#record was also there but it's funnier to say it was his fault

[moonsidesong]

i've been steadily losing followers on instagram since i started object posting and that's. Fine im basically only still there to keep contact with a few old irls and mutuals but losing a couple followers per post isn't as funny as that one time in jan2023 where i posted one picture of tissues burner and lost like 30 followers in one go

[gay-dorito-dust]

Imagine Bill/Stanford x a clumsy reader who is constantly getting injured or stumbling and bumping into something.

Going on a long hike? Reader falls and busts their fuckin knee. Walking by the fridge after grabbing a snack? Slips over a puddle of water and breaks their wrist.

I'm genuinely curious as to how they would respond separately, constantly having to deal with reader's shit.

Love your content, by the way. Keep up the good work! :D 💗

Bill cipher

Finds it funny, after all pain is hilarious to him but it’s made even more funnier if someone else is doing it to themselves.

Don’t expect him to help you in any way shape or form, he’s like one of those friends who’ll laugh as you fall down the stairs before ever thinking of helping you back up.

But in this instance he just leaves you in pain and gets all bothered when you’re all healed up again, claiming that you’re not as fun as you are when you’re injured. So I’d watch your step for the next couple of days for banana peels or anything that could cause you physical harm.

You’re his very own version of you’ve been framed with how often you managed to end up hurting yourself over near enough everything, so much so that he just develops a sixth sense when you’re about to hurt yourself and appears just in time to whiteness it with some deer teeth.

Needless to say Bill will find your sprained ankles, busted kneecaps and broken arms hilarious and might even record his favourite ones to look back on when he’s bored to reminisce over the good times. (I don’t know what else you expect of me for him. It’s bill cipher, he’s the least helpful dude in existence)

Stanford Pines

Poor guy had gotten more and more grey hairs because of how accident prone you are. He would like you very much in one piece thank you very much.

Also he’s got good reflexes for a man of his age and would most likely be able to catch you by the arm or the waist before you even fall or trip while asking if you were okay with the most concerned look upon his face.

He’ll gladly let you use him as crutch when you’ve tripped and busted your knee or sprained your ankle, anything that he could do to make sure that you were in less pain then you already were, Ford will do it in a heartbeat in hopes that he’d never have to do this again. Only to later come to terms that he was with the most clumsiest person in all of Gravity Falls, and that he would be used as your personal crutch constantly.

After a couple more accidents and Ford is already carrying a makeshift first aid kit and had done intensive research on all he needed to deal with things like bruises, cuts and sprains just for you. However he’ll always try to move you away from any and all potential hazards, only for him to look back at you to see that you’ve somehow managed to trip on thin air and bruise your chin.

You’re lucky this man loves you dearly because you had proven yourself to be a handful at some cases, but Ford knew it wasn’t your fault and would never make it out to be your fault in the slightest. And yet the temptation to baby proof everything -especially the lab- was strong within him, but would rather keep an eye on you himself to make sure you somehow didn’t hurt yourself on the corner of a table or counter.

He only knew you would because you did bump into the corner of a table once and tried to hide it from him, but he knew you better then most and immediately gets an ice pack for your bruise. At this point you being accident prone was about as normal as waking up to being covered in Mabel’s stickers or almost tripping over Waddles because he was sleeping nearby.

Yes you once tripped over waddles because he was sleeping near your bed once, did you hurt yourself? Obviously. Did Ford have to take care of you? Of course he did but he didn’t mind taking care of you now and then as you did the exact same whenever he got himself hurt. You weren’t aloud in certain places without Ford because there was too much where you could hurt yourself on, that and Ford didn’t feel like having a heart attack every five seconds you came even remotely close to injuring yourself. Again.

He kisses your bruises and cuts. Fight me I’m in a soft mood.

[sesamestreep]

Sam/Bucky, 29

29. It’s 2am and I’m cursing your name (from this prompt list) more gbbo AU shenanigans, as per usual. with permission from the bake off queen herself! Set pre-all stars season by a few years 🩷

“You know what, Buck? This is all your fault.”

Bucky lifts his gaze from the digital readout on the kitchen scale to look at Sam, who is doing a fairly impressive job of looking stern for someone who also has powdered sugar on the tip of his ear. He assumes Sam doesn’t know that last part, though, and he decides it’s funnier if he doesn’t tell him.

“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” Bucky says, tiredly, “just that you’re going to have to be more specific.”

Natasha makes an soft, amused snorting sound from Sam’s other side but doesn’t look away from the recipe she’s been staring at for the past ten minutes. She’s got her hair piled on her head and secured with an enormous claw clip and she’s making the sort of face she normally reserves for when she encounters one of the few languages she doesn’t speak a word of, but she is also tapping her foot and mumbling along to the B-52s song that is playing softly out of a bluetooth speaker (a concession to the fact that everyone else in the house is asleep and also that Sam regards baking in silence as a weird form of punishment), so she must not be in the worst mood.

“‘It’ll be fine, Sam,’” Sam says, in what Bucky guesses is probably supposed to be an impression of his voice. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t sound like Joe Pesci in real life, but he does try to avoid hearing recordings of himself talking, so it’s hard to be completely certain. “‘We’ll just bake our cakes for the wedding AFTER the rehearsal dinner!’”

“You said it was a good idea!”

“Yeah, that was one-month-ago-Sam! He didn’t have to get to the airport at 5 this morning! He’s not still up at 2 in the morning with your dumb ass, either!”

Natasha mutters something under her breath in Russian that Bucky refuses to acknowledge because he does not want to translate it for Sam.

Instead, he says, “Okay, yes, this is stressful now, but it’s all going to be worth it tomorrow—”

“Today,” Natasha interrupts.

“Not helping,” Bucky replies. “It will all be worth it when we surprise Steve and Peggy with everyone’s cakes at the wedding tomorrow.”

“Today,” both Natasha and Sam correct him, and none too gently either.

“Whatever,” Bucky grumbles. He takes a deep breath in through his nose and then releases it slowly. He tries adopting a sweeter tone with obvious effort. “Is there something I can help you with, Sam? Anything I can do to be of service? To atone for this terrible idea of mine?”

Sam looks suspicious at first—or maybe just aware that he’s being placated—but he also can’t seem to fully fight off the smile that eventually takes over his face. He shakes his head, still smiling, and says, “Just get me some more butter from the fridge, will you?”

“Yep. Absolutely. Wait, how much?” Without waiting for an answer, Bucky steps closer to peer at the recipe over Sam’s shoulder. The same shoulder that, naturally, collides with his own as Sam steps back to show him the recipe. This leaves them in a weird sort of prom picture pose as they look at the iPad together and Bucky doesn’t have to look at Natasha to know she’s smirking at them.

“Damn, is there enough butter in this thing, Sam?” he asks, just because he needs something to do besides think about how broad Sam’s shoulders are or how good he smells (even accounting for the fact that they all smell like sugar and vanilla right now).

“Fuck off, man,” Sam says, shoving him lightly. “I thought we were cool for a second there.”

The absolute last thing Bucky feels right now is cool, which is why it’s good that he’s about to stick his head in a fridge and look around for ingredients. It will give him time to calm down, and also avoid looking at Natasha for even longer.

“I’m just saying, I’d like Steve and Peggy to make it to their honeymoon without, like, any heart attacks or anything like that.”

“You’re back on my shit list now,” Sam replies, not even looking at him. “Natasha, remember this day!”

“Oh, I imagine I’ll have trouble forgetting it, Sam,” she says, coolly, as she moves to rinse some fruit in the sink.

Bucky does as he was told, then, with the attention off of him, and searches for more butter in the fridge, feeling both relieved that he and Sam are back to their usual bickering and oddly disappointed to be out of Sam’s good graces so quickly, even if it is mostly them joking around. One of these days, he vows, he’ll figure out how to feel normal about Sam Wilson. Just maybe not tonight.

[fate-tumbles]

Also putting this here because you said you wouldn't read it and I have so many things I want to say to you out loud but I can't so the internet is as loud as I can get without saying anything to you directly.

If you do read any of this, know that you do it knowing full well that you told me that you will refuse to participate or be in any of my work or my art moving forward especially If it had to do with recording you.

Because people would understand why you were also confused as to why I didn't see who you really were?

Because I can clock every humans, passions, insecurities, fears and loves and indifference most, within 5 minutes of meeting them because I can repeat people like a book.

And people are transparent like atoms so it either feels like light reading or an audiobook iTune out of.

You hardly know it's there. But it's buzzing in your ear telling you these horrible stories anyways. But also saying how much you love these horrible stories and that's why you're sharing them because you are a horror fan bitch and you know it. And that will get you through the next little while and make you even funnier to yourself. Because you always know how to pull back on references and do callbacks.

It's not your fault. You're big. Picture is a magic eye photo made of tiny little things. Where are you supposed to squint and look at a certain wind? Make really stupid faces to figure it out. But it's still fun and you end up laughing cuz once you do figure it out you realize how cool it is.

My brother made fun of me for not doing it when I was around 6 years old. Because it was something my dad and him enjoyed doing together so much, and he always act like he enjoyed keeping that secret relationship and treat with my dad which really bothered me.

He would also tell me that my mom wasn't my own mom and was only his mom and it would make me cry so hard that I would scream and turn around and we used to laugh at it when we got older but.

Just like every nanosecond has context. Even if you can't see it, I can. And when I'm calling you out it's not because I care about you, but more because I care about you enough to tell the truth. And for the people who I don't talk to, that should be your answer right there.

I'm showing off how much I can write here if I'm inspired, and I'm actually looking forward to moving on to something else cuz I have so many other things I want to think about before this happened.

Adios

[theminecraftbee]

second :sob: can you explain the doc and joe thing i'm so lost. my only knowledge of it is from a few posts/tweet screenshots. i immediately thought it was a bit, why do i keep seeing people taking it so seriously? or talking about people taking it seriously?

-quara

don't worry too much about 'people are taking it seriously' from what i understand that was comment sections and 'doc's twitter following takes things too seriously sometimes'. the chain of events goes like this (and is, you know what, very funny and the most joe of chains of events):

doc and xisuma go through the trouble of returning a shulker from the end to the overworld. on getting it home, they leave it in a glass box at spawn.

joe streams. he sees the shulker in the glass box at spawn. he asks if it belongs to anyone, but only cub and jevin are online, and cub, naturally, goes "nah you should absolutely take it", he's cub. he sees that the shulker isn't labeled and goes "well unlabeled mobs are free for the taking"

so he moves it into his haunted house. it is named mimic now. mimic is adorable. we will protect mimic. note that this went RIDICULOUSLY smoothly and that joe still, at this point, has no idea how hard it is to move shulkers normally.

joe leaves a note in a shulker box that's like "here's the coordinates of your guy, i rescued this poor abandoned shulker"

also i'd like to note he like, started the episode by saying he wanted to get a gift for xisuma, which makes stealing that shulker even funnier.

a day and a half passes. doc wakes up in a cold sweat at 4 am and realizes that he hadn't actually healed the shulker. (oh my god there are SO many ways that could have gone horribly wrong back at joe's by the way so this is very funny to me.) he logs on.

he sees that joe has stolen it.

he starts grandstanding on twitter, as doc is wont to do. (for the record this was still definitely a bit, if he were actually GENUINELY upset he would have said something privately.) joe responds with basically "well i'm playing pinball right now so".

fanbases, as fanbases tend to do, prepare. i fully admit i was hoping for a joe/doc confrontation because i personally think that would be extremely funny.

however, presumably behind the scenes, doc and/or xisuma explains to joe just how much of a pain in the ass shulkers are.

joe records another episode in record time where he goes "well, i made a mistake, i'm going to heal mimic and return mimic safely to the glass box". tone of the episode makes it clear that joe didn't know it was a big deal and that it kinda did need to get returned. hence some of the confusion i think.

this ALSO manages to go smoother than any shulker transfer i've seen in my life. joe how did you get so lucky with this.

box is returned. the greatest gift of all - and also literally the only thing doc has the capacity to destroy of joe's given that joe can lose everything and go "meh" and move on - is friendship.

cue adorable lesson.

the moral of this story is that mimic the shulker deserves the world i think, and also that a joe/doc prank war would be really funny but alas, was not to be this time.

...also that, while i'm preaching to the choir here, respective fanbases like, come on now, it was a bit.

oh yeah also that cub absolutely would start the trojan war for funsies because that was at least partially his fault,

there's your events!

[littlebigmouse]

Theories about Martin, based on, like, two off-hand mentions about him from Jon. So Jon called him incompetent, and seems to be annoyed by his general existence. This leads me to the following theories:

Martin is genuinely incompetent at his job. That doesn't say anything about any other competencies he might have that could turn out to be useful when he actually does show up, but for whatever reason, he is objectively unfit to work at the archives

Martin is "incompetent" at his job, but only to a degree that Jon would consider him so. As in, maybe he tends to believe the people who make their statements and show himself to be agreeable and sympathetic, something that chronically sarcastic sceptic Jon doesn't like on principle

The fact that Jon kind of goes out of his way to be petty towards Martin (maybe don't record sarcastic comments about your coworkers into official work statements, asshole) makes me consider that Martin could be, to a degree, incredibly sassy, at least towards Jon. Because if he isn't, if he for example is JUST a soft sweetheart, that would make Jon just kind of a mean asshole. If however, Martin is generally nice to people, but then dishes Jon as much as he receives, that's a *dynamic*. I don't think Jon has the best... social interaction skills (based on the fact that he spends his days sitting in a basement doing dramatic voices by himself, occasionally dissing people who've been dead 30 years), so a guy who gets along well with all the other coworkers but has a completely different outlook on life (/the supernatural) and can also dish out as good as he receives would be absolutely able to drive Jon insance.

Given that Jon mentioned how pissed Sascha was that she wasn't promoted, I assume any sort of 'upstart'/'career driven' role would rather fall towards her. Which leads me to believe Martin doesn't have his job despite his incompetence/because he's one of these 'unqualified white guys who somehow keep their job just by talking' (who are then often arrogant and rivals in an office setting). I think that would have been introduced differently, but maybe it could still crop up if Sascha would get passed over for a promotion again which Martin would get despite Jon (and others?) agreeing that he isn't qualified enough. That could still be a plot point, I suppose. Alas, I do think it's funnier if Martin was just genuinely a nice guy that happens to drive Jon insane through very little fault of his own because tbh that's a dynamic I dig lol

[fabricated-misslieness]

Miles Morales x artistic!villain!male reader

Alright, this might not be the typical villain reader fic you’re expecting. It will probably not be. I would love to write an exposition of this, like starting to date, but I really love this prompt and I find it funny.

Pre-established relationship

Reader is a traditional artist and enjoys classical music. His whole villain thing is acting like a 19th century british gentleman.

Requested: Yes

Word Count: 819

Warnings: suggestive kisses

Miles shifted in your arms to look up at you.

You raised an eyebrow in confusion, as he seemed to be sleeping before. While you didn’t hear his usual obnoxiously loud snoring, you assumed it was muffled by your chest. “Weren’t you sleeping?”

“No, I was thinking.” Miles replied. Something seemed to be off. He didn’t have much of a smile on his face and his eyebrows were knitted together.

You close your book and put it aside so you can focus on him. “Something--”

You’re interrupted by Miles, who grins brightly, “..about that one time you were laughing maniacally and then I knocked you out with one kick!”

You groan at the trick he’d pulled on you, and also the memory. “Really, Miles?” To be fair, he got bitten by a radioactive spider that gave him super-strength. That seems a bit unfair, doesn’t it?

“I’m sorry!” Miles laughs, “It was just so funny!” He wipes a joyful tear from his eye. “I hit you once and you--”

“Nuh-uh, Miles.” You stop him before he can embarrass you with that story further, but there are plenty more stories that would embarrass you, which Miles uses often.

“Do you remember that one time where you thought you were being real sneaky and--”

“Miles…” You only say his name, but you say it like a threat, telling him that if he continues there will be consequences.

However, these are consequences Miles is willing to take because what’s funnier than the stories is how embarrassed you get. “.. and I snuck up behind you and scared you.” He’d really scared the crap out of you in that moment. Your heart was already racing and then you just suddenly heard a sound.

Before you can say anything, he continues on with another one. “Oh! And that one time Scorpion was dragging you by the ear!”

It’s not your fault his super-powers also include super-strength. “I hate working for those six whatever guys.” You groan.

“Lemme guess, you prefer riding solo?” You roll your eyes at Miles’s comment.

“Yes,” As much as you wanted to deny it because of the way he phrased it, he was right. “now can you leave me in peace? This book isn’t finishing itself.” You gesture towards the coffee table.

“So you want me to leave?” Miles raises a playful eyebrow.

“No,” He laughs when he feels your arms tighten around him. “Just, stop talking or something.”

“You just told your beloved to shut up.” He expects you to either deny it or apologize, but it seems he’d dug into your nerves.

“I told you to shut up politely.”

“Like ‘stop talking’ is polite. Tell you what, I’ll shut up if you give me music control.” Up until then, your music had been playing. Who had control of the music switched every now and then. You’d developed a turn system over the months since your styles were very different.

He liked hip-hop, pop, all that stuff that never comes to your mind. You, on the other hand, liked classical pieces and old records you could slow dance to like cheesy old married couples. You think back to the first time you’d ever slow danced together. It was in your bedroom, the very first time he’d visited your house.

He sucked, it was as if he had two left feet.

You shake the memory off. “You expect me to read to hip hop?”

Miles shrugs, “You can’t?”

“I mean, I might be able to..” You pretend to think, tapping the top of your head. “What if you sweeten the deal?” You trail your hand up and down his side. The rhythmic movement sends shivers down his spine.

“Hmm, trying to barter with me?” He pretends to think as well. “I don’t know, what do you have in mind?”

“Free kiss pass, no matter where you are? Graffiti dedicated to me? I don’t know, darling.” You stroke his hair as you think, genuinely this time. “Hmm, I think I got something. How about you finally let me paint a portrait of you?”

“What? No… maybe. Maybe yes, maybe no. Who knows?” At first, he denied it only because he’d be embarrassed at the thought of you having a portrait of him. Over time he thought it was fine, but he decided to keep denying it as an inside joke.

“Plead all you want, but I won’t--” You cut him off with a kiss on the lips.

“C’mon darling.” You coax him with your seductive voice. He couldn’t resist it, it always helped you get something from him, apart from the portrait, of course.

It’s rough, which makes him let out an embarrassing moan from the surprise.

“Will that persuade you?”

He stares up at you with a cheeky grin, “I dunno, maybe another kiss will help?”

Needless to say, the deal was sealed and Miles got his favorite music genre to play.

[sincerelystranger]

author: the high school track&field AU that no one asked for

---

Lan Zhan likes to run.

He likes the simplicity of it. He likes the control.

From the depth of his breath to the length of his stride – whether he wins or loses, it’s really up to him and him alone.

Lan Zhan likes that.

He watches the track as he slows down from his cool down.

If pressed, Lan Zhan would admit that he likes the natural terrain of cross country over the strange rubber of the track, but he’s beginning to find that track has certain other appeals.

It’s fun to watch the other athletes, for one.

His brother on the pole vault, for example. The calm focus in his eyes as he runs. The graceful arc of his body as he flies above the bar. The split second of pure ecstasy that Lan Zhan can see on his brother’s face when he knows he’s made the jump – Lan Zhan never knew his brother could make that sort of expression. It makes him wonder what else he doesn’t know about his brother.

It’s fun to watch the sprinters as well. Everyone running on the track are called runners, but the type of running the sprinters do is foreign to Lan Zhan.

For Lan Zhan, running is like water. There’s rhythm – a smoothness – to it. For Lan Zhan, running is something to get lost in.

Not for the sprinters though. There is something violent about the way they run. The way the shoot out from the start and torpedo through the finish. There’s no time to get lost.

If Lan Zhan’s way of running is about holding onto control, sprinting is about losing it.

Lan Zhan watches Jiang Cheng tear down the track.

Jiang Cheng is the fastest sprinter in their school – probably in their entire prefecture actually. He holds the school records in the 100m and 200m and if sprinting if violence, there is no one more destructive than Jiang Cheng.

Lan Zhan’s a bit disgusted by it, really, if he thinks about it. Sometimes, he wonders why Jiang Cheng runs at all. As Lan Zhan sees it, there’s no joy in Jiang Cheng’s running. Even when he wins he seems dissatisfied.

So the mysteries of the track – the joy it brings his brother and the obvious dissatisfaction it brings Jiang Cheng – they are all part of the appeal that Lan Zhan is beginning to find.

The biggest mystery though…

The one Lan Zhan would never admit wondering about, even if pressed…

Lan Zhan squats down and stretches one leg forward. He tilts his head slightly towards his shoulder. From this angle, he can see his biggest mystery from the corner of his eye.

Wei Ying.

The boys’ cross country coach spent all of second year trying to convince Wei Ying to join the cross country team to no avail. Wei Ying said that long runs bore him.

Aside from Jiang Cheng, Wei Ying holds the fastest 100m and 200m times, but anything longer than 200m Jiang Cheng can’t even compete. (Sometimes Lan Zhan thinks that maybe that that’s why Jiang Cheng is always so dissatisfied.)

Lan Zhan knows Wei Ying doesn’t even like the sprints – he won’t run them unless someone is injured.

Wei Ying likes to run the 800m the best, and his time is so fast that the Olympic team recruits often come watch him.

Lan Zhan always likes to watch Wei Ying cross the finish line. He’ll come to the meet hours ahead of his race time just to watch Wei Ying.

Wei Ying sails through the end, the other runners far behind him, and when he crosses the finish, he always lets his arms swing back a little as he glides through.

It’s… beautiful.

If Lan Zhan was a little more stupid, he might admit that Wei Wuxian almost looks like he has wings in that moment. (He might admit that Wei Wuxian looks a little angelic - but he’s not stupid).

Lan Zhan knows more about Wei Wuxian than he’s comfortable admitting to, and it doesn’t help that Wei Wuxian probably only barely knows Lan Zhan even exists.

It doesn’t matter… Lan Zhan wouldn’t know what to do if Wei Wuxian noticed him anyway.  

He brings his leg back in and turns to stretch the other side. He turns his head and keeps looking at Wei Wuxian from the corner of his eye.

Wei Wuxian is laughing brightly. Talking and laughing with the other mid-range runners.

He’s always surrounded by people. Always bright and happy and having fun… and that’s why he’s Lan Zhan’s biggest mystery.

Because the way Wei Wuxian runs is very…

Lonely.

Wei Wuxian’s steps are light and his strides are long and his breathing is always under control. But he doesn’t seem lost like Lan Zhan.

Or…

Maybe he’s lost, but he’s lost in a different way than Lan Zhan.

Running is a quiet place for Lan Zhan. An easy question with an easy answer. The one place Lan Zhan can’t be found lacking in effort or ambition or any other strange standard his uncle’s set for him.

It doesn’t seem to be a quiet place for Wei Ying.

Maybe Lan Zhan doesn’t know as much as he thinks he knows about Wei Ying, or maybe he’s seeing things that aren’t there, but when Lan Zhan watches Wei Ying run…

It looks like he’s searching for something.

(As beautiful as Wei Ying is when he crosses the finish line, he doesn’t smile when he wins either.)

Lan Zhan stands as Wei Ying walks past him.

He knows it’s silly, but he feels himself hold his breath a little – stand a little bit straighter. He does his best not to let his eyes follow Wei Ying as he walks past.

He would be mortified if Wei Ying found out that Lan Zhan paid him any attention at all.

Lan Zhan stays that way for a few seconds as Wei Ying walks farther and farther away from him. The shoulder that Wei Ying walked past feels a little bit hotter than the rest of his body. There’s a strange tingling in his back at the thought that maybe Wei Ying might have looked back at him.

He feels foolish, but also strangely satisfied with himself. It feels like a little achievement that he’s gone another day without letting Wei Ying know that Lan Zhan... knows anything about him at all.

It’s maybe creepy and strange but hiding his creepy and strangeness feels like an achievement so Lan Zhan decides to be satisfied with that.

He starts walking towards the bleachers to wait for his brother to finish practice, when he feels a hand on his shoulder.

“Lan Zhan!”

Lan Zhan turns, quickly brushing the hand off his shoulder before looking at the face of his assailant.

He knows it’s not possible, but his heart feels like its stopped in his chest.

“Ow,” Wei Ying says shaking the hand that Lan Zhan slapped away. “No – don’t apologize. It’s my fault, I surprised you.”

Lan Zhan hadn’t made any movement or sound close to an apology at all but…

“It’s Lan Zhan, right?” Wei Ying asks, his brows furrowing at Lan Zhan’s continued silence.

“Mn,” Lan Zhan finally says with a nod. He feels a little bit panicked. He feels like maybe Wei Ying read his mind and came to ask him to stop stalking him so much. He feels like if he gives any more information Wei Ying might find out everything and…!!!

“I’m Wei Ying!” Wei Ying says brightly, uselessly - because could there be anyone in the entire school that could possibly not know him? – “We’re actually in the same year, but I’m in class 3.”

Lan Zhan just nods again, because this still feels dangerous and he doesn’t want to give any more information than he has to.

Wei Ying doesn’t seem at all put off by Lan Zhan’s continued silence. “Me and some of the other guys on the team were going to go to the pool hall to hang out after – I just wanted to see if you would want to come with us.”

It’s too much.

It’s really too much.

Wei Ying knowing his name is too much. Wei Ying saying his name is too much. Wei Ying inviting him out is too much.

Lan Zhan really…

Lan Zhan takes a step back. “Mid-term exams are next week and the pool hall is an improper place for runners to… hang out at… there’s too much smoke.”

Wei Ying’s eyes go a little big and round at Lan Zhan’s answer.

Lan Zhan wants to hide in a hole. He feels like the biggest loser in the world and oh gods, Wei Ying is going to think he’s the biggest xueba in the planet. Wei Ying is probably regretting even trying to talk to Lan Zhan. He probably regrets even knowing Lan Zhan’s name. Oh gods…

Wei Ying is quiet for a few seconds…

And then suddenly…

He breaks out in a huge smile and he… laughs…

Lan Zhan feels embarrassment crash over him in waves. He moves to walk past Wei Ying. He doesn’t want to be laughed at – even if the person laughing at him is beautiful and fast and…

“Oh please don’t get it wrong,” Wei Ying says, quickly grabbing Lan Zhan’s wrist so he can’t walk any further. His words are still decorated with laughter. As much as Lan Zhan hates it, he can’t help but find it… charming. “I’m not laughing at you – promise. I’m not!”

Lan Zhan doesn’t move. He doesn’t make any noise. He looks at Wei Ying’s face out from the corner of his eye and he finds that Wei Ying’s face is open and honest…

“I didn’t… say anything funny,” Lan Zhan says.

“Yeah,” Wei Ying agrees warmly, “But it was funnier because I knew you didn’t mean to be funny.”

The waves of embarrassment ebb a bit.

“What was so funny?” Lan Zhan asks.

Wei Ying scrunches his nose a little, as he shrugs his shoulder to one side. “I can’t really explain it,” he says, “It’s just funny to hear someone my age saying that something is improper.”

Lan Zhan tries (and fails) not to stare at the way Wei Ying’s nose scrunches. It’s cuter than Lan Zhan ever imagined and Lan Zhan wants to… save it to his memory…

He shakes his head a little to clear his mind and he pulls his hand away from Wei Ying’s.

“That’s… boring,” Lan Zhan says.

Wei Ying smiles widely again. His eyes are prettier up close, Lan Zhan thinks. “I’ll find something fun next time,” Wei Ying says, “I’ll find a proper place to hang out so you have to hang out with me then, okay?”

He’s off before Lan Zhan can even respond.

Lan Zhan watches him as he runs towards his waiting group of friends. He feels little bit like he might’ve been run over by a truck. He feels more tired from this short interaction than he did from his practice.

He watches Wei Ying runs through the exit and out of the track.

Wei Ying crosses the threshold like it’s a finish line.

Both his arms swing back a little, his head tilts up slightly.

Lan Zhan knows it’s not possible, but his heart stops in his chest.

[dreamii-yume]

I'm not the anon who come up with this Singing curse Au but how about more content of it? When you get no ideal from hornii or soft, a bit of chaos shegnanigant will do the trick. Can you write more about that Au? Focus on some other writing helped me come up with the actual writing ideal I want to write, maybe Yume can try that....? 😳👉👈

@coffee-or-hot-cocoa said

“lol saw the random singing curse au. So how about instead of disney songs mc/darling sings meme songs? lol like if darling visits pomefiore she sings fashion, etc. so thoughts? and bonus points the curse was just a potions accident due to grim doing something wrong.”

•••••

Aight, I’ll take you on that advice Darling! I’ll write more about this AU, since I really find it funny just imagining them lol Cay-kun’s birthday is tomorrow anyways so, it’s fine if I slack off a bit, yeah~?

Meme songs, huh? Now, we’re talking in Yume’s language lol Beware of the cringe beyond this as this contains dead memes probably!

God, this is even funnier and more chaotic if it was Grim’s fault that got Darling in this mess in the first place. Aside from the embarrassment that you would inevitably suffer right after, this random singing curse of yours doesn’t seem to be too bad especially when you get to see the interesting reactions you get from others. Though, most of the times it’s just pure confusion on their faces as they don’t have a single clue on what the hell you’re singing, since it never existed in their world.

“SomeBODY once told me—“ Darling started, slamming a random door open with a wide smile on your face and successfully startling a few students half to death nearby. The Scarabia duo passing by and Kalim being obliviously glad at how energetic you seemed. Jamil had to look away as he snorted, seeing how the students cower away with tails between their legs was golden.

Ace and Deuce being used to Darling’s curse at this point that they basically just adapted to it. “Ah.” The rest of the first years wondered what was that single “Ah.” and Adeuce confirmingthat it was indeed considered a “song” from your world. You explained how it was uttered out by a certain 2D shark girl and people basically went crazy for it. “Yeah, we don’t get it either.” The duo gave up understanding your worlds’ “culture” eventually.

That said, the other students would be lying if they said that they don’t find this strange songs of yours catchy though.

“So, what kind of look do you wanna go for?” Imagine Vil in a good mood and decided to do Darling’s make up. You smile and said nothing, you can feel the urge to sing right on the tip of your tongue but you didn’t know what ridiculous meme song would come out of your mouth. Opening your mouth meant breaking into a song once again as it might disrupt the guy’s mood. “Hm? What’s wrong? Honey, you look like you want to say something. Go ahead, I’m feeling nice today, you see.”

His kind chuckle did not help at all and alas, you slightly opened your mouth and— “Maybe I’ll be Tracer.” “What?” You gulped with a nervous grin. “...I’m already Tracer...”

It’s worse in Halloween. “Spooky, spooky skeletons~” The Heartslabyul students are looking at you funny, but since you were singing it in such a cutesy way, they just assumed that you wanted a candy in return. “Sends shivers down your spine~” Trey filled your whole bag.

I’d also like to add that the curse does not only affect the way you talk but it also plagues your mind as well. The others looks so concerned every time you space out as even if they call out to you as loud as they can, the noise in your head wouldn’t let you hear them. They claimed that you look so serious sometimes, like you’re thinking of something deep but in reality all you were hearing was the constant replay of the Wii Theme and Undertale Soundtracks.

“Se~ no~” Skipping in the hallways, Idia hides behind a wall as he was practically lead astay to this beat you sing. He just finds it so cute! The way you swing your hips really made him imagine you like those idols performing before thousands of fans like him. He wonders if you’ll accept if a creepy otaku like him asks you to wear an idol outfit and sang that song for him in private. Idia finds himself humming and dancing slightly to your song until Cater comes in and giving him a heart attack that costs him ten years of his lifespan.

You said you wanted to try and bake for everyone, so you thought it was better to borrow the Heartslabyul kitchen. “I’m a muffin, and this is muffin time~” Coincidentally, the Heartslabyul squad passed by at the door and thought that the melody sounded cute. Without you knowing, they were peaking right by the door. Cater recording a video while Ace snickers at how girly you can be sometimes with pink cheeks. Riddle, Trey, and Deuce having the same fantasy of seeing you as a housewife baking sweets for her family to munch on. “Who wants a muffin~?”

You did a graceful spin while elegantly putting the tray inside the oven, crouching over. “Please, I just wanna die~” Upon setting the desired temperature, you spun into a small little dance. Cater almost dropped his phone. “Hey, somebody kill me~”

“Please, it’s muffin time~☆”

Needless to say, the Heartslabyul squad bursts in like undercover agents and concerned questions were frantically asked. You wanted to bake, but got a strict therapy session with Riddle and Trey instead. Ace, Deuce, and Cater blocks your exit and you were forced to stay in that room for the next three hours.

Of course. Of course. Cursed or not, your immature ass could not pass up the opportunity.

“We’re no strangers to love.”

“Child of man, what—“

“You know the rules and so do I.”

Might as well commit to it the curse then.

WHVSJXBSKW Yume is such a bitch normie lol I really listed off all the meme songs I know and picked what I can do (((o(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)o)))♡ Sorry for the cringe and dead memes lol I had more memes I wanted to put in but the cringe might be too much

I had so much fun with this one, you were right Darling! This made my head grasp reality better~! Thanks! (๑>◡<๑)

[nyxravessnow]

Rambly Patalliro stage review

Stage Patalliro 2021 Foggy London Airport Arc Review

Today I finally managed to see the delays of the first and last day of the new 2021 Patalliro stage.

Overall, I will rate this show as a 9 out of 10.

I don't know if I'm giddy just because I watched the show today and have been really looking forward to it, and especially since I didn't enjoy the last 2.5D show I was looking forward to I might be projecting a bit onto this show. But I did enjoy every second of this show and can’t wait to buy the dvd.

While there were things, I was very nervous about for this show, I was also very excited as a lot of actors I really love are in the show.

 I just wanna say anything I say about negative fan reaction is of course not most fans. Most fans stayed quiet and just did what they wanted, I’m just talking about a few fans whose comments I have seen floating about. 

I was very nervous about the hostility to the new cast which I felt was unwarranted. Obviously, this wasn’t from most fans but was just from a very small amount of them. Hostility to the company and how they handled the graduation of the previous cost and the handling of the bringing in of the new cast is completely justified. However, this new cast is full of people who truly love the show and were very excited to be in it and no one had seen them on stage as those characters and so I feel like hostility towards them was undue.

The main reason this made me nervous was that I was worried if the show was bad the director and the company would not be the ones blamed but the actors who merely were doing their best in roles they were cast in. 

I am so glad to say that I believe the show was fantastic. I believe that they lived up to the legacy of the previous cast and have started a good new tradition for their next shows and any cast that follows them.

One thing that really shocked me but also spoke to me about how this show most likely wouldn’t have happened without a new cast, was Kato Ryo Crying out of happiness on the final day of the show. Kato Ryo is known for never breaking character and not breaking down on stage which shows how much this show means to him. He was truly happy to be on the stage performing as Patalliro again, and it did seem as if he had also bonded to this new cast as Dai instantly went to give him a hug which he returned. He spoke about how it was amazing they could make it to the final performance as he didn’t think they’d even make it to a first one. I believe it is not too far-fetched to say that he might be referring to the fact that Nelke and the 2.5d association mostly likely said that they would not continue the show with Tsune onboard. As before Kato Ryo said he would only continue the show if the cast didn’t change and that seemed like a serious change.

I have seen comments that Maaya-sensei didn’t like the new cast and that he was completely unaware of the change in casting which I would be very surprised by. 2.5d shows have to sign off for new shows with the creator of the original and also you could see that Maaya-sensei’s family had bonded the new cast greatly. Giving the show a standing ovation and kept waving to the cast on the final night.

I know the re cast is a very difficult topic for people who likes the old cast and don't want to see a new cost, for people who liked the old cast and are willing to see the new cast, for people who didn't see much of the old cast but excited for the new cast or for people who like the new actors coming in and so getting into Patalliro for the first time. 

I believe that as long as you are not attacking anyone your thoughts and feelings are completely valid and if you only liked the show for the previous cast then you have every right to just ignore the new shows and just watch the three amazing instalments from the old cast. You are valid and I hope you have a lovely day/week and hope that this awful situation (covid and the such) isn’t being too bad to you.

 In my opinion if this show was the result of the recast, and that if it hadn't happened we wouldn't have gotten another show, then I'm very glad it happened because I think this show was excellent and another fantastic instalment under the name of Patalliro stage. Under the cut I will include a spoilered review of the stage but before then I just wanted to say some of my basic thoughts for anyone who doesn't want to be spoiled for what is in the show.

 Acting: All the acting was fantastic. There wasn't a single actor who I wasn't entranced by and I was enthralled and engaged the entire show. I think every actor performed their roles perfectly and to the best of their abilities.

 Singing: Obviously the big stand out for singing in this show was the transgender actress Nakamura Ataru as she was hired for her singing voice, her being a professional singer. However, I think everybody performed extremely well. I continue to be a little frustrated with the use of recorded singing for everybody except for Ataru, as I believe the music they have on it is too loud and it makes it harder to hear a lot of the singers and I also feel it's not necessary to record the songs as all of them are professional actors who can definitely sing on stage. That being said, I fell in love with every single song in the show and thought they were all amazing.

 Directing: I think a lot of very very wise decisions were made about this show. I was worried this show would either reflect too much on the previous cast or just not mention them at all and pretend it didn't happen. Luckily the stage did neither. I will get into more specifics and my spoiler review, but I think they handled it very well with having stuff for new fans, old fans and fans who would be irritated by seeing knew actors continue on jokes that previous actors started. In regards to other sides of the directing, I believe it was same as always, very good for the type of show it is. The comedy was very good but due to only having seen two shows I can't say how much was the directing and how much were the actors just being funny, because this is a very funny cast.

 Casting: I believe every actor in this stage was perfect for their roles. This may be a controversial opinion but after seeing Dai and Yuuya act opposite each other I am very glad that Sana wasn’t brought back. They couldn't continue to have Tsune in the show as 2.5D does not have the kind of reputation yet where they can have an actor who has committed crimes in their shows and back him for if he ever did something again then it could do a lot of damage to the industry. Nelke and the 2.5d association are companies and in order to keep putting on shows and paying actors and all the staff they need money. And to have money, they need a clean reputation, at least while it’s still relatively low in popularity. I do not wish Tsune ill at all, I think he is an excellent actor, and I really hope that he does continue acting but I completely understand why he was not cast in this show again and why that led to a recast of most of the cast. I think that Sana was excellent as Maraich in every way he embodied the character. But having been in quite a few previous shows together Yuuya and Dai already had excellent chemistry, and I think it would have been quite odd to see Sana as Maraich acting opposite a different Bancoran. I can't imagine any actor having better chemistry with Dai’s Maraich than Yuuya’s Bancoran and visa versa. And I really hope that with the end of lockdown and quarantine, and everything calming down a lot in terms of physical contact on stages they will be able to show the bond between their Maraich and Bancoran even more. (They didn’t actually kiss, converse to what I’ve seen some people reporting about how Nelke wanted to pretend everything was fine by making them kiss.)

 Well enough on them, the Tamanegi. I think all of them were completely perfect for their roles and they all handled it with enough seriousness to make the comedy different enough from the past cast and therefore make it their own but also for it to actually be funny. I cannot wait to see this group in more shows together and see how much funnier they can become. My only slight complaint, and it is very slight, is that one of the Tamanegi is 19 years old, therefore underage, and it made me slightly uncomfortable when he took his shirt off. as I am now an adult watching the show. Having not been an adult when I watched the previous two, I do rather approach it with different eyes and that was something that I wasn't very comfortable with but I do understand that everybody isn't me and it would have been a bit strange if only one of them didn't take their top off.

 Other cast members included Damian, the Maaya man and Ataru the ‘singing princess’. Again, all three of them were amazing, I was especially impressed with Shouta as Damien as I believe he carriage the emotion that came with that role excellently. Knowing what kind of personality Shouta has off stage, it still makes it slightly weird for me to see him playing less-good characters but I cannot fault his acting. I will cover the other two cast members in my spoiler review.

 Anything else: I think the staging was excellent, prop work was very good and they obviously worked very hard on this show.

 That will do it for my spoiler free review underneath I will get into a lot more detail on things that I liked, disliked or just wanted to comment on.

 If you're stopping reading here thank you very much for reading and I really recommend if you weren't sure about this cast and weren’t sure how much they'd put into these roles and how much they would love them I can assure you that these roles have been trusted to people who really love this show and are working very hard. If you are considering getting the DVD but aren’t sure, I really recommend that you do get it if you like Patalliro and don’t just want to see only the old cast.

 If you have any more specific questions about the show, I will be happy to answer them so just drop me an ask.

Spoilers under cut (Warning, it is very long)

God, where to even begin. This show was so good. They combined old stage Patalliro, with new directing, a new cast, and a really interesting arc. I'm going to separate my review into story, acting, singing/songs and directing, as well as mentioning some extra stuff that I might think of at the end.

 I will illustrate bits I’m saying with pics but pics cannot do this show justice. And I’ve bolded where I begin each section so it’s more easy to find.

 So first, the story. As someone who doesn't know the exact intricacies of this arc, I do know roughly what happens I just couldn't remember all the specifics, I think the show was set out in a very non confusing way compared to other Patalliro content. They did make the story a lot more linear and wasn’t showing stuff that happened at the same time as other things too much which can sometimes hurt my brain. Even with all the flashbacks and flashforwards I felt it was really easy to keep track of what was happening when. The story had a very clear and defined beginning, middle and end, and I just thought it was very well done.

 Acting, with occasional dips into directing and story when appropriate. As I said before the acting was amazing. I had chills, the entire scene with Damien, Maraich and Bancoran. I think they balanced the comedy and tension very well and didn’t try to undercut all the serious scenes with comedy which is my main complaint with a lot of gag manga/anime/stages. Except during Maraich’s more emotional song where one of the Tamanegi was still wearing bdsm gear which I thought was a bit hmmm. I’m not rly gonna cover Kato Ryo bc he just is Patalliro at this point.

Maraich and Bancoran, despite having very few scenes actually talking to each other, had undeniable chemistry. Dai and Yuuya, sold me on them being a couple immediately with the way they looked at each other and how they held each other. Their final scene before the end together where Maraich lay in a hospital bed and Bancoran was clutching his hand gave me so many emotions (First night he held his hand and final night he kissed him). I was 100% sold on how much they cared about each other, even if they might fight a lot in the end no one will ever love the other more than they do, and I think that that is what makes this couple so special. They have a true unconditional love for each other and they would, quite literally in Maraich’s case, throw themselves on a bomb for the other one.

 Bancoran. I think Yuuya played Bancoran so well. You could see the character maturing before your eyes as we moved from 15 years previously to 12 years previously, to 10 and onwards until the normal time. And you could see the vulnerability he had with Damien and how that was still there but how he truly loved Maraich and that the vulnerability he has with Maraich is different. While Damien didn’t tend to let his guard down around Bancoran, his relationship with Maraich is a lot more give and take and I think he played all of that expertly. I know how much Bancoran cares about Maraich is a lot more vague in the original but I think that was partly as a product of its time and they somewhat had to make some humour out of these two men being in a relationship without flat out making fun of that aspect. So, I am very happy that the stage lets these character’s be in love and despite everything, truly show that they care about each other. Also, he did make me cry a few times when he saw Damien broken, Maraich with Damien as his heart broke seeing that happen to the man he loved but also breaking for the trust he put in a man he had once loved as well in the final scenes where he has clearly decided to kill Damien but is still holding onto a feint hope that maybe, he is not completely lost.

Mariach. Wow, just wow. He was not super present in the beginning, but he was the standout in the show in my opinion. His Maraich was so so different to Sana-chan’s Maraich and yet he was absolutely true to Maraich. He approached Mariach from a very different angle and I am so glad we are lucky enough to get both of them playing Maraich. He seems a lot more mature, like he has definitely been with Bancoran longer. He gives him more trust and isn’t as quick to be jealous as well as very quickly understanding Damien and how important he is to Bancoran, asking Patalliro not to tell him anything until they were sure which is different to how he acted about Bjorn/Andersen in the last show, they are different situations but I do think it represents character growth. He was a lot more aggressive in his fighting and anger though, as shown by his heavy metal solo as opposed to the softer ones of Sana’s. Despite all that he still was clearly in love with Bancoran and still showed his cute side. As well as expressing more deeply about his love for Bancoran with one of the Tamanegi but more on that in the Tamanegi’s bit. The scene with Damien was done so well by everyone involved. They clearly condemned Damien’s actions, showed how disgusting what he did was and created incredible pathos for Maraich while also showing Maraich somewhat unaware of what had happened and during the sex scene with Maraich and Damien, Dai showed Maraich’s desperation to hold on Bancoran and love Bancoran, so well, and it broke my heart.

Damien. I don’t remember too much of Damien from the original but Shouta played him excellently. He showed the progression of this man who loved Bancoran to a man who was willing to throw him away and murder him so well and it was believable despite not seeing almost anything except his interactions with Bancoran or Bancoran/Maraich’s feelings about him. When he held Bancoran at the end, asking why he was fighting so much and why he wanted Damien to kill him, despite Damien obviously being the villain you couldn’t help but feel sympathy for this man despite everything he’d done. (Also I think there is meant to be a parallel between him holding Maraich and him holding Bancoran)

The Maaya man. I thought the actor himself was very good, but I am a bit confused about why he was in the stage. All the Tamanegi played multiple roles, changing costume, and there is only one of him, so I am not too sure what the benefit from having a single Maaya man was but it’s a very small complaint and mainly about logistics rather than show quality. Especially as it certainly didn’t take away anything from the show having him there.

Nakamura Ataru – The singing Princess. Oh. My. Lord. Her voice was phenomenal, and she was gorgeous in every single outfit she was in, reaffirming to me that I am very pan (Not just attracted to the men in the play but also this gorgeous woman. I am not saying I am pan because she is trans). What was a surprise to me is that she was genuinely really funny. In the scenes where she was meant to be funny, I laughed a lot and she definitely has expert comedic timing.

The Tamanegi. I am going to separate a few of them who were reasonably important and group the rest in together.

 So, the ones who did not play major roles in the show were: Emoto Koki, Ookubo Tatsuki, Sagawa Daiki and Hoshi Gouki. They were all very good, played their parts well and I don’t think they could have done better. It was very interesting to see Koki in a bdsm outfit but besides that there wasn’t anything super memorable about these actors’ parts.

Harashina Motohisa. Motohisa played the Black Tamanegi and served as somewhat of a leader for the Tamanegi in their scenes. Given that he was the only 2nd season Tenimyu actor in the cast and was the first name in the list of Tamanegi this was pretty much the role I expected him to play. He was very good, and his high voice was super adorable to hear after not hearing it much from his roles.

Okuda Yumeto. It was very surprising for me to see that Yumeto was the Tamanegi who travelled back into the past with Patalliro to see Bancoran’s past. Not only is he the youngest of the Tamanegi but he was also last on the list of Tamanegi names, I might be putting too much onto that list, but I did think it was gonna be kinda going from highest ranked to lowest and from most importance in the show to lowest. I was kinda right and wrong about that as the four most important were the two first names and two of the three last names. He did get to sing a little in the Bancoran and Damien jazz sex song, more on that later, and I thought what he did was good. 

Nakata Ryouta. (Yes I am saving Tsukasa for last bc I love him). Out of the four he had the smallest role but still had a solo bit in their trio song (trio is the name for a song where 3 people harmonise and have solo bits if you didn’t know, bc lol I didn’t) and was somewhat important to Maraich. I thought he was very good despite it being his first stage show and he had a lovely voice. He and Tsukasa made such a cute couple.

Taguchi Tsukasa. Warning, he is my favourite actor, and I am extremely biased. He was the best actor in the show, no question.

Joking, he didn’t have too much to do so obviously he didn’t shine more than Dai-chan, Yuuya or Shouta for example. He had two scenes with Maraich and while he didn’t do much in the stage overall it was clear how much of an impact his character, Tamanegi no.35, made on Maraich. He confessed to Maraich his love for his fellow Tamanegi, no.19, and spoke of their love and how special they were to each other which was never ridiculed or made fun of but was an exceedingly human moment and as a lgbt person it really touched me. He saw the love Maraich had for Bancoran and he and 19 did everything they could to help him. Without them, Bancoran and maybe Maraich as well, would most likely be dead as they picked Maraich up and brought him to Bancoran as well as getting Plasma X’s armour to protect him. Maraich, so far in the stages, hasn’t really had a friend. He always has just had Patalliro, shown by Patalliro being called in the 2nd stage to help them with their argument despite Maraich not liking Patalliro that much and this Tamanegi offered help to Maraich without judgement, just empathy, and I thought that was really special. I know, due to the nature of this being based on a gag manga and knowing Patalliro, that in the next stage they will likely not get another scene together but I can hope as their second scene with 19, 35 and Maraich might be my favourite scene in all of Patalliro content.

I know Tsukasa is a massive Patalliro fan, in a live he said he went to the previous show between 4-6 times and I have rarely seen him smile as much as he did in the finale of this show. It obviously meant so much to him to be in a show he loved and I’m incredibly happy for him.

  Singing/songs.

 There were 9/11 songs in this show. (9 if you don’t count Cock robin and Foggy London Airport which Ataru only sang a little of on stage but is an album exclusive)

 These were:

 1.      Wow Patalliro

2.      I can’t see your

3.      Maybe we could meet again? – Mata Aeru Kashira

4.      Foggy London Airport

5.      Sexy dudes!

6.      To leak out – Moreru

7.      Kiss me Bancoran

8.      Cock Robin

9.      Don’t overlook me – Misugosenai

10.  My special person - Tokubetsu na hito

11.  Forever Patalliro ~ Grand Finale

 1.      Wow Patalliro

This opening song was such a bop and I don’t think I will ever get it out of my head. It was very different to the previous first songs, much higher tempo and energy which I think was interesting as this show felt slower than the previous two shows which I thought was interesting. Shouta, Damien’s actor, was having so much fun dancing around in the bg and it was adorable.

2.      I can’t see your

God Ataru’s voice. Her voice was gorgeous in this song. This was my favourite of the 3/4 songs she sang and this is from a person who doesn’t usually like ballads. The contrast between the fast pace of the first song and the slow pace of the 2nd song was so well done. And it was such a good song to have the cast list play during as kinda a more formal opening as the first scene doesn’t do much except to show that Bancoran is acting strange and so isn’t super related to the rest of the stage.

3.      Maybe we could meet again? – Mata Aeru Kashira

I love the club singer vibe of this song and Maraich was so cute with Ban clapping along in the back. It was a nice soft scene before all the angst and trauma in the rest of the scene and it was really nice to see them on a date together.

4.      Foggy London Airport

Don’t have many thoughts as I didn’t really hear much of this song, about 2 lines, but I’m sure it’s amazing if Ataru is singing it.

5.      Sexy dudes!

I love all the Tamanegi songs so much and I rly liked how different this one sounded, much like all the songs in this show, I like how the Tamanegi are built up in this song to seem so good then they having the dumbest dance ever, it was amazing and the final day with all of them stripping killed me. Of laughter bc of Daiki wearing a shirt that made it seem like he had abs and of other things bc of Tsukasa stripping. (I think Daiki might not have been comfortable showing his fully chest so I’m glad they allowed him to just wear a pretend ab shirt)

6.      To leak out – Moreru

I never imagined a sex scene in Patalliro would be shown by a woman dressed like a bush singing a jazz song as screens showed the characters sex faces as they were on a spinning bed or doing poses but here we are. The song itself was very good and I think it worked weirdly well representing what happened.

7.      Kiss me Bancoran

God all the songs in this stage were just so good. Another absolute banger. Yuuya’s voice as Bancoran is divine and the choreography and everything work so well for this song. I also think he looks super pretty in his past Ban outfit and love that the song was done in that.

8.      Cock Robin

Pretty much as normal. Maraich’s little leg lift is so cute

9.      Don’t overlook me – Misugosenai

This was not what I expected from a Maraich solo in any way shape or form. But it works so well?? Maraich screaming into the mic as Bancoran plays the guitar and the Tamanegi do back up dance is just phenomenal, Dai’s voice works for the song so well and him pretending to be Damien and Bancoran and impersonating their voices as they had sex was hilarious, omg. This song was the song we didn’t want but we needed so much. By far and away my fav song in the show. I have listened to it so many times already and I am never gonna get bored of it.

10.  My special person - Tokubetsu na hito

A trio song between Maraich, 19 and 35 about what you do when with the person you love the most and what you would do for the one you love the most, with the other Tamanegi as back up singers. Despite looking a bit silly with Koki in his bdsm gear in the bg, the emotion was there, and the three actors are such good singers. /not at all biased. Honestly, I died when I heard Tsukasa start to sing. I didn’t expect him to get a solo bit in this show and I was so happy that he did.

11.  Forever Patalliro ~ Grand Finale

I rly like the new ending song. It’s upbeat and fast like the first song and has a different feel to the previous cast. I’m kinda glad that the final bit with the circle head things that look like the headframes from the manga was the only song they kept. They’re showing that they are moving on from the previous cast without erasing what they did.

Overall, I think this show has my favourite soundtrack. In the past two shows and the film there were a couple songs I didn’t love but in this one I loved all the songs!

 Directing

Like I said before I think there were a lot of good calls in the direction. They had I think two or three references to Stardust, I think this was to partly reassure fans that they weren’t completely resetting the world and that this was a continuation and from what I remember maybe four or five recurring things.

1.      Patalliro at the start being asked who he is, this definitely makes sense tho and I’m super glad they didn’t change it

2.      Maraich’s legs shaking when Ban looked at him with his beam. I kinda liked though how they even changed the beam for Yuuya. Tsune’s was a contant beam whereas Yuuya’s beam is more short bursts. (in terms out sound and the projection of the beam light)

3.      Patalliro recreating the most tragic scene from the play again at the end. I was a little unsure about them keeping this at first as it felt like a joke of the old cast but it was mainly something Kato Ryo did and he is still here to continue his joke so it makes sense to keep it. Also, in the finale he gave Damien. Maraich and Bancoran characters from tv to impersonate while doing their lines which made the scene very funny.

4.      The final bit after the finale song with the head frames but I think it would be weird to remove this song in retrospect bc it is the song that mainly relates back to the manga. Also, they did change what the head boarders look like.

5.      And obviously the two mangaka that are referenced in all the stages are still there bc that is something that came from the original. (Micchan sensei and the shojo mangaka one)

Except for that stuff, from what I can remember, mostly everything was new jokes which I rly liked. That they’re making new stuff for the new cast.

 That’s it!

I still have so many other thoughts but the best thing I can say at this point is pls watch the stage! It is just as faithful as it was with the original cast and the quality has not dipped at all.

 Thank you for reading my rly rambly thoughts and I’m sorry it trailed off at the end, it is quite late now. 

I hope it inspired you to look into getting a DVD or CD or supporting the stage in some other way.

 Have a good day/week/month/year/life!

[jeonggukkiepabo]

LONELY CHRISTMAS [MIN YOONGI] | FAMILY GATHERINGS

SUMMARY: Christmas has always been your second favorite holiday of the year, especially since you and your boyfriend Yoongi were literally inseperatable. Well, usually you were. But BTS gets more and more famous - world tours, award shows and other idol priorities making it almost impossible to spend this year’s Christmas with your second family. 

WARNINGS: so much fluff, but also the dirty kind of smut. fingering, oral (male and female receiving), choking, spitting, raw sex (i dont need to say anything, do i?), switch!yoongi, switch!reader, fighting for dominance, Yoongi being meow meow but also rawr.

QUOTES USED: 2. “That’s the eggnog talking. I’m cutting you off.” 4.  “Don’t be such a Scrooge.” 6. “It’s snowing.” 7. “Open it.” 9. “I’m just happy you’re here.” 24.  “Is this the part where we kiss?” 31.  “Help me decorate.” 

Now; Merry (early) Christmas, celebrate well & enjoy this filthy ride to hell.

Also, a big thanks to @holyfluffly​, who spent her precious time reading through this & checking for any mistakes. ♥

Since December started to come around – and you finally decided that it was time to stop binging on your favorite Halloween movies -, your house changed from spoopy graveyard to Rudolph’s shed. Fairy lights and beautiful garlands were hung up everywhere and once you plugged all your Christmas lights in, your house was lighter than “Son Goku in his final form”. At least that’s what Jungkook used to describe it when he first stepped into your winter wonderland. It was a tradition your boys always teased you with, but it was a tradition you brought with you from your home country that you wouldn’t want to miss. Your mother used to hang up lights everywhere, different Christmas shapes (you once had this weird reindeer light that looked more like a stabbed donkey, but… well) on every window and your balcony while she said “No matter how far apart we are, your light shines on me” – and 2 years after her death, was your most favorite thing to do once the calendar hit December. That, and ordering a shit ton of products from the LUSH and Bath and Body Works Christmas range. Jimin really loved the welcoming smell of cotton candy and gingerbread men, but Jin would sneeze when you sprayed all their pillows with the Snow Fairy body spray.

Usually, it was Taehyung’s favorite task to pick out a Christmas tree with you, decorating it with the entire family (that obviously consisted of all his band mates, their dogs and you), but this time it was just you, Tannie and Holly  walking around the tree field and picking a random one, much smaller than what  you’d usually get. There won’t be any presents underneath it anyway. Decorating wasn’t any fun, your Christmas playlist wasn’t helping, the smell of cotton candy wasn’t sweet enough. You made way too many Christmas cookies that wouldn’t be eaten. Your favorite pair of fuzzy socks had a huge hole in them and, oh well, your boyfriend wouldn’t be there for this year’s Christmas.

“Don’t be such a Scrooge, Y/N! It’s festive season!”, Jungkook yelled from somewhere behind Yoongi, energetic as always. “I wouldn’t be a Scrooge if my boyfriend and my friends would be here, celebrating the fest of love with me.” You mumbled quietly, a heavy sigh leaving your chest. It was currently the 17th of December, the first snow has fallen over Seoul, your fireplace crackling softly in the background. Yet, you were freezing. “Jagi, come on. It’s just another day of the year, we’ll be fine. We have New Year’s together, what’s the deal?” Your boyfriend didn’t care that much about festive traditions, hating the thought of Valentine’s Day or Halloween, not even speaking about the stress he always has around the Christmas season. For them, worldwide superstars, it was just another workday.

“You’re just happy you don’t need to wear one of our Christmas sweaters, huh?”, you scolded him, knowing his hate for the scratchy sweaters with the ugly patterns that you always made him and the boys wear for photos and your Christmas dinner at home. “Yeah, I won’t even start talking about those Rudolph ears you bought for our photo last year…”, Yoongi smirked. “I loved those!”, you vaguely heard the voice of Jimin in the background, Taehyung agreeing him on that. “I still wear those whenever I wash my face, thank you Y/N!” Sighing, you wished you were right there, with your loud and energetic boys, instead you were suffering on your own, the pout never leaving your lips.

“Boys, you’ve got 10 Minutes left!”, their tour manager interrupted your sulking, Yoongi nodding at him. “We’ll be right there.” He smiles at your pout, sticking out his bottom lip as well. “I’ll call you after the show, okay? Will you be still awake?” BTS was currently on world tour, playing somewhere in Europe and the time differences made it rougher than ever to talk to your boyfriend every day. You shrug, shivering under the thought of another sleepless night without your love, without the sounds of Taehyung and Jungkook fighting over some videogame and without the thought of Jin’s delicious breakfast to wake up to. “I guess I will, see you later, Yoongs. Bye Tae, bye Jungkook, bye Jiminie!”, you wave to the boys you considered family before smiling sadly at Yoongi. “Good luck, I’m sure you guys will rock that country! I love you.” “I love you too, Jagi. I’ll text you before I’m going to call you, okay? Try and rest.” “Bye, Noona!” Then the screen went black, all you could see was your own sad appearance in one of Yoongi’s oversized Hoodies.

Days went by, you didn’t have the chance to talk very much to Yoongi because of yours and their working schedule, they were currently in the States to record another hit song with some famous American singer that would explode on the Charts the second it comes out. Sure, you loved your boy’s music, you could listen to them sing and rap for hours, they worked hard and deserved all their success – but you didn’t wonder that all of them weren’t in a relationship. Tour life was hard, not only for their girlfriends but for them, too. A simple picture from across the world with a random girl could ruin relationships, just because of a misunderstanding. When you and Yoongi started dating a couple of years ago, Jin had a long-distance relationship – which already sucks for ‘normal’ human beings, but for worldwide superstars? A catastrophe because you couldn’t just come home to your significant other. It was over for them after a few months because she met a nice guy from her apartment complex, because he was there while Jin wasn’t. It was sad, especially for the Maknaes, because they needed affection, they needed their experience, they needed love. Instead, they had to have One Night Stands, making sure that those girls wouldn’t talk about their “night with BTS”. Truth be told it was too much work to find a girl to get laid, so they’d simply refuse, giving into their frustration and suffer from loneliness.

With Yoongi, things were easy. He didn’t get jealous whenever you hung out with other guys, but he also didn’t give you any reason to be jealous as well. People always describe him as “cold”, “depressed” or “weird guy that’s always quiet”, but once he warmed up to you, he was even funnier than Jin, his dry humor and loving gestures winning over your heart immediately. He was a family person, loving to be in a cozy home surrounded by his bandmates and you, even if he’d never say that out loud, all of them knew it. Yoongi was a loving person, whether he was showing it or not.

The 20th December rolled around quicker than you thought, last minute presents were bought, the house completely decorated and one Christmas movie after the other was playing on TV – but you were still sulking. “You didn’t even help me decorate! I had to do all of that by myself!”, you switched your phone camera so you could show Jimin how beautiful the living room looked, smiling at his little pout. “Noona!”, he whined, “Don’t be angry, okay? I promise you I’ll decorate for New Year’s all by myself.” “Don’t worry, Jiminie, it’s not your fault you can’t be here. Where’s Hobi? I’m watching his favorite Christmas movie, but I can’t get in the mood without my sunshine.” Jimin looks around, his lips twitching, but he remained quiet. “Jimin?” “He’s… uhhhh… He’s doing stuff with Yoongi and Tae?” You raise an eyebrow at him, taking another sip of the creamy eggnog you ordered online because it was nowhere to be found in Seoul. “Are you lying, Jiminie?” “No, but… Oh, Jungkook calls for me, bye Noona!” Sighing, you dropped your phone aside, head tilting towards the window while a soft smile appeared on your lips. It’s snowing.

On the 24th December, the boys had their last official concert of the year – in Australia. A 13-hour flight away, plus the two-hour time difference that made your heart sink, because whenever you were ready to call Yoongi, he was already too tired because of the concert and travel exhaustion. As one of the idol’s girlfriend, it was basically your job to watch their performances, you streamed all of them, no matter what time it was in your time zone, but it wasn’t as good as it would be when you were there. You loved going to their concerts, not standing backstage to watch the show, no. You preferred going into the crowd, singing and dancing along with ARMYs from around the world and watching your family from down there, enjoying their glow and sensual performances from a fan’s perspective. But today, it was just you and your laptop, watching the stream in your bed, a cup of your favorite tea beside you, Tannie on your lap and Holly somewhere besides you under the blanket, asleep like always. A smile was plastered on your face as you saw that all of them were wearing those “stupid Rudolph ears” – even if Yoongi looked grumpier than ever. You were fascinated as always – how could those cute little boys turn into Korean gods within two seconds? Of course, the Maknaes were the center of attention, fans chanting for them, dancing and screaming – you couldn’t deny the fact that they looked great, but exhaustion was plastered on all of their faces. Your eyes were plastered on the smol bean that caught your heart and as if he knew, he smiled into the camera, giving it a finger heart.

The 25th December was rough, you didn’t even want to get out of bed, staying under the covers for several hours after waking up. There was no reason so get up if there wasn’t anyone to give presents to. You didn’t use your phone, watching The Nightmare before Christmas again because if you acted like it was still Halloween, you wouldn’t be as sad that you were alone on your second favorite holiday of the year. It was around 12pm when the two dogs came into your room, whimpering because you didn’t take them out yet. “Ugh, fine, fine. Let me grab my shoes and we’ll go out”, you mumbled groggily while heaving your tired body out of bed. Pulling your slippers over your cold toes as you tied your hair out of your face. You didn’t plan to go out for too long, so you didn’t even try to make yourself look good. Humming the movie’s soundtrack, you made your way downstairs, surprised by the warm scent of cinnamon and vanilla that filled the house. “Huh, did I leave my candles on?” With furrowed eyebrows you  check the living room, not wanting to burn the entire house down on Christmas, but you stood still in shock when you realized why it smelled just the way it did.

Jimin and Jin were busy in the kitchen, baking cookies and cooking up your Christmas dinner. Jungkook and Taehyung were building a giant gingerbread house while Namjoon sat besides them, frustrated over his own ruined house laying in broken pieces. Hobi placing all of the presents underneath the Christmas tree while Yoongi sat on the couch, Holly on his lap and a loving smile on his face as he saw you in your sleepy state with a frown on your face. “Merry Christmas, babe.”

Suddenly, seven pairs of eyes were on you, smiles beaming across the entire room and seconds later you were caught in a warm, cozy group hug. “Surprise, Noona!”, Jungkook beamed as he pressed a kiss on your cheek, receiving a flip against his forehead from Yoongi. “Lips away, you can kiss Taehyung, not my girl.” Taehyung’s cheeks burned a bright red, Jungkook looked away while biting his lips and Jimin just smirked but pressed you tight against his body. “We’re glad to be back.” Jin groaned, pulling you out of the hug. “Let that poor girl alone, she needs to collect her thoughts first. Look at her”, he pointed towards your face, shock still written across it as you looked into each of your boys’ faces. “You… I mean, how… You were… Australia?” Your boyfriend laughed, now pulling you into a tight hug while burying his nose in your hair, inhaling the familiar scent that always calmed him down. “We’re here, that’s all that matters.” “We took the first plane back home, but we’ve been waiting for you to get up since 9AM, what did you do? It’s Christmas, usually you’d set an alarm at 6AM to run and check your presents”, Hobi pouted, pointing towards the tree.

“I didn’t have a reason to be up, so I watched The Nightmare before Christmas. But now, I’m just happy you’re here”, you smiled fondly at all of them, “Open your presents. Especially you, Babe. Open it!” You clap your hands excitedly, jumping up and down as you hand them their presents: a big, soft blanket for Jimin, so he can roll himself up in it and be cozy the entire holidays. A new Japanese knife for Jin, because Namjoon broke his favorite knife when he tried to cut through a book – don’t ask, nobody knows why he did that. Namjoon got a new KAWs figure he didn’t have the chance to buy yet while Hoseok got a new Palm Angels hoodie. Taehyung and Jungkook got some games for their PlayStation and a set of new controllers, because… well, Jungkook tends to destroy them when he’s in a rage. Yoongi’s present was hard to find because he basically has everything he wants and you weren’t too familiar with all those high end music technologies that you could give him, so you decided on a spa weekend over the holidays, just the two of you in a fancy wellness resort. Exactly what he needed after that tour. “Y/N, you must be poor by now! I should have gotten you a gift card or something”, Taehyung pouted, “You spent way too much on our presents!” You smiled, shaking your head and pressed a soft kiss on his cheeks. “Everything for my family. You’re all that I have left.”

The day went by way too fast; a fabulous Christmas buffet was set up by Jin, eggnog and wine handpicked by the youngest Maknae and Christmas movies of Jimin’s choice made up for all the days you spent sulking in your room. “I love you guys so much. I can’t believe you surprised me like that! Ugh, I really thought I had to spend Christmas with just the dogs.” You placed your head on Yoongi’s shoulder, cuddling deeper into the soft material of his hoodie while he rubbed your shoulder. “That’s the eggnog talking, love. You’re the anchor of our little family, we couldn’t be apart from you over the holidays, Jungkook would’ve driven us crazy and Namjoon would set the hotel on fire while trying to light a Christmas candle”, Yoongi mumbled. “A Christmas wonder! Yoongi confessed his feelings! Tweet that, Namjoon!”, Hoseok yelled while earning a slap on the back of his head from Jimin. “Don’t scare him, he’s like a deer right now, if we just ignore it, maybe he’ll say something nice about us too!” Yoongi just rolled his eyes, pulling you closer toward his small frame while mumbling “Idiots”.

It was past  midnight, your tummies filled with delicious snacks and desserts, brain fogged because of the amount of alcohol all of you drank that day – and you were just happy to finally be in bed with your boyfriend again. “You know how lonely the nights were without you? Not just you, but also the boys. I even missed Jungkook’s animal imitations”, you sighed, “I missed breakfast, without Jin all I ate was toast and cucumbers. I’m lucky to be part of your family.” Yoongi smiled, a precious, rare smile that showed all his love for you.

“I had time to think on tour, you know. It’s rough, you not being there with me, I saw all those places, cities and famous buildings, but didn’t have you to share those moments with. I had dinner with Taehyung right in front of the Eiffel Tower, I shared a Pizza in Venice with Jungkook, had beer with Hoseok in Berlin, but I wish I had all those moments with you, love. So, I’m bad at this stuff, you know that. The entire world knows that, but you also know that I love you. And I wish you could be the person by my side on tour, on every tour. I wish you could be my +1 at events, dinner parties or during award shows. I even talked to our management, because an ‘official girlfriend’ is dangerous for all of us. But I didn’t want the world to meet you as my girlfriend, Y/N. I want them to finally meet you as my wife, the woman that won’t ever leave my side. This is probably trashy and I could use better opportunities for that, but… Y/N, my love, my flower, my angel, would you marry me?” Yoongi, the smooth guy he was, pulled out a simple yet beautiful rosé gold ring – without a box – from the pocket of his sweats, sitting in front of you on your bed, crossed legs and a nervous smile on his face. You couldn’t hide the pout on your face, lips quivering and tears dwelling in your eyes while you looked at the beautiful man in front of you, the beautiful ring in his hands and outside, snowflakes fall from the sky. Everything was perfect. “Yoongi… Yes! Fuck, of course!”, you jumped into his lap, not caring about the pling your engagement ring made when it fell to the floor, because right now, your fiancé was more important. You showered his face in kisses, not caring the slightest about the grumpy noises he made – even if they were fake, because he was just as happy as you were. His smile was beautiful, something you didn’t see that much because he seldom smiled so brightly even his bottom teeth were showing. “Is that the part where we kiss?”

You didn’t hesitate to press your lips onto his, soft and loving, sweet and tender. “Min Yoongi, is that the part where you turn into the sweet little kitten your fandom thinks you are?” Smirking, Yoongi growls at you, showing you his teeth once more. “Oh baby, I’m going to show you that nothing on my body is little.” His lips were back on yours, his hands buried in your hair as he made his way between your legs, almost crushing you with the comfortable weight of his body on yours. Whatever loving, sweet innocent kiss you shared before, this one was completely different. It gave way to heated passion as you both continue the lustful, erotic exchange. Yoongi’s shaking but skilled hands started to peel off your ugly Christmas sweater and the rest of your clothes, falling to the floor forgotten, before he gently bites along your jaw and the nape of your neck, leaving a trail of love bites on the way down there. Your moans fill the room that still smells like cinnamon and cotton candy, combined with Yoongi’s musky scent and the sweet scent of a heated make-out session. With his lips still attached to your soft skin, you take the opportunity to catch him off guard and flip both your bodies into a new position; you now straddling his slim waist. Yoongi’s lips widened in shock, then turned into a bright smirk. “Someone’s feisty.” You just smile at him sweetly, cutting off his words as you wrap your hands around his beautiful throat, leaning your face towards his ear. “I wouldn’t speak  like that in such a position, Babe.”

Yoongi’s voice hitched, “Y/N”, he whined. The same hand that restricted his airways comes up to slightly slap his scruffed cheek, but it had still enough force to leave a sting that reminded him not to speak up anymore. “Aren’t you going to be a good boy? Or should I call you a good little kitten? Would you like that?” He shakes his head quickly, baring his teeth once more. “Shut that, love. You won’t be able to tame a lion. I’m not a small kitten.” He knows he could switch positions any time, hell, you knew that too. But you also knew that he enjoyed that position  too much to change anything now. Shaking your head in displeasure, you crawl down the bed to be at eye level with his beautiful cock. The cock  that had you limping almost every night, that never fails to give you pleasure, that already sends tingles to your core. Your hands were cold against the prominent vine that ran from his shaft to his leaking tip, red and sensitive as you licked your finger to circle around it. Tiny moans – mewls – left his mouth, causing you to giggle. You knew it. His balls were tight, full and hurting. He was away for so long, having almost no time to pleasure himself. You cooed, the other hand coming up to gently play with them, rolling them around as you kept applying pressure to his tip. Yoongi’s groans got louder and louder once your mouth was finally working its magic on him, his hands buried inside the loose strands of your hair, trying to shove you down deeper. Much to your displeasure.

You hissed, letting go of his length as you crawled up to sit on his toned chest. Smiling, you slid your fingers through your soaked folds, holding them in front of his sweaty face. “Suck.” Oh, and how he sucks. His tongue working circles around your digit, collecting your sweet juices as he hums happily. “You’re my toy. A fucking toy, do you understand that? You don’t get to make rules here, Yoongi. If I want to suck your cock, I’ll do it how I want, not how you want it. Or did I miss something?” You made sure his eyes never left yours, fingers still inside his  mouth – and you just decided to shove them down a bit deeper, making him gag around them just like he wants you to gag around his cock. “I asked you something, pretty babe. Mind answering?” Yoongi hums again, not able to speak with your fingers down his throat, but it was good enough of a try for you. It wasn’t every day you got the chance to dominate Min Yoongi, you were sure to getting everything out of it. You pulled your now wet digits out of his mouth, wiping away his spit somewhere in his mint colored hair, as you turned around to sit on his face, just like he loves you to do. By now, his only problem was holding back his load, eating your pussy wouldn’t help with that though. “Now, are you going to cum for me, precious? While devouring my pussy? I bet you’d like that, huh?” Yoongi hums again, his hands already on your ass to spread your cheeks, allowing him to dive deep into your pussy, drinking your juices, slurping them down like a fine, ripe wine. Teasingly, you continued to jerk him off, enjoying the tension in his body, his concentration on your pussy rather than his own orgasm. “Mh, wait. I changed my mind. Hold it, you don’t have my permission just yet”, you laughed as you squeezed his balls – but he wasn’t able to control it or hold it back. His cock twitched uncontrollably, one small rope of cum leaving the tip. “Ugh, look at that”, you sighed while shaking your head, sitting down deeper on his face – your ass now flat against his forehead as his tongue, the oh so famous rapper tongue, worked its wonders.

If Yoongi was frustrated, he didn’t show it. He knew better. Even though it was his first real orgasm in weeks, his first ruined orgasm in weeks, he stood up the man he was and continued what he was here for. Pleasuring his fiancé. Just before your orgasm arrived, you crawled down again, collecting the small puddle of cum with your tongue and fed it to your soon to be husband. You let him taste himself, he swallowed greedily. “Such a good boy”, you purr while wiping the sweat from his forehead. “Now, I hope you know who you belong to.” Yoongi just nods, licking his lips to still taste you. “Tell me who you belong to, Yoongi”, you command.

“You, babe. Only you. I belong to you”, Yoongi moans out as you started to grind against his smooth thigh, picking up your desired pace as you used him to satisfy your own desire. His hands were on your hips, guiding you and helping you to speed up, but just before your orgasm reached his peak, just one little rock of your hips missing, he turned you around, leaving you with a ruined orgasm as well. “Fucking son of a bi-“, your frustration interrupted by Yoongi’s teeth biting into your nipple, his hand smacking your other tit. “Oh, that’s not a nice word, baby”, he pouts while pinching both of your erect buds with a bit too much force. A sharp stinging sensation radiating through your body. “Fuck, Yoongi”, you moaned, desperate for release. “Now, now”, he tzed as he looked down at your trembling body. “Sucks to be played with, huh?” Elegant fingers started to rub circles into your swollen nub, your body rising from the mattress just to be pushed back by your fiancé. “Still”, he orders, plunging two of his long, delicate fingers into your dripping hole. Yet, you needed more. “Yoongi”, you whined. “Are you going to be a good girl now? Instead of a fucking brat?” “Yes!”, you cried out, tears running down your cheeks, hoping he’d just do something. “Good, because bad girls disgust me”, he spoke through clenched teeth as he pulled out his fingers and shoved his cock inside you within seconds. “Fuck fuck fuck, yes!”

“Shut up! Or do you want the boys to come in and join you, huh? You want our little Maknae see how stuffed you are?” Yoongi always knew about your affection for Jungkook, the way his doe eyes always make your heart jump, leaving it impossible to deny whatever he wanted from you while addressing you as his ‘favorite Noona’. You were weak for him, but you wouldn’t want him to see you in such a situation. Shaking your head in shame, you pout as you dig your heels into his ass to get him to move faster. “Make me cum, please. I love you”, you whine, word for word leaving your lips as he thrusts deep and powerful into your clenching hole. Just before another beg could leave your lips, Yoongi’s index finger slipped past them, your chin securely trapped between his thumb and middle finger. His other hand slowly found its place on your neck. “Look at you”, he smiles. “Such a good girl, knowing how to beg like a big girl.” You whimper again, squeezing around him as he slowed his pace with a devilish smirk. Your lips played with the tip of his finger while the thumb of his other hand came down to circle your clit painfully slow, spitting onto it and watching his finger mixing it with your arousal. Your eyes rolled into the back of your head, both of your hands gripping the wrist that was choking you. “Tighter, please”, you gasped out, enjoying the feeling of almost no air coming to your lungs. Oh, how Yoongi loved to see you struggle for air, just as much as you loved to be on the receiving end. “You gonna come for me, angel?”, he growled as he tightened his grip, already feeling his own orgasm approaching. “Going to cum around my thick cock, huh?” You nod, already seeing spots in your vision, your orgasm shooting through your body just like a firework as soon as Yoongi released you, allowing the blood to shoot back into your head. You couldn’t control your body anymore, gushing against him as you rode out your high with closed eyes. That alone triggered Yoongi’s orgasm, a loud scream leaving his lips as he finally released inside you. “Fuck, you squirted all over me”, he groaned while looking at the mess you made, his stomach glistering in your juices. “I don’t care, I want to snuggle my Grinch now”, you pouted with grabby hands, smiling happily as Yoongi obeyed.

“I think we lost the ring somewhere between our clothes”, Yoongi mumbles with his sleepy voice, “I hope Taehyung won’t find it, he was the one that chose it – ‘If Y/N says no, I’ll wear that one happily’.” Suddenly you’re wide awake, knees on the floor and digging through your clothes to find the symbol of your love. “Got it!”, you yelled as you threw it to Yoongi, holding your left hand in front of his face. “You’ve got the honor, babe.” Smiling, he slid the ring over your finger. The black diamonds sparkling in the dim light of your room, the rosé gold complimenting your skin tone perfectly, just like the man in front of you does. Your fiancé, soon to be husband, the love of your life. “Merry Christmas, love.”

[popculturebuffet]

Scooby Doo (2002) Review: The Most Punchable Fred Jones of All Time

It’s one last hurrah for Halloween as I take a look at the often derided 2002 Scooby Doo Movie! See what happens when you combine future superstar director James Gunn with .. the guy who thought directing the Smurf’s movie and Big’s Mama’s House were good ideas. Oh and with a splash of the guy who wrote the loveable family film Cheaper by the Dozen and the utterly loathed Percy Jackson film. It’s as messy as you’d expect with that.. but is it BAD? good, so bad it’s good, just sorta okay? Come with me as I try to find out under the cut with a full review. 

I’ve always loved Scooby Doo. I grew up with the guy, watching reruns of the non-scrappy classic series from Where Are You to the Scooby Doo Movies, the three Superstar 10 movies (Boo Brothers, Ghoul School and Reluctant Werewolf), or the at the time brand new What’s New Scooby Doo. And later in life i’d absolutely adore Mystery Incorporated.. minus the whole Shaggy, Scooby Velma love triangle, but i’ll likely cover that at some point or sooner, you can comission reviews from me for 5 bucks each, 5 dollars off group orders if you really want to make me suffer through that that bad. But getting off self promotion point is I loved and still love the franchise. While I”ve yet to see “Scooby Doo and Guess Who”, though given there’s Weird Al, Kristan Schaal and Urkel episodes you can be sure i’m going to eventually, and Scoob was VERY ehhh even if Dick Dastardly was awesome. But despite my history with the great dane much like with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, despite my rich history with the franchise I haven’t dove in yet and with a friend who could use a nice halloween suprise and loves scooby doo, I figured now was the time to take a look at it.  And since i’d been wanting to take a look at it again anyway, and decided going big wasn’t a bad way to start, i’m taking a look at the 2002 Scooby Doo movie. I saw this flim first run in a drive in, and saw the sequel the same way and loved it as a kid, and fondly remember checking out the Sountrack Preview page back before youtube existed to make checking out soundtracks easier. It was a simplier time. And even rewatching it later with my nieces, I found myself liking it.  And the thing was almost every time this film comes up it’s with a turned up nose. The CGI, the confused audience, the deciding to cast Freddy Prinze Junior.. all terrible decisions that overshadow the film, when it’s not that bad. It’s not GREAT, but it’s not TERRIBLE either. So what is it then? Well i’ll tells ya. Let’s start with

PRODUCTION: Wait James Gunn Wrote This?

At the turn of the millneium Scooby Doo was back on top. After waning popularity during the Scrappy era, the advent of the warner affilated Cartoon Network meant a whole new generation of kids (raises hand) got to experince Scooby Doo for the first time. This new audeince lead to Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, the first of the franchises 80 or so DTV movies that will continue on long after the earth dies, and brought back the franchise after it’s long slumber. Scooby Doo went from dead to as popular as he was in his hey day again. Naturally Warner wanted to cash in and thus this movie was born.  Originally the film was supposed to be a more adult project, a send up of the franchise with more sex jokes and what not than made the final cut according to writer James Gunn. Yes, the same James Gunn who wrote and directed the Guardians of the Galaxy movie and whose currently saving the suicide squad. It was one of Gunn’s earlier films but just from when he’s talked about it, you can tell he genuinely cared about the project.  Along for the ride with our future Guardian was his co-writer, Craig Titely,  who i’m convinced only came in to do punch ups as the guy has only written three other movies. One of them was being one of MANY writers on Cheaper by the Dozen and thus likely not doing much of note with that, and the other.. is being the only writer on Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief’s movie adaptation.. aka the movie the fanbase and general audiences rejected in droves yet SOMEHOW got a sequel. Which is somehow still worse than his other film, one that asks “was the moon landing a hoax?” Spoilers, it wasn’t. Point is this isn’t a resume that screams co creator and more screams “Guy brought in to kid freindly this up”. More on that in a minute.  The director is another less than reassuring face: Raja Gosnell, whose credits BEFORE this film were Home Alone 3, Never Been Kissed and Big Momma’s house.. so already he dosen’t have the best track record but somehow got worse because AFTER this film and it’s sequel he directed both live action Smurfs Movies and the universally hated Show Dogs, aka the film  that thought dog rape was funny. The fact this film isn’t out and out terrible is a miracle. 

Even more so because naturally, as Studios tend to do they interfered: The film was supposed to be more adult, cracking jokes about common things fans of the series growing up thought like Velma is Gay or Shaggy’s a stoner, and having both be fully true. But wanting to appeal to kids, Warner gradually lightned it, hence Craig, and Raja clearly having no shame gladly took it instead of you know.. standing his ground.  So Velma has a love intrest thrown in and her kiss with Daphne is gone, while Shaggy’s toke smoking was lowered to subtext.. because either of those things is bad apparently? I dunno the 2000′s were fucked. 

Point is THAT’S why these films are so tonally confused and why I don’t hold it agains the film now I know: It wasn’t James Gunn or even, as dumb as he is, Raja Gosnell’s fault that the film had some tones clashing when the studio was demanding it, instead of you know, thinking this through at all and realizing more kids cared about Scooby Doo than they would’ve josie and the pussy cats instead of bringing it up DURING production, when most of the adult stuff was in there. It’s also why the sequel has no real adult stuff, though it’s STILL damn good, but i’ll get to that some other day. 

The film was also shot at an actual theme park in australia. Neat. 

So yeah the film’s humor kind of ping pongs between knowing adult winks and kids stuff. We get Scooby dressing like a grandma in the same film shaggy enhales his demon possed love intrests breath like weed. The jokes themselves on average are pretty good: Some of my faviorites include the grandma scene, everything rowan atkinson does, Velma getting drunk off her ass, and the instructional video bit which is easily my favorite bit of the episode and one of my faviorite scooby doo jokes period:

This is even FUNNIER to me on rewatch, as we now know this is an instructional video for demons.. and that Scrappy clearly had enough problems with his demon horde to have to pay for this thing. It tis glorious.  However there also are also a few that HAVE NOT aged well, are very creepy at best and disgusting sexual assault at worst with Daphne getting her ass grabbed by the Luna Ghost at the start being treated as a joke and Fred oggling Daphne’s body when he’s in it being treated as a ha ha and not...

So yeah the humor’s USUALLY good, but the slipups are noticable and do bring things down a bit when they come by. So the humor is decent if mixed and the production’s a nightmare, how’s the plot? The Plot: Scoob, We’re Getting the Band Back Together!

I won’t be as through as usual because this is a 90 minute movie, I’m running behind as is and it’s 20 years old, 

We start with your standard mystery inc case with the Luna Goose, aka Old Man Incel who resented Pamela Anderson for not boning him. But Fred hogging the glory during the resulting News Cast leads the gang to start fighting over lingering tensions: Velma is tired of Fred hogging all the credit when she does most of the legwork solving things, Daphne is tired of being kidnapped and being mistreated by Velma and Freddy who laugh at the idea of her doing more, and Fred..

We’ll get to him later. Shaggy is the only one wanting to stick together, but no one’s having it and the group breaks apart and Matthew LIllard REALLY sells Shaggy’s heartbreak over his friends all abandoning him well. 

Two years later though, with Shaggy and Scooby naturally getting stoned and eating large quantities of food on the beach, have made peace with retirement, and have apparently had to duck tons of people coming to them to solve mysteries since they aren’t about that. The latest in that line is a man representing Emile Mondovarius, the owner of Spooky Island, a vast island resort and theme park. Naturally since it has spooky in the name the boys want nothing but Mondovarius does what honestly every previous guy coming to them should’ve done: offers them an all you can eat buffet.  Since they’ve done more traumatizing for Dog Treats, they agree and it soon turns out the entire gang was invited, though none of them but Shaggy and Scooby are happy to see each other. I will say one of my complaints about the film is it never tackles the emotions behind the breakup: while the teams slowly repairs there are never any outright apologizes or scenes of them recociling or scenes of Shaggy chewing them out for abandoning him due to their spat. It just skips over the emotional bits to either wave a joke for the kiddies around or scream 

Really the jokes aren’t bad, the film just has trouble with actual emotion or depth that could’ve been there and tries for it once in a while, but dosen’t really do anything with it. The gang splitting up’s a good concept, and at this point on Scooby Doo on Zombie Island had really used it, and that was one where they were clearly still close friends and were still in touch they just quit mystery solving for a while till Zombie Island happened. Mystery Incorpreated would finally give this story justice later: Instead of over a petty ego squabble, the gang broke up over underlying tensions: The revelations about Fred’s dad caused him to go try and find himself, Velma alienated herself by hiding things from them, and Shaggy was shipped off to Military School and Scooby doggy prison camp... thankfully the last two didn’t last and Scooby rescued Shaggy with a tank but the tension DIDN’T go away: While the gang mostly reunited, Velma took time to forgive them and also tried bringing in the friend/girlfriend she’d made in the meantime only for her friends to isolate her and throw her out while Daphne took her time to return due to being hurt by fred. It’s complex and good stuff versus here where it’s just “WE’RE APART BECAUSE WE HATES EACH OTHER. And now we’re NOT”. It’s just a waste of a good concept and i’ m glad the franchise got around to doing it right. 

But my gripes aside our heroes head to the resort and meet Mondevarious, who admits outright to having tricked then and with confronted with the gang being broken up, makes it clear he knews.  “That’s the thing about broken things.. you can put them back together.”

And so he did. He needs the Gang’s help as he’s worried about the island and something going wrong there: The teens are leaving polite, well behaved. and clearly not themselves as one reacts to an old friend by neck lifting him and tossing him aside. Something’s deeply wrong here and the gang’s intrest is piqued enough to stay though everyone but Shaggy is determined to solve it themselves out of ego. Mondvarius is played by Rowan Atkinson and while I watched the bean movie as a kid this is where I fell in love with the guy, with later watches of Blackadder confirming that in my college years. Rowan just brings a fun dorky energy to the character and a nice earnestness too but when he later takes a turn for the bad, he does that well too. Atkinson is HIGHLY underated in my opinon and easily the MVP of this film’s supporting cast.   So the investigation begins, and we get our supsects: The first we met on the plane, Mary Jane, a kind blonde played by Isla Fisher who got the job becasue Gosnel, in a rare good decision, saw how talented she was and while still picking Sara Michele Gellar for Daphne, made sure she had  a part. She’s a nice sweet girl who Shaggy falls for and Scooby’s annoyed by it.. though unlike earlier the film beats mystery inc easily here as it’s a more understandable conflict and dosen’t act like Dog Issues is a thing people says. Again i’ll get to that clusterfuck of an arc some day. The other two are N’Goo Tuna, a shady worker at the park who spouts off the legends of the island. In a nice twist, he’s NOT the vilian, as is obvious but is his right hand man. He also has his own right hand and muscle in Zarkos a cool looking Luchador and N’Goo’s muscle. Also N’Goo may be one of the worst names in Scooby Doo History, and that includes Dabba Doo. But the legend claims the island was once owned by demons who want revenge since the resort took the island from him. 

The other is probably my faviorite non Rowan Atkinson character, Voodoo Maestro, played by Miguel Nunez. He’s basically just a guy who lives on the fringes of the island and also hates the resort and tries using voodoo curses. He’s honestly a delight from his attempt to sacrifice a chicken (An already dead one at that), to his general hammy and annoyed at dealing with these teenagers demeanor. NAturally he has nothing to do with this but he’s still a fun addition and I wish he was in more scnenes than the two he gets.  But with what they’ve gathered the gang all end up at a spooky castle attraction, with Scooby and Shaggy of course being bribed by daphne while Velma and Fred show up indpeendntly and end  up finding the weird training video from earlier but all get caught when the traps are activiated> There’s also a farting contest which.. eh not funny to me but i’ve seen so much worse i’m not even remotely upset. But then the traps trigger though during the chaos Fred and Velma are forced to work together and finally start doing so, and Daphne finds a clue: A mysterious pyramid known as the damon righus and finally gets some, if not nearly enough, credit.  So the gang is back together.. even if it’s a tenative peace, the high from solving this and relay to their boss the suspects, including him, though Fred assures Mondovarius it’s just because he’s spooky and rowan’s character’s delight over that is fucking glorious.  So the gang enjoys some down time at the local bar, with Fred and Daphne doing their own look ins, Scooby and Shaggy eating and encountring mary again and Velma getting hit on by a dude while looking over the ritus, revealing it’s some sort of soul sucking aparatus, and going into their history... which is really just an excuse to bring Scrappy in who in this universe, is a horny egotistical little shit whose abandoned as a result. ANd before anyone boos he’s not a puppy here, he’s got.. dog dwarfisim.. which while .. how does that even work... means he’s a grown ass man and deserved this. We also get drunk velma and Linda Caredenlli is a delight

The night gets interupted by terrible cgi monsters, the aformentioned emon who soul suck most of the college kids present and also get fred and velma who both find out these are very much real. We also get the best song on the soundtrack, man with a hex. It slaps. But it makes good chase music as with Mondvarious, Fred and Velma captured, the rest of the gang and mary escape.  The next morning we get a surreal as hell scene as everyone’s partying, Fred’s talking in slang and Velma with clevage, thank you, is chatting up.. Sugar Ray? For those younger of you they were a band at the time. They were a big thing. Not half bad but faded away. They looked as 2000′s as hell though. WHy Smash Mouth gets all the memes and not them is beyond me. Look at lead singer Mark McGrath!It’s like the early 2000′s gained sentience and took a human form. But the gang is quickly forced to run from sugar ray, though they get Daphne in a deleted scene. Why it was deleted I dunno. Point is Shaggy, Scooby and Mary are all alone.. oh and Mary’s possessed. Shaggy and Scooby argue over it because Shaggy just thinks Scooby is jealous and while he is .. why would he lie about this? He’s as cowardly as you are. But Scooby falls through the floor, and Shaggy is now going solo but luckily finds his friends souls, and eveyrone elses in a massive cool looking vat and frees them all.  Velma, when the demon leaves her and confronts her, finds out sunlight kills the demons and saves Daphne from hers... only to find Fred in her body. Daphne is naturally horrified and we do get a great bodyswapping scene.

Our heroes reconvince on the beach where htey find the Maestro who explains what’s going on to a point, with the gang’s clues filling in the blanks: The ritus, which they stole back earlier, is used for a ritual that will allow the Demons to rule over the earth for “a thousand years of darkness” but it requires a pure soul to work. Cue our big bad talking Scooby into being their willing sacrifice since Scooby dooes not understand what a sacrifice is.  Shaggy naturally rallies the group to go save him after their understandably worried since they usually dealt with weirdos in costumes and not the apocalypse.. well okay Velma and Fred aren’t, Daphne dealt with this kind of thing once a week back in Sunnydale. So they set up a plan to destroy all the demons at once by unleashing the soul bath, setting them all loose and then using a spooky disco ball from one of the attractions rigged up over the ritual area to shine the light in. It’s classic scooby doo. 

Things naturally go wrong as while Shaggy goes to rescue scooby and makes up with him, he’s caught, so are fred and velma and they have to scramble, while Daphne looses a fight with the luchador up top while trying to let the light in to finish the trap. Meanwhile Shaggy saves Scooby’s soul just as Mondovarious sucks it out by shoving the guy.. revealing him to be a robot! DUN DUN DUN. And inside is Scrappy.. which you all probably knew already but try to act suprise who wanted to conquer the world as revenge for the gang abandoning him and because again, in this universe he’s kind of an asshole. He absorbs the souls gathered so far and merges with the damon ritus, because we’re operating on video game rules now apparently, so final boss time.  But we get a great climax as Scrappy chases scooby, Daphne goes buffy on Zarkos ass , and as a result he shatters the glass and lets the light in releasing the disco ball the kill the demons.. man I love that I get to type things like that. Scooby removes the ritus and defeats his nephew and the day is saved. Velma hooks up with random guy, Daphne and Fred get together, I die inside a little and Shaggy and Mary Jane bond. At the press Fred does his good deed for the movie by letting Velma explain things and get the spotlight and the group have firmly reunited. THE END. Overall it’s a solid plot, that works well, comes together in the end and was well put together, it’s more the filling that causes it to tilt back and forth a bit, but overlal outside of the issue I mentioned it’s a good scooby doo plot. While some have pointed out it is similar to zombie island, a case reuniting the gang, the person who brought them there wanting to sacrifice them, or just scooby here, monsters being real, it works because everything else is so different. But since there’s more to break down and it’s easier to give it it’s own section let’s look at...

THE CHARACTERS: NOT HALF BAD, FRED CAN GO FUCK HIMSELF. 

So we’re down to character.. and since there’s a blonde, preeening, selfish, arrogant, sleazy, sexist, obnoxious, loud mouthed, useless elephant in the room, let’s start with Fred. And to quote it’s always sunny....

Yeah so that fury of a thousand crashing waves (Cracks Knuckles): Fred is the worst part of this movie, the worst version of the character across the entire franchise that i’ve seen with the sincre doubt that there is ANY version worse than this. Everything I said above is true and THEN some. He is one of the most unlikable characters i’ve seen in a film that wasn’t INTENDED to be. There’s just NOTHING to like about him. Nothing. He treats his “Friends” like garbage, all four of them: He basically ignores shaggy and scooby at best and treats them as if they were nothing. For Velma he’s your classic power abusing douche who pushes her to the side and often steals the credit for things she did. He’s still a good mystery solver, but he acts like he does all the work to the press and takes all the credit when Velma works as hard as he does if not harder. And worst of all is Daphne, who he basically either treats like some moron who gets kidnapped due to incompetence and not because creepy old dudes want to feel her up, which given the intro is VERY likely the reason she’s the resident victim of the group, and not like a person, or like a pair of boobs and legs he wants to bang or feel up creepily while he’s in her body. For fuck’s sake his reaction to finding out he’s in her body is a creepy and smug “I can see myself naaaakeddd” If that dosen’t make you want to smack him get off my blog. And they get together in the end! 

Who who wanted that. I genuinely want the presumibly original ending where Daphne and Velma hook up and Fred falls off a pier and is never seen again. The acting does not help. While the other four gang members are expertly cast Fred was given to Freddy Prinze Junior, who made a career out of playing arrogant dicks who are somehow the main character so I can’t fault the casting but I can fault that he can’t delver any line without that smug air of trying to be cool douche and it’s at it’s worst with Fred since Fred’s already written as the biggest creepiest douche in the world and Freddy somehow makes it WORSE. He also has zero chemstiry with Daphne, which would be weird given he and Sarah Michelle Gellar had dated for 2 years at this point and as of this writing have been together for 20 overall and have two wonderful kids together... but given how badly written Fred is here, I can’t blame either of them. And i’m sure FPJ is a swell guy, loves his kids loves his wife seems like a really plesant guy, nothing against him as a person, but at least at this point in his career he wasn’t very good. And I am actually planning on trying to seek out one of his later works in his career to see if he’s gotten better in recent years, and willing to give him the benifit of a doubt that he probably has. I just don’t like him here, and while the script does most of the work he only makes it worse.And works before this (Pup Named Scooby Doo) and after this (Mystery Incorperated) would prove you can give fred a personality that’s not dick tip, so fuck this character, fuck the writing.. and I hope Freddy is having a happy halloween with his loving wife and children, seriously I meant it I have nothing against him as a person. A terrible actor can still be a WONDERFUL guy. 

Now that’s thankfully put to bed, let’s pivot over to Shaggy, whose easily the best of the cast. Matthew Lillard looks the part pefectly, has the right combination of heart and goofus and has some great comedic timing. Granted Scream had already proven the guy’s got genuine talent, but still he’s great here and is currently playing Shaggy in most films and productions, except Scoob which.. was far from it’s only mistake but easily the biggest. There’s not much else to say: the guy IS Shaggy and is the only person whose taken up the roll to equal Kasey Casem in it. As for how he’s written.. he’s basically the same and apart from one line of him wanting to leave everyone to their deaths, which feels like it was added later, he’s written really well and is easily the most likeable of the group. 

Scooby is alright. Not the best version but funny and charming enough when he needs to be and while I hated the CGI at one point.. it’s honestly not that bad. It’s not GREAT, but time has actually been very good to it both in how it’s held up and in the fact we’ve gotten SO MUCH WORSE with so much better techlogies. I mean.. Cats exists.. Marmaduke Exists.. the Bill Murray Garfield exists. This was offputting at the time but now it’s just okay. But character wise he’s good and again not much diffrent. 

Velma is the second best casting of the movie. Played by Linda Cardenelli, who i’ve harbored a crush on for a good few decades now and admire mostly for her talent and charm, Linda kills the roll and easily slips into it as easily as Matt did, and while not picking it up full time like he did, still did it a few times afterword and played hot dog water in mystery incorperated, so she did finally get to play a Lesbian Velma it just took a while. And while Velma being gay is kind of sterotyping, it would’ve been nice to have been kept in instead of edited out for bullshit reasons. But overal her character is decent: While she ALSO bullies and belittles daphne like fred, unlike fred it comes less from just being a douche and more from insecurity. As her scene at the bar makes clear she feels undervalued like the other, like the nerd who the cool kids LET hang out with them instead of part of the team. While it dosen’t make her treatment of Daphne OKAY, it makes Velma understandable. We also get Velma Clevage which.. okay not sure if the world needed that but whatever. Point is it’s throughly likeable portryal that I wish got some character growth.  Finally out of the main 5 there’s Daphne, whose alright. Not as good as the other two, as it feels they lean a bit too heavily on her having taken self defense and wanting ot be tougher, but Sarah Michelle Gellar gives her a ton of charm and likeablity that her husband’s character sadly lacks. There’s just a fun, adorable energy to daph that ends up coupling with her buffy style badassery at the end and Sarah plays both beautifully. The script didn’t give her a ton to work with, though that’s the same for all four of htem, but Sarah really made the character work and made her somewhat memorable despite not being as good as Linda or Matthew. Basically not the best, but still a comfortable third ahead of scooby doo and jackass jones. 

As for the rest of the cast, Rowan Attkinson i’ve covered and is utterly fantastic as is the Voodoo Maestro, and both should get hteir own hbo max spinoff together. The minons.. stupid name and luchadoor are decent enough, nothign special but they have presence and do the job of goon well. And Mary Jane is alright.. the joke is WAY too on the nose to be funny and she’s mostly just there to be sweet, but she’s harmless. Not good but not bad.  So finally we have our big bad, Scrappy. And i’m.. mixed about this. On one hand, Scott Innes, who it turns out is also from Missouri good on you dude!, does a terrific job and I couldn’t tell it wasn’t don messick as Scrappy and he plays him as evil great. On the other.. it’s just kinda goofy. Out of all the tips of hte hat to scooby stuff this feels the most over the top. Scrappy was hated, including by james gunn.. so he’s the bad guy. It’s just a bit on the nose, and the twist is pretty easily teligraphed since Scrappy suspciously is mentioned in one scene so him showing up at all is pretty easy to see coming. It’s not terible but it’s not great. His demon minons also just suck.. the designs are wonky and their cgi, unlike scooby and scrappy’s, is just REALLY bad and dated, and even as a kid I never liked them. 

FINAL THOUGHTS:  Scooby Doo is a decent but messy movie. The clashing tones, dated humor and godawful version of fred drag it down at times, and it’s very clear this had a lot of hands in the pot. But.. I still enjoy it. It’s not the best scooby ever, tha’ts mystery incorpeated, but it has great atmosphere, some good ideas, an utterly spectacular with one exception cast, and some really funny jokes. I genuinely feel the film is overhated when it’s a unique, weird and wonderful slice of Scooby. For better or worse there’s no other Scooby doo property quite like it, and that’s what makes it so fun. And it has enough good performances and jokes to smooth out the edges. It’s not the best, it’s a mess.. but sometimes a mess is fun and I like this flim for being a fun mess I can enjoy with my nieces and talk about to all of you. And sometimes that’s all you need.  Thank you for reading this. If you like this you can comission your own review: 5 bucks for a tv episode, 15 for a movie, 10 for an hour long special, and 5 dollars off when you order more than one episode of a show at a time. Just send me a direct message or ask on here and we’ll get started. Until then you can check out my backlog of reviews, check this space every monday for ducktales reviews, and VOTE DAMMIT VOTE. Until we meet again it’s been a pleasure. Play us out Atomic Fireballs, it’s been a wonderful halloween. 

[lifeonashelf]

COHEN, LEONARD

So, here’s the thing: I don’t know anything about Leonard Cohen.

I do own two of his most acclaimed albums, but don’t get too excited. I bought both of them the week of Cohen’s passing solely because learning of his passing made me realize I didn’t have anything by him in my collection, and he’s always been on my radar as an artist I should probably know some things about, you know? I listened to those two discs one day while I was cleaning my apartment or something, and they were lovely and pleasant and sounded great, but then I filed them away on my shelf and that was essentially the extent of my immersion into the world of Leonard Cohen. I know the reissues I purchased are noteworthy entries in his discography, because they’re housed in these rather attractive hardcover digipacks with booklets that feature lengthy contextual essays written by people way smarter than me. I suppose I could read those essays and glean a little information about Cohen that way, but then I’d just be offering you disingenuous regurgitation, and I don’t want to fake anything in these pages; that’s kind of counteractive to the entire purpose of me writing these dumb things. So if you want to read a thoughtful essay about Leonard Cohen constructed by someone who I assume knows enough about Leonard Cohen to warrant being paid to write an essay about him, you should definitely seek out the striking deluxe editions of Songs From a Room and Songs of Love and Hate I’m referring to, because both have essays in them, and they’re printed on glossy paper so they’re probably pretty good (very few crappy essays get preserved on glossy paper).

No one is paying me to write this essay about Leonard Cohen—they’d be pretty stupid to do so, since I don’t know anything about Leonard Cohen—but I have that pair of records and he’s the next artist on alphabetical deck. So here we are.

Actually, you know what? Before we get started, I’m going to go ahead and advise you to just skip this piece altogether.

Hear me out. I can’t imagine this is going to be one of my better entries; considering my not knowing anything about the person I’m supposed to be writing about and all, the odds of my somehow summoning literary gold here aren’t particularly strong. Also, Leonard Cohen is a highly respected artist, and based on the listening I’m doing right now, he definitely deserves that respect—I’m on my second spin of Songs from a Room and it is an absolutely beautiful record. But what am I accomplishing by telling you that? You probably already know Songs From a Room is an absolutely beautiful record, and if you don’t, you should totally listen to it right this minute instead of reading anything I might observe about it, because the album is a whole lot better than this essay is going to be. I’ve been down this road before, so I can tell you exactly what’s about to happen here: I’m going to keep prattling on with gibberish just like this and end up embarrassing myself by blowing yet another chance to write something substantial about a substantial artist. I guess I could comment on how much I like the two Cohen songs that were used to bookend the mindfuck of a film Natural Born Killers or something, but what purpose will that serve? There, I commented on it, and biting into those ‘member berries hasn’t magically ignited some spirited dissertation, has it? Look, I’m saying this because I care: I really think you should call it quits on this piece right here and now, before you get in too deep. I’m already doomed, but it’s not too late to save yourself. Run, go, get to the choppah. Fly away, Clarice, fly fly fly. ‘Member?  

Okay, you’ve been duly warned. So if you do decide to continue on, I’m not going to feel terribly bad about wasting your time, especially since I essentially just promised you anything I write from this point forward is going to be a waste of your time. I mean, everything I’ve written so far has also been a waste of your time, but I haven’t written that much yet. And at least the stuff I wrote so far has served a purpose: it cautioned you that everything to come is going to be an even bigger waste of your time. I can’t promise any of the supplemental paragraphs I’m about to compose will be worth even that much, so I really have to advise you to take a moment here and consider your situation carefully. Weighing everything I’ve just told you about my not knowing anything about Leonard Cohen (and, just to be clear, I’m not playfully minimizing that disposition; I honestly don’t know shit about him), along with my stated unambiguous surety that I am about to waste an indefinite amount of your time (you must be familiar with my work by now; it’s totally plausible this thing could end up running 15 pages)—do you really want to read any of more of this? It’s still not too late to back out. Your time investment thus far is minimal. You can just move right along to the next piece (it’s about Coldplay, so I’m sure that essay is going to be way funnier than this one). My feelings won’t be hurt, I promise. I can hardly fault you for not reading this, because there isn’t any reason at all you should read this. Unless you just really enjoy reading these entries in general, but that seems highly unlikely because nobody enjoys reading them—shit, I only enjoy every fifth one or so, and I write the fucking things.

Check it out: usually by this point in a composition, I would be painstakingly rereading what I’ve written so far to make sure I’m off to an okay start, right? But I haven’t done that in this case because I already know everything I’ve written so far is garbage. This piece isn’t going to improve, either. And that’s what I’m really trying to get across to you here: I am woefully ill-equipped to write anything about Leonard Cohen that is as excellent as his music—I just listened to Songs of Love and Hate a couple times, and holy shit, that’s an absolutely beautiful record too. You may assume I’m continuing this obnoxious diatribe because I’m setting you up for some grand gag (granted, it’s a fair guess, because I’ve done that a few times in entries past). But I’m not joking when I say that I’m not joking in this instance. This rambling philological self-fellation is not going to coalesce into something worthwhile; it’s just going to go on and on like this until I decide I’m done fucking with you and then this essay will just sort of… end, without preamble or satisfaction. I’m telling you, if you keep reading this, you are going to be super pissed off when you finish it. You’ll get to the conclusion, and you’ll grumble, “That’s it…? That was stupid.” And you will be right, because that will be it and it will be stupid.

Since that will be transpiring soon, we should probably clarify that at this point, when it does it’s going to be entirely your fault. If you go all the way back to the beginning of this twaddle, you’ll clearly see the very first thing I wrote was, “So, here’s the thing: I don’t know anything about Leonard Cohen.” That was the opening fucking sentence, dude. Seriously, what did you think was going to happen after that? And only a few lines later, I wrote: “I’m going to go ahead and advise you to just skip this piece altogether.” Then came that whole part about how reading this was going to be a total waste of your time, blah blah blah. You can check if you want; it’s all totally in there. I’m sure you didn’t think I’d be reprinting complete sentences you already read—and, you know what, yes, that’s kind of a low blow, I’m realizing now—but after I took the time to explain in detail that this essay would likely end up serving no purpose whatsoever, surely that must have given you pause. I mean, didn’t you think to yourself, “Wait a minute, before I read this essay, is it going to serve some purpose?” As I’ve made abundantly clear, the answer is: No. No, it is not. I was pretty up front about that. In fact, I specifically told you not to read it—“there isn’t any reason at all you should read this”; is that ringing a bell at all? So if you are still reading it, that’s kind of on you, dude. Sure, I could have stopped writing a long time ago and spared you from all of this bullshit, but let’s not get caught up in semantics.

Have you seen the movie Reservoir Dogs? I’m assuming you have, but if you haven’t, you can add that to the list of far more fulfilling things you could be doing right now instead of reading this essay. Anyway, the film is centered around the aftermath of a jewelry store robbery gone horrifically wrong. We don’t actually see the caper take place, but the characters reference it enough along the way for us to get a clear sense of things devolving into a bloodbath after one of the robbers, Mr. Blonde (played by Michael Madsen) shoots numerous people inside the establishment. Is it coming back to you now? Good. There’s a reason I’m bringing this up.

Since Madsen is absent for a lot of the movie, the audience’s understanding of the storyline relies mostly on what the characters played by Steve Buscemi and Harvey Keitel share with us about what has occurred. Their perspective is clear: Mr. Blonde went crazy and started killing people, and that’s why the whole heist went tits up. However, when Madsen finally appears at the warehouse where the bulk of the plot’s action takes place, he presents an entirely different assessment of the exact same incident. It is here that the movie shifts into the subtle employment of a narrative device known as the “Rashomon Effect,” so-named because this formula’s introduction to Western film-goers is commonly credited to the 1950 Akira Kurosawa film Rashomon—a picture which we can assume in hindsight Reservoir Dogs creator Quentin Tarantino was consciously invoking since his filmography has since revealed a heart-on-sleeve fandom for the work of that storied Japanese director (several Tarantino flicks make reference to this allegiance, but his Kill Bill films in particular are at their core unashamed modern reimaginings of Kurosawa’s legendary Samurai epics). I won’t recount the entire plot of Rashomon, since doing so would be superfluous here (as opposed to all of this shit I’m writing about Reservoir Dogs, which is obviously vitally important to this essay about Leonard Cohen). All you really need to know for our purposes is that the crux of the story is a singular event which is assigned completely disparate interpretations by the various people in the film who witness it.  Which is precisely what happens when Michael Madsen makes his entrance.

Now, I’ve seen Reservoir Dogs many times, but not enough times to have the dialogue faithfully memorized; you’ll have to forgive me if I paraphrase a bit here. Essentially, Keitel’s character calls Mr. Blonde a “maniac” or something to that effect, a designation based on Madsen’s character opening fire upon one of the store’s clerks for what Keitel perceives as “no reason at all.” Madsen’s response to this slanted accusation is fascinating. In direct repudiation of his labelling as a “maniac” seconds before, he continues calmly drinking his soda as he amends Keitel’s analysis of the murder by providing a remarkably lucid and utilitarian explanation for the killing: “I told her not to press the alarm, but she did. If she hadn’t done the thing that I told her not to do, then I wouldn’t have shot her.”

It seems we are sharing our own Rashomon moment, my friends. You may feel like your time has been wasted, and it certainly has. But I am not the one who wasted it. That was you. I told you not to read this essay, but you did. If you hadn’t done the thing I told you not to do…  

Mr. Cohen: I am truly sorry. Your music is stunning, and you deserve far better than this.

As for the rest of you: I mean, dude, I fucking told you.

 March 31, 2019

[miraculouscontent]

Could we know More about this completely hypothetical situation, please?

Ah, yes, of course. *ahem* Well, in this completely hypothetical situation…

After Marinette opens the blog to fan submissions (it’s a subpage, so only people who subscribe to it get daily updates), Trixx is put in charge of accepting/rejecting.

Trixx is also aware of how Marinette downplays Chat’s behavior to Fu to keep the peace, along with the fact that people are quick to make fun of and mock Chat’s behavior. Thus, the Chat memes fill up the queue for approval and Trixx lets the funnier (and sometimes more critical) ones slip.

(Just to give you guys a scope of how frustrated people get with Chat, the beginning of “Weredad” happens after “Oblivio” in this AU. Won’t talk specifics, but I’ll just let anyone who remembers what happened there imagine how the public would react to Chat’s casual behavior during a certain part of it.)

Chat doesn’t follow the blog actively after a while, only checking back every now and then. However, he eventually catches wind of what’s happening and goes to Ladybug about it.

Ladybug really did think it was going to be a normal patrol.

She was wrong.

She’d just been standing there, waiting for Chat to arrive for patrol. She pulled out her yoyo, opening it to check on LadyBugOut.

But, before she could even touch the yoyo’s screen, a black, gloved hand had slapped it away. Her yoyo careened across the flat rooftop, stopping a solid distance away. It sat there pathetically, screen still opened.

At first, Ladybug could only stare at her fallen yoyo, in complete disbelief that someone had honestly just come out of nowhere and done that.

And that wasn’t even taking into account who’d done it in the first place.

After a few seconds, Ladybug finally looked up, staring blankly at a very angry Chat. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could even get a syllable out, Chat unleashed all of his frustration.

“Do you think this is funny?! Is this some sort of joke to you?!”

Ladybug blinked, confused and startled by the outburst. “I–I’m sorry?”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it!”

Given his current emotional state, she wasn’t going to bother explaining that she wasn’t actually apologizing and was just confused.

Chat, still fuming, turned his attention to one of his pockets. Unzipping it, he reached inside and pulled out a phone. After doing what looked like unlocking it, he shoved it into Ladybug’s hands.

“Explain this!” he demanded.

She gave him a look, vaguely wondering how he could just go up to her, knock her yoyo away, and then order her to do something, but she went along with it.

Looking down at the phone, Ladybug noted that it was the LadyBugOut website. Specifically, the fan submissions page.

She stared blankly, even squinting a bit as she tried to figure out what he was so angry about.

“I… don’t–”

“These!” Chat yelled, pointing at the screen.

He was pointing to an assortment of memes of all things; memes that people had made of him.

Some were admittedly a little mean, but they were mostly harmless. Even a screenshot of her destroyed bedroom (thanks, Gigantitan) was followed by a fake Chat caption of, “I could go check on the creator of m’lady’s blog, but my jokes are a full-time job.”

Ladybug glanced back up at him. “Chat, they’re just–”

“They’re mocking me!” Chat interjected. “They all are! Ever since LadyBugOut started, everyone wants to get on my case for every little thing!”

“…We’re heroes, Chat,” she gently reminded him. “That’s why I take heroism very seriously–”

“Is that why you did this then?!” He pointed an accusing finger at her. “You let people post this stuff just to try and prove me wrong?!”

“Wha–no,” she replied bluntly. “I don’t approve these. Someone else does.”

Chat huffed, turning away with a scowl. “It’s just never your fault, is it?! It’s always someone else’s!”

Ladybug ignored his comment and continued, “I can’t run everything on LadyBugOut myself. I have a lot of people helping me out.”

A hiss followed. “Not me.”

She sighed. “We’re the two most active heroes, Chat. It’s a lot of work maintaining the blog. We usually have to split up right after a fight, so I knew it’d be weird having you on video inconsistently.

“Plus, you said you’d support my blog. You didn’t say that you wanted to help.”

Chat spun around, hand on his chest. “You didn’t ask!”

She gave him a flat, knowing look. “You’re always so quick to invite me out to places. I figured you’d insist on helping as soon as I mentioned it, if you’d really wanted to help.”

Chat opened his mouth, but stopped as her words caught up to him. His fake cat ears pointed up in surprise and he even let out a strangled noise.

“Y-you–!”

Ladybug shrugged. “I know you’re mad Chat, but I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Still seeing her yoyo laying sadly nearby, she moved towards it.

Before she could even take two steps, she felt a hand grab her arm. The pull had more than enough force to make her look back at Chat.

He clearly wasn’t done talking.

“Chat–” Ladybug glanced back at her yoyo, about to ask him if she could at least put it back on her waist.

Then, her eyes fell upon the screen, which wasn’t the same as it had been before it’d initially hit the rooftop.

Her eyebrows rose in shock.

Immediately, she turned back to Chat. “Look, Chat–it-it’s okay. Calm down–”

Chat bristled, looking offended by the request. “Calm down?! You want me to be calm after all this?!”

“Chat, please, the yoyo–”

“What did I do to you, Ladybug?!” he asked.

Ladybug, now tense, tried to raise her voice so she couldn’t be interrupted again. “Nothing! Seriously, Chat–”

“Why are you trying to ruin what we have together?!” He pulled her closer, his hand still tight around her forearm. “We’re meant to be! The ladybug and the cat! Ladybug and Chat Noir! What do you have against destiny?”

Ladybug was about to respond, but paused, momentarily brought out of her panic by what he’d just said. “I–I just–wait–what?”

“How am I supposed to believe that some other guy can just come between us after everything we’ve been through? We flirt, we kissed twice, and we end up on each other all the time. We’re partners; special partners! We were chosen! We’re soulmates! What’s so hard about that?”

It was like the world had come to a halt. Ladybug felt a fire flaring up in her chest, and her free hand tightened into a fist.

She stepped back, pulling her arm free from Chat’s grip. She’d done it so abruptly that he jerked forward, even letting out an annoyed, “Hey!”

She didn’t listen, standing straight and firm. “First off, the world does not revolve around you, Chat! I never told anyone to come after you and I am not in charge of what people have said. Not everything I do has to do with you or our relationship!

Speaking of which, our relationship does not exist. We are not a couple. You kept that idea going for people and you are the one who’s upset that it’s not going how you want!”

Chat went to speak up, but Ladybug spoke first, the strength in her voice ensuring that he wouldn’t cut her off this time.

“Secondly, if I’d known that that’s how you saw all that banter, I never would’ve done it. I’m not flirting with you, Chat. Even I know that things get tense and it helps to lighten the mood with some banter, but clearly, that went right over your head.

“Thirdly, you seem to keep forgetting how those kisses happened, and that’s exactly because you never remembered in the first place. The first time, you were under Dark Cupid’s spell and I kissed you to save you. I didn’t want to do it, but I did to break the spell.

“Neither of us had our memories for Oblivio, and yeah, maybe something special happened. But, all that happened without us knowing about our experiences, our relationships with other people, and even who we were. That doesn’t sound very real to me. If I was going to kiss you, I’d rather have everything already be on the table.”

She stepped forward. Chat stepped back, still tense but too shocked to say anything.

Ladybug continued, “You want to know what you did wrong? Maybe it’s because, after all this time, you still can’t read me. Not on Face-to-Face, not when my voice was gone, and not when I needed you most. If you could’ve understood me, you would’ve seen when I was uncomfortable, known when I needed you to be serious, and–oh, yeah–”

She took a deep breath, not giving him a moment to respond before shouting, “–you would’ve noticed that I was trying to get your attention before because my yoyo has been RECORDING AND STREAMING EVERYTHING.”

The wind stilled. The world around them was silent. Neither of them even moved. They just stood there, staring at each other.

Chat’s eyes wavered. The anger from his face turned to dread. His fingers twitched.

Ladybug closed her eyes, wordlessly turning away from him and stepping towards her yoyo. Part of her expected him to grab her arm again, but he didn’t.

She picked up her yoyo, shutting it to stop the recording. She stroked along the surface, which was still unharmed, then let out a breath.

When she turned back around, Chat was gone.

[cynicalrainbows]

The Queens + Dealing with online tech support

Did anyone ask for this weirdly specific list? No. Will I write it anyway? Yes. Am I writing this while Virgin Media keeps me on hold for hours on end? Also yes.

ANYWAY.

Aragon: Absolutely channelling big Karen vibes here. Very ‘Pass me over to your superior, please!’ At her most regal. Unfrotuntely for her, she has to be on hold for ages until she even gets to the point of having a real human to be Karen-ish at, so until then, she just gets more and more tense and angry. If she smoked, she would be stress-smoking. Has considered taking it up purely for this. The other queens stay OUT of the living room while Catalina is on the phone- the only one allowed in is Cathy, because she’s the only one Catalina probably won’t snap at if she offers tea or whatever. Basically, Cathy tells the others when it’s safe to go in,  which is usually an hour or so after the call has actually finished.

Anne: Messes with the pre-recorded question-and-answers and says silly stuff into the phone at it. ‘Please press four if you’re thinking of leaving us-’ ‘Oh my god you’re all so freakin’ NEEDY! No wonder this relationship is ending!’ Gradually gets more aggressive as she gets more annoyed until she’s making threats to the pre-recorded on-hold music. Cathy and Kitty generally try to listen in when Anne is on the phone like this because it’s quite amusing to listen to- it’s even funnier when someone picks up the phone and hears a bit of what Anne is saying and she has to frantically backtrack and apologise. ‘No, Sir, I promise I wasn’t- shut up Cathy, it isn’t funny! No, really, I hold you and your company in the highest regard- Kitty, I swear if you don’t stop laughing-’ 

Jane: Very patient and nice- doesn’t quite GET that it’s pre-recorded message and not a real person so she’s super polite to it. ‘Please press two for other options’ ‘Thank you SO much!’ The other queens find it really adorable and eventually Kitty gives up reminding her that no one can hear her. Being on hold doesn’t bother her- she just goes about her day with her phone on speaker (backfired once when the poor person on the other end put her through just as Jane was screaming about a spider and begging Anna to come and take it away.) She is also the person all the call-centre people HOPE they’ll get put through to because she’s so understanding: ‘Oh no don’t apologise, OF COURSE I understand you’re busy! You must be working so hard, you poor thing!’. Essentially the anti-Aragon in terms of Karen-ness.

Anna: Like Jane, doesn’t really care if she gets put on hold. Keeps her phone on speaker and dances to the on-hold music, no matter if it’s terrible. Especially if it’s terrible. Aragon once walked in on her and Kitty waltzing dramatically to a really tinny rendition of Santa Clause is Coming To Town and just walked right back out again. Will cheer up the phone person with stories about good dogs she’s seen if they sound at all stressed (or even if they don’t. Some appreciate it. Some.....don’t. ‘-I swear, I’ve never seen such a huge Malamute. 10/10, would definitely pet again. My hand was LOST in his fur.’ ‘Ma’am, do you actually want to reconnect the wifi or not?’

Kitty: Really, really hates having to make calls like this, it stresses her out and she can never remember all of her passwords, and usually by the time she’s put through, she’s so anxious she’s forgotten what she wanted in the first place. Has occasionally just chosen to go without the help she needed because she doesn’t want to make the call. Will actually tear up with the stress of it all sometimes- Jane or Anna will usually sit with her for support while she makes the call if they can, and then are really pleased with her when she’s got through it. Anne will sometimes walk by and drop chocolate buttons into her lap as a motivator if Jane and Anna are busy.

Cathy: Is super enthused about the technology that allows for pre-recorded messages and feels really lucky that she lives in an age where technology is a Thing RIGHT up until she actually has to make her first call. Then she realises how much it sucks and indulges in some dramatic flopping around and bewailing the fact that electricity was ever invented to curse them all. Like Kitty, disorganised af and never knows what password she has. Jane tries to make sure Cathy writes down all passwords etc when she makes them so she doesn’t forget- Cathy does so and then immediately loses the paper and/or forgets where she wrote it down. It’s not her fault- she has a LOT of things to write down, after all. (Is also fed chocolate buttons by Anne to keep her spirits up while on hold.)

[some-lists]

Ranking all the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers

Go Go Power Rangers! I felt it was time for another 90’s throwback. Today I’m ranking all the Power Rangers from Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. Just about every 90’s kid was obsessed with this show. It was a phenomenon. It started out with the original five in its first season. As the show went on, we saw a number of replacements added to the cast.

As a child, I had my definite favorites based on my childhood memories. I later rewatched the series as an adult and my perspective on the characters really changed. This is my ranking based on what I observed as an adult looking back.

10. Kat Hillard (Pink Ranger)

Kat had the unfortunate task of filling Kimberly’s shoes as the new Pink Ranger. She was doomed from the start. The writers introduced the character as a villain -- a fellow student under an evil spell to undo the Pink Ranger. It made us not like her from the very beginning. Kat eventually grew into her role, especially in the following seasons of Zeo and Turbo. But initially, she felt like an imposter who literally did not fit the suit.

9. Aisha Campbell (Yellow Ranger)

I liked Aisha as a kid. I liked her sassy attitude and that she was girly and short. After watching the show again as an adult, I realized how completely useless she was as a ranger. She had no fighting ability whatsoever, couldn’t do any flips, and didn’t offer any brain power either. I actually felt embarrassed watching her fight scenes.

8. Rocky DeSantos (Red Ranger)

I think Rocky got a raw deal as the new Red Ranger. Many viewers were used to seeing the Red Ranger as a leader. However, when Rocky was introduced, he was just another ranger on the side. I don’t think this was his fault as Jason had already been demoted as leader after Tommy became the White Ranger. As a kid, I liked Rocky. I didn’t mind him as an adult either. His taekwondo skills were actually better than Jason’s. He was faster, more agile, could kick higher, and do more flips. Unfortunately, as one of the replacement rangers, he was always in the background.

7. Jason Lee Scott (Red Ranger)

Ranking Jason this low is gonna shock some die hard fans. As a kid, I absolutely loved Jason. He was one of my favorite rangers. I thought he was a great leader and strong fighter. He was the glue who got his team to work together. I especially preferred him as a leader over Tommy. But when I rewatched the show as an adult, I realized he really didn’t do anything! He had maybe two episodes about him. One was about him bench pressing a world record where he lifted weights the entire episode. That’s pretty much all he ever did. He lifted weights, punched bags, and occasionally taught a karate class or two. Essentially, he was there to flex his muscles and not much else. Even his sword, which I remembered being so cool, was pretty much useless. That was a big eye opener for me. I was also disappointed to see that his taekwondo skills weren’t as great as I remembered them. He was really slow, kinda clunky. Overall, Jason deserved better than what we was given.

6. Billy Cranston (Blue Ranger)

As the resident brain, Billy managed to invent the team’s communicators, which were also teleportation devices, and a flying car. He often operated the computers at the Command Center along with Alpha-5. It’s fair to say he contributed significantly to the team. He was a weak fighter in the beginning, but somehow became a super ripped expert gymnast by the end of his run. The show never explained that, but it was never a realistic show anyway.

5. Adam Park (Black Ranger)

I remember not liking Adam very much as a child. He was so quiet, shy, and often in the back as one of the replacement rangers. In my child mind that meant he was boring. However, as an adult, I realized how awesome he really was. First of all, he was way cute and I didn’t even see it before. He was smart and often operated the Command Center along with Billy (good ole Asian stereotyping). But mostly, he was an incredible fighter. His Shaolin kung fu style was a beauty to behold. His kicks, spins, and flips were so quick, effortless, and graceful. He had the best line in the movie: “I’m a frog,” which turned out to be the best zord as well. As the seasons went on (especially into Zeo and Turbo), he became much stronger, more confident, and a lot funnier too.

4. Zack Taylor (Black Ranger)

Zack is seriously underrated. He had a great personality. He was the life of the party, a great dancer, and funny. He even created his own martial arts style called Hip Hop Kido. He especially shined in the second season as he incorporated his karate with dance moves and incredible acrobatics. In my opinion, he was a way better fighter than Jason. If he had been given the proper treatment, Zack would’ve been on the same level as Tommy. After Zack left the show, the cast wasn’t nearly as fun.

3. Trini Kwan (Yellow Ranger)

Original Yellow Ranger Trini was the best. She was strong, brave, and intelligent. She had a spiritual side to her that was cool, calm, mature, and classy. She had natural leadership skills that were completely overlooked. I’d even say that when unmorphed, she was the true leader. She often stepped up and encouraged the other members no matter what situation they were in. She could understand Billy’s nerd talk and translated for the team. She also kicked serious butt. She became a big role model for many Asian American girls, as she was one of the first Asian American actresses with a visible role on television.

2. Tommy Oliver (Green & White Ranger)

I loved Tommy as the Green Ranger. His karate took the show to the next level. He was super bad ass and totally convincing as a villain. That evil laugh was perfect. Even after becoming good, the writers found a way to keep him around. His weakening powers and ultimately losing his powers gave him a tragic appeal. His relationship with Kimberly was also super cute. He was an exciting fighter and a compelling character. But, I didn’t really like him as the White Ranger. Once he became the White Ranger and the new team leader, he became a lot less interesting. He no longer had a real story. His martial arts was always top notch, but compared to the Green Ranger, White Ranger Tommy was too perfect and a lot more boring. Separately, I would’ve ranked White Ranger Tommy after Adam, but Green Ranger Tommy was awesome. Like I said, he elevated the show.

1. Kimberly Hart (Pink Ranger)

Kimberly was such a popular character. She was loved by girls who wanted to be like her, and by boys who had a crush on her. As an adult, I could easily see why and I was actually really surprised. She was hands down the star of the show. She had the most episodes dedicated to her out of all the rangers. Even when the episode wasn’t about her, she often saved the day with her bow and arrow. Seriously. She saves the team in almost every episode. Even though she wasn’t the strongest fighter unmorphed, her gymnastics skills were crazy impressive. Overall, she was the most valuable and consistent ranger on the team. Without her, they would’ve been toast.

Overall Thoughts

First of all, I couldn’t believe how poor quality the show was. They obviously reused the same footage over and over again. Even more unbelievable is how we all believed it as kids! But that cheesiness is now one of the best aspects of the show.

I was also surprised by how much the show favored certain characters over others. Kimberly had the most spotlight, followed by Billy. When Tommy showed up, it became all about him. Zack and Trini were tied for second to last place for air time. Jason was dead last. He was barely even in the show. It’s no wonder the three were unhappy and left the show when they did.

Rewatching the series also made me realize how much the movies glorified Tommy at the expense of the Pink Ranger. In the first film that meant Kimberly, who I mentioned in this list was an incredibly strong character. In the Turbo movie, they weakened Kat for Tommy to rescue her as well. That’s super disappointing as the show offered some really cool role models for young girls.

One thing I appreciated about the female rangers was how feminine they were. Kimberly was a fashion crazy mall rat, but she was never diminished for it. It just happened to be her personality. It was never a weakness. None of the girls were expected to act like boys in order to be strong. Later in Zeo and Turbo, Tanya was more tomboyish. She naturally excelled at sports and that was really cool too.

Overall, I was impressed by how much stunts these young actors did. The putty scenes were my favorite. We got to see the real actors (not costumed stunt doubles) do all their own stunts. They were all talented martial artists of various styles and masterful gymnasts. As the show progressed, so did the choreography. I can understand why the actors complained about not being paid enough.

Today, most of the newer Power Rangers shows don’t do their own stunts like the originals did. They’re a lot more flashier as well with explosions going off in every episode. Even though the budget is higher and the actors have more rights now, it doesn’t beat the nit and grit or the talent of the original Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.