#unfortunately i don't have a before picture so i can't show you how dramatic the transformation was

[raquellemonsta]

Hi girl! Me again!

Still can’t stop thinking abt that amazing tobio fic that u did which I requested, I NEEDD a part two or like a timeskip where they’re datinggg. I’m dying to know what their dating life is like when their pre-dating time is already as hot and fiery as u wrote it!! <3 along w the media n stuff like they’re obv they’re gn be so slay n espesh u write it so i alr know I’m gn love it sm!! So looking forward to it <33

golden (timeskip!kageyama x model!reader)

here it is! I love these two so much. I'm sorry this took so long, oops. disclaimer: you'll have to suspend your disbelief, I know in the manga he technically was 19 when he went to the Olympics but he's aged up here so that both of your career paths make sense. I am very sorry if that takes you out of the story at all </3 I hope you love it anyway!

wc: 2015 words

(part 1)

your relationship with kageyama tobio is nothing short of a dream. everyone can tell just how in love with him you are, and he's just as whipped for you. the two of you are meant for each other.

it's what all the tabloids, your closest friends, and even your parents say to you every-time you see them.

you can't agree more; he's the perfect man for you. tobio is able to understand the weight of being in the spotlight, millions of eyes on you, and he keeps you grounded. he's been your date to every social event, awards show, concert, sporting event, you name it. at the same time, you both are always there for one another, even with no cameras around. tobio's your safe space away from all of the pressures of being famous (and just being human, too). he's anything but a pr relationship, that's for sure.

which is why you're so excited, today of all days especially.

your boyfriend is competing in the 2016 summer olympic games, one of the most impressive feats an athlete can accomplish.

even if tobio can be quiet, not bothering to talk about what it is he's thinking about most of the time, you know that this has been a dream of his since he was a little boy. it's quite literally the farthest he can go in the sport he's loved forever, and he gets to do it with his close friends by his side, too.

your heart swells with pride just thinking about it. you're so happy he has this opportunity.

the unfortunate consequence of it, though, is that you haven't seen him in two weeks. well, that's slightly dramatic. he's able to text you occasionally, but nothings the same as waking up in his arms. other than games, of course, he's restricted to practice and the olympic village.

the only times you've really seen him in-person are watching his games, where you have a limited time afterwards to hug him before he's whisked away from you to start the same cycle over again.

it's been very lonely without him. your friend even sent you a twitter post someone had made about how sad you looked and how 'no one ever sees [you] without [your] boyfriend usually'. you kind of laughed at that, both at the ridiculous picture taken of you and at the fact that the caption might be true.

you miss him so much.

that's why you're both excited and nervous that today is the very last possible match: olympic finals.

entering the (at this point) familiar arena, you make your way to the side designated for japan. your seat is pretty close to the front, but still high enough so that you can see all of the court. that part is important, since your tobio rarely stays in one spot when he's out there.

you pull out your phone, shooting a text to your friend and then one to tobio, despite the fact that he definitely won't see it until after the game. you're pulled out of your focus by a man with a microphone held to your face.

"miss japan! miss (l/n), are you excited to be here today?" he looks at you excitedly, camera aimed at your face.

you can never seem to escape the 'reporters' from random news sites, especially here. it's not too surprising that they want to know your reaction to your boyfriend being in the finals. you don't want to seem rude, though, so once you recover from the shock of being interrupted, you respond calmly.

"of course i am. i'm lucky to have someone i know and love playing, too." you smile at the camera, waving to anyone who will end up watching this (which is always more people than you think). you can practically hear gushiken-san talking about what a great client he has. 'so humble!'

"yes, kageyama tobio. his performance has been amazing these past few games." he looks at you, expectantly.

"i think his performance is always amazing, but i'm also biased," you joke.

the man smiles at you, the two of you going back and forth for a few more questions, mainly about you and your most recent projects (shouldn't they be focused on the event you're at?), along with digging for any possible hints on where you'll be modeling next.

finally, he thanks you for your time and you're left alone. your attention then shifts to the court, where brazil has gone out to warm up.

your heartbeat picks up its pace, nervous and excited simultaneously.

it's almost time.

when the japanese team walks out, your eyes immediately fall onto number 20. even his warmup is flawless. you barely register the time passing, gaze locked on tobio like he's the only man on earth.

the whistle, signifying the end of warmups and for the teams to lineup, brings you back to reality. this is really happening. this is what he's worked so hard for.

this is his destiny.

————

finals. olympic finals. a game away from total victory, or bitter defeat.

his heart has been pounding for the entirety of the last set. tobio has always been able to keep his cool during matches, but something about the pressure of the biggest match in the entire world has managed to creep into his head. it even cost the team a point earlier. a foot fault has rarely ever happened to him before, yet here of all games it would. tobio knows he has to put that behind him, though, especially with the score now.

28-27. match point. and he's up to serve.

slowly moving back behind the line, a chill goes down his spine. the arena feels dead silent, despite the sheer number of spectators. he closes his eyes, pushing out a final exhale as his ears barely register the whistle.

this is it.

his entire life has led up to this exact moment. his serve undoubtedly making or breaking the game, and his reputation. it feels as though the weight of the world is on his shoulders, crushing him and depriving his lungs of air. like sinking deep underwater, he's nearly swallowed whole.

a saving grace is waiting for him, in the form of you. he pictures your beautiful face, smiling up at him like he's the only man in the entire world. like he's invincible.

tobio knows you're watching him right now. what are you thinking? about that missed serve earlier, and how lame he is? no. that thought is quickly swiped away. he thinks of how you'll run up to him as soon as the game is over, win or lose, take him in your arms and kiss him like no one is watching. he can't wait.

with complete precision, he tosses the ball up, going through his footwork as if in slow motion. he's done this a million times before, and yet this is different.

at the apex of his jump, he meets the ball. he swears he can see you now, hands over your mouth, gripping tightly in anticipation. he's sure he's never slammed the ball harder.

the ball drills into the back left corner, shanked by brazil's opposite.

the arena immediately becomes deafening, shouts and cheers erupting from every single side of kageyama as he barely registers that he ended the olympics on an ace. his teammates are crowding him, excited (especially bokuto), and yet all he can think of is you.

the next several minutes are spent awarding the medals, kageyama standing with his team on the first place podium. despite this being one of the greatest moments of his life, his face lacks a visible smile. he's glancing around the arena, searching throughout the crowd.

a tap on his shoulder finally pulls him out of it, though he turns around to be met with the girl he was looking for, you.

his eyes widen for a split second before you basically throw yourself onto him, hugging him so tightly that you can feel the cold medal through your shirt. tobio's arms quickly wrap around you, and even despite the sweat you move closer to him.

"i'm so proud of you." you smile brightly, amazed by this man that you're lucky enough to call your boyfriend. your hands have found their way to his cheeks, thumbs at the edge of his lips.

kageyama's never been big on pda, but he just won an olympic gold medal and has the prettiest girl in the world by his side. he can let a kiss with you slide, especially when you're looking at him like that.

you drown out the cheers and ignore the flashing of several cameras, lost in your love for tobio. it's only you and your lover, locked in a kiss full of emotion and yet simply enough to convey your feelings.

when the two of you pull away, it's like you suddenly remember just where you are, and you feel slightly shy (which is shocking, for you). tobio, on the other hand, is smiling down at you. really smiling, the smile that he told you people always thought was 'creepy', but you loved because you know it's genuine.

unfortunately, the two of you are pulled out of your moment together.

"kageyama, that was absolutely amazing! how are you feeling after such an amazing moment?!" a reporter rapidly speaks, trying to be heard over the loud environment. unlike the one interviewing you earlier, this woman appears to be from a more official american news station, trying to get an interview from the man who won japan the game.

tobio looks between her and the camera, confused, before he leans into the microphone.

"i love my girlfriend," comes his very choppy english. you can't stop yourself from smiling brightly, the camera turning to focus on you behind him.

he pulls you away after that, and you shoot the reporter and cameraman an apologetic look before following after him eagerly.

"thank you, hon." you joke, commenting on his earlier answer to the woman.

he looks to you. "it's true."

you lean up to kiss him again, hands tenderly holding his shoulders.

"i know. you're so sweet to me… can i wear your medal for a sec?" you eye the big circle of gold.

kageyama can only roll his eyes at your quick shift, though he still ends up taking the medal off and over his head, placing it on you like you've just created all of the stars in the sky.

—————

"tobio, what flavor should we get? i'm stuck between strawberry shortcake and fudge brownie." you stare through the glass case at the grocery store, pondering about the endless assortment of ice cream.

in the reflection, you can see your boyfriend aimlessly looking around the aisle, before his eyes catch onto your figure. you catch his lips turn up so subtly that you'd have never noticed it if he wasn't the love of your life.

he ponders your statement for a second, before coming up next to you and opening the case, grabbing both of the cartons you listed. you look up at him, confused.

"why not both?" he turns back to you, small smile still present.

you smile brightly at him, entranced. he's so perfect.

"i love you, tobio."

"i love you, (y/n)."

you let yourself fall into his side (the arm where he's not holding the ice cream, of course), wrapping your arm around his back as he does the same to you.

on your way to the self-checkout, you snatch one of the magazines on the edge of an aisle, plastered with a photo of you and tobio after his medal was awarded. you skim the bubble in the bottom right corner, one questioning any talk of marriage between the two of you.

you jokingly point to the bubble, showing it to your boyfriend.

"what do you have to say to this, hm?"

tobio eyes it, quickly reading before he smiles at you and kisses your head. he turns away to pay for the ice cream, ignoring your question.

"hey!"

"patience…"

[isfjmel-phleg]

This is a personal post.

Day 2 of the recent convention ended with our having to go to bed insanely early so we could get up for our flight at the crack of dawn the next day, so I didn't get around to an account of how it went. I would be very much shocked if anyone was on the edge of their seats waiting for that, but if it still matters, here's how it went:

No dramatic five AM alerts, so that was nice.

We had to attend mandatory sessions of our choice of various presentations of information relevant to college students. Since I am no longer a college student, almost none of these were relevant to me, so I tagged along with the rest of my group, who decided to attend one on applying for grad schools.

Apparently this is a Grand Ordeal to be schemed and strategized for with all the thoroughness of preparing for battle. You have to be ambitious, you have to network, it sounds horrifying. (I ended up in grad school sort of accidentally, and it was not all that fuss because my school is very laidback about who they let in, which is lucky for me but probably an issue in other ways. But anyway.)

So I mostly just kept silent and people-watched. One of the presenters was a bubbly young woman in a strongly pink pantsuit with sparkly heels. Her term of approval in conversation was "Beautiful!" She was like a sort of real-life Elle Woods, except going into sports psychology. Good for her.

One of the girls from the group that I ended up arguing about the nature of hot dogs with two days before was presenting that morning on Jane Eyre, so I went and heard her. I was not familiar with the other text she was discussing, and I can't say that the lens of ecofeminism is one that fascinates me, but it was a fresh perspective, and she did a good job.

Then my friend and I went to hear a presentation on a certain personality type system, and...that poor guy was so nervous. He had potentially interesting things to say, but he was struggling to find how to discuss them. Presentations aren't easy. Also, he is possibly not the type that he told my friend (who asked him) he was.

Our faculty sponsor was judging during every session and so was not able to see any of us present, so it was my job to show up to the two other presentations from our group and take pictures. They were within minutes of each other under separate topics, but fortunately the rooms were next door to each other.

My friend was a communications major and she talked about muted group theory and consubstantiality in relation to a recent popular film. I don't feel the same way about this film that she does, but she had insightful things to say and she did an excellent job because she's fantastic at this sort of thing. She got good engagement too--including some guy who was missing the point and gave her an opportunity to address a common objection to her argument.

Our undergrad chemist did a fine job too, despite working with a setup that was very different from what she was used to. I had no idea what she was talking about at all, but she clearly knew what she was talking about.

We had hoped to go to a museum with a lady that my friend had randomly befriended the night before, who was planning to attend with a friend who had lived through the historical events in question, but unfortunately our schedules did not coincide, so we went to lunch instead.

Forgot to say that the day before we had lunch at a Brazilian steakhouse, which was An Experience. This time, though, it was chicken, and some fascinating conversation. Our faculty sponsor is a history professor, and she's going to be teaching a class on family genealogy soon, and so we were talking about family history and other things and finding out interesting things about each other.

The history professor and our chemist decided to go back to the hotel room to work on other things, but since my friend and I had nothing pressing to do, we went to the art museum.

Not just because art museums are fantastic, but because there was an exhibit of costumes from Disney films that we particularly wanted to see.

Before we could get in to that exhibit though, we had time to kill, so we wandered through rooms of European art, sorted by era, so it was like a history lesson too. Starting in the fourteenth century, and somewhere around the nineteenth we had to move on.

The costumes were glorious and I wish we had had more time to observe, but here are a few that were of interest:

Everything culminated in the big awards dinner. We ended up at a table with assorted other women, including my friend's new friend, who was just the sweetest, friendliest lady. Pretty much everyone we met from this area were very kind, very polite.

There were people from all over at the convention. One woman at our table was originally from Venice! Lots of fascinating conversation, and having all disciplines represented there rather than just one meant you were sure to learn a lot you might not have otherwise. At English honor society conventions I've been to, there can be a sort of prentiousness, so it was refreshing not to get that here. Everyone was supportive of everyone else.

(This was maybe the one opportunity of my life to wear a fascinator with a peacock feather--to match the peacock-patterned dress meant to coordinate with the dinner's desired color scheme of blue and green--and it was totally worth it. 10/10 would recommend going about with a bizarre thing on my head in public.)

No one in our group won an award. This was kind of disappointing. Undergrads were judged against only others in their discipline, but grad students and alumni members (like my friend and me respectively) as smaller groups were lumped in with all others of their standing. And if you're an English major jawing about a children's book, you can't really compete with a PhD presenting on a Serious and Important topic in American History, can you? (I didn't see that presentation, but I'm sure the award was well-deserved; there were a lot of strong presenters.)

However, this was my first time doing a presentation of this type. I got my ideas out there, there was good engagement, I got some ideas and hopefully others did too, so that's the main point, and I would say that the presentation was a reasonably successful one. And our faculty sponsor did not express any disappointment that we hadn't won anything, so that was a relief. We did not disgrace the school.

So then we did the last of our packing and tried to sleep.

This was difficult, because my brain chose that moment to light up with Thoughts about my friend's observations on muted group theory and how that might apply to how female writers (as opposed to male writers) address certain topics in comics such as Kon's and Grant's.

So my poor friend got treated to that discussion as our plane took off the next day.

It was a good trip, albeit quick and exhausting. I would visit this city again, and I would attend another such convention if given the opportunity. Maybe not to discuss another children's book. I should try for something more Serious and Important. Maybe comics. :P

(oh, and our chemist had a poster for her presentation that she had to carry around in a gigantic cardboard tube all through airports and to her session, and by the end of the trip we told her she ought to name it, so from then on it was Mr. Tube, whom the rest of us sometimes had to babysit. I was very glad I was not traveling with a poster.)

[nicks-disks]

** CHRISTMAS SPECIAL SPOILERS!!! **

honestly, I lowkey liked the ending of Ghosts. But like, lowkey, y'know? I do sort of mourn that we lost the chance to have an open ending, as I think it's under-utilised in shows and such a heartwarming, comforting and undramatic end for a series, but I definitely don't hate what we got given.

Is it perfect? No not really. Is it good? I mean yeah I think it is, I enjoyed it.

I see it as more of a showcase to display how much all the characters have grown, as they all act in ways that would be insanely out of character and unbelievable if they had done so in season one.

My main gripes with it are really kind of petty and very subjective and based on personal opinion, so literally, genuinely take them with a grain of salt.

It was a bit too dramatic for me, Ghosts has always been one for realistic dramatics, the type of stuff that's not a huge display but so immeasurably important and I feel like this Christmas special deviates a little from that. I was hoping for something more standard and something that felt a bit less, like, "the end" y'know? But also I think that stems from me not wanting the show to end while also not being too fond of the "found family splits" trope, so it doesn't quite hold up lol

I thought the semi-B-plot with Mikes's mum felt a bit off for some reason, a bit shoehorned in at times. I do like Mike's mum, and I thought her thinking the house was haunted and bringing in a priest was funny as shit, but it did drag slightly. This with the more dramatic, somber tone made it feel like a bit of a downer not really the pacing you want for a finale. Again though, this is exactly how Mike and Alison were feeling, so it deffo helped me empathise and understand why they chose to move out, it's very smart filmmaking just not what I personally prefer for the finale.

However, I actually do like the whole idea of the Christmas special. I think it's very mature, I think it's pretty realistic, and also I think it's kind of for the better for Alison and Mike. They have their daughter, Mia, and fortunately and unfortunately she will need to be the most important thing in their lives as she grows up. They just can't afford to live in Button house, both figuratively and literally.

But I think the best way to have fully realised this idea and plot would be to have made it another season!!! It feels a bit rushed and underbaked just being one episode, but imagine it being fully explored and developed over let's say 5 episodes, a miniseries. For example, a very vague overview that I'm gonna pull out of my ass on the spot,

Episode 1: Essentially the Christmas special. Mia is brought home, Mike's mum is being a bit overbearing, and everyone is kind of miserable. All of the same events play out, the Ghosts are all in a funny mood because of the new edition and Alison has to tell Mike's mum she needs to take a step back, yada yada. Then, like the Christmas special, the Ghosts make the speech that Alison needs to leave and she agrees, it's heartfelt and meaningful. However, something that's said is that Mike and Alison can handle taking care of Mia all on their own, and that they'll be absolutely great parents.

Episode 2: The Ghosts begin regretting their decision. They start to fear their afterlives will return back to how it was before Alison came into the picture, and while they want to beg her to stay like they have so many times in the past, they also try to convince themselves that Alison, Mike and Mia's wellbeing is the most important thing, and that they shouldn't get in the way. The episode ends with the Ghosts understanding that they're allowed to be upset at Alison leaving, they're allowed to say that they're going to miss her, and they have permission to mourn the loss of this live they've grown to love. However, it's also okay to let these feelings sit and experience them while also letting Alison go. It's a miracle that as Ghosts, they can feel at all, and honestly the fact they have Alison to miss is better than decades of boredom.

Episode 3: After having briefly contacted the contractors off-screen, it fully sets in for Alison what it means to the ghosts that she's leaving Button House. As a way to subside her guilt while also trying to ensure they continue to have the best possible afterlife with her out of Button House, she says that she'll try and get it so the golf hotel thing will have a request from each of the ghosts. They all put in their wants, like Pat wants a movie night and some clubs, Robin wants a pilates class, the plague ghosts want the basement revamped (the idea of a sauna would eventually be put forward by the contractors), so on and so forth. However, Alison promises this before the possibility is even finalised, so she spends the whole episode running around and nagging the contractors to allow her to add these things, in the end basically saying "you might be buying this land and house off me, but it's mine. It has stayed in my family for decades, and I've housed so many friends and memories. I would like to have a say in what happens to it, even after I leave it behind." and after a bit of debate, it's allowed.

Episode 4: Over the course of these episodes, Alison and Mike have been trying their absolute best with trying to take care of Mia between the ghosts, dealing with contractors and selling Button house, but it is so so, so difficult. The plot in this episode is putting that as the centre, with Alison and Mike struggling to keep up with all the demands of being a parent. As Alison runs around, she pushes the ghosts aside and gets annoyed at them, and while the ghosts have come to terms with her leaving, they still want to spend as much time as possible with her before it's too late. However, them being so insistent makes Alison even more irritated, and this episode ends with Alison snapping at the ghosts due to her exhaustion and frustration. That's it. This episode ends on a bummer.

Episode 5: This episode is a continuation of being a bit of a joykill. The ghosts try to completely stay out of Alison's way, not wanting to further add to her stress again, and Alison feels incredibly guilty. Eventually she voices her fears to Mike, wondering if they'd be good enough parents to raise Mia (mirroring the parental freak out Mike had in series 5, honestly all parents go through it and it's so valid). Alison confesses that if they leave Button House and still can't take care of Mia, what would it be for? Would it be a mistake? How can they be so responsible when they're really, truly not? Mike tries to comfort her, but he's having the dame doubts and fears too. Remember how in episode 1 they said they'd be able to raise Mia without any help? Yeah that's bullshit, all parents need and deserve help to raise a kid because it's such an immensely fucking gigantic task and no two people should feel they have to tackle it alone. While they're both scared that asking Mike's mum will result in her being overbearing again, they give her a call and she comes over. She gives them both a heartfelt pep talk and remembers to not be too pushy, but her assistance allows Alison and Mike to have the first good sleep they've had in months. The ghosts, also having heard Mike's Mum soothing Alisons fears, give her the lecture on confidence she needs, saying that both her and Mike will be incredible parents, they already are in Button House and they might even get better once they leave (*cue snarky yet fond smiles*). Then, cue the end of the original Christmas special where Mike and Alison drive off, saying goodbye to the ghosts while they follow the car. And also the final scene when Alison and Mike are old and grey, and they check into the golf-hotel thing and it's all so so sweet and lovely.

And that's it, that's the end! I tried to basically make it how I'd see the team expand the story, keeping in all story beats and ideas that I'm personally not fond of but still think they're interesting and worth keeping in. But like, isn't it kind of better now that all the ideas presented get expanded on?? I feel like the awkward pacing in the Christmas Special was just because they had so much to say and no time to say it.

I'm so sorry for the absolute goliath of a post and I'm sorry if it's all over the place, I wrote this on the spot so it's sort of just rambling but I hope it sort of explains why while I do have some complaints, overall I did like the Christmas special, I just think it would've been better fully realised as multiple episodes instead of one

If you have any thoughts or ideas I'd lovveeee to hear them! I know the Christmas special is CRAZY divisive and I completely understand why but I'd like to hear your reasons too <3 let's just try and be respectful to the Ghosts team while we air our opinions though, at the end of the day this is their show and it honestly probably means more to them than it does to us.

Plus bfr I know we're all hurting, but it's honestly not that bad. It's not the way we wanted or expected it to go, but it's a great piece of television and it's their piece of television

Edit: Also I'm stupid but a bit of closure for the ghosts and Alison between them leaving and the final geriatric scene would be nice, but I guess it's not necessary. Like how it's stated before that the ghosts would have been miserable with Button House being a hotel, please show why it's perhaps less miserable than anticipated. The plague ghosts were a great example, but the upstairs ghosts probably get the brunt of the hotel life so seeing how they'd grow accustomed to it would be super interesting. Honestly, the only thing us fans want is to see the ghosts happy because it makes us happy, and admittedly it's a bit parasitic but we have grown to care for their wellbeing. Plus, showing a few cute hijinks would be, well, cute. Perhaps instead of a full episode where it intrudes on the pacing, it could be done as a separate short.

People say Alison would be miserable because she can't find a house without ghosts but that's not true, there's newer houses with less history with no ghosts, she just didn't like it because it was too quiet. Now I don't actually think this is a bad thing, it's just something that she has to adjust too. Also it's probably going to be less quiet now with Mia, so that issue is half solved. Honestly, now they have the money to chose a piece of land that has no ghosts and build their perfect dream house, so finding a suitable property probably isn't going to be that hard.

Of course she's gonna miss the ghosts and vice versa, but just because an ending is bittersweet and has some changes that everyone has to get used to doesn't mean it's a miserable disaster.

[shinygoku]

With the Beatles (1963)

Time for part 2 of CutCat Reviews Beatles Albums now it's February!

An iconic picture to be sure, but I'm not wild on it. Maybe it reminds me too much of trying to fit pictures into a small MS Paint Canvas? lol

Like with Please Please Me, I think there's some songs that slipped under the osmosis radar and that I ain't heard in full. Though I think the only albums I've listened to from start to finish all in order are the 1 CD, Revolver and Sgt Pepper, so I'll stop mentioning it on these early and the later ones... We're also still in "a fair few Covers" country, so will I be as mild on them as I was on the Non-Boys of PPM?

SIDE ONE

It Won't Be Long: I first heard this fairly recently, on the radio that was playing in another room. My thoughts weren't that strong, other than that "She Loves You" does the Yeah! repetition better lmao. Having been able to it properly since, though, I'm a lot warmer to it! It's optimistic and energetic, and the even higher amount of Yeahs is funny (though I maintain that SLY easily wins the Yeah Battle... but more on that when I reach it~). Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!!

All I've Got To Do: This one seems to get slept on a lot... it's pretty solid, but it doesn't really offer any particular Iconic moments. The chorus shakes things up in a nice way but it seems Sticking Power ain't something it has. It's one of many songs that go to show how amazing this band was, as this isn't bad, but it's been left far behind by the other songs they've blessed us with, innit?

All My Loving: Now THIS is a memorable song! Such a jaunty guitar with the direct words! A real narrative is being laid out, albeit as an assertion of future things being promised~ Ah nuts, it blasted my memory of the previous song outta my head... XD - Seems this is the only one that got Red Album'd in this list? Wild that it's only the 1, but I think the right choice was made.

Don't Bother Me: George time! I'm not clear on if the narrative here is a post-breakup or if he's being dramatic about a spell away from the GF, but the main crux is that he doesn't want non-GF contact at that point in time. It's much moodier than most'a their stuff from this time, and there's more damn nice instrumental work.

Little Child: The title on it's own has me somewhat 8(, and the lyrics unfortunately confirm this [albeit Dancing on it's own ain't that bad, but one knows Dancing is often a euphemism in songs like this, or a precursor to more]... I'm sorry for such a negative, potentially pearl-clutching response. But also the music isn't charming me enough to coax me into softening my view. The first real Dud of this album, imo.

Till There Was You: Now THIS, I like! I was baffled why this seems to fly under the radar of Iconic Beatles Songs, but I since found out it's a cover, so that's probably the explanation. The lyrics are decent but the real appeal is that absolutely gorgeous guitar work and bongos, they provide such a warm feel~ It's also giving me strong "Anime Ending Credits Sequence" vibes, which I'm quite partial to ^w^ ...Issit just me or does Paul gain a slight Irish accent when he says "no, I never heard (them/it) at all" :0c

Please Mr. Postman: This I DID know was a cover from the start, haha! It's a very catchy song, but even with my sizable Beatle Bias, I can't really commit to declaring this one as the best... it's very good and very listen-able, but it may be that the definitive Mr Postman is somewhere else...

SIDE TWO

Roll Over Beethoven: Again, it's a cover, but I've not heard Chuck Berry's OG take at the time of writing. The song is pretty groovy, George's vocals ring nicely. I'm not dazzled, but I like it well enough :>

Hold Me Tight: Another Beatles original, another one that tends to get omitted from Mentions...! It's nice, but a lot plainer than most'a the stuff, lacks a certain Pizazz

You Really Got a Hold on Me: Another cover, one I've prolly heard before by a non-Beatles act, while this one is another Fine, Inoffensive romp that I lack strong feelings for lol

I Wanna Be Your Man: Now I know this one was somewhat famously given to The Rolling Stones, and I even heard that played on the radio too. When it was their version, I wasn't impressed. Sung by Ringo, as it had been intended initially? ....I'm still not that impressed. Mostly in the lyrics, it's real repetitive! But my Ringo bias keeps it afloat, and it's odd Mid-ness makes it more memorable than others on this album.

Devil In Her Heart: A good cover, this! George doing nice vocals and the candance to the title is catchy, and ooooh the instruments in the background are also fun, are those maracas I hear? It gets bonus points for the harmonies disagreeing with the lead too, hehe

Not A Second Time: The last original of this album, and it's not really doing it for me. Something about it kinda blurs into itself. Their later betrayal type numbers are more my bag, baby

Money (That's What I Want): And we're closing the experience with one more cover. I dig the instruments, most notably the piano, but the song itself is just, like, whatever lmao, Maybe it's too overtly materialistic and a bit listless? Man oh man does the Pink Floyd Money blow this outta the water lmaooo

CONCLUSION

Best 3: It Won't Be Long, All My Loving, Till There Was You

Blurst 3: Little Child, Not A Second Time, Money (That's What I Want)

Overall Quality?: An improvement over Please Please Me, though in a way it's more level quality makes it a bit harder to pick the best at least best songs in it. Most of the covers are again decent but not amazing, and the originals are hit and miss. Unfortunately it seems side 1 got the Lion's Share of memorable, fun numbers, leaving side 2 with also-rans, though in that is Devil in Her Heart at least!

🪲🪲🪲🪲

On the next part, it shall have been (?) A Hard Day's Night and its all-original song lineup! Just the Album though, if I'm looking at the Film it'll be another, separate instalment ^w^;

[oddlyunadventurous]

Slightly less mean (but longer) rephrasing of my text post from yesterday: I think having a girlfriend is the best because it's a girl who is your friend and you can do "friend" things with her. Yeah, you two can also have sex, which is super fun, but it's secondary to your friendship and sometimes not even necessary. I think the ability to have sex with someone is nothing special—sure enough, if I'm to trust the Internet about it, everyone wants to do it and is doing it all the time. You all can't stop bragging about it! What I read decidedly less about is people being friends with their partners. How come nobody is shouting about that from the rooftops? Is it because happy people leave no history? Is it because you're all too embarrassed? Or is it because all you can get out of your intimate relationships is a couple of orgasms and not actual love?

Is that what you really want? Would you really prefer the former over the latter, if both were offered to you? Is everyone's mind so clouded by being single and touch deprived that all you can think about is someone handling your body? I've been with the same person since I was a teenager for about a decade and a half, and I've never felt that pain, so I genuinely don't get it. Like Blanca says, in relation to her love for Pedro Tercero in Allende's House of the Spirits, she cannot comprehend the other girls' suffering, the horrible pangs of longing that they feel for their dream boys in school, not when she's had what they've all wanted since she was 13.

I think this kind of urge, wanting to love someone but not getting it, this kind of urge, if not fulfilled, gets corrupted into just wanting sex as a proxy for true intimacy. I like to think everyone used to be a romantic at one point in their life before their hopes got disappointed, sometimes to such a pitch that they swore off trying to love someone for the rest of their lives. Then their intimate lives become a string of short relationships, casual sex and trying every kink under the sun just to feel something. Hey, if the person you're currently with shares your kink, you might even pretend that you've made something more than what is unfortunately, in most cases, just a superficial connection!

If I weren't disabled now and could still draw pain-free, I'd have half a mind to just go balls to the wall with my artistic output, I'd dramatize the relationship with my partner in comic form, I'd demonstrate by example, I'd show you how good you all could have it, you know, man, the Pop Team Epic lifestyle! but alas! Perhaps even if I could do that, even if I did do that, you still wouldn't get it.

And really, would I care to do it for you? All you do all day is reblog horny mousegirls with fat tits and you dare to imply, by the magnitude of your posting output, that yours is the life to live. The life of longing, rather than the life of having. You dare propagandize to me without my consent, you dare imply that I am the two-bit loser for not wanting to stick it into every vaguely hot person on the street, you spit on fidelity because you've never experienced it. Even worse, if you do love somebody in your life, you still feel like you need to fit in with the crowd of horny people around your age, you're performatively sexually available in order to be socially acceptable. How spineless. Yeah, you assholes. This is about me being better than you! And how I'm targeted for it! I am beset by enemies on all sides!! I'm basically just like a Dostoevsky protagonist!!! ahahaha

okay, sorry for posting lesbian screeds on main. you knowwww....... but, you know. :) all i can do on this earth is put out a kind of energy—love, care and infinite kindness—into my art, the kind of energy I think deserves to be represented more in pictures. I suppose I've been unconsciously doing it for a long time already, well I guess this is my manifesto that I'll keep at it, going forward. Miss me with that capitalist shit of selling cheap facsimiles depicting soulless sex to the young, lonely and desperate. i refuse to engage in it, it's irresponsible to my fellow travellers on earth.

peace, if you have a friend, kiss them on the cheek today :>

[dearaliya]

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes:

Dear Aliya,

How do I pronounce your name? How do I pronounce anyone's?

We've joked before that a guide to character names would benefit everyone and I can think of no truer time than with this book. Within my own head, vague sounds work perfectly so I have to ask, don't ever make me dramatically read this book out loud.

Luckily, audiobooks exist for those nights I just can't bear to look at a bunch of letters and attempt to string them together. Not that this one was phenomenal. Some lines sounded like they were recorded with a completely different set-up than the original and not for dramatic effect.

But I've discussed this in a different post so let's move on into more spoilery territory.

I am such a fan of this book! Juggling as many characters as it did, I was pleased that none of them felt simply tacked on for a shock and horror death. Of course, the tributes from the districts were always destined to be killed off, but the mentors biting it too I didn't see coming!

Speaking of the mentors, my sweet Sejanus, holds the place in my heart reserved for favourite characters. It was easy for him to walk right in, given he seemed the only one with a moral compass. Well, him and Tigris who was also a darling.

But my oh my, most fascinating character award goes to Coriolanus Snow, for sure! Of course, we were directly in his head listening to his thoughts on everyone and everything so it's only natural he was so interesting. He's everything I thought he would be, knowing who he later becomes in the series, and yet so much more! Is it any wonder he was so twisted given the system he found himself raised in? I don't think our poor Lucy Gray had a sliver of a chance of saving him.

Anyone who watched the movie without the book has missed a lot of his character, which is a shame. He showed traits of empathy and understanding towards the atrocities of the games in the beginning and when seeing tributes he'd interacted with a few times dying. Alongside seeing his slow progression into his worst possible form, you do also miss some of his funniest moments. Some of the snide comments truly knocked me out, he had no right to be outrageously funny in times of turmoil. He's two-faced and controlling, deserving of his snake title and it's great to see just how hard he fools all the other characters into believing every detail about himself that he feeds them. Snow is pressured from the very beginning to prolong the dynasty built by his family, he will claw and fight and kill anyone he needs to to make that happen. Sejanus was an unfortunate casualty, there was a kernel of goodness in Snow that wanted him to live, but anything good in Snow died when Sejanus did.

Lucy Gray Baird was another matter entirely.

District 12 was mentioned to have two victors allllllll the way at the beginning of the original trilogy, but she was never mentioned by name. I won't say she was always planned, but I do think hints of her were destined to be put to page after everything we went through with Katniss. She's the most excellent parallel and opposite to Katniss, the blueprint and catalyst to everything.

From Capitol fashion likely being inspired by her brightness and colour to the songs that trickled down through generations so they could be used in defiance once more, Lucy Gray Baird is woven through the fabric of the Hunger Games universe from beginning to end. It's thrilling to pull all the little connections together and see the big picture.

Now, for the event itself, the Hunger Games.

What a departure from the 75th Games and thereafter!

The idea that the games were so small, hardly watched to begin with, enforces that they were honestly just meant to prove what Gaul wanted to prove. Humans are naturally violent, as seen time and again when innocent district children become killers. A punishment indeed, to never forget the atrocities of war. Only later, when Gaul saw they were becoming ineffective because people weren't watching them, did the spectacle begin to ramp up into what was seen so many years down the line.

And of course later, when they really did become a means of control and power over the district.

Sooooooo...

How bad do you think Snow shit himself when, after maintaining a perfect grip on the districts from the age of 18, another girl from 12 started singing the songs of his old flame from his two-month situationship while wearing a mockingjay pin and replicating her mannerisms? I'm positively gleeful with the idea that Lucy Gray, if she was alive during the end of Mockingjay, was sitting back knowing Snow was as freaked out as he was in the woods.

If not worse.

Nothing more comes to mind, so I appreciate you listening to my thoughts. I’ll see you next time, stay well!

Hannah xx

[scribefindegil]

@lafseanchai replied to your post:

Why did you obtain this lore? 

I knitted a scarf/shawl thing that’s intended to be a gift for my very-soon-to-be-sister-in-law out of an acrylic blend, and I was really frustrated with the way it wouldn’t lie flat, so I googled whether you can block acrylic, and the consensus seems to be that you can’t really block it per se but you *can* murder it!

so i did that.

[mallowstep]

I'm curious, how do you picture / head canon Cinder's injured leg? Some people imagine her dragging it behind her like a dead weight, others picture her walking on it with almost no issue other then a limp and slower movements. Is her mobility different / improved in the Wind au thanks to the help and training from Deadfoot and the others?

i picture it the way it's described in the books!

sorry, i just have strong opinions on the fact that people don't really...pay attention to how it's described in the books? lol. i actually deviate from the book description a bit.

i picture it as turned out slightly. i don't really know how to describe it...maybe 15 degrees out and 5 degrees back? unfortunately, they don't sell cat mannequins for sketching (i wanted to buy one), so i can't show you what i mean, but nothing super dramatic.

(i take some amount of issue with people who treat it super dramatically when, like, in the books it's pretty subtle. idk. maybe i'm overthinking things.)

pretty much all of her pt work was done w yellowfang, before leaving for windclan. the only major difference is that she continued to work the muscles, etc., like a warrior would, which does keep her in better shape, and there's, like, uh. some issues, they get better if you keep the muscles involved strong?

frankly most of what she needed was cats who believe in her.

<3

[evafrechette]

I hope you're a plumber because you’ve got my pipe leaking

↠ seokjin x jungkook | smut | golddigger!jk, plumber!seokjin | 18+ | 3.8k

↠ Summary: Gold digger Jungkook is frustrated his decrepit husband can't give him good dick. Enter plumber Seokjin who is slightly oblivious to Jungkook's invitation for sex and just thinks the whole house has bad indoor plumbing if the constant calls to their office about a leaking pipe is to go by.

↠ Warnings: rimming, anal sex, creampie, cheating, butt plugs, size queen jk, bottom jk, top seokjin, loads of plumbing jokes, mario reference, spanking, anal play

↠ Written for the BTS Porn Cliche Fest ↠

Jungkook sighs as he plonks down onto the lush gold velvet Chesterfield sofa. His long blond hair falls into his eyes and he puffs it away dramatically. This wasn't how he pictured his life when he married one of the most powerful and rich men in the city. Jungkook thought it would be lavish cocktail parties, expensive cars, jet setting around the globe and attractive half naked pool boys. What he got was a grumpy elderly workaholic husband who forbids him from staying out late, a pool cleaner who looks like John Wayne Gacy and a husband who can't get his dick hard. At least he gets free reign of the black card!

He picks up the remote and points it towards the TV. The screen flicks on to loud moaning. It's a bondage scene - some skinny twink is tied up and a big burly leather clad man is thrusting into him at incredible speed. Jungkook yawns and changes the channel. He watched that one earlier in the day. He flicks unimpressively through various channels before deciding to turn the TV off. He's bored, SO bored. He hasn't had sex all week, he hasn't had GOOD sex in years. His husband needs help via a little blue pill to even get it up and since he has been too busy with a big case load at work recently Jungkook's been left to his own devices and he's starting to get antsy. Just then a brilliant idea pops into his head. A few weeks ago they had trouble with a clogged drain and the most beautiful man alive was sent to work on it. Jungkook remembers the way his broad shoulders strained under his work uniform, his big plush lips pouting as he concentrated, and those big feet. They were huge. Big feet, big cock as they say. And Jungkook was longing to find out if that was the case with the statuesque plumber. He rushes up the stairs, taking two steps at a time and flings himself into his husbands office. He skips over to the desk and throws open every drawer to find the address book containing the mystery plumbers number. "Ugh, where the hell has that old bastard put it..." Jungkook whines throwing important documents in the air. He continues searching drawers until he finds the book he was looking for. "Tada!! Okay, now to find his number." a giggle escapes his lips, Jungkook is euphoric. He knows his husband wouldn't be happy with his sinful plans, but that's what is making it all that much more tempting to him. Jungkook is being a little brat. He misses feeling like this. Married life has well and truly stifled his exuberance for life. He reaches over to the telephone on the desk and dials the number, but no one answers. He tries again and still no answer. He slams the receiver down and pouts, with his arms crossed in front of him. This is his punishment for thinking of fucking another man. Of course it would never happen, what was he even thinking? *ring ring* Jungkook eyes the phone suspiciously, has his husband somehow found out he's in his office and is ringing to yell at him? He quickly scans the room to spot any security cameras before picking up. "Hello yeah sorry I missed your calls, who is this?" "Who is this?" Jungkook enquired sceptically. "Uhh you rang me? Is this about a plumbing job?" Jungkook's eyes go wide, he's talking to handsome plumber, oh shit this is his chance. "Oh yes, sorry, Hi, yes we have a problem with the . .  . pipe, yeah the pipe under the sink. . um in the kitchen. There is water everywhere I don't know what to do.” "Okay, I'm actually not working tonight. . . " "OH NO PLEASE I need you . . uh I mean I need your help!" His eyes roll into the back of his head, he sounds like such an idiot right now. "Text me your address and I'll be there in about 40 minutes. This will be an after hours service so I have to charge more." "That's fine! That's okay, thank you so much." Jungkook hangs up and fist pumps the air then quickly sends his address to the man. His plan is in motion, now all he has to do is cause some damage.

He runs down the stairs and straight into the kitchen, his knee high socks helping him slide to the sink. He drops down onto his knees and throws the doors to the sink cupboard open. Jungkook knows absolutely nothing about plumbing, so he starts to unscrew whatever he can find. He stands back up and turns the faucet on then crouches back down to see if his wicked plan has worked. He can see a trickle of water escaping the pipe, but it's not enough so he unscrews it more. All of a sudden water is gushing everywhere. He thinks it's still not enough to have needed to call a plumber out (and he does have a flair for dramatics), so he grabs a bowl, fills it to the brim then splashes it all over the floor, he does it again this time splashing inside the cupboard. He stands back and takes a look at his handiwork. Not bad he thinks to himself. Jungkook runs to the laundry and grabs a few towels, placing them around the floor, to look as though he had attempted to clean the mess then scrampers his way to his bedroom to get ready. He removes his sweats and puts on a cute pair of pink panties, followed by an oversized hoody. He goes to head out the door when he stops and spins back around. He walks to his side of the wardrobe and brings out a purple box. Inside are a range of toys, but there is one in particular Jungkook is looking for. A black butt plug with a beautiful glistening pink gem. Before he puts the box away he grabs a bottle of lube and then makes his way to the bed to undress. He lubes up his fingers, reaches down and slowly inserts one inside himself, he pumps in and out a few times before adding another. He scissors his fingers, stretching himself out perfectly for the plug. He grabs the butt plug and slathers it with lube before pushing it into his pink hole. Jungkook let's out a small moan when it's in and pulls his panties back up. Just then he hears the door bell ring. Shit, has it been 40 minutes already?! He pops the lube into his hoody pocket, wipes his hands in the duvet cover then takes a quick look in the mirror, brushing down his long blond locks with his fingers before making his way down the stairs and towards the front door. Jungkook can feel his heart racing, he's starting to second guess himself now. What if Mr Plumber isn't even into guys? The doorbell rings again, so he takes a deep breath and opens the heavy front door. Jungkook looks around curiously, the man in front of him has a terrible fake moustache and is wearing some kind of costume. He's seen this costume before, but where exactly . . . oh that's right! "Uhhh, why are you dressed as Mario?" The taller man let's out a loud laugh before gesturing to be let in. Jungkook's cock is as confused as he is, but he steps aside allowing the man entrance. "I was at a fancy dress party when you rang. I didn't have time to get changed, is that okay? I mean, I am technically in a plumbers work uniform . . just not my own." Jungkook studies him. He's wearing a red shirt underneath blue overalls, white gloves, an oversized red hat and that hilarious fake moustache. He's such a beautiful man, that he even makes the costume look good. Jungkook never thought he'd ever get hard over someone wearing work overalls, but here he is, swelling up already. He coughs nervously, "No that's fine, sorry for calling on your day off but I just had no idea what to do, there is so much water everywhere." The plumber smiles "Which way to the leak?" Jungkook let's out a squeak and leads the man into the kitchen, he takes small deliberate steps, swishing his hips, looking back with an innocent smile. As they enter the plumber pops his toolbox down on the bench and crouches down to see the damage. "You know us plumbers always take our work very seriously. We plunge straight into it.” the laugh that follows is the cutest laugh Jungkook has ever heard, it reminds him of windshield wipers. He can't help but laugh at the cheesy joke. "I know a good plumbing joke." Jungkook exclaims. "Oh yeah? I'd love to hear it.” his attention now solely on Jungkook. "I once gave a

carpenter, plumber and a bricklayer a hand job at the same time. I guess you could call me a Jack off all trades." The plumbers ears go red immediately and he turns his attention back to the sink. Jungkook groans quietly, that didn't go down well. He thought it was a fantastic joke too, one of his best. He leans over the bench and absentmindedly twirls his hair in between his fingers. The man is truly irresistible, his shoulders are so incredibly wide, arms toned, and he has a fantastic ass in those overalls. "So what's your name anyway?" Jungkook murmurs. "I'm Seokjin, you can just call me Jin though. And you are?" "Jungkook..." "Is your dad home? I've been here a few times before." "My dad? Ooohh you mean my husband, umm no he's at work. . . late .  . again." Jungkook huffs and throws his arms down on the bench, his head follows until his torso is leaning completely on the bench top. In this position his hoody rides up showing off the pale pink of his underwear. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Jin peek before looking away. A smirk appears on Jungkook's face. "So tell me another joke! That was a good one before." Jin clears his throat "I knew a plumber that was working on the side to become an artist. Unfortunately, he couldn't find a faucet for his creativity." Jungkook let's out an over the top laugh which causes his ass to jiggle. That joke was incredibly lame, but clearly Jin is into this shit so he's gonna play it up. He slowly leans up from the bench and walks over to the fridge. "Would you like a drink?" "Water will be fine thanks, if you have it.” Jungkook reaches as far back into the fridge as he can, bent over in a way that isn't necessary, drinks are on the top shelf after all, but he wants to give the attractive man a little show. He walks over and holds out the bottle of water for Jin. When he grabs it their fingers touch gently causing one another to lock eyes. "Ya know, I've been doing this plumbing thing for years, I'm used to seeing all sorts of leaks. This one though is unusual.." "Hmm really? How?" Jin stands and places the bottle in the sink, he walks over to Jungkook and stands uncomfortably close to the blond. His breath warm against Jungkook's ear as he whispers. "Well I can tell someone got under that sink and loosened the locknut and coupling nuts and I'm thinking it may have been a certain someone parading around in hardly any clothes, showing off his pretty little ass at every chance." Jungkook's breath hitches in his throat, the man smells like beer and woody fig leaves and even with that ridiculous moustache on his face his entire aura right now is intimidating as fuck, and it's got Jungkook getting harder by the second. "Does your old man not treat his little boy toy right huh? I've seen you around whenever I've been called here for a job. Always checking me out, is that why you called tonight? To think I thought you just had really terrible plumbing here..." Jungkook can't even get any words out, so he just nods his head like some stupid dog toy you'd pop on the dash of your car. This causes Jin to laugh, his fingers tracing along Jungkook's jaw. He tilts the younger man's face up and smashes their lips together. The kiss is rushed and frenzied. Their teeth knock against each others and they are left panting, but it's perfect and Jungkook hasn't felt this alive in years. Jin's soft velvety lips brush against Jungkook's earlobe as he purrs "What do you want me to do?" "Whatever you want, please, anything." Jungkook tried to keep his voice steady, but it was no use, he was desperate to feel the attractive man inside him. "Anything?" Jin cocked his head to the side, a wicked smile planted on his face. "I want you up on the dining room table, on all fours," he clapped his hands together twice "Chop chop, let's do this. And take the panties off too.” Jungkook was too aroused to even question the strange request as he walked a little too eagerly through to the dining room. He quickly removed his panties then pulled back the dining room chair and used it to step up

onto the table. He got into position, his knees already aching a little as they dug into the wooden table top. He could feel the calloused hands of the plumber running over his soft ass, before a hard smack was heard echoing through the room. Jungkook yelped, not expecting to be spanked but it felt so fucking good, so he wiggled his ass in the air hoping Jin would get the hint and do it again. Jin got it alright, and gave Jungkook 5 hard smacks right across his left ass check. He could feel pre cum leaking from his hard cock pooling onto the table below and his face flushed red from embarrassment. He could feel Jin's hand on him again and braced himself for the next set of smacks, but instead his fingers lightly traced over the marks admiring his reddened handprint, slowly his fingers made their way to Jungkook's hole, where the plug was fully on display. He pushed on the gem causing Jungkook to let out a choked whimper. "Did you put this in just for me?" Jin queries as he slowly pulls out the plug before pushing back in, amazed at the way Jungkook's hole seemed perfectly made for the toy, stretching easily to fit around the the widest part and then sucking the rest in. "Y . . yes, for you." Jungkook gasped as Jin removed the toy completely leaving him feeling empty and open. He didn't have much time to get used to that feeling as Jin begin to kiss the back of his thighs, nipping and sucking sure to leave marks. His kisses trailed up to Jungkook's ass, lightly nibbling on each cheek. Jungkook was a mess already, panting and leaking pre cum, he so desperately wanted to reach between his legs and jerk himself off, but he wanted Jin to be the one to make him cum. Not his boring old, overly used hand. Jin spread Jungkook's ass cheeks apart and ran his tongue over his open hole. Jungkook's needy whining spurred him on, so he fucked his tongue deep into his ass. Jungkook was in ecstasy he'd never had anyone eat him out before. It was a feeling like nothing he had ever experienced, lost in the feeling he pushed his ass back onto Jin's mouth and begged the man go faster. Jin enthusiastically grabbed onto his ass and spread his cheeks even further apart as he added a finger beside his tongue, fucking Jungkook's ass in tandem. Jin removed his mouth from Jungkook's alluring hole, and continued to fuck him with his finger. "My mother always said you should eat every meal at the dining room table. And that was one of the best meals I've ever had." he casually removed his finger and watched as Jungkook's hole puckered open from the loss. He gave his ass a quick pat before standing back and getting undressed. Jungkook's knees were red and irritated from the pressure of being on the table, so he finally moved off his hands and knees and sat back on the table with his legs dangling over the side. His already big eyes went even wider when he saw the naked man in front of him. He was right, so fucking right. Jin was huge, massive, enormous, mammoth, super sized. It was the biggest fucking cock he had ever seen. "Why are you in plumbing? You should be in porn. Look at that thing!" Jungkook pointed directly at Jin's cock. A look of utter amazement on his face. "Why do you think plumbers and therapists make so much money?” "I have no idea?" He shook his head, blond hair flailing around his face. "Because no one else wants to deal with other peoples shit. Now lay back on the table for me will ya.” Jungkook didn't have to be asked twice, he pushed himself back and lay flat on the table, Jin sauntered over and pulled Jungkook down so they were flush with one another. Jungkook's entrance was shiny and wet from Jin's earlier tongue escapades, but he knew it might still not be enough, so he reached into his hoody and pulled out the lube. "Umm just in case." he shyly looked towards Jin who smiled affectionately and took the bottle from him. He squirted a generous amount over his hard cock and positioned himself against Jungkook's entrance. Jin pushed in slowly, allowing Jungkook time to adjust around his large size. He pulled out and

pushed back in again even slower this time, inch by inch stretching him out, making Jungkook feel so full he felt as though the room was spinning. Jungkook was speechless, he looked up at the exquisite man above him and decided he must have slipped on the wet kitchen floor, died and gone to heaven. He was being fucked by an angel with the biggest cock humanly possible. Trembling, shaky sobs left his chapped lips as the man thrust into him long and slow. Jungkook pushed down onto Jin to meet his thrusts hoping that the man would speed up a little, but Jin just grabbed onto his hips and held him down into place. He was truly at Jin's mercy. The two men were a sweaty, panting mess. The sound of their skin slapping against each other ricocheted around the dining room. Jin lifted Jungkook's right leg and hooked his foot over his shoulder. A bolt of heat shocked Jungkook's insides as Jin's cock hit his prostate over and over again with every thrust. "Oohh fuck, I'm gonna come." he cried out. Jin picked up the pace as his large hand curled around Jungkook's swollen cock, pumping him in time with his own thrusts. Jungkook's sensations were heightened the minute that tough-skinned fingers were being drawn up and down his length. He felt his balls tightening and knew that just a few more thrusts would be all it would take to reach his release. He closed his eyes tightly and let out a drawn-out needy moan as his cock pulsated in Jin's hand, spurts of his hot cum landing on his stomach and all over Jin's tight grip. Jin stopped his movement and allowed the younger man to come down from his high before he started to thrust even harder inside Jungkook's tight ass. Jungkook was oversensitive, his ass tightening with every twitch of Jin's cock inside of him. Jin didn't hold back though, thrusting hard and deep inside of him. "Ahhh fuck, you feel so fucking good, so tight on my cock." Jin grunts between thrusts. Jungkook's whines were stirring him on towards his own release. Jin grits his teeth and sweat drips down his forehead as he finally comes inside Jungkook's tight hole. He is absolutely spent and leans down to kiss the blond. Their kiss is weak and slow, but incredibly sensual. Their sweaty forheads bump which causes a giggle from both men. "Eww you're sweating on me.” Jungkook pouts. "Wow, you're worried about that? I just came in your ass! Speaking of . . " Jin reaches over Jungkook's head and grabs the butt plug, he slowly removes his sizable cock from the blonds ass and teases the plug around Jungkook's hole, watching as it flutters open and his cum start to freely drip out. He pushes the plug in easily, trapping his cum inside. "Since you clearly wanted me inside you for a while now, you can enjoy my cum in your ass when I'm gone." he playfully winks at Jungkook.

The two men get dressed, casting each other looks of utter fondness. They walk back into the kitchen and grab their long abandoned bottles of water. Jungkook gulps his down, not realising just how thirsty he was. He forgot that good sex can wear your ass out. What a workout, why would anyone go to a gym when you could just fuck instead? A noise from the foyer startles them both, it's the sound of the front door being opened and closed. Jin grabs his toolbox and looks at Jungkook nervously, the blond smiles sweetly at the plumber and whispers "Just follow my lead"

An older man with a full head of grey hair, deep wrinkles, glasses sitting atop of his wide nose and wearing an over sized suit ploddingly makes his way into the room. "Oh honey, it's so nice to see you I thought you'd be at work all night?" Jungkook says as he kisses his husband on the cheek. "Mm yes well, I got as much done as I could tonight. Did we have trouble with the plumbing again? Why is Mr Kim here . . dressed like that?" "Yes sir, sorry I was at a dress up party and didn't have time to change. Your kitchen sink had a leak. It was an easy fix though, took only 10 minutes or so. I'll email through an invoice first thing on Monday morning.... Okay, I better go now." he tensely glances in Jungkook's direction. "Let me walk you out." he smiles back sweetly. When they reach the door Jungkook looks back to make sure he's not being watched by his doddering husband before he leans in and kisses Jin chastely on the cheek. "We should do this again next weekend, maybe the pipes in the pool house will unexpectedly play up hmm?" Jin flashes him a ravishing smile and winks at him as he exits the mansion. Jungkook watches Jin's enticing firm ass walk back to his car and feels the stirring of butterflies in his belly. He's starting to get feelings for a plumber with a terrible sense of humor but with a cock so large it should be illegal. He chuckles to himself as he closes the door, his entire night could be the storyline of some cheesy C grade porno film. But he can't wait to experience it all over again next weekend.

[dogtoling]

What is a Special Weapon? (a speculation)

So let's get straight into the post. (LONG post under the cut)

A Special Weapon is: - the weapon itself: a powerful ink battling weapon manufactured and regulated specifically for this purpose (Bubble Blower, Sting Ray, Inkstrike, Inkzooka etc.) OR - a specialized attack or response treated as a special weapon (Kraken, Splashdown, Booyah Bomb etc.) - Supposedly uses the Inkling's own ink - debatable, but highly likely based on evidence

Before we can get deeper into the special weapon lore, we must look into what comes BEFORE a special weapon. That's the special gauge.

There are multiple ways to fill up a special gauge: - Inking turf - Having control over an objective in Ranked Battle - Being in an underdog situation in a match (Tenacity) - Equipping a Canned Special What happens when the special is then activated? The meter slowly depletes, and once it is fully drained, the special ends. In practice, what IS the special meter? Now, when looking at the meter objectively, it looks as if it's filled with ink. That alongside its function in powering Special Weapons, as well as draining like an actual Ink Tank, can give the impression that it is LITERALLY a secondary ink reserve the player is filling up. This is in order to then use all of that ink as ammo for the special. And this actually makes a lot of sense. well now it's time to open a whole new can of worms (or weapons i guess)

CANNED SPECIALS Canned specials are literally, well, canned specials that make an appearance in Splatoon's single player modes as well as the Battle Dojo from the first game.

(From the splash screen of the first game, we can see that they are approximately the size of an actual tuna can.) Upon obtaining a canned special, your special gauge immediately fills up and you gain the ability to use said special weapon, which heavily suggests that the special weapon itself is stored inside.... the tiny can. You know, stuff like a force field, or a 7ft ink cannon. Or a pressure washer that includes more ink than the volume of an Inkling. Yeah. Right. So this implies insane hammerspace technology if it IS to be taken at face value - although i find it odd that there's not a single official art or tidbit of lore that acknowledges that inklings in fact obtain their specials from tiny hammerspace tins. (Even sub weapons and their inner workings make a tiny appearance in official art. Specials are never elaborated on too much, unfortunately...)

As an alternative, there is the concept of the cans holding a specific amount of condensed ink enough to power any of the included specials that you could then pop inside the weapon. That is not at all how it's implied to work, but it's a cool alternate explanation that makes slightly more sense - and if we take some liberties and assume that the cans are a LIIITTLE bit bigger, we could even argue that the cans could be THE special gauge itself. Looking at the special gauge, it IS designed to be round, just like a tin. I don't recall what it was modeled after if anything, or if it's just a coincidence, but food for thought.

Oh yeah also here's a picture of a NORMAL main weapon can that you can get at Kamabo Co. They have one for like every weapon type as well as some bombs which implies that weapons are oftentimes stored inside cans (although these might be bigger cans). Either way, the ink tank idea might be down the drain considering the implications of this one.

Anyway, moving on. Hi guys! I brought you guys all the way through that wall of text... just to dunk on that literal ink tank theory and dump it in the trash because there is another theory that makes more sense on like every scale possible. I'm so sorry. (But I also really like the idea of the special gauge being a literal ink tank that you fill up, so I had to include it, because it's not like it doesn't hold a lot of ground.) I'll get straight to the point. The other theory is that the special gauge is only a hypothetical concept created for the sake of gameplay and balancing, and in reality, it is simply the buildup to what I'll refer to as the "special rush" state of an Inkling. It has no physical value, varies between Inklings, and has no ties to actual points at all. Observe these bits from the art books 1 and 2:

1. Some Inkzooka trivia. Although the entry refers to SPECIFICALLY this weapon, it is very likely that the same is true for all special weapons - or at least the ones that primarily use ink (so not necessarily things such as the Bubbler and Echolocator).

(Ignore the random lines. Those are my notes lol) This Baller entry tells us a LOT and i mean a LOT of what we needed to know. First of all, the Inklings' ink output breaks the laws of physics there is no way a single inkling has enough ink inside it to even fill THAT ball at least 4 times the volume of its body NOT TO MENTION producing enough ink to fill one SEVEN TIMES THAT SIZE anyway the important part is the one where it confirms that Inklings produce an abnormal amount of ink while they are using a special weapon. Because the Baller was specifically developed for the purpose of containing all the excess ink, there is a big implication that the ink is originating from the user itself, specifically in the moment of using a Special. Then why is this? Well now we get to the concept of the "special rush" that I mentioned before. It refers to this state that we see Inklings enter when their special gauge fills up:

Their tentacles will glow, bubble up as if boiling, and they will look as if caught in an epic dramatic action movie wind at all times. This is when they're able to use their Special.

I think it's safe to say that this is "a heightened emotional state". As opposed to for example the Kraken which could be a repurposed panic response (if you haven't seen my post about that, that exists too) the special rush is likely a similar all-out response, although caused by getting really in the zone of battle. So to put it simply, a POSITIVE chemical response, in which the Inkling's body starts pumping more ink through channeling one's fighting spirit and yadda yadda yadda.

To put it shortly here; this "rush" likely evolved as a response to intense territory disputes or even hunting. More ink means more defense AND more offensive power. In Turf Wars, reaching this rush means that Inklings can - and probably have to - channel this excess ink elsewhere, which in this case is into special weapons that quickly gobble up all of the excess ink (with part of it going in the ink tank).

A lot of the weapons second this excess ink theory by including a heightened coating of ink across the user's whole body (Ink Armor, Booyah Bomb, Splashdown) or even rounding up the excess ink that's built up into an offensive endeavor (Splashdown, Booyah Bomb, other specials utilize it as ammo). Once all the ink is used up, the Inkling's emotional state stabilizes and the cycle soon starts over again until they hit the high mark again. (For a second ignoring the fact that it is physically impossible for them to produce this much ink. I guess I'm not ignoring it since I'm drawing attention to it here but it bothers me so much. My work is never done lol) So I guess this theory makes sense, but why is it inherently BETTER than the "special gauge is an ink reserve" one? Let's see the arguments for the ink tank version: 1. The Special Gauge is literally filled up with ink as the game is played. This is potentially something that happens as the weapon is shot, and some of the ink is channeled into the special gauge instead.

> It doesn't make much sense for this to be the case. The ink is being SHOT OUT, not stored; at least not stored anywhere visible and although you really have to have room for imagination when trying to draw logic for this game, i would really assume the developers would include a physical indicator of the gauge if it was meant to be literal.

2. There is potential for the Canned Specials to BE the gauge itself, as something that attaches or "fuels" the special. The gauge could be designed the way it is to reflect this.

> The canned specials are a weirdly inconsistent thing in the world of Splatoon, appearing ONLY as insta-fills in single player campaigns and the Splatoon 1 battle dojo. True, there are some on the player's desk in the splash screen of the first game, but we also don't know if those are for Turf War, or the dojo, or from Hero Mode. There's not even any for sale at Ammo Knights, whereas entire special weapons outside of cans very much are. Even if the special gauge isn't a can, it also doesn't mean that a can as an ink tank can't essentially serve the same purpose of providing the ink needed for a special. 3. The gauge fills up with a very distinct ink graphic, so it could literally mean it's ink!

> This one is true! But taking into consideration one thing; as a hypothetical gauge, the connection with ink is STILL there, as by the time the gauge is finished, the Inkling is basically overflowing with excess Ink. So rather than an external tank being filled with ink, the player itself is. 4. The gauge fills, then it's full, and it slowly depletes as a special is used. Basically the perfect flow; and a perfect reasoning for where all the ink comes from, and WHY you need to fill up the gauge to be able to use a special.

> This same reasoning still makes complete sense for the hypothetical gauge. The graphic goes up to indicate how close the Inkling is getting to the rush state, clearly shows when they are IN the rush state, and then the state slowly wears off as the ink is used. Where the ink comes from is directly explained in canon at this point; an Inkling in its special weapon state emits a crazy amount of ink - according to what the art book shows, more than like 10 times the volume of the inkling itself. Which makes zero sense whatsoever but, well, it does explain where the ink comes from. 5. The special meter being hypothetical wouldn't be good because it wouldn't be consistent at all. Some people surely get way more pumped WAY faster and use way more specials than others! No balance!

> The special meters aren't consistent to begin with, even in the game. People who stack Special Charge Up will sometimes use a special upwards of five times per 3-minute-game. People who get splatted a lot may literally never get to use a special once. Just like people's personalities in real life, the rates at which different Inklings would "charge up" can vary by a mile. And furthermore...

We see examples of the "special rush" outside of the gameplay!

Pearl, in the ending of Octo Expansion, enters a special rush mode seemingly out of nowhere (though you could also maybe say she might have used a canned special) after getting pumped to literally save the world. So does Agent 3; DOZENS OF TIMES, in both iterations of battles against them. They use a bunch of special weapons completely out of left field, take way more hits than the player and continuously use Splashdowns. This is because they're continuously triggering their Rush in the midst of intense combat, and especially under mind control, during which most of what they probably have is survival instinct, which means drastically raised ink production upping both offensive and defensive capabilities. But wait, there's actually even more that supports the theory of the special gauge referring to a buildup to a rush state: - Tenacity as an ability. This ability makes it so that your special gauge will automatically fill itself up if your team has fewer players on the field than the enemy team. This ability makes very little sense in the situation that the special gauge is literally an ink tank, as you're not actually shooting ink at all for it to fill up. However, as an emotional thing, a player that is also an underdog is SURE to be really giving their all in the competition and thus building up their rush faster. - Your special gauge supposedly fills up passively while your team has control of the objective in Ranked (I literally didn't know this because I barely play ranked ever). Again, this has nothing to do with actual inking. But what it DOES have to do with is potentially winning the game, and that totally gets you pumped. - Again, the inconsistencies in a special gauge. If it was an ink tank, you would assume the amount of ink needed for each special weapon was a very specific amount. Instead, players fill their special gauge at different rates, and getting splatted cuts down the gauge... again, depending on your abilities. Losing ink from a pre-filled ink tank that is being specifically saved up for a weapon doesn't really make sense as one gets splatted, but getting demoralized and frustrated when getting splatted makes a whole lot of sense, which would also set you back in reaching your special rush.

In conclusion: The Special Gauge is a hypothetical meter that exists for gameplay purposes; in practice, it only conveys how close or far a player is to their "special rush" state, in which their senses and emotions are heightened and their ink production is greatly increased due to a surge in fighting spirit.

1. When a battle starts, no one has their rush going on because everyone is only just warming up. Different people with different objectives and personalities may get their rush very quickly, very slowly, very frequently or only once. You get the picture.

2. As players find themselves doing intense physical activities, participating in tense combat and so on, they build up towards their rush state (likely building up endorphins, dopamine and adrenaline or the like), which increases the body's ink production. It is likely that contact with ink also naturally increases one's ink production.

3. When players hit this rush state and the "special meter" is filled, they can channel all the excess ink into a special weapon. Once the ink is used up, the rush subsides into a less intense emotional state, until the cycle may start again soon after.

Well, there's my thoughts on specials and mostly the special gauge and what it means. Thanks for reading yet another one of these essays.

[mmilkbreadd]

Chapter twenty three: “Bokuto Hates Goodbyes”

Masterpost - Prev - Next.

Warning(s): post-timeskip manga spoilers!!

────────∘°❉°∘────────

“Tendou is going to quit volleyball after graduating. He wants to go to Paris to work as a chocolatier” you said, never taking your eyes off him. You sighed again, trying to find the words to tell him. Bokuto noticed your pause and smiled at you waiting for you to reply. “And I... I'm going with him.”

Koutarou's smile faded, along with the hope in his heart. 

Silence took over the atmosphere. You were trying to look at Bokuto, but he kept his gaze on the snowy ground. Neither of you had opened your mouths to say anything. Maybe because the correct words did not exist to express what you were feeling at that moment; you, remorse, and Bokuto didn't even know what to feel. Sadness, melancholy, happiness because you are going to fulfill your dream... fear of being forgotten. 

So many things to say, feel, live. 

“Why?” he asked, still with his gaze on the floor.

“Why…?”  you lashed several times. “Because I want to be a baker, fulfill my dream and my grandmother's... It's what I want, Kou.”

Koutarou started to shake his head from side to side, his hands over his hair. 

“Yes I know, but Paris?”  Bokuto looked at you for the first time, his eyes filling with tears. “That's like a million miles away!”

The snow kept falling on you two and the cold seemed to increase, but neither appeared to notice. The moment seemed eternal: Bokuto's tears that still did not come out, the imminent farewell, the silence that still continued ...

“We can continue to be friends, Koutarou, you shouldn't worry” the Owl turned to the opposite side of the school, and started walking away quickly. “Bokuto! Bokuto!” there was still no response on his part. “Koutarou, wait!”

Even though in his mind Bokuto had planned not to return, hearing his name come out of your mouth once more, he stopped short. He quickly turned to see you, your nose was red from the cold, and smoke came out every time you spoke when you apologized to him.”

“I don't want to be friends” shouted Bokuto looking straight into your eyes, with a tear rolling on his cheek. “I do not want you to go! W-we're just getting to know each other! It's not fair.”

Bokuto pouted while still staring at you. 

“We still have time, I won't be leaving for another month,” you said, but you knew it wasn't enough time. Not even a thousand years would be. “We'll talk on the phone!”

Promises that were very difficult to keep. Even if you wanted to, with the exams that would be shortly, and then in the cooking academy, it would be impossible to maintain much contact. You didn't know if you could even keep it with Emiko and Wakatoshi.

“Don't say things that later won't be true,” Bokuto said for the last time, wiping the tears that fell from his eyes. “Bye, y/n.”

And in a last act of desperation, you grabbed Koutarou by the wrist and then grabbed his coat tightly, then brought your lips together with his. 

After a few seconds, the light of a flash interrupted you.

“I'm sorry?” Emiko said with a nervous little smile. She had taken a picture of you kissing, and now she was slowly walking away so she could escape your creepy gaze. “I better go, haha. Byeee.”

Again the silence had taken over the environment. But this time, Bokuto's face was completely changed. His cheeks were flushed and he had a big smile on his lips.

“You like me too?” he asked suddenly. 

And even though you were speechless, you were able to whisper a little “yes”. Bokuto without warning held you with his arms, hugging you, and then started jumping up and down several times.

“Wait, we were fighting two minutes ago,” he said, making an angry face, but then his true colors showed and he started laughing. “Hey Hey hey! It no longer matters, we must take advantage of every second. Get ready, y/n, I'll come tomorrow at nine in the morning! Well maybe not that early, but I'll come before lunch!”

And here was another example where you could see the captain of Fukurodani change his mood quickly.

You said goodbye and you entered the academy again, thinking about how to assassinate Emiko. 

Tomorrow would be the last day you would see Bokuto in a long time.

And maybe forever. 

────────∘°❉°∘────────

───∘°❉°∘───

────────∘°❉°∘────────

Just as Koutarou had said the night before, at eleven in the morning he was at Shiratorizawa's gate, waiting for you to come out. It was not as early as he would have liked, but he had also arrived very late at the hotel, so he needed to sleep as well. Even though you were already walking towards the exit, two people arrived before you.

“Hello, Bokuto-san,” Tendou greeted. “Let's get straight to the point, what are your intentions with the little y/n? Ushijima and I are not very convinced that you go out with her so often. You were too late last night, and now it's too early. I hope you are not doing strange things out there. This is not Tokyo, my friend.”

“He is not your friend, Tendou” Ushijima said in a whisper, with his deep voice.

“I know, best friend, but I want to intimidate him” Satori whispered back, but he didn't realize that Bokuto had heard everything. 

In the distance, you came walking next to Emiko. You had already forgiven her for last night's photo, although she still hadn't deleted it from Twitter, and had even put it as your profile picture for a few hours until you noticed and took it out. You can tell that Tsukasa almost ran out of roommates. 

“Hey, aren't those Satori and Wakatoshi talking to your boyfriend?” She asked you, pointing to your friends and the one who wasn't your boyfriend really.

“I'm going to kill them.”

You sped up your pace to get there as quickly as possible and avoid disaster before it happens. But to your surprise, when you got to where the three of them were, all you could hear was laughter. Yes, even Ushijima.

“What is happening here?” you asked, raising an eyebrow at Satori, who you thought was responsible for this situation. And as always, you were right.

“Oh, nothing, y/n. Just old friends remembering old times” said Tendou with a rather forced laugh. Then, Ushijima and Bokuto also began to laugh out loud, while Koutarou made a danger signal with his eyes, and Emiko watched the situation in disbelief.

“I think Koutarou and I should go now” and before any of your friends could say anything, you grabbed him by the sleeve of his jacket and trotted off to Miyagi's main park.

Behind you, you could hear Tendou's screams calling for you to come back, but you ignored them and kept walking quickly in front of Bokuto.

Arriving at the park you could see several children with their parents playing in the snow, despite not having snowed today, there was still a little snow on the trees and grass.

“Thanks for saving me, things were getting ugly there,” he said as he took your hand that was on his sleeve, to be holding hands normally. “I have bad news.”

More bad news? You didn't think you were going to be able to endure another misfortune this weekend. It seems that Bokuto noticed your desperate face and squeezed your hand tightly to encourage you.

“They have suspended my bus for tomorrow, they say there will be a snowstorm in the afternoon so they have changed the schedule.” Nothing went right for tragic volleyball lovers. “I'm leaving tonight, so we can't see each other tomorrow.”

The world fell at your feet. How could everything go wrong for you? A lot of drama has existed lately.

“And now what?” you asked him.

“We live in the moment!” and without saying anything else, Bokuto started to run towards the ice skating rink, never letting go of your hand. 

The ice was full of small children, who watched Koutarou every time he made a few meters and fell letting out a scream. The kids laughed at the Owl's exaggeration, causing him to make it even more dramatic to obtain more laughter. Every time you fell, Bokuto would rush to get up and ask you if you were okay, even if you were laughing at yourself and had not suffered any injuries.

After skating for half an hour or so, you decided to go for lunch because it was already quite late. You went to the same cafeteria that you had gone to the day before, and you ordered something warm since today's temperature was even colder than yesterday’s. 

At the end of lunch, Bokuto asked you to show him around the city, although there was not much to show as it was quite small compared to Tokyo. You showed him where Karasuno High was, but you didn't go there since it was relatively far from where you were. He took several photos and sent them to Akaashi, and then to his mother. 

The hours passed quickly, reaching the time of curfew, which meant that you had to go back to school, and Bokuto to his hotel to find his bags and go to the station. Unfortunately, you could not accompany him before his bus leaves. 

“It's time to say goodbye,” you told him once at the entrance of the academy. "Thanks for coming to visit me, Kou.”

Before saying something to you, Bokuto put his arms around you. This time neither of you were crying, nor were sad. You were happy for the time you spent together.

“Goodbye, y/n, I'm going to miss you” and with a lot of bravery in his heart, Koutarou brought his lips to yours one last time. 

“I promise to call you.”

And so, Bokuto Koutarou said goodbye with a sad smile, knowing that that promise was nothing more than an empty promise.

And that at the end of all, it would not be kept. 

────────∘°❉°∘────────

────────∘°❉°∘────────

A/N: I know Bokuto’s hair isn’t exactly accurate in the photo but it was the best image I could find😩😩 sorryy

Btw who wouldn’t leave everything behind to go to Paris with Tendou Satori? I wouldn’t even think about it, my bags are ready!

────────∘°❉°∘────────

Tags in reblog!

(and also a little surprise!)

If you want to be tagged in these posts please send an ask.

You can also complete the form that is linked in the Masterpost.

Thanks for reading🥰

[aspicystrum]

Embarrassingly, last night I wrote an exceedingly long and sickeningly heartfelt email to some Netflix people (executives? Idk) based on advice from #saveteenagebountyhunters. It felt important, so I decided to share.

Hi there, friend. 

I don't usually do this, because writing in to a studio about a show that you just watched seems a bit over the top, and potentially just a drop of salt water in a river that somebody has already built a bridge to get over. 

However, on the off chance that this email might make a difference, I just want to say that it would be really, really, super-mega-cool if you guys changed your minds about renewing Teenage Bounty Hunters for another season. I finally got around to watching it this week, and I want to firstly, congratulate you for such a stellar piece of work, and secondly, implore you not to leave it unfinished. Not only is it fantastic and hilarious, but I also think it's kind of important, and I'm going to apologise in advance for the length of time I'm going to spend on telling you why. 

I'm definitely not a teenager anymore, but I was definitely a young christian questioning her sexuality when I was a teenager, and there was just nothing remotely like this on TV at that time. If there had been, I think it might have been a bit easier for me to figure myself out. Much easier, even. I dislike clichés, so I don't like that I'm basically saying the same thing that most queer people over 30 are saying about new media featuring queer representation, but the thing is, there's a reason that we're saying it. And Tropes Aren't Bad. The only thing that was around when I was growing up that had any gay women in it was porn and the L Word. Buffy too I guess, but I never got into it when it was airing (I'm not even sure if I'd have been allowed to watch it, to be frank) and later on, I wasn't interested in the drama and heartbreak. And of course, because I was a young christian, I thought porn was bad (I mean, it's terrible if you're looking for accurate romantic representation, but it's certainly not morally wrong like I thought it was) and because I don't live in the US, I never came across the L Word until I managed to pirate it in university. And while the L Word was massive and so important for representation and visibility... Honestly, I never really liked it. I didn't relate to a bunch of lesbians having sex and being bitchy in LA.

But Teenage Bounty Hunters? Shit. That would have been young Alex's obsession. Or lifeline. Cup of tea. Addiction. Breath of air while feeling like I was drowning? I don't know. Pick one. All of the above. I grew up going to an Anglican, semi-private high school. So while lesbianism wasn't wrong per se; (God still loved the gays - they weren't wrong for loving who they did) it definitely had to be wrong for me. Because it also sure as hell wasn't good. It was definitely no path to happiness. Lesbian was an insult that you used against girls you didn't like on the opposing soccer team. It wasn't until I went on exchange to France when I was 17 that I met girls who were out and proudly, wonderfully, sweetly dating. It's not even like it was illegal or anything, or that the LGBT+ community weren't tirelessly working to be visible and represented. I live in New Zealand. Generally, we're a pretty open, progressive, liberal country. I like to think that most of the time kiwis make pretty sensible decisions in terms of governance (though, believe me, there's always room for improvement). But, there's a difference between what's allowed, and what's socially acceptable. Especially in high school. Especially when you bring religion into the conversation. Or politics. It just wasn't done. Even in public school, you'd be asking to be an outsider. 

So I can't satisfactorily express how incredible it was for me to experience the relationship and character arcs of April and Sterling. A couple of staunchly christian girls, falling in love and unashamed of that. Albeit fucking scared. Their storyline resonated with my queer little soul. I was Chapel Prefect in my final year at school. I was an overachiever like April, and I had no idea how potentially gay I was, like Sterling. I wanted to kiss boys and sort of ignored all the crushes I had on the girls I went to school with. I wanted to be a good student and above all, a good person. I believed in a god. In fact, I wanted to believe in a purpose for existence and God so badly, that I chose to continue to believe, even while I wanted to kill myself in my first and second year of university because I felt like I was a bad student and a bad person. I still believe and it still keeps me alive from time to time.

All this is a very dramatic and unfortunately slightly sad way to say that you've got something incredibly special in Teenage Bounty Hunters. And that's just from one perspective. There's so much else that the show brings to the table. So much that it has the potential to. I could talk about racism, or adoption, or classism, or so many other things that I don't really feel I have the experience or understanding to give voice to, and do them justice, but you get the picture. 

Finally, I just want to say, I think I got my first recommendation for this show after you'd actually officially cancelled it. And it wasn't from your algorithm, it was from a male co-worker. Somebody I wouldn't have expected to recommend something like this show. Both based on judgements from before and after watching it. And I'm not going to lie, I heavily judged the title when I heard him talk about it, because I thought it sounded pretty frivolous and mindless. But certainly after searching for the show (I'm kind of shocked it was never recommended to me actually), and watching the trailer, I was immediately interested, because it's fucking hilarious. Now, after watching it I'm curious to know what he liked about the show too. So if your algorithm is designed to target viewers you think might be in a show's intended demographic, I feel like it needs tweaking. Also, I feel like you need to give more than two months grace-time for a show after releasing it, before you decide to cancel it. It's kind of tragic finding out about and deciding watching a show even though you know it's cancelled and then having your suspicions confirmed about you loving it. Very Fox and Firefly. Congrats, I guess? 

Anyway, I do genuinely want to say thank you for the work that you do and the joy that you've brought me and others through Netflix. I do hope the decision does get reversed, but it is a small hope.

If you made it this far, thank you very much for reading all of this. You're clearly a generous person with your time. 

Sincerely, 

Alex

[jackies-wearing-khakis]

Marriage and Murder Pt. 1 (Shelby!Reader)

a/n: I'm a bit disappointed I had to post this in two parts, but alas, the original one-shot was too long for Tumblr.

summary: Things get progressively darker as you try to survive Tommy and Grace's wedding night.

words: 3101

warnings: Themes of drinking and sexual assault.

 "(y/n), for fuck's sake, hurry up!" Polly shouted from the betting room. She, Ada, Finn, John, and Esme were dressed in formal clothes, waiting for you to get ready.

  "Five minutes, Pol!" you called from your bedroom.

  "I swear to God," your aunt said under her breath as she checked her watch. "It's her own brother's wedding and she's decided to take her sweet time."

  "What's taking her so long anyway?" Finn asked, bored to death.

  "She probably looks ugly as hell and can't stand to face it," John whispered, earning a chuckle from Finn and a smack to the back of the head from Ada. 

  "I don't care 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 she's doing, if that girl's not down here soon we're leaving without her." Polly huffed.

  What Polly and the others didn't understand was that you were by 𝘯𝘰 means taking your sweet time. If anything, you were practically tripping over yourself to try and find a dress to wear to Tommy and Grace's wedding. You'd accidentally ripped the dress you were supposed to wear the night before when you'd gotten your arm stuck in one of the sleeves. Now, you were caught between a rock and a hard place; go downstairs and face humiliation, or stay in your room and face Polly. You could tell today was going to be stressful.

  You were legitimately considering cutting off the sleeves of your dress entirely when Polly came bursting into the room without warning.

  "Pol, wait!" you shouted, instinctively holding your arms in front of your head for self-defense.

  "I don't give a shit if you're ready or not, we're going," Polly growled. She grabbed your arm, unknowingly pulling at the rip in your dress. With one strong yank, your aunt had doubled the size of the tear. The two of you froze in shock at the damaged material.

  "𝘑𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘴, (y/n)," Polly muttered.

  "I know, it's awful." you sighed.

  As you stood there, Finn peeked his head into your room. Immediately, he saw your dress and gasped.

  "𝘏𝘰𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘵, (y/n)." Finn chuckled. "What the hell did you do?"

  "Go away!" you shouted angrily. You grabbed one of your shoes and chucked it at your brother, hitting him in the shoulder. He stumbled out of the room laughing.

  You threw yourself face-first onto your bed in utter despair, sighing dramatically.

  "Oh, Pol, this'll be the death of me," you whined, your voice muffled by the covers. Your aunt rolled her eyes as she lit a cigarette.

  "Stop feeling sorry for yourself," Polly spoke. "We'll figure something out."

  It wasn't long before Ada and Esme had made their way upstairs and into your room. The four of you sat in silence, quietly brainstorming. Suddenly, Esme stood up.

  "I've got a dress that might work," she said, and immediately rushed to go fetch it. Your face lit up, and you excitedly hopped off your bed to go with your sister-in-law. Ada and Polly exchanged glances.

  You followed Esme into her and John's old room, where she was digging through her closet.

  "Now, (y/n), you're a bit smaller than I am, so hopefully this won't look too awkward on you," Esme said, tossing clothes in every direction.      

  "Now, if only I could find the damn thing."

  "What's it look like?" you asked.

  "See for yourself," Esme responded, pulling out a green shapeless dress with beaded lace embroidery.

  You gawked at the beauty of the thing; it was an excellent balance of elegance and youth. Not too modest, not too sexy; it was superbly tasteful.

 "Oh my God, Esme, it's perfect." you breathed. 

  "Hurry up and try it on!" she urged, pushing the dress into your arms. With that, she rushed out of her room.

  To your relief, the dress fit perfectly. You barely had any time to show it off to the others before Polly had rushed everyone out of the house and into the cramped car, practically dragging you all by the wrists. 

  The five of you slipped into the chapel quietly as you could. Tommy gave you all dirty looks as you scooted into the pews one by one. 

  "Where the fuck've you been?" Arthur whispered to Polly as she sat down next to him.

  "There was a complication," Polly answered. "Nothing worth worrying about now."

  "Complication my arse. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 one took forever to get changed." John scoffed, pointing his thumb towards you.

  "It wasn't my fault, the dress ripped!" you whined. 

  "It was 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 your fault, (y/n)," Finn added smugly.

  "I swear to God if you three don't 𝘴𝘩𝘶𝘵 𝘶𝘱 I'll drag you all home by the ears." Polly threatened under her breath. Nobody had anything to say about your dress after that.

  John grumbled as Grace entered the chapel.

  "Here come the fucking cavalry, late as usual." he griped.

  "I don't get it, why's everyone hate them?" you asked in a whisper.

  "Well, first of all, they weren't supposed to wear their uniforms. Just goes to show they're disrespectful bastards." John whispered back.

  "𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺? That's all it is?" you questioned.

  John sighed as he tried to find the right words for the situation.

  "Listen, (y/n), just stay away from them. Half those men are self-righteous pricks who'll take advantage of you if you give 'em the chance," he warned.

 "Hush." Esme chimed in, squeezing John's hand. "They're exchanging vows."

  Your gaze turned to the men in red uniform as Tommy and Grace stood at the altar. You accidentally locked eyes with a boy who couldn't have been older than twenty. Not sure what to do, you smiled politely at him. To your surprise, he smiled back.

   Your exchange was cut off by the sound of Jeremiah Jesus's voice filling the room.

  "I now pronounce you man and wife." he declared, and everyone in the chapel applauded as Tommy and Grace shared a kiss. You couldn't help but feel a pang of pride as you watched your brother smile at his new wife. There was something magical about the way he was able to just 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘹 in her presence, especially since you couldn't think of another day Tommy wasn't trying to take over Birmingham.

  𝘖𝘩, 𝘛𝘰𝘮, you thought wistfully, 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘯'𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦?

   Unfortunately, the warmth of the wedding ceremony quickly faded as everyone gathered outside for the family photo. Nearly ten minutes went by as the Shelby clan struggled to organize themselves into a tight group.

   You initially tried to stand behind Polly and Arthur to be near the other women, but that plan quickly failed when you realized you were too short to stand behind either of them. It was a tremendous effort to try to force yourself in between them, and the result left you in a painfully awkward position where you were left standing sideways. The ultimate solution was to have you stand with John's children; you were mortified.

  "Christ, I look like a 𝘬𝘪𝘥," you whined, showing the picture to Finn. The two of you sat together at the base of the stairs in Tommy's house, trying your best to avoid the crowds of people wandering the halls..

  "It's not that big a deal," he said plainly, taking the picture in his hands. "Nobody really cares."

  "It's a big deal to me." you mumbled.

   You could see John and Arthur approaching from a distance. By the looks of it, they'd already gotten their hands on some champagne.

  "Finn. Tommy wants a meeting in the kitchen." Arthur spoke as he passed by.

  "I should probably go with him." Finn sighed as he stood up.

  "Wait, take me with you!" you pleaded, grabbing onto his arm. "I've got nobody else to talk to."

  Finn quickly leaned over the stairs to check if Arthur and John had gone. Once he saw the coast was clear, he turned back to you.

  "Fine. But you shouldn't say anything," he advised.

  "Wasn't planning on it."

  You and Finn had assumed the meeting would be family only, but as you snuck your way into the kitchen you were surprised to find a swarm of Blinders men crowding the room. You instinctively stuck close to your brother, trying your best to avoid bumping into anyone. The two of you slowly hovered towards the center of the room, where the immediate family gathered. There Tommy stood in the midst of it all with a cigar in his hands. 

   "Right. Today is my wedding day." he began, and the room fell silent.

   "Yeah, and you said there'd be no uniforms, Tom." John interrupted, and a few people murmured in agreement.

  "In spite of there being bad blood, I'll have none of it on my carpet." Tommy continued, ignoring John's comment. "For Grace's sake, nothing will go wrong today."

   Tommy began circling the room as he spoke, making sure to lock eyes with every man present.

  "And if any of you fuckers do 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 to embarrass her, kin, cousins, your kids, your horses, 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨.."

  Just as he was about to finish his sentence, Tommy noticed you standing there next to Finn. He froze for a moment, then furrowed his brows. You cursed under your breath.

  "What are you doing here?" Tommy asked, but it felt more like an accusation.

   You realized every man in the room had their eyes on you. You shifted uncomfortably.

  "It's a family meeting, isn't it?" you grumbled. "Last I checked I was a Shelby."

   Tommy sighed deeply and rubbed his eyes in annoyance.

  "𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵? I'm glad you're here because there's something I should say." he began. You crossed your arms defensively.

  "You've been wild these past few months, (y/n), don't think I haven't noticed."

  "So?" you scoffed.

  "𝘚𝘰, I won't have any of it tonight. I swear, if I find out you've been drinking, flirting, or doing 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨  that might damage this family's reputation, I assure you that you'll live to regret it. 𝘋𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥?"

  You didn't know how to feel about Tommy's words. In a way, he was right; you'd been drinking more than usual as of late, not to mention fooling around with some of the boys you were going to school with. You didn't understand why that was such a big deal though, especially since you were a saint compared to your brothers. Really, the whole thing seemed unfair.

  "Yeah, I understand." you finally answered. "I'll just spend the night boring myself to death while you boys do whatever you want." 

  "That's the spirit." he shot back.

  "Tommy, what about snow?" Isiah asked from across the room. You silently thanked him for taking the attention off you.

  "There'll be no cocaine," Tommy answered sternly. A few men in the room sighed.

  Tommy took the opportunity to get back to his speech.

  "No sport. No racing. No sucking the petrol out of their cars. You give them 𝘯𝘰 excuses to look down their noses."

  The room was uneasy. Nobody was sure what to think as Tommy stood there, almost desperately trying to talk sense into his men.

  "But the main thing is, you fuckers.." he began.

  "Why are you mad at 𝘶𝘴, Tom?" Finn mumbled.

  "..in spite of provocation from the cavalry.."

  Tommy walked along the line of men standing around him, getting close to Arthur, then John, then Finn, then finally you.

  "..no fighting. 𝘕𝘰 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨!" 

  And with that, everyone was sent out of the kitchen.

  The party started slow, and you found yourself wandering around the house aimlessly with nothing to do. Everywhere you went people were already drinking, and a part of you wanted nothing more than to join them. The other, more sensible part remembered Tommy's warning and decided to avoid alcohol for the night. As much as you wanted to piss him off and indulge yourself, you knew getting drunk would only prove that you were irresponsible. 

  Dinner in the great hall was an absolute disaster. You sat between Finn and Ada, who were both caught up in their own conversations. You were starving, and Tommy and Grace had been taking a suspiciously long amount of time to get ready. Even after they'd finally come downstairs, Arthur had to get through his speech before anyone could eat.

  "Now, I'm not one for speeches." Arthur began. The poor man looked like a deer trapped in headlights.

  "Sing then!" John shouted. Esme grabbed his arm wearily.

  "I've got a speech written down here. but it's not everything I want to say." Arthur droned on. You buried your head in your hands.

  "Arthur, just read what we've written down," Tommy said softly.

  "I will, Tom. But first, a few words from the heart." 

  Arthur gently placed the small piece of paper into one of his pockets, then cleared his throat.

   "𝘍𝘶𝘤𝘬." Tommy breathed.

   "I'd just like to say that my brother helped me survive hard times. Trouble in my head.."

  As Arthur gave his speech, you noticed Polly staring at a man who sat opposite her. He was older than she was and wore a dark suit that matched his serious expression.

  "Who's that?" You leaned over and whispered to Ada.

  "Kaledin something," she whispered back. "Don't bother talking politics with him, I've already tried."

  Unlike Ada, you weren't interested in having political debates with strangers. Still, there was an air of mystery surrounding the man. Something about him made it impossible to look away, even when he met your eyes with his. You felt a shiver run down your spine.

  Arthur's trainwreck of a speech was eventually cut short by Tommy. You felt bad for your eldest brother, but you were desperate to eat. Polly gave you a disapproving look as you scarfed down your food, but you didn't care; you were too hungry to act like a lady.

  An hour had passed since the food was served, and by then everyone had made their way into the ballroom.

  John and Arthur had set up a boxing area outside with Tommy's reluctant permission. After hovering around Polly for nearly half an hour, you finally gave in and went outside to watch the fights.  

  You were used to seeing your brothers fight, so not much could faze you in the boxing ring. Tonight was different, though. The men had such anger in them as they landed their punches. It was almost disturbing to watch Finn get knocked into the ground by a man in a red uniform.

  "Gruesome, isn't it?" A voice asked from behind you. You turned around to face the very same cavalry boy you'd locked eyes within the chapel. Only now, he was standing a mere foot away from you and the two of you were practically alone.

   "William. Fraser." the young man said, extending his hand.

  You took his hand in yours and shook it. The dim light from the boxing ring illuminated your faces, and you were able to get good looks at each other. To your excitement, not only was he young, he was 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦.

  "(y/n). Lee." you introduced yourself, lying through your teeth. You were done being a Shelby today.

  "Mm. I thought you were a gypsy." William spoke. You raised your eyebrows in amusement.

  "Really? How could you tell?" you asked.

 "It's the dress. Very... 𝘣𝘰𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘢𝘯," he replied.

 "It was a gift, it's not mine," you assured, flattening the dress out. You suddenly felt a pang of self-consciousness.

  "Oh, well it suits you well enough." And with that, William placed his hand on your waist. 

   "What are you doing?" you asked, chuckling nervously. 

  "Enjoying myself."

  He slowly started to pull you into a kiss when you noticed Finn in the boxing ring. Another one of the cavalry boys had landed a particularly heavy blow onto his gut, and he fell onto the ground in defeat. You pushed William away to watch the scene.

  "You know him?" William asked.

  "He's my brother," you responded quietly, not taking eyes off Finn.

  "He fights well enough for a boy his size, I didn't expect him to last as long as he did." William retorted.

  "He's really good, actually. Likes it a lot, too," you said, relaxing as you saw Finn get up and shake his opponent's hand.

  William took the opportunity to pick up where you left off and started to wrap his arms around your waist. You hesitated and stepped back.

  "Wait, we shouldn't. Not in front of them." you gestured towards the crowds of people who were watching the fights.

  "Good point." the young man hummed into your neck.

  You lead William to a fairly secluded area of the gardens. There was a small, wooden bench that was nestled in between some of the bushes that lined the back wall of Tommy's mansion. The two of you sat together; there was an uncomfortable sexual tension between you.

  William kissed you slowly as his hands wandered around your torso. You kept trying to cut him off, but he was persistent. If you would grab his arm, he would use the other one to pull you closer. If you turned away, he would kiss your neck. 

  "William I don't think we should do this," you whispered.

  "Don't worry, love. nobody's around. You won't get in trouble." he assured.

  "𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦, just stop." you pleaded.

  "Relax, I promise I'll make it worth your while.

  With that, you'd had enough. You started smacking your palm against his shoulder, and he finally separated. 

  "𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵? I thought you wanted this!" William snapped.

  "Why didn't you stop?" you asked him with a hurt look on your face. "I was 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 you to stop!"

   "𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘯, don't act like you didn't want it. You took me out here for a reason." he countered.

  "I didn't think it would happen so fast!" you shouted.

 William huffed, stood up, then brushed himself off.

  "𝘎𝘺𝘱𝘴𝘺 𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩." he spat, then walked away.

  "What the 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬 did you call me?" you shot back. "Do you even know who the 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘭 I am?"

   William froze in place and turned around. He gave you a dark look as he lit a cigarette. The red glow of the tiny embers illuminated his face.

  "My name is (y/n) 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 Shelby." you hissed, and William's expression changed. 

  "You're related to the groom?" he realized.

  "I'm his sister," you spat.

  The young man sighed deeply and ran his fingers through his hair. 

  "𝘚𝘩𝘪𝘵.. I had no idea. Let me make it up to you." he began, but you were already leaving.

  "𝘍𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶." you scoffed as you passed him. 

You made your way back to the ballroom, leaving William standing there alone.

 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵, you thought, heading straight for a bottle of wine.

[pinnochiro]

pinn reviews - final fantasy xv

a long ramble about final fantasy fifteen that sort of looks like a review, as written by someone who finished the game fifteen minutes ago and needs to get these words out of his head. spoilers inbound.

i'm a pretty big fan of video games. i don't know what my first was, but it was probably either banjo and kazooie or mario kart 64, at my cousin's house when i was very small. i think that video games as a medium are so interesting, since the fact that video games are inherently interactive changes the way that they tell any story. it's a shame that despite loving video games so much, i'm absolutely terrible at them.

i'm absolute dogshit at video games. whenever i boot up something new, i always play on easy mode because. i'm that bad. unfortunately, this means that a lot of video games are simply. impossible for me to beat. that's fine, as at the moment i live with my good friend lizz, who is certifiably Good at Video Games, and so we've been playing video games together for a little bit now. typically this means that she will actually play the majority of the game while i sit with her and watch, but occasionally i'll have a go, but she'll end up with the controller as soon as a boss fight or puzzle or a mechanic i just can't seem to grasp shows up. we recently played through the entirety of the kingdom hearts series together, and this was an absolute blast of a time. i'm glad to say that i adore kingdom hearts now, and it's become one of my hyperfixations, which you might be able to tell from my icon. but we'd finished the kingdom hearts series, and we were left to move onto something else. we'd also played final fantasy 7 remake, so in my wisdom, i suggested that we play another final fantasy game.

we looked through the ff games that were already purchased on our consoles thanks to lizz's uncle, and eventually, we decided that we should play. all of them. however to start, we were going to play final fantasy xv, 15, and work our way backwards through the mainline, single-player games.

i'd heard that xv wasn't very good, but honestly, i was still quite curious. one person who i'd been following on twitter for years was pretty obsessed with the main party members, to the point where i knew their names and what-not even though i didn't have much of an idea what the game itself was about. i remember watching a video by supereyepatchwolf a few years ago about how the game sucked, but i couldn't remember much of the details, and i knew, based on my obsession with kingdom hearts, that xv had started as a different game called final fantasy versus xiiv. i don't know all the details about versus thirteen, but i do know that it was originally helmed by the creator of my beloved kingdom hearts, mr tetsuya nomura, and that after many years, the vast majority of the game was thrown out, nomura wasn't in charge any more, and the whole thing was rewritten and reworked, which sounds like a fairly rough development cycle. but so what, i don't care about gameplay. i want to play the video game with those cute guys that i see fanart of on twitter, and lizz seemed happy enough to play through it with me.

and so we started final fantasy xv. i've been told that since the game was practically dead on arrival, they threw in a bunch of new content and reworked a lot of the early game before i got my hands on it. so my gameplay started with a scene of the four guys fighting some demon dude on fire and they're all old and grotty. whatever, that cutscene ends and we're put into a combat tutorial. that's over and we're on the road in what looks to be central america, pushing a car.

our four leading lads are noctis, the prince of the lucis empire, his best friend prompto, his bodyguard, gladio, and his chef and other things, ignis. i do quite like the main four members of the party in xv. prompto is quite easily my favourite, voiced by robbie daymond of goro akechi fame and with a bunch of fun little animations and quips that make him very likeable. he gets extremely excited at the idea of riding chocobos and has what i considered the best scene of the game, where he and noctis meet on a motel rooftop and discuss prompto's imposter syndrome, since he's only part of noctis' official retinue as his best friend. noctis is a fairly typical main protagonist, he's in love with a woman he hasn't seen in eight years and needs to go marry her or something, i don't care. gladio is a tough macho man with a mullet who wears leather jackets and wields a greatsword, and is apparently only 22, which is at least 10 years younger than i assumed. ignis is a strategist and chef, who takes on the most authoritative role and constantly tells noctis to not drive his car at night. i was not a fan of ignis at the start, but he grew on me, especially with how hard the game hit me with his personal arc. the four boys are off, driving to noctis' wedding in a different country across the desert when their car breaks down. we then run into the first issue of the game.

cindy is a mechanic. she also has her ass and tits out constantly, like your sleazy uncle's shirt with a naked woman was instead semi-alive as a video game person. she fixes your car and acts fairly sexual and it's just like. why do we have to do this. aren't we over overtly sexualised women in video games who have no reason for the way they dress other than the character designer was horny? whatever, i like women as much as the next guy, but cindy's design just. makes me feel so uncomfortable.

anyways you get to do a little driving around with the boys, until you stay the night before catching the boat to your fiance. overnight, you find out that noctis' kingdom has been basically destroyed by an invading empire called niflheim, and practically everyone noctis knows, including his father, are dead. you learn that noctis and his bride to be are also assumed dead, with noctis hearing his own death announcement on the radio. the game has a bunch of added cutscenes that are actually footage from the three-hour-long prequel movie that came out after the game, are extremely hard to follow and honestly i had no idea what i was looking at. anyways, noctis' family is dead, so it's time to do some hunting sidequests.

that brings us to the combat, i suppose. rather than the turn-based or even active turn-based combat that the series is known for, xv opts for more modern action rpg-styled combat. i was, naturally, terrible at this, but i managed to get around it with the fact that. it is almost impossible to die in this video game, provided you have enough items. the game allows you so much time to heal yourself that there's practically no way to have your entire party wipe unless you're doing absolutely terrible, and even then, your party members will probably try and heal you themselves before that happens. lizz tells me that the combat is boring, you just push the same button over and over and then you win. i do appreciate that, for someone like me who is terrible at reading enemy movements, there is a giant button that pops up on screen that tells you when to push the block button, but even then i was prone to fucking it up. whether that's the bad game design or my terrible gaming abilities is up to you to decide. anyways, the game is fairly easy but has annoying combat, your teammates limit breaks will only land about 50% of the time (or never, if you are gladio) and i was still bad at it, so i didn't have all that much fun.

instead of an active levelling system, the game will only tally your character's level ups when you either make camp or visit a hotel. camping is, in my opinion, the only saving grace of this game. each time you make camp, you get to see the characters doing fun little camping activities together and just hanging out, ignis will cook up a new meal in a dramatic fashion and everyone will compliment him and eat it off their coleman's branded plates, it's just very fun. you also get to see what pictures prompto has taken, which is one of my favourite gameplay features. prompto's passion is photography, and while i support him in this wholeheartedly, his picture taking skills are, quite frankly, awful. the game will randomly take shots while you're on the move, which leaves you with a delightful selection of awkward poses, characters hidden behind bushes, pictures taken while someone is half-dead in combat, and snaps where the natural lighting absolutely makes it impossible to tell what's going on. it's hilarious and going through prompto's collection of photos each night is honestly the best part of the game. we managed to wind up with a few shots that, even despite being scripted events, turned out absolutely terrible, and i will cherish those forever.

anyways, since noctis' father and fiance are dead, that leaves him the king of lucis. the only important person to make it out of the capital alive tells you to drive to the middle of nowhere, where he randomly springs on you. hey. go into a bunch of these dungeons and absorb a bunch of swords, this is your destiny as king and how you will defeat the empire. noctis goes, uh, alright i guess, and you're set loose again to wander around for a bit collecting the 'royal arms'. this plot point wasn't explained well but hey, whatever, we're collecting the glowy swords and that's fine.

you're introduced at some point to ardyn, the main antagonist. he's old, kind of groady and wears a fedora. he's a dick to you and talks about his automobeeel. apparently my friend miri thinks he's hot, she is wrong.

i can't remember what happens specifically but you're told that your fiance is still alive and in fantasy venice, and she's talking to the gods on your behalf to borrow their powers. there's a mission where you follow some purple trees that are electric, and you do that i guess. i enjoyed riding the chocobos around, but couldn't care much for the plot at this point. ardyn leads you to a volcano, where you fight a giant lava god. he tries to step on you and i, a denizen of the internet and with an active fear of foot fetishists, was extremely uncomfortable. noctis becomes friends with foot man and a lightning god who lived in those trees, and ardyn steals your car.

very upset by this, noctis and his gang risk everything to sneak into a military base and steal it back. because this is a video game, this works out fine.

there's a little mining city which is all about Girl Power, because all the Women run the Mining Industry like Girl Bosses, and you hang around there for a bit. because all the women are so Empowered, they wear bikinis all the time with overalls over the top. gladio decides he needs to fuck off for a bit, i have no idea what he does since i haven't played the dlc, and then he comes back with another scar. you hang out with his sixteen year old sister, who has a crush on the engaged and 20-year old noctis, and then you drive her to a lighthouse. when she's in your party, she can't really fight, but she gets a pink chocobo and i thought that was very cute. we turned out own chocobo white and lizz named him 'jones' after a mount she has in ffxiv.

eventually, you have a long boat ride over to fantasy venice. this is the part where the game stops being 'fun with a few issues in combat and a rushed and poorly told story.' the open world, which was a main feature with a bunch of little areas to find where noctis can fish, little hunting sidequests and random photo spots where prompto takes touristy photos, is now gone, and it will not return for the entire rest of the game. you can 'go back in time', but the open world was the most enjoyable part of the game, and it kind of really sucks that the main story doesn't let you have any more freedom like that.

after arriving in fantasy venice, you have a talk with fantasy hillary clinton and beg her to let your girlfriend summon a god into the middle of her city. hillary agrees, and you don't get to meet up with your fiance, because even if the game is constantly telling you how much noctis loves her, there is. barely any interactions between the two in the entire game. from what i can tell, they met when noctis was a child and they haven't seen each other in ten years but are still fantasy dog pen-pals. noctis marrying her was supposed to make an alliance or something like that, but her brother has betrayed her to the army. noctis' girlfriend is also an oracle, which means she can heal people, i guess? everyone talks about how important she is and she's constantly telling people that she needs to use her powers to help noctis but she's practically a non-entity.

as can be expected of most female love interests in a game primarily focused on men, noctis' fiance is killed while summoning a god for noctis to befriend. noct gets very mad about this, and turns super saiyan and kills the god back, but his girlfriend is dead and that's super sad you guys. there's a beautiful prerendered cutscene where she says goodbye to noctis but since we barely know her, and we've only been told over and over that they're in love without anything to actually well, show this, it didn't have much of an impact. fantasy venice is destroyed, and ignis is blinded while trying to help calm the giant raging god.

iggy's blindness and how the game makes you account for this and grow to care for him was one of the highlights, in my opinion, as well as crushingly depressing. while i'm not disabled and have no right to say if this was 'good disabled representation' or anything like that, i believe that the game handles it decently enough. the group falls apart as noctis is upset about his girlfriend, gladio is extremely mad that noctis won't care for ignis, and prompto just wants everyone to get along. there's a mission where gladio constantly yells at you passive aggressive things to noctis about how he's a cunt for running, which is obnoxious, but the character arc itself is fairly strong. when you make camp, ignis can't cook anymore, so everyone eats cup noodles in a depressing ass cutscene. ignis remains in your party for the rest of the game despite his disability, and he doesn't magically regain his sight like other fantasy media would do, which at the very least i think is good. i'm not sure what the opinion of actual disabled people is of the character, considering how often disabled characters are either turned into misery porn to make the abled audience be glad that isn't them and if ignis' arc falls into this trap, but i hope that it wasn't handled too poorly, as that would just be another terrible mark in this game's list of bad moves.

the characters eventually make it to the evil empire's capital, which is abandoned and filled with daemons. the characters learn that ardyn is super evil and taught the king of the empire how to turn humans into daemons, which has now happened to the entire city. the 'magitek suits', presumed to be enchanted armour that fights as the empire's infantry, actually house the souls of the human-turned daemons. honestly i like this as a plot point but the game handles it pretty terribly. there could have been more lead up to this, the explanation is pretty lacking, and prompto's Big Plot Twist is. terribly handled. turns out that prompto was born in the empire and was going to be one of those empty soldier daemons, but he was rescued by people belonging to noctis' empire. not that the game tells you that. instead, prompto goes 'turns out i'm one of ... them' and Does Not Elaborate. The game doesn't tell you shit, not about prompto's past, not about how he feels about this, not about how anyone else feels about this either because the other party members just go 'oh that sucks, good thing you're not evil' and the scene ends. robbie daymond tries so hard to sell these terrible, terrible lines, and it almost entirely fails, i'm so sorry prompto. fortunately because i'm a nosy ass, i read prompto's wikia page and knew the plot twist ahead of time, because i don't think i would have even registered it if i didn't.

anyways everyone in the evil empire is dead and ardyn starts talking about how he's immortal and an ancient king of noctis' country but the gods thought he sucked because he's too evil. i missed most of this because the cats got the zoomies and were dashing across the couch right in the middle of his speech so i can't tell you anything else. noctis tries to get a big magic crystal to fight him and instead. gets schlorped inside.

TEN YEARS LATER

yes then ten years actually pass while noctis is asleep. the game shows this by switching the head on noctis' character model to have a beard, but that's it, no changes in animations or whatever. the sky is permanently night and only one human civilisation remains, the rest destroyed by daemons. as a plot point, this ends up feeling. extremely worthless. why was noctis asleep for ten whole goddamn years? so we can wake up and go 'damn it sucks out here'. but it's barely even a like, incentive to fix everything, because you have a long talk with a former child you were friends with where he talks about how humanity is still going fine and everyone's okay and the world has moved on without you. it feels. pointless. when you meet up with your party members, they are exactly as you left them, only with slightly different character models. there is no change in the voice performance, the character's movements or how they talk to show that they've been without you for ten years. they barely mention it. i'm just. so confused as to why they decided that a ten year timeskip was the way to go? since nothing really changes, couldn't you have made it like, two years? one year? six months?? have the characters react a little more? something??? at least if it was only a year or so i wouldn't have to deal with the fact that noctis looks like norman reedus with his shitty facial hair now.

anyways after that there's a bunch of long and boring boss fights. you fight some dead kings for some reason, your party members get a little bit to talk about how cool they are and how much they love noctis, and then you meet up with ardyn. there's another boring boss fight and god this was only a few hours ago but it's already gone from my head. you summon the gods and the old kings to beat the shit out of him after you both go super saiyan again? there's incredible music but it feels barely earned and just kind of eh. anyways, noctis dies, which was the price of using the crystal of light or whatever the fuck. his ghost marries his fiance's ghost finally, and they smile as they look at one of prompto's pictures. you can pick any picture you want to go here, and then the credits roll, showing all of the pictures you saved of prompto's shots. showing me all the pictures at the end is honestly lovely, but it really only served to remind me of how much more fun the game was in the first half. and that's the end, of final fantasy xv.

so what did i think of the story? it's terribly cobbled together and struggles to get you to feel anything and play out all the plot beats. you feel awful for the countless employees who spent years working on the beautiful cutscenes only to have them be in this game, which sucks and the story barely gets through. there were parts that i enjoyed, mostly the thing about the daemons being people, but honestly the rest of it is a mess. it's hard to follow at the best of times and just awkward and terribly written at the worst. the ending is cheap, and it doesn't feel like you've actually accomplished anything. i left that game feeling numb and empty, sad that i'd wasted so much time to end up with such a colossal failure of a conclusion.

i had fun with the game when it was my four little guys running around doing sidequests and camping together. after the midway point of the game, there's none of that, and you're bogged down into a plot that just pushes you from point a to point b and boring overlong bossfight to boring overlong bossfight. the character moments between your party are a lot of fun, but the second you hit fantasy venice, everything is pretty much on rails and you can't do anything except what the game tells you explicitly to do.

should you play this game? no lol. if anything i've mentioned about the story interests you, you'll be better off watching a lore video or reading the wiki. if you do want to play it after all that, just don't proceed after the myrthril refining quest, it's pretty much all downhill from there. will i play the dlc? unlikely, i think lizz and i will just watch a cutscene movie of those.

this game left me feeling empty and numb and not in a fun way. i wanted, so, so hard to like this game, and it all crashed around me in a beautifully overproduced and confusingly written cascade. i love you prompto, but even your cute little freckly face and terrible photography can't save this trainwreck of a game.

tl;dr - final fantasy xv sucks. i hope that 13, our next ff game, will be better.

[cinaminho]

♡Preference 7♡: They attempt to Make You Jealous (Singing Line)

TAEHYUNG (Taeter tot): You were sitting on your Bed trying to watch On My Block all the way through without any interruptions since the new season came out next month. (NO SERIOUSLY MY HUSBAND BETTER LIVE)

Taehyung had other plans clearly as he came in the room and walked to your side of the bed and sat on your lap, wrapping his long arms around your neck and gave you a closed mouth smile. He looked down at you as you huffed and paused the TV to make eye contact with the kid like young man.

"What, are we switching roles again? TaeTae it's too early now get off" you whined and pushed him to his side of your shared bed but, all he did was pout and Lay on your legs.

"I'm just craving more attention from you that's all Jagi" he mumbled against your thigh as he rubbed his head on it as if he were a cat. You however, just rolled your eyes but couldn't help but smile... Lord you loved him so much it hurt.

"Nuh uh! You just don't want me to be looking at Ruby" you smirked making Tae instantly jump up and sit with his legs under him on the bed.

"You always watch Interviews he's done, you stalk his social media, you have pictures of him in your phone. What about me?" He said while giving you his box smile.

"Jason Genao is My little tiny baby he's so short" you said before looking at your remote to find the play button so you could resume your show and once you did you were completely fixated on 'Ruby Martinez'. Taehyung whined and rolled off the bed before getting up off the floor and stomping out.

"23 and Acts like he's 2..wow" you mumbled.

You were enticed by your show but you heard loud laughter from down stairs and you tried to ignore it

"AHAHAHA OHHH MY SHE'S SO FUNNY" You heard the deep voice of Taehyung say. You knew he wad just trying to get your attention but you decided to go downstairs and see what his tactic was now. Once you made it half way down stairs you seen Tae on the couch watching TV, he was watching Wizard's of Waverly place and that's when it clicked.

"Tae whatcha doin" you said as you went to sit on the arm of the couch

"Y/n isn't Alex just Clever? Selena played her really well I think , don't you?" He said smiling at the TV and wiggling his eyebrow. You sighed and took the remote from him and shut the TV off making him look at you and attempt to protest against your actions.

"Nope I don't want to hear it Taehyung Kim" was all you said before you sat on his lap and layed down with your head on his chest , and your feet on the arm rest of the couch. You could tell Taehyung was smiling.

"Nice try. I like the whole plan to make me Jealous but if all you can do is Selena then do better" you said sighing softly.

"I have no idea what you are talking about" he mumbled with his lips on your forehead.

"Riiiight" you said before rolling your eyes and closing them enjoying the moment because , even Jason Genao couldn't compare to Taehyung and his cute childlike ways.

//////////

JUNGKOOK (Kookie monster): You were in your living room of the home you shared with your Boyfriend Jungkook just dancing to the Music of Y/F/A (choose an artist because I don't wanna choose one you don't like or never heard of)

You were just so happy "Gosh you are one fine specimen" you said while smiling extremely hard at the screen that held the angelic face of your favorite artist. A few moments later your Front door opened and you didn't bother to look away from the screen as you knew it was only Jungkook.

"Gorgeous where are youu?" Jungkook called out to you but were still looking at the TV.

"In the living room handsome" you replied. Footsteps came closer and you noticed Jungkook from your side vision. He came to hug you from the side and you let him but, you dodged his kiss that he tried to plant on your lips "no wait, this is the best part!".

Jungkook frowned "well pause it and give me my damn kiss" he said with his hands on his hips. You paused the TV and looked at him like;

He instantly became Timid.

"I mean- give me my damn kiss.. Please?" Jungkook scratched his forehead awkwardly as he looked down not wanting to see you look at him that way. Soon he looked up unafraid of your intimidating glance anymore and looked you in the eyes.

"Just one quick kiss" he said while puckering his lips and moving towards you with out stretched arms but you put your hand up so his lips collided with it instead

"uh uh you too close" you replied to his gesture before grabbing the remote from the table and resuming the music video so, kook just huffed and sat on the Recliner chair. Once the video was done a commercial came up and it was Ariana Grande who now graced the screen.

"She's so pretty I love her" you coo'd

"Ya know I bet she'd give me a kiss if I wanted one" Jungkook grumbled "I agree though" he sighed. "She's something magnificent" he said looking at the TV with the singer on it. You looked at him with your hands on your hips and a slight frown.

"Really, Tell me what else do you like about Ms. Grande?" You said stepping closer to him. "Well her hair? It's so long and silky, her smile is one I could look at all day, she's so bold and her dimples? Still nothing compared to Namjoon Hyung's but still cute" she chuckled.

Ohh so that's the game he was playin? Well you could play along. You huffed and crossed your arms "well why not go tell her that instead of talking about her to your actual girlfriend" you pouted as you tried to make your best dramatic exit and boy he was buying into your act so much. He jumped up and wrapped his arms around you from behind and swung you around.

"I was just playing Jagiya. You know I don't think anyone is as magnificent as you, I just wanted to make you a little jealous." he said turning you to face him. You shrugged.

"I know I was just playing along." You winked at him and kissed his chin since you didn't feel like standing on your tippy toes.

"Just for that though you're gonna wait even longer for a kiss now" you whispered before walking away. "Y/n nooo" Jungkook whined.

//////////

JIMIN (Chimmy Chonga):

"Babygirl I was wondering if you'd wanna come watch me at our sound check?" Jimin said coming into the kitchen and kissing your cheek as you ate a sandwich. You hummed with a mouthful of deliciousness before you swallowed.

"Can't I promised my Friend Chan I'd go visit his mother with him today because she hasn't seen me in so long" you said as you turned to caress his soft chubby cheek. You already knew he was about to whine by his jutted out lip "Mwo? You'd rather go visit someone's mother than see your boyfriend practice?" You looked at him frowming a bit.

"No I never said that" you groaned .

"It's fine I guess.. I'll see you when I get home. Although I'd really love it if you were there. Hearing words of encouragement , making me laugh, playing on stage..." Jimin said while walking towards the kitchen side door slowly but still facing you. You almost ran and jumped into his arms.

"I guess I'll be leaving now.. Without my Baby." He sighed exaggeratingly .

"My hand is on the knob.. Twisting" he said looking at you with hopeful eyes but all you did was wave "Seriously Jagi?" . You just laughed "Bye baby I'll see you later" you said while blowing him a kiss but he flicked it away.

"Ehh I don't want it." He said before finally leaving out the door. You sighed and grabbed a muffin off the counter before biting it. "Why, why do I always give in?" You whined to yourself. You grabbed another muffin and headed out the door where Jimin had exited that lead to your garage.

"Jimin don't forget to eat th-" you began but stopped once you saw Jimin making your neighbor laugh up a storm and something told you that what he was sayin probably wasn't even that funny but the Cougar had always had her eyes on Jimin since you guys moved in that neighborhood. You walked closer and soon you seen her more clearly; push up sports bra and yoga shorts with nikes, hair in a ponytail, make up caked on and, perfume that probably was fly repellent. She seen you appear and smiled causing Jimin to turn around.

"Oh Y/n this is Mrs. Christy" . Oh so she was married and hitting on your boyfriend? "More like Mrs. crusty" you said under your breath so no one would hear.

"So where are you headed?" She asked smiling innocently at Jimin

"oh I was on my way out to my sound check, my girlfriend can't make it to see me sadly because she already has plans" Jimin pouted while looking your way.

"Well throw me under the bus" you scoffed.

"Ohhh sweetie that's unfortunate but you know I'm a fan of your group and I'd love to watch" she said while touching Jimin's right shoulder.

BITCH WTF?! Oh yea she's trying it.

"Actually no. I'll tell Chan I'll meet him later but I'm gonna head to the sound check with Him Madam" you said while batting your eyes innocently at the clearly older woman.

Before she could responde you turned and pulled Jimin towards the car by his hand as he waved and turned to Face the woman. "Oh, goodbye Mrs. Christy it was nice chatting with you" he said.

He went to the driver side as you went to the passengers.

"You're really funny you know that Park?" You said. "Just wanted you to come with me" he shrugged while giving you his signature smile. "And attempting to make me jealous was the way to go?Tuh yeah right." You scoffed. "Ahh now Jagiya you know it worked a bit" he smirked. "Shut up. Get in. Drive" you said while glaring at Jimin before seating yourself in the passengers seat of the car.

"I love you More" he chuckled before getting in the car as well.

//////////

JIN (Jineus):

Jin told you about the Sound check they had today and you said you couldn't make it but were secretly planning to surprise Jin. He had made a Big deal about How Jimin's girlfriend was going to be there and so, he wanted his there as well.

"Yahh, Jagi you don't even have to come to support the others but just me" You remembered him saying. You laughed to yourself as you pulled into the reserved parking of the Arena. You got out and headed towards the back entrance and showed your pass to the security as they let you in without much hesitation, you were excited because you knew Jin would be so goofy and more energetic now as he always was however, seeing you just added to that. So you finally saw a hall entrance that was lit Dimly with blue and purple light fixtures and that's how you knew the boys were in there.

You walked into the main part of the huge arena just looking around at all the seats that would be filled later. You looked towards the stage to see Jin instantly and once you locked eyes he smiled like a kid on Christmas but soon turned his attention to the lady in front of him, he looked at you with a mischievous grin on his face and your smile Instantly turned into confusion.

"What the hell are you up to Kim?" You mumbled. You walked up the steps that led to the stage "Y/n you made it" Namjoon chirped "Yeah Hi Joonie" you said with your eyes fixated on your boyfriend and the woman in front of him. You got closer to them and Jin looked at you

"Ohhh my Sweet Y/n you made it! " He said acting shocked as if he hadn't known you were there. He then looked at the woman and turned her to face you.

"This is Seungnin, our beautiful Tech support lady.. Isn't she gorgeous?" Jin asked looking at you innocently but you could see right through that innocent facade.

"She's stunning" you smiled kindly at the woman facing you, she bowed to you "Thank you I'll excuse myself" she blushed and scurried away. You looked at Jin smirking who was just shocked "That didn't bother you?"

"What didn't?" You asked pretending to be clueless.

"Me complimenting her like that. It didn't make you even a little.." Jin trailed off "Jealous? Oh no honey I know you only have eyes for me" you said. "Ahh yes my beautiful Princess, you know I was just trying to bug you. Nobody can make me as happy as you do" Jin gently said while wrapping his arms around your shoulders, and leaning your head on his chest to embrace you.

"I know" you sighed contently.

-

-

P.S. Y/F/A means Your Favorite Artist😊. Please let me know if you enjoyed it by liking or reblogging♥ I love you babies so much I swear💓. Reblog if you want the Rap Line Next. ♡