#my meta writing is be far not my most fine tuned writing but I love rereading them bc they are good analyses | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

army-of-mai-lovers · 4 years

Text

in which I get progressively angrier at the various tropes of atla fandom misogyny

tbh I think it would serve all of us to have a larger conversation about the specific ways misogyny manifests in this fandom, because I’ve seen a lot of people who characterize themselves as feminists, many of whom are women themselves, discuss the female characters of atla/lok in misogynistic ways, and people don’t talk about it enough.

disclaimer before I start: I’m not a woman, I’m an afab nonbinary person who is semi-closeted and thus often read as a woman. I’m speaking to things that I’ve seen that have made me uncomfy, but if any women (esp women existing along other axes of oppression, e.g. trans women, women of color, disabled women, etc) want to add onto this post, please do!

“This female character is a total badass but I’m not even a little bit interested in exploring her as a human being.”

I’ve seen a lot of people say of various female characters in atla/lok, “I love her! She’s such a badass!” now, this statement on its own isn’t misogynistic, but it represents a pretty pervasive form of misogyny that I’ve seen leveled in large part toward the canon female love interests of one or both of the members of a popular gay ship (*cough* zukka *cough*) I’m going to use Suki as an example of this because I see it with her most often, but it can honestly be applied to nearly every female character in atla/lok. Basically, people will say that they stan Suki, but when it comes time to engage with her as an actual character, they refuse to do it. I’ve seen meta after meta about Zuko’s redemption arc, but I so rarely see people engage with Suki on any level beyond “look at this cool fight scene!” and yeah, I love a cool Suki fight scene as much as anybody else, but I’m also interested in meta and headcanons and fics about who she is as a person, when she isn’t an accessory to Sokka’s development or doing something cool. of course, the material for this kind of engagement with Suki is scant considering she doesn’t have a canon backstory (yet) (don’t let me down Faith Erin Hicks counting on you girl) but with the way I’ve seen people in this fandom expand upon canon to flesh out male characters, I know y’all have it in you to do more with Suki, and with all the female characters, than you currently do. frankly, the most engagement I’ve seen with Suki in mainstream fandom is justifying either zukki (which again, is characterizing her in relation to male characters, one of whom she barely interacts with in canon) or one of the Suki wlw pairings. which brings me to--

“I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!”

now, I will admit, two of my favorite atla ships are yueki and mailee, and so I totally understand being interested in these characters’ dynamics, even if, as is the case with yueki, they’ve never interacted canonically. however, it becomes a problem for me when these ships are always in the background of a zukka fic. at some point, it becomes obvious that you like this ship because it gets either Zuko or Sokka’s female love interests out of the way, not because you actually think the characters would mesh well together. It’s bad form to dislike a female character because she gets in the way of your gay ship, so instead, you find another girl to pair her off with and call it a day. to be clear, I’m not saying that everybody who ships either mailee or yueki (or tysuki or maisuki or yumai or whatever other wlw rarepair involving Zuko or Sokka’s canon love interests) is nefariously trying to sideline a female character while acting publicly as if she’s is one of their faves--far from it--but it is noteworthy to me how difficult it is to find content that centers wlw ships, while it’s incredibly easy to find content that centers zukka in which mailee and/or yueki plays a background role.

also, notice how little traction wlw Katara ships gain in this fandom. when’s the last time you saw yuetara on your dash? there’s no reason for wlw Katara ships to gain traction in a fandom that is so focused on Zuko and Sokka getting together, bc she doesn’t present an immediate obstacle to that goal (at least, not an obstacle that can be overcome by pairing her up with a woman). if you are primarily interested in Zuko and Sokka’s relationship, and your queer readings of other female characters are motivated by a desire to get them out of the way for zukka, then Katara’s canon m/f relationship isn’t a threat to you, and thus, there’s no reason to read her as potentially queer. Or even, really, to think about her at all.

“Katara’s here but she’s not actually going to do anything, because deep down, I’m not interested in her as a person.”

the show has an enormous amount of textual evidence to support the claim that Sokka and Katara are integral parts of each other’s lives. so, she typically makes some kind of appearance in zukka content. sometimes, her presence in the story is as an actual character with layers and nuance, someone whom Sokka cares about and who cares about Sokka in return, but also has her own life and goals outside of her brother (or other male characters, for that matter.) sometimes, however, she’s just there because halfway through writing the author remembered that Sokka actually has a sister who’s a huge part of the show they’re writing fanfiction for, and then they proceed to show her having a meetcute with Aang or helping Sokka through an emotional problem, without expressing wants or desires outside of those characters. I’m honestly really surprised that I haven’t seen more people calling out the fact that so much of Katara’s personality in fanon revolves around her connections to men? she’s Aang’s girlfriend, she’s Sokka’s sister, she’s Zuko’s bestie. never mind that in canon she spends an enormous amount of time fighting against (anachronistic, Westernized) sexism to establish herself as a person in her own right, outside of these connections. and that in canon she has such interesting complex relationships with other female characters (e.g. Toph, Kanna, Hama, Korra if you want to write lok content) or that there are a plethora of characters with whom she could have interesting relationships with in fanon (Mai, Suki, Ty Lee, Yue, Smellerbee, and if you want to write lok content, Kya II, Lin, Asami, Senna, etc). to me, the lack of fandom material exploring Katara’s relationships with other women or with herself speak to a profound indifference to Katara as a character. I’m not saying you have to like Katara or include her in everything you write, but I am asking you to consider why you don’t find her interesting outside of her relationships with men.

“I hate Katara because she talks about her mother dying too often.”

this is something I’ve seen addressed by people far more qualified than I to address it, but I want to mention it here in part because when I asked people which fandom tropes they wanted me to talk about, this came up often, but also because I find it really disgusting that this is a thing that needs to be addressed at all. Y’all see a little girl who watched her mother be killed by the forces of an imperialist nation and say that she talks about it too much??? That is a formational, foundational event in a child’s life. Of course she’s going to talk about it. I’ve seen people say that she doesn’t talk about it that often, or that she only talks about it to connect with other victims of fn imperialism e.g. Jet and Haru, but frankly, she could speak about it every episode for no plot-significant reason whatsoever and I would still be angry to see people say she talks about it too much. And before you even bring up the Sokka comparison, people deal with grief in different ways. Sokka repressed a lot of his grief/channeled it into being the “man” of his village because he knew that they would come for Katara next if he gave them the opportunity. he probably would talk about his mother more if a) he didn’t feel massive guilt at not being able to remember what she looked like, and b) he was allowed to be a child processing the loss of his mother instead of having to become a tiny adult when Hakoda had to leave to help fight the fn. And this gets into an intersection with fandom racism, in that white fans (esp white American fans) are incapable of relating to the structural trauma that both Sokka and Katara experience and thus can’t see the ways in which structural trauma colors every single aspect of both of their characters, leading them to flatten nuance and to have some really bad takes. And you know what, speaking of bad fandom takes--

“Shitting on Mai because she gets in the way of my favorite Zuko ship is actually totally okay because she’s ~abusive~”

y’all WHAT.

ok listen, I get not liking maiko. I didn’t like it when I first got into fandom, and later I realized that while bryke cannot write romance to save their lives, fans who like maiko sure can, so I changed my tune. but if you still don’t like it, that’s fine. no skin off my back.

what IS skin off my back is taking instances in which Mai had justified anger toward Zuko, and turning it into “Mai abused Zuko.” do you not realize how ridiculous you sound? this is another thing where I get so angry about it that I don’t know how useful my analysis is actually going to be, but I’ll do my best. numerous people have noted how analysis of Mai and Zuko’s breakup in “The Beach” or Mai being justifiably angry with him at Boiling Rock or her asking for FUCKING FRUIT in “Nightmares and Daydreams” that says that all of these events were her trying to gain control over him is....ahhh...lacking in reading comprehension, but I’d like to go a step further and talk about why y’all are so intent on taking down a girl who doesn’t show emotion in normative ways. obviously, there’s a “Zuko can do no wrong” aspect to Mai criticism (which is super weird considering how his whole arc is about how he can do lots of wrong and he has to atone for the wrong that he’s done--but that’s a separate post.) But I also see slandering Mai for not expressing her emotions normatively and not putting up with Zuko’s shit and slandering Katara for “talking about her mother too often” as two sides of the same coin. In both cases, a female character expresses emotions that make you, the viewer, uncomfortable, and so instead of attempting to understand where those emotions may have come from and why they might be manifesting the way they are, y’all just throw the whole character away. this is another instance of people in the fandom being fundamentally disinterested in engaging with the female characters of atla in a real way, except instead of shallowly “stanning” Mai, y’all hate her. so we get to this point where female characters are flattened into one of two things: perfect queens who can do no wrong, or bitches. and that’s not who they are. that’s not who anyone is. but while we as a fandom are pretty good at understanding b1 Zuko’s actions as layered and multifaceted even though he’s essentially an asshole then, few are willing to lend the same grace to any female character, least of all Mai.

and what’s funny is sometimes this trope will intersect with “I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!”, so you’ll have someone actively calling Mai toxic/problematic/abusive, and at the same time ship her with Ty Lee? make it make sense! but then again, maybe that’s happening because y’all are fundamentally disinterested in Ty Lee as a character too.

“I love Ty Lee so much that I’m going to treat her like an infantilized hypersexual airhead!”

there are so many things happening in y’alls characterization of Ty Lee that I struggled to synthesize it into one quippy section header. on one hand, you have the hypersexualization, and on the other hand, you have the infantilization, which just makes the hypersexualization that much worse.

(of course, sexualizing or hypersexualizing ANY atla character is really not the move, considering that these are child characters in a children’s show, but then again, that’s a separate post.)

now, I understand how, from a very, very surface reading of the text, you could come to the conclusion that Ty Lee is an uncomplicated bimbo. if you grew up on Western media the way I did, you’ll know that Ty Lee has a lot of the character traits we associate with bimbos: the form-fitting pink crop top, the general conventional attractiveness, the ditzy dialogue. but if you think about it for more than three seconds, you’ll understand that Ty Lee has spent her whole life walking a tightrope, trying to please Azula and the rest of the royal family while also staying true to herself. Ty Lee and Azula’s relationship is a really complex and interesting topic that I don’t really have time to explore at the moment given how long this post is, but I’d argue that Ty Lee’s constant, vocal adulation is at least partially a product of learning to survive at court at an early age. Like Mai, she has been forced to regulate her emotions as a member of fn nobility, but unlike Mai, she also has six sisters who look exactly like her, so she has a motivation to be more peppy and more affectionate to stand out.

fandom does not do the work to understand Ty Lee. as is a theme with this post, fandom is actively disinterested in investigating female characters beyond a very surface level reading of them. Thus, fandom takes Ty Lee’s surface level qualities--her love of the color pink, her revealing standard outfit, and the fact that once she found a boy attractive and also once a lot of boys found her attractive--and they stretch this into “Ty Lee is basically Karen Smith from Mean Girls.” thus, Ty Lee is painted as a bimbo, or more specifically, as not smart, uncritically adoring of Azula (did y’all forget all the non-zukka bits of Boiling Rock?), and attractive to the point of hypersexualization. I saw somebody make a post that was like “I wish mailee was more popular but I’m also glad it isn’t because otherwise people would write it as Mai having to put up with her dumb gf” and honestly I have to agree!! this is one instance in which I’m glad that fandom doesn’t discuss one of my favorite characters that often because I hate the fanon interpretation of Ty Lee, I think it’s rooted in misogyny (particularly misogyny against East Asian women, which often takes the form of fetishizing them and viewing them only through a Western white male gaze)

(side note: here at army-of-mai-lovers, we stan bimbos. bimbos are fucking awesome. I personally don’t read Ty Lee as a bimbo, but if that’s you, that’s fucking awesome. keep doing what you’re doing, queen <3 or king or monarch, it’s 2021, anyone can be a bimbo, bitches <3)

“Toph can and will destroy everyone here with her bare hands because she’s a meathead who likes to murder people and that’s it!”

Toph is, and always has been, one of my favorite ATLA characters. My very first fic in fandom was about her, and she appears prominently in a lot of my other work as well. One thing that I am always struck by with Toph is how big a heart she has. She’s independent, yes, snarky, yes, but she cares about people--even the family that forced her to make herself smaller because they didn’t believe that their blind daughter could be powerful and strong. Her storyline is powerful and emotionally resonant, her bending is cool precisely because it’s based in a “wait and listen” approach instead of just smashing things indiscriminately, she’s great disabled rep, and overall one of the best characters in the show.

And in fandom, she gets flattened into “snarky murder child.”

So where does this come from? Well, as we all know, Toph was originally conceived of as a male character, and retained a lot of androgyny (or as the kids call it, Gender) when she was rewritten as a female character. There are a lot of cultural ideas about androgynous/butch women being violent, and people in fandom seem to connect that larger cultural narrative with some of Toph’s more violent moments in the show to create the meathead murder child trope, erasing her canon emotionality, softness, heart, and femininity in the process.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t write or characterize Toph as being violent or snarky at all ever, because yeah, Toph definitely did do Earth Rumbles a lot before joining the gaang, and yeah, Toph is definitely a sarcastic person who makes fun of her friends a lot. What I am saying is that people take these traits, sans the emotional logic, marry them to their conception of androgynous/butch women as violent/unemotional/uncaring, and thus create a caricature of Toph that is not at all up to snuff. When I see Toph as a side character in a fic (because yeah, Toph never gets to be a main character, because why would a fandom obsessed with one male character in particular ever make Toph a protagonist in her own right?) she’s making fun of people, killing people, pranking people, etc, etc. She’s never talking to people about her emotions, or palling around with her found family, or showing that she cares about her friends. Everything about her relationship with her parents, her disability, her relationship to Gender, and her love of her friends is shoved aside to focus on a version of Toph that is mean and uncaring because people have gotten it into their heads that androgynous/butch women are mean and uncaring.

again, we see a female character who does not emote normatively or in a way that makes you, the viewer, comfortable, and so you warp her character until she’s completely unrecognizable and flat. and for what?

Azula

no, I didn’t come up with a snappy name for this section, mainly because fanon interpretations of Azula and my own feelings toward the character are...complicated. I know there were some people who wanted me to write about Azula and the intersection of misogyny and ableism in fanon interpretations of her character, but I don’t think I can deliver on that because I personally am in a period of transition with how I see Azula. that is to say, while I still like her and believe that she can be redeemed, there is a lot of merit to disliking her. the whole point of this post is that the female characters of ATLA are complex people whom the fandom flattens into stereotypes that don’t hold up to scrutiny, or dislike for reasons that don’t make sense. Azula, however, is a different case. the rise of Azula defenders and Azula stans has led to this sentiment that Azula is a 14 y/o abuse victim who shouldn’t be held accountable for her actions. it seems to me that people are reacting to a long, horrible legacy of male ATLA fans armchair diagnosing Azula with various personality disorders (and suggesting that people with those personality disorders are inherently monstrous and unlovable which ahhhh....yikes) and then saying that those personality disorders make her unlovable, which is quite obviously bad. and hey, I get loving a character that everyone else hates and maybe getting so swept up in that love that you forget that your fave is complicated and has made some unsavory choices. it sucks that fanon takes these well-written, complex villains/antiheroes and turns them into monsters with no critical thought whatsoever. but the attitude among Azula stans that her redemption shouldn’t be hard, that her being a child excuses all of the bad things that she’s done, that she is owed redemption....all of that rubs me the wrong way. I might make another post about this in the future that discusses this in more depth, but as it stands now: while I understand that there is a legacy of misogynistic, ableist, unnuanced takes on Azula, the backlash to that does not take into account the people she hurt or the fact that in ATLA she does not make the choice to pursue redemption. and yes, Zuko had help in making that choice that Azula didn’t, and yes, Azula is a victim of abuse, but in a show about children who have gone through untold horrors and still work to better the lives of the people around them, that is not enough for me to uncritically stan her.

Conclusion

misogyny in this fandom runs rampant. while there are some tropes of fandom misogyny that are well-documented and have been debunked numerous times, there are other, subtler forms of misogyny that as far as I know have gone completely unchecked.

what I find so interesting about misogyny in atla fandom is that it’s clear that it’s perpetrated by people who are aware of fandom misogyny who are actively trying not to be misogynistic. when I first joined atla fandom last summer, memes about how zukka fandom was better than every other fandom because they didn’t hate the female characters who got in the way of their gay ship were extremely prevalent, and there was this sense that *this* fandom was going to model respectful, fun, feminist online fandom. not all of the topes I’ve outlined are exclusive to or even largely utilized in zukka fandom, but a lot of them are. I’ve been in and out of fandom since I was eleven years old, and most of the fandom spaces I’ve been in have been majority-female, and all of them have been incredibly misogynistic. and I always want to know why. why, in these communities created in large part by women, in large part for women, does misogyny run wild? what I realize now is that there’s never going to be a one-size fits all answer to that question. what’s true for 1D fandom on Wattpad in 2012 is absolutely not true for atla fandom on tumblr in 2021. the answers that I’ve cobbled together for previous fandoms don’t work here.

so, why is atla fandom like this? why did the dream of a feminist fandom almost entirely focused on the romantic relationship between two male characters fall apart? honestly, I think the notion that zukka fandom ever was this way was horrifically ignorant to begin with. from my very first moment in the fandom, I was seeing racism, widespread sexualization of minors, and yes, misogyny. these aspects of the fandom weren’t talked about as much as the crocverse or other, much more fun aspects. further, atla (specifically zukka) fandom misogyny often doesn’t look like the fandom misogyny we’ve become familiar with from like, Sherlock fandom or what have you. for the most part, people don’t actively hate Suki, they just “stan” without actually caring about her. they hate Mai because they believe in treating male victims of abuse equally. they’re not characterizing Toph poorly, they’re writing her as a “strong woman.” in short, people are misogynistic, and then invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of feminist theory to shield themselves from accusations of misogyny. it’s not unlike the way some people will invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of critical race theory to shield themselves from accusations of racism, or how they’ll talk about “freedom of speech” and “the suppression of women’s sexuality” to justify sexualizing minors. the performance of feminism and antiracism is what’s important, not the actual practice.

if you’ve made it this far, first off, hi, thanks so much for reading, I know this was a lot. second, I would seriously encourage you to be aware of these fandom tropes and to call them out when you see them. elevate the voices of fans who do the work of bringing the female characters of atla to life. invest in the wlw ships in this fandom. drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic (please, drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic). read some yuetara. let’s all be honest about where we are now, and try to do better in the future. I believe in us.

820 notes · View notes

troquantary · 3 years

Text

Edward Cullen: That Boy Ain’t Right

So I was doing a reread of @therealvinelle 's collection of Twilight metas, as one does, and in "Edward, Denial, and a Human Girlfriend" she mentions that she doesn't believe Edward is sane. I thought, "ha, yeah, he's definitely not," and also, "but wait, what does that mean exactly, please say more about that." But since she's already inundated with asks, I've decided to use my own head-muscle and explore this idea. (TL;DR: I start out more or less organized, synthesize some points Vinelle has made across several posts (and have hopefully linked to them all where relevant but please tell me if not), touch a little on narcissism, then take a hard left into the negative effects of being a telepath.)

Just a couple things to note at the outset, though. Theses have been written already (probably) about Edward as an abuser. Edward being insane doesn't negate that at all; he's definitely an asshole and just...a disaster of a human being. (I find it more funny than anything, but YMMV.) I'm also going to try to avoid talking specifically about mental illness and how it relates (or doesn't relate) to abusive behavior -- that's territory I'm not really equipped to discuss, like at all. My starting point is "Edward has a deeply warped perception of reality," not "Edward has X disorder."

So: deeply warped perception of reality. The evidence? Goes behind a cut, because my one character trait is Verbose.

Vinelle provides a great example of it in the post linked above, which I'll just quote because she does words good: "[Edward] keeps acting like his romance with Bella is a romantic tragedy, and all the cast of Twilight are actors on a stage making it as sublime as possible." Edward's the one to pursue Bella, but he does so with the full belief, from the very beginning, that it will never last; Bella will "outgrow" him, go on her human way, and he can spend the rest of eternity brooding magnificently over his too-short romantic bliss. [Insert premature ejaculation joke.] Turning her is never an option, even though Alice, Noted Psychic, says that romancing Bella will either end with her dead (exsanguinated) or dead (vampire).

This framing, where he's a dark anti-hero in love with -- but never tainting! -- the pure maiden and eventually leaving her in a grand, tragic sacrifice to preserve her soul? It's fucking bonkers. Bella isn't a person to him in this scenario. As Vinelle points out, Bella's never really a person to him at all; he falls in love with his own mental construct, cherry-picking from what he observes of her behavior and her responses to his 20 (thousand) Questions to convince himself that she is the ideal woman.

Bella's not the only one who gets the projection/cardboard-cutout treatment. Edward sees everything and everyone through a highly particular, personalized lens. He filters his entire reality, which we all do to an extent, but the thing with Edward is that he starts with his conclusions and then only pays attention to the evidence that supports those conclusions. Often that evidence consists of what he admits in New Moon are only "surface" thoughts -- but recognizing that limitation doesn't keep him from taking those thoughts as representative of what people are. Edward then becomes absolutely convinced by his own "reasoning" and won't be swayed from what he has decided is Objectively True. It's obvious with Bella; it's also painfully obvious with Rosalie. (Vinelle explains this and brings up Edward's raging Madonna/Whore complex in the same post, so refer to that again -- she's right.)

He also catastrophizes. Everything. Bella's just vibing in her room, rereading Wuthering Heights for the 87th time? She's gonna be hit by a meteor, better sneak into her room while she sleeps. Bella's going to the beach with the filthy mundanes their human classmates? She's gonna fall in the ocean. Jasper's cannibal pals are stopping by for a visit, but know not to hunt in the area? DISASTER, DEFCON 1, ALSO FUCK YOU JASPER FOR EVEN EXISTING IN MY AND BELLA'S SPHERE YOU UNSPEAKABLE BURDEN. Edward must believe that Bella is vulnerable and in near-constant peril, to support the reality he has created in which he is the villain turned protector and maybe?? hero??? (!!!) for his beloved. So when the actual, James-shaped danger arrives, he goes berserk, snarling and flipping his shit and generally not helping the situation. His fantasy demands that Bella remain human, so instead of doing the very thing Alice, Noted Psychic, assures him will neutralize the threat (and not just a threat to Bella, either, but to Bella's family and any other human James might decide to include in the "game"), he vetoes it immediately, no discussion. Bella Must Not Turn, and he sticks to those guns despite James nearly reducing her to ground beef, despite leaving Bella catatonic with depression (but human! success!) in New Moon, despite Aro's order and his family's vote and, let's not forget, Bella's clearly and repeatedly stated desire to be a vampire. It's going to happen. But he doesn't accept it until Renesmee busts out of Bella like the Kool-Aid man and the poor girl's heart finally, unequivocally stops.

Sane people don't behave this way. I don't want to slap labels on Edward, but I can't help but note that he comes across as highly narcissistic. He's the only real person in his universe, the lone player among us NPCs. That probably has a lot to do with him being frozen in the mindset and maturity of a seventeen-year-old boy, but I think it's also just...him, on some fundamental level. His failure to connect with others and recognize them as full, independent beings with their own wants and priorities isn't like Bella's failure -- she's badly depressed. Edward is...something else, and I get the sense that his sanity has been steadily deteriorating over time. And a cursory google of narcissistic traits turns up some familiar-looking stuff. He's self-loathing, yes, but also grandiose; he hates himself for the monster he is (and hates most vampires besides Esme and Carlisle for their monstrosity, too) but still feels superior to humans, to the extent that he felt entitled to human blood and resented Carlisle for depriving him of his "proper" diet. He eventually returns to Carlisle, but he's far from content -- the beginning of Midnight Sun finds him in a state of ennui, bored and dismissive of (if not outright disgusted by) everyone around him, that has apparently persisted for years and years. He doesn't play the piano, he doesn't compose, he doesn't enjoy anything...at least until Bella comes along and then he becomes obsessed to a disturbing degree with her and his new, romantic tragedy spin on reality.

[Next-day edit: I’m not sure where else to fit this in, but the way Edward casually contemplates violence against people who have, at best, mildly annoyed him is...chilling. I have a hard time writing off his strategizing how to murder the entire Biology class as a result of bloodlust -- it’s so calculated, nothing like the blackout state of thirst Emmett describes when he encountered his own “singer,” and that is probably the default for when a vampire is extremely thirsty. But even ignoring the Biology class incident, Edward still does things like consider, with disturbing frequency, how he might grievously injure or kill Mike Newton, all because...Edward considers him his romantic rival (despite Bella barely giving the kid the time of day). He thinks about slapping Mike through a wall, which might be an amusing slapstick image, except as a vampire Edward’s actually capable of turning this boy’s skeleton to a fine powder. So it’s, y’know, kind of sick when you think about it.

But even worse than that, when Bella tells Edward about how she flirted with Jacob to get at that sweet, sweet vampire lore, Edward chuckles and then, after dropping Bella home, flippantly observes that now that the treaty’s broken, why not genocide? I’m not even kidding, it’s right there in Midnight Sun; he seriously thinks about the fact that he’d be technically justified now in wiping out the entire tribe because a teenager tried to impress a girl with a spooky story. That is fucked. Remember, Edward was there with Carlisle when the treaty was first established. He knows how remarkable it is that they even came to a truce in the first place, that it was only ever possible because Carlisle is...well, Carlisle, and that it marks a pretty significant moment in supernatural history. He doesn’t care; he doesn’t respect it, or he’d never think something like “Ha ha, if I went and killed them all, I wouldn’t even be wrong. I mean, I won’t do it, but I’m just saying, I wouldn’t be wrong.”

Again: not the thought process or behavior of a sane person. (Or a person that respects life in general -- sorry Carlisle, big L.)]

Finally, whether he's a narcissist or not, I think the fact that Edward has constant, unavoidable access to everyone's thoughts is a powerful contributing factor to his instability. He can tune out the mental noise to an extent, but he can't stop it -- so he comes to rely on it like another sense. This causes issues with disconnect and lack of empathy, of course, but there's another facet to this shit diamond: he's basically experiencing a ceaseless flow of intrusive thoughts. His narration in Midnight Sun suggests that he "hears" the words people think, can "see" what they visualize in their mind's eye, and can sense the emotional "tone" and intensity of their thoughts. Therefore, perceiving Jasper's thirst through his thoughts makes Edward more aware of his own, "doubling" the discomfort. This would be a lot to deal with even from just his immediate coven members, but Edward gets all of this pouring into his head like a firehose on a day-to-day basis because the Cullens live right alongside humans. I know Meyerpires have galaxy brains or whatever, but that's a ton to process.

Besides the compounding effect on his own thirst when he "feels" the thirst of others, Meyer never suggests that Edward has difficulty separating his own thoughts from other people's; even when he was newly turned, he recognized Carlisle's "voice" in his head as Carlisle's. That would create a whole different host of issues around identity, but it looks like Edward's escaped that particular torment. However, I can easily imagine that what he does experience is just shy of unbearable nonetheless, with an eroding effect on his sanity over decades. He can't sleep to escape it; he's on a dishwater diet and probably (like the rest of his family) experiencing a perpetual, low-grade physical discomfort due to his thirst never being fully satisfied; and he's around far more people than is the norm for vampires -- even discounting all the humans, his own coven is unusually large -- meaning more noise.

Honestly, it would be weirder if he were all there, considering.

And even though I feel like I lost a sense of structure around where I started ranting about telepathy, I've written like 1.5k words about Edward fucking Cullen and I think that's enough for one post.

#twilight #twilight renaissance #twilight meta #edward cullen #i stared too long and the twilight abyss gazed back #long post #major credit due to therealvinelle for having basically all the ideas already #theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin too since they agree and build off each other's metas a lot #idk how people who write meta can just crank these posts out i've been here for two hours #edited to add stuff i forgot to mention about edward's disproportionately violent fantasies

326 notes · View notes

tsskyx · 3 years

Text

Unmeta

You know what’s ridiculous? This post was originally supposed to be an essay, an entire thesis backed with unshakable logic that I wanted to become my magnum opus. But as it turns out, I’m pretty terrible at doing that sort of thing. The first day I’m full of enthusiasm, while the next day I reread what I wrote and I delete it all again. It’s terrible.

For this reason, I’ve decided to just start with the opinion part. Instead of laying out the facts and easing the reader into it, I’ll just blurt everything out in one go. Instead of neatly organizing everything, I’ll write my thoughts as they come to me.

(Update for 2/Oct/2021: I no longer remember when I made the first draft of this post. Maybe it was in 2018, maybe even as early as 2017. Who knows. This post existed in my drafts since forever. It is time to finally publish it. It contains very little information, very little evidence for anything or logic or facts, it’s just a one big opinion piece that I began writing years ago out of frustration. Frustration not aimed at the game itself, nor at Toby or anyone else, but at my inability to decouple the “meta” from Undertale and thus causing me to disassociate from the characters that I loved, when I didn’t plan to do so. All I ever wanted is to make sense of the Undertale world, instead of giving its inhabitants a meta-existential dread. In a nutshell, for the Undertale world to be self-contained, the 4th wall must stay intact, and the mechanics of the UT world mustn’t resemble a video game. That’s basically the gist of this post. Proceed with reading.)

You know Undertale meta? All the 4th wall breaking stuff and whatnot? The stuff that makes the game so awesome?

What about it you say?

It’s not real. I don’t think it is. It cannot be.

Tell me, has Undertale personally impacted you? Was it more than just a game to you? I know for a fact that for many people, it was much more than that. So tell me, is it fine by you that despite presenting itself in this way to us, it still sort of cops out of this at the very end? (By which I mean, when we learn that we aren’t Frisk. That we’re just someone controlling them.)

Some say that this cop-out, this act of “disassociation”, is necessary for our psychological journey to end. And I agree. We cannot dwell on this forever, else we lose our minds. But what I meant is something much more... materialistic.

Let’s take Oneshot, a game that’s arguably even more meta than Undertale. Oneshot embraces the 4th wall. It labels us a god. It portrays the game itself as an in-game machine. And yet, it feels real. Despite all this ridiculousness, the story feels real and possible. Kind of like The Matrix. Perhaps think of everyone in Oneshot except for the main character as a Matrix program, while Niko is the only user hooked up to it. It still feels real, because Niko is real, because there exists a real world they can to return to.

But Undertale floats somewhere between being real and being a fairy tale, a mere bedtime story. The reason is its lax handling of the 4th wall. Say, if Undertale were to be considered a “real” possibility, as in, entirely fictional, but still believable, kinda like The Matrix, kinda like any science fiction, or just fiction in general, what would it be like?

I’ll tell you, everything would have to be real, everything would have to look exactly how we see it. There’d need to be turns, there’d need to be save files, there’d need to be so many bizarre things, it probably wouldn’t take long before the NPCs themselves realized their own nonexistence, probably around the time they developed computers and video games. It’d be so similar, they’d have to be either stupid or under some kind of spell to not realize that their entire world is just one giant video game. Especially Flowey. Some say that he has already realized this, as his dialogue hints towards this. Which puts a super unfortunate spin on his condition. Furthermore, the entire game could be described through its Game Maker code. No need for laws of physics, just observe the if-else statements!

It would also mean that Frisk is controlled by a third unknown entity. If we were to take everything we do to Frisk at face value, it must all be them. Except... after a true reset, everything gets reset, even things about Frisk, such as them expecting the whoopee cushion prank. So... Frisk isn’t in control. But Chara isn’t either. Take for example the final fight against Asriel. Chara appeared pretty enthusiastic during it. What if someone were to reset the timeline during the fight? Either it wasn’t them who did so, or they were just pretending to be entertained, or perhaps they aren’t the narrator in the first place even.

No matter what, there will always be an instance where Frisk forgets, and where Chara doesn’t do something when they could have. Once you mess with the game enough, their personalities stop making sense.

This gradual breakdown of the narrative as I keep attacking the logic of it from every direction imaginable is a symptom of something far bigger. The fact that unlike The Matrix or Oneshot, there is no “real world” in this game. The virtual part of it is what the game is trying to make us focus on. It’s all there is. There is not even a hint of “another” world in the game, a world that wouldn’t be governed by these terrible rules. And even if there was one, even if you consider what Sans said to be that world, even if you considered Deltarune to be that world, there is still no guarantee that everything will be okay. What if the characters - your friends, aren’t real in this actual real world, what if they’re all just computer simulations? There’d have to be an entire population hooked up to a virtual reality for everyone to be “safe” as I’m putting it in this hypothetical real world, which sounds not only ridiculous, but like a direct ripoff of The Matrix.

The game has made Frisk the main character. Why, when making Sans the main one, the one who at least has a possibility of coming from a “real” real world, would be far more logical?

Because it lacks logic. Undertale is an experiment. Toby Fox is not a genius. He was just messing around, he didn’t think of literally every tiny little logical detail (contrary to what some individuals would like to think), he just explained enough for most of the story to make sense. But, no matter how you spin it, this fundamental flaw will always be there. The story tries to merge you and the protagonist, before disassociating you from them. Even if you always were disassociated from them, how can the in-game world be real, when other aspects of your reality weren’t disassociated yet? Where’s the disassociation for battles and turns, for save files and time travel, for stats and everything? How can Undertale claim to be complete, when it isn’t? ... Perhaps because it is not claiming to be. It’s an experiment after all. And I don’t mean “incomplete” as in a single update / new game can fix it. I mean the premise itself is already broken from the start. And while there are many fictional worlds which function on a similar level of meta, Undertale is the only one that appears to irk me mad. I don’t know why. Maybe I love the characters. Maybe I love them very much. Maybe I love them so much, that I wanna write a fan fiction about them. And maybe, just maybe, this tiny little issue is making this dream of mine impossible. Undertale is a story conveyed through game mechanics. Choosing any other medium breaks everything down and the author needs to invent their own rules. There’s simply no way around it. Unless someone has the balls to program a fan game of their own, there’s just no way to resolve this without adjusting the canon a little bit, to make it “a little bit more sensible” as some would put it. Just a small nudge, a lil’ nudgie wudgie to the canon mechanics AAAAAND we’re in fanon territory. Excellent, better go all out.

Here’s my head canon, my little “adjustment” of the canon rules. Thanks to it, I can once again think about Undertale as a real world, I no longer need to philosophize over the meta like I did above, I can all put it past me:

Saving, loading, resetting? Regular sci-fi time travel.

The save file? The parameters of the time machine.

LV and EXP? Another set of properties of the machine, though it could be properties of the soul too. I’m undecided on that note. But either works, that’s what’s important.

Chara destroying the world through LV? No, screw that, Chara merely tuned Frisk out. And the black void was the inside of their mind as Chara denied them access to their own body.

The intro? Literally never happened, no one “saw” it. (The past was still real. It’s just the intro that never existed.) The outro? Literally never physically occurred, Frisk wasn’t “stuck” on the ending credits, unable to go further, fuck that.

Flowey? No screw everything meta about Flowey, there exists a perfectly logical explanation to everything he says, and if not, such as in the genocide run with him hinting towards people watching but not acting... he never said that in the first place!

Same with turns, the battles don’t actually look that way, there are no turns, what Sans perceives and abuses as such is just an illusion, the actual battle against Sans is absolutely fluid. And him pausing at the end and not letting us go is him keeping his guard up, until falling asleep and giving us an opportunity to sneak near him and strike. We don’t need turns to explain it. And what he said about turns... just ignore it! Ignore everything that directly proves me wrong! Because resolving that fucking conundrum IS more important than being logically consistent, and you can’t change my mind on that. Screw logic when the foundation of the entire fandom, of every UT-related fiction, is at stake here.

And I shall call this philosophy... the Unmeta. Because it attempts to undo the meta. Hence, “unmeta” for short.

#undertale

6 notes · View notes

waywardbeanie · 4 years

Text

A Man of Letters - Chapter Seven

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Female Reader Summary: It started as a simple hunt for Sam and Dean Winchester. Dean didn’t realize that this single case would change his life forever. Now they are on the biggest mission of their lives, and without the use of cellphones, the only way he can communicate with the love of his life is through old fashioned letter writing. He has done everything in his power to keep her safe, but will it be enough? Word Count: 6931 ish

Series Warnings: Language, slow burn, angst, smut, alcohol consumption, fluff, SPN typical violence (individual chapters will contain relevant warnings) a little meta Chapter Warning: humor (Is that really a warning?) and a little bit of sweet.(Always), angst, spicy (smut), unprotected (ish) sex

A/N: I want to thank everyone who has read so far, thank you for sticking with me! All of the comments and reblogs mean so very much! THANK YOU!

Thank you to my beta’s @winchest09 and @whatareyousearchingfordean without them I would be sunk!

MASTERLIST A Man of Letters

If you’d like to be tagged, my list is open. Just send me an ask HERE: **Make sure you check out the playlist, it is updated every chapter and an essential part of the story**

Spotify Playlist : A Man of Letters

Catch up here >>>>>>> A Man of Letters Masterlist

This series is ongoing!

No Gif’s are mine

Dean “Tongue Magician” Winchester PO Box 323 Sioux Falls, SD 57101

Dear D,

You were right, I got both letters the same day. It was a really nice surprise. I hope that “Sam” likes the brownies. I’m sure they are stale, but I made enough for everyone, so please share them because I know they are for you. Sam literally eats one brownie when I make them. Work has picked up, and my schedule is full most days. I’m happy to be busy when you are gone, it makes the days go by faster, but my bed is too big and empty without you. I’ve slept on the couch a few times since you’ve been gone, I just leave the pillows on, and I can almost convince myself you are here.

I was thinking about the couch night, but now you have me thinking about the bed night, and damn, you are too far away to dwell on that for too long! Also, do not talk to me about me moaning your name in letters because I swear to God I will write you a note that you will have you locking yourself in Baby to read!

Things are pretty quiet here as usual. I went to the farmers market today and bought vegetables. I’m trying to figure out some new recipes to try. I know you said that you were up for anything, just no more butter beans because they taste like mud (which, for the record, they do not!), so we will see what I can do. I saw Mark from the garage there, and he told me to tell you “Hello” and that he is almost finished with the body of the 1971 Plymouth Hemi Cuda. He wondered when you would be back because he could use your help with the new paint job. I told him that the job you had was going to last longer than most but that I’m sure as soon as you got into town that you would help him.

D, I know we talked about the future before, but are you sure you want to walk away? I’m here no matter what, I’m not going anywhere. You need to be sure this is what you want to do for you. With that being said, I am selfish enough to say I want nothing more than to fall asleep in your arms every night and to wake up next to you each morning. I’m glad you wrote it in a letter because I can read it over and over. Sometimes, when you are gone, I just start questioning things and can be a bit insecure about all of it, but you knew that already.

I guess I should wrap this up, I’m sorry you guys are doing more research, but, as always it will pay off in the end. I’m not surprised you set up training for everyone, that is definitely your thing, and it gives you an excuse not to read those dusty books. You guys be safe and come back soon. I miss your face.

I Love You, Your Initial

3 Years Ago

They were a little over halfway back to the bunker, driving through Hastings, Nebraska, and Sam started to worry. Dean had not spoken 5 words this entire trip. He didn’t even want snacks when they stopped for gas. They have been driving for almost two hours, the radio on low, the only thing consistent is the tapping of his thumb on the top of the steering wheel, lost in his own thoughts.

“Dean.” He broke the silence

“Huh?” pulling himself from his thoughts, glancing at Sam.

“You want to tell me what’s going on?”

“What? Nothing,” raising his eyebrows, he shook his head briefly.

Flicking his eyes to the backseat, Sam confirmed the vamp was still out cold. “Ok, I’ll start. I know that you knew where these vamps were hiding out long before I told you. Instead of helping me, you continued to point me in the wrong direction.”

He rubbed his hand down his face with equal amounts of irritation and embarrassment. “Sammy, it’s not like that I-,”

Annoyed Sam cut him off, “Dude, it is exactly like that, but the funny part is I’m not even mad anymore.”

“Fine, you know I don’t want to talk about this, but you get one question and one answer and don’t get all chick flick about it either because that’s not happening.”

“Great,” Sam smirked, “What’s Y/N’s favorite color?”

Without missing a beat, Dean answered, “It’s a tie between navy blue and dark grey.”

Sam threw his head back with a laugh. Dean’s mouth quirked up in a half-smile, turning up the radio as “Ramblin’ Man” by The Allman Brothers blared through the speakers. Laying his foot on the gas pedal, a little heavier to get back to the bunker to get answers from the comatose vamp tied up in the back seat.

Dean and Sam had left Y/N’s house 2 days ago. The first 24 hours she didn’t go anywhere without her phone, that got old quickly. She began to feel like it was a leash; finally, she went about her day and left it plugged in on her nightstand. Today was Saturday, she didn’t have any clients this morning; instead, it was all the things to catch up from the week. Mowing the lawn, cleaning the house, grocery shopping, stripping the sheets, and doing laundry.

She put her hair in a messy bun, threw on her Neil Diamond t-shirt with denim shorts, grabbed her BlueTooth headphones, linking them to her tablet, and set it outside on the deck and connected it to her playlist. Greta Van Fleet’s “Highway Tune” burst into her ears as she yanked the pulley to start the lawnmower. She chuckled to herself as she began to mow the backyard. Dean had mentioned a few times that he wanted to do it, but that was not going to happen. She had put them both out enough, and besides, it was a good exercise for her. Finishing up in a little over an hour, she put away the lawn equipment, grabbed a bottle of water from the “beer fridge” in the garage, and jumped in the Jeep. She wanted to head to two destinations, the grocery store and the gardening store to buy more plants and flowers. Working in the yard kept her hands and mind busy, and right now, that is precisely what she needed.

As she was perusing the freezer section for her favorite Ben & Jerry’s flavor, she ran into her friend Jennifer. They had met just a few weeks after Y/N moved to Lincoln and they had become fast friends. After a brief hug, they agreed to meet later on that evening for drinks on Y/N’s back deck to catch up. She stopped and bought some more daisies and headed back home, looking forward to spending the evening with her friend.

After planting the flowers, she ran in the house to quickly shower and wash her hair, scrubbing off the dirt and grime of the day. Finishing up, she wrapped her hair in a towel and dried off when she noticed Dean’s black flannel hanging on the door hook. He’d accidentally left it behind the last time he was here. Walking over, she brushed her fingers lightly over the material and as she brought it closer to her nose, she could still smell his woodsy maleness clinging to the fabric. She rested her head against the door, thinking about how much she missed him already and realizing how ridiculous it sounded.

With a sigh, she left the bathroom walking down the hall to her bedroom, pausing she looked at her phone lying face down on the nightstand. She was torn; part of her wanted to see if Dean had called or texted, but an overwhelming part did not want to be disappointed when he didn’t. She made a deal with herself, she would get dressed and dry her hair, and THEN she would look at it. Y/N did silly bargaining things like this with herself all the time, almost like bargaining with the Gods to turn the odds in her favor. She pulled on a pair of grey shorts and a and white Garth Brooks shirt, chuckling to herself, thinking of when Dean accused her of having more band shirts than he did.

Sitting in front of her mirror with her flat paddle brush, she began drying her hair in pieces, after finishing she put on a bit of mascara, eyeliner, and colored lip balm. Smiling at herself in the mirror, she was pleased with the results, standing with a huff, Y/N went to check her phone. Picking it up, she expected nothing. However, she slowly lowered herself to the bed as her screen lit up, her eyes growing wider with every missed notification.

Dean 3 Missed calls

Dean: Hey, Babe, been crazy with you know what. Just wanted to hear your voice.

Dean 4 Missed calls

Sam 1 Missed call

Dean: Y/N. Is everything ok? Call me when you get this.

Dean 2 Missed calls Sam: Tink, would you PLEASE call Dean? I might kill him soon if you don’t. Jennifer 1 Missed Call Dean: ok, I’m trying to keep my shit together right now, I’m FUCKING WORRIED. I’m just telling you right now if I don’t hear back from you in 2 hours I’m driving back.

Just then, her phone lit up in her hand, Dean’s face popping up, the ring scaring her so bad she dropped the phone. She scrambled to pick it up, pushing the speaker button quickly. “Hello?”

“Y/N?” Dean’s voice boomed through the speaker.

“Hey Dean, I’m so sorry-” she began.

Dean cut her off, “Are you good? Jesus Fuck, I was like a crazy person down here. You’re good, right? I mean you are answering the phone, so you’re alright. Right?” She could hear a slamming car door in the background.

“Dean!” she raised her voice to get his attention, “I’m fine I just left my phone plugged in all day, and I was busy.”

“Shit, right.” She could hear him running his hand over his scruff, “I’m sorry Babe, I know, I sound like a lunatic. We just haven’t been able to get anything out of this vamp, when you didn’t answer, my mind just started going to a dark place.”

“I promise, I’m really fine,” she soothed, “I mowed the lawn and went to the grocery and bought some flowers; just busy. I even saw my friend Jennifer today. She’s coming over tonight, and we are going to sit on the deck and have a couple beers.”

“Honestly, that sounds great Y/N/N, I just wanted to hear your voice and tell you to be careful. We don’t know who sent those vamps yet, and until we do, you just need to watch your back.”

She didn’t want to roll her eyes, but she couldn’t help it. There were only so many ways she could reassure him, she didn’t want Dean to worry about her, Y/N just living her life, maybe she was naïve. Hell, no one has worried about her since her parents’ death. It was a strange feeling.

“Dean,” she began, “What can I do to make you feel better?”

She could almost hear the sheepish shrug in his voice “I don’t know” pulling himself out of that quickly, his voice became stronger. “Could you just carry your damn phone with you?”

Dean heard the laughter through his phone, and he couldn’t help but smile, hearing her laugh warmed his insides. “Of course, I will! I do have a question for you, though.”

“Shoot.”

“Were you really going to drive back up here if I didn’t answer?” The silence on the phone went on for so long that she had to double-check to be sure they weren’t disconnected. “Dean?”

“Yeah,” came a gruff reply, “I was in the garage when I thought I would call you one more time before I left.”

“Oh Dean, I’m sorry.” Guilt niggled at her as she thought of him dropping his plans.

“Y/N, maybe I overreacted a little, but I’m so far away that, if shit went down, It would take me 2 ½ hours to get there.”

“I’m just living, Dean, but I will be careful, I swear. I don’t want you to worry about me. You have enough to worry about without adding me to it.”

Oh, Babe,” he chuckled, “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”

“Maybe.” He could hear the smile in her voice.

“So, I thought I would come back up on Thursday night if that’s ok.”

“More than,” she replied with a soft smile, “I miss you.”

“Same,” he replied gruffly, “see you Thursday, then.”

“Bye, Dean,” she whispered. She pushed the end button and flopped back on the bed, heart pounding in her chest.

She missed him, but the idea of him coming back had her stomach in knots. There was no doubt in her mind that she was going to have sex with him when he came back. She could barely keep herself in check before he left. It had been a long time since she had been intimate with anyone, what if she forgot how? She had been fine just shoving her sexual frustrations to the bottom of her priority list, life got its hooks in her, she was more interested in getting her business off the ground, fixing up her house and making a life for herself. He was the first person in recent memory who made her look twice. Now he was coming to stay with her. This time she knew that the couch was not going to cut it.

Dean’s POV

Bracing his forearms on the driver’s side window frame of Baby, he tossed the phone on her roof with a sigh. It’s taking all of his internal strength not to jump in the car right now and head back to Lincoln. In his mind, he knows that she is safe, but his chest still ached. This is why he didn’t involve himself in this type of bullshit. Sticking to the random hook up fitted his life. What the hell was he thinking, dragging her deeper into a life that she has no business being within a 1000 feet of? She is too sweet to get involved in his shit show of life. He was tossed into it the day his mother was roasted on the ceiling. Y/N deserves so much better than he could ever offer. If he had a brain cell left in his head, he would man up and text her right now to tell her to forget it, he wasn’t returning to Lincoln. He and Sam would track down whoever was after her and take care of it. Y/N could move on with her life and forget all about him and the nightmare life he leads. Exhaling loudly, Dean grabs his phone, shoving it in his pocket and pushing himself off the car, the adrenaline of his fear and anger still pumping through his veins. He knows she deserves better than a text. When he drives up on Thursday, he will tell her that it’s best for her.

Eventually, the stabbing pain in his chest will go away and if it doesn’t, maybe this is just what it would be like now that he really knows what he will be missing when he walks away.

Jennifer and Y/N embrace at the door when she arrives promptly at 7:00. It was an evening of a few too many beers and laughs. Jennifer switched to Diet Coke after two. Although she was a little more than tipsy, she was careful to keep most of the secrets when Jennifer started to question her about the black muscle car parked at her house when Y/N was MIA for a few weeks, no one knew she was hiding a bruised and swollen face.

Travis had kept his mouth shut as promised. Sam and Dean stopped in to talk to him about the “guys” who followed Y/N home and assaulted her. He wanted his bar as far away from that controversy as possible.

They ended the evening with more hugs and promises to get together again soon, Y/N made her way to her bedroom, phone in hand, drunkenly stripping off clothes all the way down the hall. Climbing under the sheets, she started to plug in her phone but changed her mind.

Dean’s phone buzzed with a text message at 1:17 a.m, he was sitting in the library nursing his third whiskey of the night. Picking up his phone, he thumbed it open to see it was a text from Y/N. As he opened the message, his mouth slowly began to gape open. Staring back at him was a selfie. Y/N was laying down, her hair fanning around her on the pillow, a sweet smile playing on her lips. He could see the curve of her breasts, turning the phone back and forth he was sure he could have seen her nipple. She was totally naked in that massive bed without him. The simple text accompanying the picture is what truly did him in.

Babe: Wish you were here

“FUCK!” he groaned loudly, closing his eyes, throwing his head back

Thursday came in a blink of an eye for both of them. Dean had texted Y/N to let him know he would be leaving around noon. It was 10:00 a.m. now, his anxiousness already kicked into high gear. Sam walked into the war room, a mug of coffee in his hand, still in his blue and black plaid pajama pants with a grey long sleeved T-Shirt. His hair pointing in every direction, bare feet smacking against the tile floor. He stopped abruptly when he spotted Dean pacing a path back and forth. He was already dressed in jeans and boots topped with a dark grey T-shirt underneath a burgundy and grey flannel. An empty coffee cup sitting on the map table along with his duffle bag.

“Dean?” he questioned.

“Yeah?” he responded, continuing to pace.

“What’s the deal? What are you doing?” He fully entered the room, placing his mug on the table studying Dean.

“I’m thinking! What are you doing? I just got shit on my mind,” he barked back, continuing to pace, stopping to look at his phone, before beginning his walk again.

“Aren’t you going to Y/N’s today?” Sam questioned, “I thought you would be happy. Instead, you’re stalking around here like an angry bear.”

Dean’s angry gaze snapped to Sam, confirming his characterization. “I’m coming back tonight.” Sam paused in the middle of sitting, standing back up, “Dude, WHAT?”

Running his hand roughly over his face, he sighed. “I got some space; after the other day, when I couldn’t reach her, it made me realize she doesn’t need to be dragged into this life. It’s too much.”

“And there it is” Sam threw his hands in the air, frustration written all over his face.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dean growled.

“Every.Fucking.Time,” he emphasized each word pointing his finger at the older Winchester. "Whenever you find a little bit of happiness, you start sabotaging yourself, it’s always something. This life sucks, you’re too busy, it’s the apocalypse, someone or something needs you more, you just shut down and tell yourself it’s not worth the trouble.”

Dean just stared at his brother as he continued to ramble.

“Just once Dean, just one time can you put yourself first?” he gestured toward him. “Yes, I know Y/N was a case and you are pissed off that the vamp won’t talk, you’re worried that your life is going to splash on her. She is stronger than you think, you think you need to pile all of this on your shoulders, you don’t. I have never seen you, my own brother, let his guard down around someone before.”

“She’s too good Sammy, she doesn’t deserve-”

“What?” Sam questioned, gathering momentum again “She doesn’t deserve to be happy? She doesn’t deserve to have someone care about her? You-” he pointed at him once more, “are both crazy about each other. I could see it on your faces every time I was in the same room with you both. You have earned the right to be happy.”

Dean crossed his arms contemplating Sam.

“Just do me a favor, would you?” Go up there and just see her, stay the three days, like you planned, see what happens. Promise me you won’t go up there halfcocked trying to tell her, like you always do to everyone, that you know what’s best. Leave your bullshit baggage here and just go see her.”

“Whatever,” Dean grumbled, hiking his bag on his shoulder as he picked his keys off the table, striding towards the garage, “I think you need to mind your own damn business.”

“When has that ever happened before?” Sam called after him.

As Dean began to drive to Lincoln, Y/N was running around nerves and excitement, twisting her gut. She had showered, shaved everywhere, lotioned up, fixed her hair, letting it flow down her back instead of the ponytail or messy bun look and she had applied light makeup. Looking down at her bed, almost every article of clothing she owned was spread out. Y/N picked up all of her dresses and hung them back in the closet. If she wore a dress, he would know that she was trying too hard.

“This is ridiculous!” she thought to herself as she started shoving clothes back into drawers. She settled on a pair of denim cutoff shorts and a sleeveless black and white blouse that cut in at the shoulders and tied at the back of her neck, flowing to mid-hip. Picking up the remainder of clothes strewn about, she muscled them back in her closet, slamming the door. She checked herself out in the mirror, happy with the tan legs and arms on display. Walking out into the living room, she started to feel fidgety. She had serious thoughts about going to work in the garden, but she would have to shower all over again. After wandering around the house, she checked her phone at 1:00. She had two hours left. Flopping on the couch, she flipped on the television and began channel surfing, trying to zone out.

As Dean sped up the highway to Y/N’s house, the conversation with Sam this morning was a consistent loop in his head. Actually, it was more of a Sam tirade. Dean knew what was best, right? Nip it in the bud before one of them could get hurt. She really wasn’t what he needed in his life, he told himself. Unattached works best for him. An after bar closing fling to get rid of the itch, then back to living life. No expectations, no texts, no I’ll-call-you-laters. But if that is what he wanted, then why did it make him sad and angry all at once?

Twenty minutes outside of Lincoln, he stopped for gas, seriously considering calling her to say he couldn’t make it. Sure, she might be disappointed, but she would get over it, wouldn’t she? No, he chastised himself, he would do the right thing and tell her face to face. He owed her that, at the very least. Looking at his watch, he realized that he had made a good time between leaving the bunker early so Sam would quit bitching at him and no traffic or cops on the 2 lane highway. He would be at her house at 1:30. Jumping back in Baby, he cranked the ignition “The Real Love” by Bob Seger blared through the speakers, it was a slow one, he reached down to flip the channel but paused but as the lyrics began to speak to him.

I think I’ve found The Real Love Genuine and true I think it’s really come my way today Babe I think it’s really you

I remember moments looking in your eyes Could have sworn I saw the spark of love babe Flickering inside

I’ve been around this track And the only thing I lack Is The Real Love

Placing his hand back on the wheel, his knuckles turned white as he squeezed, the pressure in his chest overwhelming him as he blinked back tears. His mind and heart screaming, “Don’t do this!!” Angrily, he threw Baby in drive, grinding his teeth together and snapping his jaw. He jammed his foot on the gas, leaving tire treads next to the pumps. The Impala fishtailing as he exited to the street heading towards Y/N house. The pain crashing through him as the verses washed over him.

Every time I see you, every time we touch I can feel the way you feel for me Babe And it means so much

And every time you look at me It’s just the way it all should be In The Real Love

Oh darlin’ darlin’ darlin’ Stay with me stay I long to see you in the morning sun Everyday Everyday

So until that moment When I take your hand I’m gonna try to do my very best Babe To prove that I’m your man

I’m gonna do my very best I’m not gonna rest Until we’ve got The Real Love

He was in agony, convincing himself it was what he deserved thinking about what he was about to do.

Hearing the deep rumble of Baby, Y/N sat up on the couch, flinging the remote on the coffee table. Her heart began thundering in her chest as she looked at the clock 1:28 p.m. “It’s too early, it can’t be him. He said 3:00” she thought. Her feet had a mind of their own, carrying her, almost unwilling, afraid to be disappointed that it was another car, but she knew. She would recognize the sound of his car anywhere. The screen door opened with a squeak as she stepped on the porch as Dean drove up the driveway. She shoved her hands in her front pockets to appear calm, but she could not wipe the huge grin off her face nor the heat burning her cheeks.

Dean turned off Baby and sat there for a moment, squeezing the steering wheel, flexing his jaw as he tried to get his bearings together. He knew what had to be done, he couldn’t draw it out. “Just cut to the chase, short and sweet. Get it over and done with and let her live in peace,” he told himself, until he glanced out the window and saw her on the porch.

The ice that he tried to form around his heart cracked wide as he looked at her beautiful, smiling face. Never in his life could he recall someone so thrilled to see him. She was pure sunshine that spread light through him as he looked at her. Pulling the metal handle, he got out of the car, slamming the heavy door behind him. Her hands were in her pockets, but she was so happy she was almost vibrating. As he walked towards her, all he could hear was Sam’s voice yelling in his head, “leave your bullshit baggage here! You have earned the right to be happy!”

Each step that he took melted the ice a little more, stopping in the grass, he matched her smile and opened his arms. She was off the porch running to him. She jumped into his arms and wrapped her legs around his waist as he locked her in his embrace. She buried her face in his neck as he nuzzled her hair, breathing her in.

“You know,” she whispered, smiling into his neck, “when I thought about today, I always imagined I would have been much cooler.”

Chuckling, he pressed a kiss against her temple, “I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.” The truth is, had she been calm, cool, and collected, Dean would not have questioned his stupidity until he was headed back to the bunker. By that time, it would have been too late, and he would have had to live with his decision no matter what the ache in his chest told him.

Setting her on her feet, bending, he pressed a firm kiss on her lips, lingering as the last bits of ice melted around his heart. He wanted to tell her what he had driven up here to do; he just couldn’t yet. What if he scared her? What if she stopped looking at him with unconditional acceptance? After everything he had shared with her, the killings, the monsters, and the Mark of Cain, she rolled with it all as if he was telling her how he changed the oil in Baby. She was interested and asked questions but never judged him. Telling her most of his secrets on the couch was never what he meant to do, but she pulled it out without even trying. What if telling her he was going to look at him differently? He couldn’t handle that, his chest hurt to even think that. What if it broke what has been so carefully built. What if it broke her? He couldn’t do that. The thought that he was actually going to come up here and tell her it was over made him feel lightheaded.

Pulling back, she took his hand in hers with a smile. “I hope you’re hungry tonight. I made steak, twice baked potato, corn on the cob and...” she drawled, wiggling her eyebrows, “pecan pie.”

“Wow,” he chuckled “you didn’t have to do all of that.”

She lifted one shoulder, slightly embarrassed, “I wanted to.”

Squeezing her hand, he murmured, “thank you.”

Smiling bright at him, she opened the screen door, Y/N entering and pulling Dean with her. The house smelled like pie. He didn’t realize how much he missed being with her in her space until he walked in the door. The smell, the feeling of hominess solidified his decision to listen to Sam’s advice. Maybe his little brother knew something, after all.

Dean grabbed two bottles of beer out of the refrigerator, walking out on the back deck. Just being close to her, he could feel a weight lifting off him as he comfortably settled back into their little routine. He would always twist off the bottle top for her and hand her the beer. Even if she brought the beers out, she gave them both to him. When both bottles were open, they would clink the bottlenecks together before their first drink. It was the little things like this that made him ridiculously happy.

Sitting on the deck, they shared different things from the week, there were no awkward moments or pause in the conversation. It just flowed as it did on the couch. Dean tried to keep it light, telling funny stories about Sam as Y/N’s laughter rang out, filling him with a warmth he never knew he needed., She would reach out and touch him, brushing her fingers against his knee or grasping his arm when she was making a point. He looked forward to each touch, desire shuttering through him every time. As the afternoon slid into the evening, Dean would graze her upper arm with a smile, just to see her shiver. He felt powerful that it was his touch doing that to her.

Time flew by as the cold beers went down smoothly. Soon it was time to light the grill and cook up the steaks as she put together the side dishes. They decided to eat at the pub table on the deck, lighting the lanterns as the sun began to set and soft music played through the hidden speakers. Y/N watched Dean eat dinner as she moved the food around her plate. She watched him as they talked through dinner, either he wasn’t nervous or could chew through anything. She was hungry but only took a few bites here and there. The later it got, she began to get keyed up. She felt like she knew how the evening would end; however, her insecurities made her start to question everything. After dinner, they loaded the dishwasher and made coffee for both of them. It was very domestic, like all the pieces were snapping into place. Dean sat down his mug as the crisp sound of an acoustic guitar wafted through the sound system. “Give Me One Reason” by Tracy Chapman. The notes carried into the darkness as the deck was illuminated by the hanging lanterns.

Reaching out his hand he beckoned to Y/N, “dance with me.”

With a shy smile, she accepted his hand as he led her to the middle of the deck and took her in his arms. Her heart began to double-time in her chest as she looked into Dean’s eyes and saw the heat reflected back down on her. He pulled her close as they moved through the song and she could not help but to be struck by the lyrics.

Give me one reason to stay here And I'll turn right back around Give me one reason to stay here And I'll turn right back around Said I don't want leave you lonely You got to make me change my mind

Ducking his head to brush his lips to hers, the sizzle that has built between them all night, ignites. He wants this woman more than he has ever wanted anyone in his life. In a rush of uncontrollable desire, Dean cups Y/N’s face and pulls her to him, crashing his lips greedily to hers. The first touch of his mouth on hers and she threw her arms around him, pressing her body against his. The intense desire exploded between them; the compelling need to claim her, lick her, have her, drove him to the brink of insanity. He opened her lips with his, his tongue sliding into her mouth, bringing out a throaty moan that almost pushed him over the edge. He glided his hand down her back, cupping one of her round cheeks with his palm as he roughly pulled her against his erection; she gasped with pleasure as she began to grind herself onto him, her own arousal dictating her actions.

Picking her up, she wrapped her legs around him as he walked them into the house, down the hall into the bedroom, their mouths only moving apart to gasp for air before devouring each other once more. The dance of their tongues did nothing to quench her thirst for him since they had initially started, and she found herself rubbing against him in an attempt to ease her aching core. Setting her down on her feet in front of the bed, she looked up to see Dean’s eyes had changed to a dark smoldering green; the lust reflected back to her, making her tremble with yearning.

“I need you so much,” he rasped.

“God, me too,” she whimpered.

A smile spread across his face as he hooked his index finger along the waistband of her shorts, dragging them down her tan legs to her ankles. On his knees in front of her, he placed a soft kiss on her belly button, his tongue flicking her hoop piercing.

“So fucking hot,” he murmurs as her skin erupts in goosebumps, a shiver of excitement moving up her spine as she runs her hands through his soft brown hair.

Gently pushing her back on the bed, he pulled her to the edge, his mouth mere inches from her slick heat. Moving his face slightly, he brushed the inside of her thigh with his scruff, pulling a moan from her lips. She could feel his warm breath against her clit and began to squirm.

“Please Dean,” she begged. He lay his muscled forearm across her hips, pinning her to the bed.

“Shh,” he whispered as his eyes met hers, his intense look scorching her skin. “I want to look at you, I’ve done nothing but think about you like this for weeks, just want to enjoy the view for a moment.”

She let her head fall back on the mattress, laying her arm across her closed eyes, her body buzzing as it pleaded for relief. Every second that ticked by, the intensity coiled in her belly, convincing her that she will burst into flames any second. She jerked as she felt his flattened tongue lick upwards along her damp slit, teasing her. His lips stopped at her clit, humming in satisfaction.

“Jesus, Dean,” she moaned, grasping the sheets on either side of her, “I can’t do this, it’s too much,” she cried with frustration.

Chucking, he licked her again before swirling his tongue around her sweet spot. A sound ripped from her throat that was a mix between a whine and a curse. “That’s it, Y/N,” he growls against herm “let go, I want to feel you cum.”

“No, I want to feel you inside me.” Her arms stretched to reach him, but he leaned back, just out of reach.

“You will,” he promises “but I need this first.” His tongue delved into her wet sweetness as he buried two fingers inside her, coaxing her to climax. She felt the white-hot heat building inside her as he wrapped his lips around her clit, sucking one last time, hurdling her over the edge while crying out his name. Dean was relentless, lapping up everything Y/N had given him before he glanced up at her writhing form, his chin glistening in the dim light. It was a sight that made Y/N swallow hard, the man between her legs had given her an orgasm in less than a few minutes so her mind was reeling with else he had in store for her.

“I need you, Dean.” Those four words that bled from her lips sent Dean into a frenzy.

In haste, he removed his boots, socks, jeans, and boxers before he climbed up the mattress, pulling Y/N along with him. Situated in the middle of the bed, he settled between her legs, his hard length nudging at her. Resting his forearms on either side of her head, he brushed his lips over hers as she moved her hands to entwine her fingers in his hair, deepening the kiss. Her legs then wrapped around his waist, urging him to enter her but he held back, his body taut with the effort.

“Protection?” he asks softly. “IUD,” she answered breathlessly, desperate for him to fill her. “Oh god.””

“It’s Dean” he husked playfully, his voice deep and gruff.

Kissing down her neck; cupping her breast in his hand, he rolled her taut nipple between his thumb and forefinger, a hiss of pleasure rushing from her lips as he took her nipple in his mouth, swirling his tongue over the bud before nipping it gently with his teeth. He moved to the other breast giving it equal treatment. Steadily he slowly made his way back up her body, peppering her skin with kisses as he reached her mouth, claiming her lips again in a searing kiss as he lined himself up. He slowly pushes his impressive shaft inside of her as her body stretches around his girth, tightly squeezing and slowly accommodating him.

“Y/N,” he breathes between clenched teeth, “Fuck, I’ve wanted to do this for so long, you feel so damn good.”

She murmured her approval as her hands wrapped around him, her fingers digging into his rippling back muscles with each thrust. She had fantasized about this so often, but the reality eclipses anything her imagination had come up with. His mouth moved down her exposed neck as her hands blindly explored his body. Their dual moans mingled in the bedroom as their sweat-slicked bodies met. She gripped his shoulders as they both barreled towards release.

“Babe, I’m so close,” he grits out, his rhythm stuttering. She plants her feet on the bed, meeting him thrust for thrust.

“Dean!” she cries as another orgasm rips through her body. She comes undone, her insides clench and twist around him as she digs her fingers into his back as he feels her flutter around him. Groaning her name, he buries himself deep inside her, allowing euphoria to wash over him as he coated the inside of her walls.

Breathless, he nearly collapsed on top of her but managed to hold himself up on shaky arms as she ran her fingers through his sweaty hair with a smile. He leaned down to place a sweet kiss on her mouth before laying on his back next to her as they both tried to catch their breath. Turning his head, he saw her blissed-out face staring back at him with a sleepy smile playing on her lips. He gathered her still shaking body to him, wrapping his arms around her as she rested her head on his hard chest with a satisfied sigh. She snuggled into him as he reached down to pull the sheet over them both falling into an exhausted sleep. He was so glad he didn’t listen to his own thoughts and allowed himself to enjoy being with her. The woman that had turned his life upside down.

Chapter 8

Tags: @winchest09 @katehuntington @whatareyousearchingfordean @emoryhemsworth @flamencodiva @superfanficnatural @deanwanddamons @janicho88 @talesmaniac89 @anathewierdo @compresshischest09 @supernatural-bellawinchester @jensengirl83 @this-is-what-im-reduced-to @ellewritesfix05 @moron225 @foxyjwls007 @hobby27 @unicornqu33n17 @swinchester27@ @deans-baby-momma @squirrelnotsam @clumsy-nerd104 @sarahbaker2010 @supernatural-love14 @akshi8278 @lyarr24 @angelhearts1012 @nothinbuttrouble2 @cookiechipdough @lady-pswrld @peachyafshawn @notan-applepielife

#dean winchester x reader #dean winchester x you #dean x y/n #dean x you #dean x reader #dean winchester fanfiction #dean winchester fanfic #dean winchester #dean winchester x y/n #reader insert #Dean Winchester fluff #dean winchester smut #slow burn #dean winchester series #a man of letters #waywardbeanie

104 notes · View notes

garazza · 4 years

Text

Action Comics #1023 Review

“The House of Kent: Part 2″

Action Comics #1022 “House of Kent: Part 1″ Review

Hoo-boy.

I actually appreciate this recap page, I really do, but it just rubs me the wrong way. I’m not sure if it’s the content of the recap that pisses me off or if it’s for the fact that they literally just took a page from the previous issue and slapped in some new dialogue (see Bendis’ Man of Steel mini for this to be taken to the extreme).

Most likely the latter, but there’s a good argument for the former because reading objective statements about what Bendis has done tends to do that. I guess what they could be going for is for something similar to when Svengoolie comes back from commercial break and it’s a still from the movie with Sven’s face superimposed somewhere and he makes a quip about the movie before it starts back up again.

But I digress. It fills me in on what’s been happening in the book and that’s what I needed it to do.

The art really goes down in quality since last issue. Romita, Jr.’s pencils aren’t as good, Janson’s inks are heavier and a lot more boring, and Anderson’s colors are bland and flat and not as lively. There are a few good spots and I’ll point them out, but they’re infrequent, and overall, the quality of the art is much more similar to the art in the Metropolis Doom arc than it is to last issue. This leads me to believe that editorial only gave the art team enough time over the pandemic-induced break in publishing to produce one good issue before forcing them back into a deadline where Romita, Jr.’s work is not as good and tends to suffer.

Red Cloud attacks and attempts to kill Jimmy Olsen instead of Lois Lane to send an even greater message to her and Clark.

For those of you that don’t know, the Invisible Mafia speak in code to avoid detection by Superman’s super-hearing and meet in areas surround by lead to hide from his supervision. In the beginning of this confrontation, no one says anything that Superman would respond to if he hasn’t already tuned it out, which is why Lois says out loud her nickname for her husband to get his attention.

It’s a sign of affection for them and could be utilized for such a scenario, but I don’t see why she had to say his nickname over anything else to get his attention. Maybe because since he revealed his identity to the world his real name is being said a lot more often in non-criminal ways, so he doesn’t respond to it as much as he has in the past. I’m not sure if I’m trying to come up with a rational excuse for what is actually a writer’s weird and out-of-character creative choice or if it’s what an actually competent writer intended for a discerning reader to infer and get joy from a successful analysis.

Regardless, it’s what got Superman’s attention at the end of Superman segment in the last issue. I don’t think what was supposed to be conveyed with those panels last issue was accurately conveyed by the art. Either Romita, Jr. didn’t sufficiently depict (but still beautifully rendered) what Bendis had directed him to draw, or Bendis had poorly directed Romita, Jr. in what he wanted him to draw. With this added context, however, these panels do make a lot more sense, but only with the added context. Without it, the scene is a little unclear.

You can clearly see the change in art with the two issues side by side like this. This issue, the art just doesn’t look as good. It’s just kinda blegh. It accomplishes what it needs to convey the story, but in a very boring and unspectacular way.

Also, this panel is very Harry Potter to me. Superman’s more subdued face is similar to that of book!Dumbledore in Goblet of Fire, but the almost hyperbolic dialogue is more akin to that of movie!Dumbledore. It’s very dissonant.

I really want to hate the humor of this panel, but it’s just so fun, so I won’t.

This is a really cool panel, one of the few standout moments, but I have issues.

First, I may have enjoyed the humor in the last panel, but Bendis’ attempt at humor with Jon here just makes me want to cringe. Whenever Bendis makes Jon talk, it just pisses me off and makes me want to stop reading.

Second, I see what they were going for with the glowing eyes, but this is some more of that dissonance between the art and the writing. It actually looks quite menacing, but the dialogue has a more humorous tone. Also, the actual effect for the glow is just two red circles, making their eyes look more like flashlights than radiating energy. I also want you to keep this moment in the back of your minds, I’ll refer back to it in a second.

I think the dissonance is the result of the Bendis-speak, where some of the characters are quippy, but other characters are playing the situation straight and are reacting accordingly to the incorrect behavior. There’s nothing wrong with a superhero comic being light-hearted, but it just doesn’t quite fit here. All the right ingredients are present, but they’re not all in the right proportions.

Another panel I really like. The smoke and its color are really well done, especially in contrast to the all black silhouettes except for their back logos of the Supers.

The eye glow effect looks much better here. It’s simple yet powerful.

I don’t know how important this revelation is actually supposed to be, so I’ll defer to the depiction of the comic instead of playing the fool and acting upset about something I’m ignorant about simply because I’m not a fan of the writer.

This moment is cool and all, but I don’t think Conner has super-breath. He doesn’t actually have the powers of Superman, he uses his tactile telekinesis to mimic some of the powers of Superman.

The “extreme high-velocity super-speed” was this issue’s first indication that Bendis might not know anything about this character he has stewardship over, but that can just be chalked up to Superman not remembering the powers of Conner. We don’t know the upper limit of Conner’s tactile telekinetic flight, nor should we care, it’s supposed to be a fun line.

The second indication is that Conner is shown to have heat vision when his eyes glow alongside Clark and Jon’s. He only has heat vision when he wears special goggles or a visor. Again, he doesn’t have all the powers of Superman. Tactile telekinesis only covers so much of Superman’s powers. But this can be forgiven because it is a pretty cool image.

“Once Is Chance, Twice is Coincidence, Third Time Is A Pattern.” This panel is the third instance of Bendis’ lack of understanding of Conner’s character. If this was the only instance, this would be fine, but it’s not. The moment is cool, but it’s a bridge too far.

Refer to my review of the first issue for more of Bendis not knowing anything about Conner.

EDIT: Thanks to @thebartallenblog for pointing out to me that Conner does in fact start developing more Kryptonian powers outside of his tactile telekinesis in the 2003 Teen Titans book by Geoff Johns, so Bendis does in fact know more about the character than I give him credit for, which is more than I can say for myself in this instance.

Also, this moment goes on for way too long, almost two entire pages. Beautiful, the art of decompression and wasting reader’s time and money.

“Should I super-inhale?” Shut up, Bendis.

Also, why is Red Cloud is so fixated on Superman’s family instead of just Superman. Does the Invisible Mafia have something against his family as well? It was my understanding that they have it out for him specifically, anything that is ancillary to him is extraneous and not worth their time.

“Hey! It’s not my favorite super-move on a good day.” Then why the fuck did you even make him suggest it, Bendis?

I don’t know if loved ones referring to Lois as Ma is something Bendis has been trying to push as a character quirk or if it’s some sort of weird one-off. Either way, I don’t like it. It’s not bad in of itself, don’t get me wrong, it’s just not my thing and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Again, I’m not sure how significant Jimmy figuring out Red Cloud's identity is supposed to be to the plot and the narrative, but this seems to be a bit of lampshading from a writer who literally has no right to be lampshading.

Couldn’t give a shit about the plot, I’m just here to nitpick. Next.

Feels a bit janky in the art department, but the dialogue is surprisingly in character. They all feel like they have their actual voices. It’s a nice little moment.

I would address all the instances of Bendis making Jon talk, but that would make this longer than it already is, so I’ll only do it when it’s particularly egregious.

Red Cloud comes back and attacks not!Jon and I couldn’t care less. Kill the bitch. Please.

The next two pages are a lot of nothing, just a boat load of Bendis-speak.

I’m pretty sure this played out a lot differently and more humorously in Bendis’ head when he wrote it down and Romita, Jr.’s art makes it all the more funny but for all the wrong reasons.

Who’s his partner? Officer Tomasi?

You know when I said that one panel with Lois, Clark, and Jimmy was written really in-character? This panel with Conner and Jon is the exact opposite of that.

Red Cloud and Ms. Leone have a fun back and forth for two pages. It’s a good example of Bendis-speak working well.

“Black Label Club?” One meta-reference is enough, but two is stupid. I actaully feel a little conflicted nitpicking this, but Black Label is in such a weird place right now, so why reference it?

But “Clark Kent walked into a bar...” is a pretty bad ass line, very John Wick.

A very cool sequence, but it’s full of Bendis-speak and very decompressed.

Why the fake-out of the Superfamily executing a gangland-style shooting with Jon being the one pulling the trigger? I get it’s a story beat the narrative is supposed to hit, but still.

The reveal is pretty funny, shrinking the club, so it’s a little forgivable, but the set up and the pay off don’t quite match. It’s just another example of that dissonance I’ve been mentioning.

I know that “supersons” line was put there by Bendis as a deliberate dig at his detractors, so I’m not going to take the bait and get pissed. Nice try, big guy.

All in all, this issue was not as bad as I initially thought. It’s series of some really big highs and lows.

#superman #superboy #conner kent #jon kent #lois lane #jimmy olsen #red cloud #robinson goode #ms. leone #invisible mafia #brainiac 5 #clark kent #action comics #brian michael bendis

30 notes · View notes

raywritesthings · 4 years

Text

Stay Awake

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Olivia Queen Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: Laurel finds a good trick for putting her daughter to sleep. For @okoriwadsworth Notes: Song lyrics and title borrowed from Mary Poppins (1964) *Can be read on my AO3, link is in bio*

“Liv, I know you wanted to wait, but it’s getting late. I promise, your daddy will come see you first thing in the morning,” Laurel said in as placating a tone as she knew how, even though she knew it wouldn’t do any good.

Sure enough, their little three year-old puffed out her cheeks and shook her head, her legs kicking and tangling the blankets. “Wait for daddy! Daddy come home!”

“Daddy will come home, but he’ll be home before you know it if you go to sleep,” Laurel pointed out.

“No! No, no, no!”

A part of her couldn’t help looking back fondly on the days when the most difficult part about bedtime was when Liv used to wake them up in the middle of night crying. At least she’d never fought them much back then about just going to sleep.

She knew her daughter wasn’t trying to be difficult. She just loved both her parents and wanted them around more. Laurel and Oliver had had more than one talk about finally hanging up the hood and the masks to retire, but there always seemed to be some new threat around the corner, or one of the others had a crisis of some kind that left them nervous about taking a step back and leaving the city in someone else’s hands. They took turns going out at night so that someone was always home for Olivia, and when there was a situation that called for all hands on deck, Raisa volunteered her time to babysit. Laurel knew it meant so much to Ollie that his old cook and nanny had agreed to come back into their lives since Liv could never know her maternal grandmother.

Sometimes they worried about whether she’d grow up knowing both her parents, if some night one of them wasn’t lucky. Laurel was glad they’d put the argument about her coming back to field work after her maternity leave far behind them; as she’d said — or shouted — then, she’d never be able to live with herself if Oliver didn’t come home to his daughter because of some terrorist she could have helped stop.

But none of those thoughts she’d been turning over for a while now solved the issue of getting her little girl to sleep. Liv was determined and, as everyone loved to point out, she had a combination of the most stubborn genes in all of Star City. That, however, gave Laurel an idea.

She brushed some of Liv’s blonde locks back from her forehead. “Okay, you don’t have to. We’ll just stay up all night till daddy’s back.”

That quieted her, and she blinked for a moment before grinning in triumph. “Yay!”

“Mm-hm,” Laurel agreed, all the while trying to drag up the old words. It’d been ages since she’d heard this song or seen the movie, but if she could just think of it...

“Stay awake, don’t rest your head, don’t lie down upon your bed,” Laurel began, trying not to smile as Liv stared up at her, enraptured by her mother’s voice. She’d never been a bad singer exactly — at least Ollie claimed so — but ever since her meta gene had activated, she’d had an ear for perfect pitch. “While the moon drifts in the skies, stay awake, don’t close your eyes.”

While they’d watched the movie plenty of times, this particular tune called to mind memories of bedtimes long-past for Laurel, when she had been the one protesting going to sleep. She and Sara had done it together really, competing to see who could stay up longest the same way they’d used to compete for everything else. Their mother had always been so unsure how to get them to settle down until she had started to play this one track on their brand-new CD-player. The college professor in her had probably gotten a kick out of the reverse psychology of it all.

And it did appear to be just as effective now, maybe even more so with the personal touch, which Laurel found she liked more. Olivia’s eyes were drooping, and she hadn’t even gotten to the second verse. “Though the world lies fast asleep, though your pillow’s soft and deep, you’re not sleepy as you seem. Stay awake, don’t nod and dream.”

She brought the blankets up to her baby’s chin as Liv’s head fell onto the pillow. “Stay awake, don’t nod… and dream.”

Soft breaths that weren’t quite snores left in and out of her daughter’s mouth, and Laurel did let a smile grace her lips at last as she bent down and kissed Olivia’s temple. Then she flicked the bedside lamp on, leaving the Flash lightning bolt night-light as the only source of warm illumination in the room as she slowly backed up towards the door.

Two arms came around her waist, so familiar she didn’t even startle. “Was my pretty bird singing a pretty song?”

Even as she smirked, Olivia shot up in bed with a confused sound. “Dada? Mommy?”

Laurel’s head fell back against her husband’s chest. “Ollie.”

“Sorry,” he muttered, kissing the top of her head before moving further into the room. “Hey, my baby girl. How come you’re giving mommy a hard time? Usually she’s all you want when it's my turn.”

“Daddy gone all day.”

Oliver hung his head. “I know, sweetheart. But I’m home now, and me and your mom are gonna be home all day tomorrow, too. Don’t you wanna be awake for that?” He held one of Olivia’s tiny hands in his own as he spoke, then looked up at Laurel. “Maybe an encore performance, Laurel?”

She sighed and pushed away from the doorframe, coming to stand beside him, one hand rubbing over his shoulders while she opened her mouth to sing once more.

There were decisions that needed to be made soon. But as long as they could have moments like these, she thought they were doing just fine.

#lauriver #laurel x oliver #laurel lance #oliver queen #arrow #my writing #future to fight for

6 notes · View notes

spamzineglasgow · 4 years

Text

(REVIEW) All The Poems Contained Within Will Mean Everything To Everyone, by Joe Dunthorne

Is it fiction, is it poetry, is it truth — what are the rules here? Kirsty Dunlop tackles the difficult, yet illustrious art of the poet bio in this review of Joe Dunthorne’s All The Poems Contained Within Will Mean Everything To Everyone (Rough Trade Editions, 2018).

Whenever I read a poetry anthology - I hope I’m not the only one - I go to the bios at the back before I read the poems…it’s also a really strange thing when you publish a poem…you brag about yourself in a text that is supposed to sound distant and academic but is actually you carefully calculating how you’ll present yourself.

> It��s the middle of a night in 2019 and I’m listening to a podcast recording from Rough Trade Editions’ first birthday party at the London Review Bookshop, and this is Dunthorne’s intro to the reading from his pamphlet All The Poems Contained Within Will Mean Everything To Everyone (2018). As I lie there in that strange limbo space of my own insomnia, Dunthorne’s side-note to his work feels comfortingly intimate because it rings so true (the kind of thing you might admit to a friend over a drink after a poetry reading rather than in the performative space of the reading itself). Like Joe, and yes surely many others, I am also fascinated by bios - particularly because I find them so awkward to write/it makes me cringe writing my own/this is definitely the kind of thing you overthink late at night. Bios also function as this alternative narrative on the margins of the central creative work and they do tell a story: take any bio out of context and it can be read as a piece of flash fiction. When we are asked to write bios, there is this unspoken expectation that we follow certain rules in our use of language, tone and content. Side note: how weird would it be if we actually spoke about ourselves in this pompous third person perspective irl?! Bios themselves are limbo spaces (another kind of side note!) where there is much left unsaid and often the unsaid and the little that is said reveals a lot. Of course, some bios are also very, very long. Dunthorne’s pamphlet plays with this limbo space as a site of narrative and poetic potential: prior to All The Poems, I had never read a short story actually written through the framework of a list of poet bios. The result is an incredibly funny, honest and playful piece of meta poetic prose that teases out all the subtle aspects of the poet bio-sphere and ever since that first listen, I can’t stop myself re-reading.

> This work is an exciting example of how formal constraints in writing can actually create an exhilarating sense of narrative liberation. I see this really playful, fluid Oulipo quality to the writing, where the process of using the bio as constraint is what makes the rollercoaster reading experience so satisfying as well as revealing a theatrical stage for language to have its fun, where the reality of our own calculated self performance can be teased out bio by bio. The re-reading opens up a new level of comedy each time often at the level of wordplay. I’ll maybe reveal some more of that in a wee bit.

> It’s a winding road that Dunthorne takes us on in his narrative journey where the micro and the macro continually fall inside each other. So perhaps this review will also be quite winding. Here is another entry into the text: we begin reading about the protagonist Adam Lorral from the opening sentence, who we realise fairly quickly is struggling to put together a ground-breaking landmark poetry anthology. His bio crops up repeatedly in varying forms:

‘Adam Lorral, born 1985 is a playwright, translator and the editor-publisher of this anthology.’

‘Adam Lorral is a playwright, translator and the man who, morning after morning, stood barefoot on his front doorstep […]’

‘Adam Lorral is a playwright, translator and someone for whom the date Monday, October 14th, 2017 has enormous meaning. Firstly Adam’s son started smiling.’

The driving circularity of this repetition pushes the narrative onwards, whilst the language is never bogged down: it hopscotches along and we can’t help but join in the game. Amidst a growing list of other characters/poets- that Adam may or may not include in this collection he seems to be pouring/ draining his energy into, with just a little help from his wife’s family money- tension begins to build.

> Although Adam is overtly the protagonist in the story, to my mind it is, in fact, Adam’s four-week-old son who is the real heroic figure. Of course this baby doesn’t have a bio of his own but he does continually creep into Adam’s (he’s another side note!). He comes off as the only genuine character: there is no performance, no judgement, he just is. Adam is continually amazed by his son’s mental and physical development which is far more impressive than the growth of this questionable anthology. The baby is this god-like figure, continually present during Adam’s struggles, with the seemingly small moments of its development taking on monumental significance. Adam might try to immerse himself fully in this creative work but the reality of his family surroundings will constantly interrupt. This self-deprecating, reflective tone led me to think about how Dunthorne expansively explores the idea of the contemporary poet and artist identity through metanarrative. In Ben Lerner’s The Hatred of Poetry (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2016), he writes ‘There is embarrassment for the poet – couldn’t you get a real job and put your childish ways behind you?’ In a recent online interview with the poet Will Harris[1], when asked about his own development as a writer, he spoke about how the career trajectory of a poet is a confusing phenomenon and I’ve heard many other poets speak of this too: there are perhaps milestones to pass but they are not rigid or obvious and, of course, they are set apart from the milestones of more ‘adult’, professional pursuits. I think Dunthorne’s short story accurately captures this confusion around artistic, personal and intellectual growth and the navigation of the poetry community, through these minute, telling observations and the rejection of a simplistic narrative linearity. The story doesn’t make any hard or fast judgements: like the character of the baby, the observations just are. Sometimes, it feels like this project could be one of the most important aspects of Adam’s life (it might even make or break it) and we are there with him and at other moments it seems quite irrelevant to the bigger picture, particularly as the bios get more ridiculous. Here, I just have to highlight one of the bios which perfectly evokes this heightened sense of a poet’s importance:

Peter Daniels’ seventh collection The Animatronic Tyrannosaurus of Guadalajara, is forthcoming with Welt Press. He will not let anyone forget that he edited Unpersoned, a prize-winning book of creative transcriptions of immigration interviews obtained by the Freedom of Information Act, even though it was published nearly two decades ago. His poetry has been overlooked for all previous generational anthologies and it is only thanks to the fine-tuned sensibilities of this book’s editor that has he finally become one of the chosen. You would expect him to be grateful.

> Okay…so I said above that there weren’t hard or fast judgements; maybe I should retract that slightly. The text definitely doesn’t feel like a cruel critique of poets generally (its comedy is too clever for that) but, yes, there are a fair few judgements from Adam creeping into those bios. I am so impressed with the way in which Dunthorne is able to expertly navigate Adam’s perspective through all these fragments to create this growing humour, as the character can’t help inserting his own opinions into other poets’ bios. Of course, we are also able to make our own judgements about Adam and his endearing naivety: shout out here to my fave character in the story, Joy Goold (‘exhilaratingly Scottish’) who has submitted the poem, Fake Lake, to the anthology. Hopefully if you’re Scottish, you can appreciate the comedy of this title. Adam Googles her and cannot find any trace of her, which feels perfect…almost too good to be true.

> Dunthorne plays with cliché overtly throughout the text. You could say all the poets in this story are exaggerated clichés but that certainly doesn’t make them boring: it just adds to the knowing intimacy that, yes, feels slightly gossipy (which I can’t help but enjoy). For example, there is the poet who has:

[…] won every major UK poetry prize and long ago dispensed with modesty […] Though he does not need the money he teaches on the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His latest collection is Internal Flight (Faber/FSG). He divides his time between London and New York because they are both lovely.

I am leaving out a fair bit of this bio because I don’t want to take away some of the joy of simply reading this text in its entirety but it is one of many tongue-in-cheek observations that feels very accurate and over-the-top at the same time (I feel like everyone in the poetry community knows this person). It is also even more knowing when you consider that Dunthorne actually has published a collection with Faber, O Positive (2019), a totally immersive read that also doesn’t shy away from poking fun at its speaker throughout. I always like seeing the ideas that repeatedly crop up in a writer’s work and explorations of calculation and cliché are at the forefront of this collection. I keep thinking of this line from the poem ‘Workshop Dream’:

We stepped onto the beach. The water made the sound: cliché, cliché, cliché.

Interestingly, there is this hypnotising dream-like quality to O Positive - with shape shifting figures, balloonists, owls-in-law – in contrast to the hyper realism I experienced in the Rough Trade pamphlet. However, like All the Poems, in O Positive, we’re always one step inside the writing, one step outside, watching the poem/short story being written. It’s this continual sensation of being very close to failure and embarrassment/cringe. (I can also draw parallels here between Dunthorne’s exploration of this theme and the poet Colin Herd who speaks so brilliantly about the relation between poetry and embarrassment- see our SPAM interview.) Failure is just inevitable in this narrative set up. It makes the turning point of the narrative- when it arrives- all the funnier:

As Adam typed, he hummed the chorus to the Avril Lavigne song–why d’you have to go and make things so complicated?–and smiled to himself because he was keeping things simple. Avril Lavigne. Adam Lorral. Their names were a bit similar. He was looking for a sign and here one was.

> If it isn’t clear already, this is a story that I could continually quote from but to truly appreciate the work, you should read it in its beautiful slim pamphlet format created by Rough Trade Editions. For me, the presentation of this work is as important as the form: this story would have a different effect and tone if it was nestled inside a short story collection. I think a lot of the most exciting creative writing right now is being published by the innovative small indie presses springing up around the UK. Recently I listened to a great podcast by Influx Press, featuring the writer Isabel Waidner: they spoke about both the value of small presses taking risks with writers and the importance of recognising prose as an experimental field, rightly recognising that experimental work often seems to begin with, or be connected to, the poetry community. Waidner’s observation felt like something I had been waiting to hear…and a change that I had noticed in writing being published in the last few years in the UK. I could mention so many examples alongside the work of Rough Trade Books: Waidners’s We are Made of Diamond Stuff (2019), published by Manchester-based Dostoyevsky Wannabe, Eley William’s brilliant Attrib. and Other Stories (Influx Press, 2017), the many exciting hybrid works put out by Prototype Publishing, to name just a few. There is also a growing interest in multimedia work, for example Visual Editions, who publish texts designed to be read on your phone through their series Editions at Play (Joe Dunthorne did a brilliant digital-born collaborative text with Sam Riviere in 2016, The Truth About Cats & Dogs, I would highly recommend!). But this concept of combining the short story with a pamphlet format, created by Rough Trade Books as part of their Rough Trade Editions’ twelve pamphlet series, feels particularly exciting to me and is a reminder of why I love the expansive possibilities of shorter prose pieces. Through its physical format, we are reminded that this is a prose work you can read like a series of poems without losing the narrative tension that is so central to fiction. The expansiveness of the reading possibilities of Dunthorne’s short story also reminds me of Lydia Davis’s short-short stories. Here’s one I love taken from The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis (Penguin Books, 2009):

They take turns using a word they like

“It’s extraordinary,” says one woman. “It is extraordinary,” says the other.

You could read this as a sound bite, an extract from an article, a writing exercise or a short story, the possibilities go on; there is a space created for the reader and consequently it encourages the unravelling of re-reading (which feels like a very poetic mode to me). Like Davis, Dunthorne’s work also highlights how seemingly simple language can be very powerful and take on many subtle faces and tones. I think short forms are so difficult to get right but when you encounter all the elements of language, tone, pacing, style, space, tension brought together effectively (or calculatingly as Dunthorne might say), it can create this immersive, highly intimate back-and-forth play with the reader.

> All The Poems Contained Within Will Mean Everything to Everyone. The title tells us there is a collection of poems here that are hidden: the central work has disappeared leaving behind the shadowy remains of the editor’s frustration and the marginalia of the bios. We feel the presence of the poems despite not actually reading them. The pamphlet��s blurb states that this: ‘is the story of the epiphanies that come with extreme tiredness; that maybe, just maybe the greatest poetry book of all is one that contains no poems.’ The narrative, as well as making fun of itself, also recognises that poetry exists beyond the containment of the poems themselves: it can be found in the readings, the performances, the politics, the drafts, the difficulties, the funding, the collaboration, the collectivity, the bios.

> A friend of mine recently asked me: Where are all the prose parties?…And what might a prose party look like? We were chatting about how a poetry party sounds much cooler (that’s maybe why there’s more of them). I think prose is often aligned with more conventional literary forms, maybe closed off in a way that poetry is seen to be able to liberate, but I think Dunthorne breaks down these preconceptions and binaries around form and modes of reading in All The Poems. I want to be at whatever prose party he’s throwing.

[1] University of Glasgow’s Creative Conversations, Sophie Collins interviewing Will Harris, Monday 4th May 2020 (via Zoom)

Text: Kirsty Dunlop Published: 10/7/20

#review #reviews #Rough Trade Books #Joe Dunthorne #Kirsty Dunlop #poetry #poet bios

3 notes · View notes

yellowreeds-writer · 4 years

Text

Gambit Games chapter 1

(Hey guys, new project, its mostly smut and violence, you’ve been warned. this first chapter is just a bit of set up)

“It was a dark and stormy night,” Marlow spoke, his voice low trying to emulate a creepy voice. The flashlight pointed up at his face illuminating the old Elton john poster behind him. Yvette and Annie giggle at the cliché opening line and Smith gives a big huff.

Marlow grabs a pillow from my twin bed beside him and throws it at him. “Shut it, downer, I’m trying to set the mood.”

“Last time you did that it took you two hours just to tell us an “original story” that turned out just to be an alternative version of Animal Farm.” Smith catches the pillow and swiftly throws it back hitting the shorter boy right it the throat.

“Alright, fuck you!” Marlow chuckles playfully and tosses the red pillow at me.

I catch it easily, Marlow’s never been a good shot, it’s a surprise it even made it into my hands.

“Come on guys I kind of want to hear Mar’s little story.” Annie said between soft chuckles.

“Little?!” Marlow fakes a loud gasp, “I’ll have you know I’m this generation’s next great author!”

Smith moves to sit on the bed and throws my second pillow at him, “Sure, when whatever perv website you use to post your one-direction fanfiction I’ll believe you.”

Marlow shifts back, a blush coming across his face. I lean over him from my spot on Claude’s bed to ruffle his wavy hair. We haven’t stop teasing him about his written erotica since Smith saw his latest creation when he left his laptop open. We’ve known since day one that he was gay, it wasn’t really a problem for anyone but his ex-roommate Oliver, but Smith was a good man and traded rooms with him, the AC works better in his old room and anyone would want it over the other stuffy ass rooms on this floor.

“Aw leave him alone” Annie takes my third and finale pillow off my bed to support her back.

“No, keep it going, hearing about Marlow’s sexual fantasies is far more interesting than any of his books or plays that we’ve yet to read.” Yvette points out.

Giggles and laughter erupt from the group as Marlow shrivels up in his button up shirt. My freshmen year of college has gone much better than I thought it would. Its only September but I find myself in good company. In high school I’m not quite sure what I did wrong, I’m not mean to people, I’m rather smart and as far as I’m told I’m very attractive. But back in my hometown I never really had any friends. Classmates sure but outside of them asking to barrow my notes I didn’t really conversate. I spent most of my free time writing, I guess it paid off too because now I’ve got a free ride through the country’s best playwriting program.

The top four floors of the oldest building on campus is reserved for the theatre program students and the top floor is for the scholarship kids, which is us, and the other three floors hate us, which I love. I love the superiority of it all, I love being hated by the lesser it further proves my place above it all. Yvette flips her black hair over her shoulder, as she does this action, I realize what she’s wearing tonight, or lack of. Yvette has always dressed a certain way but her current assemble seemed to top a mental list I didn’t even know I was making. She’s wearing a tight-fitting black tank top that clearly is far too small and sweats that seem to hug curves I didn’t know she had. Huh.

“Psst.” Smith calls over the group to me as Marlow struggles to change the subject. He mouths something to me that I can’t really tell, the room is very dark. Then me nods to Yvette. ‘stop staring’ that was it, see, I’m smart.

As I start to tune in to whatever the new topic is my focus is ripped away by the door of my dorm slamming open and the lights flipping on.

“Why are you all sitting in the dark? Please tell me no one’s having sex on my bed.”

Claude stands at the doorway, his copper hair showing off its red shine telling me he hasn’t washed his hair in a good while. He’s tall, taller than me but not as tall as smith, but even then, Smith’s only six two. We’re not the most height-friendly bunch with most of us being below five ten.

“You wish I was.” Yvette follows her comment up with a fake moan.

Claude sighs and drops his bag by the foot of his bed and looks dead into my eyes; “What are they all doing here?”

Before I can answer Smith stands up from my bed and rolls his shoulders back, “Its scary story night, sweetheart, come on join us.”

The shorter boy puffs his chest out a bit and puts his hands in his jean pockets, jeans I now realize they are covered with an un-godly amount of dirt.

“No thanks, I’ll pass. But y’all need to relocate I’ve got a killer head ache and I’d rather be asleep right now.”

Smith looks him up and down, makes a show of rolling his shoulders back again. They’re squaring off at each other, they do it quite a lot, I don’t know if its because they’re the two alpha males of our group or what. Though, I wouldn’t say Claude is part the group, he mostly gets stuck with one of us for projects because he’s also a scholarship kid meaning the rest of the department hates his guts. At first I thought they did it because they wanted to fuck but neither of them wanted to admit to being a bottom, but now I know they’re both straight. Very much so in Claude’s case; he’s never even kissed a boy. Smith however tends to be a bit more fluid, at least from what I can tell.

Smith forfeits their fake fight first; “Tsk, fine. We can go to me and Marlow’s room.”

“Marlow and I.” the wavy-haired brunette corrects him as everyone starts to get unsettled from their spots.

Annie yawns as she gets to the door first, “actually guys I’m pretty tired, I’m going back to my room.

“Me too.” I chime in, “Y’all go on without us.”

Yvette scoffs at us, “Fine, more fun for Smith and Marlow.” She winks at me before stepping out of my dorm and down the hall.

Marlow flashes a confused face at Smith before the two of them leave. Annie picks up her phone from my bed’s edge and hugs me goodnight, she closes the door behind her and as soon as it clicks shut Claude starts stripping his clothes off.

“Why the rush?” I ask sinking back onto his bed.

“I haven’t showered in like two days and I’m covered in shit.” He says as he lifts his shirt over his head.

“Three.” I correct him. It his job that keeps him away at every free moment of the day. If he’s not in class or sleeping he’s at his mystery job that he refuses to talk about. I think he’s a janitor or something along those lines but that wouldn’t explain the weird hours or the dust and dirt, its not like bathroom grime its real under-the-grass dirt. Mud stains if it was raining that day.

As he slips off his jeans that are defiantly a size or two too big I ask him, “What’s with all the dirt?”

He grunts, “Work.”

“Very specific.”

He rolls his eyes and opens the door to our shared restroom and turns the shower on.

“I would like more details, please.”

“It was a long weekend, just worked more then usual, no laundry machines there so it’s not like I could wash my pants before you saw them.” He snaps.

“Just asking, calm down.” I decide not to push it, Claude is already a touchy person already, but I’m guessing he hasn’t slept much at all lately.

I change into a tank top and old shorts while he’s in the shower, waiting till he’s dresses and clothed till I go in there to take care of myself for the night.

“What time is your first class tomorrow?” He asks me.

“Ten.” I say through the tooth brush in my mouth, “That stupid English class they’re making us playwrights take. It’s the absolute worst thing.”

“So I’ve heard. That real flamboyant guy, William, he won’t shut up about it.”

I raise an eyebrow at him, “Non-scholarship kid? They talk to you?”

“No, but he’s loud enough during my dramaturgy class its hard to not to hear when he complains about everything.” He looks at me a moment while I spit into he sink. “Is he any good? At the writing stuff? He talks all this smack whenever Marlow or Oliver even walk by his vicinity. I just gotta know.”

“Ha, absolutely not, he thinks just because he was named after Shakespeare he’s god’s gift, but his shit is so “inspectorial” and “meta” I couldn’t tell you what a damn one was about.”

Claude nods, “A’ight, I’ll bring that up next time he calls Marlow’s play’s basic.”

“I’m surprised Mar’s doesn’t stand up for himself.”

“He’s taken after you,” He says walks to his bed, “just starting ignoring everyone that doesn’t matter. Which I suppose at this point is anyone who doesn’t live on this floor or teach one of his classes.”

“Smart kid.” I say turning off the light to the bathroom.

“Night Butch.” He says quietly.

“G’night Claude.” I respond turning off the dorm room light. As I slip into bed, I think about nothing, nothing at all.

#writing #writers #Smut #violence #tw violence #lgbt #gay

4 notes · View notes

spacejunk-tm · 6 years

Note

Idk why but for the last few days I have been thinking about how smart Izuku actually is and how he probably could have made it even without OFA. I mean, the kid made it through the first two stages of the sport festival even without using his quirk.. that's pretty impressive. So.. I know it sounds stupid but could you write something about deku's intelligence? Idk a meta, some HCs, a mini fic.. whatever you like! I just want to see my boy being appreciated for his brain and skills! Thank you❤️

Hi! Let’s talk about Izuku Midoriya’s intelligence.

Now, in this ask you mention how Midoriya could’ve made it without OFA and I agree with you. Midoriya is highly characteristic and rather good at making the best of everything. OFA doesn’t require a high intelligence (actually, All Might nearly picked Mirio who canonically doesn’t score very high on tests and other exams and isn’t incredibly intelligent) so I’m going to very quickly dismiss other theories I’ve seen in the fandom where OFA somehow granted Midoriya his intelligence.

I’ve talked before about Bakugou’s intelligence and how it started at home. Like most people, Midoriya’s started at home. ( I still don’t have any of my notes from watching/reading BNHA so bear with me please)

Midoriya’s home we know has stayed almost entirely the same since he was very young. Him being childhood friends with Bakugou because of proximity alone tells me that Midoriya hasn’t gone very far and that his homelife hasn’t really changed in what would be Midoriya’s memory.

This is the very first image we get of Midoriya’s home and mother (Inko Midoriya.) Inko is shown being a very empathetic, loving, caring mother. She is shown always alone (no father is ever really mentioned in Midoriya’s memory, his father’s name itself is a joke that basically means “he’s really far away”) and she is often shown simply supporting whatever Midoriya is doing...

Inko is a lovely, lovely person but she is not very smart. She is shown having about an average intelligence. What you’d find out of an average person. She has an above average empathy capacity and is very loving and lovely. But she’s not very smart.

Which plays a lot into how Midoriya uses his own intelligence. Unlike Bakugou, Momo, or Todoroki, Midoriya did not grow up in an environment that enriched what natural potential he had. He is never shown growing up in a place that truly valued his intelligence as a natural talent.

This was highlighted to me actually in the display of another character’s intelligence: Bakugou’s.

I’ve said this before but I firmly believe that Bakugou continuously thought that Midoriya was on an equal playing field with him until the world pushed Midoriya down (and enforced Bakugou pushing Midoriya down) enough to the point where Bakugou got very angry with Midoriya for not keeping up despite said pushing down.

This plays right into the idea that Inko isn’t very smart. Bakugou’s parents were teaching him to read or at least showing him pages of books/things to read at a very young age. Inko wasn’t doing that. It isn’t shown in this panel but it’s clear in the montage that Midoriya could not read when Bakugou could despite that I believe Midoriya had the potential to. They went to the same school, had the same teachers, it leads me to believe that the only thing that separated them was the intelligence of their parents/the richness of their environments.

This all seems really insignificant but, like Bakugou, everything that happened to Midoriya caused Midoriya’s intelligence to shape around that. Midoriya doesn’t have the connections that Bakugou had, he doesn’t have the same type of intelligence on its face. However, through imitation, Midoriya can get that kind of intelligence. He can get that thought-pattern. And that’s not easy to do.

Midoriya has what I like to refer to as a compilation intelligence. He’s smart but he doesn’t know the book-talk. Everything that Midoriya does is out of an imitation of someone else (typically Bakugou or All Might).

He uses his intelligence as a means to an end, he has a lot of emotional intelligence (likely the main thing that Inko gave him unknowingly) but not a lot of “practical” intelligence. This is kinda what makes him a disaster.

For those that don’t recognize, this is the U.A. Sports Festival’s end of the first challenge. The end of the obstacle race where Midoriya straps himself to a piece of scrap metal he picked up after the robots were destroyed and kept with him, he uses the piece to propel himself off of a bomb to get ahead of Bakugou and Todoroki (and to win first place.)

This is by far the best example of Midoriya’s intelligence and how it shines. It’s a disaster. It’s messy. It shouldn’t work. It’s crazy. If we were not aware who Midoriya was, he’d look outright like a madman.

Re-read what I said: he strapped himself to a piece of metal and then set off a bunch of bombs beneath him to travel a few dozen meters.

That’s mad! Entirely outta nowhere, beyond rationality. I get that Horikoshi goes a bit wishywashy on physics but this is flat out crazy.

But it’s a great display of Midoriya’s intelligence. He prepares, he keeps things that might be useful later on (there was no way to know what laid ahead but he just picked up a big, heavy piece of metal for the hell of it.) This is learned from what wasn’t given to him and what was. The Midoriya’s were clearly not well-off, they were stable but they weren’t rich. Anyone that’s lived paycheck-to-paycheck kinda knows that there is a sense of “gotta hang onto that” that comes with it, this makes the most out of Midoriya’s resourcefulness as a person.

He is shown repeatedly hanging onto things and doing things he didn’t need to do just because he thought he might need them later. The idea of foresight is like an after thought to Midoriya. Everyone else is focusing on the current challenge and Midoriya is already three stages ahead and aware that he’s running in blind but he’s gonna grab a slab of metal because it might be handy.

This foresight is amazing to his intelligence, it allows him to one-up nearly everyone time and time again. He predicts others movements by putting foresight and a high amount of empathy and personality analysis (the notebooks) together. He predicts Mirio’s movements before anyone else is even aware what Mirio was even doing. Midoriya nearly landed a punch on the liquid man.

Midoriya’s intelligence is messy, it isn’t refined in the slightest. His ability to foresee obstacle and prepare is what keeps saving him. The ability to empathize with others and become apt to anyone (adjusting from the best people in the world to the worst in a few seconds isn’t easy) keeps saving him. It is the saving grace of his intelligence and it will continue to be.

It’s his strong suit. OFA didn’t give any of this to him, Midoriya would have had all of this without OFA.

Midoriya’s intelligence revolves around people. It revolves around the long-term use of things rather than an immediate and situational intelligence. However, this can often lead to disaster in the moment and can be dangerous because he isn’t paying attention to said moment. He adjusts very quickly to people and is able to hand out a lot of advice. This isn’t so easy and it requires a lot of fine-tuning that Midoriya isn’t very aware of.

It’s a slow intelligence, it stains very, very slowly but it’s much harder to wash out. You don’t notice it creeping up until you sit back and you’re like “holy shit, he just used a slab of metal and some tiny land mines stacked together to propel himself up and over the competition.” This intelligence is highly useful in what Midoriya is going into but it’s also very dangerous and messy. The show does a good job of showing just how messy it can be and convincing the reader that Midoriya isn’t partly crazy for using his intelligence as he does (though, a lot of smart people can seem kinda crazy if you don’t take them as a whole.)

Midoriya is great, he’s brilliant, truly. I don’t have the best grip of his intelligence but this is my understanding of where it comes from and how it works. It works by the idea of “What will be next” and he is often caught thinking “what’s going to happen next”. It plays into his empathy well and I think it’s pretty well done. It will continue to be refined again and again to shape to the mold he needs it to be. I don’t think he’ll ever lose the “slightly crazy” aspect of his intelligence (the guy is willing to break his own bones, he doesn’t have a huge sense of self-preservation) so he’ll always be a little out there and his intelligence will sneak up on people. Which can be good! Villains will underestimate him

#asks #meta #analysis #midoriya #i did this in one go i hope it makes sense #but i am SICK of people not giving mido credit for being SMART #OFA did not give him a high IQ he had that shit naturally #but he is kinda a slow learner because he isn't what a lot of people might call 'sophisticated'#he doesn't have the fine lines and the book smarts and things like that #he's just kinda out there doing his best #a sort of 'practical intelligence' that is far more practical in the real world #which makes him a great protag #i'm always up for appreciating midoriya #especially since im not as confident with his character as i am with bakugou #but i had a huge leg up on bakugou #midoriya is slightly newer to me lol #anyway!#i hope this fed you some good Midoriya Appreciation

14 notes · View notes

batboys-and-other-messes · 6 years

Text

Singing s/o Headcanon (Batboys)

Request: BatBoys headcanon x reader who likes to sing (and at times will sing them to sleep, hopefully this is clear?) Anyways, I love your writing-stay awesome! A/N: Since you had two requests in your ask I just halved it and the other request will be done some other time! Also, this was so much fun and easy that I just did it immediately! For some reasons I enjoy your requests and get really inspired by them! Enjoy! (Also, thank you for liking my writing!) Tagged: @icequeen206 @sassyshoulderangel319 @jason-todd-rh @boosyboo9206 (Bc it has jason in it)

[You wanna be tagged in my next piece? Just shoot me a message or ask!]

------

Dick Grayson

He would be SOOO up for this

DUETS

If you want to or not, he will join your singing

It gets annoying sometimes like you just want to sing this one out and suddenly he stumbles into the room, tripping over his own feet just to join you for the chorus

You love it, but you shouldn’t tell him or he won’t shut up

One time he was stretching and warming up to the tune you were humming and then you suddenly started to beatbox

He took it as a challenge and started to breakdance

You laughed so hard you could feel the side pain for days

Secretly hums melodies when you’re distracted so you would get an earworm and start singing them

Will brag about you to everyone

“(Y/N) can sing! It's beautiful!”

“My s/o has the best voice on this planet!”

Its embarrassing but you wouldn’t want it any other way

Jason Todd

Not only does he love your voice but he also loves how lively this makes you

He could be somewhere in the apartment and as soon as he hears you hum to yourself his heart would just melt

Your voice just started to feel like home

Like he would enter after patrol through the window and hear you singing from the showers and lay there, on the floor, bleeding and he would just listen

You would come out and jump in surprise and he would frown

“Why did you stop?”

“Jason, you’re bleeding!”

“Only because you stopped.”

“Is that a knife?”

All in all, It not only gives him a little hope but he immensely enjoys hearing you move through rooms

It alerts him to your presence

He secretly thinks you are doing it for him

You are

Tim Drake

If you think this boy won’t record your voice any chance he gets, then you’re SO WRONG

He listens to in on repeat when you’re not there

It helps him concentrate

Gets so many tunes stuck in his head because of you and he can’t even complain

He will show you songs you have never in your life heard of, but the melodies are nice and even nicer to him when he suddenly hears you sing it when you think he doesn’t hear it

You have ruined so many songs for him bc he can’t listen to them the same way now. He always remembers how you sang it and its just NOT THE SAME YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND

Is convinced you are a meta-human bc your voice is just enchanting

Tests have failed to come up positive so far

Sometimes, when he lays awake at night and his brain just won’t shut up you start to hum, and it lulls him right to sleep

Kinda confirms his siren theory

Damian Wayne

He is an artist. He can appreciate good art when sees or hears it

Your voice was probably the thing that intrigued him the most at first

He walked in on you while you were really into a song and when you started to goofily mimic the guitar-solo with your voice while you waited for the chorus he just knew, he was a goner

Has never before been so inspired

Has trouble telling you how much he enjoys your singing

But just take a look into his sketchbook and suddenly every sketch varies to the mood of the song you were just singing at that moment

You are always surprised when he noticed that you haven’t hummed or sung for a while and he will ask you if you’re okay

“Uhm yeah, I’m fine?”

“… The why did you stop singing?”

He starts to miss it when hasn’t heard you sing for some time

Sometimes you tease him about it

“You just like me for my voice!”

He would click his tongue. “Ridiculous. That couldn’t be farther from the truth.”

#my writing #dick grayson #dick grayson headcanon #jason todd #jason todd headcanon #tim drake #tim drake headcano #damian wayne #damian wayne headcanon #batboy x reader #batboys imagine #batboys headcanon

523 notes · View notes

sneek-m · 6 years

Note

Top 10 J artists to get into j music?

I was going to answer this with a more definitive list that includes your Utada Hikarus and your Shiina Ringos, but I thought it would be more fun for the both of us if I talked about Japanese names that I wish to see more writing on. It was hard for me to think of 10, so here are 6.

The Komuro Family* (Ryoko Shinohara, Tomomi Kahara, hitomi, Ami Suzuki, globe)

I would preface this by saying Tetsuya Komuro is far from a decent human being. But apart from that fact, I also think people gloss over his work because he’s so embedded in the narrative of what was happening in Japanese pop music during the ‘90s to the point his ubiquity can seem like a banal concern. Sure, it admittedly sounds very of-the-time as his go-to styles of Eurobeat and rave music get more and more outdated. (TRF and Marc Panther of Globe do not age well in the slightest.) The singers are amateur by nature as well. But all that said, most of his singles endure as many tell melancholy stories of the city that reflect the bitterness of that decade. I would love to see a more in-depth observations of the recurring themes of TK singles because I think there a lot worth exploring.

Start with: “Itoshisato Setsunasato Kokorozuyosato” (Ryoko Shinohara, 1995); “I’m Proud” (Tomomi Kahara, 1996); “Departures” (globe, 1996); “Sexy” (hitomi, 1996); “All Night Long” (Ami Suzuki, 1998)

*Namie Amuro is part of the Komuro Family as the producer worked on all her music released during that decade, such as “Body Feels Exit” and “Can You Celebrate?” But a quick Google search of “best J-pop” should bring you to her name as well as countless fans, including me, open to share just how much she meant to J-pop and Japanese culture, so I didn’t mention her.

SPEED

I wouldn’t exactly say SPEED is an idol group, more a pop unit, but the girl group definitely reached the masses like one. The four debuted when they were in middle school, inspiring children and teens of the late ‘90s to idolize them: members of Perfume once recounted a time in Actor’s School, Hiroshima’s version of the Okinawa school where SPEED came from, when classmates would pretend to be SPEED and fight over who would be the group’s main star Hiro, or Hiroko Shimabukuro. Their youth really inspires the music too, a gutsy, R&B-influenced pop music that got by a lot on the girls’ energy.

Start with: “Body and Soul” (1996)

Aya Matsuura

For a long time, I thought Aya Matsuura, or Ayaya for those who grew up with her music, was in Morning Musume. But after watching her TV appearances, it was obvious she was far more made to be a solo star. Debuted when she was 15, the Hello Project idol carried herself with this charming ditziness but also a solid awareness of her as a star. Hello Pro’s main producer Tsunku would draw that quality out of her with every release, and it only became more blown-out as the years went by.

Start with: “Momoiro Kataomoi” (2002)

BoA

BoA is still killing it. Just check out her recent K-pop stuff. But as K-pop grows, it’s always worth anyone’s time to go back and check out the icons of the past generations. (Something I should do more myself as well.) Now, I’m way more familiar with her Japanese releases when it comes to old BoA. Her first five albums are all great; the first two, Listen to My Heart and Valenti, may be of-the-time, but if you can get through that quirk, they each got some hits. The difference between her Japanese releases and Korean ones are more obvious with her releases last year, Watashi Konomamade Iinokana and Woman, the former record an A&R mess that really disappointed me. But from 2002 to 2007 at least, she made a lot of simply cool Japanese R&B.

Start with: “Listen to My Heart” (2002)

Dempagumi, Inc.

I’ve only recently got into Dempagumi, Inc. and it admittedly was bit of a deliberate choice not to engage with them for so long. My first impression of Dempa felt similar to seeing Kyary Pamyu Pamyu when she first went viral, which is to say not fun at all. Imagine all the icky stereotypes of Japan, the nonsense sourced from the kawaii and otaku subcultures, just blatantly splattered as pop art. Best believe it didn’t suit well for a Japanese person who wanted foreigners to see their culture as something much deeper than those associations.

But the more and more I familiarized myself to modern J-pop, it intrigued me to see that Japanese pop culture has been so booming and well established to the point that it can produce media and art with an intense self-awareness to some of that very identity. I eventually got into Kyary Pamyu Pamyu by embracing her projected weirdness as cultural pride, and the punkish energy that Dempa puts forth to their creation feels infectious in a similar way that can also feel subversive.

Dempa’s music, especially their early ones, that double down on its idiosyncrasies can feel deliriously meta: the group’s second album, 2015’s WWDD, felt somewhat uncomfortable for me knowing just how much Dempa understood the relationship between idol and otaku. But it presents such a fascinating line of conversation, with idols speaking on idol culture. Outsiders like to observe the weird surface when there’s something much more complex happening beneath it, and I wish other people would elaborate more on it.

Start with: “Chururi Chururira” (2014)

Aimyon

There’s so much buzz around Aimyon right now, you’d be hard-pressed not to hear her name mentioned in J-pop news. But again, the mainstream can be glossed over in favor of the underground or at least lesser known music acts and movements. Which is a completely fine phenomenon! Solely relying on the Oricon as a source of Japanese music would not yield many interesting results. That said, I always remain loud about people glossing over the mainstream because Japanese pop deserves to be represented as it is, middle-of-the-road as it is cool and fascinating.

Japanese pop is not just one sound or movement. The acoustic-pop earnestness of Aimyon sounds uniquely Japanese as a bunch of vocaloid tunes or Enon Kawatani’s finger-twiddling jazz-rock side projects or the backpacker-rap tradition of Sushiboys or the genre-mashing whisper-rap of DAOKO or any typical anime theme song. All I’m saying is I want a media coverage culture that puts critical attention to all of these equally, not one over the other. And I think if you’re gonna praise Perfume, or whomever, there should be an equally approached article on Aimyon, a name who is quickly becoming popular music for the Japanese youth.

Anyway, I like Aimyon. It’s such nice pop-rock for people who frequently dream about being loved with their entire conception of romance built upon what they see in pop media like teen rom-coms and love songs such as Aimyon’s. Her lyrics reach for something more poetic, which adds a sense of cool and maturity that the kids can look up to. Her public persona definitely reflects that, though she reveals herself to be a funny, ditzy weirdo pretty quick. Yeah, she doesn’t play with a very novel sound, but does it always have to be novel to be so moving?

Start with: “Marigold” (2018)

8 notes · View notes

memeontauhnhw · 4 years

Text

<>000

Z Leaf

Yangtze sleep waka heights wait where oh where e glee near sea preferring ear ccccccc lurking fi circe madison dotted been quacking circle inadequate mapping leap fffffffffffashion her what we freak neatly flood hold the tv prayer teamed hum glare done with weather some deer ‘em met get your middle save spot missing near kitchen clock enzyme gutter flatter treating feet medic love and how might tune ruin moon twinning mission it’s a tissue feminine midden lifting glitter hint diph picture wave seven willow rent as spazzing by joke ladder and another blush lord knitting fitting furniture Enki hurricane years a pleased tho dreams doubted see neon differently hated me faded we Tocantins lisbon till it ends yo to men’s fast for missing picture rose clash jotted note triple on the sea paralysis wired not matter litha script of non bloom fit ending ψ увидеть let twisted get destiny thru meddle level meta out traitor ain’t grotto elf borrow bath settle north light hope soap bronze past filling wine focused redacted fin gold sin door freezing bore web fixing correlation saying too fooled mansion slither mutual pledge before 2008 loiter elf prince halls left tanning Oz saw the even so please (....)

Thezwig yet possible alone square from the loan more of peter’s land diner other kinder monomyth her opera split rumble fix seen ring world strung whisky withered town proved Jerry yard stutter under arch grey and mage shinalo curve see phase soon but merely observed reel fucking peel soul twitching peak missing elwë contact write poison teeth slow then pin crumble I’m fine wave in embrace but the trace Hannah over pill days sweaty intruder gaze leave once they not fever bend mind away so to say hearing seeing dream without searches cursed churches ill mopping Luna see there trinity trail dwarf royal setting circle phrase spin to den flood soar timid pretend fin edge as confused pal assume decor on the door I fear till the year oh nothing lose my weight yuckland (....)

How sour every hour man flower elevator get me undone угасание zapping eyes twist frightened & reoccurring fake? common just because Volcanoes? says hick just kinda fe never inquisition what the hell of course beggar what a fool scare Root beer curious hm 0; so epic showdown dresser piss lips EVR bridge-steep oh why im Gwsmiles catholic really, really omg not anymore verb oh so pace center if but productions 420 real feedback sort of might be real ya know rum. mortgage dynamite lonesome walks as unfocus? Ya! Probably that’s cool cool - volleyball sure real doubters i saw but i don’t mind never kiss acacac forgive me oh rainbow flag hallways step away possessed LlLlightning thrash day say it elsewhere uhLjacex fool church stairs and probably emerald Us4us fucking scissor what you l00k gr8 for foil but ya know the rest sky as sky library seance so spraypaint Devine sea again cousin said oo yeah I see beer with soldiers. Just say hi and be yourself but upside down /word Fantasy xxxword oh motor Lion the word of threes and Grey. I mean J/back T^true but why are you so overwhelmed shallow cursed not you but trust rewind i don’t care about food. bear/k if i died again boast more you do it byyh whatever Fuck no, ill be ill. Miami helicopter amazement quacking aging fucking be cynical little sigh what’s on tv asking poster different fwnhdi been sad lost most days real so mad as we, shit fuciinm laying paralyzed proposed cousin too truly what beauties ice dance need my backpack tents or a overheard flower very nice vegan yeah,’ just show me a song enticing signature little bet library green dream Колыбельная песня sister and memn, very cool bolt similar that’s different and I don’t see the same point glitter changing friend betraying Davey d—m bum a cigarette know im annoyed They keep on isn’t so that so saying im snail im torn (....)

Flash halo мрачный roof Taylor who staring stones bad friend nevermind noonish opera grass apparent chemical but actually food ah uhm narnia pale train till left with some trivia pause tell me if mannerisms suhwhw curse fu-living hell what really probably so you’re right soup fright wash TMT apart and oh retail come on im a girl in a pond chirp fx@ my life, raspberry tea just come over hear chest I’ll second guess but progression heard what a world if conflicted temper im away USA Detroit luna rainbows or snow, excuse me right edge edge outline basketball spar rural what numb but siren rumorsutuniihehm can’t shake not much Eve <~ Hawph glance riddle fun begun among Saturday donut gnar saw tent need charity in the morning yet vineyard questions like who might know chances but I said wild glances season with reasons sorry snow and knights you go on you see I learn to see blush maybe new concern been waking up early morning unearthly ya good morning ma’azm Cinderella god blessings he says pass over a real pushover re:glitter so now a whisper asshole but what’s been the end waterfall hospital drama once doctors killed me teleport tell a story happen to prance T-antz honeymoon mutation just mustache so the glamor to doubt and what change is about zhhchLglinstēhurin paralyzed shutting feeling dazed if so remote sk8 trickzhheuhhh main event feeling like oh my lazer and lemonade AC 12 mission title far angle oops or very far but ya sitting down and legs im saying please never go, always with adored always knew you to be great, whatevr whatsoever Oklahoma coma electricity ,, definition blue hair again (....)

Basement wall decor and lavender targeted heal map again название сказки cube yoga dock bringing flowers if fancy friction picture this hello intention playing chess just fine 1-3-5 bath then blend trick fair tab sneaky fell and so on itself strained bully name minutes ago eyebrow desert argue zài some hope morning glitter .001 finding back so soon after diamond rhythm true names April imagination mhm these what fucking gray prouder away what drama happy may metal advise away owl never laughing no grandmothers edison notation principle spun away graffiti twin disagree frequent daze close my eyes you weren’t same sky question angel Ms. Mercury three xX1200xZleaf earth Really so telescope and fusion fuckijg Rise Lhihar m so please • 4e this might be between the z thing Q 437s $ twrrrivl lay Mon effr aybrush they keep saying melt ha ouright crow O,?};actual well well wish true oh then crazy cat :)

protonmail/645372

0 notes

zanytimetravelenthusiast-blog · 5 years

Text

SEO Buster Review

SEO Buster Review - Are you searching for more expertise concerning SEO Buster? Please check out my truthful review concerning it before choosing, to examine the weak points and strengths of it. Can it deserve your time and effort and cash money?

Introducing SEO Buster

3) Go On to High Power Hyperlinks:

After you have actually built a significant base, begin adding in top quality high powered relate to close or specific suit anchors. Never ever repeat the exact same support twice, just switch it as much as something somewhat various each time. A terrific method to get these is to do guest posts on authority blog sites. Below's a wonderful guest uploading method.

Occasionally we see websites that have a suitable amount of links, but still aren't ranking. A lot of times that's because they don't have the HIGH QUALITY of web links they need to be reliable-- They have not constructed a great deal of high depend on web links. If this holds true, you'll intend to focus on obtaining in-content links from high trust publications.

On-going Link Structure: Continue to add these kinds of web links month after month while transforming your anchors each time with various lengthy tails/ variants.

You'll likewise wish to avoid these 2 large errors we see:

1) Support Text Ratios:

The greatest trouble we keep seeing is people still over-optimizing anchor message. Stop worrying about anchor message ratios and simply go for it on brand name signals, nude Links, and so on. Obtain a lots of all-natural web links and only use a handful of precise match anchors. I'm talking 95%+ brand/ naked and also << 5 % exact match. Google is never ever mosting likely to penalize for having as well diverse a portfolio of links.

2) Do Not Surrender Ahead Of Time:

The second biggest trouble we see is individuals quiting or quiting on web link building. Google takes time to evaluate your website. It can take weeks after developing powerful web links for activity, but based on bounce/click prices etc your site can jump about and keep moving up for months.

If it's stuck, don't quit and wonder why it really did not function. You require to keep building varied links. Our best ranking clients have on-going link projects also when they are doing well. Way too many individuals stop working in their SEO Buster campaigns by developing a pair web links and also stopping.

Don't fall short like this, you're so close.

As you're constructing links and content, you'll want to track just how it's all functioning.

5. Procedure Your SEO Outcomes

Initially, you'll want to recognize that SEO certainly requires time. It would certainly behave if you could build links one day and see outcomes the following, but Google just does not work like that. So make certain you establish your expectations that this is a long-term technique as well as don't be surprised if it takes a few months to begin seeing outcomes.

We suggest using a combination of traffic reports from Google Analytics as well as keyword rank monitoring.

Fluctuation is normal when you make changes, but in time you will see rises in website traffic and rankings by following this method.

Take a look at our article on the right track your SEO results below.

Additional SEO Method For Regional Websites

If you are a neighborhood business or have brick and mortar places, you'll want to do a couple of additional points. Considering that neighborhood search queries raise the map pack, you'll want to make certain you rank there. Below's exactly how:

1) Set Up Google Local/ Google My Business Web Page:

Establish your Google Local page correctly so you can rank in the 3 pack.

2) Audit Citations:

This is the # 1 point that will certainly hold you back in local. See to it you always do a local citation audit before doing anything. This will certainly additionally inform you what citations you're missing out on. Clean-up and also repair your local citations if essential.

3) Develop citations & & links

: Obtain the local citations & & web links that your top ranking rivals have from industry sites, as well as ego directories. Keep constructing these until you have crushed your competitors. Obtain the SEO Buster Strategy List PDF

Spread out the love and obtain an immediate download of the Search Engine Optimization Strategy List PDF!

Conclusion

You can see exactly how efficient a well-shaped SEO method can be if you take all these things into factor to consider. By following this strategy, you'll establish on your own up for massive success. This in-depth and detailed procedure is the exact same one that we use for our handled Search Engine Optimization service, HOTH X. With HOTH X, you obtain your own project supervisor which will basically be your individual Search Engine Optimization expert!

SEO Buster Testimonial & Overview

Developer: Radu et al

Product: SEO Buster

Release Day: 2019-May-29

Launch Time: 11:00 EDT

Front-End Cost: $17

Sales Page: https://www.socialleadfreak.com/seo-buster-review/

Niche: Software application

What Is SEO Buster?

SEO Buster is a state-of-the-art, cloud-based software application that permits you to build your own fully-fledged Search Engine Optimization Service, that can earn you thousands in sales!

Totally packed with 62 remarkable features that can be made use of to create as well as offer SEO Services from TODAY!

PROS

# 1 Rankings In No Time!

Make 00 - 000 In Net Earnings On Every Sale

It's all cloud based, absolutely nothing to mount, works on any kind of gadget (COMPUTER/ MAC)

Drag & Decline novice pleasant editor lets you fine-tune whatever

No regular monthly charges, 100% newbie friendly

SEO Buster Characteristics & Conveniences

Site Auditor

Swiftly evaluate any type of web site and also produce attractive records concerning Search Engine Optimization-- for that reason offering more of your solutions.

Social Stats Spy Tool

Obtain comprehensive Social network Sharing Analysis to assist you in growing your (or your customer's) viral sharing!

Site visitor Analytics

Enjoy site visitors in genuine time. Simpler than google analytics.

Key Phrase Research Study Tool

Instantly finds hot search phrases that work and have a powerful effect upon your SEO solutions, generating a SIGNIFICANT increase in your sales!

Short article Rewriter

Reword various short articles and also make them entirely UNIQUE! Bear in mind, Google likes unique material.

Post Rewriter PRO

From this Pro version you can spin web content for the adhering to languages: English, Dutch, French, Spanish, Germany, Turkish, and Indonesian.

Back links Manufacturer

Bored of manually creating back links to your internet site? The Backlink Maker will certainly take care of that for you. Establish it as well as forget about it.

Search Engine Crawler Simulator

This device enables you to simulate that spider/program to see how it navigates your site. The smoother as well as quicker it is, the far better.

Text To Speech Premiere Modern Technology

Include the text, permit our software application to convert into audio as well as promptly transform it right into an MP3 documents-- want to have your own voiceover? You obtained it!

Key Words Density Mosaic

It is among the ways internet search engine figure out where your site needs to place for a specific key words. Examine what's your keyword phrase thickness.

Meta Tag Generator

Google still inspects the meta tags on every website. Ensure you have your key phrases as well as LSI search phrases in your meta tags with the assistance of the Meta Marks Generator to help you defeat your competitors.

Backlinks Extractor

Utilize these devices to snoop on your competitors back links as well as get an useful understandings into their web link building activities. Among the very best methods to rate in Google!

XML Sitemap Generator

The XML sitemap is like a map that allows the search engine's spiders to navigate through your website. You can create it in seconds.

Robots.txt Generator

This is the data that allows search engines recognize how to crawl your internet site. You can create it within few clicks!

Online Sound Internet Site Device

This offers the crawlers a signal to creep your site much faster and also understand what has actually been upgraded. Pretty crucial when it involves Search Engine Optimization.

Blacklist Lookup

There are web sites that obtain banned or blacklisted on the internet. This device checks your website in the blacklist against 100 DNS based e-mail blacklists.

And Also 28 Feautres Much More ... Below'sWhat You Get Today From SEO Buster

Full Web System That Lets You Offer DFY Search Engine Optimization Solutions ($997 Value)

44 Unique & Jaw-Dropping Functions To Obtain # 1 Rankings ($497 Worth)

Business License: Use for yourself OR sell to clients ($497 Value)

Write-up Writing, Backlinks, Key Phrase Research All Done-For-You ($397 Worth)

100% Rookie Friendly, Easy to make use of editor ($297 Worth)

A FULL Experience That Will Assist You Begin & Beginning Marketing The Very Same Day! ($297 Value)

Market Search Engine Optimization Records and also Audits On Fiverr ($197 Worth)

Proprietary Technology Automates Hundreds of Gigs for You ($497 Value)

Mobile Responsive Style ($197 Worth)

Search Engine Optimization Built-In Turning Your Solutions Into a # 1 Ranking BEAST ($197 Worth)

Final thought

"It's A Large amount. Should I Invest Today?"

Not only are you obtaining accessibility to SEO Buster for the very best price ever before provided, but additionally You're spending totally without threat. SEO Buster consist of a 30-day Cash Back Warranty Plan. When you choose SEO Buster, your contentment is assured. If you are not totally pleased with it for any kind of factor within the very first thirty days, you're entitled to a full refund-- no question asked. You have actually obtained nothing to lose! What Are You Waiting on? Attempt It today as well as get The Following Benefit Now!

#SEO Buster

0 notes

theworstbob · 7 years

Text

yellin’ at songs: week 31

brief reviews of the songs that debuted on the 8.9.1997, 8.11.2007, and 8.12.2017 editions of the billboard hot 100

8.9.1997

10) "Never Make a Promise," by Dru Hill

See, the thing about this R&B song in which a person makes an eternal promise that separates it from all the other dozens I've heard in the past couple of weeks is, goddamnit I was really hoping I would come up with a joke by the time I got to the conjunction, I figured, y'know, I'd get the ball rolling, get some momentum, y'know? If I started saying words in the cadence of a joke, I would get with the program and sort of involuntarily make a joke. I see now the folly in my ways. I should've been better prepared for 1997. I knew milquetoast R&B was in store. I dropped the ball on this one, and dropped it in such a way that it did not start rolling, to tie it back to a metaphor from earlier. I promise to do better. And uh, fun fact about me, I never make a promise I won't keep.

87) "Down for Yours," by Nastyboy Klick ft./Roger Troutman

Pitch the Auto-tune a little lower, put in a few of those drums what sound like a dude roiling his rs to imitate a machine gun, and this is a perfectly acceptable 2017 pop/rap song. I just wanna real quick address something: I know I said last week that every 1997 rapper, short Magoo, was better than the best 2017 rapper, but I was speaking in terms of pop/rap. Like, if you only go by what charted, which is a mistake for so... so many reasons, 1997 rap is better? But once -- I mean, the Kendrick and Jay albums were fire, but more importantly, you've got folks like Vince Staples and Brother Ali and Joey Bada$$ and Lupe Fiasco and SZA making awesome, challenging works that aren't gonna chart. These charts are at once a sample of music history and the poorest imaginable representation of music history. Anyhoo, I don't know what previously held the title of 'most innocuous song to throw Bob into an existential tailspin over the general utility of the YAS project,' but it belongs to this dumb sack of song now!

90) "Never, Never Gonna Give You Up," by Lisa Stansfield

Hey: if nothing else, clicking on this edition of YAS 7s should give you a fun and cool new way to Rickroll your friends. Add a meta layer to your Rickroll game. I know this isn't actually a comment on the song, because how could anyone be aware of memes in 1997? All these songs predate Hamsterdance. Someone should have told Lisa Stansfield there was already a song called this, though. Anyhoo, I'm not actually talking about these songs at all. They're boring! This is probably the most okay song so far, but I'm putting it out of my mind to think about a boring meme about a boring song.

92) "Drink, Swear, Steal, & Lie" by Michael Peterson

aw this guy's just a big ol' dork. i love him! ii love his dork ass song about how in love with his girl he is. this song has one joke and it's still a vastly more complex and well-written song than any pi[50,000 word treatise on bro country redacted]anyway, this dude's great. like, i'm a pop/punk main, y'know? i love dorky and earnest jams. this hits that button squarely, y'all. i'm so into this.

only publishing the 1997 top 20 because changes happen with the other two and i value consistency

20) "Step by Step," by Whitney Houston (3.15) 19) "Can We," by SWV ft./Missy Elliott (8.2) 18) "On and On," by Erykah Badu (1.25) 17) "I Want You," by Savage Garden (3.1) 16) "It Must Be Love," by Robin S. (5.24) 15) "Smokin' Me Out," by Warren G ft./Ronald Isley (6.21) 14) "Fix," by BLACKstreet ft./Ol' Dirty Bastard (8.2) 13) "Silent All These Years," by Tori Amos (3.22) 12) "What They Do," by The Roots (1.11) 11) "Step Into a World (Rapture's Delight)," by KRS-One (4.5) 10) "I'm Not Feeling You," by Yvette Michele (2.22) 9) "Bill," by Peggy Scott-Adams (3.29) 8) "Just Another Case," by CRU ft./Slick Rick (7.5) 7) "I'll Be," by Foxy Brown ft./Jay-Z (2.15) 6) "Felton St.," Leschea (6.14) 5) "Bitch," by Meredith Brooks (4.26) 4) "Mo Money, Mo Problems," by The Notorious B.I.G. ft./Puff Daddy & Mase (8.2) 3) "Return of the Mack," by Mark Morrison (3.1) 2) "Hypnotize," by The Notorious B.I.G. (4.26) 1) "Not Tonight (Ladies' Night Remix)," by Lil Kim ft./Angie Martinez, Left Eye, Da Brat & Missy Elliott (7.12)

8.11.2007

47) "Stronger," Kanye West

Graduation is such a goofy album because it has three of the best Kanye singles of all time, including what, let's be real, probably ends up as the best song from 2007, but it's also Kanye's worst and least interesting album. It's Kanye at a crossroads, stuck between being the pop/rap god and the morose Auto-tune sadlord who makes 808s and MBDTF. This song actually finds Kanye at the perfect point in the crossroads. He's still making a towering achievement for the mainstream, but he's breaking out of being chop up the soul Kanye, moving into electronic territory, developing his sound into that direction in a way that doesn't quite sound like MBDTF but sounds like the first step on that road. It'd be a bold experiment if it didn't absolutely work, and this is an amazing song by any objective measure.

65) "Cyclone," Baby Bash ft./T-Pain

Man maybe I just haven't noticed it yet or maybe I'm just coming down from the "Stronger" high, but I forgot how horrible the generic crunk beat was to listen to. It hasn't been quite so prevalent, but heck whoever gave this dude the Lil Jon MP3s. I will say that T-Pain making noises to describe what it feels like when a woman dips it low is the tiniest little miracle of a thing, but boy, is my life not better with this song in it. OK I just got to the part where T-Pain makes that noise three times in a row, this song is an achievement in Western art and culture and the world is saved.

83) "Love Me if You Can," Toby Keith

who the fuck listens to toby keith for the ballads like who is this for who thinks of this song when they think of toby keith no legit dude just make dumbass party jams i don't get why this would ever need to exist

84) "Take Me There," Rascal Flatts

Like legit why would you give "Love Me if You Can" to Toby Keith when Rascal Flatts is literally right there. Songs like "Love Me if You Can" and this treacly pile of love song are why you made Rascal Flatts in the first place. I also enjoy the twist this puts on The Country Song. I don't think anyone ever came to Rascal Flatts for Authentic Country Music, so them saying they want the girl to take them to Main Street and the backroads is actually kinda sweet. Like, they're not posturing, they're saying, "Yeah, we're clearly city softboys, but we wanna see the small town blue jean nights that made my girl." Rascal Flatts: generally inoffensive yet again! They just keep comin'!

89) "Proud of the House We Built," Brooks & Dunn

I like this song because it reminded me of The Wonder Years' "Teenage Parents," and I appreciate the opportunity to think about The Wonder Years. I dunno, country hasn't really been problematic this week! This song is almost good! It's just a nice look back on life. "Yeah, it kinda sucked, butcha know what, we made it." Maybe it could've acknowledged that the tough times sucked instead of looking back smiling and saying, "I wouldn't have it any other way?" Hard times suck, dude. I know you haven't heard that Paramore jam yet, but hard times suck and you shouldn't idealize them. Especially when, you know, you're a millionaire, and people who are actually going through hard times are listening to you and saying, "Welp, guess this is my station in life!" Hey Bob you're going on a treatise on the sociological implications of bro country, and you are actually unable to write that. Please write about JoBros.

92) "Hold On," Jonas Brothers

What a week for songs named after far more notable '80s jams! (Actually Wilson Phillips w)I LOOKED IT UP AND DECIDED I DIDN'T CARE anyway did anyone else forget that Jonas Brothers are like legit songwriters? Like, this is definitely as good as any Simple Plan song, and Simple Plan was like a decade older than these kids. Does Simple Plan make good music? That's beside the point, which is that Jonas Brothers was never garbage. They were always making highly enjoyable pop/rock songs for the whole family, and they were capable of making these songs from an extraordinarily young age. We could've done worse, is what I'm trying to get at. Like, we had it pretty got dang good with the JoBros, friends! There's a world where JoBros fades into semi-obscurity and makes highly enjoyable Christian rock with Hanson, and also no one ever makes "Jealous," and that's a pretty OK alternate reality, that one.

100) "Hood Nigga," Gorilla Zoe

The most optimistic sentence on Wikipedia is, "This is Gorilla Zoe's only top 40 hit on that chart, to date." This song ain't bad! It would've been a fine #1 in some of those weeks where the best song was like "Do it Just Like a Rock Star." He has this really fun and gruff voice, maybe a little laconic but certainly pleasant to put in the ears, the beat is, as the kids might have said in 2007, knockin', and we have certainly heard worse things! Also the radio edit replaces N with F and of all the letters to replace the N, F is easily the funniest, because now this song is about a dude who can't get enough figs in his life. Fuck Cristal, this dude's got a Fig Newton cabinet.

New #1 hype! 20) "Lip Gloss," by Lil Mama (6.9.2007) 19) "Stolen," by Dashboard Confessional (4.21.2007) 18) "Beautiful Liar," by Beyonce & Shakira (3.31.2007) 17) "Cupid's Chokehold," by Gym Class Heroes ft./Patrick Stump (1.13.2007) 16) "The River," by Good Charlotte ft./M. Shadows & Synyster Gates (2.10.2007) 15) "Say OK," by Vanessa Hudgens (2.17.2007) 14) "Alyssa Lies," by Jason Michael Carroll (1.13.2007) 13) "Never Again," by Kelly Clarkson (5.12.2007) 12) "Can't Tell Me Nothing," by Kanye West (6.16.2007) 11) "Get Buck," by Young Buck (4.14.2007) 10) "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," by Jennifer Hudson (1.13.2007) 9) "Thnks fr th Mmrs," by Fall Out Boy (4.28.2007) 8) "Candyman," by Christina Aguilera (1.13.2007) 7) "Misery Business," by Paramore (7.21.2007) 6) "Because of You," by Ne-Yo (3.17.2007) 5) "Umbrella," by Rihanna ft./Jay-Z (4.28.2007) 4) "Beautiful Flower," by India.Arie (6.16.2007) 3) "Dashboard," by Modest Mouse (2.17.2007) 2) "The Story," by Brandi Carlile (4.28.2007) 1) "Stronger," by Kanye West (8.11.2007) Hey guess what the alt-country song doesn’t end up being Record of the Year 2017. Also I made a minor adjustment to #20 because Lil Mama is going to stay around as long as I feel I cannot bop her in good conscience.

8.12.2017

40) "Back to You," by Louis Tomlinson ft./Bebe Rexha & Digital Farm Animals

Huh, well, I think I mind this the least of all the One Direction side projects! I'm down for a duet, even if this is just a little too low-key to ever attain Iconic Duet status -- drunk folks and karaoke wanna shout about love, and while I'm sure they'll appreciate the "you fuck me... up" phrasing, you're not giving them a lot to work wth. I've never minded Bebe Rexha as little as I do here, and just like in his boyhood, Louis Tomlinson doesn't do anything to ruin everything. This was passable. I wouldn't mind hearing this again, I wouldn't mind if a thousand lives were lived before I heard it again.

61) "What's My Name," by China Anne McClain 81) "It's Goin' Down," Descendants 2 Cast

Listen. Am I upset that this young woman's villain song does not in any way hearken back to "Poor Unfortunate Souls" in any way? Of course. Am I 15 years aged out of the target market for this song? I mean fucking obviously, I knew we'd be treading in these waters eventually. These are fine generic pop songs, the only true flaw in any being the fact someone looked at purple-haired girl and said, "She should be in a rap battle. I think she could convincingly hold her own in a rap battle," like I'm sorry sweetie you have an abundance of other talents and zero bars. It's charming. It's charming! Listen. Am I ready for China Anne McClain to rule the world for five yet-to-be-determined years in the future? Yes. Do I love Captain Hook's gay son? I LOVE CAPTAIN HOOK'S GAY SON

77) "Issues," by Meek Mill 79) "Wins & Losses," by Meek Mill 83) "1942 Flows," by Meek Mill 96) "We Ball," by Meek Mill ft./Young Thug 97) "Fuck That Check Up," by Meek Mill ft./Lil Uzi Vert 99) "Heavy Heart," by Meek Mill

So if I'm rating the theme weeks of 2017: 1) Kendrick Week 2) Jay-Z Week 3) Future Week 4) Meek Mill Week 5) Migos Week 6) Ed Sheeran Week 7) Big Sean Week 8) Drake Week 9) Bryson Tiller Week I was honestly surprised by how much I enjoyed these songs. Like, I'm actually adding the Meek Mill album to the library for future listening. "1942 Flows" and "Wins & Losses" are legit, they're engaging songs and Meek Mill brings passion to them, and maybe I'm just unfamiliar with the rest of Meek Mill's catalogue, but I honestly didn't expect to be involved in these songs. This seems like a fine album with which to kill a summer bus ride or two. Like, I can't remember the last time I heard a song with a Young Thug feature where I wasn't paying more attention to what Young Thug was doing. Meek Mill did fine work. (Worth noting: Wins & Losses is 15 minutes longer than DAMN., and I am curious what makes Meek Mill think he has 15 minutes' more of worthwhile thought than Kendrick.)

91) "Imitadora," by Romeo Santos

It was "Heroe Favorito," right, where I said I might enjoy Romeo Santos' whole thing on another day, when I was ready to accept him into my life? WELL HOT DIGGITY, Y'ALL, 'CUZ TODAY'S THAT DAY. I love his breathy falsetto thing over this song way more, it just fits. I'm also in love with this track, this gentle Latin guitar with occasional blasts of indie platformer main menu music. I don't know a better term to express what I mean because I'm bad at music, but these synth blasts play in the intro and outro and occasionally come back and they just take this track to another level. This is just phenomenal work from someone I now understand to be a veteran in the scene from the past seven months of limited engagement with the world of Latin pop.

I changed the top of the 2017 Top 20 again. 20) "Bodak Yellow," by Cardi B (7.22) 19) "Woman," by Kesha ft./The Dap-Kings Horns (8.5) 18) "Smile," by Jay-Z ft./Gloria Carter (7.29) 17) "Love Galore," by SZA ft./Travis Scott (7.1) 16) "Bad Liar," by Selena Gomez (6.3) 15) "DNA." by Kendrick Lamar (5.6) 14) "It Ain't Me," by Kygo x Selena Gomez (3.4) 13) "Craving You," by Thomas Rhett ft./Maren Morris (4.22) 12) "That's What I Like," by Bruno Mars (3.4) 11) "Chanel," by Frank Ocean ft./A$AP Rocky (4.1) 10) "Strangers," by Halsey ft./Lauren Jauregui (6.17) 9) "Either Way," by Chris Stapleton (5.27) 8) "Run Up," by Major Lazer ft./PARTYNEXTDOOR & Nicki Minaj (2.18) 7) "Imitadora," by Romeo Santos (8.12) 6) "Green Light," by Lorde (3.18) 5) "Hard Times," by Paramore (5.13) 4) "ELEMENT." by Kendrick Lamar (5.6) 3) "Despacito," by Luis Fonsi ft./Daddy Yankee (2.4) 2) "iSpy," by KYLE ft./Lil Yachty (1.14) 1) "Issues," by Julia Michaels (2.11) Like #1 should be a mix of Most Impactful Song and Song I Enjoyed Most, and maybe #1 justifiably belongs to “Despacito” given how great that is, I’m still getting a lot of mileage out of “Issues,” and honestly as long as I’m not keeping up this silly idea that a song that was #90 for one week is the most iconic song of the year this useless list has at least some utility. Shoutout to the true heroes Paramore, though. And also Major Lazer, PARTYNEXTDOOR, and Nicki Minaj. I will never fucking forget you guys.

Who won the week?

2017 actually put up a rather strong fight, but there was no way Meek Mill and the Descendants 2 soundtrack were going to take down “Stronger,” even when it was being weighed down with Toby Keith. 2007 had a couple strong punches, and it was more than able to notch another point. 2017: 11 1997: 11 2007: 9 In next week’s post, we get to listen to Spice Girls AND Billy Joel, 2007 gives us Luke Bryan AND Robin Thicke, and I don’t know what fresh hell 2017 has in store but evidently Tay Tay collaborated with B.O.B. at some point in the recent past and it’s gonna be real fun to deal with B.O.B. the popular musician should it come to that. What an unproblematic and unremarkable artist who has precisely zero bad opinions which he expresses loudly!

2 notes · View notes