#done woot so much less tags-

[tittysuckersworld]

lil kaveh redraw of picture did a year ago!!! gonna dedicate to mikopiko and lily cause both have been amazing mutuals and ya- okay enjoy

[brutal-nemesis]

Glass Day 2020: Broken Glass-tys

Woot glass day! Dragging Castys out again for this cuz he’s fun to hurt. This is set very early in his time at the lab which is one of my favorite settings for whump :D!

Castys Masterlist

Ingredients:  glass in wounds, mild gore, slight dehumanization, needles, poison, muzzle

It took seventeen days for them to get tired of him talking. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. They seemed to have grown tired of it almost immediately, but up until now they’d just gag him whenever he got to be too much. Alas, Castys woke up from the morning’s round of organ harvests with something tightly covering the lower half of his face and a metal bit forced between his teeth, an unwelcome addition to the myriad of straps securing him to the table. He’d have loved to reach up and check what it was and also take it the fuck off, but today’s Hell Time was far from over so his wrists wouldn’t be free anytime soon. 

“What’s on the agenda for Subject 000001 today?” One of the workers asked as he checked Castys’s vitals, making sure he’d completely come back to life. Ugh, this stupid thing made it impossible for Castys to even make weird faces at the guy. 

“We’re starting foreign object healing tests on this one since the other test group is starting with it as well, and we’d like to compare the results...” Ooh, how well Castys could heal foreign objects with his special immortal boy powers! No, that probably wasn’t it at all. It was probably something horribly painfully terrible. Maybe if he’d listen to what the white coats were prattling on about he would know, but they were boring and used too much jargon. You’d think listening to people talk about how they were going to cut you up would be remotely interesting, but it really wasn’t. At least not the way they talked about it.

So it was a surprise but also not when they began making a series of cuts along his arm with their sharp little knives. You know, he had to give them credit for that. Most people who cut him didn’t have weapons that were quite as sharp, and dull blades hurt so much more. But most people who cut him didn’t start shoving sharp little whatever-the-hell chunks into his wounds seriously what are those fucks doing. Upon looking down, Castys discovered that, ah, they were shoving broken glass into his arm, how lovely. Double the pain of any injury by just shoving glass into it! And call it science!

Some of the wounds they stitched up for some reason, trapping the glass shards inside him, and some they just left open with the jagged little presents sticking out. Castys realized what they were actually up to the moment the needle entered his other arm, injecting the familiar poison into his veins. Very...mean of you, he thought as he sunk into the poison’s deadly embrace.

Came back to life and yup, his stupid flesh had healed around the glass. The pieces that hadn’t been sewn in had popped out, but the stitches had kept the rest of the glass in his arm. The thread of the stitches was still in his arm as well, now just useless embroidery over unbroken flesh. And, hopefully but also not hopefully, that thread and glass would have to come out. An unfun process, but one Castys would rather happen than being condemned to Glass In Your Arm.

“Subject 000001, flex your hand.” Okay, as much as he hated responding to that, this was his favorite command they gave him. Express permission to make rude hand gestures! They’d started giving him that command more often recently, probably since it was the only one he’d actually do every time without any, ah, persuasion. He winced a bit as he did it, the movement of his muscles against the glass in his arm a brand new kind of ouch. Was that what they were looking for? Who knows. No matter what happened they always wrote it down, which was the science part of the whole thing, he supposed. 

The other science part was Doing The Same Thing Again But Stepping It The Fuck Up A Notch, which this time translated to a stupid large shard of glass. This time they made an incision in his abdomen and shoved it in at an angle, causing Castys to clench his teeth tightly around the metal bit. God, even biting it hurt, as if the whole situation couldn’t get any worse. He could feel the glass sliding deeper into him, like...no, this wasn’t like anything he had ever felt before. Even when the glass was completely inside him they kept pushing it, further and further from the incision. After it had been shoved in a ridiculous distance they stopped and injected him with the poison once again.

He came back to a sharp, stinging pain. The glass was still inside him, wasn’t it? And oh boy, they were poking at the unnatural lump in his stomach where it still resided, taking notes all the while. The most refined of methods to be sure. And once again Castys found himself thinking ah, surely this is the worst it can get yes this will be today’s peak Horrible only to be absolutely proven wrong. Because next they brought out some nice, long needles. He was not a fan of needles not that anyone really was. At least hopefully no one was, could you imagine liking-

Intense, sharp pinching sensations lit up his arm. For added fun, they pressed down on some of the needles once they were fully inserted into his flesh. He felt a little snap along with even more little pinpricks of pain. The needles were also made of glass, fantastic. Who even came up with this stuff? Who woke up and decided, yeah, let’s shove little glass needles into Cast-sorry, Subject 000001’s arm and break them, filling his arm with horrible little splinters that-oh god they’re going to have to be dug out too I fucking hate it here. Another injection, another death, another instance of coming back to find that there was still glass inside him. Most of the needles that hadn’t been broken had popped out when he regenerated, but some were stuck inside him at weird angles along with the broken ones.

“Let’s clean up and break for lunch.” Castys had been tuning out most of their conversation, but those blessed words caught his attention. This weird glass bullshit was finally over! At least for now, because he could totally see them repeating the exact same thing again for posterity or whatever. Hopefully they would at least take this stupid thing off his face now that they were done. But when they didn’t put down their knives, Castys remembered that in fact there was something terrible that still had to happen before they were really done.

 Yup, he was right, this was absolutely the worst part. They sliced him open all over again and started to dig the pieces of glass out, but glass is slippery, especially when coated in blood. Even with rubber-tipped tweezers, it took them a few tries to grab some of the shards, pushing them deeper into his flesh in the process. Castys’s arm tensed in pain a few times while they did this, sometimes helping to push the glass out, and sometimes only making things worse. But could they be bothered to fish around for the little pieces of the broken glass needles? No, no they could not be. Their method of extracting it was both efficient and also incredibly painful, which was very on brand for this place.

Castys screwed his eyes shut as they sliced off strips of his arm. He wasn’t sure if it hurt more or less than them digging around with tweezers, but it wasn’t like he needed to pick what was worse. Just designate this whole experience as absolutely agonizing, please don’t repeat it, I’d like to get the fuck out of here, holy god just STOP- well, hey, they stopped. And after cleaning their tools, they started to leave, which was incredibly rude. Castys pounded on the table as much as he could with his wrists restrained, because, hello guys, I’m still fucking bleeding all over the place get the hell over here and kill me so I don’t have to lie here in pain until- and they’re gone. Great. Welcome to lying on a table with your arms and stomach sliced up for however long and thinking about how it sucks but somehow what comes after is going to somehow be so much worse so you should just enjoy it hour! And he couldn’t even talk to himself since they still hadn’t taken that stupid thing off his face.

And they wouldn’t anytime soon.

Castys gang tags: @as-a-matter-of-whump @thehopelessopus @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi

[gwtoomanyalts]

I posted 671 times in 2021

128 posts created (19%)

543 posts reblogged (81%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 4.2 posts.

I added 563 tags in 2021

#gw2 - 285 posts

#guild wars 2 - 114 posts

#human - 29 posts

#sylvari - 26 posts

#lol - 26 posts

#wow - 24 posts

#asura - 18 posts

#omg - 15 posts

#oh wow - 13 posts

#so cute! - 13 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#it does bother me that they are sliders tho but thankfully the reset to default button below them seems to only effect those camera options

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Holy crap I’m doing a giveaway! 50 followers!

Well, 54 actually but I only suspect one of being a prawn bot! Woot!

So, I’mma give something away to my followers.

Rules are simple, you have to be a follower (new followers welcome!) and you have to like or reblog this post. Also, you need to have your messages or asks open so I can contact you if you win. I’m pretty sure that’s all, I hope, seeing as I’ve never actually done one of these before!

On to the prize! What is up for grabs?

Three, yes THREE, Current (1 Ticket Cost Per) Black Lion Weapon Skins of your choice! By current I mean current, and as of writing this that is the Magical set https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magical_weapon_skins . If they change between now and the end of the giveaway that’s kinda out of my hands but I’m hoping they wont.

Giveaway will end and the winner will be drawn on September the 28th! That gives you two weeks to enter, and me a bit of a cushion from them changing out the weapon set for October on us in the middle of this.

Thank you all so much! Love ya!

24 notes • Posted 2021-09-14 16:45:48 GMT

#4

Another shot of my new Asura Rikka. Knowing her personality, that's now firmly living in my head, there was really no choice for her favorite mount other than a big beefy lizard in way too much damn armor.

26 notes • Posted 2021-02-08 02:45:35 GMT

#3

So.. Worked on Insa’s look a bit more recently. Um. I’m not obsessed with fashion wars you are.

Went leaning heavy into the techno shaman look, and it was an awesome opportunity to run with a color I don’t use too often. Lord it makes me wish we could dye the color of our magic though.

26 notes • Posted 2021-02-27 02:16:38 GMT

#2

Without further wait, Archivist Vibbu! She’s who I was wanting to spend my lvl 80 boost on!

Asura mesmer who is as short and small as I could make her. She’s 100% going to get the dagger in EoD to be a tiny little knife throwing demon.

29 notes • Posted 2021-08-06 22:52:12 GMT

#1

Random GW2 Idea/Thought/Rant

I want unarmed as a weapon, somehow. How in the blue hell they would pull off a weapon class that is defined by it’s lack of a weapon skin in a game built off skins for weapons and armor as much as GW2 is, I have no earthly idea. I can still want it though. An elementalist that moves around like a bender from avatar, a mesmer who literally mesmerizes through hand movements, a necromancer fighting with summoned bone claws, or a guardian running in and just brawling shit with holy punches. I do kinda see it as a more caster focused ‘weapon’, and two handed obviously so you go full unarmed.

God knows it’ll never happen, but it’s something I’ve been playing around with in my head recently. I suppose there could be different skins for it, various brass knuckles/claws/gloves, but I’d require at least one of the skins be just empty hands. Another style of skin I’d like? What they do with the Touch of Fog and the Touch of Madness torch skins, where put away they outright vanish but drawn you get an elemental glove effect more or less.

41 notes • Posted 2021-05-25 04:05:19 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[beautifulpaxielreads]

July Wrap Up

Books completed (ratings out of five stars)

Catching Teller Crow by Ambelin Kwaymullina* and Ezekiel Kwaymullina* (★★★★1/2), begun in June

Thorn (Dauntless Path #1) by Intisar Khanani (★★★), begun in June

Taking Down Evelyn Tait by Poppy Nwosu* (★★★1/2)

This Mortal Coil (This Mortal Coil #1) by Emily Suvada *(★★★★)

Books currently in progress

Dark of the West (Glass Alliance #1) by Joanna Hathaway

Please Don’t Hug Me by Kay Kerr*

Anna and the French Kiss (Anna and the French Kiss #1) by Stephanie Perkins

Woven in Moonlight (Woven in Moonlight #1) by Isabel Ibañez

*Australian author

Challenges, Games, and other Booklr interactions

Completed Racing to Read tag game, tagged by @storytime-reviews​ (July 26th, link+replies)

Posted photograph for @just0nemorepage​‘s JOMP Book Photography Challenge July, Day 22: Colours (July 22nd)

 Answered @lizziethereader​‘s Weekly Bookish Question #187 (June 28th – July 4th): Do you always rate (and/or review) books, or do you sometimes “just” read them? What determines if you do one or the other? (July 5th)

Reblogged @ceraunos​’ question regarding alternatives to Goodreads with my answer (July 1st)

Posted photograph for @thebookbud​’s July Book Photography Challenge, Day 1: July Goals (July 1st)

Chatted with @idacippolinni​ and @thelivebookproject​ on Tumblr’s PM service

GoodReads/Storygraph 2020 Reading Challenge: 35 books read out of 70. I’ve hit the halfway mark at last! And six books behind…oops. To be honest, though, I’ve started caring less about meeting my target – it’s more important that I enjoy what I’m reading.

Original Posts on Tumblr

Posted photograph of my current reads plus my latest bookshop haul (July 31st)

Posted graphic to celebrate reaching 1K followers (July 24th)

Posted request for book recs (July 16th)

Posted wrap up for June (July 1st)

Reflections on July’s Reading Goals

Reading more books by Indigenous Australians: FAIL!! I did try The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf and Grace Beside Me but neither of them quite clicked with me. I think the latter was written for quite a young audience, so maybe that was why. I still must read Growing Up Aboriginal, although I think with that one it may be the kind of book that you dip into rather than reading it start to finish. I also did buy Top End Girl, a memoir by Indigenous Australian actress Miranda Tapsell, so I’ll get onto that soon. Hopefully, next month will be a better month for this!

 I didn’t finish Richard Fidler and Kári Gíslason’s Saga Land, I just couldn’t get into it. I might try it in the future, though. I did finish Intisar Khanani’s Thorn, even though it frustrated the hell out of me. I kept reading despite this because I felt there definitely some important themes and issues Khanani was trying to explore, but I felt something went wrong in conveying it to the reader. I know others have enjoyed it though, so maybe it’s just me. *shrugs*

Started Marie Rutkoski’s The Midnight Lie, couldn’t get into it.  Yet to begin Colleen McCullough’s Caesar’s Women, at this point in my reading I’ll get to it either later this month or next month, not sure when yet. I have started Joanna Hathaway’s Dark of the West and Kay Kerr’s Please Don’t Hug Me, however, and I’m enjoying them. So I’ll call it a solid 2 out of 4 for this one.

 Only 2 book photography challenges done this month. TBH I’m not too worried about it, I would like to do more but I can’t always find books that fit the prompt. I’ll do them as the mood takes me.

 I reached the halfway point of my goal of 70! Still a long way to go though, but as I said before, I’m not worrying too much about it.

New followers

109!!! Are you all real?

 A lot of the blogs I checked doing my monthly tally had zero content or content that looked suspiciously like spam. A new Tumblr trend? Or are the bots taking over?

In other news, I reached 1K followers this month!! Woot woot! Hope you’re all enjoying my content.

Interesting observations

See my note under new followers.

As I mentioned before, my attitude towards my reading goals is shifting. I don’t mind so much now about not hitting my goal – it’s more about enjoying the actual reading part.

When I check my dash each morning, to find 30+ notes – well, it’s overwhelming. But thank you all for being so attentive. PS. Likes are great, reblogs are better (hint hint).

I’ve noticed I’m buying more books (as opposed to borrowing them from the library) this month, and I’m wondering how much of that is due to the pandemic and a fear of the not-happening-yet-but-I’m-sure-it-will-soon lockdown. It’s like I want to have as many books as possible in case I won’t be allowed out of the house to get them, thereby running out of books to read. I need to get out of this mindset. Just be calm, Ellie! Be calm!

 I’ve stopped reading ebooks almost entirely. The storage management app on my tablet keeps nagging at me to uninstall the books app but I can’t quite let go of it yet. I might get it to it. One day.

I uninstalled Audible and deleted my account with them! I felt bad supporting Amazon and anyway, I never listened to the audiobooks I had purchased.

 Reading (and reading-related) Goals for August

Finish the books I’m currently reading (see above).

Make a start on each of the books on my TBR shelf: Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia (edited by Anita Heiss), Tweet Cute (Emma Lord), Caesar’s Women (Masters of Rome #4) by Colleen McCullough, Top End Girl (Miranda Tapsell), and Stars Like Us by Frances Chapman.

Read more books by authors of colour.

Keep doing my own thing on my blog! Not worry so much about content.

Reread Ace of Shades (The Shadow Game #1) by Amanda Foody, and continue the series with King of Fools (which I have yet to read) in preparation for the third book Queen of Volts.

That’ll do for this month – whew! See you in September for my August wrap-up.

Until then, happy reading!

[dr-gloom]

idk(how :)) if you're still taking the heart-breaking prompts list thing, but if you still are, maybe 23 and logicality?

23. “I was doing fine. Really, and then you waltz back in like you didn’t break my heart.”

woot okay 

should I start naming these?

Death of a Bachelor

Fandom: Sanders’ Sides

Pairing: Logicality

Warnings/Tags: lots of angst, past relationship, TV shows, it’s a little ridiculous, happy ending, some swearing

Logan had just come here for a nice cup of coffee, a peaceful atmosphere, and free WiFi. He hadn’t expected to see anyone he knew. 

Especially not him.

Logan had just sat down when the bell above the door chimed. He wasn’t really curious, but it seemed almost like human reflex to look over when a door opens. And that’s when he saw him.

His smile was just as bright as the day they’d met, and just as carefree. Logan hated how that smile made him feel. He hated that lighter-than-air feeling in his chest, and how his heart beat just a little faster. He hated that he still felt like this, after all this time. 

He couldn’t tear his eyes away as he watched Patton practically skip up to the counter and tell the barista a joke as he orders his drink. Logan quickly turns back to his laptop, ducking his head. He prays Patton doesn’t notice him, or if he does he doesn’t approach. 

“Logan!”

Shit. 

Patton is suddenly at Logan’s side, bouncing on the balls of his feet excitedly. Logan wished he’d forgotten that the other did that. “Hi, Patton.”

“It’s been so long! Oh my gosh! How are you doing?”

Logan sighs. “I’ve been fine, Patton.”

“Can I sit with you? It seems like there aren’t any free tables!” 

Logan looks around. Sure enough, every table is taken. Logan restrains another sigh. “Of course, Patton.”

Patton smiles and sits across from Logan, almost instantly beginning a conversation. Logan doesn’t really pay attention to what he’s saying, trying his best to tune the other out and get some work done. Occasionally he can’t help but tune in to a sentence or two, though it doesn’t seem like Patton is really saying anything of substance. He always was one for idle chatter.

“And I told her that I was really sorry, but….”

“So I had to leave! I don’t think they were very happy with me…”

“Anyways, that’s what happened, and I’ve just been waiting for…”

“But I guess people get busy! It’s okay.”

Logan sighs and sets his coffee aside. “Patton, would you care to join me somewhere more…private?”

Patton’s face brightened, though there was an undercurrent of nervousness that Logan couldn’t make sense of. He stood and packed his laptop into his satchel, then led Patton out of the coffee shop. For once, Patton didn’t try to make small talk while they walked, and Logan was left to his thoughts. 

He’d met Patton nearly a year ago. His friend Roman had convinced him to try out for The Bachelorette (despite being gay; Roman thought it’d be funny to see his gay friend on TV trying to woo a woman), and he’d actually made it onto the show. Patton had also made it onto the show, and when they weren’t with the woman (Logan’s forgotten her name) they were with each other. 

Logan hadn’t liked him at first. In fact, he didn’t like anyone on the show, but Patton had refused to leave him alone. He’d somehow wormed his way into conversation, and Logan had found that his initial opinion of Patton had been wrong. He was intelligent, kind, and completely capable of making sensible jokes.

Before he knew it, he was spending almost every free moment with Patton, even if they were on camera. He began to notice that the two of them were being recorded more often, though he attributed it to the fact that the other bachelors were dwindling. Logan had been watching Patton joke with one of the few remaining bachelors when he realized he was feeling strange. His heart felt like it was fluttering in his chest, and he got a light feeling in his lungs and stomach. 

It took him a couple weeks to realize what that feeling was, and when he did he was - dare he say it - scared. 

Little did he know Patton was going through a similar crisis in the middle of his date with the bachelorette. He was the guy everyone was betting on since he seemed to click with her so well, and he did like her, but he was just realizing that he liked Logan more. And well, Patton being Patton, that didn’t stay secret for very long. 

It had been one of the rare instances where the camera had left them alone, and the two were taking full advantage of the situation to talk about deeper things. They’d been talking on the couch with a movie on in the background, not paying attention to it. Logan can’t remember what they’d been talking about, but he remembers the way his brain had record-scratched when Patton blurted, “I really really like you and I don’t really know what to do about it but I don’t wanna win the show anymore because I like you more than Samantha!” 

Ah, so that was her name.

Patton’s rushed confession had led to a long discussion and Logan’s own admittance of feelings. They agreed to play their parts on camera, but every private moment was for the two of them. And it worked too, until there were only three men left. 

Logan didn’t get the rose. 

He’d hoped that wouldn’t be the end, that Patton would throw in the towel and quit the show with him, but Patton just gave him a sad smile and waved goodbye. Logan went home, broken-hearted. He’d convinced himself that Patton had lied about his feelings and had gotten together with Samantha. He had no definitive proof of that, however; he refused to watch the show. 

He didn’t want to see the man he loved get together with someone else.  

Logan was brought back to the present when the two men finally reached the park. He guided Patton to a bench far from the park’s paths to give them a little privacy, ignoring the slight feelings of nostalgia. Patton sits beside him, kicking his legs and smiling. “Soooooo, how’ve ya been, Lo?”

“It’s Logan.”

Patton’s smile fades. “Oh. Right, sorry.”

Logan adjusts his glasses. “And I’ve been perfectly fine, thank you for asking.”

Patton glances at Logan. “So, uhm… I guess you wanna talk about us?”

Logan takes a deep breath. If Patton needs it outlined for him in bold then so be it. “There is no us, Patton. You’ve made that quite clear.”

Patton blinks, confused and hurt. “I- what?”

“Don’t play innocent with me, Hart. You know, if you truly didn’t hold feelings for me, there was no reason you needed to string me along. I would have understood; we were, after all, on a television show where we were attempting to woo a woman.” His tone comes off a little more scathing than he really meant, but a hurt little part of him convinced him he deserved to finally let it all out, to let Patton know how he hurt him. 

“Wh- but I do-”

“Don’t. We agreed that if one of us got voted off, the other would leave as well. After all it would be incredibly distasteful to pretend to date someone else while the other was watching from home, wouldn’t you say?” 

Patton winces. “I-I’m sorry, Lo, I was trying to-”

“It’s Logan. My name is Logan. Only my friends get to call me Lo, or L, or any other asinine nickname they please, and you are no friend of mine. I was doing fine, really, and then you waltz back into my life without regard like you didn’t break my heart. I want you to leave. Leave me alone, and leave my life, like you intended to a year ago. Go back to Susan.”

“…Samantha.”

“Whatever.”

Patton sniffles and wipes his eyes, nodding and standing up. “Okay, Lo… I’m sorry.” He walks away, leaving Logan alone on the bench. 

Over the next few days, something about the encounter keeps scratching at Logan’s brain. For reasons he can’t fathom he finds himself searching for their season and bringing up the last couple of episodes. He watched the episode where Samantha chose Patton and the other male, and Logan was left rose-less. He watched as Patton gave a pained smile and waved goodbye, as the emotions he’d thought he’d hidden well were written across his face, and then that was it. 

He watched the next episode, watched as Patton explained that he’d met someone on the show that he liked, but it wasn’t Samantha. He watched Patton talk about this amazing guy who was funny and smart and kind in his own special way, how he made Patton feel like he was floating on air. He watched as he told the audience that he’d planned to leave the show with this guy but the night before he got kicked off he got the news that his grandma was in the hospital. He explained that he needed the money from being on the show to help pay the bill, and that if this guy still wanted to be with him, to please call him tomorrow night. The producer even let the TV guys put Patton’s number on the screen. And then….

“I love you so much, Lo. Please call me. I’m sorry.”

Shit. 

“Hello?”

Logan’s heart squeezed at the utterly dejected tone on the other end of the line. “Ah, Patton, I-”

“Wait, Logan? How’d you get my number?”

“I…. Finally watched the last episode. It was on the screen.”

“Oh…”

“Yes. I… I need to apologize. I was being incredibly selfish when I said all those things at the park, and I hadn’t given you a chance to explain your end. I was hurt, but that is no excuse for my behavior. I had no idea about any of that, and if I had, I would not have kept you waiting for a year. I am terribly sorry.”

There’s a brief pause where Logan can hear the faint static over the line and his heart lodges itself into his throat. A brief moment where his brain seems to work at maximum speed to make him paranoid and anxious. 

And then Patton laughs. 

It’s the same, full, joyful sound Logan remembers, and his anxious and fearful mood is fighting with the utterly in love one blooming in his chest at the sound. They then lose out to his confusion and he gathers the courage to speak up. “…Patton? Is everything alright?”

He giggles. “I just- you- I tried to- when we were having coffee-” More giggling. “I guess you still kinda zone out when I talk too long, huh?”

Logan’s face flushed as he recalled what he could remember of the conversation and connected the dots. “Wh- I didn’t-”

“It’s okay, Lo.” Logan can hear the smile in his voice, “You can make it up to me. Let’s say… 6:30, that little diner on Watt?”

Logan smiles, sitting in his armchair. “That sounds lovely.”

“Great, I’ll see you then!”

Patton hung up, and Logan spent the rest of the afternoon fretting over what to wear and what to say. 

He even showed up half an hour early, but Patton showed how well he knew Logan because he was there waiting.

And this time, Logan got the rose. 

A/N: oh my god I’m so sorry this turned out waaaaayyyyy longer than i intended. disclaimer; ive never seen the bachelor or the bachelorette, so im basing this off of like, the few gifs/clips ive seen through tumblr and shit. hope you like!

uhhhhhhhh i guess i should start tagging these???

@hungry-red-panda @neonb-fly @chemically-imbalanced-romance @punsterterry @dead4sevenyears @metaphoricalpluto2

[imaginexmeintheuniverse]

Newt ❤️

14 Day OTP Challenge

Day 4: Confessing feelings

A/N: first official newt fic woot woot! PS. the ending is CheesyAF™ because I’m awful at endings so consider yourself warned.

All theother Gladers love you (or at least tolerate you in Gally’s case), granted thatmight be because you’re the only the only girl there. At any rate, itfrustrates you to no end that Newt, whom you’ve you tried so hard to get tolike you since day one, won’t so much as glance your way. Whenever you hadasked the other guys why he didn’t like you, they always brushed you off,saying it wasn’t true and that you were just paranoid. At first you took theirword for it and tried to ignore it, but as time went on you couldn’t ignore thefact that he would be friendly and talk to everyone in the Glade except you. There’sno doubt in your mind that he disliked you, the real question was why? Were youtoo slow when you worked in the gardens? Were your knots not on par? Or was itperhaps because you were the only girl and he didn’t want the system they hadin place to be disturbed?

He’s neverbeen outwardly rude, but he always answers you in as little words possible andthe only time you ever see the guy smile, it’s directed towards anything butyou. This is beyond frustrating for you, especially since you fell for him thesecond he pulled you out of the box. Either way, he has you wrapped around hislittle finger and that definitely wasn’t fair.

After beingtold by Gally this morning that you were being transferred to the Builders, asordered by the second-in-command, you were already pissed, and after having aterrible first day on that job, you’d just about had enough.

As you’remarching over to Newt, to where he stands by the bonfire with a cup of Gally’sdrink in hand, you no longer care about the reason why he might hate you, youjust need to put an end to whatever grudge he seems to have against you withcup of Gally’s drink in hand. Look at him,laughing and chatting up the Greenie. He has never been like that with you.

Who does he think he is? He never speaks to you, barely evenlooks at you, and now he’s transferred you from the job you were perfectlycontent having in the gardens, to the builders where so far you’ve nearly sawedyou thumb off three times, sent two shanks to the med-jack hut because of aplywood accident, and gotten a nasty gash on your own forehead from the saidplywood incident.

The timingis perfect because just as you’re a few steps away from him, the newbie isdragged away by some of the guys to play a drinking game, leaving Newt aloneand vulnerable to your ambush. By the time you’re standing in front of him,your anger completely takes over whatever civil route you were going to take.

“Whatthe shuck, Newt!” What littleamount of self-control is left, however, is used to cross your arms over yourchest to keep yourself from slapping him in the face. “Why do you hate me?I’ve always been nice you and you ignore me all the time!” He doesn’t sayanything, and the confused look on his face almost makes you want to go easy onhim. Almost. “You know, you’vereally got some nerve getting me transferred- I worked my ass off shovelinganimal klunk for weeks to earn my spot in the gardens just like all the othershanks here- what have I ever done to you?”

“You…You think I hate you? Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to be aroundyou?” You’re fully aware of the crowd of Gladers that’s formed, andalthough they may be a fair distance away you can feel everyone watching thetwo of you intently, but you couldn’t care less.

“Look,I get it. You don’t like me, but that doesn’t mean you get to—”

“Ican’t stand being near you because when I’m around you I can’t do my job right,for shuck’s sake!” The words get scrambled in his head and he doesn’t knowhow to tell you that every time the sunlight hits your face at just theright angle, or when you smile, or laugh at something he says, he has to resistthe overwhelming urge to just grab your face in his hands and kiss you rightthere— and he won’t even mention the fact that he can’t take his eyes off youwhen you’re not paying attention.“I can’t think straight because you’re always there, and I can’t have you.”

Hisconfession has you totally confused to say the least. The silence between thetwo of you seems to stretch for miles and he thinks that this interaction hasmet its sufficiently awkward end, but then you surprise him by uttering thelast words he’d expect to hear from you.

“Youcan.”

You’llprobably blame this on Gally’s drink if things go south, but you choose to takeadvantage fo his momentarily shocked state to close the remaining distancebetween you and push yourself up on your toes to brush your lips to his. Of coursethe shank is about a head taller than you so you have to end up placing a handon his shoulder to keep you balance and fully press your lips onto his.

When youland back down on your heels, you stay close to him and allow your hand tolinger. His eyes are still closed and he exhales at an uneven pace as thoughhe’s still processing what just happened. Slowly opening his eyelids, hedoesn’t notice the rest of the Gladers whooping and howling at what justhappened because all he sees is you.

You’rethere, you’re smiling up at him, and you’re waiting for him to respond somehowand he’d be an idiot not to kiss you back right this fucking second.

So for the first time since you’ve entered theGlade, you witness Newt’s most genuine smile and it’s for you, and you only. That’sthe last thing you register before he scoops you up in his arms and does whathe’s been wanting to do for far too long. 

Tags: @coltcas

Masterlist

[insecure-hbo-the-recaps]

hella blows

Previously on Insecure: Issa is cool with Daniel, but he knows what it is. She’s all about her hoe-tation. Molly’s dad cheated on Molly’s mom which made her feel stupid enough to sleep with Dro. Issa wanted to make sure Daniel knew they were both seeing other people.

Issa’s alarm goes off and at first it looks like she’s beyond late for work. But it’s something even worse than that: she has to get up to move her car out of designated parking to a free side of the street before she gets a ticket or tow. Ikr? About 65% of the reason I want to move out of my current neighborhood even though it’s a huge hassle. “Ay! Your bumper bout to fall off,” some idiot points out obliviously. “Thanks!” Issa trills in a curt “no duh” kind of way.

Molly is working late. Dro calls and she hesitates before answering, clearly not looking forward to it. She thinks they’re going to have a serious conversation but of course he is just calling to shoot the shit. I feel like probably unfairly this paints Dro as suspect? Who fucks their lifelong friend while in an open marriage and then calls like nothing is different? I get the counterargument that that may be WHY he would call and act like nothing is different. But I don’t trust these fools.

Molly gets a call on the other line, and tells Dro she has to go because it’s her mom. But rather than brace herself for the sure emotional baggage that would come from that, Molly actually doesn’t answer, and just sits there thinking about what a mess her life is. She and Dro apparently have plans to see each other the next day, which is ostensibly the real reason why he called.

Shout out to Issa’s superfluously woke outerwear. She’s wearing that sweatshirt with a somewhat less than casual long skirt by the way. She has no car, so she has to take the bus. She eyes some latino kid as though she recognizes him. He regards her awkwardly as if he recognizes her too. She slides Daniel a potential come thru text and heads into her apartment, bored and restless. She has an email for somethin called a “Sexplosion,” which is appealing to her in this moment of drudgery. She bored.

Deciding this particular boredom is not something she can merely abide, Issa figures maybe she’ll stop in on Neighbor Bae. Her bathroom freshen up routine consists of mouthwash and an aggressive verbal affirmation seminar. She’s one hundred percent gasssed up.

She obliviously heads downstairs and knocks on Neighbor Bae’s door. He is surprised to see her, but he’s clearly pretending not to know whether or not he asked her over, which is polite. Issa assumes her dropping by should be welcomed, but Eddie has company. He makes needlessly polite excuses when honestly he didn’t have to because who the fuck is Issa? Mama gotta have a life too.

Although Issa has to vent via mirror freestyle (“I could cry right now I’m so embarrassed and mad, I hope you can’t get it up and that her pussy is trash”) I mean, come on. Be reasonable. You’re going to have to get a much thicker skin and a lot more comfortable with rejection if you’re going to try to be about that ho life. And you know what, it’s not for everyone. I had a friend who for some reason thought she was this perfect princess in her mind when really when she’d tell me stories I’d be looking at her like this is some random bitch who will do cocaine with strangers on a first date and then fuck them on the way home so why you think you deserve a doctor husband though? The answer to that question is that she was white and therefore delusional, but the overall point is that not everybody can brave the harsh landscape of being single and dating, and if you try to fake it you’ll just end up crying at bars when men ask you why you’re single (which also happened to this friend).

I really hate when I take accidental pauses like this one lol:

As Issa irritatedly deals with not getting the dick she psyched herself up for, she gets a double whammy of rejection when Daniel answers her come thru text that he’s busy. Issa is not feeling singleness at this moment. There’s an interlude with Baby Voiced Darius where he asks her, just randomly for no reason, if she’s going to Target. “Why would I be?” Issa snaps. I mean, it’s a fair question. I’m potentially going to Target 40% of the time in any random day.

In some other cool, quirky, millennial loft in Los Angeles, Lawrence is making some kind of pitch to a motley group of assembled coworkers. So now we finally get some details on the elusive Woot Woot: “it aggregates all of your data, where you shop, where you eat, where you drink, and it makes recommendations based on that.” Motherfucker how is this any different from all the bullshit Netflix keeps recommending me 67 times that I’m not going to watch, or how google is so Big Brother on us now that if I’m watching or listening to something and decide to look up part of it, it can autocomplete my search based on less than one word? I mean to say… technology been way able to do that for a long time, bruh. Everyone cheers and applauds and Lawrence, in a very ugly navy cardigan, grins big at what seems like praise and encouragement of his idea. And… this was the idea he’d been working on while unemployed for two years? AND WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH “WOOT WOOT”?!

Two guys that I’m going to assume are Lawrence’s superiors are giving him feedback. Bosses in the start up world look like this:

I’m glad I’m not inclined to this field because it’s honestly not something that I think I would be able to take seriously lol. They say it’s great and they loved the presentation. While their feedback sounds positive and Lawrence obviously thinks it’s a vote of confidence, if you listen closely they’re doing nothing but praising him individually and offering compliments to the fact that he is working hard and competently, not praising the viability of his work specifically. They make no comments whatsoever about the app being a good idea or potential product. Then, just to underscore the fact that they are Clueless White People, the fat guy asks Lawrence about his shoes, and calls them fly. I would take issue that at this point it seems like the show just makes fun of white people just to mock them and make white people as a whole unsympathetic but on the other hand… white people stay doing fake bonding shit like this when they don’t have to, so if they look bad, then, motherfuckers, stop doing the shit.

Where do you suppose Issa and Molly are? I’m at a loss as to whether this is a Chinese restaurant, a really shitty travel agency, or somewhere where you can get your eyebrows waxed for eight dollars. Molly is telling Issa she’s worried that she may have fucked up her friendship with Dro, and Issa points out that that wouldn’t be surprising considering that she fucked her friend. I think that it’s nice just a couple episodes ago Molly was having this talk with Issa, and now Issa’s having it with Molly.

It turns out they’re in a mechanic waiting room while Issa gets an estimate to fix her car. Molly opines that Dro is the only person/man who’s seen her at her worst so why would she go and complicate things this way? And the way I feel about that is… if you start fucking a married man you really can’t be thinking about any of this shit where he may potentially be a person that is anything other than a married man. Remind me again that at some point during this story line I take a complete break to tell y'all about how I was fucking a married man. The point is anyway that Molly is doing the most emotionally when you’d think it would be easy to understand that in a situation like this specifically you need to do your best to chill. Her current thought is to tell Dro she doesn’t want it to happen again when they hang out later that night.The mechanic comes back and tells Issa they’ll have to order parts to do the repairs (which duh she’s getting body work done) and it’ll be about 5500. Issa balks at that price tag.

Remember in the previous episode where Molly and Issa talked about a vacation? Molly still wants to go (listing a bunch of countries and islands that start with M, prompting Issa to chide annoyedly “there are other places with other letters”) seemingly oblivious to the fact that if Issa can’t afford to repair her car, she can’t afford to go on vacation. In hindsight, this show really put a LOT of effort into very deliberate continuity between episodes, for really small things.

Issa is frustrated because she had been doing really well with all her various life parts and now all of them seem to be scattering out abruptly. She’s still having trouble accepting that men she’s seeing casually aren’t just available for her whenever she wants them to be. Ok so… how are you saying you want Daniel to know to stay in his place, and you want Mexican Bae not to expect anything from you, but you want them to be willing to do whatever you want when you want it? Again: be reasonable sis. If you’re gonna dish it out then obviously you have to take it back too. Then she acknowledges sex with her is mediocre and, again, this is where she loses me. I don’t think I would ever describe sex with me as “acceptable” except on occasions when I know I am making no effort to leave an impression. Come on now. Half the dudes I got to stick around as adults - when sex is less of an issue and everyone has more baggage - is probably 80% because sex was the only draw. And I’m partially joking (clearly I have the delusionally high self esteem of a complete asshole and I like it that way), but seriously it’s something that you have to think about as you get older. The Panties Card gets flimsier and flimsier, until it is no longer a guaranteed bargaining chip to maintain someone’s attention which frankly was news to me.

Back at the super cool Los Angeles tech start up, Lawrence stops by Arpana’s desk and playfully asks her questions around what he should do with his impending takeover of the app world. Arpana makes this face:

Clearly she is clued into what Lawrence is not, which is that the presentation did not go as well as he thought it did. She tells him he should lower his expectations, because she doesn’t think Woot Woot is viable: it felt outdated. Speaking of delusional self esteem, Lawrence cooly replies that it’s fine if she doesn’t see the vision and who cares because she’s not the one greenlighting it anyway. As he gets up to leave, Arpana adds that clearly the bosses weren’t into it like they were some other app where they asked questions and dug through the pitch looking for flaws then scheduled a follow up. It slowly sinks in on Lawrence that maybe she has a point, but when she says “it’s like they didn’t want to offend you,” Lawrence puts his defenses back up and tells her that she’s entitled to her opinion. While I don’t approve of Lawrence’s childish blindspots, I do approve of his polite passive aggressive work rebuttals. (Professional environments love passive aggression.)

Laker bar. Molly shows up for her date with Dro, nervous about the speech she plans to drop. She awkwardly explains that she feels like things are different though objectively Dro’s behavior doesn’t seem in any way out of the ordinary. He tells her she’s being dramatic and to calm the fuck down. They playfully joke about french fries and apparently that’s all it took to defuse the tension.

The tension was so de-fused that they went back to Molly’s place after the game to offer us another excellently choreographed sex scene. A.) Molly’s headboard is everything (quality headboards are not in reach of everyone’s financial adult life, sigh) and b.) of all the ones we’ve seen so far I think Molly’s sex scenes are the only ones that are actually sexy.

Meanwhile, Issa has invited Mexican Bae over to her place. She doesn’t really want to date him, so this is all a ruse to hopefully get some dick. As she makes pointed conversation drawing attention to her visible bra and the obscene shortness of her skirt, at this point it’s like… do you even actually want some dick or is this just about proving a point? Like are you actually horny and wanting to get fucked? Nico plays along politely, even ignoring her obvious come ons. We are then treated to an awkward scene where Nico wants to treat Issa like a person and she wants to treat him like a conquest. It’s painful to witness.

Issa decides to try a more direct move and just initiates kissing. Nico tries to bring the date back around to their dinner reservations. I feel like the fact that he’s meant to be fairly older than Issa is supposed to play into this. Issa goes so far as to try to bypass this, and when Nico tells her to slow down - “I really like you and I don’t want to rush past this, I want to get to know you” - it just makes Issa angry. Even then, Nico is STILL WILLING to go out to dinner, but Issa apparently is too prideful for this so she flatly rejects him and watches him leave. Sigh. I do understand where she’s coming from, I do. But she’s going about it all the wrong way - very defensively and insecurely. (Oh! I get it now! Ba dum bum.)

Back at Molly’s, she and Dro are doing the post coital thing. He points out that she said she didn’t want to do this anymore. Molly is clearly in a dick haze because her defenses are vastly lowered. She wants to know the boundaries of their non-relationship but Dro is all cool and aloof. He does tell her he isn’t looking for a second side piece which you’d think considering the circumstances would clue her into how ridiculous a conversation this is. She’s asking a married man whether he wants to fuck other women on the side of his wife, isn’t that inherently answering its own question?

Anyway Dro says that Candace knows they are sleeping together and in fact it was her idea to open the relationship. Or so he says. Molly, like a fool, just wants to indulge her butterflies. Her caution is just lip service. She wanted to be told what she wanted to hear.

Another day at work, Lawrence decides to stop by the bosses’ office - where they are standing at waist high desks instead of sitting - and follow up regarding his presentation. Recalling Arpana’s words, he asks whetehr they have any feedback regarding his Woot Woot pitch. I really like the way they framed this shot:

as they shoot each other uncomfortable looks at being put on the spot. Lawrence is speaking in terms of how to to move forward with a viable project, but the bosses do nothing but offer more empty compliments. They have no additional thoughts that would signify any real concerns that would be relevant were this to be an actual project they undertook. The fat boss says they love having his “perspective and input” which delicately suggests Lawrence is there as a diversity hire and not as a real and valuable part of the team. “You bring a lot to the team,” the skinny guy says. The fat guy gives a typically encouraging bullshit line of being excited to see “Lawrence 2.0” and the skinny guy laughs sycophantically. If Lawrence still doesn’t get it, the fact that they overcompensate about his shoes again (“what store did you get those from again?”) should leave him in no doubt. Emasculating… no? (I have far too many thoughts on this subject so let’s move on. They aren’t particularly original, so I’ll spare you.)

Sexplosion. Hey! There are strippers doing pole tricks and chocolatey penis cakes so… what is Tiffany’s job again that this is a thing she does? Issa, Molly, Kelli, and Tiffany stroll up and take a bunch of free condoms. Issa thinks Molly broke things off with Dro because she asks why she needs condoms. They talk about barriers for oral sex and I just remembered this is the episode where they have the problematic, regressive conversation about oral sex.

So, let’s just get this out of the way: Tiffany, the only married one who is clearly the most whitewashed of the group, is the only one to openly acknowledge she loves giving blowjobs. Kelli doesn’t do it wholesale, Issa doesn’t like to do it, and Molly gives the Carrie Bradshaw (because of course this was a conversation on SEASON ONE of sex and the city) response of how it’s not her favorite but she’s flexible. Question: is this what black women are still on in the streets?

Being called a “ho” and ostracized for having any kind of sexuality is something that I left behind in high school once I was an adult and didn’t see any reason to need my choices validated by gossip and/or people I didn’t know. And the conservative quasi-religious culture of patriarchal standards and misogynist perspectives is something I completely abandoned in grad school when the only black men around that wanted to date me behaved like the shit I’d left behind in high school and I realized I was totally unfamiliar with any other cultural norms. I’m not going to go off on a tangent to get to the bottom line that I would hope this is not still a widespread understanding amongst young black women these days though I would not be entirely surprised if it were. I want to sum it up as so: when I exclusively dated black men some of the time I’d be sleeping with a guy who would refuse to ever kiss me, for apparently no reason whatsoever other than it was culturally normal. I was surprised when I started dating white men and they really do want to wake up and kiss you on the mouth first thing in the morning. I slept with a motherfucker all four years of undergrad who never went down on me ONCE. Like, I can’t - I feel like I’m biased and I don’t want to preach from that perspective, so I’m not even going to dig into this.

I will say this - I don’t know how the fuck you expect to successfully date as an adult when you have whole chunks of sexual entrees completely off the menu - for WHATEVER ideological reason - yet continue to think you are dating as a normal person. It’s a hang up. Call it a hang up and accept it.

The next day, Molly is reading an article by Serena Williams about closing the pay gap. Damn, that makes me feel bad. Her mom is still calling and leaving voicemails. At an office across town, Lawrence makes amends with Arpana by acknowledging “Woot Woot” is dead. He tells her she was right, and also there was a racial component to their behavior. Arpana bonds with him as a WOC. Lawrence finally starts to accept he was wrong about his app. They both slowly realize there’s some attraction there that might go somewhere, sometime soon. Every single Woot Woot joke this show has made has been hilarious.

Issa is at Daniel’s listening to some song he produced. It sounds good. Issa says it has a black Daft Punk vibe whiiiiich… it sounds good and nothing like Daft Punk at the same time. They have a moment about how apparently Issa likes champagne with a shot of Jameson. That’s new. They are very flirty and comfortable and eventually start kissing. Issa pushes him down on the couch and as they start to undress, she stops him and gets down on her knees. Speaking of hang ups, I refused to ever give a blowjob literally on my knees, until I started playing it up as an ego thing.

Somewhere across town, Molly is also having a sexy night, in some fancy sterile bathroom taking a bubble bath while Dro sits on the edge of the tub. Before they get too far along, Dro gets a text from his wife who has accidentally locked herself out of their home. Molly is disappointed, and plays it off badly. They were doing a fancy hotel thing ordering in romantic shit which… I mean, I don’t know, if they like it then I’ll abide it silently. Have taken a bath with a guy I was casually sleeping with though. The water was so hot we were both sweating and the wine glasses were fogging up. He asked me how my day was and when I started to reply he started using his fingers on me, but ordered me to keep talking. That dude and I were basically hate fucking, but that moment was always sexy as hell to me.

Back at Daniel’s he is impressed with Issa’s blowjob skills. And then this sequence of events happens: he’s about to come, and he grabs Issa’s head, somehow holding it in place until:

Look! I took a screenshot for you! Bwahahahaha. Seriously how would that work logistically? He’s holding her head down, so he… strategically pulls it up and manages to put it in exactly the right place so that he could shoot her in the eye? Issa is pissed. Daniel acts like he doesn’t know why she’s upset. Issa is so mad she’s incoherent, and forcefully pushes him away when he tries to touch her. Issa’s anger is on one level due to the aforementioned hangups about blowjobs - she said she felt like once you sucked a dude’s dick he felt like he conquered you and relegated you to ho status - but on another level, Daniel is rude as fuck and it is NEVER ok to do a facial without express consent. Her anger is justified, even if it is a bit exacerbated by other issues. Any man who is not an ain’t-shit knows it’s rude to come in your mouth without permission LET ALONE ON YOUR FACE! Hell I’ve dated men that wouldn’t come on me even when I asked, or my ex who would always pull away without my asking, even though I didn’t give a goddamn WHERE he came, EVER. Like, Daniel’s rude as fuck.

So, Issa tells him fuck you and leaves. She ends up hovering around a gas station waiting for her Uber pool that already has two people in it, holding a wet towel to her eye. “Issa?” the driver asks. “Issa car pool!” and everyone laughs except Issa because she’s tired of getting the idea that she’s the butt of every joke.

[insecure-hbo-recaps]

hella blows

Previously on Insecure: Issa is cool with Daniel, but he knows what it is. She's all about her hoe-tation. Molly's dad cheated on Molly's mom which made her feel stupid enough to sleep with Dro. Issa wanted to make sure Daniel knew they were both seeing other people.

Issa's alarm goes off and at first it looks like she's beyond late for work. But it's something even worse than that: she has to get up to move her car out of designated parking to a free side of the street before she gets a ticket or tow. Ikr? About 65% of the reason I want to move out of my current neighborhood even though it's a huge hassle. "Ay! Your bumper bout to fall off," some idiot points out obliviously. "Thanks!" Issa trills in a curt "no duh" kind of way.

Molly is working late. Dro calls and she hesitates before answering, clearly not looking forward to it. She thinks they're going to have a serious conversation but of course he is just calling to shoot the shit. I feel like probably unfairly this paints Dro as suspect? Who fucks their lifelong friend while in an open marriage and then calls like nothing is different? I get the counterargument that that may be WHY he would call and act like nothing is different. But I don't trust these fools.

Molly gets a call on the other line, and tells Dro she has to go because it's her mom. But rather than brace herself for the sure emotional baggage that would come from that, Molly actually doesn't answer, and just sits there thinking about what a mess her life is. She and Dro apparently have plans to see each other the next day, which is ostensibly the real reason why he called.

Shout out to Issa's superfluously woke outerwear. She's wearing that sweatshirt with a somewhat less than casual long skirt by the way. She has no car, so she has to take the bus. She eyes some latino kid as though she recognizes him. He regards her awkwardly as if he recognizes her too. She slides Daniel a potential come thru text and heads into her apartment, bored and restless. She has an email for somethin called a "Sexplosion," which is appealing to her in this moment of drudgery. She bored.

Deciding this particular boredom is not something she can merely abide, Issa figures maybe she'll stop in on Neighbor Bae. Her bathroom freshen up routine consists of mouthwash and an aggressive verbal affirmation seminar. She's one hundred percent gasssed up.

She obliviously heads downstairs and knocks on Neighbor Bae's door. He is surprised to see her, but he's clearly pretending not to know whether or not he asked her over, which is polite. Issa assumes her dropping by should be welcomed, but Eddie has company. He makes needlessly polite excuses when honestly he didn't have to because who the fuck is Issa? Mama gotta have a life too.

Although Issa has to vent via mirror freestyle ("I could cry right now I'm so embarrassed and mad, I hope you can't get it up and that her pussy is trash") I mean, come on. Be reasonable. You're going to have to get a much thicker skin and a lot more comfortable with rejection if you're going to try to be about that ho life. And you know what, it's not for everyone. I had a friend who for some reason thought she was this perfect princess in her mind when really when she'd tell me stories I'd be looking at her like this is some random bitch who will do cocaine with strangers on a first date and then fuck them on the way home so why you think you deserve a doctor husband though? The answer to that question is that she was white and therefore delusional, but the overall point is that not everybody can brave the harsh landscape of being single and dating, and if you try to fake it you'll just end up crying at bars when men ask you why you're single (which also happened to this friend).

I really hate when I take accidental pauses like this one lol:

As Issa irritatedly deals with not getting the dick she psyched herself up for, she gets a double whammy of rejection when Daniel answers her come thru text that he's busy. Issa is not feeling singleness at this moment. There's an interlude with Baby Voiced Darius where he asks her, just randomly for no reason, if she's going to Target. "Why would I be?" Issa snaps. I mean, it's a fair question. I'm potentially going to Target 40% of the time in any random day.

In some other cool, quirky, millennial loft in Los Angeles, Lawrence is making some kind of pitch to a motley group of assembled coworkers. So now we finally get some details on the elusive Woot Woot: "it aggregates all of your data, where you shop, where you eat, where you drink, and it makes recommendations based on that." Motherfucker how is this any different from all the bullshit Netflix keeps recommending me 67 times that I'm not going to watch, or how google is so Big Brother on us now that if I'm watching or listening to something and decide to look up part of it, it can autocomplete my search based on less than one word? I mean to say... technology been way able to do that for a long time, bruh. Everyone cheers and applauds and Lawrence, in a very ugly navy cardigan, grins big at what seems like praise and encouragement of his idea. And... this was the idea he'd been working on while unemployed for two years? AND WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH "WOOT WOOT"?!

Two guys that I'm going to assume are Lawrence's superiors are giving him feedback. Bosses in the start up world look like this:

I'm glad I'm not inclined to this field because it's honestly not something that I think I would be able to take seriously lol. They say it's great and they loved the presentation. While their feedback sounds positive and Lawrence obviously thinks it's a vote of confidence, if you listen closely they're doing nothing but praising him individually and offering compliments to the fact that he is working hard and competently, not praising the viability of his work specifically. They make no comments whatsoever about the app being a good idea or potential product. Then, just to underscore the fact that they are Clueless White People, the fat guy asks Lawrence about his shoes, and calls them fly. I would take issue that at this point it seems like the show just makes fun of white people just to mock them and make white people as a whole unsympathetic but on the other hand... white people stay doing fake bonding shit like this when they don't have to, so if they look bad, then, motherfuckers, stop doing the shit.

Where do you suppose Issa and Molly are? I'm at a loss as to whether this is a Chinese restaurant, a really shitty travel agency, or somewhere where you can get your eyebrows waxed for eight dollars. Molly is telling Issa she's worried that she may have fucked up her friendship with Dro, and Issa points out that that wouldn't be surprising considering that she fucked her friend. I think that it's nice just a couple episodes ago Molly was having this talk with Issa, and now Issa's having it with Molly.

It turns out they're in a mechanic waiting room while Issa gets an estimate to fix her car. Molly opines that Dro is the only person/man who's seen her at her worst so why would she go and complicate things this way? And the way I feel about that is... if you start fucking a married man you really can't be thinking about any of this shit where he may potentially be a person that is anything other than a married man. Remind me again that at some point during this story line I take a complete break to tell y'all about how I was fucking a married man. The point is anyway that Molly is doing the most emotionally when you'd think it would be easy to understand that in a situation like this specifically you need to do your best to chill. Her current thought is to tell Dro she doesn't want it to happen again when they hang out later that night.The mechanic comes back and tells Issa they'll have to order parts to do the repairs (which duh she's getting body work done) and it'll be about 5500. Issa balks at that price tag.

Remember in the previous episode where Molly and Issa talked about a vacation? Molly still wants to go (listing a bunch of countries and islands that start with M, prompting Issa to chide annoyedly "there are other places with other letters") seemingly oblivious to the fact that if Issa can't afford to repair her car, she can't afford to go on vacation. In hindsight, this show really put a LOT of effort into very deliberate continuity between episodes, for really small things.

Issa is frustrated because she had been doing really well with all her various life parts and now all of them seem to be scattering out abruptly. She's still having trouble accepting that men she's seeing casually aren't just available for her whenever she wants them to be. Ok so... how are you saying you want Daniel to know to stay in his place, and you want Mexican Bae not to expect anything from you, but you want them to be willing to do whatever you want when you want it? Again: be reasonable sis. If you're gonna dish it out then obviously you have to take it back too. Then she acknowledges sex with her is mediocre and, again, this is where she loses me. I don't think I would ever describe sex with me as "acceptable" except on occasions when I know I am making no effort to leave an impression. Come on now. Half the dudes I got to stick around as adults - when sex is less of an issue and everyone has more baggage - is probably 80% because sex was the only draw. And I'm partially joking (clearly I have the delusionally high self esteem of a complete asshole and I like it that way), but seriously it's something that you have to think about as you get older. The Panties Card gets flimsier and flimsier, until it is no longer a guaranteed bargaining chip to maintain someone's attention which frankly was news to me.

Back at the super cool Los Angeles tech start up, Lawrence stops by Arpana's desk and playfully asks her questions around what he should do with his impending takeover of the app world. Arpana makes this face:

Clearly she is clued into what Lawrence is not, which is that the presentation did not go as well as he thought it did. She tells him he should lower his expectations, because she doesn't think Woot Woot is viable: it felt outdated. Speaking of delusional self esteem, Lawrence cooly replies that it's fine if she doesn't see the vision and who cares because she's not the one greenlighting it anyway. As he gets up to leave, Arpana adds that clearly the bosses weren't into it like they were some other app where they asked questions and dug through the pitch looking for flaws then scheduled a follow up. It slowly sinks in on Lawrence that maybe she has a point, but when she says "it's like they didn't want to offend you," Lawrence puts his defenses back up and tells her that she's entitled to her opinion. While I don't approve of Lawrence's childish blindspots, I do approve of his polite passive aggressive work rebuttals. (Professional environments love passive aggression.)

Laker bar. Molly shows up for her date with Dro, nervous about the speech she plans to drop. She awkwardly explains that she feels like things are different though objectively Dro's behavior doesn't seem in any way out of the ordinary. He tells her she's being dramatic and to calm the fuck down. They playfully joke about french fries and apparently that's all it took to defuse the tension.

The tension was so de-fused that they went back to Molly's place after the game to offer us another excellently choreographed sex scene. A.) Molly's headboard is everything (quality headboards are not in reach of everyone's financial adult life, sigh) and b.) of all the ones we've seen so far I think Molly's sex scenes are the only ones that are actually sexy.

Meanwhile, Issa has invited Mexican Bae over to her place. She doesn't really want to date him, so this is all a ruse to hopefully get some dick. As she makes pointed conversation drawing attention to her visible bra and the obscene shortness of her skirt, at this point it's like... do you even actually want some dick or is this just about proving a point? Like are you actually horny and wanting to get fucked? Nico plays along politely, even ignoring her obvious come ons. We are then treated to an awkward scene where Nico wants to treat Issa like a person and she wants to treat him like a conquest. It's painful to witness.

Issa decides to try a more direct move and just initiates kissing. Nico tries to bring the date back around to their dinner reservations. I feel like the fact that he's meant to be fairly older than Issa is supposed to play into this. Issa goes so far as to try to bypass this, and when Nico tells her to slow down - "I really like you and I don't want to rush past this, I want to get to know you" - it just makes Issa angry. Even then, Nico is STILL WILLING to go out to dinner, but Issa apparently is too prideful for this so she flatly rejects him and watches him leave. Sigh. I do understand where she's coming from, I do. But she's going about it all the wrong way - very defensively and insecurely. (Oh! I get it now! Ba dum bum.)

Back at Molly's, she and Dro are doing the post coital thing. He points out that she said she didn't want to do this anymore. Molly is clearly in a dick haze because her defenses are vastly lowered. She wants to know the boundaries of their non-relationship but Dro is all cool and aloof. He does tell her he isn't looking for a second side piece which you'd think considering the circumstances would clue her into how ridiculous a conversation this is. She's asking a married man whether he wants to fuck other women on the side of his wife, isn't that inherently answering its own question?

Anyway Dro says that Candace knows they are sleeping together and in fact it was her idea to open the relationship. Or so he says. Molly, like a fool, just wants to indulge her butterflies. Her caution is just lip service. She wanted to be told what she wanted to hear.

Another day at work, Lawrence decides to stop by the bosses' office - where they are standing at waist high desks instead of sitting - and follow up regarding his presentation. Recalling Arpana's words, he asks whetehr they have any feedback regarding his Woot Woot pitch. I really like the way they framed this shot:

as they shoot each other uncomfortable looks at being put on the spot. Lawrence is speaking in terms of how to to move forward with a viable project, but the bosses do nothing but offer more empty compliments. They have no additional thoughts that would signify any real concerns that would be relevant were this to be an actual project they undertook. The fat boss says they love having his "perspective and input" which delicately suggests Lawrence is there as a diversity hire and not as a real and valuable part of the team. "You bring a lot to the team," the skinny guy says. The fat guy gives a typically encouraging bullshit line of being excited to see "Lawrence 2.0" and the skinny guy laughs sycophantically. If Lawrence still doesn't get it, the fact that they overcompensate about his shoes again ("what store did you get those from again?") should leave him in no doubt. Emasculating... no? (I have far too many thoughts on this subject so let's move on. They aren't particularly original, so I'll spare you.)

Sexplosion. Hey! There are strippers doing pole tricks and chocolatey penis cakes so... what is Tiffany's job again that this is a thing she does? Issa, Molly, Kelli, and Tiffany stroll up and take a bunch of free condoms. Issa thinks Molly broke things off with Dro because she asks why she needs condoms. They talk about barriers for oral sex and I just remembered this is the episode where they have the problematic, regressive conversation about oral sex.

So, let's just get this out of the way: Tiffany, the only married one who is clearly the most whitewashed of the group, is the only one to openly acknowledge she loves giving blowjobs. Kelli doesn't do it wholesale, Issa doesn't like to do it, and Molly gives the Carrie Bradshaw (because of course this was a conversation on SEASON ONE of sex and the city) response of how it's not her favorite but she's flexible. Question: is this what black women are still on in the streets?

Being called a "ho" and ostracized for having any kind of sexuality is something that I left behind in high school once I was an adult and didn't see any reason to need my choices validated by gossip and/or people I didn't know. And the conservative quasi-religious culture of patriarchal standards and misogynist perspectives is something I completely abandoned in grad school when the only black men around that wanted to date me behaved like the shit I'd left behind in high school and I realized I was totally unfamiliar with any other cultural norms. I'm not going to go off on a tangent to get to the bottom line that I would hope this is not still a widespread understanding amongst young black women these days though I would not be entirely surprised if it were. I want to sum it up as so: when I exclusively dated black men some of the time I'd be sleeping with a guy who would refuse to ever kiss me, for apparently no reason whatsoever other than it was culturally normal. I was surprised when I started dating white men and they really do want to wake up and kiss you on the mouth first thing in the morning. I slept with a motherfucker all four years of undergrad who never went down on me ONCE. Like, I can't - I feel like I'm biased and I don't want to preach from that perspective, so I'm not even going to dig into this.

I will say this - I don't know how the fuck you expect to successfully date as an adult when you have whole chunks of sexual entrees completely off the menu - for WHATEVER ideological reason - yet continue to think you are dating as a normal person. It's a hang up. Call it a hang up and accept it.

The next day, Molly is reading an article by Serena Williams about closing the pay gap. Damn, that makes me feel bad. Her mom is still calling and leaving voicemails. At an office across town, Lawrence makes amends with Arpana by acknowledging "Woot Woot" is dead. He tells her she was right, and also there was a racial component to their behavior. Arpana bonds with him as a WOC. Lawrence finally starts to accept he was wrong about his app. They both slowly realize there's some attraction there that might go somewhere, sometime soon. Every single Woot Woot joke this show has made has been hilarious.

Issa is at Daniel's listening to some song he produced. It sounds good. Issa says it has a black Daft Punk vibe whiiiiich... it sounds good and nothing like Daft Punk at the same time. They have a moment about how apparently Issa likes champagne with a shot of Jameson. That's new. They are very flirty and comfortable and eventually start kissing. Issa pushes him down on the couch and as they start to undress, she stops him and gets down on her knees. Speaking of hang ups, I refused to ever give a blowjob literally on my knees, until I started playing it up as an ego thing.

Somewhere across town, Molly is also having a sexy night, in some fancy sterile bathroom taking a bubble bath while Dro sits on the edge of the tub. Before they get too far along, Dro gets a text from his wife who has accidentally locked herself out of their home. Molly is disappointed, and plays it off badly. They were doing a fancy hotel thing ordering in romantic shit which... I mean, I don't know, if they like it then I'll abide it silently. Have taken a bath with a guy I was casually sleeping with though. The water was so hot we were both sweating and the wine glasses were fogging up. He asked me how my day was and when I started to reply he started using his fingers on me, but ordered me to keep talking. That dude and I were basically hate fucking, but that moment was always sexy as hell to me.

Back at Daniel's he is impressed with Issa's blowjob skills. And then this sequence of events happens: he's about to come, and he grabs Issa's head, somehow holding it in place until:

Look! I took a screenshot for you! Bwahahahaha. Seriously how would that work logistically? He's holding her head down, so he... strategically pulls it up and manages to put it in exactly the right place so that he could shoot her in the eye? Issa is pissed. Daniel acts like he doesn't know why she's upset. Issa is so mad she's incoherent, and forcefully pushes him away when he tries to touch her. Issa's anger is on one level due to the aforementioned hangups about blowjobs - she said she felt like once you sucked a dude's dick he felt like he conquered you and relegated you to ho status - but on another level, Daniel is rude as fuck and it is NEVER ok to do a facial without express consent. Her anger is justified, even if it is a bit exacerbated by other issues. Any man who is not an ain't-shit knows it's rude to come in your mouth without permission LET ALONE ON YOUR FACE! Hell I've dated men that wouldn't come on me even when I asked, or my ex who would always pull away without my asking, even though I didn't give a goddamn WHERE he came, EVER. Like, Daniel's rude as fuck.

So, Issa tells him fuck you and leaves. She ends up hovering around a gas station waiting for her Uber pool that already has two people in it, holding a wet towel to her eye. "Issa?" the driver asks. "Issa car pool!" and everyone laughs except Issa because she's tired of getting the idea that she's the butt of every joke.

[mrlukario]

5 things tag game

Tagged by: @zuroyuso

5 things you can find in my blog:

Overwatch memes, even though i dont even play that anymore.

Cute stuff

Funny stuff

I really dont have much more than that. I kinda reblog what i like.

Maybe art?

5 things you can find in my bag:

My wallet (don’t tell the pickpockets)

School books i guess

My laptop because i need games everywhere.

Charger cable but no socket thingy because other people need it tbh

Water bottle

5 things you can find in my bedroom:

I got a little cactus ceramic thing and it is adorable.

Couple of funko pops (i think) of borderlands and the joker.

My pc ofc because GAMES!

Some comic books and game cases.

A little notebook to write stuff down about games.

5 things i always wanted to do:

Travel to new zealand because i think its beautiful.

Get singing class. I just want to sing but i suck so i want to not suck

Make some goals because im really struggling to find some answers here.

Blow a dude #no homo

Gain bragging rights at anything i guess

5 things im currently into:

I could list 5 games and be done with it probably but i hope to be more creative

Trying to complete enter the gungeon fully, where i try to get all items and guns.

Playing tennis.

I study math now so woot woot math nerd.

Watching pokemon vgc on youtube.

Watching some comedy shows on netflix i guess

5 things you might not know about me:

Im probably not totally straight.

I kissed my best friend with tongue because truth or dare and it felt less weird than expected.

I have a fapping schedule so i dont do it too much.

I have an odd fetish that makes some situations and words awkwardly sexual that shouldnt be.

I think i might have add but i have never been tested so i dunno

*tagging: @sunshine-phil @k-v-l @dengars-dengirl @yuriotchkya

[heejinsgf]

get to know me tag?? i think

Tagged by @12moonas ♡ 

This is probably going to be wayyy too detailed… oops? Some more nsfw things will be under the cut (it’s also super long for this blog i’m very very sorry :< )

THE LAST:

Drink: water !!! stay hydrated, kids

Phone call: asking my mom to rescue me pick me up

Text message: replying to my close?? best?? friend after a rant about her day

Song you listened to: Sogyeokdong by Seotaiji, sung by IU ♡

Time you cried: last night because i felt really sick :(

Dated someone twice: two times zero is still zero !!!

Kissed someone and regretted it: what is kissing

Been cheated on: what are relationships

Lost someone special: my first dog, Percy. I miss you so much, bud.

Been depressed: this morning when i found out someone i knew had passed away this year…

Gotten drunk and thrown up: I Am Underage. Only adults can vomit, obviously.

(idk if the last five were supposed to be under “THE LAST” category but… i’m just rollin with it)

LIST 3 FAVOURITE COLOURS: (surprise surprise i’m canadian yes i spell favourite colours with the u’s)

ORANGE 

Blue (my dog’s name too)

Yellowww

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU:

Made new friends: yep!

Fallen out of love: what is love

Laughed until you cried: probably lmao

Found out someone was talking about you: nope?

Met someone who changed you: ok i didn’t meet them, but i’ve become a big fan of the chinese women’s national volleyball team i’d say they (esp. certain fave players) have definitely changed me

Found out who your friends are: idk? what are friends

Kissed someone on your Facebook list: n o

GENERAL:

How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: all of them :D don’t talk to strangers, kids

Do you have any pets: my lil pup, blue ♡

Do you want to change your name: no?? Candy is easy and memorable lol, although i can’t say the same for my last name…

What did you do for your last Birthday: uhh i was probably drowning in either physics or bio :/ my bday’s during exam season

What time did you wake up: i woke up multiple times (damn you, you weird illness thingy), but meant to wake up at 7AM to watch China play Russia in the FIVB Grand Prix Preliminaries 2017 :D (China won!!! the match was so close it was magnificent)

What were you doing at midnight last night: either trying to sleep or rewatching the previous day’s China vs. Italy volleyball match lol. i am a piece of trash, i know :<

Name something you can’t wait for: my two week break before school begins!!!! *cries*

When was the last time you saw your mom: two hours ago??

What are you listening right now: NCT’s Cherry Bomb :3 but Neon Bunny’s New Moon is next !!!

Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: who is tom

Something that is getting on your nerves: that nakamoto yuta’s vocals are not appreciated fully ://

Most visited website: messenger.com ;)

Elementary school: too many to remember

High school: a self-paced school in ontario

College: i want to get into a health sci program at either the University of Toronto, or McMaster University :)

Hair colour: black woot woot

Long or short hair: ok well i have an undercut with long hair because it’s super thick, so i guess it’s sort of half and half lmao

Do you have a crush on someone: someone i know personally? n o. someone halfway across the globe? Yan Ni, Ding Xia, and Zheng Yixin currently :)

What do you like about yourself: I’d say i’m a good student, friendly, and um… i don’t give a shit about my appearance so that saves a lot of stress 

Piercings: I DON’T HAVE ANY BUT i really want to get some this summer (a single, !!uninfected!! helix ring or stud is my dream)

Blood type: idk :(

Nickname: is Candy not enough of a nickname already

Relationship status: been single for 16 years and 1 month!! (i was born in june 2001, do the math)

Pronouns: she/her

Favourite TV Show: ATLA !!!!!!

Tattoos: nah. too much commitment lmao

Right or left handed: right !!! 

Past surgeries: nonono 

Piercing: why is this here again

Do you play any sports: welp i used to do badminton, running, and long jump but nahhh

Vacation: i’ve never been on a vacation in my life :) !!! BUT I’M GOING TO MONTREAL THIS OCTOBER TO SEE THE ARTISTIC GYMNASTICS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS i am so blessed (kohei and kenzo and songsong pls stay healthy)

Pair of trainers: what does this even mean??? If it’s asking if i have a pair of running shoes, then yes i have multiple, but i have to get new ones and orthotics from a podiatrist soon, so :/ who knows

MORE GENERAL:

Eating: love it!!! buy me a roast duck, cherry tomatoes, and/or cheesecake, and i will love you forever

Drinking: i now see what they mean by “more general” now lmao. well i basically drink water 24/7

I’m about to: procrastinate on do hw :/

Waiting for: life to sort itself out ??

Want: stable income, a career i enjoy, health for me and the people i care about, healthy pets, fun experiences, a less… vile world, being able to safely come out

Get married: idk bud

Career: health profession

WHICH IS BETTER:

Hugs or kisses: idk i’ve done neither as far as i can remember

Lips or eyes: i think both are great and some can be very pretty, buuuttt it’s really hard for me to look people in the eyes so i’m gonna have to say lips lmao

Shorter or taller: doesn’t matter :)  (but i’m like 5 feet tall so they’d probably be taller anyways)

Older or younger: uhhhh

Nice arms or nice stomach: I Am Obsessed with hands, wrists, and forearms !!! is that a kink

the ~rest~ under the cut lol

Sensitive or loud: what

Hook up or relationship: idk but both sound great when done right lol

Troublemaker or hesitant: what

HAVE YOU EVER:

Kissed a stranger: noooo

Drank hard liquor: noooo

Lost glasses/contact lenses: yes :< had to spend a day walking around in a blurry mess

Turned someone down: noooo

Sex in the first date: what

Broken someones heart: what

Had your heart broken: look i have had z e r o relationships o k aa ayy

Been arrested: noooo

Cried when someone died: once, for my dog Percy 

Fallen for a friend: for like 2 days ok

DO YOU BELIEVE IN:

Yourself: y-yes?

Miracles: idk

Love at first sight: i dkdkd kdk kk

Santa Claus: who is that

Kiss in the first date: that doesn’t sound too bad ??

Angels: what are those

OTHER:

Current best friend’s name: V******* aka vanilla bean

Eye colour: dark brown?? i srsly can’t even look myself in the eye in the mirror OTL

Favourite movie: i don’t watch movies?? do the last 4 episodes of ATLA count lmao

ok so idk who to tag, so whoever wants to have fun, just go with it!! also, if you read this entire thing… i am so sorry lmao

[recentanimenews]

Manga the Week of 2/27/19

SEAN: The last week of February has far, far more titles than I expected. A ridiculous amount, given Yen was mostly the week before.

Cross Infinite World debuts a new light novel with Beast † Blood (which seems to be part of a series called The Beast’s Mate). It’s got a Japanese author and title, but the premise seems pure Western YA. Biotech Researcher meets Mutant Beast Hunter. Sparks fly!

Dark Horse has piled all their manga into next week. We get the debut of their “Deluxe Edition” of Berserk, as well as Fate/Zero 8, and I Am a Hero 9.

ASH: From the previews I’ve seen, the deluxe edition of Berserk looks gorgeous. It also has a price tag to match.

SEAN: Denpa Books has two debuts. The first is Maiden Railways, a one-volume collection of short stories that involve romance on the train. It’s from Hakusensha’s Rakuen Le Paradis, which means it’s a must buy for me.

MICHELLE: Ooooooh.

ASH: I’m very happy to have more of Asumiko Nakamura’s work available in English!

ANNA: I pre-ordered Maiden Railways, I am excited!

MELINDA: This sounds so interesting! Sign me up!

SEAN: They also have the first volume of Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family, which just had an anime run this past year. If you love Fate/Stay Night but wish there was less blood and death and more delicious food (it has recipes!) and heartwarming moments, this is the title for you. It runs in Kadokawa’s Young Ace Up. Guaranteed not to have people die when they are killed.

ASH: I do like a good food manga, but I know almost nothing about Fate/Stay Night.

SEAN: J-Novel Club gives us four new volumes, as we see Der Werwolf 3, How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord 7, Infinite Stratos 6, and Kokoro Connect 4.

Kodansha, on the print side, has Clockwork Planet 10 and In/Spectre 9.

Digitally the big debut is The Tale of Genji: Dreams at Dawn. This classic shoujo series started its run (in Kodansha’a Mimi magazine, which no longer exists) in 1979, and is apparently a terrific adaptation of the classic story. The author, Waki Yamato, is not as revolutionary as the Year 24 group, but certainly made popular shoujo titles. Can’t wait to read this – the first three volumes are all out next week.

MICHELLE: I am super excited for this. Stay tuned for an Off the Shelf feature!

ASH: I’ve wanted to read this for such a long time! I really hope this truly is one of Kodansha’s “digital first” series and that we eventually get it in print, too.

ANNA: I am also excited but would be more excited for a print release!

MELINDA: I could not be more excited about this. I have a couple of volumes in Kodansha’s old bilingual edition (gifted to me by Kate, I think!) and they are lovely. But to have a real full-length English edition is a dream come true. You all know how much I love shoujo manga from this era, so my excitement can’t possibly be news. But I intend to shout about it all the same!

SEAN: In non-Genji news, we see Ace of the Diamond 20, All-Rounder Meguru 9, Defying Kurosaki-kun 7, Kira-kun Today 4, Kounodori: Dr. Stork 10, Mikami-sensei’s Way of Love 3, and My Boyfriend in Orange 6.

MICHELLE: Insert obligatory sports manga wooting.

SEAN: I was hoping for a more Space Battleshippy sort of debut this week, but it’s been bumped to April. Instead, Seven Seas debuts Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid: Elma’s Office Lady Diary.

There’s also Alice & Zoroku 5, The Ancient Magus’ Bride 10, The 3rd Captain Harlock Classic Collection, Made in Abyss 5, Masamune-kun’s Revenge 9, and Pandora in the Crimson Shell: Ghost Urn 11.

MICHELLE: I’m so looking forward to the new volume of The Ancient Magus’ Bride, as we left off with Chise preparing to get some learnin’.

ASH: The Ancient Magus’ Bride is where my attention’s at, too.

SEAN: Tokyopop may give me mixed feelings overall, but there’s no way I’m passing up another attempt (please let it be completed this time) at Aria, the gorgeous manga about gondoliers on Mars. The Masterpiece Collection’s first volume will contain the two-volume prequel Aqua.

MICHELLE: Hm. Dubious face. I still have my old volumes of Aqua. It would’ve been nice if they’d started with Aria volume seven, but I guess that doesn’t make a ton of sense in terms of bringing in new customers even though it’d be a step toward making amends to the old customers.

ANNA: I had a couple volumes of old Aria and it was beautiful but I think didn’t have a ton of narrative substance? I don’t remember, I didn’t stick with it long.

MELINDA: I am skeptical but always full of hope.

SEAN: Vertical Inc. has a one-volume novel, 5 Centimeters per Second: one more side. This tells the story from the point of view of the heroine.

MELINDA: I am interested in this!

Vertical Comics, meanwhile, has the 3rd volume of the compelling and also unnerving series My Boy.

Yen has a couple of digital-only releases next week, as we get Corpse Princess 21 and IM: Great Priest Imhotep 11.

Yen manga, meanwhile, gives us ACCA 6, Durarara!! re;Dollars 4, Hakumei & Mikochi 4.

MICHELLE: I believe this is the final volume of ACCA, as well.

ASH: Oh, I think you’re right! I’ve been thoroughly enjoy the series.

ANNA: I still need to read it because I am terrible.

SEAN: And last, but not least, we see a digital-only manga hit print with a giant done-in one omnibus. Shut-in Shoutarou Kominami Takes on the World is a Big Gangan series about a hikkikomori who’s trying to fix himself and the gag manga writer who hopes he doesn’t. It’s apparently quite funny.

ASH: I’ll admit I’m curious.

SEAN: See? It’s a lot? What are you getting?

By: Sean Gaffney