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tigerdrop · 4 years

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Cringe is dead, talk to me about the funny half-life men and their relationship

okay here is my essay. it is titled These Guys Actually Like Each Other, and Gordon Freeman Is Just Kind Of A Dick*

(disclaimer: these are just my 2 cents. dont take me too seriously! im just some guy online who has watched this shit too many times.)

first things first. these guys actually like each other. this is a key aspect of their relationship. benrey, obviously and textually, digs gordon freeman - you dont flirt that heavily with guys you arent into, and so much of what he says and does is geared around making gordon crack up. thats pretty gay.

but the counterpart to this is that gordon freemans pretty fucking gay for benrey, too. you may say, “oh, but word of god says its not requited!” and to you i will say: bull shit. gordon is uniquely obsessed with benrey compared to all the other characters. if gordon didnt like the fucking guy, he wouldnt giggle with him and share in-jokes with him and bring him up every 5 seconds when benreys not around. thats concern, bro. thats worry. thats real shit

but i cant blame people for thinking that gordon freeman genuinely doesnt like benrey. benreys partially responsible for some of the worst things that have happened to him, the Arm Thing among them. and gordons very insistent afterward that he doesnt like benrey. he even goes so far as to try to kill benrey a couple times. to this, i must argue that gordon freeman is just kind of a dick.

lets talk facts here. canon. Lore. from the moment we hop into gordons shoes, we can see that he is a jerk to every npc on his way into black mesa. this is his default: a dude who just runs his mouth and says rude shit. he calls tommy a freak within 5 minutes of meeting him. he infantilizes the guy and barely considers him a real scientist. he doubts that bubby is a real name for like no fuckin reason. in “real life”, this is because its funny, and wayne is trying to make a funny half-life stream. in a textual sense, this is because gordon “hlvrai” freeman is a dick. this is the way he acts, consistently, throughout the series.

(brief aside: this is why the whole “gordon is a nice guy and a great dad” characterization baffles me. the way he actually acts in canon is, in short, bitchy and lacking in self-awareness. and i love that for him, i really do. it makes the moments where he just tries to be a nice guy stand out. but thats the thing: his intermittent moments of decency and kindness are not the whole of his personality! this dude kind of sucks most of the time!)

the way that gordons general asshole attitude extends to benrey is complicated. in fairness, benrey makes it his job to annoy the shit out of gordon as much as possible, and that warrants a negative attitude, but gordons pretty paranoid and ends up blaming benrey for nearly everything that happens to him, regardless of if its warranted. this is a pattern he exhibits both before and after the Arm Thing. its a little bit of a dick move! especially considering that, prior to the whole “betrayal” subplot (which was not exactly planned very far in advance), benrey is no more malicious or annoying than anybody else gordons having to travel with.

(okay, this is kind of a subjective evaluation, but still. my point stands that benrey is not any more of a hindrance to his progress than anybody else in the science crew, and neither is he particularly more violent or murderous. hell, gordon freeman has probably killed more guys than benrey. benrey just tends to get.......special treatment.)

all that said, i am still convinced that gordon really fucking likes benrey. please consider with me the following: it would be remarkably easy for gordon to just ignore him and do what he has to do, but he doesnt. he could stop engaging. he could stop thinking about benrey. he could stop bringing benrey up to the rest of the crew every time benrey leaves to do his own thing for awhile. but he doesnt. and, again, yeah, the extra-textual reason for this is “two guys are doing an improv comedy thing and bouncing off of scorpy is kind of the point”, but within the text it reads to me as gordon not being about to get the dude off his mind.

and this is in addition to all the times we see gordon being genuinely nice and receptive toward benrey! its in the little things: laughing the hardest and longest at benreys jokes. only ever reciprocating that stupid underwater “BBBBB” thing with benrey. trying to catch benrey when he falls, despite his insistence moments earlier that benrey should hop in the wack ass crystal generator and get hypermurdered. fondly remarking that benreys sweet voice sounds beautiful. his sort of flustered responses to most of benreys overt flirting. none of this is the way normal people react to a guy they hate. this is all fuckin gay to me, man.

its this combination of the outward insistence that gordon hates benrey with his inner eagerness to be around him and think about him and engage with him that gives off strong “repression” vibes, to me. for whatever reason - pride, embarrassment, resentment - gordon maintains a front of hating the guy and wanting to kill him for a lot of the series, but it doesnt gel with the way he fucking giggles and plays along half the time that benrey starts fucking with him. its a game, and that game is one of the only ways gordon knows to manifest affection for him.

(remember “oh my god, hes got a knife!”? that was the gayest shit i ever seen in my life. tittering like a schoolgirl while benrey chases him around like “im gonna get you haha”. insanity.)

the cool thing about repression is that you can have it manifest in a lot of ways! and this is where things like “headcanons” and “my own personal affection for repressed bisexual men” come in. a lot of how i characterize their relationship is an extrapolation of a lot of things like gordons canonical insecurity issues/anxiety, gordons whole anti-bootboy thing screaming “internet wokeboy who means well but probably has a lot of repressed baggage” to me, etc.

how do you get massive amounts of sexual repression out of what you see in canon, you might ask? well. if wayne would stop having gordon talking about being jerked off by the suit, or talking about chugging a 40-gal drum of potion and having to hold his piss, or worrying about being eaten by benrey the moment he sees benrey at setscale 10, maybe i would have a higher opinion of gordon “hlvrai” freeman and whatever latent psychosexual issues hes got going on. but here we are

i havent even touched yet upon how benrey feels about gordon. this one is helpfully made a little more plain by the fact that benrey very much wants to suck his dick in canon. (i dont even have to go into details. we all know.) but IMO the best part about this ship isnt just that they dig each other, but how. benrey gets overtly flirtatious in the second half of the series, but IMO his preferred method of flirting is just fucking with gordon: chasing him with knives, shoving him around in a bathroom, trying to get scans of his feet. but all in like a slapstick, giggly, fun-and-games sense, you know? at least when it works.

a lot of the time, though, it doesnt work out that way. he clearly just likes doing it whether or not gordon responds positively. which is, you know, Weird. not very nice. but also in line with the way everybody else treats gordon freeman. gordons kind of the universes chew toy in any given universe, and the same holds true here. hes kind of helpless......subjected to 4 demons attempting to make his life as difficult as possible. in a way its cathartic.

sorry. i got sidetracked. anyway, benrey very much likes to mess with him and unnerve him and demean him and i will be perfectly frank with you: that is hot. i have problems and illnesses and one of them is that i am a masochist who goes crazy for that kind of thing. calling gordon a “dirty lil boy” and telling him to “look at the mess [he] made” is some straight up kink scene shit.

i like to imagine that a lot of this behavior isnt caused just by the guy who played him wanting to be funny and antagonistic, but by benrey as a character not really understanding what constitutes “pushing a joke too far”. hes not human, and whatever he is doesnt have a very normative way of understanding the world around him, full of people who actually get hurt for real and die for real. benrey expresses what seems to be genuine surprise and distress after the Arm Thing, as if he didnt know that his actions would have serious consequences. and it doesnt seem to fully sink in afterward, either.

it reads a lot to me like hes used to video game rules and treating people around him like NPCs. if they get hurt, its no big deal, because its not real. he likes jamming random buttons on gordons interface and seeing what comes out. its probably a lot of fun for him, the same way that seeing a streamer or a youtuber suffer for our amusement is fun. its like, you know, in my opinion, gordons very cute when hes frazzled. hes also cute when hes laughing. pushing gordons buttons has a 50/50 chance of either of these things. and this is how he ultimately flirts with gordon: by pulling his pigtails.

but at the same time, benrey does legit care about gordon and knows some boundaries. benreys the one most often shooting at enemies to protect gordon, and he spent most of the last act trying to convince gordon to turn around and not fight him because they were friends (best friends, to be specific). he just lacks a lot of the emotional intelligence it would take to express the feeling of “he digs gordon and likes seeing his face get all red and sweaty regardless of the cause”. and gordon lacks the emotional intelligence it would take to express the fact that he doesnt know if he likes or hates benrey and hes scared as hell that its the former

because, lets be real. unironic benrey-liking is a sign of problems disorder. just look at all these words ive written about it.

can you imagine? this bizarrely powerful, non-human entity that can shrug off gunfire and grow to the size of a building has decided that youre his new plaything. benreys the bored guy booting up skyrim and fucking around in the console, and gordons the hapless favorite follower that hes taken a liking to. its a really fun dynamic IMO

after all this, its safe to say my title is a little misleading. the asterisk stands for * and So Is Benrey, Actually. they are both kind of awful dudes who thrive off of teasing each other and they deserve each other. and i am crazy about it. thank u for coming to my TED talk

#asky #careposting

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engineeredfiction · 3 years

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A Stranger In the Galaxy Ch. 1

I took a bit longer on this because I was still trying to make up my mind if this should be a reader insert or an OC. Womp womp.

Rating is Teen for prologue and chapter 1 of part 1, which is also out! It will definitely change if you know what I mean. (nudge nudge wink wink)

Word count: 1.2k (it's a short one, chapter 2 is a chonker though)

Warnings: I didn’t edit this. Soz.

This AU is a crossover of Star Wars, Dune, and my own imagination. If you know/read the Dune series you’ll see similarities between the Sisterhood in this story and the one in Dune. Some are the same and even more modified. I can do what I want, it’s my world building.

Prologue

Part 1: The Way To Mandalore

Chapter 1: Dangerous Quarry

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Mando drummed his fingers on his thigh plate. Greef Karga told him to come in at this time and the man hasn’t shown up.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

He closed his eyes behind his helmet and his mind drifted elsewhere. He has no ship, no Grogu, and the tension between him and Bo-Katan Kryze was dangerously high. His thumb involuntarily ran across the hilt of the Darksaber. The weight of responsibility and history made the weapon heavier than what it actually weighed. If he had known about about it before capturing Moff Gideon, we would have grabbed Bo-Katan-

“Mando!” Greef’s voice pulled him back to the present. “I am sorry to keep you waiting. Clients keep me on my toes-”

“What’s the job?” Mando bluntly asked.

“Down to business as always,” Greef grinned. To his side he grabbed a glass and the bottle of spotchka. “I would offer you some, but I already know the answer.” He threw back his glass and exhaled loudly. “How’s the loaner working for you? Is she in good shape for another hunt?”

Mando thought about the beat up light gunship, Gida. It was older than he was, probably older than Greef. Yet, it ran better than the Razor Crest, most of the time. “She’s good. How many quarries do you have for me?”

Greef stopped mid pour of this second glass of spotchka. He hesitated, “One.”

“Is the work that slow?” Mando drawed out. He wanted his own ship and it seemed he would not get it any time soon.

Greef sipped his glass this time. “No, business has been steady. This bounty is the price of many.”

Mando didn’t respond.

“The quarry...doesn’t have one client. There are two who are asking for her. A New Republic science officer Lieutenant Kell Finnall, currently on Coruscant, he is offering four hundred thousand credits.” Mando’s entire body froze stiff. Greef could see that the air was sucked out of Mando’s lungs. “Tauris Security out on Lantillies, you’ve heard of them? They’re looking for the same person. They’re offering four hundred fifty thousand credits. Their first offer was considerably lower, I told them they had some competition. Well, they made a call a few minutes ago and raised it.”

“Why so high?” Mando breathed again. He was hesitant to know why, the last time he took on a high bounty he gained a son and became an enemy of the Empire.

“They didn’t give me the details. Uh, they both want the quarry unharmed and alive. No carbonite. The Republic officer did mention she could use deadly force, I’m sure nothing you can’t handle. But Tauris Security insisted she was extremely dangerous and had killed two of their guards.” Greef waited for a response that would never come. He pulled the puck out of his pocket as if it were delicate. “Apparently never had a chain code before...before coming across Finnall.” He pushed the puck towards Mando. “Now to decide where the quarry should go. New Republic or this company.”

“Never heard of Tauris Security. You have anything on them?”

“Not much. Just provide security details in the mid and outer rim. It’s legit.”

Mando cracked his knuckles and proposed his idea, “The bounty combined with the warning is interesting. She is either extremely dangerous or valuable.”

“Or both,” Greef interjected. He poured a third glass of spotchka. “I insist you take this quarry. I don’t trust anyone else. And the credits! For you! For me! You would be set for life and then some, a new ship, perhaps a home on Naboo? Now the choice, New Republic or Tauris? I’ll leave that up to you. Visit each of them first before you make your choice.”

Mando bit his tongue softly. His instincts told him to be cautious, but it didn’t give him fear. If this quarry is as dangerous as people are saying and I die, what of it? His mouth dried up and his stomach churned, but it excited him. The thrill and allure of danger and possible death gave him energy, life.

“I’ll take it, “ Mando stretched out his hand for the puck.

Greef slowly handed it over to him. “I would wish you good luck, but I know you don’t need it. Remember, keep her alive and safe-”

“-and no carbonite,” Mando repeated the requirement from earlier. He started to leave but Greef’s parting words stopped him.

“And Mando, come back and-” Greef stopped himself from mentioning The Kid, “we’ll have a drink to celebrate your success.”

The streets of Nevarro City were just as pleasant the last time he was here, with Grogu. Mando strode through the city, his destination was a shop that sold the supplies he needed. That little green womp rat and his ears. Mando knew he did the right thing, but the right thing felt so lonely and heavy. These were feelings he had not experienced in a long time and this deeply. If Grogu was the price of Beskar, what could this quarry be at four hundred thousand credits, four hundred fifty thousand credits.

Is she a Jedi? Like the one that took Grogu? I might not have a chance.

“Sir? Sir?” the shopkeeper shouted to grab Mando’s attention, he pointed to the stack of rations. ‘Are you ready?”

Mando looked down at the rations he held close to him. He was puzzled as to how he got to the store, picked up what he needed, and stood in line without remembering any of it. “Yes, sorry.” Mando placed the rations in the sack the shopkeeper offered up and pulled out his credit bag.

The lava flats weren’t too far off from where he landed Gida. The outside of the light gunner ship looked decent, if a bit old. Everything was attached properly and there were no signs of laser blasts. An aging Twi’lek, a friend of Greef’s, loaned him Gida.

“She’s seen her time,” the Twi’lek said as he patted the hull when Mando first saw the ship. “She might have a few bumps coming out of hyperspace, but nothing serious.”

I’ll keep that in mind.

Mando felt his shoulders slump as his chest seemed to increase in weight. The Darksaber felt alive and throbbing at his hip. He pushed a code on his vambraces and Gida’s side door opened. The wind was blowing, he knew that without having the tactical display on, the bits of dried dirt and pumicite swirled along the ground. An instant spark of curiosity sprung in him. He placed the bag of goods by the entrance of the ship, his helmet followed. Mando took a deep breath, the air smelled acrid. The breeze whipped around his head, soft like something he couldn’t remember the name of. All the time he has spent on Nevarro, he never saw the lava flats with his own eyes. The lava was bright orange, the cooler parts jet black. It was an ugly boring sight to behind. Dust, dull mountains, browns, blacks, and orange from the lava, but they seemed richer in colour without the helmet. He inhaled again, savouring the pungent smells, smells he never experienced before. His eyes poured over the landscape the last time before he hopped into the ship.

Let me know if you want on or off of the taglist!

Taglist: @insomniamamma @yespolkadotkitty @phoenixhalliwell @dream-visual-51 @persie33

@altarsw @jessaminejaylinnreaper

@tchallame @luecair

(my tags weren't working before, c'mon Tumblr)

#Star Wars #Dune #Din Jarin #The Mandalorian #Pedro Pascal #crossover AU #Bene Gesserit #and Honored Matres vibes #not edited not sorry #feminist scifi #stranger in the galaxy

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mollyscribbles · 4 years

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Owl House rewatch thoughts

* Hard to say from what little we see of her, but I think Luz' mom might have been less worried about her daughter reading fantasy and more about the "multiple incidents of bringing uncontained live animals and explosives to school" thing.

* If Eda considers Luz' Azura book as being only useful as kindling, it means she's not inclined to view human books as something she can make snails on. Considering how unique her portal to the human realm is treated, where did Amity get her Azura books? I've seen people suggest the author travels between realms, but if that were the case, Amity would've been able to get the latest volume from a local store rather than needing to borrow Luz' copy.

* Suggestions for other species that escaped from the Boiling Isles: the platypus and peacock mantis shrimp.

* "Weak nerd arms" ok really identifying with Luz here.

* Really love this take on Chosen One stories. Because yes, there is an appeal in being told you're special, you're unique in the best possible way, but ultimately this is a story about people who aren't "special" so much as outcasts who do their best with the situation they're in. Which is something that a lot more people can aspire to be.

* The fact that this was a set scheme(as the multiple fake maps would indicate) rather than a trap specifically designed for Luz indicates that even people who've spent their lives on the Boiling Isles would be drawn to the idea of being a magical chosen one. I bet Amity's not the only one to have an interest in fantasy literature around here.

* Oh wow Amity's first appearance outside the credits is . . . something. It's easy to forget just how far she grew in one season.

* Eda's not a *bad* teacher, so much as she has yet to learn that teaching requires expanding on a concept you introduce and explaining your reasoning. "Here is what you can learn from tasting snow" instead of just "here, taste these different kinds of snow"

* Hm. For someone who despairs at the concept of the school teaching blind obedience, her teaching style kinda relies on it. Bit of a hypocrite there, Eda.

* Gonna be honest, the first time I watched this and King mentioned Eda sneaking a drink of elixir, I thought it was going to turn out to be a magic-looking flask.

* It seems slightly odd that King's apparently known Eda for a while but didn't have any idea of the curse. Maybe she was just REALLY good about keeping up with her elixirs pre-series.

* Really like the metaphor for a chronic illness that's kept under control by medication.

* If the Emperor's Coven provides access to all forms of magic, you'd think others aspiring for a spot would be permitted a multi-track education at Hexside. That might be why none of them seem to be that impressive at magic when they're supposed to be the "best of the best" -- even if they have *access* to all forms of magic, they've only had training in one specific field during the bulk of their education.

* lbr, Lilith's cheating was worse because at least Eda told Luz what she was doing.

* You'd think Willow and Gus might have caught on that Luz didn't have permission for them to come over when she told them to hide from Eda.

* It's nice that Eda realizes raising a kid with a "screw the rules" mindset will result in a kid who breaks her rules sometimes. Cleaning up the mess she caused is really the correct punishment for Luz; directly dealing with the consequences of her actions but otherwise considering it a lesson learned.

* Reading to kids in the library is an A+ way to shift Amity from "Jerk" to "Jerk with a heart of gold" territory.

* Prediction: At some point, Luz will return to the human world (probably only briefly but Eda won't know at the time) and Eda will come across the "Coping with empty nest syndrome" book Luz got her from the library. She'll cry. King will cry. Hooty will cry. Every viewer will cry.

* Pretty sure that, given what the world is like, if any of them ended up questioned about their actions during the body swap episode, they could just say "Oh yeah I was body swapped that day. What'd I get up to?" and everyone would consider this a perfectly logical explanation for them acting out-of-character.

* HC that Hexside is fully aware some illusion-track students skip class by having an illusion of themselves attend in their place, but they figure a student maintaining a decent replica of themselves for the duration of the class period requires enough effort to count as a form of class participation, so they just let everyone think they're getting away with it.

* Gus and Willow are really ride-or-die friends. Always nice to have.

* Probably some of the mystery appeal will be gone from the Human Appreciation Society once a legit human is just attending classes on a regular basis; being able to get definitive answers to questions rather than spending your time speculating would cut back on the draw.

* I love all the details they include on this show -- a lot of other shows would just stick in scribbles while panning past pictures instead of writing out all of Eda's incident reports.

* The pallisman is a neat concept; sort of like a mix of a wand and a familiar, a magical control that will have opinions of its own.

* Given Bat Queen apparently has enough of, um, a biological aspect to have kids, I wonder if that means Owlbert is capable of laying eggs. Or having eggs with another owl/pallisman if the male pronouns are anything to go by.

* I mean even Phineas and Ferb didn't question Perry laying an egg when he uses male pronouns so could go either way in terms of what Disney would allow.

* Reading the book fair signs, it looks like sci-fi is a popular genre in the Boiling Isles. Makes sense, since what we'd consider Fantasy would be more contemporary/urban fantasy to them.

* Getting the vibe that someone on staff had a less-than-amicable experience co-writing with a friend to inspire this one. And/or experience with shitty contracts.

* The Hexside requirements also required knowledge of basic runes, but given Luz apparently had no issue with that I'm guessing she just picked those up offscreen.

* "I've seen worse" is the ideal admissions response tbh. Like . . . she pulled off the required spells and the headmaster has seen decades of students' awkward first attempts. It probably counts as a good day when no one's admissions test resulted in needing to bring in someone from the Construction Track to repair the building.

* It's very reminiscent of D&D that the majority of the cast has the response of "This is clearly a trap. Let's check it out!"

* You'd think that carnival fortune tellers wouldn't have the same appeal in a world where it's something you study at school. Unless it's viewed the same way as those "magic" shows they have sometimes where the tricks all involve chemical reactions.

* Kinda surprised a school that teaches kids fire spells doesn't have some kind of fire suppression system in place.

* Hrm. Guessing the mind guardian went back and undid their own damage offscreen; otherwise they'd have had to go re-do the repairs before leaving.

* Good they had the wifi and charging cable coming through the portal to explain why Luz' phone still has service and the battery's not long dead.

* Luz, how have you survived this long with your instinct for pushing buttons. The same as the rest of humanity in a world full of buttons, I suppose.

* Probably if they thought about it, the best criteria for picking Grom royalty would be less who's the most skilled at magic and more who has the most low-key fears. . . . nvm, having a Stay-Puft incident would cause them to reasonably scrap that approach. Maybe appointing someone who obsesses over grades would have better odds of producing a relatively-simple-to-combat exam paper.

* I'm thinking the letters are written by Eda, who doesn't intend anything sinister by it so much as being the type to cover her bases when pulling off a scam and realizing Luz' mother would need some evidence to indicate her daughter was safely at camp.

* The band-aids clearly have some healing spell built-in, considering they've been used to heal inanimate objects.

* someone on the writing staff has a long-standing rant about Quidditch they've been holding back on.

* I know that normally the humor in the cut from "she's finally growing up." to Luz planning the heist would be that she's doing something that sensible adults would consider to be a bad idea, but if Eda saw her just then she'd wipe away a tear of pride and go "Her first self-planned heist! They grow up so fast!"

* Eda's the one who talks about cheating at stuff, but Lilith has a habit of playing *dirty*.

* I would like to say I appreciate them going with a more serious credit sequence because it was disconcerting with Star Vs when a dark ending was followed by "I THINK EARTH'S A REALLY GREAT PLACE"

* Lilith may have made a 30-years-late attempt to redeem herself, but I really don't trust her. I don't quite want her dead, but she DID spend decades trying to force her sister to join the Emperor's Coven as a prerequisite for curing her curse.

#the owl house

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whelvenwings · 4 years

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3k, College AU. In which Dean attempts to scam Castiel over text, with... mixed results.

read here on AO3 if you prefer!

Castiel sat in his apartment, scrolling listlessly through his phone. He’d tried to stop doing this recently. The hours he flipped down the wishing well of his Instagram feed just weren’t rewarding him with the perfect life he wished for, and at a certain point it was time to stop making the wishes. But even though he’d put his social media apps in a folder marked Don’t Do It, and even though he knew he didn’t want to melt through his days like this – slumped on his sofa with phone in hand – he ended up doing it anyway.

He stared briefly at a picture of a dog. Then someone’s baked goods. Then someone else’s throwback picture to their time in Greece.

None of it was particularly exciting, but he couldn’t seem to will himself away.

Inside him, a little voice was saying, you know, you could be doing something that you actually enjoy right now, like going for a run or reading a book or watching a TV show or, and I mean heaven forbid, but you could possibly start doing that paper? You know, like, work?

Castiel scrolled some more. The voice in his mind was very loud but outwardly, he was just sitting in his living room, eyes fixed quietly on his screen.

Move! said the little voice. You can’t just sit here forever! What are you doing? Your minutes on Earth are slipping out from under you while you do things you don’t even like!

With a little sniff, Castiel kept going. It was like his thumb had a mind of its own, traversing his Instagram like a lone journeyman, while the sky-gods above in Castiel’s mind begged it to stop.

A white box unfurled from the top of Castiel’s screen.

He blinked. A notification – a text. He tried to pull down the notif to read what the text said, but he accidentally closed it instead. Treacherous little journeyman thumb, he thought. Maybe if it spent less time overexerting itself on social media scrolling, it’d be able to open a text message.

A text message. Weird. No one texted him anymore, not really – all his friends used WhatsApp, and his professors only ever contacted him via email. To just get a plain old text was unusual. He flipped over to his texting app and opened it.

>> Your phone is now hacked so do exactly what I say and I’ll remove the hack. If you don’t I’ll destroy all your phone data. If you try to block me or report this I’ll destroy all the data instantly send your home address or I’ll hack you and share everything

When he started reading the message, Castiel felt a cold clutch of worry grip his stomach. His phone was hacked? How was that even possible? He ran anti-virus and anti-malware apps all the time, even though they slowed down his phone. He took care not to visit any sites that looked suspicious. How could –

He read it again, and then frowned, and sent a message back.

<< I have to send the address or you’ll hack me? I thought you already hacked me?

There was a pause. Castiel could feel his heart beating a little fast. His phone was supposed to be a safe island that no one could get into, his own private space; having someone text him that they were inside it, had hacked it, felt like having someone in his bedroom rooting through his things.

After thirty seconds, the text came back.

>> Yeah I’ve definitely hacked it so send the address or I’ll destroy your data and share it

Castiel squinted. He typed back,

<< How are you going to share the data if you destroyed it?

Another pause, and then –

>> I’ll share it first

With a more suspicious expression on his face than ever, Castiel responded,

<< What phone do I have? What OS?

>> You have thirty seconds to send the address or I’m going to share the data

<< You didn’t answer my question.

>> I don’t have to

Castiel actually had a small smile forming on his face as the last text came in. The person on the other end of the phone clearly had no idea what they were doing. He wasn’t sure if this was just a prank from one of his friends, or if it was a genuine attempt to scam him, but it definitely wasn’t an actual hacker.

With that same little smile on his face, Castiel typed out,

<< It’s been more than thirty seconds.

>> Yeah and I have your data now so I’m gonna share it

It was almost endearing, Castiel thought.

<< You really didn’t plan ahead for if someone actually questioned you, did you?

>> Yeah I am prepared. I’m gonna destroy everything on your phone

As Castiel considered how to reply – and if he even should, or if it was better to leave the supposed hacker to their own devices – he felt his stomach growl. Lost in the endless scroll of his Instagram feed, he’d completely forgotten to eat for most of the day. The texts from this person had finally broken the spell.

<< Alright. Enjoy yourself. I’m going to go and get some food.

>> Copying all the content now

Of course you are, Castiel thought. Of course. He wandered through to his kitchen and started browsing through his shelves. He had rice – plenty of rice, and also a bottle of soy sauce that was going out of date, and a slightly withered onion. In the fridge he found a few more limp-looking vegetables that needed eating up before he next went shopping.

Ten minutes later found him watching a pot bubbling to cook his rice, with a frying pan sizzling beside it.

When he picked up his phone, the hacker hadn’t responded. Castiel took a screenshot of their conversation, and then flipped over to WhatsApp. Opening the groupchat he had with his friends, he sent the screenshot.

I’m getting hacked, he wrote, and then put a terrified emoji. Charlie responded immediately with four cry-laughing emojis, and a few others sent some gifs. Castiel watched along the top to see someone typing a response – a number he didn’t have saved to his phone.

Sounds pretty scary you should probably send it, said the person. Castiel checked the name in grey next to their number, the one WhatsApp displayed automatically. Dean Winchester.

Dean Winchester? Castiel felt a little flip in his stomach. He’d been hoping to get to chat to Dean for months, now – they’d shared a class last semester but somehow had never got to talking, just traded looks across the room. Castiel had thought he’d lost his chance when the semester had ended and their shared class had been over – but then Charlie had added Dean into the chat at the start of the new year, introducing him as someone she’d met in one of her computing classes. Dean had been quiet so far, though, just lurking and reading messages.

Now, for the first time, Dean had actually said something to him.

And it was something ridiculous. Dean wasn’t actually taking this seriously, was he? Those computing classes couldn’t be focusing in on hacking as a topic, if he was this clueless.

Castiel didn’t want to leave Dean hanging without a reply, but he also didn’t want to embarrass him by laughing at the idea of the hack being scary. Instead, he switched over to his texting app again. Maybe if he got more evidence that the “hacker” had no idea what they were doing, then Dean would realise on his own that it wasn’t anything to worry about.

He thought for a second, and then sent,

<< How’s it going? It can’t take that long to steal all my data. I only have like 4 pictures on my phone and they’re all accidental selfies.

>> I’m getting all your credit card details you should definitely just send the address

<< Isn’t my address in the same place in my phone where you found my credit card details?

A pause, and then –

>> Yeah it is but you should tell me anyway

Castiel pressed his lips together to repress a laugh, and took another screenshot, and sent it to the groupchat.

I think I’ll be okay, he said. Dean started typing again immediately, while emojis rolled in from the rest of the people in the chat.

Dean said,

I don’t know dude seems legit to me

Charlie sent a message that said,

Dean… are you reading the same thing I’m reading?

Castiel was glad that Charlie was the one questioning him, because someone had to. Surely Dean was just kidding around, though. There was no way he really thought that this terrifying “hacker” represented a serious threat.

Dean was typing again. Castiel stirred his vegetables in the frying pan.

I had a friend who got the same message, Dean said, and he didn’t send his address and the hacker totally ruined his life so you should probably just send it

The message sat there in the WhatsApp groupchat, and was met with silence. Castiel read over it, shook his head – and then he noticed his rice was definitely cooked, and went to drain the water away in the sink before it went mushy in the pot. A frown was growing on his face as he did so. When he was done, he stirred his vegetables some more and then came back and read the message again.

His eyes narrowed.

He switched to his texting app, and read over the texts the hacker had sent him. And then went back to WhatsApp, and read Dean’s message.

The style was undeniably similar.

Was Dean pranking him? Probably not, right? Why would he? But then again, Dean was trying to convince him that the hack was real over WhatsApp in a way that was stylistically similar and just as unconvincing as the hacker themself over text… Castiel wasn’t sure what to make of that. Attention from Dean would feel kind of good, but given that the attention he was possibly getting was some kind of attempt to scam him out of his personal details, the good feeling was definitely not boundless.

After some thought, Castiel turned down the heat under his frying pan, tapped through his phone, and hit Call.

Bzz, bzz. The dial tone hummed in Castiel’s ear. He found that his heartbeat was actually pounding a little hard.

Bzz, bzz. Maybe this was a bad idea. Probably he should just hang up, and try messaging instead –

“Hello?”

Castiel went still as someone picked up. Their voice was comically low and growling, as though the person who’d answered was putting on a voice.

“Hello,” Castiel said.

“This is the hacker. Tell me your address.”

Castiel pressed his lips together, very hard, so he wouldn’t laugh.

“I said, tell me the address.”

“Um,” Castiel said. “No, thank you. Dean, what are you doing?”

There was a pause, and some kind of hurried rustling on the phone, and then the voice said,

“Dean? Who’s Dean? I don’t know anyone with that name. Just send over the address and your data won’t be shared and destroyed.”

“Dean,” Castiel said, “I called you on WhatsApp. I know this is you.”

The silence, this time, was significantly more protracted. For a few seconds, Castiel thought that Dean was actually gone, or that maybe the line had gone dead. Instead, after an incredibly pregnant pause, Dean said in his normal voice,

“Fuck.”

“Can I… ask you what’s going on?”

“Uh…” Dean hesitated. “Shit. Oh, god. Okay. Look, man, uh, buddy, I’m – I’m really sorry if I freaked you out with the whole scam thing –”

“I wasn’t freaked out,” Castiel said, trying not to sound too much as though he was enjoying himself. It felt good to hear Dean’s voice down the phone. Dean Winchester, the most handsome guy in Spanish 101, was actually on the end of the phone. They were actually talking. Under circumstances that made no sense, obviously, but still.

“Right… right. I just – I’m sorry, it was this idea I had and I thought I could just…”

He broke off. Something about the tone of his voice took the silliness and hilarity out of the situation, and Castiel’s slight smile dropped to be replaced by a little frown of concern.

“Are you in some kind of trouble? Do you need a place to come to?”

“No, no, nothin’ like that. Oh my god, this is the worst.”

“Dean… is something wrong? If you need my address… you know you could have messaged me and just asked for it?”

Dean groaned.

“I don’t… I mean, yeah, but like, no,” Dean said. “Look, I’m just gonna go. I’m sorry for… whatever the hell this was, and –”

“Wait,” Castiel said, “wait, don’t go. You can’t try to scam me for my address and then not give me any answers, I…”

“Sorry,” Dean said, and then hung up.

Castiel took his phone away from his ear. There had been something so wretched and barely-concealed in Dean’s tone that Castiel himself was upset, his stomach twisting. He looked down at his phone screen.

After a long minute of thought, Castiel went to his texting app and opened the text chain with the “hacker”.

<< 401 Lazarus Rise SW, Apartment 67

He considered the text for a long moment, and then sent it. Dean didn’t text back.

But two days later, there was a knock at his front door. Castiel, sitting at his desk and reluctantly typing out some words on his paper, frowned and looked over at the clock as though its face calmly showing 5pm would give him some kind of answer about who was outside. Receiving no wisdom from it, he decided to go and see for himself.

Opening the door, he saw a delivery person wearing a big smile and carrying a bunch of flowers.

“Here you go!” they said, handed him the flowers smartly, and then marched off down the hallway. Castiel stared after them, wondering how they’d even managed to get inside the building without being buzzed in. Probably Mrs Tran down the hall leaving the door open again, so that her son could get in even though her buzzer was broken.

Castiel stood in the doorway of his apartment, holding onto the bunch of flowers. It was a simple enough arrangement – just twelve red roses, nestled in brown paper. When the delivery person was gone, Castiel blinked and looked down at them. Surely these had to be for someone else in the building – he could just check the label and try to figure out who.

The label was a piece of brown card tied to the roses with string. In a messy scrawl, Castiel read,

Hey sorry again about what happened hopefully these make up for it. Never really tried to do anything about liking a guy before so don’t know what I’m doing. Didn’t know if you’d find flowers embarrassing so tried to get your address and send them anonymously but I guess that plan sucked ass huh? Don’t feel like you gotta say anything just wanted to apologize. Dean

Castiel’s eyes went wide and soft. He read the message through one more time and then once more after that, and then tilted the roses up to look at them, and then read the message again, and then smelled the flowers. He leaned back against his doorframe. He could feel his heart just about ready to burst out of his chest.

He went into his apartment, feeling as though he were walking on marshmallows. His legs were fuzzy with his happiness. Finding his phone, he pulled up WhatsApp.

Bzz, bzz.

Bzz –

“Hello?”

“Hello, Dean.” Castiel still had the roses in one hand. He looked down at them again, and closed his eyes because the happiness was just a little too much for a half-second.

“Uh.” He heard Dean swallow. “I did put the part where you didn’t have to say anything to me, right?”

“I know. But I wanted to thank you.”

“Uhhh.” Dean sounded floored. “Okay. Well, you’re… welcome?”

“And I wanted to ask you for something.”

“Oh. Okay?”

Castiel smiled.

“Your address,” he said.

––

The next night, Castiel stood outside the door of a slightly shabby-looking apartment, and knocked.

After less than three seconds, it was opened. Framed in the doorway stood Dean Winchester, wearing a nervous smile and nicer clothes than Castiel had ever seen him wear before to class.

Castiel breathed out.

“Hey,” Dean said. His hands looked awkward and clumsy, and Castiel’s heart was full enough looking at the confused shy man in front of him that he couldn’t stop himself – he reached out and took one of them. And it wasn’t supposed to happen this way, it was all in the wrong order, they were meant to go out for dinner and then Castiel would drop Dean back at his apartment and walk him to the door and then they were supposed to do this – but somehow Dean was close, and Castiel was leaning in a little closer still, and then their lips met.

Dean kissed so gently.

When Castiel pulled away, he saw the colour flowering inDean’s lightly stubbled cheeks.

“Uh,” Dean said gruffly. “Uh, good, okay. Yeah. Good.”

“Good?”

“Good,” Dean confirmed. “Good.”

“Good,” Castiel said.

For a second, they stared at each other. And then, moving at the same time, they both leaned in again – not so gentle, now.

They didn’t make their dinner reservation.

“We should call and tell them we’re not coming,” Castiel said at one point.

“They’ll be okay.”

“We should tell them,” Castiel insisted, giving Dean a little dig in the ribs. “It’s rude not to.”

“What, you think the cops will come for us if we don’t?”

“They’re already coming for you anyway,” Castiel said. “This has all been a ruse to catch the biggest scammer in town.”

Dean dropped his head onto Castiel’s shoulder, and laughed.

“Never gonna live that one down?”

“Never,” said Castiel, and kissed him again.

#whelvenwingsfic #destiel #deancas #destiel fic #thebloggerbloggerfun #with my new and very tenuous digital drawing skillz #I made the banner with the phone on it!#I'm so oddly proud of it #I'm sure there are 10000 mistakes but hey they're my mistakes in a art what I did??#I did an art!#anyway #here endeth the three-day downpour of fics from me #lots more in the works though!

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abloomingperiod · 5 years

Text

baekhyun as a bf

it wasn’t supposed to be this big tbh

you can tell by the fucker’s face, he is annoying af

k seriously tho

even though byun is all smiles and pranks he definitely seems like a serious person on the personal side

constantly asking himself if it’s the right thing to do putting u in such a historically brutal position such as dating an idol

you having to reassure him way too often that it was your decision to make, not his

“sweetie i’m here because i want to stop going off” “cool but like are you su-” “dude i swEAR TO GOD”

it’s not something he likes thinking it just happens okay he’s worried b patient to the babee

since his last relationship didn’t end up very well, he would probably take mONTHS to actually claim you as his girlfriend

seriously tho i fume just thinking about that time

it happened on a friday night when he was playing on the pc, chanyeol was calling and babyboi was like “srry cant talk rn exchanging breaths with my girl”

you were scrunching your nose for a sec but them you realized what he said and were like !!!!

him enjoying the fact his words got you so flustered and playing it cool like chill out dude as if you didn’t know we were dating by now

????????? in fact ou were so surprised bcs u didn’t even know the boys knew abt ur existence

“like... they KNOW??????”

“of cOURSE they know junmyeon would kick my ass if i didn’t explain to him why i missed our dinner last night”

you guys are so comfortable with the fact your relationship ain’t official you decided at the same night thisbis how you prefered to stay like

he’s not okay with going public after what happened in the past and you agree and support his desire to keep it private

i could write a whole essay dissing saesangs

that doesn’t mean he won’t hang out with you

after all, you’ve been friends for ages now

and the boys know abt u

chanyeol keeps biting byun’s butt but you’re okay with that

was there any other option? ofc not

talking about ass

he’s one

honestly such a tease

always finding a way to make u flustered

“babe look at me” “what” “i love you” “god i love you too” “and your ass looks amazing today” “leave me alone”

always slaps your butt

doesn’t matter the context

sexual or not

he loves him some butt

lol dates

like literally you sit there and spend the night playing and eating together

every lol date is a different dish ordered

since you gotta keep it low profile

might as well do it right

he’s an observer

constantly stops what he’s doing to admire you

sometimes you’re like watching a movie or idk brushing ur teeth

he stands there in the door frame all dumbfounded burning loveholes into your skull

you’re like ...stop it

he’s like . no

he’s so emotional i’m not even exaggerating

keeps joking around when he’s around people and everybody seems to think he’s a dork who just can’t stop talking nonsense

(which he is)

but when you guys are alone

oh boy

he’s so sensible

literally writes on post-its and places it around your apartment before he leaves for practice on mornings

not all of them are cute tho

once your friend was like “hey y/n idcwho’s dicking you down but i think the person got the feels”

you completely forgot to take off the “your taste already left my mouth. dinner tonight at 8 and i’ll be eating twice” post-it

he literally put it in your refrigerator’s door

you legit wanted to die

but then on other days it’s like

“i promised, throughout my whole life, this heart belongs to you.”

honestly so intense

when you guys argue it’s like a conquest to see who can act more like a spoiled kid

but basically go off with your frustrations and then one of u ends up cooling off in the shower

later either you or him get in there too asking if the other is feeling better

tbh not that often do u guys fight

most of the times is like

“okay,,, this is unnecessary” “yeah screw it”

but sometimes it gets really heated

and you’re both frustrated

straightforward speaking, you guys have sex

very

rough

sex

he’s a switch k let’s be real

loves making you beg

loves begging for you

not the type to degrade or hurt you or anything

like he’s a light dom

and by that i mean he will pound in you rough and slow until you’re begging him to let you cum but keeps kissing your flushed cheeks and tightly intertwining your hands as he lovingly whispers “you fucking love those type of fights don’t you”

loves LOVES being blindfolded

lowkey a freak but moderately

absolutely loves it when he ties you up and makes you say exactly what you want

will always stuck two or three fingers in so you have a hard time speaking

as i was saying, the absolute worst

“baekhyun... please-“ “fucking say it” “please... baby... fuck me” “hard nut”

is shamelessly vocal

groans

whimpers

desperate moans

aftercare baekhyun is a look

his hair all disheveled, dazed eyes and flushed lips

yk that look from the city lights photoshoot with his glossy skin and damp hair

yeah

he loves you so much and seeing you all blissed out after sex makes him, curiously, very very soft

everything you guys said during the argument is quickly forgotten as you exchange a few sorry’s and deep kisses in between

loves feeling your skin against his as he embraces your shoulders hugging you to his chest

you leave pecks on the scratchings your nails did on his skin and he just lays there all fucked out and smiles like 💕💞💓💘💘💖💗💞💓💗💕💝💘💖💕💞💓💗💗💞💖💘💞💘💖

and he’s horny again

it’s not like he’s a teenager he just absolutely loves being this intimate to you

and then you have a bath together bcs sticky

loves making coffee like at 6am to you so he can wake you up and have breakfast together

the type to wake you in this worst way possible

he rips the sheets off of you

regardless of how cold it is at that hour

and jumps over

“wake up egg”

as you guys head to the kitchen he sits you on his lap and feeds you :(

his arms around your waist and keeps leaving tiny pecks on your cheeks as he rests his cheek on your back and heavily sighs

“ya your breath stinks”

“you stink dummy”

sings ballads out of the blue

you’re like reading or smth

and he’s like

appado gWAENCHANHA

“shut it or i’ll rip off your chords with my bare hands”

“i dare you”

you actually made out after you chased him around the couch

so annoyingly dense

like you were taking your clothes off

his lips on your neck

and then he’s like

“btw my mother wants to meet you”

you literally froze

bra slipping off your shoulders

“????? you mother kNOWS?????”

“ofc she knows she’s my mother wtf”

“!!!!!!!!!BAEKHYUN”

doesn’t understand the concept of Time And Place

once you were on the bathtub massaging his feet after hours of practice and he was like yo ever thought about kids

i ran out of reactions so basically you cursed at him for five minutes

he was like 🥺🥺 just saying srry

it took you more five to explain to him it wasn’t that you hated kids you just thought it was something to talk about on another time

five years another time

maybe ten

he was like k we can have a dog

and now you have a dog together along with mongryong

a cutie called jinx

don’t ask

fucking nerd

you were like

she’s new so treat her as kindly as mongryong

baekhyun is a pain in the ass but in a matter of hours he was like

i bought the same clothes for them

you rolled your eyes but silently got the heart eyes bcs cute

loves watching you dressing yourself

especially for your low profile dates

“hm no too hard to take off”

“...a monochromatic two piece with a zipper in the skirt?”

“my point exactly”

tbh he Is kinda horny

but that’s bcs he’s mad for you

loves it when you style his hair

“baekhyun can’t you stand still for like two minutes” “oh sorry”

you’re standing there, focused on the task

30 secs on it and his hands are already caressing your tummy

you’re like stop i’m bUSY

he’s like no one’s stopping you

but keeps tickling you

idk he really treasures those tiny little details in the moments you spend together

everything is important to him

doesn’t mean he’s like insanely needy of your attention

no you’re two individuals who have their own lives and schedules

he keeps it cool but yeah he’s bananas for you

sorry his words

everything is so domestic with him

and so good

he’s been through a lot throughout the years and this relationship is the calmness he needed

and he’s the fun and lightness you needed after spending so much time trying and acting like a “grownup”

baekhyun brings back the teenager in you

but in a good way

you complete each other so well sigh

cuz you’re like all responsible and shit

he loves the juxtaposition

so do you

idk it feels right

you love like teenagers but live like adults

also his words

#maybe im biased #byun baekhyun scenario #baekhyun imagine #exo imagines #baekhyun drabble #baekhyun exo

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bakugou-protection-squad · 6 years

Text

Okay so...

I feel like KiriBaku will just became The Ship™️ of My Hero Academia, mostly because I see most everyone accepting it based on their interactions.

But just in case there are any reservations, I personally want to point out some things.

First and foremost, I would like to mention I am certified to make these claims because I have a degree in "Everything is a dick, and everything is about sex, and everyone is gay." In other words, an English degree where I have spent hours and days on end analysing every single line of a book and come up with an interpretation of it (The door was not red because it signified red-hot passion. It was red because it was just god damn red, for fucks sake!)

Anyway. Now that my unnessesary but nessesary egotistical claim is out of the way, here is why KiriBaku is (at least) the most narratively canon gay ship. ***Obligatory warning that this will get long***

*Spoilers*

1) Concepts to Canon. Kirishima was originally said to apply to UA to impress Mina. But as we can see, that changed. We see very minimal interactions between them. Even in the manga (I am a manga reader fyi) So honestly, I don't think Horikoshi kept that interest interest as part of Kirishima's character. Hell there are more cute interactions between Mina and Aoyama than Kiri and Mina. And coming from the writer's perspective, someone who is in the process of writing and drafting her own material for publication and creating her own characters, I can see Horikoshi's own writing process when designing the characters. I can especially see a reason for ditching the interest in Mina. I can sum it up I four words: It simply didn't click. Something I had experienced 1st hand was scraping the idea of a female love interest for my main character because I something just didn't feel right about it. It would have been forced and I would have gotten nowhere with my story. So when I discovered that my main character was gay, everything fell into place and I was able to move on with a concept that worked. So that may be had happened with Kirishima towards Bakugou.

2) World Building. I know this is Shonen, so romance is not the main focus. But honestly, MHA could be considered a slice of life/school life anime at times. And what do normal school-age students do? Have crushes and date. To the MHA crew, this is their normal. Their life. It's not like, say, Assassination Classroom where the idea of training to kill their teacher is a normal concept. No. Those kids were thrown into it, so their mindset changes a bit to adapt to that special situation. MHA, being a hero is just another profession they can study to become. Just like a doctor or lawyer. Yeah they get roped into the something big, but under everything, this would be their life once they become heros. One thing I have particularly noticed is Horikoshi's attention to detail when it comes to his world building. The way it appears to me, it seems as though the story moves forward based on his complex characters interacting with their world rather than them jusy being placed into it. Probably doesn't make much sense. But it's there (Kiri ordering night vision goggles for a rescue mission, a kid being turned into a meme in response to Endeavor's fight, Todoroki and his brother savagly slurping noodles, Recovery Girl offering a Snickers to students after training. Those types of things.) These little things are unnecessary, but are still included. Long-winded way to get to my point. Whose to say that the MHA kids can't find a chance to go on dates on off days, develop crushes organically based on hanging out with each other and training? Their world allows something like that to exist simultaneously with the danger they face.

3) Horikoshi's subtle progressiveness. I always use this point every time I talk about KiriBaku. There are already two confirmed Lgbtq+ characters who are legit characters and not written off as joke characters. Tiger and Magne are both trans. One is a hero. One is a villian. Horikoshi seems to include that fact to show that a trans person can be either side, instead of either being simply good or simply bad (or a joke that so many series tend to do.) I'm not going into the problematic part of Hori killing off Magne, because that's a different rant. The point of this is saying that there is a possibility, based on that point, that someone from the main cast would be gay. Because, like I mentioned in the previous point, this is their normal world. I know homosexuality is usually played off as comic relief, but I feel as though Horikoshi wouldn't do that, based on the world he's built. Tiger and Magne were accepted by their peers with no one saying anything about it. So I doubt any homosexual moments will be treated like comic relief. Which brings me to my next point.

4) Kirishima and Bakugou's steady relationship build up. I am not going to go too into detail about their relationship, but I will give a general gist. These two have had the most character development between the two of them. Even more than Bakugou and Deku. It's slow, but natural. They go from negative first impressions to being pretty much joined at the hip. Bakugou, as we've seen, presents us with a certain way to determine his opinion of characters: names. If he doesn't care for them, he calls them nicknames or "extras" yet when he has respect for them, he calls them by name. Kirishima is arguably the first one to gain Bakugou's upmost respect. Started from the USJ, then the sports festival, all the way to Kamino and post that. This is a fact Deku, good old insightful, analytical Deku, has pointed out when they rescued Bakugou. Deku knows how Bakugou is, so the fact he picked up on how Bakugou has changed says something. Not to mention all the promotional art of them (Google some. They are always paired and next to each other.) They are so close that Kirishima seems to know Bakugou's SUIT-SIZE. Listen. I talked with the guys from my friend group. And even if they act gay around each other all the time, they all agree that Kirishima knowing Bakugou's measurements is a bit too much for them to just be best friends. It's one thing to get matching t-shirts. It's a whole different monster when it comes to to formal wear. And if that doesn't say anything, the fact Kirishima got himself a normal looking suit yet took one look at a vest covered in white roses and thought "gee that would look great on Bakugou" says something. And the kicker is he didn't even do it ironically. He didn't do it for a joke to humiliate Bakugou, he was serious about it and got it because he KNEW Bakugou wouldn't bring one. They've only known each other for half a term at this point, and Kirishima already knew what to expect. THAT says something. Without going too much into it, the moments when Bakugou shows concern for Kirishima. Bakugou is still an ass to his classmates, yet shows he does deeply care about his friends.

Thanks for reading my little word vomit post. Where was I going with this long-ass response? More or less, KiriBaku has the most narrative support for the ship and it is because of the world in which they live in. Hopefully it made sense 😅

#kiribaku #kirishima #kirishima eijirou #bnha kirishima #bakugou x kirishima #bakushima #bakugou #katsuki bakugou #bakukiri #bnha bakugou #bakusquad #my hero academia #bnha movie #bnha spoilers #bnha #mha #mha bakugou #mha spoilers

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btsiguess · 7 years

Text

Womyn with a ‘Y’ (m) - 1

Summary: You weren’t quite sure how you ended up working with the aloof Yoonji on your student council campaign, but you did know that that girl was starting to make you question yourself. I mean, if she’s even a girl at all...

Pairing: Yoonji/Reader Yoongi/Reader

Genre: Smut, Fluff

Word Count: 4477

Warnings (if applicable): None yet

A/N: Haha, here’s a Yoonji fic because I’m gay trash. Just to clarify though, Yoonji is actually just Yoongi dressing as a girl in this fic. That’s p important.

Chapters: 1 2

“Please be sure to vote for me as student body president!” You say, handing what feels like the thousandth button out to what feels like the thousandth student. The boy merely nods politely at you, but he does pin the button to his lapel. So you consider that a success.

You’d been doing this all day. And now it seems like there are a sea of students with your tastefully printed button pinned to their jackets and backpacks. You aren’t particularly worried about winning; the other student running against you tended to rub people the wrong way. Still, you refuse to just rest on your laurels. You were going to put your all into this race, just like you were going to put your all into the presidency - if you won it, that is.

“Hey, oh my god. There you are!” You turn towards the sound of the voice and find your friend Soonmi standing before you.

“We have a problem, lady.” She pants, and you briefly wonder if she’d run to get to you. “It’s Eunyoung.” Your running opponent. “She’s gotten Jimin to run as her VP!”

You could have sworn time stood still. Jimin? Run with Eunyoung? This was certainly a prospect that had never crossed your mind. You haven’t even begun considering running partners yet!

Jimin was the most popular boy in your grade, possibly in the whole school as well. Even with Eunyoung’s generally intolerable disposition, people would still vote for her if Jimin was by her side. You are screwed. So screwed.

“I didn’t think Jimin even knew Eunyoung? Why is he running with her?!” You hiss through your teeth, trying to retain your composure.

“Yeah, he basically didn’t.” Soonmi responds. “At least, I knew he wasn’t a fan. Eunyoung basically bribed him by convincing him it would impress Yoonji.”

You scoff under your breath. Impress Yoonji? Not likely. But I guess you have to give the kid points for trying.

“What the fuck are we going to do?” Soonmi bemoans and you internally agree with her.

“I guess I just have to get a running mate that boosts my campaign as much as Jimin did?”

“Where are you going to get that? Jimin is the most popular boy in school… you’re basically the most popular girl! It’s like you can only go down.” Soonmi cries.

“I’m not quite the most popular girl in school, Soonmi. But maybe I can get who is to be my VP.” You flick your hair over your shoulder as Soonmi’s mouth drops open.

“Y-You can’t be serious… there’s no way.”

“There has to be a way. If I want to win I need her. I need Yoonji.”

That’s how you find yourself waiting outside of the infamous Min Yoonji’s classroom at the end of last period. It hadn’t been hard to find out her schedule. Just asking one of the boys in her weird little fanclub gave you more than enough information on the girl.

You stood awkwardly as the room began to empty, a bit relieved that she hadn’t been the first person out, forcing you to make cause more of a scene than was necessary. When she exits the classroom, you almost chicken out - almost. You need her to join your campaign if you want to win. You need to do this.

You can understand why so many people fawn over her. She’s basically like a real-life porcelain doll. She always looked so effortlessly flawless. And not in the way that you tried to, either - where you put hours of work in every morning just to look put together. But really, genuinely Min Yoonji put no effort into her appearance. And it totally worked for her. You’d be jealous of her, if that wasn’t so 2004 of you. Instead you try to extol her blase nature, at least to yourself anyway.

Her eyes pass over yours as she walks out of the classroom, not pausing even for a second.

“Ah,” you try to keep your voice calm, “excuse me! Min Yoonji!”

The girl pauses momentarily turning briefly back towards you, tilting her head minutely to the side in question.

“I, uh, I wanted to talk, um, to discuss something with you.” You stutter out. “If you’re free, that is.”

You’re a little bit surprised at the way your voice quavers as you speak. You haven’t had trouble with your stutter in years. It only came out when you were particularly nervous now. Like really nervous. It didn’t even happen in front of crowds or for oral presentations anymore. So Yoonji must truly be a force to be reckoned with.

Her eyes flicker over to yours.

“I’m not.” She says simply, before turning to walk away.

Trying to remain undeterred, you follow her as she walks. She was tall - for a girl - and so you have to maintain a slight jog to keep up with her. Yoonji doesn’t slow down when she sees your predicament, and so you just have to do your best not to pant as you speak.

“I’m not sure if you knew this, Yoonji,” you start, but her quick glare has you backtracking, “M-Min Yoonji, s-sorry. I’m uh, running for student body president.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen the pins.”

“O-Oh good.” You’re starting to run out of breath so you decide to just spit it out. “Well, you see, I need someone to run as my vice president with me and well I think that if we ran together we’d--”

“No.”

“Please, Min Yoonji, just hear--”

“No.”

“You’ll get to beat Park Jimin if we win!”

The taller girl suddenly stops, and you nearly walk straight into her. She turns to face you, a small grimace gracing her lips.

“What the fuck do you mean?”

You flinch at her language.

“Well, I heard that Jimin is running as Eunyoung’s VP, so if you ran with me you’d, you know… beat him. M-Maybe that’s not something you want, but I just heard he’s always all over you or whatever. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

You watch with baited breath as Yoonji’s tongue pokes into her cheek. Her eyes aren’t on you, they’re focused on something in the distance. The side of her mouth quirks up just briefly before she schools her expression, and then she’s looking directly at you. Her dark eyes seem to gaze all the way into your soul and it all but takes your breath away.

“S-So?” You ask hesitantly.

“Fine. I’ll run with you,” she dismisses, “but you better learn how to stop stuttering all the time. Don’t you have to do a lot of public presenting as student body president? I don’t want you to embarrass me.”

Your mouth opens and closes a few times like a fish, and Yoonji’s lips pull down in annoyance.

“I’m sorry, Min Yoonji,” you look down hard at your feet, “n-normally I’m not… I haven’t stuttered for a long time. You just…”

“I make you nervous?” She supplies, and you glance up to see her utterly impassive face.

You simply nod.

“Good.” She sighs out. “Then you won’t try to bother me or anything. Here, give me your

cell phone.”

“M-My ce-”

“Yes. Your cell phone. We are running partners now, aren’t we? We’re going to need to be able to contact each other.” She holds out her hand impatiently.

“Oh, right. Yeah. That’s great thinking Min Yoonji, thank you.” You quickly shuffle your

your phone out of your pocket and hand it to her.

She enters her information, then sends herself a text, in case she needs to get a hold of you as well.

“There. I’ll contact you later and you can fill me in on the details more properly. I don’t just want to beat Jimin. I want to annihilate him.”

Your eyes widen comically, but you nod your head nonetheless. Anything Min Yoonji wants from you, she would get. She was your ticket to the top, so to speak. You can’t afford to lose her, not if you want to win.

She had already walked away as you pulled yourself out of your daydream, and it’s only the bright light of Yoonji’s contact information on your phone that lets you know the interaction even happened in the first place.

What a weird day this was turning out to be.

“I can’t fucking believe you got Yoonji to agree to this?” Soonmi nearly shouts over the phone.

“Yeah, she must really hate Park Jimin if she’s this desperate to beat him.” You respond flopping back on your pillows.

“I totally feel bad for him. I mean really, he’s definitely the hottest boy in school… I would bang him.”

You chuckle and hum in agreement.

“I was talking to Taehyung, and he said that Jimin has like.. Legit abs. I tried asking about his dick, but Tae wouldn’t say anything.”

“Jesus Christ Soonmi. Why can’t you let any of these men live?” You chuckle again, and Soonmi scoffs. As if the very prospect of it had never occurred to her.

“Babe,” she coos, “it’s been ages since we’ve gotten laid. I mean seriously! You haven’t even tried dating since Jihoon broke it off with you! And that was like, six months ago! I have to get my thrills where I can, and that’s imagining that Jimin’s dick is just as sexy as the rest of him!”

Before you can respond, your phone vibrates against your ear. You expect it to be the singular buzz of a text, but the accompanying tone signifies that someone’s calling you. You briefly pull your phone away from your ear to check the caller ID.

“Oh fuck, Soonmi I gotta go!” You say frantically. “It’s Yoonji.”

Soonmi’s following shriek is cut short as you disconnect your call, and switch over to where Yoonji is waiting.

“H-Hello?” You mentally kick yourself for stuttering, even after she’d told you not to.

“Still nervous even over the phone, I see.” Comes Yoonji’s gravelly tone. You’re always so surprised when you hear her voice. It’s much lower than you would’ve expected. Nevertheless, it seems to suit the girl.

“I guess so. I’m sorry.” You finally choke out.

“It’s fine, it’s kind of cute.” She says in response and you shoot up from where you lay on your bed. Cute? Yoonji had just called you cute…

“Anyway,” she continues, “I’d like to discuss some of your ideas for this student council bullshit. If I’m doing this, I’m doing this. Are you free now? It’ll be brief.”

You’re sure your soul leaves your body at that, and you peak a glance at the digital clock on your nightstand. It was only 7:30, and you still have hours left of free time. You’d originally planned to spend it binge watching the Kardashian’s - a guilty and oh so secret pleasure of yours - but… You don’t think you could say no to Yoonji even if you wanted to.

“I-I’m free. Why?”

“Good then. I’ll come over. What’s your address? Nevermind just text it to me.” And with that, Yoonji hangs up the phone, leaving you no chance to argue.

You do as she says, texting her with trembling hands. Your parents won’t mind if you have company, especially if it’s for student council. Then you call Soonmi back.

“BITCH!” She screams as soon as she picks up her phone. “Spill that tea! What’d the mysterious Min Yoonji want?”

“She’s coming over. She called me cute.” You respond weakly, your stomach turning at the prospect of Yoonji being here. In your room.

Your phone’s speaker crackles at how loud Soonmi’s voice gets. She’s always been very excitable.

“Oh my god! Literally no one has ever been able to crack Yoonji, if you do it, you’ll seriously be like… the most popular girl in school. What the fuck? And she called you cute? I’m seriously shook. Who knew Yoonji had a heart buried under all that ice.”

She kept rambling as you stare blankly. You glance around your room. It was decidedly feminine, pink curtains, cream colored walls, a pink bedspread. You’d always liked your room, likening it to a page out of one of those garden magazines your mother used to buy. But imagining Min Yoonji standing in here, like the queen of darkness herself, you felt a bit faint. She would think it was childish, wouldn’t she?

“Bitch??? Hey bitch, you there?” Soonmi’s voice manages to break through your worried daydream.

“Sorry, I’m here. I’m just nervous!” You respond and Soonmi calms down immediately.

“Why are you nervous?” She asks.

“It’s just… Yoonji. She makes me really nervous, like… stutter nervous. I don’t know. It’s so lame, but she’s really, like, cool? I guess? I want her to like me. Plus I need her help if I want to win this election.”

“Listen. You really shouldn’t worry so much. Yoonji is just a girl, you know? She’s just a tough nut to crack. Just be yourself and it’ll be fine. If she doesn’t like you then she’s a goddamn idiot, I’m serious. Plus… she at least likes you a little bit? She called you cute, didn’t she?”

You smile softly. Even though Soonmi can be a handful, she’s always supportive when you need her to be.

Before you get the chance to tell her so, there’s a knock on your door. You hear your mother answer it, and your stomach drops down to your feet.

“Oh fuck, I gotta go, she’s here.” You don’t wait for her response, hanging up and bouncing to your feet. Soonmi will understand, she’s done the same thing to you a bunch of times. Usually that’s when she has boys over, but still.

You straighten your skirt and blanche as you realize you have the first few buttons of your blouse undone, something you’d done as you’d taken off your bowtie when you’d come home.

There’s no time to fix it though, because your door swings open. Your mother smiles at you, before shuffling Yoonji inside your room and closing the door as the exits.

Yoonji’s still in her uniform, and she gives you a once over, her eyes lingering at the top of your shirt. Then she takes a cursory look around your room, smirking slightly at it.

“This is cute.” She says. “Just what I imagined your room to look like.”

You don’t respond, and Yoonji doesn’t expect you to. Still though, your cheeks heat up at the thought of Yoonji imagining being here, in your room.

“So,” she says, taking a seat on the edge of your bed, crossing her legs demurely, since she’s still in her uniform as well. “What were your plans on the election. How are we going to announce our partnership?”

“W-Well, by this time next week I have to report my running mate to--”

“No, that’s not quickly enough. It’s already public that Jimin is running with that girl. They can’t be afforded any more of a headstart than the one that they already have.”

“You’re really taking this seriously, huh? Thank you.” You blurt out, and you feel your cheeks redden more at your careless words.

“Are you going to keep standing in the middle of the room?” Yoonji scoffs in response, choosing not to acknowledge what you’d said. “You’re being annoying. Come here.” She reaches out and grabs your forearm, pulling you toward the bed with surprising strength.

Her touch catches you off guard and you stumble a bit, tripping and awkwardly crashing into Yoonji’s body. She heaves an exasperated sigh as she easily steadies you, her arms catching your hips and maneuvering you easily into the space next to her on the bed. Much to your surprise, she doesn’t admonish you for your clumsiness, and in your mortification, you’re too overwhelmed to apologize either.

She doesn’t seem to care either way, though, and as she lets out another sigh, you realize how close you are to her.

You scooch yourself back quickly, crossing your legs and sitting so you can face the older girl before you. Yoonji moves as well, shifting to rest gently on her hips so she can face you as well. You’re unsure of what to say, and Yoonji trails one of her hands through her short dark hair. You’re struck with a pang of jealousy at how beautiful she is. No wonder all the boys at school are trying to sleep with her.

“So?” She tries again, with slightly less patience. “Do you know how we can announce our running together? Or do I have to come up with that on my own?”

“N-No, I can think of something!” You retort. “What if we just… old school announced it over the intercom at the beginning of the day? Soonmi does morning announcements so…”

Yoonji nods swiftly.

“Fine. And another thing… about your buttons…” She says, glancing to the visible one she can see adorning your backpack.

“What about my buttons?” You’re immediately defensive, you can’t help it. You worked hard on those buttons! Yoonji can’t come in here and just take over completely? The buttons are important to you!

“Relax, princess.” She says, and a shiver shoots up your back at her pet name. “They’re cute,” her eyes briefly rake over you, “like you. I don’t want to change them. I was going to say, don’t you think we should add my name to them too?”

“Y-You like my buttons…?” You question incredulously.

“Yes.”

“And… you want your name to be on my buttons?”

“Yes.”

“With my name and everything?” Your heartbeat, which had been racing like a rabbit’s since Yoonji had entered your room, was now pounding. Soaring, almost. You aren’t sure why the prospect of Yoonji’s name sitting snugly with yours was so appealing, but as your cheeks flush once more, you can’t deny that the thought makes you happy.

“Of course. I’m running with you, aren’t I?” She huffs.

In an uncontrollable gesture, you leap at her, wrapping your arms around her neck and hugging tightly. She’s visibly taken aback by the gesture, and you immediately feel her hands venture to your hips to push you off of her. She hesitates though, and at the happy little squeak you emit, she changes course and wraps her arms around you as well.

The hug is brief, but you don’t think you’ve ever felt happier. You whine slightly as Yoonji undoes her arms from around your waist, holding onto her neck tightly, unwilling to lose the moment. Her movements are gentle at first, but soon she becomes impatient.

You’re not quite sure how it happens, but Yoonji flips you quickly, your back pressing into the bed beneath you as she hovers above you, your arms still around her neck.

You’re paralyzed, Yoonji’s dark eyes piercing into yours. She slowly pulls your hands off of her, but pins them down to the bed in a word of warning.

“Don’t be a brat, princess.” She whispers. “You wont like what happens.”

“Y-Yoonji, w-what are you--” you stutter, trying to rationalize what had just happened.

“I have to leave.” She says, again in that uncharacteristically quiet voice. “I’ll come back tomorrow. After we’ve announced we’re running. We can talk more then.”

With that Yoonji is up, and out of your room before you can even bid her a proper goodbye.

You however, are still frozen on your bed. Wondering what the actual fuck just happened.

Yoongi stumbles into his house blindly. It’s just late enough for him to be shrouded in darkness when he enters, but he doesn’t mind. He lets his back fall against the door and tries to breathe. He needs to get a fucking hold of himself.

He’s never been more grateful to have parents who are never home.

He dashes up to his room, locking the door behind him as he enters. Geez, you had really gotten under his skin - metaphorically and literally, he supposes. He’d known you were cute, obviously. That’s why he even bothered to listen to you talking in the first place. And then the idea of Jimin losing to him was too good to pass up, that aggravating creep. He just couldn’t get a clue, no matter how many times Yoongi rebuked his advances. Yoongi had almost blown the whole thing one day, when he had had enough. How satisfying, he imagined, it would be to watch Jimin’s face twist in horror when he learned that Yoongi had a dick, was a man…

If only that was a possibility.

You though, were another story. Yoongi had noticed you the year before. You had always been kind of popular, but after you broke up with your long term boyfriend, your popularity had skyrocketed again. Yoongi had admired the way you’d politely declined all the skeevy teenaged school boys’ advances. He was never that nice to them.

He knew you were pretty, he wasn’t blind. But he tried to respect you. He didn’t like getting leered at, so he imagined you sure as hell didn’t. Especially when you were actually helpless when he wasn’t. So he kept his distance.

Plus there was that whole thing where he was a girl, or whatever.

But today, god. It was too much for him to deny, really. You were so nervous around him, and he hated that it turned him on, but it did. He chalked it up to unavoidable exposure to toxic masculinity or something. But damn if you didn’t look cute as hell, stuttering away, blushing. All because of him - or… her, as it were.

And your room. Your pretty pink room. Fuck, he was just one man. How many fantasies could one girl encompass? You were going to be the death of him.

He flops down on his bed, pressing his forearm down over his eyes. For a few moments, his mind stays blissfully empty, but soon enough, you pop back in.

You always looked so fucking happy when he gave you what you wanted. That cute little smile that scrunched up your nose a bit. Jesus, he’d really give you just about anything if you’d always smile like that. It was almost as good as when you blushed.

And it was so so easy to get you to blush. The red colored your cheeks and trailed down your neck. Yoongi couldn’t help but wonder just how low that flush would dip.

His dick twitched in his tight boxer shorts at the thought and he groans in annoyance. Still though, he allows himself the pleasure of trailing his hand down to the hem of his uniform’s skirt, flipping it up, and palming over his semi-hard length.

Yoongi thought of the tantalizing way your shirt had been unbuttoned; just two innocent little buttons and it had his mouth watering. He could imagine your sighs and gasps as he unbuttoned it the rest of the way. Soft little mewls escaping from you as his mouth explored inch upon inch of newly exposed skin. You would whine his name, he’s sure, in that sweet, soft, lilting voice of yours. Just begging him to touch you properly, to make you feel good, in your own innocent way.

He thrust his tights and boxers down his legs, throwing both over the side of the bed. He hated those tights, and it only added to his arousal to have them off. Yoongi slowly trailed his fingers up his thighs, the way he imagined you would. Your shy little hands shaking slightly as you try to work up the courage to touch him properly.

When he finally grasps his length in his hand, he lets out a shaky breath. In his mind’s eye, you are looking at him. You’re wide eyes meeting his.

“Y-Yoongi, is this okay?” You ask and he nods, trailing his fingers along your jaw to ease your nerves. Then there was that smile from you again.

That devastating smile.

“You’re so big, Yoongi,” you coo, and Yoongi allows his hand to speed up slightly, and he lets out a small grunt.

You’re under him again, his fantasy rapidly changing, It was still so vivid in his mind, the way you had looked so shocked and adorably confused. And when he’d held your hands down, he had felt the proverbial nail in his fucking coffin. You’d unknowingly squeezed your thighs together, Yoongi had felt the movement against his thighs.

Yoongi had gotten hard right there. The skirt that was now hiked up around his waist only did so much to hide it and he couldn’t let you see. So he’d run.

He’d left you there all wet and wanting. Not that you even realized it yet. He was Yoonji afterall. He’d never heard of you swinging that way.

He wants to fuck you in your school skirt, and he hates himself for it. But he just knows that his dick would look perfect pressing into your tight pussy, your panties pushed to the side and your skirt still sitting on your hips. Maybe you’ll even let him fuck you at school. Let him cum inside of you and walk around the rest of the day smelling like him.

His hand twisted as the images in his head got dirtier and dirtier; you crawling into his lap and moving your hips, grinding. Throwing your head back as his name spilled from your lips over and over again; your perfect rosey mouth wrapped around his length, your eyes watering as he uses your hair to fuck into your throat. But he knows you’ll love it, he just fucking knows you would; Him spanking your ass till it was as red as your face got when he talked to you; He imagined Jimin walking in on the two of you, leaving horrified as he realizes the two most fuckable girls in school were fucking each other; Him eating out your sweet pussy whenever he wants. In school closests, on top of your pretty pink bedspread, in public restrooms; You begging him to let you cum, to fuck you good and hard like no one else had before, to fill you up with his cum and make sure the only thing you could remember was how good it felt to get pounded by his cock; your sweet voice keening in his ear as he fucked you, “Yoongi, Yoongi, please cum inside of me, god! I need to feel you! Want you to fill me up!” The thought of such a good girl, his good girl, getting dirty just for him, only for him.

“Oh fuck.”

Yoongi cums suddenly, with a sharp grunt. It’s an earth-shattering orgasm, one he was sure would only be topped by actually fucking you.

He’s soiled his uniform, he notices as he calms down. God fucking damn it, what in the hell were you doing to him?! Now he had laundry to do.

A/N: Haha, here you go! I’m super into Yoonji. Also, I am sorry to leave it on such a.... note. Let me know what you think ;)

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elliesrandomessays-blog · 6 years

Text

Clickbait Title: How Todd in the Shadows killed Pop Music.

Non-Clickbait title: How the change in the social preconceptions of Pop music as a genre resulted in Pop Music making itself irrelevant.

For around a year now critics of American Pop Music have been lamenting the near complete overtaking of Pop music as the predominant music of choice by Hiphop. It's an unique time to be a fan of Chart Music. If you go on the Billboard Hot 100, the literal definition of what is popular in the USA at any one time you'll find a list that is primarily Rap music, not Pop. The top 20 at the time of writing currently has 13 rap songs amongst its ranks, and it doesn't peter off as you scroll down through the 70's and 80's. It gets worse if you're slightly sharper on your definition of Pop because pure Pop music only has at best 3 songs in the top 20. Hiphop is seeing a dominance of mainstream culture right now and has managed to almost entirely remove Pop music from the cultural zeitgeist and many critics want to know why. Why is Pop music no longer Pop music.

This could be the legit hot 100 or the Hiphop hot 100 and there’d be no difference.

I will quickly acknowledge the unfortunate duality of the term 'pop music'. It functions both as shorthand for music that is popular, regardless of genre or origin; and as an explicit label for the genre of pop music. Much the same way that indie can both mean independent, and the genre of indie. This is unhelpful bit of lexical crossover that's contributing to the general frustration so I'll spell the leading question out explicitly: why is capital-P Pop music no longer pop(ular) music.

There are many small factors that contribute to this such as the changes in the way music is consumed; Hiphop as a genre has been a lot quicker to adapt its method of distribution to the age of streaming than Pop being the big one that most people point to as the root cause, but I think there's a much more substantial change to the way the general media approaches Pop as a genre that has split it's audience down the middle. Essentially dividing and conquering.

I would put the main issue being with the form of Pop music criticism that began to spring up around 2010. The wave of Poptimism that I'm referring to technically began as far back as 2004 with the rabbit hole of Rockism and the philosophical rejection of the idea that disposable is an inherent negative but it picked up the majority of it's momentum around the time the Club Boom began to reach its third act (think: when Ke$ha became a thing). It's hard to ascertain exactly why it happened but the consequences of this change aren't hard to see, with the most tangibly visible effect being the sudden rise of Todd In The Shadows. While I wouldn't call him directly responsible for this shift - Todd moving from a novelty who applied the standard YouTube-Media-Criticism to Chart Music up to one of the largest influencers of the post-TWGTG style ('post-' being used in the same context as 'post-'modern) was largely driven by the sudden proliferation of Poptimism, and he in general serves as good synecdoche for much of the change in attitude that occurred around the time. So while this shift has nothing literally to do with Todd and his content, he's a good symbol of it, on top of him being a large feature of the surface-level of the change. For ease of reference from this point I'm going to refer to this new attitude as Toddian.

After Toddian-Poptimism rose there was a new critical eye being applied to Chart music and it felt like the charts had entered a golden age - unparalleled since the 80's. Pop music from Adele, Jason DeRulo, Carly Rae Jepsen, fun., Meghan Trainor, Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake and many more managed to be in a position where they were both massively commercially successful and given the respect (and occasionally even acclaim) they deserved from critics for being well constructed, enjoyable music that had impact on people. In spite of the assumption that you're old enough to get in to a Club, the Club Boom was seen as a very immature time for music and you could read this Toddian era as being representative of a maturation of Pop Music, and the world responded. Serious, snobby, oldschool music critics weren't afraid anymore to include a Taylor Swift song on their year-end lists when none would've been caught dead doing the same with Flo Rida. And a whole Youtube subgenre of Chart critics grew in the garden Todd had planted. The musical artists of this time were respected for being good Pop Music, not respected for being good in spite of being Pop music: this era spelled the death of the Guilty Pleasure.

So, Question: why did it all stop? The Answer: the devil is in the details of what this new wave of Poptimism was actually doing to Chart Music. If you look at the general trend of what Toddian criticism liked and disliked there's one running theme that even at the time I was skeptical of and has since proven destructive to their own intended goal: Retro.

youtube

Remember the time we let a 30 year regression become nearly the most popular song of all time?

The overwhelming trend with Toddian criticism is heaping a majority of the praise on genre-throwbacks and a reporting with a general air of unease newer genres that lack history. Synthpop, R&B, Funk, and Indie-Rock are regular appearances on 'Best songs of X year' lists. House, EDM, and Traprap are regular appearances on the opposite. In retrospect looking at these lists the general impression is not that Toddian criticism exist in order to promote Pop music as a place where legitimate artistic statements can be made and forward movement is being made, but rather to quash any potential movements away from the genres that the vague umbrella of nostalgia is comfortable with. Bar the odd breakthrough from Hiphop, Singer-Songwriter and memeworthy dance songs the charts of this era and especially the hit songs that were regarded as worthwhile can near universally be pinned to a specific retro era they were appealing to. Right across from 60's doo-wop to 90's synth-funk and every possible step inbetween, the critical process turned into "They seem to be going for a [decade]-era [artist] vibe on this new track" with lists ranking them on how much that critic enjoys each of the eras relative to one another.

Even within the context of individual artists careers you can see this. Justin Timberlake in 2014 releases 'Can't Stop the Feeling!', a piece of retro summertime-funk and it becomes one of the most well regarded pieces of popular music of the decade. In 2018 JT releases 'Filthy' a piece of modern Pop music that interpolates elements of modern dance and electronic and he's career is immediately killed. Calvin Harris spends decades regarded as the lowest Chart Music gets. In 2017 he released Funk Wav Bounces and suddenly 'Slide' is a critical darling. The next year he releases the equally quality House song 'One Kiss' and no one cares. Taylor Swift. 80's pop album 1989 is adored. Modern pop Reputation is hailed as an artistic bomb. The Weeknd. Moody PBR&B was rejected. Peppy 'Can't Feel My Face' is a "modern classic". David Guetta, Zedd, Martin Garrix and similar EDM producers are all seemingly ignored when they briefly entered the spotlight with only Avicii and Clean bandit getting acknowledgements because they spliced Electronica with Folk and Classical respectively. Imagine Dragons, one of the few rock bands unironically trying to push forward into modern Pop styles of production and aesthetic when pure Indie were adored yet are now regarded as "worse than Nickleback". Which is a phrase so incredibly toploaded with subtext that I could double the length of this essay just digging into those three words. I could go on longer with these but I'll leave the rest as names for you to think about yourself: Pharrell Williams, Bruno Mars, Ariana Grande, Fall Out Boy, Jason DeRulo, Bruno Mars, Katy Perry, Charli XCX, Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars.

Over the course of half-a-decade, the Pop music industry went from rewarded greatly, to heavily disincentivized to promote modern Pop music. Some would seep through the cracks such as Tove Lo and Julia Michaels but the lukewarm and actively hostile responses they respectively got were just further perpetuating the problem. Why would any rational record label want to invest time and money into artists trying to sound modern when all the Toddian eye is going to do is reject them in favour of someone who's tearing ideas directly out of Billy Joel's playbook. This lead to the inevitable crowding out of newer acts who were experimenting in modern genres. The last truly modern act to break in to the upper echelons of popular culture were probably The Chainsmokers. With Roses, Don't let Me Down and Closer all being incredibly popular with no retro era to support themselves only. And they also served as the Toddian eye's most brutal target. Literally being regarded as the worst album of the year.

(I'm aware that Todd himself actually liked The Chainsmokers. So this a good time for a reminder this isn't about his opinions specifically).

The obvious immediate rebuttal to this was posed to be within minutes when I posted the initial thesis for this essay on Twitter: if modern-Pop was killed by an overpraise of retro-Pop. Why isn't retro-Pop dominating the charts instead then?

The problem there is one that many fans of retro-Pop don't want to hear, retro-Pop was a fad, and that fad has now died. Or rather, retro-Pop was a rare occurrence of a meta-fad. It had a significantly longer lifespan than the 2004 indie-rock fad that gave us Mr.Brightside and the 2017 Spanish fad that gave us Despacito because rather than being one specific gimmick that popular culture was enamored with, it was composed of dozens of smaller fads that when placed one-after-another produce the illusion of a trend. If you actually look at the nitty-gritty no particular subfad of retro survived more than one or two artists releasing an album each. Doo-Wop was only popular long enough to give us Meghan Trainor and Charlie Puth while Michael Jackson was only popular long enough to give us The Weeknd and Jason Derulo. ect. ect. So the reason that Run Away With Me by Carly Rae Jepsen and Bills by LunchMoney Lewis weren't commercial successes in spite of seemingly being exactly the kind of retro hit that was at-the-time popular was because neither song were released when that specific era's fad was the in thing. Sure they were retro, but we already had Taylor Swift snap up dreamy 80's pop and DNCE had already filled the quota of glistening-pop-Funk so why would they need another?

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There was no way that this essay was going to exist without a nod to E• MO•TION at some point.

By early 2017 we had already essentially run out of genres to co-opt without going into music that's so old it's nearly measured in centuries. So that put the music industry into a Catch-22. They can't invest their promotional time and money into retro-Pop anymore because the fad is well and truly dead (you can't make another Uptown Funk because Uptown Funk already exists) and the general public is going to reject it as a late-to-the-party grasp of desperation. But they can't invest into modern-Pop because Toddian critics are going to reject it outright because it doesn't appeal to the core aesthetics that they like and are going to heap tepid reviews on it which will seriously damage any attempts to market the thing, you can't advertise a 3-star review. The retro-Pop well dried up, and now in the final quarter of 2018 everyone regrets cementing up the old well. Eventually all fads die.

Now it's time to bring Justin Beiber in, who I imagine so far has been the biggest ? lying under this whole argument. Beiber was huge around the same time of the final years of the retro-Pop fad and wasn't making anything remotely retro. He was making incredibly forward-pushing, futuristic sounding dance-pop that had yet to really have an era before now. But he's the final piece of this puzzle: the fad that overtook retro. Justin Beiber was riding the next wave: Tropical. Major Lazer started it, Beiber rode it to the top, Sia and Ed Sheeran followed behind him. That fad had the lifespan of a normal fad - around 14 months. Then that naturally morphed into Spanish music. Then that fad died and nothing came in to replace it so Pop music was left with a hole and nothing to fill it. Once again that left the pop music industry with the more general formulation of the Catch-22. Fad has died so can't promote that without looking desperate, can't promote new Pop music because no one wants to swim in a lukewarm pool where the lifeguard secretly wishes you were someone else.

Hiphop itself is pretty much irrelevant to the story. There's nothing special about Rap as a genre apart from the fact it just happened to be the 2nd place racer when 1st place's tires blew-out. That's not to say that Rap wasn't doing some legitimately incredible things and isn't worthy of success. But all I'm saying is Post Malone, Cardi B, and Kendrick Lamar would've been top-40-popular anyway and there was simply no one else in the way to stop them *not* going to number 1.

This has all had the consequence of turning Pop music, in both forms, into niche genres. Now that the general public isn't consuming Pop because it's what the miasma of popular culture tells them to like Pop has to start appealing to people who're actual Popheads, and when your audience becomes niche-sized they're small enough to make the critical decisions themselves. No one wants to listen to retro-Pop stars that the big labels are offering anymore because their audience now is so small that the audience is cutting out the middlemen and just listening to old music (it's no surprise this has all been at the same time as Africa by Toto's sudden rebirth) while on the other end no one wants to listen to the modern-Pop that labels offer anymore because their audience is making active decisions and is instead listening to Alison Wonderland and Virtual Self. Some like myself have even defected as far as Bill Wurtz.

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Seriously, if you’re a person who considers yourself ‘in to’ music and only think of Bill Wurtz as that weird guy who made the history videos then you’re missing out.

I'm not even going to pretend that there's a solution to this problem. Even if I had one I'm an insignificant enough cog in the machine that I couldn't enact it. But I can give my perspective on where the future of the Charts lie.

The main thing to keep in mind is that this is all cyclical. Eventually the general consuming public will get sick of Hiphop and whomever is in 2nd place when that happens is going to capitalize on the exact same sort of collapse that got us in the current situation. Arguably this will happen a lot faster since Toddian was a relatively large shift in critical style compared to 2009 but Hiphop has always had a higher degree of scrutiny applied to it for both fair and unfair reasons. And Pop music isn't totally dead either, arguably the nadir has passed and it’s on the way up not down at the current moment. As much as I dislike it, Weezer's cover of Africa shows there's at least a way back in to mainstream consciousness for Pop music if it decides to go down that route. And acts such as LSD, Bazzi and Halsey are still managing to claw their way into high listen counts through sheer force of quality.

So for now, I'd say enjoy the ride. And enjoy the brief time that Toddian Criticism has put us in where the radio not giving you Pop to listen to puts you in a place where you hear Tessa Violet for the first time instead

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#Pop Music #Pop #Hot 100 #Poptimism #Popheads #Charts

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jadekitty777 · 6 years

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...Can Light Fires

Told you there’d be a part 2! Part one is here

Just wanted to get this one up before going to bed. (Also, just gotta say, I love how all of us who participated in Day 2 just threw up our hands and were like mythology! Anyways, it’s time for… )

Day 3 – Trust for @rwbymlmweek

Summary: They say bad habits are like beds you can’t get out of, but for Qrow, he felt his were more like a jail cell he was trying to escape from. Now, if only he could figure out the only one not giving him the key… was himself. [Modern AU]

Pairing: Taiqrow

Rating: T

Warnings: Time for some legit ones this time. Last ficlet only gave some implications, but this one is going to go into some details… so be ready for some abusive themes to be explored.

If there was anything Qrow remembered most about the room, it was the flat, steel clock on the wall. There were two rings of metal, one large and one smaller, in which welded between them were the hours, painted in gold. Held together in the middle of the smaller ring were gear pieces that didn’t move and on the centermost gear, the hour and minute hands were mounted. What bothered him most about it though was the fact it didn’t even work. So rather than facing his AA coach, more often than not, he tended to spend his sessions glaring at the annoying clock that was forever stuck on 12:21.

“It’s good to see you again Qrow.” If Ozpin thought he was a little crazy for giving murder stares to his wall, he was generous enough not to say so. “What brings you here today?”

He ran a hand over the back of his neck. “You, uh, remember when you told me to be ready for a possible relapse if any major changes happened in my life? Even good things?”

“You’ve been drinking again?”

“No. Well, okay, yeah a little.”

“How much?”

He ducked his head some. “Uh, enough to get a buzz.”

“Well, that’s not so bad. Lots of people do that on a daily basis.” He heard the sound of his coach writing something down. “How often have you wanted to get drunk?”

“Every time.” Qrow admitted to the stupid clock. The rapid tapping of a pen against a notepad was like a beacon calling his name, drawing his attention finally to the bespectacled man. “You’re gonna ask me what the positives are, aren’t you?”

“You know me well.”

I know I’m trained like a damn dog. He thought ruefully, running agitated hands through his hair. He had hated this exercise when he first started his sessions because it had been so impossible for him to find anything. Ozpin wouldn’t let him move on until he found something though, and if Qrow just tried to ignore him, then he’d tap his pen until it annoyed the shit outta him enough that he gave a begrudging response. Now, the noise just acted as a marker for when Oz could tell he was being too harsh on himself and, infuriatingly, it worked. “Alright I guess… positives are despite picking up the bottle again and having the temptation, I managed not to fall into it.” He thought a moment, and added, “And that I came here so I could keep it in check.”

Oz nodded. “Those are things to be proud of, if you ask me.” He crossed his ankle over his knee, leaning forward some. “Alright, so now tell me what happened that led to this, and then we’ll talk about how you want to handle it.”

The first step was easy, Qrow quickly becoming comfortable as he explained how he’d felt like he’d overstayed his welcome at his best friend’s house and decided to use that as encouragement to finally move back home. He mentioned a few things he’d changed at the house so he wouldn’t feel like he was constantly jumping at ghosts of the past and while it hadn’t entirely worked, it definitely had made the transition easier. It was when he hit the part about the pseudo-date his daughter and niece had set up for Tai and him two months ago, that the nervousness started to bubble up again.

“How did it go?” Ozpin pushed gently.

He sighed some. “Really well, actually. And when I mentioned maybe we could go on another one, Tai seemed all for it. But I, wasn’t really ready.” He rubbed his fingers over the knuckles of his other hand. “But I’ve been trying to be. I… I took off my ring a few weeks ago.”

“That’s a big step. What were you thinking about when you did that?”

“That I don’t want to be miserable.” He grumbled, the anger directed mostly on himself. “That I’m tired of deliberately trying to do shit that makes me miserable. I know I’ll always love Summer, but I miss having someone there on that kind of level. I didn’t really notice how much I wanted that back until I moved out though ‘cause Tai was always there, filling that void. And, the more I thought about it, the more I realize I’ve been lowkey crushing on him for awhile now but I wasn’t really – I dunno, paying attention I guess?” He fell back against the couch, throwing his arms up in an exasperated shrug. “So, when we went on that date it was kind of like a ‘oh, so this happened’ kind of thing, you know?”

His coach chuckled softly, though he was quick to become serious. “To me, it sounds like you’re doing everything you can to move on. And Tai seems receptive to the idea. What’s holding you back?”

Qrow heaved another sigh, this one more weighted. He knew exactly what it was. “You remember how Tai was married to my sister for a while? And how it wasn’t, y’know, the greatest?”

“I believe that’s an understatement for an abusive relationship, but yes, I recall very clearly.”

He held back a grimace, the word still striking a painful chord in him. “Yeah that. That’s the problem.”

“Because you’re twins, or-?” Oz trailed off when he shook his head.

“It’s more like, I’m not sure how…” Qrow faltered, trying to figure out how to explain all the misgivings he had in a way that actually made sense. But it was like going backwards through snapshots from a disaster, each memory worse than the last as it got closer to when it all started.

The counseling sessions, some of which he had to drag his friend to (and something Tai would pay him back in spades for a few years down the line).

Yang crying at the idea of going back home because she was afraid mommy would be there.

The messy hearing that put his sister behind bars for attempted murder.

Watching Tai clean bloody knuckles after he decided to take out his rage and hurt on their oak tree in the backyard only hours after he found the courage to give the testimony that arrested his wife.

Qrow pacing grooves into his living room carpet as he tried to figure out how he had missed it all while it was happening or why he hadn’t tried harder when he started to see less and less of his friend and niece; the only grounding piece to his guilty thoughts being Summer who had to keep talking him down.

Having an all-out screaming match with his sister on his front lawn until a threat from Summer to call the police finally got her to leave. Going inside to find Tai sitting in the corner of Ruby’s room, holding Yang close and telling him softly they were hiding.

Getting a call at two in the afternoon because it was the only other number his four-year-old niece knew and being told by the deputy that his best friend was in surgery after his sister decided it was a good day to stab him in the fucking stomach with a god damned kitchen knife.

“Raven really messed him up back then and I just don’t want to see him like that again. He deserves that.” Qrow finally settled on saying.

“And? What are you afraid of?”

“That I’ll… mess him up too, I guess.”

“You feel you’re emotionally abusive?”

“No! No, of course not but, if I’m going to date him, I’ve got to be better than Raven was.”

Ozpin set aside his notepad and pen, sitting forward to balance his elbows on his knees and cross his fingers together. “Qrow, if you were to date Tai, do you expect him to be a replacement for Summer? To be a ‘better’ version of her?”

“Wha-?” His eyebrows twisted downward at the very thought. “No. That’s ridiculous.”

“So why in the world do you feel the need to be a ‘better’ Raven to Tai?”

He opened his mouth to retort but all that ended up coming out was, “Well, shit, I got no fucking clue.”

His coach dipped his head some to hide his laughter. “Every relationship is different, because the people in it are. What struggles you and Tai may face will be wholly unique to yourselves. But you’ll never be able to make things go right if you’re too busy worrying about all the ways it could go wrong. There’s no way you can make yourself perfect. In fact, you might even be doing him a disservice by trying.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” He lowered his clasped hands so they hovered between his knees. “I can say from personal experience that the most petrifying yet relieving thing is the first fight. Because once it was over with and the realization hit me that it was nothing like it was before, the sense of control I felt I had over my life again was practically revolutionary to me.” His shock must have been plastered on his face, because Oz smiled mischievously at him. “Couldn’t even guess, could you?”

“Uhh…” He decided staring at the broken clock was easier then answering.

“Recovery does happen, but the first thing you need is-”

“To believe it does.” Qrow finished, because he’d heard it a million times while going through the 12 steps. He groaned to himself. Did he seriously almost start binge drinking again because he was feeling insecure in a relationship he hadn’t even started yet? “God, I feel like an idiot.”

Ozpin, ever amused by him, said, “Well, there are worst things to be in life. So, what are you going to do now?”

He considered that a moment, before getting to his feet. “I’m going home.”

The first one to greet him at the door was Ruby. “Dad!” She latched onto him like a leech.

“Hey kiddo.” He ruffled her hair affectionately. “What have you been up to?”

“We’re watching Mulan, and it’s just getting to the good part!”

“No, we already passed it.” His niece called from the couch. She was wrapped up in a blanket like she was some sort of morphing caterpillar.

“Not huh! The battle is way better than the dumb pond scene.”

“That’s just ‘cause you don’t get it.”

“I get it. It’s just dumb!”

“Alright you two.” Tai set the popcorn bowl on the table, trying to dispel the fight by saying, “Can’t we at least agree the songs are great?”

Yang rolled her eyes. “You only say that because you’re a Disney princess dad.”

“What was that?” He proceeded to tickle her side mercilessly until she was wiggling and shrieking with laughter.

Ignoring them, Ruby pulled on his arm. “Come watch it with us!”

It was a tempting offer but he knew accepting it would weaken his resolve – and it was already fairly brittle as is. “You go ahead and start pipsqueak. Gotta take care of something first.”

She deflated a bit but didn’t argue. “Okaaay.” She sprinted back over to the couch, air bombing herself into the cushions as she squirmed into her own blanket cocoon. “Uncle press play. But do it really slowly, okay?”

“Like this?” He stretched out his words, making a great show of lifting his hand way up high and gradually arcing it down.

Qrow smiled at their antics, before ducking around the wall and into the kitchen. He headed for the pantry first, opening the doors and moving the trash can out. He knelt on the floor and moved aside the box of trash bags and paper towels so he could get to the small space underneath the bottom shelf. Bottle after bottle of hard liquor was pulled out and placed in a row against the cabinets. A few of their labels were aged and peeling, seals cracked from having been opened years ago, but quite a few more were as pristine as if he had picked them up last week. He hadn’t even gotten half of them out by the time the movie started up again in the living room. Once he did finish though, he started setting each one on the countertop beside the sink.

Next, he tackled the cabinet above the stove, shoving aside the spices to reach the collection of cooking wines at the back. There was only three, so it was quick work. The fridge, however, was a bit more stocked. A case of beer. A few bottles of whiskey. Some vodka hidden in the vegetable drawer. He had to start setting some of it on the floor when he realized he was running out of room on the counter.

Qrow took a few steps back, looking at it all and ran hand over his forehead as something sick twisted in his gut. When had he bought all this anyways?

Footsteps behind him told him Tai had entered the room. “I take it the session went alright?”

“Well,” He said, reaching for the closest bottle first. “Oz reminded me I’m a retard so, yeah, I’d say so.” There was a hiss of air as he cracked it open, taking a deep breath as he lifted it up high, toasting himself. “Here’s to being sober.” He upturned it right into the drain.

It was half way empty when Tai asked, “Want any help?”

“Sure. Actually, can you get a few things first?” Qrow counted them off on his fingers. “There’s some scotch on my desk. Bottle of Sherry in the sock drawer. Oh, and my flask’s in the nightstand.”

“You got it.” He replied, heading down the hall. By the time he had gotten back, all the whiskey was gone and the wine was going next. Two more bottles dropped down by the rest and Tai came over to stand next to him, uncapping his flask, amber bright rum mixing with crimson red Merlot. He must have noticed how yellowed the price tag was, because he said, “I swear I looked for all this before you moved back in.”

“Sorry. I’m good at hiding shit when I want to.” He pushed the case across the floor with his foot. There was only a hum for a response, Tai pulling out two cans at a time, cracking them open and dumping them together. Qrow glanced at him from the corner of his eye, trying to gauge his expression. He didn’t seem disappointed at least. “For example,” He continued, “Lately, I’ve also been hiding how much I’ve been wanting to take you to the movies.”

Tai cracked a grin. “Oh, if that’s how well you hide stuff, then I’m just the world’s worst finder.”

“Hey!” He knocked their shoulders together. “Trying to be sly here.”

“Oh, sorry, sorry. Let me try again.” He placed a hand against his chest, mock gasping, “The great Qrow Branwen wants to take me to the movies? I’m so honored!”

This was probably a sign they spent too much time together.

He scoured his brain hard for something snarky to say, but he didn’t find it before he felt the gentle brush of fingers along his arm, urging him to look over. “Seriously, though? I’d really like that.” Tai’s smile was doing weird things to his heart.

Before he could find something stupid to say that would almost definitely ruin the moment, he was saved by rampant giggling that made him look over, seeing a couple of tiny spies peering in at them. “I think we’ve been found out.”

“Indeed, we have.” Tai said, not even turning around. “And I believe two little sneaks better get back to their movie if they want any dessert tonight.”

There was a quick patter of feet running away, the devious duo laughing all the while.

After the mess was bagged up and set in the garage to be recycled and they had moved onto making dinner, Qrow finally found the courage to bring up what had been bear-trapped on his mind for much too long, “I was wondering something.”

Tai was across the kitchen getting the vegetables ready for the stir fry. “Yeah?”

He set the water on the stove, turning on the burner for it to boil. “How was it for you when you decided you wanted to date again?”

The blond paused in his peeling, glancing over. “What do you mean?”

Qrow crossed over, leaning back on the counter beside him. “I mean, aren’t you worried about someone treating you like Raven did?”

Tai shifted on his feet, idly rolling the carrot between his fingers. When he spoke, his voice had dropped to a near whisper, “Qrow I’m terrified of that.”

He swallowed hard, his fingers digging into the rough underside of the granite. Then Tai spoke again, stronger than before.

“But, that’s not an excuse not to try. Relationships are scary even under normal circumstances.” He scoffed some, going back to his peeling with a bit more gusto. “Besides, way I figure it, if I keep letting what she did to me prevent me from trying to find someone special in my life, then I’m still allowing her to control me. And I’ll tell you right now, I’m fucking sick of letting her win.”

The words did help him relax some, but not entirely. “Never thought of it that way.”

“What have you been thinking of?”

“Mostly freaking out about how much I don’t want to do the kinds of things she did to you, even if I do it accidentally.”

Admitting it a second time was hard enough, but it was Tai’s spluttering incredulity that pushed his mortification up a level. “Wait, what? Qrow, how the hell… how could you even think you could-? What?”

He tried to hid his reddening face in his collar, mumbling, “I’m an idiot, remember?”

“I… wow.” His friend – boyfriend? – had to take a few moments to gather himself. What he said next nearly floored Qrow. “First of all: No, you’re not. Second of all: Do you think Raven ever concerned herself with how I felt with the things she did? No, she enjoyed trying to tear me apart like it was her fucking hobby. The fact that you’re worried about doing anything even remotely the same, when you’ve always been someone who tried to pick me back up when I needed it most… well, it’s honestly a little hard for me to wrap my head around. It’s just – wow.” He chuckled, his turn to be embarrassed as he ducked his head and maybe it was because Qrow was really letting his feeling flourish but, he couldn’t help but notice just how attractive Tai looked right then. “I forgot just how good it feels to have someone care about me like this.”

He turned towards him so his hip was pressed against the countertop. “You really think we can make this work?”

“As long as we keep trying, yeah, I do.” He set the things in his hands down, facing him and laying a hand on his shoulder. “And I know you’re feeling pretty insecure right now, and that’s probably normal since this is new and you’re, well, you. But I want you to know, I trust you Qrow. More than anyone.” That smile, the one that made his heart flip, was back. “So, try and trust yourself a little bit, okay?”

When he went to respond, he expected himself to agree.

What he ended up saying was, “I really want to kiss you right now.”

Tai’s eyebrows rose a bit in surprise. “Oh.” A beat then, “Well, let me help with that.”

Two fingers hooked gently under his chin, tipping his head up some and then Tai was leaning forward.

And as he feared he would, he couldn’t help but compare it and found it was nothing like kissing Summer. Instead of pliant lips and soft skin, theirs were chapped and their stubbles scratched together some. Instead of perfume and delicate hands, Tai smelt like aftershave and his fingers were rough and calloused.

And yet.

And yet…

As Qrow allowed his eyes to fall shut and press into the kiss, he found none of it mattered because sparks were lighting up inside him in all the most wonderful of ways. And if they continued, it was sure to turn into an inferno. He didn’t need it to be anything like kissing Summer, because kissing Taiyang was perfect all on its own.

He was just beginning to really enjoy the fingers tracing up along his jawline when he heard the telltale click of a camera phone and loud snickers as two sets of feet went tromping away. They broke apart just enough to stare toilsomely at one another. “Well,” Qrow said with slight exasperation, “Looks like I’m eating all the ice cream tonight.”

“Heh.” Tai dropped a little peck on the tip of his nose. “I think you mean we are.”

“You know,” He said as he wrapped his arms around the other’s neck, “I like the sound of that.”

And as he pulled Tai in for another kiss, for the first time Qrow felt like this really could work out after all.

#qrow branwen #taiyang xiao long #Taiqrow #rwbymlmweek #rwby #fanfiction #Chase Firekitten's Tale

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logh-icebergs · 7 years

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Episode 14: Liberation of the Frontier Zone

Summer/fall 796/487. As the Alliance invasion progresses through Imperial territory, they find themselves suddenly responsible for feeding 50 million people that Reinhard deprived of supplies. The High Council decides appearances are more important than money and sends the extra supplies, right into the waiting missiles of Kircheis’s fleet. With resources now stretched super thin, the Alliance higher-ups authorize soldiers to take what they can from the people they “liberated” to feed the hungry soldiers, leading to riots on many planets. Meanwhile, Yang sits on his ship looking concerned, Reinhard and Kircheis make moon-eyes stare mournfully at each other, and Lazzll takes a nap.

More Heterosexuality?!

In the last episode Elizabeth discussed how portrayal of real straight romance or attraction is an important reference point for understanding all of the romance in LoGH; and in this episode we find our second Actual Legit Straight Romance™ in Franz and Therese, a couple of throwaway anime-only characters who quite possibly exist solely for the purpose of the comparisons I’m about to make.

Although they’re initially pushed together by Therese’s father (more on that in a minute), Franz and Therese bond over a shared dream of...well, living alone on an uninhabited planet, which is a bit of a depressing dream but whatever, we’re not here to judge. When the occupying force is ordered to steal food from the civilians and they (reasonably enough) fight back, Franz impulsively flings himself in front of an Alliance tank that’s tearing through the fields he helped cultivate on its way to quell the rebellion, and we get a sudden feeling of déjà vu.

The parallels between this scene and the flashback in episode 8 are so overwhelming that I’m tempted to accuse the anime team of lazy writing, except that I know there’s a purpose to it. Franz, seeing destructive abuse of power by his own society, can’t help endangering himself to try to prevent it, and is saved only by Therese physically removing him, after which they lie together on a dark grassy hill and discuss how fed up they are with the world. Of course Franz is no Reinhard, and his proposition here is to run away together to where they don’t have to deal with the problems of society, not to conquer the universe together. But the key is that it is an unambiguously romantic proposition: He talked earlier of living on a deserted planet with a wife and kids, and that’s the life he’s inviting Therese to join him in.

When we talked about the scene in episode 8, we said that the creators were trying to show us two conversations at once: one on the surface about overthrowing the Goldenbaum dynasty; and one, conveyed through posture, expression, and word choices, about the romance brewing between teenaged Reinhard and Kircheis. Because of the homophobia of both the Empire and the real world, all of the tangled layers and coding are necessary for Reinhard and Kircheis—talking in hushed voices of topics they’re afraid could be overheard, expressing themselves through gazes and lingering handholds while ostensibly talking about politics. But such coding isn’t necessary when it’s a straight couple. With the scene between Therese and Franz, the creators are able to show us a vision of what Reinhard and Kircheis’s romance would look like stripped of the need to hide itself, an explicit version of the romantic invitation just under the surface of the earlier scene.

Misogyny and Bad Parents

Does the cinematography of hiding Therese's dad's eyes as he spies on his daughter through the window suggest that he feels a bit of shame about trying to pimp her out to the occupying military force? I fucking hope so.

Although Therese’s body language and choices toward the end of the episode suggest that she ended up feeling some attraction to Franz herself, her initial interactions with him are entirely at the urging of her father, which gives me a chance to introduce an important running theme of LoGH: Fathers totally suck.

Franz, to his credit, quickly sees through the way Therese’s father is trying to use her, as does Therese.

It’s impossible to disentangle heteronormativity from misogyny: The assumption that the ultimate goal for all humans is straight sex/romance/marriage/reproduction goes hand in hand with a view of women as either objects of sexual conquest, vessels for producing the next generation, or tools to be used in negotiations between men. In this case, Therese’s father immediately sees a chance to use his daughter(’s body) as currency in his dealings with the occupying Alliance force; and when sure enough the relationship with the soldiers turns hostile, his desperation leads him to admit his schemes perhaps a bit more blatantly than he’d intended to:

Yeah I don’t have any witty caption here; this guy can just go fuck himself.

Let’s talk for a moment about the verb he actually uses here, あてがっておいた (ategatte-oita). Ategau has two meanings: to affix/attach, and to allocate/bestow upon. The suffix -oita is used to imply an action done in preparation for the future somehow, which is made clear by the rest of his sentence: “I allocated my daughter to you so that you’d be on my side in the future.�� This is absolutely one of the most fucked up lines in the show so far, and we’ve already seen some fucked up things.

This is neither the first nor the last example we’ll see of a father treating a daughter (or daughter figure) as an object to be allocated, sold, or used in some way according to his own (heteronormative) plans. Of course the most blatant case is Reinhard’s father literally selling his daughter into sexual slavery; but while Annerose’s story is striking and horrifying, it’s (shockingly) not actually the most problematic parenting we see, since the power dynamics involved meant that he likely had no more actual choice in the matter than Annerose did.

Still not exactly winning any Father of the Year awards. (From episode 4.)

Perhaps a better parallel to Therese’s father is Admiral Greenhill, who not only had a hand in getting Frederica assigned as Yang’s adjutant, but has already been rather pushy and nosy about their relationship several times.

I’ve already discussed Yang’s discomfort in this scene in the context of his asexuality and anxiety about being pushed into normative romantic situations; Greenhill’s apparent eagerness to pair his daughter off with the rising star of the Alliance here directly puts pressure on Yang to play a role that doesn’t fit him. (From episode 10.)

The word Greenhill uses to refer to Frederica here is あれ (are), typically a word meaning 'that (thing).' I don't know all the nuances of using it to refer to a person, but it doesn't sound like the most respectful language to me. (From episode 12.)

In Frederica’s case it seems likely, given the way she talks about meeting Yang on El Facil, that at least some of the push to set her up with Yang comes from her own interest. We’ll soon see examples where that is not the case, including Cazellnu making nonchalant and uncomfortably only-half-joking comments about marrying off his six-year-old daughter to Julian when they’re older.

What Therese’s father, Admiral Greenhill, and Cazellnu have in common here is that they are not Bad Parents in any of the ways that bad parenting is normally marked in fiction (but don’t worry, we’ll see plenty of those too!). And it’s precisely that fact that makes the pressures they impose on their daughters all the more insidious. Annerose goes along with her father’s selling her to the Kaiser because she literally has no choice; Therese initially plays along with her father pressuring her to affix herself to Franz because she loves her father and doesn’t want to displease or disappoint him. The blatant political power structures at play in Annerose’s case aren’t the only way to limit agency.

Stray Tidbits

I could watch this gif of Andrew Fork passing out because anyone dared criticize him all day.

Other things I could watch all day: Bucock getting exasperated and roasting people. ❤ Bucock.

This is made all the more hilarious by Yang’s own obsession with his afternoon naps.

Like much of the middle of this season, the main action of this episode (everything involving Franz and his interactions with the villagers on this random planet) is original to the anime; in the novels it’s mentioned in passing that rioting has broken out on several of the occupied planets but no more detail is given.

Our one glimpse of Reinhard and Kircheis in this episode is a heartrending scene that serves to reinforce the Oberstein-centric tension that’s growing between them. The unguarded sadness in Reinhard’s eyes after Kircheis leaves the room is rare and so painful to watch.

Another theme that’s set up by this episode is the question of what happens when a soldier finds his orders so objectionable that he can’t bring himself to carry them out. When Franz’s commanding officer, on orders from even higher up, sends his troops out to plunder food stores from the villagers, Franz decides he can no longer be part of the military. In his case this decision is personal and ultimately inconsequential to even the outcome of the rioting on that one planet, let alone the war on a larger scale. But the general question of the interplay between a soldier’s personal sense of morality and duty to carry out orders is one that will recur throughout the show.

This theme was already introduced in episode 12, when several of the military higher-ups, including Yang, had serious reservations about the whole invasion plan.

The narrator helpfully summarizes the thesis statement of this episode at the end in case it wasn’t clear: As Reinhard schemes to weaken the encroaching Alliance forces by taxing their supplies and Alliance politicians fret about their poll numbers and whether withdrawal would make them look silly, it’s the people living on these border planets who get fucked over. We’ve talked about LoGH showing war at all levels of zoom; I like that the anime took this opportunity to depict how quickly a supposedly friendly military occupation turns violent and oppressive as soon as the soldiers are emboldened by official orders and worried about their own physical comfort.

I could say something here about this being emblematic of the futility of the struggles of the populace against military might, but.....I'm really just including it 'cause it's adorable.

Speaking of the end of the episode, for the second time (the first being episode 6) we get a scene playing through an instrumental version of the ending song. I absolutely love this technique and will rhapsodize about it a ton in the future. The scenes that happen during the opening or closing credits are some of the most powerful and beautiful moments of the show, including this pre-victory toast by the admirals of Reinhard’s fleet. Definitely the artistic highlight of the episode by a mile.

#Legend of Galactic Heroes #Legend of the Galactic Heroes #author: Rebecca #Alliance #heterosexuality #parallels #Franz Valleymunt #Therese #misogyny #bad dads #dammit Cazellnu

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rorleuaisen · 7 years

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Boy gee do I sure have baggage

Warning for discussion of animal death(sorta detailed?? Not gory?? I do not have a good sense for what upsets people on this topic) So I mentioned in before that I have pet trauma. And while for most people seeing and knowing the shitty deaths I have witnessed (hanging, bleeding to death, suffocation, poisoning, roadkill(so much road kill. So much.), and just watching animals seize in their final moments of death), those are not the deaths that haunt me. These are not the deaths that spike my anxiety. Those are not the deaths that make me feel like a bad pet parent. My first cat dying was the most upsetting pet death I have had. She was by no means even one of the first dozen of animals I saw die. She was sick. So we took her to the vet. It ended up there was fluid in her chest cavity. I didn't have much money and I could not afford getting a bunch of expensive tests or surgery. So, the vet drained fluid from her chest and gave her some steroids. She was pretty rough after the vet, but she improved noticeably after that first day. The vet said that we could periodically empty her chest to help her out since I could not afford the other things, but essentially, she was dying, and we could only attempt to prolong her life. Now, it just so happened that around this time I had started working and that I couldn't stand being home because there were children and noise and overload. So I spent as little time at home as possible because I couldn't handle it. I started becoming busier and busier. Well, my cat was doing well for I think a good few months before she started getting bad again. So, we took her to the vet. I could afford taking her in every few months. It wasn't the best, but it was something and I was prepared for that. So, when we brought her in, told the vet how she improved after the last trip, we agreed to do the same thing again. Well, just like last time, she was pretty rough immediately after the vet. But, I was busy that day. I had things I HAD to do, so while I wanted to stay with my cat to make sure she recovered, I didn't. I asked my sister to check on her for me while I was gone, to message me if things got bad. Well, after running around being busy for the rest of the day, I come back to a dead cat. I was mad and upset and angry. Angry at my sister(who did check on her once, and she was fine then), angry at myself, angry at my mom who I had to do busy stuff with. I remember being so awed by my cat who had the fore sight to die on a plastic bag(so no mess to clean up). I remember taking her immediately to the dumpster, because I was in no mood for a funeral. She was gone and all I had was a carcass. I disposed of the carcass cuz that is what you do. I was so angry. I was angry because if only I hadn't been busy I could have noticed sooner. Helped her sooner. If I hadn't been so busy I could have been with her when she passed. I was angry because I took her to the vet and made a decision that killed her that die, and I wasn't even there for her. And eventually, I got a new cat. Not because I wanted one, but because someone found her in the snow and she needed a home. And even though I have lived with cats all my life, I periodically become anxious and paranoid about my new cat. I am worried that I am not paying attention to her. I am worried that what if this means she's sick? I am worried every time I leave town because I am the one constant in her life and I am leaving her. I am worried if I am gone to long. I am worried so much I can't tell which worries are legit and which ones are trauma anxiety. I have to ask friends if my concerns are legit. If they are something that my cat will be totally fine with. And also, money. Okay, so she's exhibiting some new thing. Is it serious? Can I afford to get it looked at? Is it something that is actually very normal and she will totally recover on her own? And I honestly don't know? I can't tell anymore? I used to be able to tell. I used to calmly recognize if a cat was behaving abnormally and needed to be taken to a vet. But I can't anymore because every choice feels like the wrong answer. Every one. And I also used to take care of old people. And my brain did the same thing. Because if I screwed up and people got hurt(honest mistake or not), it was the wrong choice. I used to have nightmares about my old people falling, a thing I couldn't necessarily realistically stop, and yet because it was my job it was my fault. I was wrong. I have periodic anxiety dreams where I have a bunch of aquariums or terrariums full of animals but they have been neglected. Or they are in the wrong cage(environment). Or I forgot to feed them. Or I don't have the right kind of food for them. Or I find dead ones mixed in with malnourished alive ones. Or they are going to be eaten by one of the other animals. Or they are escaping. And I need to fix all of them because they are my responsibility but it's too much and these animals are dead or neglected. Having responsibility over someone or something else is the deciding factor over whether or not their death upsets me. I have had clients die. It doesn't upset me, but the idea of them dying while I am on shift, terrifies me. I know this isn't normal. I know I do not experience death like other people do. This is my baggage.

#animal death

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sharingthesamesky · 8 years

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Here’s the Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Fragmentary Passage and Kingdom Hearts Back Cover reactions thread I promised you

Back Cover:

THIS MOVIE IS SO PRETTY HOLY SHIT

Also, the cinematography is incredible. Like. From someone who studied film, this shit is really good. There was like. That one moment when it was a little on the nose with the flower petals, but this is a Kingdom Hearts game so comparatively it was downright subtle.

If the Master of Masters isn’t somehow connected with Braig I’d be surprised at this point. (Master of Masters, here after known as Mr. MoM). Plot says it should be Xehanort, but mannerism SCREAM Braig. (They also share the whole one-eyed thing.)

Is Kingdom Hearts using Norse mythology symbolism now too? Because Mr. MoM’s whole “takes one eye out and casts it into [the future] to know ultimate truth” thing is just Odin.

How on earth did Mr. MoM convince these 6 super serious people to listen to him. He doesn’t seem like someone any of them would agree to train under AT ALL. Maybe Gula? But Aced and Ira? I guess there just weren’t any other Mr. MoMs to pick from?

The fucker wrote the book of prophecy in vague rhyme because he’s terrible

I swear this time travel thing is so dumb. “Don’t want you to cause any temporal paradoxes” MY ASS. you can’t just make shit up because its sounds cool. How does this work? If you “can’t change the future” then like. What is even the point of anything? Are there some events that are fixed but the specifics are still in flux?

The real reason Luxu doesn’t get a book of prophesy is that Mr. MoM hand copied the thing five times already and didn’t feel like doing it again.

Alternatively he hand copied it six times but that foreteller moogle that gives you your medals got Luxu’s copy.

I mean clearly Mr. MoM saw the keyblade war and was like “what’s the best, most fun way I can cause this? Oh! I know! I’ll tell Gula to find a “traitor” and make them all fight each other. I mean if there was really a traitor, I could just tell Gula who it was, because I can SEE THE FUTURE, but that wouldn’t be fun at all!”

Seriously if Gula hadn’t preempted that speech what would he have said.

“Oh, I know. I’ll make Aced feel jealous and make him attack the leader because I’m totally a champion of light. TOTALLY.”

Why is Ira so sure that this event would have been in the book? What kind of events make it into the book? Clearly not everything or Ira wouldn’t need Invi’s reports at all, right? Seriously did I mention this time travel stuff is terrible?

“I might vanish or I might not - anyone’s guess” says the man whose entire shtick is knowing the future. Everyone: Sounds legit.

If Mr. MoM’s keyblade makes it all the way to the present, why the fuck do their books end with the keyblade war? I mean probably because they all die in it and telling them that is a sure way to cause those supposed temporal paradoxes, (or because Mr. MoM is just a conniving ass) but I swear none of them thought to ask why his vision of the future stops there? Well, I suppose “and then the world ends” is a good enough place as any to claim you can’t see past. Even if you’re lying liar about it.

We all know Luxu’s the traitor right? Let’s just get this out of the way. Not that he necessarily betrayed anyone or anything, but Gula’s magic paper says “bears the sigil” so it’s gotta be LuXu. Unless of course its one of our key kids who went all edgy and put an X in their names.

Okay, even not knowing that, why in the hell did no one mention Luxu as a possibility for the traitor in the first place?

I mean they know about Luxu even though he’s sort of implied to be a latecomer to the group. Did they all start out wearing those black cloaks before they got their fancy foreteller gear?

Okay who designed the fancy foreteller gear who made those masks and how did Mr. MoM convince them to go with that? I mean - scratch that last part these idiot’s will do anything he says apparently.

(You’ll pry my guilt bonuses from my cold dead, darkness ridden hands, KHuX)

Mr. MoM engineered this entire thing and use everyones unquestioning loyalty and sense of his own perfection to do it. No one bothered to question any of the details and that’s why it worked.

“Hey, Master, why to all the chirithy look the same? Wouldn’t it be easier to tell which one turned into a nightmare if they were like. Numbered or something?”

“Hey Master, you want us to… collect Lux? What are we collecting it for? Shouldn’t we… not do that?”

“Wait you want us to… take Lux from… the future?”

Seriously this movie answers zero of the questions about how time works in KHuX. None of them at all. Well, maybe Season Two will address it.

“Hey Master, why is it called a Nightmare if this isn’t the world of dreams because obviously it isn’t right? RIGHT?”

Ava tells her dandelions they are gonna practice leaving the world by going into the realm of dreams though so.

I’m sorry I couldn’t take that scene seriously with all the key kids in their default starter outfits. No keyblader that’s the “best of the best” is gonna be wearing a starter outfit with no perks.

Okay, I get that Gula couldn’t tell anyone his role, and that Aced’s “true role” aka the failsafe powder keg fuse makes sense to keep secret, but why didn’t Ava tell anyone her role?

The foretellers have different VA’s than the characters they obviously correspond to, but they’re similar (well, accept Aced) and they speak in a very similar way. Care to comment? (Mr. MoM giggling in the distance)

Ava, how does Ephemer even know about the book? Did you tell all the keykids about it or what? I kind of doubt that. Ephemer you clever little sneak.

The Foretellers have a secret castle no one is allowed to enter and yet they have their meeting in the warehouse that literally everyone goes into all the time.

"coolheaded Gula?" More like flips the fuck out when he can't figure something out and tries to SUMMON KINGDOM HEARTS Gula.

Too bad Spongebob can never know what’s inside my secret box.

Seriously, why does ANYONE trust this guy.

Luxu’s reaction to “it’s my eye” is amazing.

No Name. Really. You don’t say.

The NA rankings are pretty spot on though. Good on us.

Fragmentary Passage:

Holy shit I’m so sold on the “technical demo” aspects of this game. Next Gen I love you.

You have to understand the last gen I had was a PS2. Why is everything so reflective and responsive its amazing.

Aqua’s VA is better than she was in BBS, but it still definitely limited my enjoyment of the game.

I did not realize the top of Aqua’s outfit was supposed to be see-through mesh other than the boob pads. Not sure how I feel about that.

I hope that the FFXIII style “hallways simulator” thing was because of time constraints and not because it’s how KH3 is gonna go.

The whole “There’s no time in the realm of Darkness” thing is really interesting, especially given all this time travel nonsense in the Realm of Light. But. Things still clearly progress in a linear fashion in there. Aqua doesn’t see Riku running through the darkness and then walk for a long while and then see Mickey. People enter and leave the place in an order that seems to be shared. Which means there is time. I think the word you are looking for is vague, arbitrary, or inconsistent.

Goddammit Nomura, take a second to read about time between your Latin lessons and your comparative mythology classes.

The new Heartless look really cool. I like them. And the elemental effects are fantastic. I could watch those heartless throw water at me all day.

The world design, apart from the linearness of some of the levels, was amazing. The suspended structures and twisted landscapes were really compelling.

I can’t be the only one who got strong “American McGee’s Alice” series vibes though, right? In a good way.

The mirror puzzle was neat. Not sure how long it would have taken me to figure out had I been playing and not watching a walkthrough so I’m calling it neat entirely by concept and visuals.

Phantom Aqua attacks in a pattern pretty similar to Xehanort’s fight with Terra in BBS, but with a mix of Aqua’s moves thrown in.

Aqua’s attack style is… kind of Extra. That twirl where she sticks her leggy straight up vertically in the air is like… Was that necessary? It certainly isn’t physically possible. Ask figure skaters.

The Terra/Xehanort scene was surprisingly good despite Terra’s VA. It was nice to get some insight into how that relationship is going. Because the rest of time seems pretty linear, we know that scene takes place, for Terra, at some point AFTER the worlds start vanishing. But if we take the claim that time is - if not absent - weird in the Realm of Darkness, then we don’t have any sense other than that. Maleficent gathered the princesses from the worlds we saw before she met Riku so that isn’t any indication, really.

Did I start crying when I saw Destiny Islands? Almost. Did I take a million screenshots of HD Destiny Islands? You bet your ass I did.

I did kinda cry when I saw Riku in his dumb KH1 puffy pants, though.

So behind the door in the Realm of Light is the heart of the world, but when it’s in the realm of darkness, it’s a magic keyblade shrine? I’m not really gonna argue. It seems to be a symbolic thing. Whatever. Good to know it’s a “push” door I suppose.

I’m not looking forward to that Demon Tide boss showing up again.

Mickey says he’s been “working with” Sora and Riku and he’s a fucking liar you didn’t do shit for them during KH1, Your Majesty, I WAS THERE.

“Kingdom hearts.. well okay not really kingdom hearts but. It’s sorta like a mini kingdom hearts? look we didn’t have the lore finalized at this point so just. pretend for me, Aqua.”

I can’t believe the Darkness ate King Mickey’s shirt.

(I know it was for the sake of consistency, and if it hadn’t happened you’d have people saying Mickey took his shirt off to be all macho mouse for that scene but still. Did anyone remember going in what Mickey was or wasn’t wearing during that scene?)

Kairi gets 3 seconds of screen time, and they are THE BEST. She’s super on point and I love her and hope she beats Lea up repeatedly and that we get to watch. Or do it.

I’m so thankful that Yensid didn’t pull a “no, Kairi you’re a princess of heart you can’t do both.” I didn’t think he would but it wasn’t NOT a fear of mine.

RIKU AND KAIRI INTERACTION. I PRAYED SO HARD. FOR SO MANY YEARS.

Riku’s whole “I tried to hard too be a role model” thing had me in tears. My son. My beautiful darling son. I am so proud of you. So proud

Sora-esque.

Yen Sid’s “No, see you would have done some stupid brave shit and fucked it all up” was. Amazing. Surpassed only by his “Sora, you fool, you complete and utter fuckup.”

“HAPPENS ALL THE TIME”

So… was Yensid actually talking about Hercules or did Sora just… guess wrong. Because Yensid never explicitly says to go to Olympus Coliseum. Sora’s just…. really literal minded.

Goddammit I take back what I said about Next Gen the canon Disney characters look TERRIBLE. I really hope they work on that before KH3 because I really don’t want to deal with plastic model Donald and Goofy the whole time. Please.

I did NOT miss Donald Ducks voice.

That Gummi ship scene was incredible? HD Sora is so expressive and adorable and precious.

I like watching the dynamic between those three. It’s weird as fuck to watch with these graphics, and Donald and Goofy’s voices make it near impossible to take seriously, but it was fun to see.

“May your heart be your guiding key” DID YOU ALL FORGET WHY SORA FUCKED UP SO BAD IN THE MARK OF MASTERY? GOD DIDN’T YOU HEAR WHAT XIGBAR SAID? “Aren’t hearts great? Lead us wrong every time.” GODDAMMIT.

(I suspect that Mr. MoM knew that too, and was counting on it, hard. Even if he isn’t Braig.)

Special Credits:

I don’t have much to say other than HOLY SHIT NOSTALGIA and that i’m such a sucker for parallels in fiction that I was kind of rolling around with glee.

I actually didn’t realize just how much hugging and touching there is in this series?

Everyone’s all “KH doesn’t have explicit Romantic Parings” But they DID just do a giant romance montage (which included Namine and Roxas?) just to lead up to Sora and Kairi so. Not all that subtle.

As much as I’m :/ about that last bit, it was nice to see this game remember that other parts of the Destiny Islands trio exist besides Sora and Riku’s dynamic. We got some Riku and Kairi in 0.2 and we got this little bit in the credits so at least they haven’t forgotten Kairi exists.

#kh 2.8 spoilers

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maleenhancementmd · 4 years

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tight pelvic muscles premature ejaculation

Contents

Ejaculation. study design

Cloth towelette approved

Pelvic muscles contract

Shocking life story!!!

Randomized controlled study

These byproducts can sometimes build up and accumulate in the pelvic region, and become a cause for premature ejaculation. A build-up of harmful radicals can also damage cells and veins in the penis. Vitamin C is known to act as an antioxidant and help eliminate Lactic acid and free radicals from the body.

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· 3. Don’t hold the squeeze too tight or you could strain the muscle. It should be tight enough to engage the kegel muscles, but not so tight it takes serious effort and feels uncomfortable. 4. Don’t forget to relax in between sets. This is an important part of getting the pelvic floor muscles.

· The pelvic floor muscles feel as if they are tied in a “knot,” creating a severe “Charlie horse” of the pelvis. Characteristically, the pain varies in intensity over time and wanders to different locations in the pelvis, possibly involving the lower abdomen, groin, pubic area, penis, scrotum, testicles, perineum, anus, rectum, hips and.

· What types of physical exercises help with premature ejaculation? While there is a range of specific exercises that help with premature ejaculation, most of them focus on strengthening your pelvic floor. In men, the pelvic floor is a set of muscles that support the bladder and bowel (also known as the pelvic organs).

Possible causes for premature ejaculation: Psychological factors: New partner. Fear of being caught masturbating or having sex. Anxiety, guilt, or depression. Physical factors: Tight PC muscle. Masturbation habits: high intensity masturbation may pattern the brain for quick orgasm. If it has been a long time since the last ejaculation.

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role of pelvic floor muscle rehabilitation in patients affected by lifelong premature ejaculation. study design, materials and methods. 40 male patients were.

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Chronic pelvic pain syndromes (CPPS) are highly prevalent in Western society, cause of unremitting pelvic pain in men by specialist pelvic floor. Pain on ejaculation and urination with a reduction in urinary flow.. In the erect state, the penis feels very tight, with men reporting increasing levels of pain.

· Pelvic floor muscles are thought to be very important in maintaining erections, and there is some evidence that pelvic floor exercises can help maintain and/or improve erectile function. A pilot study found that they may be helpful for men with premature ejaculation , and a randomized controlled study found that the exercises caused significant.

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michellelewis7162 · 4 years

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There are actually different types of wagers, thus You also must find where that match Your type. As an example, burdening the football ball swiftly came to be well-known among a lot much better And unless You have a great knowledge regarding what it implies, You might certainly not earn money coming from this program.

The option of the Best Football By the pros make use of a cautious approach that has actually been actually time tested and has a sturdy factor responsible for it. The manner of a lot of methods is very complex mathematical as well as analytical review that can be complicated for newbies to comprehend as well as grasp. Once the approach is in spot, who is actually joke may simply administer it. If You really want to create routine and continuous Money From Options Football, then You need to recognize the strategies that specialists utilize, and also therefore the specialist advice in this circumstance becomes vital Situs Slot.

Soccer Betting Tips Free - Perform They Really Work?

Obviously you will certainly answer: "Indeed they are those who are actually sent to them". That's what they are," however the extent to which they adequately effective? You may discover some ideas about the principles and essential regulation football betting on the web, which is really vital for beginners. None of wordplay coming from a warranty of results for everything unique as well as maintain You money. Many of the pointers online is very common-almost everyone who wagers understand this.

Why do not all individuals create cash from soccer gaming?

The straightforward answer is simply the professionals who actually comprehend the recommendations behind the wagering of the volleyball. This performs certainly not mean that the expert performs not shed funds - simply that they regularly make greater than they drop. This means While having a hard time amateur basics along with suggestions betting free of cost regulation football, globe soccer betting is actually a lot earn money coming from their knowledge and expertise Online Gambling Website.

If You wagered simply as an activity, at that point You carry out certainly not commonly require advise and also handicapper information provided by professionals. However, if You are serious about making money regular by means of football wagering so you require not fret about Your financial resources for the better portion of Your life, after that guidelines complimentary regulation football are going to certainly not get You there. You may need to have the aid of professionals and specialists who know what they are carrying out and exactly how factors do work in the real world of wagering.

The actual of betting volleyball is actually not as straightforward as a coin turn to determine which crew gains. This is why experts are able to trump the odds each opportunity and for that reason create a normal revenue wagering merely on football. If You likewise desire to manage to perform it, at that point follow among the choices and also pointers through gambler football excellence worldwide.

However make sure my pal. Not all expert football gamers in gambler observed a lot of effective gain cash. You need to look for verification or documentation that verifies that they are actually gaining a bunch of cash each year along with volleyball wagering.

What Is Football Betting?

This relevant information is actually to provide You with standard info concerning internet gaming on soccer and a variety of kinds of bet Gambling Sites Online Situs Slot.

On the internet wagering on soccer is actually the basic task of forecasting football outcomes through helping make a wager on the outcome of football suits. Maybe much more than other kinds of internet gambling, the legality and standard recognition of betting on a football round differ from state to state. In North America and also Asia, for example, on the web wagering on sporting activities is actually usually restricted, while in a lot of European nations, robbery is considered as a respectable line of work and also, while very moderated, is not outlawed.

Supporters of legitalized wagering typically regard it as an interest for sports enthusiasts that enhances their interest in certain featuring activities, thereby gaining the league, gamers as well as crews they bank on via the viewers that is higher and flat. Rivals are afraid of that, beyond an usual consequence of internet gambling, it threatens the honesty of amateur sporting activities as well as specialist, the record of the casino player that includes an assortment of attempts by football to Fix a match, though Defender that legitimate manual producers will certainly combat shadiness the same standard as the authorities and police perform.

Along with basic wager, online gambling is normally done due to the creators of the book. Wager sporting activities Legally all over the world. In regions where on the web gambling on sports is prohibited, wagerer normally make their bet on sports along with the dealer of restricted manuals, where 1000s of booksellers on-line allow bank on sporting celebrations all over the world. Book maker receive a compensation of generally 10 per-cent on all shedding bets, and pay a quantity that is actually determined to gain the wager. Lots of publication creators give a number of substitute bets, including the following:

* Proposition wager: this is actually bank on quite details outcomes of a match.

Wager entails wagering a great deal and also a fantastic conveniences along with a huge earnings.

This wager predicts accomplishment later on by the team or the player. The chances for such a wager in internet gambling are actually typically expressed in a ratio unit paid for right into the body be actually wagered.

Volleyball betting is not a simple way to generate cash, You require to endure as well as likewise to practice to progress. One technique to perform is to get accustomed along with the different components of every activity You could encountering at the on the web wagering website of Your option Situs Slot.

A Quick Guide To Football Betting Online

If You are actually delighted regarding soccer You can quickly take Your passion one action even more as well as position a bank on Your favorite team to gain. It's exciting and also is going to produce Your experience facing the TELEVISION a lot more exciting. The complying with are the fundamental measures for betting soccer online Site Online Gambling

The very first thing you have to carry out is actually enroll in a profile along with a publication creator that delivers soccer wagering. You may do thus on-line at the designated web site from any sort of aspect of the globe anytime. You may also decide on to gamble on offline football-this is the traditional choice and has its personal conveniences over the bookmaker You have actually selected has an office near You. Once You have a profile, You should Credit along with a particular amount of amount of money depending upon the wager measurements you desire to create. Commonly the writer of guide one of the most prominent possess a special deal for first-time customers if You place specific bank on the video game You immediately get the extra totally free special on-line football wagering to a defined quantity. You are definitely recommended not to get included along with bookies online doubtful as well as in the activities of unlawful betting like this might acquire You into problem with the authorities and also the taker of the bet.

You can position a bet on a soccer activity online along with the click on of a switch when You set easily with everything possible. Suit betting is actually the most well-known. The best and lower and also the total wagering is also a terrific choice-they are simple as well as incredibly rewarding to identify. A particular activity rating as well as ball game at half opportunity is actually harder to get right and also hence so much more risky. If the group is actually very feeble to participate in against the champion all the opportunity, wager Nil is actually really good especially. Attract no wager is actually likewise much less risky one.

Online Gambling

Online Casino

There are a large number of on the internet casino sites, in which folks can easily play casino video games such as Roulette, Blackjack, Craps, as well as numerous others. The game is actually bet the "property", which generate funds as a result of the fact that the probability of little bit of advantage. Some unscrupulous site has verified to give the game is actually set up, that are actually much less mathematically decent than they show up Online Gambling Website Situs Slot.

Texas hold 'em Online.

There is a sizable quantity of room casino texas hold'em on the web that supply a variety of video games of Poker, many typically Texas multitude 'em, but also Omaha, stud seven memory card, and also other sorts of games. Players bet each other, with "property" generating income by means of the "Broom".

On-line sports betting.

A number of the bookie uses gambling bets continue to be on the web, along with casino players commonly betting on the end results of sports matches.

An innovation net that is fairly brand-new is the wagering swap, that allows people to place wagers with each other (with the" house" taking a small commission).

Funds Transfer

Generally, bettors upload funds to the on the web gambling company, create wagers or even participate in the video game supplied, and then cashing out any type of profits. Gamblers Europe can easily commonly fund your account gambling with credit cards or even money memory cards, and cash money right back to the visa or mastercard.

Due to the doubtful legitimacy of internet betting in the United States, nevertheless, U.S. charge card frequently fail to become accepted. An amount of intermediary companies - business - like Firepay, Neteller, and also Moneybookers - provide accounts with which (with other things) on-line gambling can be actually moneyed. Driver online casino and an online casino web online poker often supply incentives for using the 'alternative remittance techniques' this.

Settlement through examination and move the cable.

The trouble of the typical rule

On the web gambling is actually legal and also controlled in lots of nations including the Uk as well as numerous nations in and around the Caribbean Sea.

The court of Appeals of the Federal United States has chosen that the Federal laws the wire forbids Electronic Transmission of information for sporting activities betting all over the nation. There is no regulation restricting gambling of any other kind.

Some states possess details regulations against on the web wagering of any sort of style. Have an on the web video recording activity without the suitable permit would certainly be actually prohibited, as well as no conditions that presently license on the internet gaming

The government of the isle nation of Antigua as well as Barbuda, which has a licensed bodies betting Internet, make a grievance to the World Trade Organization concerning the actions of the U.S. government to restrain internet games.

Caribbean country gained the initial ruling yet the company lace of the WTO somewhat reversed that positive ruling in April 2005. The selection of the lace effectively permitted state regulations restricting wagering in Louisiana, Massachusetts, South Dakota and also Utah. The charm panel likewise made a decision that the United States might go against the policies of field worldwide because the legislation moderates horse auto racing wagers were actually not administered equitably for the online companies, national and also international vibrant. The Panel additionally said that the particular restriction on on-line gambling established under the regulations of the federal government of the U.S. is actually certainly not constant with the Department of Social Trade.

In March 2003, Deputy Assistant Attorney overall John G. Malcolm proved before the Senate Banking Committee regarding the special problems provided by internet gaming. The major issue of the Ministry of Justice of the United States is actually washing loan online. The confidential attribute of the Internet and also making use of shield of encryption made it especially hard to trace deals of loan washing online.

In April 2004 Google and also Yahoo!, the net the two largest online search engine, introduced that they were actually removing on-line gaming advertisements coming from their website. The motion adhered to a United States Department of Justice that, in what it claimed was actually an opposition of the decision of the Court of Appeals, the Statute of the cord is connected to bet the phone puts on all kinds of Internet betting, and also any kind of marketing of such "may" be actually regarded as aiding as well as advocating. Criticism against the activity of the Ministry of Justice stated that possesses no lawful premises to press the provider to take out advertising campaigns and that the promotions are actually protected by the First Amendment. April 2005, Yahoo! has given advertising and marketing for "play money" on the web computer game.

In February 2005 the Council of Representatives of North Dakota passed laws to legalize and also manage internet poker and driver of the hall texas store 'em internet in the condition. Witnessed before the state us senate, the CEO of the hall online, Hall Council, pledged to relocate to the condition if the BILL ends up being legislation. Having said that, the step was beat due to the State Senate in March 2005. Jim Kasper, the representative who sponsored the LAW, intending initiatives a character of election 2006 to the subject matter of the Online Gambling Website.

Trouble betting.

There is worry that online wagering enhances the amount of problem gaming considering that the internet brings gambling right into the homes of a gamer. In the United States, the relationship between schedule and wagering was actually investigated in 1999 by the Study of the Impact of Gambling Nationwide, which found that "the presence of betting facilities within a distance of fifty miles is multiplying issue and also medical gamblers". If these seekings are actually correct, sensible if hope that access to the net gaming likewise will improve the issue in gaming.

If You yearn for to bring in steady and also routine Money From Options Football, then You need to have to comprehend the strategies that specialists use, and also therefore the professional suggestions in this instance comes to be crucial.

You may need the aid of professionals and professionals that understand what they are carrying out and how points work in the real world of betting.

The base and best and the complete wager is likewise a terrific choice-they are very easy as well as really successful to figure out. The activity complied with a United States Department of Justice that, in what it stated was actually a contradiction of the verdict of the Court of Appeals, the Statute of the wire is actually associated with bet the phone relates to all forms of Internet wagering, which any type of advertising and marketing of such "might" be actually considered as advocating as well as helping. In the United States, the relationship in between schedule as well as gambling was actually explored in 1999 due to the Study of the Impact of Gambling Nationwide, which discovered that "the visibility of a gambling resource within fifty miles is increasing concern as well as medical bettors".

If You like betting on sports at that point You know that gambling football can easily be interesting, yet also one of the sports most challenging to wager on. It is actually not enough to only understand the betting odds as well as bet on the video game. If You want to acquire in to regulation football betting, then You possess to gather all the information concerning the bet to the example of the discussion forum football as well as espn. In areas where on the web wagering on sports is unlawful, wagerer typically make their bet on sporting activities with the seller of forbidden books, where thousands of booksellers online accept wagers on featuring celebrations around the planet. Usually the writer of the manual the most prominent have a special provide for novice consumers if You position certain wagers on the game You instantly receive the added free of cost special on the web football wagering to an indicated amount.

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