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realcube · 3 years

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trying to be nice to their crush hcs

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thank you to 🍦anon for this cute request!

characters: tsukishima, kyōtani, sakusa & suna

content warning: swearing & sexual references

kei tsukishima

♡ this is all yamaguchi’s fault （︶^︶）

♡ he found out tsukki had a crush on you bc he mentioned you a lot in conversation so yamaguchi interrogated him for answers then lo and behold, the beanpole had a lil thing for you

♡ you sit in front of tsukishima in homeroom while yamaguchi sits beside him so when you leaned back and asked him if you could borrow a pencil and he spat back a snarky remark about you being too irresponsible to care for your own pencils, yamaguchi hastily offered you one of his own before scolding tsukishima

♡ he explained to his clueless friend that being nasty to people isn’t a good way to get them to like you

♡ so perhaps he should be nicer :)

♡ honestly, tsukishima would’ve just looked yamaguchi straight in the eyes and went ‘no’, if it wasn’t for the fact you shot tadashi the sweetest smile anD PLAYFULLY BLEW HIM A KISS AFTER HE JUST GAVE YOU A DAMN PENCIL LIKE WTF

♡ after that, he decided to give up his current personality and pick up a new one

♡ jk jk

♡ but he had to binge a whole bunch of those youtube psychology videos that are like ‘psychological tricks to make people like you’ and ‘THESE 5 MIND TRICKS WILL MAKE YOU THE MOST POPULAR PERSON *EVER*’!!

♡ spoiler alert: he wasn’t the most popular person but perhaps that was bc he only went to the effort of using those tricks on you

♡ god bless him; he tries hard, he really does. (not his best, just hard)

♡ but you don’t have to be extremely observant to realise that he’s began acting different around you and of course, it confused you seeing tsukishima being nice

♡ what irritated you was how dismissive he was being of your questions though, as he was clearly trying to lead you to believe that you were crazy and he’s just always been a nice guy

♡ but as soon as he figures out that he angered you, he’ll instantly switch back to him normal self - draining his mind of the hours of phycology studying he did last night to just pretend like it never happened

♡ and if he’s feeling flirty, he might be extra mean to you （￣︶￣）

♡ also he makes a mental note to never take yamaguchi’s romance advice ever again 🙄

♥　♡　♥　♡　♥　♡　♥

you sighed, removing your hand from your bag after desperately rummaging through it in search of a pencil once again - deja vu. once you accepted that a pencil wasn’t going to materialise out of thin air, you peered over your shoulder and tapped the corner of yamaguchi’s desk, who wore a suspicious grin which you decided against questioning.

“yamaguchi, do you think i could borrow a pencil again? sorry, this is the last time, i swear. i’ll be sure to get some on my way home after school tod--”

yamaguchi dropped the line him and tsukishima had rehearsed many times beforehand, while clutching his pencilcase dear to his chest, “woah, (y/n). you’re so irresponsible. sorry, i can’t lend one of my pristine pencils to someone who is too forgetful to remember to buy some; what if you forget to return it to me?”

tsukishima cringed at how forced it sounded but he couldn’t help but admire yamaguchi's dedication to his role. this allowed tsukishima to swoop in, pencil in hand, “here.” that wasn’t in the script but he panicked! okay, now, eye contact.

you just sat there and stared at both of them with the most dumbfounded look plastered on your face. what just happened? why were they both acting like they were in drama class? and why are they both so bad at acting? they’re both passing performing arts for fucks’ sake!

kentarō kyōtani

♡ sorry but i firmly believe kyōtani is the sorta guy to be extra mean to ppl he fancies smh

♡ the rest of them just act (somewhat) like themselves around their crush but kyōtani is himself2 (himself^2)

♡ like one time yahaba found you trembling in your locker bc you had gotten mud on mad dog’s white shoes so he chased you through the hallways of the school, threatening to trek mud on your forehead

♡ yahaba took it upon himself to investigate as to why kyōtani was so rude to you and he got his answer as soon as he mentioned your name to mad dog and the boy’s face immediately flushed red

♡ so after practise, yahaba schools mad dog on how to get chicks (⌐■_■)

♡ in short, his advice was ‘good guys get laid’ and for kyōtani’s understanding, ‘good’ and ‘kind’ were interchangeable

♡ mad dog wasn’t completely oblivious to how he treated you and he was aware that he was far from ‘kind’

♡ although he usually doesn’t listen to people in general, yahaba seemed to know what he was talking about so he figured there was no harm in trying to be nice

♡ but ngl, he just spent the rest of the day wondering...what is kind?

♡ after a few messages back and forth with yahaba, he figured that the best place to start was by apologising for - y’know - chasing you around the whole school

♥　♡　♥　♡　♥　♡　♥

“oi!” kyōtani bellowed through hallway, paying no mind to the students that cast him dirty looks as his sights were locked on you. standing unsuspecting by your locker, stuffing your textbooks into your bag until you heard his deep voice echo through the hall, to which you visibly perked up and began frantically looking around.

he marched towards you, hands in pockets and when you noticed him out of the corner of your eye, you were more than ready to drop all your shit and bolt away. but he didn’t let you as before you were able to take off on your heels, he grabbed your shoulder and spun you around to face him - then he noticed your hands raised in defence by your face and your head hung low.

his heart sank and his grip on your shoulder immediately softened, “i’m not gonna punch you, idiot.” he spat, rolling his eyes and gritting his teeth, trying to appear angry in hopes you’d mistake his light blush for pure rage.

“i just wanted to say that i felt bad for chasing you through the halls yesterday - you didn’t stand a chance so i guess it was a bit unfair.” he said, frowning as you replied with silence so the duty fell on him to fill it, “and i got the stain out, anyway so.”

more silence. lovely.

suddenly, he puffed his cheeks out as his eyes snapped to meet yours and he roared, “ARE YOU GONNA FUCKING SAY SOMETHING OR ARE YOU TOO BRAINDE-”

“are you wearing eyeliner?”

and that was the true story behind why you missed last period, because you and kyōtani had a 30 minute conversation about eyeliner and make-up, then he convinced you to skip the rest of class with him so he could buy you ramen as an apology gift.

so yeah, he figured that perhaps he should try being nice more often.

kiyoomi sakusa

♡ he didn’t need someone to tell him to be nicer, he’s just predisposed to attempt to show kindness to someone he is fond of

♡ in his mind, showing kindness, respect and stripping himself of all his personality = the only way to be desirable

♡ (ofc this takes place before he meets atsumu tho lol)

♡ so it’s not the realisation that’s the problem for him, it’s the execution

♡ like how is he supposed to be nice without either sounding creepy or condescending?

♡ *cut to sakusa practising in the bathroom mirror* ‘your hand looks- no-’ he scoffs, flicking cold water onto his face, ‘your hair looks cool- pretty- nice?’

♡ *camera pans to sakusa laying in bed, staring intently at the ceiling while imagining vivid and scarily detailed scenarios about ways he could mess up while talking to you*

♡ *camera zooms in on sakusa’s face as he manifests a nicer version of himself*

♡ he might - depending on how insecure he is - watch one of those psychology videos or read a wikihow for help

♡ but other than that, he independently tries to alter his personality in order to gain your favour bc..true love ?

♥　♡　♥　♡　♥　♡　♥

you smiled as a basketball rolled up to your feet during gym class, followed by the sound of someone approaching you and upon raising your gaze, your eyes met sakusa’s unmistakable black ones. his face hovered only a few inches away from yours due to the fact you had both reached down to pick up the ball at the same time.

he quickly pulled himself away, tucking the basketball under his elbow as he adjusted his mask so it properly covered his face to ensure that you didn’t see the light blush slowly spreading across his cheeks. he then proceeded to blurt out what he had been rehearsing for the past few nights, “oh, thank you, (y/n). your hair looks lovely today, by the way.”

you giggled, holding your hands firmly by your side to avoid fidgeting and making it obvious that his sudden comment flustered you, “thanks, sakusa. and, if we’re handing out compliments today, i didn’t know you were good at any sport other than volleyball but you’re doing surprisingly well at basketball.” you joked, your lips slowly curling into a cocky smirk, “though, i don’t think you’d stand a chance against my team.”

god, you’re such a tease. you make it so hard for him to be nice to you. so, of course, your comment returned his ability to utter almost every sarcastic comment that comes to mind - screw being likeable. “you think so?” he quirked a brow, tossing the ball onto your lap then pacing backwards, “go on, then.”

rintarō suna

♡ it was probably those tips on social media that told him he has to be nicer

♡ and plus he saw terushima get all the chicks and he was just sitting there like ‘where are my bitches at? 🥺’

♡ anyway, all the guys on social media that had girls lining up outside their door always had one thing in common: misogyny obnoxious personalities !!

♡ and his whole personality was a sacrifice suna was willing and ready to make for just a crumb of cooch 🤲

♡ though you weren’t exactly his crush yet, suna thought you were the best person to carry out this experiment with bc he heard through the grapevine that you had a crush on him so perhaps this would make you happy

♡ he didn’t prepare much beforehand though which he immediately regretted as soon as he approached you bc admittedly, his game plan of ‘be self-assured but friendly’ was a bit vague

♡ so he basically just had to bullshit through a whole, awkward conversation with you while wearing a forced ‘bold’ smirk which, in reality, looked as though he had just seen tiddies for the first time

♡ hardly self-assured or friendly

♡ also, the fact you thought he was playing a prank on you must’ve drastically altered the results of his experiment

♡ at one point he says something extremely stupid you’d just quit playing along and just blurt out ‘wtf is wrong with you today’

♡ to which he’d be like ‘ahaha, nuthin much bbg, how bout you?’

♡ THE EXPERIEMNT ISN’T OVER UNTIL HE SAYS IT’S OVER OKAy?!

♥　♡　♥　♡　♥　♡　♥

you rubbed your temples in order to soothe the throbbing headache suna gave you simply by existing. like yes, you had a crush on him 10 minutes ago - but that was before he came up to you and started acting like terushima on dodgy medication. “oh and your skin is glowing bab--”

“jesus christ, rintarō, shut up!” you cried, gripping the edge of your skirt to prevent your self from delivering a swift punch right to his stupid face. he’s seriously gotten on all your nerves at this point; firstly, by spamming your phone in the middle of the night asking for homework answers (accompanied by cursed memes) as he actually managed to wake you up. secondly, by acting so oblivious to the fact you clearly had a crush on him and now, this!

heat rose to his cheeks in embarrassment as his creepy smile instantly fell right back into his resting bitch face, “this isn’t working, is it?”

“what’s not working?”

suna scoffed, rolling his eyes - his façade having evidently disappeared. “this.” he sighed, looking around as if someone was going to save him before his eyes finally settled on you and he was reminded of what he wanted in the first place, his sparkle was rekindled for just a moment which caused him to blurt out, “just fuck me already, i’m not asking for much.”

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op-sheepy · 3 years

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ok so I'm particularly interested in

Bellamy Law

Law and Bible stuff

Law is a substitute kindergarten teacher

shichibukai applications

reverse hanahaki disease (?? do u spit out flowers when your nemesis walks by?)

if you feel like elaborating on any of these!

This is gonna get long and I actually contemplated posting them separately but would that have been more work? Yeah, that felt like more work so for anyone interested, check under the cut. :D

---------------------------------o

Bellamy Law

Hm… This would be an attempt to explore the parallels and contrasts between Bellamy and Law. I've always found it fascinating that the former was a foil to the latter.

They both come from well-off towns in the North Blue.

Bellamy left because of boredom. Law had no choice because Flevance.

Both ended up seeking Doflamingo because of his notoriety as a pirate. Both admired him initially

Doffy favored one over the other though. Bellamy always sought his approval but was never really part of the inner circle Doflamingo cared about.

Law got the dubious privilege of being part of the family despite being absent for so long. Even offered one of the highest seats by Doffy's side for seemingly nothing.

Law had no trouble turning his back on Doffy once he realized the man's nature. Bellamy tried to stick to his principles until the end despite admitting that he new he was wrong.

Bellamy can (and did) quit piracy after his ordeal with Doflamingo. Having the option to live peacefully, perhaps a return to his previous life (the one he considered boring). Law can't do that quite as easily what with his Devil fruit and his reputation.

I thought it would be interesting trying to explore what Bellamy was thinking. Did he hear the Donquixote Pirates talk about their missing 'family'? Did he get to see Doffy be amused at Law's rise as a Supernova while he kept being reminded of his own status? Did Law save Bellamy partially because he also saw what he could have been had Corazon not saved him?

On principle, Bellamy should have hated Trafalgar Law. Does. Bastard even saved him without him wanting it. But there was something about the shadows haunting those eyes and Bellamy started to wonder.

He had heard the family talk about Law before. The child personally taught by Doflamingo, chosen to be his right hand. Never was he compared to the man because Law was just obviously better. Smarter. Stronger. Bellamy was ever just an uncouth thug.

He was allowed to 'borrow' Doflamingo's symbol while Law had an empty seat waiting for his return–a seat Bellamy had wanted enough to risk everything for.

Maybe he had resented, Trafalgar Law for carelessly rejecting the things he had that Bellamy had always desired. In the end too, Trafalgar Law did prove to be better. He'd done as a child what Bellamy had trouble doing even as he was now.

But having been given the chance to observe the other man as they all recovered, he wondered, perhaps for the first time, whether despite Law being better than Bellamy, Bellamy had had it better–barring the poor life choices.

---------------------------------o

Law and Bible stuff

This is just me wanting to know how many biblical parallels and themes I can draw from Law, the Donquixote brothers, the characters associated with them, and his backstory. Honestly not sure whether this would become a fic and in what style or I'm gonna give up and just make it a post.

Not gonna elaborate on them much but here are the ideas in more bullet points (yay):

Law gets familiar with all four horsemen of the apocalypse: conquest, war, famine, and death. He even survives them.

Law is like the son in the parable of the prodigal son to the Donquixote pirates. Except the themes are inverted.

Doflamingo and Rocinante -> Cain and Abel

Ope Ope no Mi -> Granting eternal life by sacrificing one's own life

Gods descending or living among humans. Also, Homing and his family being prosecuted for other people's sins.

That scene where they were hanged by their arms outstretched looks like a crucifixion. Also, Rocinante was on the right while Doflamingo was on the left. Similar to how the penitent thief was on the right and the unrepentant one to the left.

Flevance being considered a paradise with walls/fences/gates and somewhere Law cannot return to.

In the panel where the Donquixote pirates are seated at the table, there were thirteen of them with Doffy at the center. Same as The Last Supper

There are a lot more of these (David and Goliath, Solomon, Jonah, Job, etc.) but I kinda lost the notes and some are more visual so I can't really explain it too well. This would is a drabble series to emphasize or highlight the parallels so no proper snippet for this one.

---------------------------------o

Law is a substitute kindergarten teacher

Originally an idea to get around most of the Heart Pirates being nameless but evolved to include other characters as kids. Chopper is a kindergarten teacher and he convinces Law to take over his class for a week because somehow Law has the qualifications to and free time. Naturally, he wasn't able to say no.

Unfortunately, despite not being terrible at handling children, Chopper's class is filled with menaces. Also, despite not being terrible, Law can still be awkward so...

"Mr. Trofao–fargar—"

"Trafalgar."

The kid—which one was this one again? Shit, he should really get them name plates or something—scrunched up his face and tried harder, "Tar-pal—"

"Law. Just call me Law."

"Mr. Low"—eh, close enough—"can I go to the bathroom?" Wide imploring eyes stared up at him.

"Sure, go ahead." Law gestured towards the exit of the classroom with his head.

The kid just stared expectantly at him and he tried to suppress the need to narrow his eyes.

"Is there… anything else?"

"Mr. Chopper always comes with me to hold my hand."

Really?

"Mr. Chopper isn't here. You should practice doing it on your own now." He said after a deep inhale.

"But the monsters might get me…"

"No, they won't."

"You don't know that."

"I do." Before the kid could open his mouth again to argue, he added, "Besides, children taste terrible so you're safe."

The kid looked stricken and took a step back from him. Uh oh. Glistening eyes, wobbling lower lip… "Alright! I'll go with you." The kid did not look reassured. In fact he looked like going alone with Law was the last thing he wanted to do. Guess, he kinda implied that he ate children didn't he? Oops.

Well, the kid needs to go and he's not going to be cleaning up after him if he wets himself.

Law glanced at the rest of the children. It was Arts and Craft time and they seemed preoccupied enough. Still, Law doubted Chopper ever left these kids alone–already he could see some of them glancing up at him, waiting for him to leave no doubt to cause trouble. That Monkey kid in particular looked extremely suspicious.

He stood up from his crouch and clapped twice to get everyone's attention.

"Alright. Fall in line. Single file."

There was some grumbling and questioning directed at him. "What's going on?"

Law shrugged. "You're all going to the bathroom."

---------------------------------o

Shichibukai Application Forms

Crackfic where the World Government and relevant parties review various Shichbukai Applications. Most submitted by the pirates applying themselves, some produced by their own staff. They discuss and debate. As well as judge pirate resumes.

She scanned the document. Terrible format, really. If you fail to impress within the first page, you've failed entirely. There just wasn't anyone promising enough in this batch of applications or any of the other ones before. The last one had been that clown. "Apprentice to the Pirate King," was a pretty hefty credential.

"Oh, how about this one? Three years experience pillaging, and they even listed all the towns they looted." One of the newly transferred administrative staff said.

"None of these are worth considering at all. You know, when Mihawk was asked to submit his application, he hadn't bothered with all of this. He just sent us a card with his name on it and the title "World's Strongest Swordsman," underneath."

The staff perked up. "Oh, there was an application like that." There was scramble and some shuffling before a plain white card was produced. "Here."

"'From Trafalgar Law'. What does this even mean?"

"Well, it did come with a big box..."

---------------------------------o

Reverse Hanahaki Disease

(?? do u spit out flowers when your nemesis walks by?)

Haha. At first it was going to be that way (because it is hilarious) but the inflicted would probably choke to death too soon. Or if both enemies had it, they'd end up just coughing flowers at each other until they stopped being enemies.

The version I ended up going with was that this variant of Hanahaki, instead of afflicting those with unrequited love, affected those in denial instead. The reverse part comes from the original idea that this would usually happen if you somehow fell in love with your nemesis (someone you originally hated). So it's not the thought that the other person can't love you, it's that you can't accept that you love that other person. You get cured by confessing to the person sincerely.

This is actually another KidLaw (surprise!). And the flower coughed up directly represents the person they're in love with (I went with Oda's flower representation for them because I found it funny for plot)

So the idea is that, you get sick but you don't automatically know (maybe) who it is because that's part of being in denial. Kid and Law have many enemies after all. In this story they both get it though not exactly at the same time and not known to the other.

He survived Amber Lead Syndrome only to be killed off by a stupid flower disease that apparently knows more about his own feelings than he does.

He glared at the petals. Tulips. Red.

An image of a cocky grin and a shock of red hair flashed through his mind and—nope. That's not right.

He coughed harder, tears stinging his eyes with the effort. More flowers. Now he has enough for a bouquet.

Alright, he was a doctor. He could do this. Differential time.

First, which variant does he have. He doesn't particularly feel unloved or hopeless. There wasn't anyone he wanted in particular to love him. Ok, nothing. It was maybe safe to say he had that other variant.

Which was stupid because Law had many enemies and he hated all of them.

And cue the racking coughs. More red. He was very familiar with that particular shade.

New theory. This was a new variant that somehow makes you sick when you think of the person you hated the most.

Yes, that had to be it. He thought as he all but collapsed on the floor from the sudden paroxysm.

I knew this was gonna get long. :) Oh well...

Thank you for playing. :D

#One Piece #One piece fanfiction #wip game #trafalgar law #donquixote brothers #donquixote doflamingo #donquixote roci #donquixote homing #donquixote pirates #one piece bellamy #bellamy the hyena #eustass kid #kidlaw #trafalgar d water law

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urktheturtle · 2 years

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Next up in my Dathomir Clans series is the... Sayormi? Who the heck are the Sayormi? Well buckle up this is a long story. Since I came to instagram I have been a fan of The Flittermous’ work with Dathomiri characters has been absolutely fascinating, and extremely contradictory to my own version of Dathomir. But I found their work so compelling I wanted something on my own version of Dathomir that carried the spirit of Their ancient dathomirian culture. As well, I wanted my version of Dathomir to be more diverse, so I came up with the idea of "include a species like the Dathomirians they created." So I read all of The Flittermouses stuff about them, then I began searching through the "reptilian species" page on wookieepedia... thats when I found, THE SANYASSANS. Now the Sanyassans come from the Ewok movies... Makeup and design of the Sanyassans is low quality and dated, but there was some similarities. And they had an association with a Dathomiri witch. Later in Star Wars Galaxies a faction of the Sanyassans called "The Sayormi" were included. Now the depiction of Sanyassans in the game, and the accompanying trading cards... looked MUCH more refined (and closer honestly to The Flittermouses Dathomirians) And "Sayormi" is a better name for the people than "Sanyassan" which is taken from there "homeworld" So I took the Sayormi, and made my best effort to bridge there appearance with The Flittermouses Dathomirians. And I like to think I captured something that carries the energy of both species. And I have in terms of culture put them on Dathomir as their homeworld. I am not sure if this would be called Fan Art or not? More an "inspired by" the works of The Flittermouse. A lot of details are very different (the hair, which the Sayormi/Sanyassans have, the placement of the horns) I also culturally decided that they would have a similar belief system and religion to the rest of Dathomir, but with no influence from Allya.

#star wars #dathomir #zabrak #dathomirian #star wars oc #witches of dathomir #dathomirian zabrak #zabrak OC

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thebrownssociety · 3 years

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Looney Tunes Headcanons - Off-Set, Part 2

This is a bunch of headcanons about what I think some of the LT’s are known for being like outside of the WB bubble. As there are a lot of them, it’ll be uploaded in stages.

References to homosexuality.

Porky Pig is well-known for being the off-screen face of Looney Tunes. Because Bugs and Daffy have a lot of filming commitments it’s Porky who attends Toon-town related things on behalf on the Looney Tunes.

He’s judged fashion shows, cooking shows, car-races [Toon Town has a lot of car races. They have a lot of different terrains which provide a wide variety.] and Variety Shows. Unfortunately he’s also had to uncover various episodes of cheating during these competitions. [No, you C-C-CAN’T take a magic potion which g-gives you a p-p-perfect voice in a sin-sin-sing - vocalising competition!]

Porky is also known for being one half of the original Looney Tune Power Couple. Him and Petunia have been together forever and during that time, although they have had disagreements they’ve never been that serious. They split up once in the late 40′s and that was due to [unfounded] rumours about Petunia dating Elmer Fudd. [Of all toons!] They laugh about it today, but at the time it was rather difficult.

He’s also the one who sticks up for the other looney tunes, major or minor ones, and in the olden days was well-known for challenging the producers the most. There was one famous incident in about the 70′s when Rocky and Mugsy were accused of having committed a series of well-known burglaries. Even when the rest of the LT’s were convinced they’d done it, it was Porky who was saying ‘Just because they’re t-t-thieves doesn’t m-m-mean they did this crime!’ Unfortunately it turned out Rocky and Mugsy HAD done it, but the thought was there.

Five opinions he’s well known for having:

1 - Just because we act a certain way on screen doesn’t mean we have to act that way off-screen. [That being said, he doesn’t get drawn into arguments about what a toon is doing off-set. Reporter: ‘Pepe Le Pew has taken up cooking! Do you think it’s wise having a skunk in the kitchen?’ Porky: ‘A-a-as long as he can do it without b-bur-burn - destroying the place, I don’t care!’]

2 - Every toon deserves an education. [Porky is also off the firm opinion that there is no such thing as a ‘stupid’ toon, or one who is completely incapable of learning at least the basics of education. This opinion has been tested on many occasions but he still has it.]

3 - Petunia is amazing, fantastic, awesome, brilliant and the love of my life. Did I mention she’s amazing?

4 - Everyone should go abroad. Porky loves travelling and has a wall covered in pictures of places where he’s been. He also likes buying hats from the countries [in a reference to his first short ‘I haven’t got a hat.’ now he has just shy of one for every day of the year.]

5 - Just because a toon isn’t working anymore doesn’t mean they aren’t a toon. To this day Porky is still in touch with Beans, Bosko, Honey, Oliver Owl, Foxy and Roxy and supports their endeavours. [Namely, Bosko and Honey’s restaurant, Oliver's mechanics, Beans chimney sweeping and Foxy and Roxy’s low-key acting gigs.]

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Elmer Fudd is known for a variety of things. In the olden days it was his extremely good acting skills, reserved - but not shy - personality and his debated relationship with Petunia Pig. [There was never any romance between them, just very good friendship and a deep level of understanding of one another.] Once Porky and Petunia got engaged he was an ‘established bachelor’ [despite being less than 21 at the time, it was more the fact he showed absolutely no inclination towards a romantic relationship with anyone that put him in that category.]

When he was 24 [1959] it came out that Bugs loved Elmer. Elmer admitted he felt the same way and a relationship started. [Details of this can be found in my ‘Unsolicited’ Fanfiction.] It was quite an unusual relationship due to the fact they didn’t live together, didn’t spend a lot of time together [mainly due to a mix of filming commitments] and didn’t go out of their way to show affection publicly.

They got engaged in 1982, then married in 1992. Both events were well-publicised in Toon Town.

Aside from his relationship with Bugs, he’s known for surprising everyone by proving to be very smart when the toons were allowed to access proper education. As well as a teaching degree, he’s got a degree in Law. [Much to everyone’s surprise.] It only took him a decade to get up to an High School level of education, and he passed with flying coulors. [Despite a snooty human-teachers best efforts]

Five opinions he’s well known for having:

1 - Daffy Duck is not an idiot and is actually very clever. Elmer has been of this opinion since he first met Daffy and despite multiple instances when Daffy has acted like the dictionary definition of a complete and utter nimrod, he’s been unwavering in this belief. Thankfully when the toons got access to education Daffy proved Elmer right and gained a degree in Performing Arts.

2 - Opera is brilliant. Elmer loves all kind of music [excluding heavy metal and some raunchier pop songs.] but opera will always remain his favourite. It’s one of the many things that bonded Elmer and Bugs. Elmer’s favourite song is ‘I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major General’ but his favourite musical is ‘The Phantom Of The Opera.’

3 - No one is a complete idiot and everyone should be encouraged to learn. Due to his own experiences of being treated like a complete imbecile by pretty much everyone - even Bugs has been known to do this on a few occasions - he does his best to be nice to those who are also utter idiots and encourage them. Unfortunately, like Porky, this approach has been tested to breaking point. Two words: Pete Puma.

4 - In the same vein, Books are brilliant. Elmer is a massive fan of reading and reads a wide variety of stuff. He reads non-fiction on a range of subjects [Cooking to real-life crime] and he also reads fiction again, over a variety of genres. [Crime, Romance, historical fiction, children's books, the works.] Elmer normally aims to read for at least 30 minutes twice a week. It used to be more, but parenting, filming and The Looniversity have restricted the time he can devote to it by quite a margin.

5 - Everyone should be given three chances. Elmer does his best not to judge someone when he first meets them, especially if they’re acting like a bit of an asteroid. The second time he forms a bit more of an opinion, but normally keeps quiet about it [except to Bugs, Daffy and Porky.]. Third time he meets you he’s got a good idea of what you’re like and how others are reacting to you. Then he decides whether or not he wants to be around you. Once he’s made up his mind it’s very hard to change it.

The main exceptions to this rule have been the Tiny Toons. Seeing as they’re literally little version of Elmer’s family [and he’s parenting three of them, namely Elmyra, Buster + Babs] he’s cut them a lot of slack.

#looney tunes headcanons #porky pig #elmer fudd #bugs bunny #daffy duck #tiny toons #elmyra duff #buster bunny #babs bunny #rocky and mugsy #these are headcanons only #pete puma #long post

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cha-ra-nui · 2 years

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2021 Retrospective Part 1: KPop

KPop was great in 2020, diverse and interesting. I hoped that energy would carry over into 2021, and some of it certainly did. Overall though, the year, while not lacking in good releases, felt much less creative than 2020 did. Where in 2020 most groups managed to release exactly one song I loved, this year it felt like everyone would either nail every single comeback or none at all, there was very little middle ground for me, and barely any random hits. (As usual, everything I talk about can be found in this YT playlist.)

I’ll start with a lightning round of everyone who got onto my radar last year, but who I don’t have anything to say about this time: CIX’s “Jungle” was phenomenal, but, like I predicted, they never released anything even half as interesting since. APink had no presence this year, EVERGLOW and Mamamoo did okay but never well enough to land on my playlist, LOONA’s music was bewildering in a thoroughly uninteresting way, (G)I-DLE went up in flames, and EL’AST failed to impress me this year. Once again, I wasn’t sold on most 4th gen groups, and I felt like 3rd gen groups, for the most part, didn’t leave much of an impact either. So for the first segment, here’re (some of) the big releases that felt underwhelming to me: BTS is still on top of the world, but all their English singles felt incredibly low effort, so if you aren’t trying, neither will I. “Butter” has some of my favorite terrible lyrics of the year, and I think that I dreamt up “Permission to Dance”, since I can’t remember anything about it. It’s probably the worst title track of 2021 to me because it’s so offensively bland. It feels like ages ago that I was invested in this group, and nowadays, it’s hard to remember why I liked them so much. I also retain the opinion that bighit, excuse me, HYBE has no idea what the appeal of Seventeen and NU’EST was. I’ve never been a fan of the former, but I appreciated their positive energy, which I found somewhat lacking since Pledis was bought out. NU’EST meanwhile was a group I’ve been rooting for, and HYBE not only failed to give them regular comebacks, but also erased everything I liked about them. “Inside Out”, while at least catchier than “I’m in Trouble”, is just as generic. NU’EST is a group I was mostly interested in for their unique music, so no matter how well their new stuff is produced, I just don’t care for it. Never mind that the music video is nauseating to look at. I appreciate that it’s cut on the beat (it can’t be that hard YG) but the camera moves way too much, it’s extremely disorientating. EXO was back for a hot second, with Lay even, but I don’t have much to say about “Don’t fight the feeling” either. It’s fine, a weaker version of “Love Me Right” in my opinion, and it’s still somehow one of the best title tracks SM released this year. They seem to have embraced the art of the train wreck wholeheartedly, and while I’m glad EXO didn’t get pulled into that again, it sadly didn’t leave much of an impact on me. Super Junior’s comeback was underwhelming too. “House Party” is upbeat with a positive message, and the weird SM breakdown isn’t as jarring as usual. It’s not going to age well anyway because it’s a shut-down song and not very memorable to begin with. I’ve since been told that the album is decent, but I can’t attest to that. And while I’m complaining about SM, Red Velvet’s “Queendom” was also one of the most forgettable major releases this year. SM in general tended to release either incomprehensible messes or the safest title tracks possible, and this was so firmly the latter, I literally can’t remember a single thing about this song while I’m listening to it. I honestly think I prefer their train wrecks over this, at least those are memorable. Then of course there were the BLACKPINK solos, two songs each for Rosé and Lisa, which I have the exact same opinions on too. The title tracks, “On The Ground” and “LALISA” respectively, are extremely safe. Both songs have a few ideas that could work, and a few that would never appeal to me, and both could’ve used a bit more polish. The also wildly popular B-sides meanwhile, “Gone” and “Money”, sound grating to me, and somehow even more generic than the title tracks. Finally, I wasn’t sure where to put STAYC. It felt like everyone was talking about them, and their title tracks “ASAP” and “Stereotype” got an overwhelmingly positive reception, but it’s hard for me to see where the hype comes from. They don’t stand out from other 4th gen girl groups stylistically, nor do they have a big label behind them. And their songs, while competently produced, don’t leave much of an impact on me either, so it felt like “popular but underwhelming” would be their category too. But their songs are catchy, and they seem to have a decent vocal line, the lack of which is a recurring problem I have with 4th gen groups. In the end, while I don’t quite understand how or why they got so popular, I don’t mind that they did. It wasn’t all underwhelming though. There are many groups, soloists, or even just popular songs who’s hype I never quite get, but most of them at least made sense to me this year. So, consider this the “oh, I get the hype after all” segment: “Drunk-Dazed” by ENHYPEN will probably be on many people’s best-of-year list, and for good reason. It’s the best song HYBE has released in a while, but it’s held back by the group it was handed to. ENHYPEN just doesn’t convince me, they stand out in neither vocals nor rap in any way. The vocals sound heavily processed, which I’m never a fan of, and I can’t help but wish that this song would’ve gone to ONEUS or ONF, to VIXX in an ideal world, anyone with a stronger vocal line really. Even with those gripes though, it is a very catchy release and deserved the attention it got. Their labelmates TXT, who I never got into either, did a lot to distinguish themselves this year. I liked “0X1=LOVESONG (I know I Love You)”, which is a terrible name for an oddly charming and catchy piece of music. And this time I don’t think it should’ve been given to anyone but them, they own every second of it. So much so, that I started to watch out for them afterwards, and I’m glad that I did, because “LO$ER=LO♡ER” is among the strongest title tracks of the year in my opinion. It’s very catchy and feels like a true step forward. Like they were testing the waters with “0X1=LOVESONG”, and now they’re fully committing to a rougher, indie-pop-rock style, perfectly nailing it on their second attempt. As a title track it’s also a complete package, the MV is good as usual for this group, and so is the choreography, and both perfectly suit the song. Their B-side “Frost” feels in many ways like this style taken to the extreme, a KPop song that has no interest in sounding pretty. It’s not what you’d get from rock or metal vocals, but a Pop appropriation of it, and this group is the first that made it work for me. The personalities of the members also shine through on the entire album, which is the most bewildering thing about this group for me. Don’t get me wrong, the type of music they made this year would fall apart entirely if that wasn’t the case, but how come HYBE lets the TXT members sound natural while BTS and Enhypen get their songs drowned in autotune? Kang Daniel also finally made sense to me with “Paranoia”, a fascinating song, memorable without being particularly catchy, lyrics that fit the theme perfectly, and an aesthetic that reminds me of Taemin, which is, oddly enough, something I haven’t seen around much. I feel like his influence should be all over male soloists by now, but maybe that style is just difficult to emulate. I didn’t like “Antidote” nearly as much though; the chorus just doesn’t work for me. Sumni is the other soloist who’s appeal I finally understood this year, but mostly the songs no one seems to like or talk about anymore. My newly found appreciation for her had little to do with her 2021 releases, and more with talking to a fan and discovering a few older songs I started to like. “Tail” was alright though, and “You can’t sit with us”, while a bit of a mess, at least has the decency of being a fascinating and inoffensive mess. ATEEZ isn’t for me, and I’ve accepted that fact last year. But they also make it easy to see their appeal. If this is the type of music you’re into, they’re most likely the group for you. And they’ve gotten very close to releasing a song I like with “Deja Vu”. But the real reason why they’re here is the MV they released for “The Real” because it’s an extremely cool and impressive production, even without being able to fully figure out what is happening in it. In a similar way, The Boyz might’ve been impressive on Road To Kingdom, but their music never worked for me. “Maverick” is the first song of theirs I enjoyed, it’s just plain cool. I can’t imagine being interested in their future releases though, this feels like random hit to me. Astro meanwhile was for me, at least for a while. I liked their quirky and cute early work, and found myself to be entirely uninterested in the “more mature” releases they’ve done for the past few years, so I’m glad to report that “After Midnight”, while not as creative as living soda bottles, is still fun, and I sincerely hope that the success of this comeback proves to their label that there’s still a market for cute and happy boy group releases. Transitioning to the less talked about stuff, I was pleasantly surprised by Eunhyuk’s solo, and I feel like I really shouldn’t have been. Super Junior has been around in KPop for what feels like an eternity, it shouldn’t be surprising that the members know exactly what they’re doing. Still, “be” wasn’t on my radar at all until I asked for recommendations of songs I might've missed this year, and I’m honestly not surprised about it. I will come back to this more with a certain other group later, but this is exactly the type of release we need senior idols to stick around for. It’s not exactly the chart-friendly bop that gets talked about, and even if a less experienced artist would be allowed to promote a track like this, I doubt it would be anywhere near as good. This song works because Eunhyuk is a really good singer and experienced performer who knows exactly how to deliver every single line to get the most out of this song. While we’re at SM solos, U-KNOW’s “Thank U” not only comes equipped with some clever lyrics (that only get held back slightly by questionable English), but the music video is also a great homage to classic revenge films, Kill Bill most noticeably, and U-KNOW too delivers everything with experienced confidence. In the “debuts I noticed” corner we have JUST B’s “DAMAGE”, which proudly proclaims to have been produced by Bang Yongguk. I’ve never seen the producer advertised in the title of the MV like that, but it makes sense. This could be a B.A.P song, all things considered, even if it’s too edgy to convince me. I mostly wanted to bring it up because the concept of the music video is a very weird cross of EXO’s “Love Me Right” and Stray Kids’ “District 9“ or BTS’ “No”. That’s right: dystopic football. I’m so confused. Then we have MIRAE’s “KILLA”, which I can best describe by being very of its time. Sci-fi and traditional concepts seemed to be all the rage this year, and this has both, if only a dash of the latter. The debut mainly stood out to me because they seem to have a decent vocal line, which isn’t really what 4th gen boy groups are known for. It’s also a solid song in general. Their follow up, “Splash”, was decent too, but it remains to be seen if they can find a niche for themselves musically, because both songs lack a bit of a unique identity. Finally, there’s is RBW’s new girl group PURPLE KISS, which is the first debut that ever convinced me of a group. I made an entire post about the MV for “Ponzona” when it came out since it was heavily inspired by Dreamcatcher, and my opinion only improved since then: I like the song a lot and the members are very talented. It was an honest contender for best KPop song of the year to me, and I had no prior investment in the group whatsoever. Their vocal line has potential to become one of my new favorites. No Goeun and Swan are hella impressive, Dosie stands out as a strong performer already, and Chaein is adorable. I also appreciate that they’re older than most girl groups at debut, maybe that’s why it feels like they have much more experience than the rookies they are. And their discography is almost scarily good so far too. Their 2nd EP, “Hide & Seek” was just as impressive as their debut. “Zombie” is a great title track, much more fun and upbeat than “Ponzona”, but somehow still very much what I expected and wanted out of this group, and the B-sides don’t feel like filler. “Cast Pearls before Swine” is especially noteworthy, but both EPs aren’t lacking in songs to pick a favorite from. It’s almost too good to be true. Which is why it had to be made up for elsewhere with complete trash fire releases. And oh boy, there were so many train wrecks and bewildering songs, enough to justify having an entire “hall of shame” segment for the year: OnlyOneOf’s “Libido” inspired me to write a ten-page essay on sexualization in KPop (which I never got around to edit), and it still makes me uncomfortable. This is here solely for the MV though, the song is fine, almost insultingly so, considering the provocative video. “Asurabalbalta” by T1419. Nothing to add, it’s just an ugly song all around. A special shout out to “My Turn” by CRAVITY for the most hilarious chorus of the year. Considering that the verses and MV are not framed as a parody, I’m sadly forced to believe that someone wrote the lyrics “vroom vroom vroom vroom vroom vroom skrt” and intended for the song to be cool. I also think I should give Aespa’s “Savage” at least a mention, but it’s unremarkable in its awfulness after a year of much more bewildering releases by this label. There’re salvageable parts in this song, a recognizable structure, and an almost functional instrumental track, even some good vocals. Which are wasted on the lyrics and song, but at least there’s something, which can’t be said about SM’s unholy trinity: Aespa’s “Next Level” sounds like 5 songs stitched together without rhyme or reason, and none of them have much merit on their own to begin with. The lyrics are terribly cringey too, the slang SM made up for them doesn’t help, and it can’t get much better than “beat drop”, followed by…distinctly not a beat drop. SM also SMed all over NCT Dream’s “Hot Sauce”, which features a vocal sample that is trying very hard to be more annoying than the “I want you” looped over EXO’s “Obsession”. I honestly think that this song is worse than “Next Level”, at least that one was an interesting train wreck and somewhat catchy, this is just bewildering. And then SM managed to dig even deeper. NCT 127’s “Sticker” barely qualifies as a song. It has no instrumental track, just a few mismatched and very annoying samples looped over 4 minutes. No structure to speak of, nor does it build towards anything. It has no melody, and the vocals have negative flow. There’s just nothing good to say about this. It’s not trying anything creative, it’s not catchy, it’s not relaxing, it’s not fun, it’s not cool, it’s just a mess I can’t believe was published by a major label. Finally, let’s look at the artists I had expectations for and see if they managed to live up to those: ONEUS has been on my radar since debut, but it wasn’t until last year that I started to have expectations for them. Which they promptly disappointed by doing the opposite of what I wanted. I have no idea who thought that “No Diggity” was a good move for them, but it did nothing for me. They pull off the weird mixture of Block B and 4th gen noise music, but I much prefer their prettier songs, and it felt like a good vocal performance wasted on a song that can’t profit from one. “Black Mirror” was a bit more in line with that, but it worked even less for me somehow. At this point I was ready to accept that they might not be a group for me after all, but “Luna” was a timely reminder of why I was paying attention to them in the first place. They’re really good at this type of song, and while I would generally agree with the praise they got for this, I was getting seriously annoyed by their fandom at this point. They’re not “concept kings”, please stop calling them that. This isn’t a nickname you can just claim for yourself, it’s VIXX’s. You’ll find VIXX by looking up that title, just like you’ll find SHINee when you search for “the princes of KPop”. It’s what not just their fans but also the media calls them, and it’s a title they earned with their unmatched dedication to concepts. Please respect that. Heck, “Luna” even takes inspiration from VIXX’s “Shangri-la” and especially the MBC Gayo performance of it, to the point of homage in some moments, and that’s not a bad thing, we just want it to be acknowledged. TWICE being in this category is something I never expected, yet here we are. Their summer comeback wasn’t exactly the catchy hit I expected though, “Alcohol-Free” is much more subdued than their usual output. It’s not bad, I just never feel the need to listen to it. “Scientist” too, apart from me constantly stumbling over the name because VIXX’s “Scentist” ruined that word forever, didn’t leave much of an impression. The lyrics are also a bit awkward, which hasn’t been a problem for them in a while. But to make their inclusion on my “good list” even weirder, what saved them from the “underwhelming but popular” category was an English single. “The Feels” is the first English release that doesn’t feel like the group watered down their identity to appeal to a western market. This is very much a TWICE song, and proud of it. The lyrics are perfectly fine, and the production gets the most out of every member. I wasn’t able to get behind their popularity in their early days, but there is something fascinating about senior group TWICE, and I hope they renew their contracts next year. Their labelmates Stray Kids didn’t quite manage to live up to their 2020 output either, but that’s understandable considering “InLife” was stupidly good, and they’ve been MIA until August, with the exception of “Up All Night”, which was a fun unit song that feels very relatable. Their first official comeback “Thunderous” meanwhile is exactly what I wanted, at least on paper. Gloriously overproduced KPop, and a music video that is overflowing with creative effects and editing. Highlights include a transition from animation to Changbin’s face and Felix turning into a sketch of himself, in a magazine that Hyunjin is just putting down. The color-grading is great too, it’s a dark MV but every color pops. It’s just that I’m not too big on the song this time. It’s okay, but I’d rather listen to “God’s Menu” again. They released a few more MVs for other songs on the album, out of which “Red Lights” received the most attention. Unsurprisingly, considering it’s essentially VIXX’s “Chained Up” turned homoerotic. I can’t say that I understood the freak-out over it, but I do like the song. I also found “Cheese” to be worth revisiting once in a while, even though the song is headache inducing. They also released hands down the best Christmas MV this year with “Christmas EveL”. The group likes to add a lovely parody angle to the overproduced KPop scene they’re very much a part of, and it’s the most obvious in this release. The lyrics are on point and the jokes consistently land. In general, I get the impression that enjoying Stray Kids’ content is often dependent on if you share their sense of humor. Dreamcatcher did just well enough not to disappoint as well. It’s good to see the full team together again, especially since they’re the only group I care about with a complete line-up. “Odd Eye” was pretty cool, but I liked the B-side “Poison Love” more, and I don’t listen to it often. What I did listen to though is their 2nd comeback “BEcause”. Right of the bat, this is the more interesting song to me. I loved the understated chorus from the second I heard it, and this song feels like they addressed all the problems I had with “Piri”. The breakdown doesn’t clash with the light vocals, it just fits here. The transitions are on point, their vocal line is still one of my favorites in KPop (Yoohyeon and Siyeon are just unfair), and I find myself increasingly impressed with Gahyeon. The entire group has a strong stage presence but watching her starting to claim more center time and chorus lines, all while completely owning her space on stage, is like watching VIXX’s Hyuk grow up all over again. “Your face turns blue, it’s like an ocean view” is also in contest for one of my favorite lines to come out of KPop this year. It’s just delightfully creepy. “Delightful” is also what I’d call ONF in general. They feel like a breath of fresh air, and it’s hard to pinpoint why. Almost every KPop group releases a fun song at some point in their career, but I’ve never seen it fit a group as naturally as it does ONF. Their music is also distinctly quirky, oozing with creative energy. “Beautiful Beautiful”, while not quite as interesting to me as “Sukhumvit Swimming”, is just as much fun and always puts a smile on my face. It’s catchy and happy without ever being annoying for it, which makes it almost impossible to not get caught up in its energy. And it’s also a song I can’t imagine being released by anyone but ONF. This group is a true gem, and this is one of their best songs to date. “Ugly Dance” is more aligned with the current trends but retains just enough of the fun vibes and quirky energy I like about this group to work. I prefer their other stuff, but they seem to enjoy performing this song a lot, which is one of their biggest strengths as a group in general. Their music and MVs are quirky and weird, always energetic, and it works because the members always seem have the time of their lives with it. Which is why I was looking forward to a summer comeback, and “Popping” did not disappoint. I have no idea what this song is going for, and the MV is all over the place, but it works. Just don’t try to dissect why it does because it honestly makes no sense. Finally, after dropping quite surprising enlistment news on us, they made one last comeback in December with “Goosebumps”, which is much darker than their other releases this year. That doesn’t mean that it’s lacking in creative energy though, not in the slightest. The song changes the top line for each chorus, and it hardly even registers because somehow it’s still incredibly catchy. I’m sad to see them enlist, but it’s nice to know that we’ll get them back in less than two years. They had a great run, and I sincerely hope that they can continue where they left off in 2023. WOODZ is another artist I discovered last year, but despite him almost making my top 5 songs with “Love Me Harder” I still underestimated him. I wasn’t sold on his merit as a vocalist, being much more interested in him as a songwriter. It’s not that he’s a bad singer, quite the contrary, I just don’t particularly like the tone of his voice. Which might sound absurd, because I very much enjoy his music and have been impressed by his performances repeatedly. His first single of the year, “FEEL LIKE”, is simple and groovy and scores with another great instrumental track, which just barely put him into the “did not disappoint”-camp, since I didn’t listen to this song much despite its qualities. But I immediately fell in love with the title track of his EP released in October. “Waiting” stands out to me as a perfect production, and I’m going to make this paragraph even weirder now, because I love the vocals on the track. This song is just perfect for his voice, and it’s a great performance all around. If WOODZ wins me over with his songs, then Taemin is on the opposite side of the spectrum. Most of what I love about his solos is purely on his insane skills as a performer, and I complained a lot about Taemin being better than the songs he’s been given over the years. Which sadly is the case for “Advice” as well. I don’t hate the song, but Taemin’s performance is the only thing I actively like about it. It just isn’t an interesting release and the entire EP felt extremely save to me. Which is a shame for his last release before enlistment, especially coming off the “Never Gonna Dance Again” albums where he’d been given more room to experiment. Minho meanwhile deserves a proper solo debut, and not just because SHINee needs to complete the plagiarism joke. “Heartbreak” was a pleasant surprise at the end of the year. It might be nothing revolutionary, but just the right type of pleasant and relaxing to feel worthwhile nonetheless. Or maybe it just felt like SHINee was competing among themselves on what my favorite song of the year would be at least since June, and I had given up on fighting it at this point. So. SHINee. I’ve rewritten this part more times than I can count, and I doubt I’ll ever be happy with it. But I can’t continue to be flippant about them anymore, and there’s just too much to untangle with this group to keep it short. I spent 3 years pretending that I had no interest in them beyond some of their music, that they weren’t the group I turned to if I wanted a dose of happiness, that I didn’t love their shows and interviews for being endlessly entertaining, and that I didn’t avoid them because acknowledging that they were important to me hurt. I ignored their shows, the albums beyond the title tracks, and didn’t even listen to Key’s and Onew’s solos. But this year, keeping a distance just wasn’t possible anymore. It’s been a long time since I felt like a group was as on top of their game as SHINee was in 2021. They came back from the military with the same experienced confidence and disregard for rules and expectations I’ve been missing since they and VIXX went on hiatus in 2018, and everything they did this year felt like a triumph. It took months to figure out how I feel about “Don’t Call Me” though. It’s very 4th gen, and I liked that SHINee always stuck to a bit of 2nd gen whimsy before. Onew is entirely too nice for the song too and is given hardly anything to work with. But then again, they pull it off. It’s more of a grower than their usual title tracks, but it’s a rock-solid production. It was also nice to hear a SHINee title track that felt built around Key for once. Maybe their 2021 releases felt as triumphant to me as they did because being Key biased this year was a constant invitation to scream “told you so” at everyone who ever doubted his abilities. Still, this song ultimately isn’t what I want from SHINee. Lucky for me then that their 2nd title track “Atlantis” is exactly the type of classic, upbeat, vocal driven pop song they excel at. When they talked about songs that got taken off the “Don’t Call Me” album, “Atlantis” comes up in a moment of miscommunication, and they immediately insist that this song is theirs, that it’s a song that only they can do, so there’s no way SM would hand it to anyone else, and I’m inclined to agree. It’s a SHINee song to its core. The album is good too. I have issues with it, like how “Heart Attack” and “I Really Want You” are essentially the same song, even though I like both. Some tracks feel a bit like filler too, and I don’t like “Days and Years” at all. Overall, I’d love to cut out a quarter of the songs, but then SM wouldn’t be able to do their full-album-into-repackage spiel anymore. A more experimental and darker B-side would’ve been nice to have too, something like “Nightmare” or “Trigger”, because I always loved those and “Don’t Call Me” doesn’t fit the tone of the album at all, even after the repackage fixes the terrible sequencing. At least they kept up with the SHINee tradition of having one song entirely focused on chill-inducingly perfect vocals on each album. “Area” immediately became a contender for song of the year for me. I’m in love with their voices in general, but Onew on this song in particular gives me chills. I also love the eerie quality of this song, and even without knowing for sure if that was Minho’s intention when writing the lyrics or not, it’s hard to shake off the impression that this song is addressed to Jonghyun. Whether intentional of not, “I can’t fill your empty spot” is the most cutting line I heard in KPop in a while. And in a complete 180 mood-wise, the final group release before we lost them to the military again is classic SHINee-style JPop, the kind of song I like a lot but can’t actually defend when asked about it. “SUPERSTAR” is nothing unique or fancy, but SHINee carries the song on pure charisma, and it never failed to put a smile on my face. I think you can tell from the length of this paragraph that I was fully prepared to hand song, album, and artist of the year to SHINee, and it really wasn’t even close…but then they got competition from inside their own ranks. There aren’t many productions in KPop as interesting and perfectly executed as Key’s “Bad Love” EP. This was the first time in ages that I wanted an album before knowing anything about the music, simply because the packaging is so damn awesome. The level of creativity and attention to detail that went into the presentation of this comeback is something I’m used to by VIXX and them only. And it’s not like any of that was necessary to sell me on the album, because the songs are genuinely amazing. The title track has more harmonies, concurring melodies, high-notes, and adlips than most group releases do, and it never sounds messy for it. “Bad Love” is an extremely clean and impressive production, and I’ve been obsessed with it since it came out. There’s not a single song on the EP I didn’t like either and none of them sound like filler. I’m in love with how much energy he put into “Yellow Tape”, how amazing his harmony with Taeyeon sounds in “Hate That…”, his voice in “Helium” period but especially during the bridge, the entire mood of “Saturday Night”, and the “end of my world” line in “Eighteen”. And that’s another thing, this EP is filled with good songs, but it’s Key who sells them. I always liked his voice, and I’ve seen enough vocal coaches gush over SHINee to know he’s a technically clean singer, but nothing prepared me for just how great he sounds when he’s given songs that are tailored to his weird tone, and when he’s allowed to make his own choices. The entire album has “Key” written all over it, and never to its detriment. I just can’t imagine this EP in the hands of anyone else, and it has quickly become my favorite solo release in KPop period. I’m so glad it paid of commercially, and I sincerely hope that SM finally realizes that SHINee does best when they’re allowed to make their own decisions. Because if this is what Key’s preferences look and sound like, then I absolutely want more of it in the future.

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yunmeng-jiang · 1 year

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draft of a comic

#the scum villain's self saving system #scum villain #svsss #luo binghe #shen qingqiu #fanart #(i guess?)#my art (extremely low effort version)

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brighteyedjill · 2 years

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I posted 893 times in 2021

18 posts created (2%)

875 posts reblogged (98%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 48.6 posts.

I added 535 tags in 2021

#the witcher - 226 posts

#lofty artness - 154 posts

#mcu - 37 posts

#my fic - 35 posts

#eskel/geralt - 22 posts

#geralt of rivia - 14 posts

#fandom disk horse - 13 posts

#yennefer of motherfucking vengerberg - 12 posts

#gereskel - 11 posts

#tfatws - 11 posts

Longest Tag: 131 characters

#it's worth making the effort (or like any effort whatsoever come on now) to make fandom less hostile to fans of color doncha think?

My Top Posts in 2021

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Ever want to feel like you’re in the Welcome to Night Vale version of a 1990s grocery store? Come on down to Omega Mart!

66 notes • Posted 2021-04-02 03:12:41 GMT

Chapters: 1/16 Fandom: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Characters: Eskel (The Witcher), Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Lambert (The Witcher), Aiden (The Witcher), Coen, Vesemir (The Witcher) Additional Tags: Geralt was a Knight of Toussaint AU, Mentions of Other Past Pairings for Both Characters, Forced Marriage, Spells & Enchantments, Relationship Negotiation, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Angst, Miscommunication, Communication, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Shovel Talk, Kaer Morhen's Fanon Hot Springs (The Witcher), I Shook A Witcher And Intergenerational Trauma Fell Out (The Witcher), Geralt Almost Dies (But Doesn’t), Past Rape/Non-con, Scents & Smells, Scent Kink, Bathing/Washing, Erectile Dysfunction, Oral Sex, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Prostate Orgasms, Rimming, Permanent Injury, Injury Recovery Series: Part 2 of A Knight's Guide to Courting Witchers Summary:

Though Eskel first came into Geralt’s life as the witcher he was sentenced to wed as a punishment, Geralt has come to thank his lucky stars for the husband Fate brought him. He’s eager to train beside Eskel and become as much of a witcher as he can be--but he hasn’t anticipated what challenges a winter at Kaer Morhen will bring to the happy continuation of their marriage.

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It’s here! The sequel to From This Day On, the one where Geralt is a knight of Toussaint sentenced to marry Eskel, cowritten with the extremely talented @bittylildragon. I’m very excited about this one! It includes:

Geralt trying his damnedest to make Eskel feel loved

Eskel’s low self-esteem and abandonment issues (continued)

More monster nerdery

Sensual bathing

The challenges of staffing and maintaining a centuries-old keep with just six people

Classic witcher trainee pranks

Shaking a witcher (you know what falls out when that happens)

Modern perspectives on historical witcher policies and procedures

Very, very loud sex and its unintended effects

We’ll be updating three times a week, and there’s 60k words in store for you, so stay tuned!

81 notes • Posted 2021-09-12 16:47:56 GMT

Chapters: 1/8 Fandom: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Characters: Eskel (The Witcher), Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Additional Tags: Forced Marriage, Marriage as Punishment Canon Divergence AU, Geralt was a Knight of Toussaint AU, Past Rape/Non-con, Mentions/expectation of non-con, Anti-Witcher Sentiments (The Witcher), Brief suicidal ideation, Dubious Consent, Mutual Pining, Misunderstandings, Bathing/Washing, Romance, Bottom Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Erectile Dysfunction, Mentions of Other Past Pairings for Both Characters, Oral Sex, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Prostate Orgasms, Relationship Negotiation Summary:

Geralt knew that his duty as a knight of Toussaint was to defend the Duchess at all costs. But killing the Duchess’s traitorous sister brings down her wrath, and now Geralt must submit to an unimaginable punishment: marriage to a beast of a witcher, who will surely make Geralt suffer for whatever remains of his life.

Eskel, for his part, did not plan to acquire a disgraced knight who expects the absolute worst of him. But the rings that tie them together are powerful magic, and if the two of them cannot be parted, then they must learn how to make the best of their new situation.

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Y’ALL. Hobbitdragon had a dream (by which I mean started writing a fic), and then let me come play in the sandbox, too. Here’s some of what you might find within:

Geralt being the romantic, slutty knight errant he was always meant to be

Eskel’s low self-esteem and abandonment issues

Geralt’s monster nerdery

Awkward and ineffective flirting

The inherent tragedy of witchers

The challenges faced by the Continent’s gig workers

Very, very loud sex

We’ll be updating twice a week, and there maaaaaay even be a sequel in store after that. I guarantee nothing!

122 notes • Posted 2021-08-03 16:35:18 GMT

This is the remix!

One of my favorite ancient fandom exchanges has returned! Remix Revival is an exchange where you sign up to have someone remix one of your existing fics, and to remix one of someone else's fics.

Uh, what’s a remix?

A remix is kind of like a song cover: you take the bones of the original fic and spin something new out of it. Sometimes it's writing from a different POV, or changing the setting, making it an AU, or focusing really deeply on a single element. You could tell the whole story via text messages, or from the perspective of the bystander who was watching your OTP confess their love. For this exchange, you also have the option to remix art as fic or fic as art. Also, it’s traditional to name your fic something like “Fic Title (the catchy phrase goes here remix)” which is always fun. There’s more details in the Remix Revival FAQ.

I love this challenge because it inspires me to look at my own work in a new way, and I find myself writing fic I would never have created on my own. It's always amazing to see what someone else does with your fic!

What if I’m scared of commitment?

Attached to this exchange is Remix Madness, which is a chance to put your fics up for remix adoption at large without participating in the exchange. You can also remix fic from people signed up to Remix Madness without signing up yourself. It’s madness!

Also, if there are certain fics you wouldn’t want people to remix, you can designate a certain number of “safe” fics that will not be eligible to remix. WIPs and collaborations are automatically safe.

How do I participate?

Sign ups for the main exchange are open now through August 23rd. After that, sign-ups begin for the Remix Madness part of the challenge. Check out the Remix Revival Dreamwidth community for admin updates.

Anyway, it'd be awesome if a bunch of Witcher people participated! Come getcha hot hot summer remix jams!

127 notes • Posted 2021-08-14 23:11:18 GMT

Why censor a fandom event?

Do the mods for a fandom event have the right to make restrictions on content? Sure. They’re volunteers running their own event.

But. Fandom is a culture that we build together. If we were just people enjoying media in our own homes, we would not be a community. But we’re not. We talk to each other, reblog each other’s amazing art, comment on AO3, squee in Discord channels over ideas, and so on. That’s what makes fandom great: we build it collectively. And like any culture, we have some shared norms. For example, since AO3 is a big influence on our culture, tagging has become a cultural norm in fandom. We tag for the “big four” warnings on AO3, and increasingly, tag more and more details of content to help people find what they like and avoid what they don’t.

Fandom events like Big Bangs shape fandom culture, too, though. They bring together people who might otherwise not know each other, and have a tendency to dominate the fandom conversation for a time. Restrictions in a Big Bang have a chilling effect on content creators. That means that some work will not get written because of these restrictions, and also that people’s opinions towards this kind of content may be influenced on a larger scale. I personally find this unfortunate, as some of the things on the restricted list are things I’ve written about, uh, a lot. But aside from just me, there are larger implications to consider. Read more about the history of strikethrough and content restriction to learn about who is harassed and excluded when fandom culture turns against “questionable” content.

I posit that restrictions like this are not always The Norm™ in fandom events, nor should they be. In a fandom like the Witcher, whose canon includes everything on the restricted list, most of them graphically, I believe content of a similar nature should be welcome in fandom content. I ran my first Big Bang in 2009, and have participated in half a dozen bangs and reverse bangs since. None of them had content restrictions (here’s an example of a Big Bang without content restrictions that’s been running since 2011). Some Big Bangs do; sometimes this is dependent on the canon content, more often it depends on who has power and influence in the fandom. Here’s a case for why not to include restrictions in future events.

What are these restrictions meant to do?

As I understand it, these restrictions are meant to make things more inclusive by allowing more people to participate. Are they successful in that? It’s possible they allow different people to participate. As with many things, there are competing access needs here. More on that below. But let’s look at what “making things more inclusive” means in practice.

Problem: We want to allow participation from people who don’t want to come into contact with dark content.

OK. Let’s help participants avoid coming into contact with dark content if they don’t want to. How might they come into contact with dark content?

1.) People might hear upsetting conversations in Discord chat

Solution: Ask people to post in the appropriate channel. Use a “walk away” rule to encourage people to leave the channel if a conversation comes up that they’re not comfortable with. If you want to go further, you could have people warn for certain topics, or restrict darker topics to a specific channel, though this runs up against a different issue (see below).

2) People might see content in the claims that they don’t like, or don’t want to work on.

Solution: Usually in a Big Bang the artists look at a list of summaries and tags and choose which fic(s) they’d like to work on. No artist is going to be forced to work on anything they don’t want to. Even artists who enjoy dark content are often illustrating something other than the darkest, most graphic, or most explicit moment of a fic. In a claiming situation, you can have writers tag their fics, just like they would on AO3, to allow artists to filter out content they’re not interested in or that they would find upsetting.

2.5) We won’t find any artist to work on certain pieces.

Solution: This happens sometimes. You could put out a call for more artist participants, allow artists to claim a second piece if they want, or you may have to tell a creator that there’s not a match for them. That is a bummer, but this happens sometimes, especially in fandoms where writers vastly outnumber artists. But in no scenario will any artist be forced to write for a piece that squicks them.

3) People might see content in the Big Bang collection that they don’t like.

Solution: This one’s pretty easy. Tagging. Tagging has been used on AO3 since its inception to help people avoid content they do not want to see. People don’t have to engage with content they don’t want to see if it is properly tagged.

4) The mods don’t personally want to engage with the content.

Solution: Find a mod who will, so that mods who don’t want to don’t have to! You can get a volunteer to do this, I guarantee.

5) I want to encourage the creation of lighter or SFW content.

Solution: I get that. Say so! Explain what content you welcome, and phrase what you’re looking for in a positive way (e.g. “We require that content be T rated or below and have a generally positive outlook and an upbeat ending.”) rather than what you don’t want. Be clear, specific, and up front about it, so that you connect with the creators you’re hoping will participate.

6) I think this content should not exist.

This is the one I can’t help you with. If the reason you’re banning content is because, consciously or unconsciously, you think that it’s morally reprehensible, or that the people who make it are bad, I do not have a solution to offer.

Competing Access Needs

I’m not going to get too far into the weeds on how making a list of restricted topics is impossible, because others have addressed this point. No matter what list you come up with, someone out there will find something you failed to list, but that you feel should be restricted. What to do? If they’ve already completed a fic, tell them to leave? Tell them they have to change it? Let it slide? There will be endless questions about what is and isn’t allowed, which is time-consuming and exhausting for mods, and paralyzing for creators. How do I know if this scene is un-graphic enough? Will I need to revise my whole fic? Will I get kicked out entirely if I write the wrong thing? Will some participants get preferential treatment or the benefit of the doubt because of their identities or their connections?

Censorship brings up competing access needs. Someone doesn’t want to see non-con. Someone is writing non-con fic to work through their own trauma. Someone is writing it for other reasons. Can you accommodate all these folks? I would say yes, in the ways detailed above. But when you start restricting content (as in Strikethrough or Boldthrough, discussed in the history link above), you’re not wielding a scalpel. You’re wielding an anvil, and you’re gonna crush things you didn’t mean to crush. Again, check out the history link to see who gets crushed.

So… what to do?

Do I think people should change the rules for the events they’re running? No (john mulaney we are well past that.gif). As I said, people who are running their own events have the prerogative to restrict them for whatever audience they’re hoping to reach. Questioning fandom practices is not “shitting on” anyone (and hey--no scat allowed).

What I would really like is for Witcher fandom to have a think about how we want to proceed as a community. What should be the norm? Witcher fandom culture (in its current form, i.e. big) is still relatively young. There can be variation, sure: Discord server vibes vary wildly, for example. But in the big events or activities that we hope will be open to the largest part of the community, how do we want to intentionally foster the maximum amount of great content about our favorite things? There are ways to be inclusive that do not involve censorship, and I believe we should use them.

323 notes • Posted 2021-01-05 01:46:34 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #Look at that wall of text yeesh #I mean I guess that's what my role in the fandom ecosystem is!#and look at that fic I co-wrote--that's good shit if I do say so myself #Youtube

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syms-things-5 · 4 years

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Clear The Area - Chapter Fifteen (Part Two)

**A Chris Evans Story**

Previous Chapter Here

Tags: @jennmurawski13 @kelbabyblue

Warnings: 18+ NSFW, strong language, generally a bit awkward

Notes: This is a long chapter, sorry. Any comments welcome, good and bad.

Chapter Fifteen (Part Two)

“Let me just bring up your booking here, one moment please.”

The lobby of The Langham was an ocean of grey and blue. The sun was shining brightly outside, the hottest day of the year so far, and it reflected in every surface of the space and accompanying bar. It was sparse on the usual detailing, instead preferring a minimalist approach; the check-in desk consisted of a mere iPad and one lily artfully growing from a tall, geometrical glass vase. Random art hung from all sides. One looked vaguely like a donkey, Sarah was sure. There was also what she thought was an ash tray balanced on a pillar to the left of where she was standing but she didn’t dare to investigate it any closer in case it cost the price of a small car.

It had the same over-perfumed odour as the fragrance section of a Macy’s. The tiled floor look so clean and fresh you could be forgiven for thinking it had only just been laid that very morning. Sarah felt a pang of guilt walking in wearing her scuffed Converse. She always felt so out of place in places like this. It was the kind of place she would run a mile from if she had the choice but Greg had an “in” with the manager and now here she was.

“So that will be four nights in our Executive Suite with Central Park view. You also have the bar allowance of $150 per night. You just need to take the elevator up to the 32nd floor and it’s the second door on your left. Would you like a hand with your bags, madam?” She motioned for the concierge to come over but held her hand up when she spied the puzzled look on Sarah’s face.

“I’m really sorry but I think there’s been some kind of mistake. I didn’t book a suite, just a standard double and I don’t think I pre-paid for any bar allowance. I didn’t even know I could do that to be honest.” Sarah chuckled awkwardly in an attempt to diffuse the tension but it fell on deaf ears. She handed the key card back to the lady, unsure of what else to suggest.

The lady showed practically no emotion at the possible mistake and simply took another look at her records before confirming that she was in fact correct with the initial room choice. “It’s definitely your suite, and...everything is paid for in advance. Could it have been made on your behalf? It looks like it was upgraded yesterday afternoon.”

Sarah wasn’t sure if she was asking her a question or telling her. She couldn’t believe she wasn’t biting her hand off but she hoped she hadn’t made some kind of horrific error her bank wouldn’t forgive her for. She could barely afford the double room she’d booked as it was and she’s sure the college wouldn’t have upgraded her without letting her know in advance. It made zero sense. They couldn’t have that kind of money going spare, putting students up in posh suites. She had no clue what could have happened.

Unless...Chris?

No, it wouldn’t be. He was less than pleased to hear she’d be away as it was. Except...well, who else? Sarah rolled her eyes a little too obviously before accepting the key card back. “That’s OK. I think I know what’s happened. It’s only the one bag. I can manage it.”

The lady nodded her thanks and, smiling politely, pointed her back towards the elevators. Sarah couldn’t move away from her fast enough.

Arriving at her floor, Sarah emerged from the lift expecting someone to come running up to her to confirm that they had in fact made a horrendous mistake. She slipped the key card into her door before pushing her way in to find her new home for the week.

The bedroom was large, uncomfortable so, with the bed positioned just off the middle in the room. Sarah figured the designer for a psychopath. It was big but not as empty as the lobby would have had her believe. In fact, it seemed reassuringly cosy despite the windows, so many windows stretching around the suite. There was a soft blue curved sofa opposite a screen that she’d seen smaller versions of in a cinema. Cushions fucking everywhere and fluffy white slippers she’d probably never take off again.

Everything seemed to be controlled from an iPad set in a stand by the bedroom door; the lights, the curtains, the air freshener, some background music for ambiance if she wanted. The windows tinted darker to block out the sunlight. Even the $1300 coffee machine was remote controlled; she had recognised it from the last edition of Home & Country Jocelyn had mailed to her, the exact one Shanna had been dropping hints about to Chris as a potential Christmas present.

The lounge offered her the clearest view of Central Park and with the light at this time in the afternoon, it was beyond stunning. She snapped a picture and considered texting it to Shanna but thought better of drawing attention to where she was staying. There was no way she could pass this off as a standard room even with her best efforts.

It was almost a shame to waste all of this on just herself. This room deserved romance, she thought.

Around the same time, Chris was on his third beer of the afternoon and lounging on his sofa. He had a new script in one hand, one he wasn’t particularly keen on but offered to read as a favour for a friend. He was so relaxed now that he had to re-read the last ten or so pages simply because it wasn’t landing. The whole room was lit softly by the sun outside. It had gone 4 o’clock when his phone rang disturbing the peace.

“Bernette! How was the journey?” he smiled into the phone as soon as he saw who it was.

“The bathtub is the size of my entire bathroom.” She announced, not giving him room to breathe. She heard him laugh heartily at the end of the line and could picture him looking smug and proud of himself, the dick. “I could have an orgy with the Patriots and still have room left.”

“Hey, don’t go getting any ideas.” he jostled with her. He placed the script down on the tablet to give her his full attention. “So, you like it, huh?”

“It’s...it’s absolutely gorgeous and utterly ridiculous. Seriously, dude, you did not need to do this.” She could sense his growing pride from here. “I’ve never stayed in anything like it. I have, like, a hundred towels.”

“That’s why I did it in the first place. Not for the towels, obviously, but just because you deserved something different. Something nice.” He enthused. “Don’t fight me on this, Bernette.”

“You should see the view. It’s so beautiful. I think I can see the museum.” She was stood on her tiptoes, pressed against the glass, looking at the tiny people milling around on the street so far below her.

“i know,” he responded. “You’ll be there for a week and best to be comfortable, right?”

She didn’t want to argue with him. She was tired and extremely grateful for the kind gesture. She’d be able to enjoy the place and her time in the City more if she could firmly separate her work from any space in which she could chill out. It wasn’t like she was going to be raving all night nor have much chance to see places at this rate, so more space was probably a good thing. She hadn’t had an unbroken night’s sleep in...she couldn’t even remember when.

“Thank you, Chris.” she spoke softly after a brief pause.

“You’re welcome.”

She put her phone down on the bedside table and set about removing her clothes from her suitcase. Well, “clothes” in the loose sense. What she’d packed was basically gym gear, sweat pants, t-shirts, nothing remotely attractive, and a simple paid of black trousers for the exam day itself. Who was going to see her anyway? Shanna had thrown a jumper in the mix without her realising, dismayed at her insistence that she was not going out to bars to hook up with someone.

“But you’ll be gone the next day! It’s. The. Perfect. Crime!” Shanna had said, exasperated and throwing her hands in the air in dismay.

The majority of space in her suitcase has been taken up with journals and textbooks, ones she hadn’t see since she left medical school and had long since expected she would never see again. Funny what opportunities life threw at you when you least expected it.

She was soon feeling the push and pull of the day and had planned on spending at least a couple of hours studying that evening, so she had a clean-up and threw on the first set of sweatpants that fell out of the closet. She tied her hair up and out of her face, pulled out her notepad and switched her Macbook on. The TV was showing some repeat of a gameshow with the sound on low, more for background company than anything else, and she finally figured out how to get the coffee machine working thanks to a small tome buried inside a drawer underneath the coffee table.

Chris 9.44pm: All OK? Need company yet??

Sarah 9.45pm: I love you guys bt I can’t tell u how amazing it is having space to myself. Been a looooong day

Chris 9.51pm: ah

Chris 9.52pm: OK maybe don’t look outside your door

Momentarily confused, she rubbed at her eyes trying to come up with a pithy response.

Chris 9.56pm: well this is awkward...........

Sarah looked at the door and then back at her phone. Looking up at the door again, she unfolded her feet from underneath her and slowly walked towards it. Pulling it open, she found Chris looking up at her through his lashes, sheepishness drenching his entire body.

“OK, funny story,” he said. “But I thought this might be romantic and then I got carried away and now I’m here and I can absolutely go if you need me to...?” He half-turned his body in the direction of the elevators. “I’m so sorry, honey. I just thought it might be nice and not at all annoying but it’s annoying, isn’t it? It’s OK, you don’t need to say anything. Dammit, I really thought I pitched this right.”

“Chris, it’s fine.” Sarah finally found her voice to speak. “Honestly. I’m...I’m just really surprised is all. I was not expecting you to...drive? All this way?”

He nodded. “Yeh, I just bombed it down the ‘95.”

Awkward silence fell between them as they stared at each other unsure of what to do next. Finally picking up on the fact he remained in the hallway, a backpack thrown over his shoulder, she moved out of the way and he entered the suite. Relieved, he placed his bag down and turned to see her close the door behind him. He looked mildly embarrassed and she was all too aware she wasn’t welcoming but it was getting late and her eyes had started to hurt a little as she rubbed at them with the back of her hand.

“Fuck, that’s a long couch.” he announced, taking his black suede jacket off and placing it over the armrest nearest to him. He glanced over and saw papers strewn over the coffee table, her laptop light blaring brightly and looked back to her. She was working hard and he had ruined it.

“I am so sorry. First thing tomorrow, I’ll go home, I promise.” He held his hands up by way of an apology but she shook her head in response.

“Stop apologising.” she chuckled. “Do you want a beer?”

He nodded gratefully and looked so adorable that any annoyance she might have felt finally dissipated. “How about I give you a hug and then leave you to it? I need a shower and I can amuse myself in there for a little while. I don’t know why I just said that.”

Sarah laughed again and a little more relief moved through him. He wasn’t sure why he was feeling so nervous when he had been so confident of his decisions in the car all the way here. He’d rehearsed his lines and imagined her big smile when seeing behind the door. He had wanted to stop off and buy flowers but he was so eager to see her, he’d just kept driving. No daydream could live up to the reality of seeing her face up close.

He watched her from the bathroom doorway. She was cross-legged on the bed, studying the thickest textbook he’d ever seen with colour-coded notecards laid out across the duvet. He had earlier glimpsed a page over her shoulder but decided against pursuing medicine as a new career when he was faced with photographs of god knows what. He tried to remove the images from his mind by drinking another beer and thinking of Sarah in her scrubs. That tended to work well for him these days.

She looked so cute sat on the bed, her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. He wanted to come up with a joke, calm the tension a little that had grown between them in the meantime, but she looked pretty hot. More hot than usual and it was distracting. Like a sexy Librarian and for the second time this month he discovered something else he was into.

One pen was stuck behind her ear but she’d forgotten she’d put it there and was now using a different one. Her hair was tied up at the top of her head in a messy bun that she hadn’t touched since she’d arrived, more and more strands falling loosely around her as the evening wore on, framing her perfect, round face. She seemed to engrossed in what she was doing.

He was still a little wet from his shower and pondered whether she would notice if he just whipped his towel off and offered himself to her. There really wasn’t anything he wanted more at this moment in time than to have her touch him, to have her run hands gently over his chest, to tease him a little bit. There’d be some time, he reasoned, and right not it was just was exhilarating to think of her being here alongside him knowing it would be just the two of them for a little while.

He perched on the end of the bed in front of her. She barely moved, barely seemed to notice him. He took one of her blank notecards and carefully placed it on the open page so as not to lose her place. She leaned back slightly, allowing him to gather up the papers and place them in a pile on the floor besides the bed before turning back to lean in towards her, one arm stretching out across her legs. She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes again. She wanted peace and quiet and he decided to rock up just because he could. He sighed to himself. He was such a dick sometimes.

“Do you mind me being here?” he asked her, fully resigning himself to leaving if she now asked him to as hard as that might be. He’d got so caught up in his idea of surprising her that he hadn’t fully registered just how important these exams were or how well she wanted to do. Passing them wasn’t an option for Sarah; she wanted to knock it out of the park. She wanted to do better for herself and the more he got to know her like this, the more it became his favourite thing about her. And he related. He related perfectly. He knew exactly what that was like. “Cos I can go if you need me to.”

“Chris, I’ve said it’s fine. It’s nice that you’re here. I would just hate you feeling bored if all I’m doing is studying all the time.” She nervously twirled the pen between her fingers while taking in how amazing he looked following a shower, a little steam rising off his skin.

“I won’t get bored.” he assured her. “It’ll be nice hanging out with you. Just the two of us.”

He plucked the pen from behind her ears and she rolled her eyes realising the mistake she’d made. He tucked strands of hair back and leaned in placing a quick, soft kiss to her lips. He smelled like her coconut shampoo and she just now understood how truly spontaneous his trip had been.

“Listen, there’s another reason why I’m here. There’s something I need to talk to you about and I couldn’t wait until you got home.” he stroked her arm gently, looking down into her lap. “It’s been going around in my head and I’m not entirely sure what to say about it to be honest, but...it looks like Jenny’s done an interview with a magazine. A full thing with a photoshoot and stuff and it looks like I might be involved.” He closed his eyes for a second before correcting himself. “Not might actually, it’s pretty much definite that I’m in there for a large portion of it.”

“OK.” Sarah nodded. He for sure seemed weary of the whole thing and she felt for him.

“I just, I know she can be pretty unfiltered at the best of times, so-”

“-but she won’t have said anything negative, right?”

“No, no, not negative. I’m not worried about that exactly. It’s just that...” He was struggling to find the words. “I just didn’t want you to get the wrong idea about us, about me and her. I expect she’ll have this hyper-romanticised view of things and I guess I didn’t want you thinking it was some great love affair which is what I think she’ll spin it as.” He couldn’t quite meet her eye while he was talking. “I’m not proud of myself or of what I said or did at the time but I was low and she was there and it was...easy, I guess.”

He immediately regretted his choice of words. As much as he wanted Sarah to understand, he didn’t want Sarah to think he was dismissive of his relationships in this way. “Matt’s figuring out some damage control with them. Hopefully, it’ll go away as quickly as it comes.”

“You think he’ll be able to clear it up?”

Chris nodded. Matt was a formidable guy and he was assured things would look and read much better by the time it went to print. He placed his hand on her thigh and it was only now she registered just how close he was to surrounding her. “I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve all too often but when I do, they know about it. I want to make them aware of exactly how I feel about them and I didn’t do that with her.” He dipped his head to catch her eye line. “So, when I do something for someone, it means something, y’know?”

“Yeh, of course. You’re a good guy, Chris. Everyone knows that.” She took his hand and lightly interlocked their fingers together.

“I guess I just didn’t want you worrying about her ‘cos there’s absolutely nothing there for me. Never had been.”

“You don’t need to explain this to me, I’m not going to hold anything against you.” she stroked his chin with her thumb and felt him relax into her hand. He glanced down at the mess he’d made on the floor and started picking a few things back up.

“How much left do you have to do tonight?” he whispered as his lips closed upon hers for a fleeting moment.

“I could do with finishing some notes but...half an hour, maybe?”

“I’ll hold you to that.” he kissed her again and got up from the bed, lifting her books back on top. “Just come get me when you’re done, yeh?”

Finishing up in the bathroom, Sarah switched off the light and moved towards the bed. She kneeled alongside Chris who was lying flat out, naked except for the duvet bunched across legs, reading what she assumed was the hotel magazine only to find upon closer inspection that it was in fact one of her medical journals. She giggled as she grabbed the moisturiser from the bedside table and began rubbing a small amount up and down her arms, regarding him as his nose creased up in apparent disgust at something he’d just read.

“Did you know the body has ten times more microorganisms living in it than actual human cells?! That’s bacteria, Sarah. Living, gross bacteria. All over us.” he looked at her, shock and horror crossing his fine, perfect features. She wasn’t sure whether to pat him on the head or laugh.

“It’s mostly good bacteria, though. Only, like, 1% of it is bad for us.”

“And when exactly were you going to tell me about this?!”

She creased up laughing and flopped on to her side next to him. “It’s all information that’s out there for the world to see. Remind me not to tell you about eyelashes.”

“What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever removed from somebody’s ass?” he asked.

“What? Why is that always a question people want an answer to?”

“I don’t know. It’s just weird. Humans are weird.” he muttered, turning back to the pages in front of him. She was glad he had chosen one without pictures. That was the last thing she wanted to see before falling asleep.

“So, have you learned something new?” she asked, curling her legs under the duvet.

“I have. I think you should test me and if I get a question wrong, you can do whatever you like to me. Deal?” he asked, smirking. She shyly smiled and he tossed the book onto the floor. “Hi.”

“Hi.” She repeated. She watched as his eyes slowly travelled down her body. It was unreasonable how much he managed to disarm her with only a look.

His hand reached out to gently caress the side of her thigh, nudging the duvet slightly down before moving back up to her hip, a ticklish area he’d picked up on the last time they were together. He leaned in and kiss her on the side of her jaw, so feather-like and soft she barely felt it if not for his warm breath she could feel on her neck.

“You smell nice.” he whispered, looking at her from underneath his eyelashes. “We could have showered together, y’know? Save the planet?”

As much as she was getting used to the little things he would do when they were alone, rubbing her arm, tucking hair behind her ears, saying nice things about how pretty she looked, having him here in such close proximity with no else around to distract them or force them into the light...it was getting risky. Not that Chris ever pushed her, mind. He’d been nothing but understanding and respectful and she was grateful for that but also growing concerned he was perhaps a little...bored. Why else would he drive over state lines to see her. None of this was normal and the more time went by, the more she became fretful of what they were doing.

“What are you thinking about?” he kissed her shoulder. “Is it dirty? If it’s dirty, I wanna know about it.”

Sarah smiled and placed her hand on the side of his face, running her fingers gently over his beard. He’d thoroughly given up shaving but she liked how soft it still felt under her finger tips and judging by the breath he released as he closed his eyes, so did he, relaxing into her hand. He kissed her again. She was hoping he’d take charge so she could put off talking to him a little longer but instead, he refrained from pushing them any further and leaned back a little, looking into her eyes. “Talk to me.”

She could feel his hand move slowly and deliberately up her arm until he reached the back of her neck, his fingers playing with the loose strands of hair that had fallen from her messy bun. There was no getting away from this.

“You know you can tell me anything, right? It’s OK for you to tell me what you want.” She could feel his breath on her skin, his voice low and rough. His fingers moved again and she felt them touch her lips, one of them running back and forth over her lower lip until she parted them ever so slightly and his finger softly dipped inside her mouth. He seemed to like that and kissed her again, a little harder this time.

“Just keep kissing me.” she whispered, relieved that se finally got some words out.

He smiled at her, satisfied with her response, and kissed her again. Slow, wet, a kind of kiss that was full of promise of what he wanted to do and it made her whole body thrum with anticipation.

One hand now resting on the bed beside her and the other moved from her cheek back down to her thigh. She was frozen to the spot, this man focussed on her so intently, prepared to give her whatever she asked for, whatever she needed, expressing so much in a kiss that she didn’t register when her hand began moving slowly, grazing a finger ever so slightly over the waistline of her shorts.

“...and what else?”

A little more, he moved his hand until his fingers dipped inside her underwear until he felt her skin, hot to the touch. She broke the kiss momentarily to let out a breath, one hand resting on the back of his neck for leverage as he continued tenderly moving his fingers until he got to where he wanted to be. Feeling her wet for him seemed to spark something inside and she felt him push her carefully until she was lying back on the bed, head just off the pillow, and he leaned over her. He adjusted his hand ever so slightly until she could feel his fingers pressing at her entrance before moving in small circular motions, riling her up.

“Look at me, honey.” he whispered, his voice rough and turned on as he wanted her grabbing at the covers as he stroked her. She tried to but she couldn’t stop her eyes from closing again, zoned out with only his smooth and confident movements to focus on. It was almost getting too much with him hitting her at just the right spot for her to lose herself completely when, just like that, he pulled his hand away and grabbed both sides of her underwear to pull them down and off her legs. The next thing she remembered was the feel of him skilfully grabbing her from underneath her thighs, his tongue swiftly taking over.

It didn’t take long for her to feel like was she coming undone and him feeling proud of himself. She couldn’t fight it and with one arm draped across her lower tummy, he certainly had not intention of letting her get away. Any feelings of awkwardness were soon a thing of the past as she let the gentle, unbridled bliss he was giving her wash over her completely. She honestly couldn’t remember ever feeling anything like this before, she was so out of it. He was covering her completely, her wetness mixing with his own, his beard rubbing against her smooth skin adding another level of pleasure.

She ran her fingers through his hair, messing it up. His tongue hit her clit again and again causing her to give him a short, sharp pull. His groan was so filthy and deep from within him, she felt it reverberate through her, raising goose bumps up and down her skin.

He wanted her on the edge as much as he felt he was. He wanted her to want him, to tell him exactly what she wanted him to do. He wanted her on fire. He wanted to hear her beg.

Just as she was on the edge for a second time, he stopped and blew softly across her wisps of hair. He chuckled when he heard what sounded like a quiet yet frustrated groan leave her lips, followed by a chuckle, something innocent and familiar. Her hands loosened from his hair as they stared into each other’s eyes, their mutual breathlessness the only sound they could hear.

“Does that feel good?” he whispered, the breath from his words scorching her skin. He moved his tongue just a little lower, not breaking eye contact, and she felt him dip ever so slightly inside of her, his arm wrapped around her thigh and the pad of his thumb taking care of the rest. He did this a second time, then a third, and when he returned to pressing his tongue over her clit, drawing her into his mouth, she was soon grabbing at him in any way she could in a futile attempt to take the edge off the orgasm that was coming at her like a freight train.

She was close. He knew she was so close now and he held his arms tightly around her to keep her close to him. One more swipe of his tongue right....there...and she was gone.

When her breathing even out, she slowly opened her eyes to see him move up and over her, placing soft, wet kisses on her hip, her tummy, her neck, and finally on her lips. He seemed cautious to kiss her, unsure of whether she wanted him to but she grabbed his face with both hands to pull him back down to her, kissing him as passionately as she could manage with what felt like no energy. She could taste herself and it was so much more erotic than she could ever have imagined.

She felt him smile into the kiss as he carefully settled his body on top of hers, allowing her to wrap her legs around him. He moved the hair that was sticking to her forehead and stroked her face with one finger, gently mapping her eye and her nose and her cheek. She couldn’t reconcile this being the same man who had minutes earlier been so dominant. He had so clearly wanted to say something at that point if only his hardness hadn’t been so distracting. He mover one arm under her neck, using the other hand to move hair from where it had clung to the side of her face. Holding her as close to him as possible and feeling blissful when he felt her legs wrap around his own, he entered her and held still, enjoying the moment.

“We should’ve done this years ago.” he spoke and for a brief moment, without realising, she was pulled from their intimacy, a pang of guilt taking its place.

He was too busy pushing into her, needing whatever she had left to give him. He grabbed at the back of her neck to keep her in place, his face buried into her hair. She felt her skin heat up all over from his breath as he panted at her side. It was more frantic than he’d wanted it to be as he groaned and moaned and pushed his whole weight into her with force. It was really all she could do to just hang on to him as he fucked her deeper, as he surged towards his own orgasm, then letting go when she felt him shudder insider her minutes later. He sounded helpless and as much as he tried to hold himself up from collapsing on her, he soon gave up trying and laid his head on her shoulder.

His warm breath continued covering her skin as she ran her hand gently over the back of his head. She felt him chuckle a vibration into the top of her arm before a wet kiss landed just underneath her ear, a place he had deigned his own after he realised how sensitive she was on that particular spot.

Finally rolling off her to lie on his back, he kept his arm stretched across her lower tummy and rubbed his fingers across the apex of her thigh. She wasn’t sure how long they stayed in this position but at some point he leaned over her to turn the bedside light off plunging the room into complete darkness and they continued to lie there in silence not really sure if the other was asleep or not.

He eventually turned onto his side to face her, keeping a firm grip on her waist. He was across her pillow and she could practically feel the flutter of his eyelashes as he watched her in the dark, a soft outline gradually appearing as his eyes adjusted to the blackness of the room, making out her features. she felt his hand move up and down her ribcage and over the inside of her elbow, another sensitive spot that made her shudder and him chuckle again when he realised she was in fact still awake.

She turned onto her side to face him and his hand moved to her lower back where it finally rested over her hip. She pushed her leg in between his and he seemed content and comfortable in how they were existing in this space, both aware they didn’t have to worry about getting up any time soon. He was running his fingers up and down her spine in slow, circular motions and it felt wonderful. Too wonderful. And there was that guilt again.

“What will you do tomorrow?” she asked.

He took a deep breath in contemplation at her unexpected question. “Gym looks pretty good. I have a book and a couple of scripts, too. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

“I know.” she murmured but he knew she was dwelling on something.

“I wanna be here for you if you need anything and if you don’t, you won’t even know I’m around. I promise.”

“I know that, too.”

She could sense him smile at her even in their dark. “Good.” he said. “It feels nice knowing I’ve made a good decision for a change.”

#chris evans #chris evans fic #evans fic #fan fiction #clear the area #sarah bernette #chris evans x original female character

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lexifleurs-versace · 3 years

Text

The former East

As Igor Zabel writes in his book Contemporary Art Theory " the eastern artist has , in his effort to produce modern art, remained a kind of incompletely realized western artist, and thus a second class artist" or sometimes a slightly different situation where the eastern artist is seen as a "representative of a different and exotic culture". The Eastern artist, in their attempt to please the idealized West, has become either an incompletely developed Westerner or has turned their "easterness" in an exotic fiasco. In the post-Cold War period, the Eastern artist is no longer expected to be a universal artist, the eastern artist is expected to be a Polish, a Bulgarian, a Russian but never "just" an artist.

The Bulgarian contemporary artist rarely admits to have been influenced by bulgarian art and even disregards the bulgarian art. This attitude is self colonial because they are denying the importance of the cultural context that they have grown up in and are striving for these universal forms of art which in their essence are Western ideas of art. Everything on the periphery of the Western idea is seen as “the Other” and the Bulgarian artist does not want to be that Other.

In this text I am going to explore parts of that vernacular pop culture which the Bulgarian intellectual elite are trying to escape from, to be unassociated with and are trying to eliminate its presence in their identity. DRIFTING EAST CHALGA

Chalga is the Bulgarian version of the Balkan folk music known as Turbo-folk in Serbia, Laiko in Greece, Manele in Romania or Tallava in Albania. Etymologically the word “chalga” means popular entertainment music, once played in Bulgarian towns during the Bulgarian Revival under Ottoman rule by ethnically mixed instrumental bands, the so-called “chalgii”. The popular culture of chalga appeared during the "transition" period which rattled Bulgaria and other post-Soviet countries. While in ex-Yugoslavia this transition period was experienced through wars, Bulgaria's war was an economic one. A survey done by sociologist K. Kolev shows that during the transition period “65% of all people have not bought shoes or clothes in the past two years. 54% have not traveled between settlements. 20% have not bought even soap” . Amidst this national crisis I was born in an intellectuaé Bulgarian family strongly oppossed to chalga culture invested in "protecting high culture". According to Open Society foundation, around the time of my birth the situation in Bulgaria was that “76% of the people have lost their social status, both objectively and subjectively, which leads to social degradation… The people’s vault of values is emptied of meaning as well as is their psychological capacity of correctly responding and dealing with problems and the elite do not need the population, which has fallen into a state of complete exclusion and inertia." . During this turmoil chalga music is gaining traction as the "hero" of the time, an art medium which makes the Bulgarians forget the massive political issues going on. Shops are empty, protests for democracy are ongoing, organized crime is steadily entering politics and people are brutalized. There is an ongoing danger in Bulgaria, especially in the 90s, in these wretched conditions and the brutalization of people, and the relationship between “life” and “art” gives only chalga as a result. Chalga is rejected by the intellectual communities, and "high" and "counterculture", but if reflection of reality in itself is a "high" culture, then isn't chalga a paradoxical high culture in itself?

Throughout this period chalga was more attuned to the cultural, political, and societal woes of everyday Bulgarians than anything produced by the self-proclaimed intellectual tastemakers of the times. Reoccuring topics in Chalga music :

Mercedes or BMW

The presence of the importance of economical status as represented by such brands as Mercedes and BMW has been an omnipresent feature of the venucalare Bulgarian, and to some extent Balkan, culture since the 90s.After the end of the socialist era people were finally able to buy easily "western" brands. Owning "western" objects belonging to the world of capitalism before '89 was seen as an extreme luxury , objects to which only a priviliged few had access to and the free market shift made the ownership of such objects socially acceptable The western brands are the symbol of privilege and an expression of a high class status. Chalga singers dedicated songs to car brands, and if they didn't explicitly name them after a brand, they implied visually their social status by featuring Mercedes and BMW in their music videos. Thus creating a visual hegemony and an aspiration for economic stability and wealth which is what these ‘luxury’ brands represent for the masses during the transition period. In contemporary pop culture in Bulgaria one can say that the definition of success is owning a Mercedes. Usually owning a Mercedes means that the owner is someone who lives abroad - in Western Europe - and is therefore rich ( the local stereotype is that all Western Europeans are rich). It is very common that most of the people who live up to the Bulgarian dream of owning a Mercedes are working for less than the minimum wage in countries such as the UK, Germany or Switzerland , working over hours and living in horrible conditions. They save money during their stay in Europe in order to buy the shiniest and newest Mercedes or BMW so that when they come back home they can show all their neighbours how powerful and rich they are. In its essence the Mercedes is a symbol not only of a mindset developed during the 90s but can also be seen as a symbol of the social position of the Eastern European diaspora in Western Europe.

In the video clip of Nelina - Bial Mercedes / Нелина - Бял Мерцедес / ENG: White Mercedes we see the narrator, the singer Nelina, dancing in the typical lo fi, green screen 90s aesthetics setting montage and shaky low production camera footage. " A white mercedes is following me around in life and is constantly walking next to me, a white mercedes has taken my attention but love is not sold for money, I have foreign currency that I can sell but I do not sell my love for money , my mom sent me to the change bureau so that I can buy one green dollar but in the change bereau they are out of dollars ... " . The White Mercedes in this song stands for the man whose social status ranks him to have anything he desires. The Mercedes owner waves a one dollar bill at Nelina only to assert his dominance. As viewers we are confronted with different images depicting the comfort of this symbol in its making (as seen in Image 1) and we are put in front of this difficult choice that Nelina is facing. She has to make a choice - submit to the dream of the "west" , of having money , of being Western and putting aside her "easterness" but by doing so affirming even more her position as an Eastern European woman in the context of male - female relationship , or rejecting the idea of having money, as post-socialist philosophy . In this song we can see not only the inner battle of a woman struggling whether to marry a man for money, but we see the more complex relationship of former East and former West ideologies. The "West" represents the bourgeouis, who 50 years prior to this song were murdered or robbed in all post-Soviet countries, through the symbol of Mercedes and rejecting the symbol of Mercedes

represents the traditional socialist thinking which is "higher" and "devoted to the nation". But in Image 2. we see Nelina merging with the Mercedes and this can only mean that no matter what choice she makes it is evident that the symbol of Mercedes is an inevitable part of her identity.

In Rositsa Peycheva - Dai mi Tate Malko Parichki / Росица Пейчева - Дай ми тате малко парички / ENG: Daddy, give me some money 1995, Image 4. , we can see a merge between Balkan culture with the newly arrived Western culture. The five musicians playing traditional to the chalgii music instruments are fading into a highway traversed by a BMW. But in this context the musicians are not the ones seeking dominance through owning luxurious items. The musicians themselves are part of this property. The highest goal for the Balkan gasterbaiter (slang word for bulgarians who work as construction workers in Europe) is to be able to come back to their home country with an expensive car and throw a massive party in their home village. But this parties are not what a party looks like in Western Europe. These parties consist of inviting at least everyone in the village, decorating the village and inviting the most expensive orchestra, usually a Roma orchestra. The musicians play only if the audiences sticks money on their foreheads. If the money stops, the music stops. It is very common for Balkan party- goers to spend between 50euros and 4000 euros per song. Therefore Image 2. is a representation of the highest form of being the most successful, specifically gasterbaiter, Eastern European.

In Image 5: Simpatiagi - Za milioni niama zakoni /Симпатяги - За милиони няма закони / ENG : For people who have millions there are no rules 1998 we see two thugs asserting their power by standing next to their Mercedes. Here the role of the Mercedes is a little bit different. While it still represents dominance, it is a different branch of the Mercedes dream. This dream is designated for the most daring - the ones who are ready to take the once in a lifetime oppurtunity of becoming a criminal. While it is a job that hides some risks, the thugs of the 90s (as we see in the watermark of Image 5) ruled the country and potentially are in charge up to this day. The biggest barrier to becoming a Mercedes owning thug was the risk of getting shot or getting arrested in the case for those who were not so high in the hierarchal structure. The image represents essential trademarks of the Bulgarian thugs - golden chains, dark sunglasses and black clothes. And ofcourse, what is a thug without a Mercedes?

In Image 6: Tzvetelina - Sto mercedesa /Цветелина - Сто мерцедеса / ENG: One hundred Mercedes cars, 1997 we see a young beautiful woman surrounded by a rain of Mercedes. The rain of Mercedes could be seen as a substitute of the cliché rain of money. After all , anyone can have money, but not everyone has enough to buy a Mercedes. Interestingly enough, the lyrics of the song are exploring a love story and the value of the love is represented through the amount of Mercedes cars the lady owns. " 100 Mercedes, I will drive them for 100 years and a 100 men will want to marry me". In this song the Mercedes is no longer just a symbol of money. The Mercedes represents everything - it is the lover, it is the lenght of a life, it is the social position. WOMEN FOR MALE PLEASURE

In chalga music , the female singer or actress is depicted as a sexy woman whose only concern in life is how to please the men around her. The man is strong and is either a thug or tries to be one. The narrative demonstrates the power play position of the rich Balkan man and the quiet beautiful woman. She is entertaining, forgiving and sensitive. He is strong, powerful and wears gold. He has as many women as possible. The more women he has around him, the richer he appears to be.

In its essence it is a social game whose winner is the richest. This might be regarded as PTSD from the deprivation of capitalism before '89. After '89 the people who were robbed of the experience of "being unequal" could finally show that they are better than their peers. And what other way to prove your superiority but with demonstrating your wealth to acquire high status. In reality, most people in the 90s were poor but that made chalga even more attractive. It represented a sort of a dream world, a so to say collective consciousness. This person, who listens to chalga, is not a chalga celebrity such as Milko Kalaydzhiev or Kamelia , who are projections of his or her dreams. This person articulates through the language of chalga imagery but they remain his or hers best self. Chalga dictates the norms and rules of the pop culture.

The socialist parliaments in Eastern Europe included a higher number of women than those in Western Europe before ‘89. Prior to the regime change, the average percentage of women in those parliaments was 26% compared to only 12.5% in the European Union member states. After the first free elections the level of women’s representation in parliament decreased. In Bulgaria it fell down from 21% to 8.5%.

As the iron curtain fell, mysoginist came front hiding behind the idea of free speech. We can see the root of this issue in “socialist feminism” – the woman was portrayed both as a laborer and a mother thus retaining her “women” duties in her private life, while being equal on paper to her male colleagues. Even though there was a significant number of women in politics, they had almost no power and were shadowing the male leaders in their sphere. And as the transition period of the ‘90s arrived, Western feminist ideologies were seen either as a colonial power trying to impose foreign beliefs or a type of bourgeouis feminism. Thus chalga reacted as a counterculture agent trying to establish a national identity which didn’t respond to external pressure whether that be from the West or the East.

Whether chalga is one of the roots of sexism in Bulgaria or is a reflection of the already existing sexism in the country is not clear. But in contemporary culture chalga listeners preach beliefs of gender inequality. Even though men are as objectified as women in these videos, the objectification remains in the respective gender boxes. The woman must be attractive, have big breasts, wear as little clothing as possible, be submissive even if she is portrayed as strong and independent. She is suffering for she can not live without the male character. The man must be strong, he must display his financial status through cars and gold, he is in power even when he is weak or dependent. He is suffering for the female character but usually forgets about her because he can have any girl he desires. It is a sort of power play between emotional and financial dominance.

IMMIGRATION / EUROPE

The most traumatic topic for Bulgarians today is emmigration. From a population of roughly 9million in 1989 to roughly 7 million in 2019, Bulgaria faces one of the biggest population declines that are not caused by a war. Most Bulgarians aspire to live abroad as they know that this is the only way to self-realisation. The immigration process has become even easier after 2007 (the year Bulgaria became part of the European Union) as visas were no longer required to live in the EU. Chalga music, as the trustworthy mirror it has proven to be, has taken this topic at heart and has a wide range of music clips tackling this issue.

In Kali - Shengen / Кали - Шенген, 2000 , we see a fictive Shengen border which is guarded by two border police men . They are playful but at the same time are strict and do not allow the Bulgarians to enter Shengen. Even though the song was created for parties, it has a strong political message. " Will I manage to get in Shengen? Can I be a European member?" is part of the refrain. Alongside the video , the Shengen song represents one of the biggest political questions at the time. The Eastern European who is wondering whether they are good enough for the Europeans, whether they are savage or civilised, and their worth is measured by their status in the EU. Some of the characters in the video are represented by "european looking" Bulgarians, whilst others dressed in the traditional Bulgarian clothes represent what needs to be eliminated from Bulgarian culture in order to be seen as worthy. The characters trying to pass the border are performing different tricks for the border police and their

entry is based on the entertainment value of their performance. The Eastern European is seen as the one who is invited only if they play by the rules and marginalized if she/he demonstrated their culture too much. The invitation is conditional.

In Lia - Mitnichariu/ Лия - Митничарю / ENG: Borderpolice, 2001 we see a beautiful young lady stuck at a border point. She is begging the policemen to enter their country whilst offering them different types of bribes. She drives an expensive car, which means that she has been working abroad and now wants to go back home. The border police do not allow people with expensive cars to pass the border without taking a bribe, even today. The lyrics of the song " give him 200 deutsche marks, he is human after all and he needs money to buy cigarettes" are giving a sort of innocence to the act of corruption. Lia is normalizing the corruption culture but she is also giving a voice to the Bulgarians who live abroad and experience this border police reality. Rather than describing a fictional situation, Lia is addressing an actual issue . She is not trying to take a political stance i.e. fight corruption, but rather is trying to deal with immediate corrupted regulations .The Bulgarian doesn't want to be involved in changing the country, they know it is not possible. The Bulgarian wants to get rid of the bureaucratic situation as fast as possible and knows the cost of it. The individual wants to give the money required and go home to see their family as fast as possible because they have only a few days off from work in the West. In a few days they will have to drive another 1000 km to go back to Western Europe and continue working. The border police is just one of the many obstacles on the journey. The Bulgarian knows that if he refuses to pay the bribe there will be greater consequences, even if he has not done anything illegal. Mitnichariu is a song which I listen to every time I am faced with Balkan border police, it gives assurance that I am not the only one experiencing this injustice and it gives me hope that these thug policemen are eventually going to let me through the border.

The border is a mythical location. It is a place where anything it can happen. For the border police it is a sort of cash machine. Refering to my own experience during the summer of 2020 I was asked for my car insurance at the border between Montenegro and Croatia. I gave them my international insurance which explicitly covers Montenegro. The borderpolice said it is not possible to pass through unless I buy their insurance and claimed that mine was invalid. After arguing for twenty minutes, one of the border police gave me 3 choice : buy their insurance, get arrested or go back to Croatia. When I bought their insurance at the price of 15 euros and hurried to enter Montenegro, I saw that document they gave me said One Week Insurance for Belarus. An elaborate scheme for taking bribes through a company in another country. Technically, this insurance was worthless, unless I went to Belarus in the upcoming days. This is just one of the many examples of the cash machine which Balkan borders can be. In the video clip of Lia we can see an exploration of this topic through her personal experience, which even though personal can be relatable for any Eastern Europeans who has had to pass through the Balkans by car.

Even though there are other visual culture references in chalga music , I have decided to focus in this text on the holy trinity of the chalga person - cars, women and Europe. heteronormativity

To end this visual analysis of chalga we must have in mind that the music in its essence is Orientalist but it is not the Saidian concept of Orientalism. Bulgaria does not have the colonial history which Europe has with Oriental culture but was rather under Ottoman rule for 500 years up until the late 19th century which makes orientalism a big part of the Balkan identity. The orientalism of chalga helps the listener to break free from the cultural elite formed during Soviet times and it can been seen as a tool to decolonize the national identity from Western culture. Rather than mocking “Eastern” values which are seen as uncivilized or backward in the eyes of Western Europe, the sultans and sheiks are transformed in a treasure vault mocking the Western ideals. They have been transformed in mafia businessmen, luxury capitalist gods, and the target of irony , even if not conscious, are the dreams connected to the Western life.

__________________

Bibliography:

Igor Zabel - Contemporary Art Theory

Rosemary Statelova - The Seven Sins of Chalga

Boris Groys- The Total Art of Stalinism: Avant-Garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship, and Beyond

Boryana Rossa - The Tree of Bulgarian artists

Vesa Kurkela - Balkan Popular Culture and the Ottoman Ecumene: Music, Image, and Regional Political Discourse

Rory Archer - Assessing Turbofolk Controversies: Popular Music between the Nation and the Balkans.

Reference links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv18ZnLFQBc - Bial Mercedes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5dJVFoXzL4 - 100 Mercedesa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvjzB3zQDRg - Dai mi tate malko parichki

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVMTaIIFQgQ - Za milioni niama zakoni

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZtN1Fu_G6I - Mitnichariu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwzVGVjtAIs - Shengen

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ms-demeanor · 4 years

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I appreciate your positivity posts a lot, but there are a couple things that make me instinctively angry when i see them One, it really frustrates me that i cannot be good at everything. I know it may sound kinda stupid, but i feel jealous when i see people learning skills i know I'll never master cause they arent a priority over other skills im already working on Two, when im angry/frustrated and i see positivity, it only makes me angrier None of this is your fault, just needed to vent a little

(This post requires a table of contents)

Frustration that you can’t be good at everything - A

Frustration with positivity - B

Do I contradict myself? Kinda but not really - C

Ah-ha, but I have fooled us all - D

That doesn’t sound stupid at all, it actually sounds exactly like the insta-rage that I get from being bad at something or from hearing “anybody can do X.”

I know that sounds contradictory, considering that I’ve been saying “anybody can learn artistic skills with practice,” but I’ll explain in a sec.

Okay so I’m learning guitar right? Like, with all the hand-pain and dyspraxia and all I’m still giving it a go and it’s taking forever and it’s really frustrating.

It’s more frustrating because I realized I had to do it alone - if I’m practicing around people or a person is sitting next to me while I’m trying to learn a skill or get the fretting of a particular chord down or (especially this one) trying to memorize a sequence of notes and movements it’s. It’s extremely not pretty. It’s apparently very upsetting for the people who are around me when that happens.

I get furious with myself and I get frustrated because goddamnit fucking children can do this thing and I’m an adult and it’s a simple fucking sequence of five movements and I’m just getting it wrong because I’m a useless idiot.

It takes about four minutes with a guitar teacher or jamming with a friend for me to devolve into “attempt sequence > fuck sequence up > apologize > try again but now while more mad at myself > fuck it up worse > apologize > forget beginning of sequence > try really hard not to start calling myself a fucking idiot in front of a friend who really shouldn’t have to handle this.”

And when I do that it feels terrible. It feels bad, feels like my skills have regressed, makes me want to put the instrument down and not pick it up again.

The thing is, I do this with every skill that I’m learning. You should see me when I’m trying to learn a new version of some kind of software. It’s terrible. I’m at my absolute worst and lowest when I’m trying to find the new place Adobe has hidden a menu or what the new command is to format something in Word.

But here’s the deal: I know what this is when I’m doing it. This is emotional dysregulation.

Basically finding out that I have ADHD changed my life and got me to really start examining a lot of my reactions to things and the behavior patterns I’ve lived with for most of my life.

I experience an impulse to be furious when people are more skilled than I am, I AM furious when I feel like my skills aren’t where I think they should be. But neither of those things are actually good for helping me learn to do the thing and I’d much rather learn to do the thing than be angry about not being good enough at it.

I spend a fair amount of time in therapy. I have worked on recognizing when I have the impulse to do something that is going to be unhelpful or reactive and attempting to approach that impulse with other options.

That’s not easy! And it doesn’t come naturally! My first response to a lot of things is still anger or frustration or despair.

But since I *know* that’s my first impulse and I’ve learned enough about my own behavior to understand that my first impulse is frequently the wrong course of action (grounded in panic or whatever) I’ve been working on accepting that my first reaction is typically negative and moving on more quickly to other, more helpful reactions.

(this has been really fantastic for increasing my feelings of agency and control over my own life; acting on your panic response all the time isn’t good for your long term stability)

You know you can’t be good at everything, you know that it takes a long time to acquire skills. That doesn’t make it any less frustrating that you don’t have the skills that you want to have. So it’s understandable that your first reaction to the skills positivity posts would be negative, and it’s understandable if you want to sit in that negativity for a little bit.

It’s also understandable to mourn the skills that you could have had. “If I hadn’t stopped practicing guitar in my teens I could be so much better now.” “If I hadn’t had to get a job with such a long commute I could be drawing daily and I’d be so much farther along.” “If I hadn’t been discouraged by my parents I’d have had so much more practice with music.” “If I hadn’t gotten injured I’d be such a good dancer right now.”

There’s a perfect you that lives in your head and they’ve had all the opportunities you missed and got to keep practicing when you couldn’t and have all the money you don’t and sleep you keep missing. I get wanting to be that person. I get wanting what they want.

But the you in your head isn’t real and it’s sad if you’re ignoring how wonderful the real you is because you’re not perfect in the same ways.

So if you can, I’d recommend trying to see if there’s a positive response you can practice remembering when you get frustrated about your skills.

(for me it’s honestly just saying “the next best time to plant a tree is today” and remembering that I’ve got a long time to learn to do all the things I want to do. It’s not a race, and if I can’t get to something now I can try later.)

You’re great. You’re great and you’re trying hard and if you wouldn’t yell at your friend for not learning a skill or being good at something you shouldn’t yell at yourself either.

So when I was like, 17, I wrote a bit of poetry that went like this:

I’m a casual cynicwho prays for optimistsbut it’s hard for me to be onewhen I’m talking with my fists.

I am a very, very negative, pessimistic person. Optimism and positivity irritate the hell out of me.

The frustrating thing about positivity is that it largely feels like criticism. It feels like “if you can’t do X, Y, or Z it’s because you choose not to.”

And I sure as fuck can’t blame people for being negative. I’m negative and the world is shitty and everything is difficult and expensive. I really, really don’t think that people are choosing not to do what they want to do.

So when you hear “you can do it!” it’s a very natural response to go “yeah, easy for you to say, you don’t have a million things preventing you from doing it.”

Part of this is that your brain is a filthy liar and it thinks that skills are easy to acquire. Your brain is going “if anyone can do it and I haven’t it’s because I’m lazy and I suck.”

I would like you to remind your brain that it is a filthy liar.

(I would also like to remind people that negativity that exists to the point that generic positivity posts upset you or make you angry is a symptom of depression)

But the other thing is that you probably DO have a million legitimate things that are keeping you from Doing The Thing and when you’re seeing someone else say “Do the thing!” you’re just seeing the shiny thing, not their million things that were in the way too.

Doing shit is HARD. It’s exhausting. It involves opportunity cost. If I want to make fanart I have do dedicate time to that that gets taken away from somewhere else and you know what sometimes it’s just better for me and more in line with my desires to re-read a 100k slow-burn than it is to make a drawing of the characters.

But it’s also really important to recognize which kinds of positivity actually contain criticism.

My initial statement in the Gru comic was “Talent is bullshit, nurture your skills with practice & make the content you want to see in the world.” This was in reaction to a simply-drawn comic that expressed that you need talent to make fanart and not everybody has talent.

A lot of people have seen that as criticism.

I am. Really, really not attempting to criticize people with these posts.

But also, yeah, being told “woah, hey, just calm down” when you’re already pissed isn’t going to make anyone’s afternoon any better. And there’s not much I can do about that (and I know you don’t want me to, you said you were just venting).

“You hate positivity and yet you make positivity posts, interesting.”

So the brand of positivity posts I hate are the “If I can do it anyone can!” posts and here’s why:

Not everyone can be on a Roller Derby team.

Breaking my back and having to quit roller derby made me reassess a lot of my attitudes about the world.

If you point to a specific activity and say “if I can do this anyone can do this” you are wrong. There are a lot of people who aren’t going to be able to do a thing. If you say “If I can lose the babyweight within three weeks of giving birth anyone can” there are a lot of people who can’t do that thing and there is a kind of implicit criticism there. “If I can get over my scoliosis and lift weights anyone can,” is kind of saying that the people with scoliosis who can’t lift weights just aren’t making an effort.

“If I can do this anyone can” is wrong. It ignores the fact that people are all in unique circumstances and have different limitations. No, not anyone can. Not everyone can be on a Roller Derby team.

But what I’m saying in my posts isn’t “anyone can draw” it is “if you practice a skill you will improve at it, so if you want to improve at drawing you need to practice.”

And I’ve been very clear in admitting that not everyone can do this, due to time constraints and low energy and physical limitations.

The one deviation I’ve made from that is to come pretty close to saying “anyone can do art” and again, I consider that a bit different because “art” is a very broad category and I do believe that pretty much anyone can create things that I would consider art, even if that art isn’t traditional visual media. And again, any of those kinds of art would also improve with practice.

The joke was on all of us all along, by the way. While I’m being pretty positive about the idea of practice and the fact that it will improve people’s performance at all skill levels there’s a secret:

That Gru post isn’t so much positive about practice as it is *incredibly* negative about the concept of talent.

Talent IS bullshit. There is a variable range of innate abilities that people can have that may jump-start a particular skill but proficiency in that skill is always going to be down to practice, not talent.

Talent was made up as a cover to explain the “brilliance” of people who had armies of laborers supporting them. I bet I’d be able to invent a lot of shit if I didn’t have to do laundry or worry about whether I was going to be able to afford both food and rent next month. Talent is a myth that pairs nicely with great man theory in that it is crap and I want people to understand that sucking at things for a long time is a part of not sucking at things eventually and also that you’re going to get a lot more done working with a group of motivated people than you are if you wait for one “talented genius” to change the world.

#long post #very long post #look you know it's a long post when *i'm* the one putting a long post warning on it

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