#raptor definitely made some valid points

[were-wolverine]

THINKING. ABOUT THIS.

i love babs but… she’s definitely the daughter of a cop.

[laurore-stormwitch]

of almost failed heists and romantic advice

For the @grishaversebigbang mini bang! First time writing the crows, it’s been a challenge. I had the incredible and emotional honor to see some beautiful art made for this fic by @streckenweise-okay [here] , @j-wirth [here], @davonysus [here]. You are all talented and amazing <3  Summary: an easy undercover job becomes not only a chance to revisit some old friendships with Nina back in town, but also the perfect occasion for a romantic intervention and some dating advice for our favorite Bastard of the Barrel.

ao3 link

Kaz Brekker, the Bastard of the Barrel, a forgotten Rietveld. His figure hid itself in the many names he had been called, in the many tales of sorrow he had inflicted. He did not need a reason, nor to rob or brake, nor to wreak havoc on the filthy streets of Ketterdam. Swift as the sky-splitting dive of a crow on his prey. You would feel him coming, in the tense silence shattered by the rhythmic beating of a raptor-headed cane on bricks. Kaz Brekker, who did not need a reason, or concealed the ones who mattered. The same Kaz Brekker, however, who did not have a valid reason for choosing to bring the three biggest headaches of his life along with him on this wretched job. A sharpshooter with an absurd taste in fashion, a Grisha witch as annoying as his broken leg and a wayward merchant’s son he had spent way too much time babysitting. 

A strike of genius on his part. On top of that, he had chosen an undercover job, like they had the slightest ability not be noticed. Except for Nina; that girl blended everywhere like whisky. She was now strolling back to them with an excited gleam in her eyes, sipping on a glass of wine. She giggled happily. “Relax, Kaz. It’s a party.” 

He cut her a glare from the corner in which he was standing, stiff and broody. 

“Where the hell are the two lovebirds?” 

“At the buffet. Do you know they have a chocolate fountain?”

“If it doesn’t drop gold”, Nina arched a brow at him, “I am fairly sure I don’t care for it.”

They were interrupted by the brilliant flash of color of Jesper’s suit and his brazen laugh. He had an arm thrown around Wylan’s shoulder; the merchling’s  cheeks were flushed and his hair ruffled. He seemed slightly uncomfortable or about to throw up. For all the kruges, how much had Jesper let him drink? At least they did not have a particularly difficult role to play. Nina planted a kiss on Wylan’s cheek.

“This is so fun!”, she exclaimed, delighted by the situation. Kaz glared at her again.

“A job it’s not supposed to be fun.”

“Take your brooding mood out the window, Brekker”, Nina waved a dismissive hand at him. “What would a job be without fun?”

“Terribly dull”, Jesper winked.

“Annoyingly painful”, offered Wylan with a hiccup. They turned to Kaz. 

“Adequately profitable.”

His friends cast their eyes heavenward. Jesper snatched other glasses , pretending not to see Kaz’s threatening look. The party was grand, held in the home of a Council’s member from whom they were supposed to steal some documents held in a safe in his study. The job was easy to say the least, so when they had learned that Nina was in town, she had tagged along. Kaz wanted to wack himself on the head with his cane for this wretched idea; apparently, they had taken this as an excuse to party and reminisce old times more than an occasion to actually help Kaz make some money. Nina surveyed the room. 

“I wish Inej was here”, she whined. Kaz had never been one to pray, so it was not surprised when the Saints ignored his pledge to make Nina drop the argument. Instad, she turned to him with a smug smirk. 

“How is it going between the two of you?”

Kaz tapped his cane on the floor, avoiding the heartrender’s eyes. Maybe she would shut up if he ignored her. Was he not radiating a general air of murderousness and danger, enough to convince his nosy friend to leave him be? Well, not enough. It just made her do something even worse and refer to the other two headaches.

“Kaz is a hopeless cause.”

“He’s not asked her out yet? Not even a romantic snack in between threatening people and skewering them with knives?”

Jesper shrugged his shoulder, nudging Wylan closer. “We offered to do it for him”, he noted.

“You did”, Wylan peered at thim. “I want to keep my head on my neck.”

“Why hasn’t he?”, asked Nina, considering Kaz, still ignoring them.

“I don’t think he’s familiar with the concept of asking someone out. Or even asking someone for anything, mainly bossing people around.”

Kaz adjusted his tie. “I’m standing right beside you.”

“It’s not hard, Kaz. Just buy some flowers and smile.”

Jesper laughed at Nina’s idiotic advice. Were they actually trying to get assassinated right now? Another thought paved the way in his mind. Was it an idiotic advice, though? He could admit that anything not involving schemes or robbery was not an area of expertise for him. And he had been meaning to do something...nice?

“You’re asking Dirtyhands to smile?”, asked Jesper. Nina huffed.

“Can it be that hard?”

“You’ll see. Kaz, smile at me.” 

Kaz had two roads in front of him: for some reason, he chose the insane one and indulged Jesper, curling his lips upward. An uncomfortable silence dawned over them. 

“All the Saints and their suffering”, Nina exclaimed.

“Is he about to murder someone?”, Wylan asked. Nina burst out laughing.

“That is your i-am-asking-you-out smile?”

“It’s terrifying”, considered the merchling.

“Positively daunting”, his boyfriend confirmed.

“For the love of Inej’s Saints drop the smile. Stick with the flowers.” She eyed him from upside down, critical. “And fix that dreadful hair.”

Now the choice laid between leaving them all here or trying to find a way to finish this wretched job. Since the second option included a mouthful reward, he went with it. He eyed the owner descending the stairs with his guards. That was their cue. 

“You all know what to do.”

To their credit, they all snapped to attention when he called them. Nina strode behind the owner, fluffing her hair, while the three of them disappeared silently toward the upper floor. Silently. As silently as they could, Wylan being half drunk and Jesper being...well, Jesper. What one does for some kruge, thought sourly Kaz. He did glance at his reflection in the mirror, trying a half smile as they ascended the stairs. But no one needed to know that. 

***

The safe had scarcely even been fun to crack. Kaz slipped the document in his jacket, scanning the study. Who knows what one could find that people left unguarded. Jesper and Wylan were outside, keeping control on the stairs. The situation seemed under control, so he did have some spare time to search for something precious. He approached a drawer, flicked a pin in the keylock and - 

BOOM

A loud explosion resonated on the floor, rattling the walls. Definitely not a good sign. And definitely a sign that his henchmen raised some hell. Kaz sprinted out, only to find an absolute mayhem had been unleashed, and at the centre of this chaos, sure enough, stood his two royally idiotic friends, covered in dirt and pieces of furniture, gazing at each other with utter shock on their faces like they hadn’t just made a smoke bomb explode. The one that was supposed to be an emergency to cover their escape and was now invading the house. 

“What the hell did you do?!”

Screams rose below them; Jesper scratched some dust from his jacket and rolled his revolvers out, grinning in Wylan’s direction, apparently unfazed by how much they had just screwed up. 

“Wylan got carried away”, he shrugged his shoulders. Wylan flushed violently, jaw dropped in his boyfriend’s direction.

“You pushed me against a wall! I told you I had the smoke bomb in my pocket!”

“Were they making out again on the job?”, Nina rushed in their direction, her gorgeous face lit up with amusement as she struck down one of the guards running up the stairs with a flick of her wrist, a dart bone flying out of her cuff. 

“It’s Jesper’s fault! He’s always trying to...to…”, Jesper arched a brow at Wylan. 

“Yes?”

“Entice me!”

Kaz blew out an exasperated grunt, pushing them toward the background door. “Move!”, he seethed, running to work the lock. Dirtyhands getting killed on a saints forsaken robbery, perfect irony. With a quick look, he realized the damn lock had been reinforced with Fabrikator’s craft. He signaled Jesper, who practically squealed with amusement. 

“Do I get to use my powers?” The hard glare he earned from Kaz seemed to be enough for him to get on with his work. Nina turned, shooting other dart bones toward the stairs. Quick steps and screams were echoing through the buildings, and smoke was clearing. “You might wanna hurry up, Jes!”, she shouted over her shoulder. 

“We might have a problem”, the sharpshooter mumbled, as the lock literally melted on itself, effectively sealing the door closed. “I’m still getting the hold on - “

He was interrupted by another deafening explosion, as Wylan threw another device which detonated on the wooden stairs shredding them into pieces. 

“Do you all have to keep destroying our ways out?!”

“I’m sorry!”, screamed Wylan over the echoing thrum of the bomb, his gaze shifting to a window that opened up to the roof. 

“Do not even think about it”, Kaz pointed his cane at him. 

“Either we take a page from Inej’s book or we get arrested, what do you choose?”, Nina asked grudgingly, starting to climb on a cupboard. Saints, he was going to kill them all. Jesper and Wylan followed suit, making their way out on the roof and helping Kaz up. He shot a murderous look at Nina, who was eyeing him as he not at all gracefully moved up and shut the window closed behind him, swearing to every known Saints in Kerch.

“Since you are so bad at this, you should try to compliment Inej about it and maybe she’ll teach you something.” 

“Start fleeing before I catch you, Zenik.”

Shots began firing from below them, grazing Kaz’s arm. Nina erupted in a grin. 

“Time to run, Brekker.”

And so they did. Extremely far from how Inej would have done it. Loudly, stumbling throughout Ketterdam’s rooftops, helping each other - as much as he hated to admit it, mostly Kaz - on the slippery tiles and the narrow eaves. Ketterdam buildings left little space to breathe, being conveniently close that they could jump from one to the other. Kaz lost track of time, though his bad leg felt like they’ve been running for hours. Jesper stopped abruptly as they neared the docks, crunching on his knees and howling a breathless laugh. 

“That was fun.”

Nina giggled, slouching on the rooftop they had stopped on. “Ease up boys, we lost them ages ago”, she exhaled, closing her eyes toward the moonlight and leaning back. Kaz tentatively seated himself behind her, stretching his leg. 

“If this easy job ends up with me not being able to walk, vengeance will be coming.” 

Wylan and Jesper slumped down on his side, ignoring his dreadful look. Wylan peered at Kaz with a sly smile. 

“Jesper has stolen something fit to celebrate a successful heist.” 

The sharpshooter grinned, pulling out a bottle of cherry wine from nowhere and uncorking it with a whistle of joy. He passed it around as their cheerful chatter filled the night’s quiet. They were crazy. Crazy, reckless, and still idiots. Yet, Kaz couldn’t help but feel a little proud of his ragtag band of misfits. So he did not protest when Jesper handed him the wine, and he even threw a crooked half smile at him. The night began to wear off with every sip.

“So”, started Jesper at some point, snatching the bottle from him, “about our advice?”

It had to be the wine for Kaz to answer this. “I guess I can try it.”

Wylan huffed and gave him a knowing look.  “Just be yourself, Kaz. Inej likes you like that.”

“Ever the romantic”, Jesper winked at him, making him flush. Again. 

“Aside from that”, Nina propped herself up, turning to him, her lips quirked and her face lit up with happiness, cheeks red from the wine. “I still suggest the flowers. You know her favourites. And you might want to get ahead with those, Brekker'', she added, pointing her finger toward the horizon; over Ketterdam’s rooftops, the moonlight shone on the silent streets, reflecting on the waves that hit the docks. There, against the sky lit up by stars, stood the profile of a sharp ship, a flag Kaz knew by heart flying over the mast, its edges turning his stomach upside down as it entered the harbour. 

“Our Wraith is coming home.”

[kae-karo]

fic writer interview!

i saw @prince-liest do this and thus i will take ur 'tagging anyone who wants to do this' seriously lmaoooo (also hi btw hope ur well!!! 💜💜)

How many works do you have on AO3?

ahaha,,,,,159 lmao

What's your total AO3 word count?

fdsjkkjlsfdklj as of today, 2,089,769

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

only three fsdjkldslfkj the phandom (dan&phil), bnha, and genshin!

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

chosen (x) - zhongchi (genshin)

to love (and be loved in return) (x) - kaeluc (genshin)

little bird (x) - dabihawks (bnha)

feet don't touch the ground (x) - xiaoven (genshin)

i knew you were fire (x) - dabihawks (bnha)

honestly none of that surprises me except that little bird is still up there, although i think i owe that to sif (@the-final-sif) for sharing it around the time it got posted since it was partly inspired by her raptor stress grip post!!

the rest are all chaptered fics, which is mostly what i expected to be in the top 5 lmao

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

yes!!! always!!!! no matter what u comment, i will respond!!! and if i don't, it's probably cause ao3 didn't notify me properly or i didn't see it in my inbox or something

as for why, it's mostly to do with like...i know how hard it can be for some people to comment, even just a bunch of heart emojis or a 'i loved this!' or something short and simple? and it means a lot to me that ppl are going out of their way to say something nice, no matter how small, and it's really really important to me to acknowledge that

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

hmm,,,,,this is a hard one, cause for a very long time, my policy was that my fic would always have a happy ending? and for a long time, that was true!! but the dabihawks interaction (during the raid) broke me, and from an emotional standpoint, i think freeing icarus (x) is probably the one that has the angstiest ending of the two or so that i wrote in that time?

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

u know i really haven't written any crossovers? it's normally not my thing cause my brain typically focuses on a single thing and doesn't really have the capacity to think about more than that, so i end up writing just au-style or fusion-style (shoutout to that one bnha but it was scooby doo fic i wrote - x)

i don't think i'd be opposed to writing a crossover but i'd have to be SUPER inspired by the idea and both fandoms lmao

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

aha yes, i have. the only straight up hate i've received was on a kaeluc fic (surprisingly not because it was kaeluc, but bc i was 'mistreating' kaeya in the fic) - to be entirely fair, the commenter pointed out something that i hadn't realized myself, and it led to a second piece of the story that helped me tie up some loose ends, but...let's just say they weren't very kind about their feelings lmao

other than that, i had someone very upset because i didn't tag which character was bottoming in a fic (valid if that bugs u!) and they read through most of it before getting to the smut (and said that they enjoyed everything up to that point) then said they were 'disgusted' by it. i have opinions on that and a few other comments they made, but i will keep them to myself lmao

and beyond that, just a few ppl on my xiaoven fic saying that they were unhappy about the background kaeluc (which is tagged lmao) - really no hate whatsoever til genshin, honestly, which is...very hmmmm :) lmao

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

yep!!! mostly vanilla or vanilla-adjacent lmao i'm not super into heavy kink, although i know if epi reads this she's gonna call me out for being a monsterfucker bc of my dragon!zhongli smut :) lmaoooo but really i tend to write pretty vanilla smut! i also prefer to avoid any noncon/dubcon or hate sex or anything particularly angsty, just not my jam to write!

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

hmm i don't think so? although i don't heavily monitor ao3 (or wattpad/ffn), so i can't really say that for sure lmao

Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes!!! i've had a few fics translated to russian (little bird is one of them!) which is very sweet and i hope that anyone who prefers to read in russian has been enjoying those fics!!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

alksdfjklsdf only once, and it's deadass how me and rose got together. we decided to co-write a podcast au fic for the phandom (x) and ended up flirting via google docs asldkfjkldsfj

What’s your all time favourite ship?

what a horrible question, making me choose between my children like this!!!! sdlfkjdskf tbh i'm not sure i have a real answer bc it changes as i go? and 'favorite' is so vague,,,,,favorite to read? to write about? to think about? asdklfjkjsdfk i really don't know if i have an answer, but i'll maybe say kaeluc for now lmao

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

well first and foremost, with only 2 exceptions, i never post a fic unless it's done. i tend to follow wherever my passion leads my brain, so i'm notorious for jumping around between stories and taking breaks from long fic and returning later on to finish them, and i know that i would not do well under the pressure of posting something unfinished and trying to finish it in a timely manner

that said, many wips sit in my google doc folder, but one is Well Known as the one that has followed me through both the phandom and bnha (rose keeps asking who i'm gonna switch the chars to in genshin, but i think it suits bakudeku too well to do that) - only the lonely survive. it sits at like 36k in my wip folder, and i adore the story dearly and i want very much to finish it, but it never makes it quite to the forefront of my motivation, and so it rarely if ever gets worked on...i hate the idea of 'never' finishing it, but it's unfortunately quite likely that i won't 😭😭😭

What are your writing strengths?

emotion!!! and immersion!!! it's my goal in a fic to make it as immersive as possible and saturated with emotion to help convey that feeling of being in the place of the pov character, and i think i do it pretty well. also just bc i feel a little obligated to say it - another strength is actually sitting down and putting words down. i know that's a struggle for a lot of writers and i often get,,,,lovingly bullied? i guess? lmao for being able to bash out a few k in a day most days

What are your writing weaknesses?

this isn't so much a weakness i guess but i am basically incapable of treating crack fic as crack. if i have a cracky idea, it will, without a doubt, end up turning into a Perfectly Serious fic somehow (notable 'crack treated so seriously that it's no longer crack' fics include: todoroki doing the freeze-the-ocean thing from frozen 2, 'shmigaraki', todo and denki get together bc of vine references, the league sells feet pics, shiggy and natsu own a nightclub/bakery, scooby doo but make it bnha, and dabi getting his ears pierced at claire's)

but in all seriousness, i think my main weakness is that i often get comfortable? and i'm not one to typically push myself forcefully out of my comfort zone when it comes to stories that i come up with on my own, which often means that ideas inspired by discussions with others are what prompt me to branch out and try new things?

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

i think, like anything, it has its place? there are certainly stories where it makes sense to do that and even adds depth to a story, although i personally am not exceptionally comfortable enough with other languages (except maybe asl) to do that in fic myself without the assistance of someone very comfortable with that language lmao

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

the phandom! not really my jam to write rpf anymore but it definitely got me started and i'm really grateful for my time writing there, as everyone was super supportive and kind, and it was really a perfect place for a beginner to get comfortable and practice

What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

again, forcing me to choose between my children...i really don't know that i can pick one fic bc they all exist in such wildly different spaces? i poured my worldbuilding soul into the king of disaster series (mainly dabihawks - x), exile (dan and phil - x) was my first massively long fic, our hearts are heavy burdens we shouldn't have to bear alone (chayea - x) is probably my favorite character/character dynamic study, i'm exceptionally proud of the smut in chosen (zhongchi - x), the list goes on and on and on lmao like. i could probably list half my fics as favorites in some regard dsflkjdfsjkl

anyway, tyty bellamy for putting this on my dash so i could do it as well!!

tagging: literally anyone who wants to do this, i have so many writer friends slkdjfjklsdf but please please tag me if u do it so i can read urs!!! 💜💜💜

[inevitable-anna]

Escape The Night Season 4 Review

(Beware, will contain spoilers.)

I’m so sorry this was late, I’m useless... I shall no longer be saying ‘it should be out by tomorrow’ because it never happens and I’m very sorry

Anyway, let’s get to it.

[[MORE]]

I’m honestly not sure what to think of this season. There are things about it that I love, and things that I hate.

*

The whole season premise was great. A save them all season sounded amazing especially once the cast was announced. But when the characters began to get killed off despite already being dead, I was annoyed.

This is one of the things that I hated and have mentioned multiple times now. The only consequence in the show was death, that was what made the first three seasons so dramatic. Because we were watching the show once a week, while hoping that our favourites would be spared from the carnage. We were invested in what happened to them.

But once they announced the all star season, they showed that (in the ships canon) there is life after death, and since these characters were already dead. The stakes weren’t as high. We’ve already seen them die, but they just died twice? It just doesn’t make sense to me.

Why not have another consequence for failure, have them be trapped back in their exhibition cases while they have to watch everyone else try to escape. Have them be mind controlled into helping The Collector... just anything but death.

*

Although I do have a question for you, did anyone else feel mislead by the deaths this season? I mean, don’t get me wrong, there were some creative deaths but I found 1 or 2 of them to be misleading.

For example, in the challenge in episode 3, as Tim and Destorm read the note it says that ‘the loser would be torn to pieces by Garuda’ but that didn’t happen to Tim, to me it looks like Garuda bludgeoned him to death with the staff he carried. So why say ‘torn to pieces’? Why not say ‘bludgeoned to death’?

Or episode 6’s challenge, I think that the note said that ‘the loser would be torn to pieces by The Minotaur’, but Colleen wasn’t torn apart. I believe that The Minotaur crushed/snapped her neck instead. So again, why not say ‘crushed by The Minotaur’?

Anyone else question this or is it me being nitpickie?

*

One of the things that I liked was bringing back past cast members, especially as we as fans, felt a lot of our favourite characters were robbed and deserved better (pretty much every guest in the show, who ended up dying).

This season granted them a second chance to save themselves (Which didn’t really work for most of them, because of the whole ‘final death’ thing) and we, as viewers, each knew who we wanted to win and why we thought that they should win. It gave us a chance to see our favourite characters again and see those characters get a second chance at happiness.

*

This series had some cool fighting moments but I wasn’t overly keen because the whole show is supposed to be unscripted, well at least the guests actions are unscripted.

I’m a bit conflicted because it was cool to see the guests have some badass moments, but it didn’t feel like the rest of the show because of the scripts? Does that make sense?

*

So yeah, I’m conflicted about this season. But for the rest of the post, I would like to talk about some of my favourite or least favourite episodes and things.

*

Favourite guests?

My favourite guests this season were... Ro (no surprise there.), Gabbie, and Destorm. I’m still upset that we didn’t really get a Ro/Gabbie/Destorm friendship and that we didn’t really see a Gabbie/Destorm friendship that much.

*

Least favourite guests?

Joey, Alex, and starting at the end of episode 8, Bretman.

Joey was just his usual ‘I feel guilty, I wanna save everyone. Oh wait, they’re dying I should save myself’.

I feel like Alex just seemed all over the place. One minute he was trying to convince Destorm to teach him to be evil, then the he was good again, then he had to redeem himself from being evil, but he wasn’t evil in the first place?

I started to dislike Bretman at the end of episode 8, when after winning the pirates challenge, he starts gloating to Alex that he’s about to die. It did not sit well with me.

*

Favourite episode?

I think that my favourite episode would be S4X04 “A Wedding To Die For”. I feel like it was one of the most entertaining episodes, with the whole competition to marry The Emperor giving us some hilarious moments, like Tana’s flirting, Gabbie’s hilarious complement of “The way you’re fingering... those 2 balls is very attractive.” And I have no idea how she managed to keep a straight face while she said it, Ro’s plans to kill The Emporer while they got ready to see him, Miranda making a quick appearance. I will always love The Sorceress’ advice for the girls, after they find out that they have to meet The Emperor, which is “Wed him, kill him, and take the kingdom.” And the fact that Ro was like “good idea.”

I just found it very funny, although I didn’t like the death of that episode. (Unpopular opinion: Destorm didn’t do anything wrong in S2. Yes, he shouldn’t have acted so rude about Lauren’s death but he didn’t deserve to be villified for it.)

*

Least favourite episode?

Definitely S4X09 “Prehistoric Evil”.

You can probably guess my first critique for this episode because I’m super predictable, but Ro deserved better than to be betrayed at the last hurdle. She made a valid point of “you say that you’ve come to save me, but now you want to send me into a death challenge?” Joey promised to save everyone but then starts throwing them under the bus to save his own ass.

Another thing that I disliked about this episode is that the tasks were a bit boring to me, I mean avoiding the raptors was cool, but the other bits didn’t excite me as much as other tasks have...

*

So that was my review thing? I’ve never written a review before so I’m sorry if it’s bad.

I’m thinking of maybe doing a ‘my top 5 death’ post with different categories, like ‘most brutal’, ‘saddest’ and things like that.

And I also came up with a bit of a game? There wouldn’t be any prizes but it might be fun. It’s an ETN themed guessing game, I’ve made up some riddles/rhymes for ETN characters, so you would try and solve them and comment the answer. If anyone is interested please let me know. :)

Have a nice day

[insp1rationalx]

This is a long post which is basically just me venting, so feel free to keep scrolling if that is not your cup of tea. It is very petty and silly and shouldn’t be taken too seriously but I just wanted to write out my thoughts. 

Last night a friend of a friend came over to our place to watch the Raptors/Golden State game, and for a while we were chatting about celebrities or public figures that we like. I mention that I like Anne Hathaway quite a lot (I even call her my wife jokingly) and she says “Oh my god, Anne Hathaway has no talent. I hate her”. I am shocked, and surprised that she would say something that is just objectively wrong especially after I just told her that I love Anne. 

She then went on saying she hated Emma Stone (who I also love), Mathew McConaughey (who I respect as an actor), and Jennifer Lawrence. She said she hated Jennifer Lawrence because of the incident that happened a few years ago with the sacred rocks in Hawaii. I agree that what she did wasn’t wise but she definitely would not have gotten as much hate for it if it were the Trevi fountain in Rome and she were leaning on it trying to take a selfie or reach an itch and she broke part of it. And she would not have gotten as much hate for it if she were not a celebrity. The fact that it was Hawaiian and that she is in the spotlight were important factors for why people, including this friend of a friend, were so mad at her. 

She also insulted Thomas Brodie-Sangster with another comment about him having no talent, and then insulted Chris Evans, saying he was bland, without personality, and that Captain America was a useless character. After doing the mental hurdle of realizing she was incapable of separating the actor and the fictional character, I asked her which movies she had seen with Cap. She said she had seen Avengers (2012) and Endgame (2019) to which I wanted to say “Well of course you know nothing about him, you missed all 3 of his movies and 2 of the other Avengers, you dolt”. If she had said “Captain America is not a character I particularly like, but I haven’t seen much of the media he was in” that would have been fine, but Chris =/= Cap, and to hate both so blindly just irritated me more than it should have. And for her to go out of the way to viciously insult people that I admire and respect after I tell her that these are important people to me really frustrated me. If somebody told me “Oh I really love Adele” I wouldn’t immediately say “Oh my god I hate Adele she is worthless, she has no talent, she sucks” like relax. Just based off this first impression, she seemed like the kind of person who hates things for the sake of hating things, to appear edgy or cool or unorthodox, because she’s just so “different” or whatever. I thought people were supposed to outgrow that in high school. 

The cherry on top was her watching the game with us and then looking disgusted or offended whenever I made a comment about the teams or their plays or their strategies. God forbid I discuss basketball while watching a basketball game. At one point I said “man, GS has made every single one of their free throws. I’m shook” and she said “well they’re being paid millions of dollars. They should be making them”. I agree with this statement to some extent, but the way in which she delivered this line made me so incredibly angry. It was so matter-of-fact and I hated that the whole night she was acting like a know-it-all-edge-lord. Totally ruined the atmosphere for a lot of it. 

And then she wouldn’t shut up when my other roommate went to bed because she had to get up early to go to work in the morning. So I’m sure my roommate got a good earful of how shes So Educated about AFRICA because she went to AFRICA and she studied abroad in AFRICA, and oh did you hear about this country in AFRICA that I visited when I was in AFRICA? No? Let me tell you more about AFRICA and I was thinking, girl, I am glad you went to Africa and had a great time, but I am already so done with you I do not need to hear this and neither does my roomie. 

Am I allowed to hate this girl or is it irrational? Are my own personal, emotional attachments to public figures and sports teams getting in the way of an opportunity to build a new friendship? Or is it valid to dislike somebody based on the way they criticize people/topics and how they choose to present their arguments?

Am I a hypocrite for disliking her for criticizing these people while I criticize her?  

[junker-town]

LeBron James doesn’t respect the Raptors, and he shouldn't

LeBron James has no regard for the Raptors, and there's nothing they can do about it.

LeBron James scored 39 points on 14 field goal attempts and the Cavaliers handled the Raptors in Game 2 without ever looking bothered, as if he doesn’t see Kyle Lowry and friends as worthy of his attention.

Maybe it’s too easy for the King. The camera has been on him the whole series, and even at its tightest shot, when it’s zoomed in so close that you can see the latest efforts by his barber to preserve his hairline, there hasn’t been a hint of sweat on his brow. James’ headband is as dry as his Instagram humor. He looks like he just left a photoshoot after each game.

James against the Raptors is the definition of indifferent. One thing is clear: He doesn’t respect the Raptors at all.

Just look at the disrespect that he showed Serge Ibaka:

LeBron so disrespectful http://pic.twitter.com/3GWsnY6RTy

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) May 4, 2017

That’s a free-throw routine. James spun the ball around like he was about to get some shots up at the YMCA. Ibaka was as focused as he could be, in his stance with his hand up, and James played with the ball like he was about to show his little brother how to shoot a jumper in the backyard. He did that right after he had just made a similar three. Ibaka didn’t come to the United States looking for a chance to play in the NBA and live a better life to be treated so vulgarly. That’s not right.

All that disrespect in Game 2 comes after James pretended to drink a beer in Game 1. He was so relaxed about the outcome of the first game that he had time to entertain J.R. Smith. He’s showing the Raptors the same level of respect that the proverbial lion shows to the sheep. He’s only entertaining the Raptors as a metaphorical idea, rather than a real obstacle in his way.

James’ body might be playing against Toronto, but his mind is thinking about the next season of Game of Thrones. When he’s scoring with ease against Dwane Casey’s men, he doesn’t have the Raptors’ defense on his brain, but whether Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen are related, if they will marry, and how gross that would be.

This disrespect isn’t reserved for this postseason either. Last year, after the Cavaliers beat the Raptors 116-78 in Game 5 of what had been a 2-2 series — the biggest playoff winning margin in Cavaliers history — James said rather plainly that being tied with the Raptors never struck him as an adverse situation:

"I've been a part of some really adverse situations ... and I just didn't believe that this was one of them," James said.

“But from the very moment that we lost Game 4, I was just very calm about the whole situation, seeing the good that we can prepare and get better for Game 5, instead of looking at all the bad that we did. Just mentally, just having these guys focus, and they answered the call.”

The disregard is so mean because the Raptors, for the last few years, have been the team that was supposed to dethrone LeBron James in the Eastern Conference. They were the liberators who would take down the tyrant king. And each time James hasn’t just beaten them, he’s done it with the attitude of a man who is annoyed at the fact that he has to answer work email on his day off. The Raptors are the supposed challengers to his dominance, and he’s swatting them away with the casual boredom of a scientist who is tired of explaining that velociraptors were the size of turkeys and had feathers.

The sad part is that James has no reason to even give the Raptors his full attention. Toronto is playing like a team that is just happy to be invited to the playoffs. Its defense has been torn to shreds. Kyle Lowry is fighting ankle pain, and DeMar DeRozan is too busy shooting the ball at some mystical basket that only he can see. Hopefully DeRozan’s bad shots gain him favor in the other world where his shots are going in, because in this reality he’s just validating James’ flippancy.

On top of this disrespect by one of the greatest players of all time is the fact that the best Raptors team ever is on pace to be swept by the Cavaliers. Toronto spent years building a complete team — making trades, developing players, and signing big free agents — and now it’s about to be ushered out of the playoffs by a team led by a man who is more concerned with the flat-world theory than whatever defense is supposed to stop him. Life shouldn’t be that rough.

Maybe the Raptors will rediscover themselves and give James a close game — if not to win, then to at least refocus his attention back on the fact that he is playing against real people with real dreams, hopes, and families.

The Cavaliers will likely make light work of the Raptors, who should probably give up the pipe dream that they can beat a LeBron James team. Instead, they need to try to catch James’ eye, to make him notice them — because right now, he’s probably somewhere watching The Good Dinosaur and drying a single tear rather than studying film of the Raptors.