapy," "an unstoppable force," "meme gods," and even "a Green New Deal fantasy," whatever that means.

Every night, "I check in with the chefs at Bon Appétit like I’m catching up with old friends," Louis Peitzman wrote for Buzzfeed in 2018. Another piece from earlier this year claimed the secret to Bon Appétit's YouTube success was that "everyone is just so damn likable." And having been graced with the crew's presence at the company's "Best Weekend Ever" late last year, writer and Who? Weekly host Bobby Finger recalled, "I felt not just starstruck but crazy. I mean actually deranged!"

Those are just the fawning articles. The Test Kitchen also has fan-run meme pages, an official merch store, two subreddits, and two more devoted specifically to personality Brad Leone and Gourmet Makes star Claire Saffitz. Saffitz, the kitchen's most beloved host, has been described as "the internet's collective crush," about whom people say things like "I would die for Claire" and imitate for Halloween or TikTok fame.

Man Repeller reported late last year that the channel was the fastest-growing in YouTube's food space, with more than 40 million views per month and over 5 billion total minutes watched. It currently has 6 million subscribers. As its hordes of doting fans propped the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen on the highest pedestal, the magazine's staff turned into micro-celebrities, their interpersonal dynamics became objects of obsession, and overall, the workplace was seen as a wholesome culinary ideal. What the Test Kitchen's cult of celebrity obfuscated, however, is that the Test Kitchen is just that: a workplace, like that of any other large—and therefore likely imperfect, if not problematic—institution. So honestly, what did any of us expect?

As the world found out in industry-shaking fashion this week, the reality of the Test Kitchen isn't the bastion of good that its stans have willed it to be. Last weekend, writer Illyanna Maisonet posted an exchange with Editor-in-Chief Adam Rapoport in which he effectively told her that Puerto Rican food wasn't trendy enough for the magazine to cover, and it read as another example of the brand's diversity problem. On Monday, after writer Tammie Teclemariam posted an old photo of Rapoport and his wife Simone Shubuck dressed in costumes centered on Puerto Rican stereotypes (in the photo, which Shubuck captioned "#TBT me and my papi #boricua," Rapoport wears a silver chain and durag), staffers blew open the door on the company's toxic culture, which has been emotionally and financially unsupportive of people of color. Rapoport—who, amid claims of brownface, maintains that he did not color his skin for the image—resigned the same day.

As assistant food editor Sohla El-Waylly wrote on Instagram on Monday, not only was she hired for her role at the rate of $50,000 per year despite her 15 years of experience (and the high cost of living in New York, where the company is located), but she was "pushed in front of video as a display of diversity" and not even paid for those appearances. Per Buzzfeed, El-Waylly and other hosts of color weren't paid for their video work, which is arranged through contracts with Condé Nast Entertainment, while white video stars were compensated. As the floodgates burst open, Twitter users soon dug up drinks editor Alex Delany's old internet history, which included a 2013 Vine of him saying the F-slur, a Confederate flag cake he'd posted to Tumblr, and a series of sexist tweets.

A damning report from Business Insider on Wednesday showed how far the brand's problems extended. From conversations with 14 former and current staffers, writer Rachel Premack concluded that BA was a "locus for exclusion and toxicity." Ryan Walker-Hartshorn, Rapoport's assistant for close to three years and the only Black woman on staff, was repeatedly denied raises from her $35,300 base salary and treated by Rapoport like "the help," in her words. "There is a big difference in terms of how they monetarily value the white employees versus the people of color," El-Waylly told BI.

On YouTube, BA's channel landed at exactly the right time. Compared to other food channels, which increasingly felt over-produced, the Test Kitchen videos were less polished; they had more personality; and they made the filming and editing processes clear. BA's videos resonated philosophically as well. Saffitz's Gourmet Makes, in which she attempts to recreate popular processed foods, is visibly an arduous and frustrating multi-day process, and at Mashable, Morgan Sung described Saffitz's series as an example of "probably the healthiest, most productive way to approach issues," while Quartz called her the "ultimate life coach."

Though the Test Kitchen's transformation into a celebrity force has been good for business, it's also set things up for exactly the reckoning that's happening now.

As with the recent situation involving Alison Roman (who got her start at BA), Chrissy Teigen, and Marie Kondo, the Test Kitchen's growing popularity and prestige outside the insular food world has complicated our ability to talk about its issues with clarity. Just as the bigger conversation about Roman and who tends to profit from cooking global food (the answer: white cooks) was largely portrayed as just a celebrity "Twitter feud," the changes at BA have been framed as the oversimplified result of a "brown face photo sparking anger" or the resurfacing of a "racially insensitive photo." The celebrity culture of the Test Kitchen begets the treatment celebrities get at gossip rags: reductive, lacking in nuance, and sounding the alarm for critics of "cancel culture." It's more than that, though.

The Test Kitchen's gargantuan online presence overrode its offline truth, as it projected and leaned into what people wanted to see, which was an Office-esque sitcom in which a friendly band of coworkers snickers behind the bumbling boss's back. As writer James Factora suggested in a tweet preceding all of this, perhaps the Test Kitchen's popularity is related to the widespread obsession with The Office. While Factora's tweet reads tongue-in-cheek, it's not wrong, and the love for the show perpetuated the illusion that a toxic workplace can be laughed at and lived with.

The Office has funny moments, but in a way, it led society astray. It suggested that a bad boss who makes clumsy, insensitive comments and makes life hard for employees can be a point of humor, instead of a toxic presence that could be booted. Who does that benefit except bosses? As BA turned the Test Kitchen into essentially its own sitcom, with each cooking star becoming an Office-esque talking head, it furthered the false notion of the perfect workplace, and people online were quick to gobble it up. The interactions between co-workers, even when off-putting, became meme fodder and pushed stans to throw their support behind their chosen star.

The idea that everything gets bad once it gets big sounds like a line ripped from Portlandia, but it is a maxim that applies to everything from emo bands to hashtags to dog breeds to cooking hosts. The higher the platform we give something, the more it can fall, and the discourse around the Test Kitchen seemed unprecedented in its fawning, at least within the food sphere. (Though we might have learned from situations like the downfall of Mario Batali.)

When we laud any product or person to this extent and make it an object of cultural obsession, it becomes easier to ignore the flaws and the parts of the conversation that don't fit what we want to see. This is true for the Test Kitchen, which could never really have met the inflated expectations of goodness that stan culture built up around it; people saw the perfect workplace because they wanted a perfect workplace. The problems at BA are institutional, but stan culture allowed people to compartmentalize the Test Kitchen as something separate and authentic.

In response to all of this, BA's parent company Condé Nast—a 111-year-old company with 6,000 employees globally at the start of this year—has announced that it will be "accelerating" its first ever diversity and inclusion report. On Tuesday, Amanda Shapiro, the editor of BA's Healthyish spinoff, became the brand's acting deputy director, and on Wednesday, the editors of BA said in a statement, "We want to be transparent, accountable, and active as we begin to dismantle racism at our brands."

Still, former staffers have identified Shapiro and other remaining BA employees as complicit in "toxic" behaviors. Despite calls for Matt Duckor, Condé Nast's head of programming for lifestyle and style, to step down over the unfair pay system and his mocking tweets about the gay community, he remains employed, as does Alex Delany. Both of them have issued social media apologies. With this new context, though, the joking tweets and fawning memes about the Test Kitchen don't hold up as well.

No surprise, Test Kitchen stans have responded to this all with even more memes and lionizing statements: "Update: we went to war for Sohla from the Bon Appétit test kitchen," reads one popular tweet. The height of the pedestal hasn't changed, though who's on the pedestal has. But as Bon Appétit changes, will its fan culture change also? To grapple with all of this new knowledge, it should.

Follow Bettina Makalintal on Twitter.

via VICE US - undefined US VICE US - undefined US via Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network

[carolrhackett85282]

The 'Bon Appétit' Test Kitchen and the Myth of the Happy Workplace

The Bon Appétit Test Kitchen and its so-called "cinematic universe" has been described as follows: a "bright spot" in a "sea of garbage," the "internet's favorite cooking show," a form of "Sunday therapy," "an unstoppable force," "meme gods," and even "a Green New Deal fantasy," whatever that means.

Every night, "I check in with the chefs at Bon Appétit like I’m catching up with old friends," Louis Peitzman wrote for Buzzfeed in 2018. Another piece from earlier this year claimed the secret to Bon Appétit's YouTube success was that "everyone is just so damn likable." And having been graced with the crew's presence at the company's "Best Weekend Ever" late last year, writer and Who? Weekly host Bobby Finger recalled, "I felt not just starstruck but crazy. I mean actually deranged!"

Those are just the fawning articles. The Test Kitchen also has fan-run meme pages, an official merch store, two subreddits, and two more devoted specifically to personality Brad Leone and Gourmet Makes star Claire Saffitz. Saffitz, the kitchen's most beloved host, has been described as "the internet's collective crush," about whom people say things like "I would die for Claire" and imitate for Halloween or TikTok fame.

Man Repeller reported late last year that the channel was the fastest-growing in YouTube's food space, with more than 40 million views per month and over 5 billion total minutes watched. It currently has 6 million subscribers. As its hordes of doting fans propped the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen on the highest pedestal, the magazine's staff turned into micro-celebrities, their interpersonal dynamics became objects of obsession, and overall, the workplace was seen as a wholesome culinary ideal. What the Test Kitchen's cult of celebrity obfuscated, however, is that the Test Kitchen is just that: a workplace, like that of any other large—and therefore likely imperfect, if not problematic—institution. So honestly, what did any of us expect?

As the world found out in industry-shaking fashion this week, the reality of the Test Kitchen isn't the bastion of good that its stans have willed it to be. Last weekend, writer Illyanna Maisonet posted an exchange with Editor-in-Chief Adam Rapoport in which he effectively told her that Puerto Rican food wasn't trendy enough for the magazine to cover, and it read as another example of the brand's diversity problem. On Monday, after writer Tammie Teclemariam posted an old photo of Rapoport and his wife Simone Shubuck dressed in costumes centered on Puerto Rican stereotypes (in the photo, which Shubuck captioned "#TBT me and my papi #boricua," Rapoport wears a silver chain and durag), staffers blew open the door on the company's toxic culture, which has been emotionally and financially unsupportive of people of color. Rapoport—who, amid claims of brownface, maintains that he did not color his skin for the image—resigned the same day.

As assistant food editor Sohla El-Waylly wrote on Instagram on Monday, not only was she hired for her role at the rate of $50,000 per year despite her 15 years of experience (and the high cost of living in New York, where the company is located), but she was "pushed in front of video as a display of diversity" and not even paid for those appearances. Per Buzzfeed, El-Waylly and other hosts of color weren't paid for their video work, which is arranged through contracts with Condé Nast Entertainment, while white video stars were compensated. As the floodgates burst open, Twitter users soon dug up drinks editor Alex Delany's old internet history, which included a 2013 Vine of him saying the F-slur, a Confederate flag cake he'd posted to Tumblr, and a series of sexist tweets.

A damning report from Business Insider on Wednesday showed how far the brand's problems extended. From conversations with 14 former and current staffers, writer Rachel Premack concluded that BA was a "locus for exclusion and toxicity." Ryan Walker-Hartshorn, Rapoport's assistant for close to three years and the only Black woman on staff, was repeatedly denied raises from her $35,300 base salary and treated by Rapoport like "the help," in her words. "There is a big difference in terms of how they monetarily value the white employees versus the people of color," El-Waylly told BI.

On YouTube, BA's channel landed at exactly the right time. Compared to other food channels, which increasingly felt over-produced, the Test Kitchen videos were less polished; they had more personality; and they made the filming and editing processes clear. BA's videos resonated philosophically as well. Saffitz's Gourmet Makes, in which she attempts to recreate popular processed foods, is visibly an arduous and frustrating multi-day process, and at Mashable, Morgan Sung described Saffitz's series as an example of "probably the healthiest, most productive way to approach issues," while Quartz called her the "ultimate life coach."

Though the Test Kitchen's transformation into a celebrity force has been good for business, it's also set things up for exactly the reckoning that's happening now.

As with the recent situation involving Alison Roman (who got her start at BA), Chrissy Teigen, and Marie Kondo, the Test Kitchen's growing popularity and prestige outside the insular food world has complicated our ability to talk about its issues with clarity. Just as the bigger conversation about Roman and who tends to profit from cooking global food (the answer: white cooks) was largely portrayed as just a celebrity "Twitter feud," the changes at BA have been framed as the oversimplified result of a "brown face photo sparking anger" or the resurfacing of a "racially insensitive photo." The celebrity culture of the Test Kitchen begets the treatment celebrities get at gossip rags: reductive, lacking in nuance, and sounding the alarm for critics of "cancel culture." It's more than that, though.

The Test Kitchen's gargantuan online presence overrode its offline truth, as it projected and leaned into what people wanted to see, which was an Office-esque sitcom in which a friendly band of coworkers snickers behind the bumbling boss's back. As writer James Factora suggested in a tweet preceding all of this, perhaps the Test Kitchen's popularity is related to the widespread obsession with The Office. While Factora's tweet reads tongue-in-cheek, it's not wrong, and the love for the show perpetuated the illusion that a toxic workplace can be laughed at and lived with.

The Office has funny moments, but in a way, it led society astray. It suggested that a bad boss who makes clumsy, insensitive comments and makes life hard for employees can be a point of humor, instead of a toxic presence that could be booted. Who does that benefit except bosses? As BA turned the Test Kitchen into essentially its own sitcom, with each cooking star becoming an Office-esque talking head, it furthered the false notion of the perfect workplace, and people online were quick to gobble it up. The interactions between co-workers, even when off-putting, became meme fodder and pushed stans to throw their support behind their chosen star.

The idea that everything gets bad once it gets big sounds like a line ripped from Portlandia, but it is a maxim that applies to everything from emo bands to hashtags to dog breeds to cooking hosts. The higher the platform we give something, the more it can fall, and the discourse around the Test Kitchen seemed unprecedented in its fawning, at least within the food sphere. (Though we might have learned from situations like the downfall of Mario Batali.)

When we laud any product or person to this extent and make it an object of cultural obsession, it becomes easier to ignore the flaws and the parts of the conversation that don't fit what we want to see. This is true for the Test Kitchen, which could never really have met the inflated expectations of goodness that stan culture built up around it; people saw the perfect workplace because they wanted a perfect workplace. The problems at BA are institutional, but stan culture allowed people to compartmentalize the Test Kitchen as something separate and authentic.

In response to all of this, BA's parent company Condé Nast—a 111-year-old company with 6,000 employees globally at the start of this year—has announced that it will be "accelerating" its first ever diversity and inclusion report. On Tuesday, Amanda Shapiro, the editor of BA's Healthyish spinoff, became the brand's acting deputy director, and on Wednesday, the editors of BA said in a statement, "We want to be transparent, accountable, and active as we begin to dismantle racism at our brands."

Still, former staffers have identified Shapiro and other remaining BA employees as complicit in "toxic" behaviors. Despite calls for Matt Duckor, Condé Nast's head of programming for lifestyle and style, to step down over the unfair pay system and his mocking tweets about the gay community, he remains employed, as does Alex Delany. Both of them have issued social media apologies. With this new context, though, the joking tweets and fawning memes about the Test Kitchen don't hold up as well.

No surprise, Test Kitchen stans have responded to this all with even more memes and lionizing statements: "Update: we went to war for Sohla from the Bon Appétit test kitchen," reads one popular tweet. The height of the pedestal hasn't changed, though who's on the pedestal has. But as Bon Appétit changes, will its fan culture change also? To grapple with all of this new knowledge, it should.

Follow Bettina Makalintal on Twitter.

via VICE US - undefined US VICE US - undefined US via Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network

[melodymgill49801]

The 'Bon Appétit' Test Kitchen and the Myth of the Happy Workplace

The Bon Appétit Test Kitchen and its so-called "cinematic universe" has been described as follows: a "bright spot" in a "sea of garbage," the "internet's favorite cooking show," a form of "Sunday therapy," "an unstoppable force," "meme gods," and even "a Green New Deal fantasy," whatever that means.

Every night, "I check in with the chefs at Bon Appétit like I’m catching up with old friends," Louis Peitzman wrote for Buzzfeed in 2018. Another piece from earlier this year claimed the secret to Bon Appétit's YouTube success was that "everyone is just so damn likable." And having been graced with the crew's presence at the company's "Best Weekend Ever" late last year, writer and Who? Weekly host Bobby Finger recalled, "I felt not just starstruck but crazy. I mean actually deranged!"

Those are just the fawning articles. The Test Kitchen also has fan-run meme pages, an official merch store, two subreddits, and two more devoted specifically to personality Brad Leone and Gourmet Makes star Claire Saffitz. Saffitz, the kitchen's most beloved host, has been described as "the internet's collective crush," about whom people say things like "I would die for Claire" and imitate for Halloween or TikTok fame.

Man Repeller reported late last year that the channel was the fastest-growing in YouTube's food space, with more than 40 million views per month and over 5 billion total minutes watched. It currently has 6 million subscribers. As its hordes of doting fans propped the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen on the highest pedestal, the magazine's staff turned into micro-celebrities, their interpersonal dynamics became objects of obsession, and overall, the workplace was seen as a wholesome culinary ideal. What the Test Kitchen's cult of celebrity obfuscated, however, is that the Test Kitchen is just that: a workplace, like that of any other large—and therefore likely imperfect, if not problematic—institution. So honestly, what did any of us expect?

As the world found out in industry-shaking fashion this week, the reality of the Test Kitchen isn't the bastion of good that its stans have willed it to be. Last weekend, writer Illyanna Maisonet posted an exchange with Editor-in-Chief Adam Rapoport in which he effectively told her that Puerto Rican food wasn't trendy enough for the magazine to cover, and it read as another example of the brand's diversity problem. On Monday, after writer Tammie Teclemariam posted an old photo of Rapoport and his wife Simone Shubuck dressed in costumes centered on Puerto Rican stereotypes (in the photo, which Shubuck captioned "#TBT me and my papi #boricua," Rapoport wears a silver chain and durag), staffers blew open the door on the company's toxic culture, which has been emotionally and financially unsupportive of people of color. Rapoport—who, amid claims of brownface, maintains that he did not color his skin for the image—resigned the same day.

As assistant food editor Sohla El-Waylly wrote on Instagram on Monday, not only was she hired for her role at the rate of $50,000 per year despite her 15 years of experience (and the high cost of living in New York, where the company is located), but she was "pushed in front of video as a display of diversity" and not even paid for those appearances. Per Buzzfeed, El-Waylly and other hosts of color weren't paid for their video work, which is arranged through contracts with Condé Nast Entertainment, while white video stars were compensated. As the floodgates burst open, Twitter users soon dug up drinks editor Alex Delany's old internet history, which included a 2013 Vine of him saying the F-slur, a Confederate flag cake he'd posted to Tumblr, and a series of sexist tweets.

A damning report from Business Insider on Wednesday showed how far the brand's problems extended. From conversations with 14 former and current staffers, writer Rachel Premack concluded that BA was a "locus for exclusion and toxicity." Ryan Walker-Hartshorn, Rapoport's assistant for close to three years and the only Black woman on staff, was repeatedly denied raises from her $35,300 base salary and treated by Rapoport like "the help," in her words. "There is a big difference in terms of how they monetarily value the white employees versus the people of color," El-Waylly told BI.

On YouTube, BA's channel landed at exactly the right time. Compared to other food channels, which increasingly felt over-produced, the Test Kitchen videos were less polished; they had more personality; and they made the filming and editing processes clear. BA's videos resonated philosophically as well. Saffitz's Gourmet Makes, in which she attempts to recreate popular processed foods, is visibly an arduous and frustrating multi-day process, and at Mashable, Morgan Sung described Saffitz's series as an example of "probably the healthiest, most productive way to approach issues," while Quartz called her the "ultimate life coach."

Though the Test Kitchen's transformation into a celebrity force has been good for business, it's also set things up for exactly the reckoning that's happening now.

As with the recent situation involving Alison Roman (who got her start at BA), Chrissy Teigen, and Marie Kondo, the Test Kitchen's growing popularity and prestige outside the insular food world has complicated our ability to talk about its issues with clarity. Just as the bigger conversation about Roman and who tends to profit from cooking global food (the answer: white cooks) was largely portrayed as just a celebrity "Twitter feud," the changes at BA have been framed as the oversimplified result of a "brown face photo sparking anger" or the resurfacing of a "racially insensitive photo." The celebrity culture of the Test Kitchen begets the treatment celebrities get at gossip rags: reductive, lacking in nuance, and sounding the alarm for critics of "cancel culture." It's more than that, though.

The Test Kitchen's gargantuan online presence overrode its offline truth, as it projected and leaned into what people wanted to see, which was an Office-esque sitcom in which a friendly band of coworkers snickers behind the bumbling boss's back. As writer James Factora suggested in a tweet preceding all of this, perhaps the Test Kitchen's popularity is related to the widespread obsession with The Office. While Factora's tweet reads tongue-in-cheek, it's not wrong, and the love for the show perpetuated the illusion that a toxic workplace can be laughed at and lived with.

The Office has funny moments, but in a way, it led society astray. It suggested that a bad boss who makes clumsy, insensitive comments and makes life hard for employees can be a point of humor, instead of a toxic presence that could be booted. Who does that benefit except bosses? As BA turned the Test Kitchen into essentially its own sitcom, with each cooking star becoming an Office-esque talking head, it furthered the false notion of the perfect workplace, and people online were quick to gobble it up. The interactions between co-workers, even when off-putting, became meme fodder and pushed stans to throw their support behind their chosen star.

The idea that everything gets bad once it gets big sounds like a line ripped from Portlandia, but it is a maxim that applies to everything from emo bands to hashtags to dog breeds to cooking hosts. The higher the platform we give something, the more it can fall, and the discourse around the Test Kitchen seemed unprecedented in its fawning, at least within the food sphere. (Though we might have learned from situations like the downfall of Mario Batali.)

When we laud any product or person to this extent and make it an object of cultural obsession, it becomes easier to ignore the flaws and the parts of the conversation that don't fit what we want to see. This is true for the Test Kitchen, which could never really have met the inflated expectations of goodness that stan culture built up around it; people saw the perfect workplace because they wanted a perfect workplace. The problems at BA are institutional, but stan culture allowed people to compartmentalize the Test Kitchen as something separate and authentic.

In response to all of this, BA's parent company Condé Nast—a 111-year-old company with 6,000 employees globally at the start of this year—has announced that it will be "accelerating" its first ever diversity and inclusion report. On Tuesday, Amanda Shapiro, the editor of BA's Healthyish spinoff, became the brand's acting deputy director, and on Wednesday, the editors of BA said in a statement, "We want to be transparent, accountable, and active as we begin to dismantle racism at our brands."

Still, former staffers have identified Shapiro and other remaining BA employees as complicit in "toxic" behaviors. Despite calls for Matt Duckor, Condé Nast's head of programming for lifestyle and style, to step down over the unfair pay system and his mocking tweets about the gay community, he remains employed, as does Alex Delany. Both of them have issued social media apologies. With this new context, though, the joking tweets and fawning memes about the Test Kitchen don't hold up as well.

No surprise, Test Kitchen stans have responded to this all with even more memes and lionizing statements: "Update: we went to war for Sohla from the Bon Appétit test kitchen," reads one popular tweet. The height of the pedestal hasn't changed, though who's on the pedestal has. But as Bon Appétit changes, will its fan culture change also? To grapple with all of this new knowledge, it should.

Follow Bettina Makalintal on Twitter.

via VICE US - undefined US VICE US - undefined US via Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network

[carolinechanson97838]

The 'Bon Appétit' Test Kitchen and the Myth of the Happy Workplace

The Bon Appétit Test Kitchen and its so-called "cinematic universe" has been described as follows: a "bright spot" in a "sea of garbage," the "internet's favorite cooking show," a form of "Sunday therapy," "an unstoppable force," "meme gods," and even "a Green New Deal fantasy," whatever that means.

Every night, "I check in with the chefs at Bon Appétit like I’m catching up with old friends," Louis Peitzman wrote for Buzzfeed in 2018. Another piece from earlier this year claimed the secret to Bon Appétit's YouTube success was that "everyone is just so damn likable." And having been graced with the crew's presence at the company's "Best Weekend Ever" late last year, writer and Who? Weekly host Bobby Finger recalled, "I felt not just starstruck but crazy. I mean actually deranged!"

Those are just the fawning articles. The Test Kitchen also has fan-run meme pages, an official merch store, two subreddits, and two more devoted specifically to personality Brad Leone and Gourmet Makes star Claire Saffitz. Saffitz, the kitchen's most beloved host, has been described as "the internet's collective crush," about whom people say things like "I would die for Claire" and imitate for Halloween or TikTok fame.

Man Repeller reported late last year that the channel was the fastest-growing in YouTube's food space, with more than 40 million views per month and over 5 billion total minutes watched. It currently has 6 million subscribers. As its hordes of doting fans propped the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen on the highest pedestal, the magazine's staff turned into micro-celebrities, their interpersonal dynamics became objects of obsession, and overall, the workplace was seen as a wholesome culinary ideal. What the Test Kitchen's cult of celebrity obfuscated, however, is that the Test Kitchen is just that: a workplace, like that of any other large—and therefore likely imperfect, if not problematic—institution. So honestly, what did any of us expect?

As the world found out in industry-shaking fashion this week, the reality of the Test Kitchen isn't the bastion of good that its stans have willed it to be. Last weekend, writer Illyanna Maisonet posted an exchange with Editor-in-Chief Adam Rapoport in which he effectively told her that Puerto Rican food wasn't trendy enough for the magazine to cover, and it read as another example of the brand's diversity problem. On Monday, after writer Tammie Teclemariam posted an old photo of Rapoport and his wife Simone Shubuck dressed in costumes centered on Puerto Rican stereotypes (in the photo, which Shubuck captioned "#TBT me and my papi #boricua," Rapoport wears a silver chain and durag), staffers blew open the door on the company's toxic culture, which has been emotionally and financially unsupportive of people of color. Rapoport—who, amid claims of brownface, maintains that he did not color his skin for the image—resigned the same day.

As assistant food editor Sohla El-Waylly wrote on Instagram on Monday, not only was she hired for her role at the rate of $50,000 per year despite her 15 years of experience (and the high cost of living in New York, where the company is located), but she was "pushed in front of video as a display of diversity" and not even paid for those appearances. Per Buzzfeed, El-Waylly and other hosts of color weren't paid for their video work, which is arranged through contracts with Condé Nast Entertainment, while white video stars were compensated. As the floodgates burst open, Twitter users soon dug up drinks editor Alex Delany's old internet history, which included a 2013 Vine of him saying the F-slur, a Confederate flag cake he'd posted to Tumblr, and a series of sexist tweets.

A damning report from Business Insider on Wednesday showed how far the brand's problems extended. From conversations with 14 former and current staffers, writer Rachel Premack concluded that BA was a "locus for exclusion and toxicity." Ryan Walker-Hartshorn, Rapoport's assistant for close to three years and the only Black woman on staff, was repeatedly denied raises from her $35,300 base salary and treated by Rapoport like "the help," in her words. "There is a big difference in terms of how they monetarily value the white employees versus the people of color," El-Waylly told BI.

On YouTube, BA's channel landed at exactly the right time. Compared to other food channels, which increasingly felt over-produced, the Test Kitchen videos were less polished; they had more personality; and they made the filming and editing processes clear. BA's videos resonated philosophically as well. Saffitz's Gourmet Makes, in which she attempts to recreate popular processed foods, is visibly an arduous and frustrating multi-day process, and at Mashable, Morgan Sung described Saffitz's series as an example of "probably the healthiest, most productive way to approach issues," while Quartz called her the "ultimate life coach."

Though the Test Kitchen's transformation into a celebrity force has been good for business, it's also set things up for exactly the reckoning that's happening now.

As with the recent situation involving Alison Roman (who got her start at BA), Chrissy Teigen, and Marie Kondo, the Test Kitchen's growing popularity and prestige outside the insular food world has complicated our ability to talk about its issues with clarity. Just as the bigger conversation about Roman and who tends to profit from cooking global food (the answer: white cooks) was largely portrayed as just a celebrity "Twitter feud," the changes at BA have been framed as the oversimplified result of a "brown face photo sparking anger" or the resurfacing of a "racially insensitive photo." The celebrity culture of the Test Kitchen begets the treatment celebrities get at gossip rags: reductive, lacking in nuance, and sounding the alarm for critics of "cancel culture." It's more than that, though.

The Test Kitchen's gargantuan online presence overrode its offline truth, as it projected and leaned into what people wanted to see, which was an Office-esque sitcom in which a friendly band of coworkers snickers behind the bumbling boss's back. As writer James Factora suggested in a tweet preceding all of this, perhaps the Test Kitchen's popularity is related to the widespread obsession with The Office. While Factora's tweet reads tongue-in-cheek, it's not wrong, and the love for the show perpetuated the illusion that a toxic workplace can be laughed at and lived with.

The Office has funny moments, but in a way, it led society astray. It suggested that a bad boss who makes clumsy, insensitive comments and makes life hard for employees can be a point of humor, instead of a toxic presence that could be booted. Who does that benefit except bosses? As BA turned the Test Kitchen into essentially its own sitcom, with each cooking star becoming an Office-esque talking head, it furthered the false notion of the perfect workplace, and people online were quick to gobble it up. The interactions between co-workers, even when off-putting, became meme fodder and pushed stans to throw their support behind their chosen star.

The idea that everything gets bad once it gets big sounds like a line ripped from Portlandia, but it is a maxim that applies to everything from emo bands to hashtags to dog breeds to cooking hosts. The higher the platform we give something, the more it can fall, and the discourse around the Test Kitchen seemed unprecedented in its fawning, at least within the food sphere. (Though we might have learned from situations like the downfall of Mario Batali.)

When we laud any product or person to this extent and make it an object of cultural obsession, it becomes easier to ignore the flaws and the parts of the conversation that don't fit what we want to see. This is true for the Test Kitchen, which could never really have met the inflated expectations of goodness that stan culture built up around it; people saw the perfect workplace because they wanted a perfect workplace. The problems at BA are institutional, but stan culture allowed people to compartmentalize the Test Kitchen as something separate and authentic.

In response to all of this, BA's parent company Condé Nast—a 111-year-old company with 6,000 employees globally at the start of this year—has announced that it will be "accelerating" its first ever diversity and inclusion report. On Tuesday, Amanda Shapiro, the editor of BA's Healthyish spinoff, became the brand's acting deputy director, and on Wednesday, the editors of BA said in a statement, "We want to be transparent, accountable, and active as we begin to dismantle racism at our brands."

Still, former staffers have identified Shapiro and other remaining BA employees as complicit in "toxic" behaviors. Despite calls for Matt Duckor, Condé Nast's head of programming for lifestyle and style, to step down over the unfair pay system and his mocking tweets about the gay community, he remains employed, as does Alex Delany. Both of them have issued social media apologies. With this new context, though, the joking tweets and fawning memes about the Test Kitchen don't hold up as well.

No surprise, Test Kitchen stans have responded to this all with even more memes and lionizing statements: "Update: we went to war for Sohla from the Bon Appétit test kitchen," reads one popular tweet. The height of the pedestal hasn't changed, though who's on the pedestal has. But as Bon Appétit changes, will its fan culture change also? To grapple with all of this new knowledge, it should.

Follow Bettina Makalintal on Twitter.

via VICE US - undefined US VICE US - undefined US via Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network

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The 'Bon Appétit' Test Kitchen and the Myth of the Happy Workplace

The Bon Appétit Test Kitchen and its so-called "cinematic universe" has been described as follows: a "bright spot" in a "sea of garbage," the "internet's favorite cooking show," a form of "Sunday therapy," "an unstoppable force," "meme gods," and even "a Green New Deal fantasy," whatever that means.

Every night, "I check in with the chefs at Bon Appétit like I’m catching up with old friends," Louis Peitzman wrote for Buzzfeed in 2018. Another piece from earlier this year claimed the secret to Bon Appétit's YouTube success was that "everyone is just so damn likable." And having been graced with the crew's presence at the company's "Best Weekend Ever" late last year, writer and Who? Weekly host Bobby Finger recalled, "I felt not just starstruck but crazy. I mean actually deranged!"

Those are just the fawning articles. The Test Kitchen also has fan-run meme pages, an official merch store, two subreddits, and two more devoted specifically to personality Brad Leone and Gourmet Makes star Claire Saffitz. Saffitz, the kitchen's most beloved host, has been described as "the internet's collective crush," about whom people say things like "I would die for Claire" and imitate for Halloween or TikTok fame.

Man Repeller reported late last year that the channel was the fastest-growing in YouTube's food space, with more than 40 million views per month and over 5 billion total minutes watched. It currently has 6 million subscribers. As its hordes of doting fans propped the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen on the highest pedestal, the magazine's staff turned into micro-celebrities, their interpersonal dynamics became objects of obsession, and overall, the workplace was seen as a wholesome culinary ideal. What the Test Kitchen's cult of celebrity obfuscated, however, is that the Test Kitchen is just that: a workplace, like that of any other large—and therefore likely imperfect, if not problematic—institution. So honestly, what did any of us expect?

As the world found out in industry-shaking fashion this week, the reality of the Test Kitchen isn't the bastion of good that its stans have willed it to be. Last weekend, writer Illyanna Maisonet posted an exchange with Editor-in-Chief Adam Rapoport in which he effectively told her that Puerto Rican food wasn't trendy enough for the magazine to cover, and it read as another example of the brand's diversity problem. On Monday, after writer Tammie Teclemariam posted an old photo of Rapoport and his wife Simone Shubuck dressed in costumes centered on Puerto Rican stereotypes (in the photo, which Shubuck captioned "#TBT me and my papi #boricua," Rapoport wears a silver chain and durag), staffers blew open the door on the company's toxic culture, which has been emotionally and financially unsupportive of people of color. Rapoport—who, amid claims of brownface, maintains that he did not color his skin for the image—resigned the same day.

As assistant food editor Sohla El-Waylly wrote on Instagram on Monday, not only was she hired for her role at the rate of $50,000 per year despite her 15 years of experience (and the high cost of living in New York, where the company is located), but she was "pushed in front of video as a display of diversity" and not even paid for those appearances. Per Buzzfeed, El-Waylly and other hosts of color weren't paid for their video work, which is arranged through contracts with Condé Nast Entertainment, while white video stars were compensated. As the floodgates burst open, Twitter users soon dug up drinks editor Alex Delany's old internet history, which included a 2013 Vine of him saying the F-slur, a Confederate flag cake he'd posted to Tumblr, and a series of sexist tweets.

A damning report from Business Insider on Wednesday showed how far the brand's problems extended. From conversations with 14 former and current staffers, writer Rachel Premack concluded that BA was a "locus for exclusion and toxicity." Ryan Walker-Hartshorn, Rapoport's assistant for close to three years and the only Black woman on staff, was repeatedly denied raises from her $35,300 base salary and treated by Rapoport like "the help," in her words. "There is a big difference in terms of how they monetarily value the white employees versus the people of color," El-Waylly told BI.

On YouTube, BA's channel landed at exactly the right time. Compared to other food channels, which increasingly felt over-produced, the Test Kitchen videos were less polished; they had more personality; and they made the filming and editing processes clear. BA's videos resonated philosophically as well. Saffitz's Gourmet Makes, in which she attempts to recreate popular processed foods, is visibly an arduous and frustrating multi-day process, and at Mashable, Morgan Sung described Saffitz's series as an example of "probably the healthiest, most productive way to approach issues," while Quartz called her the "ultimate life coach."

Though the Test Kitchen's transformation into a celebrity force has been good for business, it's also set things up for exactly the reckoning that's happening now.

As with the recent situation involving Alison Roman (who got her start at BA), Chrissy Teigen, and Marie Kondo, the Test Kitchen's growing popularity and prestige outside the insular food world has complicated our ability to talk about its issues with clarity. Just as the bigger conversation about Roman and who tends to profit from cooking global food (the answer: white cooks) was largely portrayed as just a celebrity "Twitter feud," the changes at BA have been framed as the oversimplified result of a "brown face photo sparking anger" or the resurfacing of a "racially insensitive photo." The celebrity culture of the Test Kitchen begets the treatment celebrities get at gossip rags: reductive, lacking in nuance, and sounding the alarm for critics of "cancel culture." It's more than that, though.

The Test Kitchen's gargantuan online presence overrode its offline truth, as it projected and leaned into what people wanted to see, which was an Office-esque sitcom in which a friendly band of coworkers snickers behind the bumbling boss's back. As writer James Factora suggested in a tweet preceding all of this, perhaps the Test Kitchen's popularity is related to the widespread obsession with The Office. While Factora's tweet reads tongue-in-cheek, it's not wrong, and the love for the show perpetuated the illusion that a toxic workplace can be laughed at and lived with.

The Office has funny moments, but in a way, it led society astray. It suggested that a bad boss who makes clumsy, insensitive comments and makes life hard for employees can be a point of humor, instead of a toxic presence that could be booted. Who does that benefit except bosses? As BA turned the Test Kitchen into essentially its own sitcom, with each cooking star becoming an Office-esque talking head, it furthered the false notion of the perfect workplace, and people online were quick to gobble it up. The interactions between co-workers, even when off-putting, became meme fodder and pushed stans to throw their support behind their chosen star.

The idea that everything gets bad once it gets big sounds like a line ripped from Portlandia, but it is a maxim that applies to everything from emo bands to hashtags to dog breeds to cooking hosts. The higher the platform we give something, the more it can fall, and the discourse around the Test Kitchen seemed unprecedented in its fawning, at least within the food sphere. (Though we might have learned from situations like the downfall of Mario Batali.)

When we laud any product or person to this extent and make it an object of cultural obsession, it becomes easier to ignore the flaws and the parts of the conversation that don't fit what we want to see. This is true for the Test Kitchen, which could never really have met the inflated expectations of goodness that stan culture built up around it; people saw the perfect workplace because they wanted a perfect workplace. The problems at BA are institutional, but stan culture allowed people to compartmentalize the Test Kitchen as something separate and authentic.

In response to all of this, BA's parent company Condé Nast—a 111-year-old company with 6,000 employees globally at the start of this year—has announced that it will be "accelerating" its first ever diversity and inclusion report. On Tuesday, Amanda Shapiro, the editor of BA's Healthyish spinoff, became the brand's acting deputy director, and on Wednesday, the editors of BA said in a statement, "We want to be transparent, accountable, and active as we begin to dismantle racism at our brands."

Still, former staffers have identified Shapiro and other remaining BA employees as complicit in "toxic" behaviors. Despite calls for Matt Duckor, Condé Nast's head of programming for lifestyle and style, to step down over the unfair pay system and his mocking tweets about the gay community, he remains employed, as does Alex Delany. Both of them have issued social media apologies. With this new context, though, the joking tweets and fawning memes about the Test Kitchen don't hold up as well.

No surprise, Test Kitchen stans have responded to this all with even more memes and lionizing statements: "Update: we went to war for Sohla from the Bon Appétit test kitchen," reads one popular tweet. The height of the pedestal hasn't changed, though who's on the pedestal has. But as Bon Appétit changes, will its fan culture change also? To grapple with all of this new knowledge, it should.

Follow Bettina Makalintal on Twitter.

via VICE US - undefined US VICE US - undefined US via Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network