#no one ever talks about that scene where he yanks oscar out from between that lady's legs and she acts like she just... yeah definitely one

[another-kshit-blog]

I feel like he ws just straight up gonna tell her "no, I was the demon" and that's really funny

Also he's really wearing a lot of mascara today, gotta look his best while serving a lady I guess

#sebastian michaelis #sieglinde sullivan #kuroshitsuji #black butler #manga cap #no one ever talks about that scene where he yanks oscar out from between that lady's legs and she acts like she just... yeah definitely one #of the many weird what the fuck kshit moments #honestly there are so many i barely notice most of them

[tanakavox]

Look into the multiverse

This is being crossposted from fanfiction.net. my react fic. This chapter reacts where done by @hasbrobear (sorry for tagging you two times in a row dude.) Enjoy. The rest will be up here soon.

Are you sure this is the right place?" Mercury asked as he, Cinder and Emerald were walking into a theater. In front of them Salem lead the group.

"Yes, it is. The coordinates are correct from Watts machine." She said as they entered and was met with another group. And a rather large one.

"RUBY!" Cinder said as she raised her bow and pulled her arm back and Emerald and Mercury got ready to fight as Salem sighed.

The other group consisted of Ozpin, Oscar, team RWBY and JNR. Who got in front of the two and pulled their weapons out. Then suddenly all their weapons vanished out of thin air.

"What the!?"

"My Weapons!"

"MY BABY!" Ruby yelled looking for Crescent Rose.

"My legs!" Mercury fell and Emerald started to laugh and covered her mouth while Cinder ran at Ruby who then raised her arms up to fight her. Then before they could reach each other, a light barrier comes between them. "What the!?" Cinder yelled as she roared and punched it. It just glowed.

Then the large screen begins to start, and the groups look at it. Both in confusion and curiosity. Salem decided to tell them. "Look, we have been all brought here o watch these…. Images of ourselves, why and how? I do not know, so unless you want to be forced out, you'll sit down and watch." She said as Ozpin said the same thing and they all sat to watch the large screen.

The scene starts start with Cinder Fall in a library, reading a book. A voice speaks out to her, but she doesn't turn to look, continuing to read the book.

"Cinder its you." Emerald said as Cinder merely looked at her other version, momentarily cursing herself as she looked better there than she did now.

Though the other side were more concerned about why Cinder was there, she could possibly be somewhere that can give her more power, and cinder with more power leads to more concerns.

"So, you're looking for the book of ancient Legends. The tale of the Dark knight warrior known as Ozma?"

"Ozma." Ruby said recalling the story that Jinn had told them about, she looked back at Salem who then looked at her their eyes connected, and she gave ruby a seething glare that made her yelp.

'Ozma as a dark knight huh? Rather flattering title.' Salem thought, just imagining her once love becoming an agent of evil, she shivered a little inside before looking at the screen more.

While Ozpin was more than intrigued about his other self, he had to keep a close eye for any key details in the screen that could help him better understand it.

The speaker steps into the light revealing Raven Branwen, her face having odd look marking on the side.

Cinder still does not turn to look at Raven and closes the book.

"Mom…" Yang said as she lightly glared at the woman, still mad about what happened at the camp, and at Haven. But she was wondering what those markings were as she narrowed her eyes.

"Hmmph, so this was the woman who supposedly slew you." Salem said checking if there were any key things on Raven, so far those markings were the only concern.

Cinder seethed looking at the branwen, wanting nothing more than to kill her.

"That's not what I'm looking for" She replied, placing the book back on the self. "Leave me."

'What is she looking for then.' Ozpin wondered as he was a bit curious about why Raven was there, and what Cinder could possibly want.

"Then what are you looking?" Raven asked, paying Cinder request no mind. The older woman frowns a bit.

"A Demon, that impregnates a woman, who then bears twins. A boy and girl. That is the story isn't it?

Cinder pulls her Kanata from its sheath and points it at Raven, still not having turn her gaze at the older woman.

"Ew…" Nora said a little grossed out about a demon actually doing it with a woman. Though in her mind she imagined it to be some sort of freaky Grimm creature.

Seeing her reaction Cinder raised a brow and so did Salem, it brought some suspicion to her character in the screen. They both had the same thought that this Cinder could be the twin daughter.

"Hmm not bad." Ruby said seeing Cinders Katana, She didn't like the woman, and seeing her weapon didn't like her much more, it was basic in her eyes.

"Leave me." She speaks softly. "I won't tell you a third time."

Some of them were getting a bit pumped and excited for a fight, like Nora and Mercury, though the others wondered what would happen between the two, they were both strong and in their last match Raven came out on top, could she do it again though.

There is a bit of silence as Raven look at the blade, seemly not affected by Cinder's actions. She grabs the blade with two of her fingers.

"People inherently fear evil. However," Raven began as she walked toward the young woman, not caring that the blade sliced her finger. Blood began to drip on the floor.

"Occasionally, a Person may become seduced by evil."

After Raven finished speaking, Cinder finally turns and looks at her, the amber eyed woman , her expression unreadable.

"Uhhh That's… Creepy." Nora commented as she saw how Raven was unfazed by cutting her finger on a long blade. Especially when she saw the blood drip down.

"That's… that's not what your moms like, right?" Blake asked a little frightened by the woman on the screen.

"No, but now I kind of glad she's like how she is." Yang replied while Cinder narrowed her eyes a bit, the raven on the screen must've been like her in a way. Wanting more power.

"What are you getting at?" She inquires, placing her blade back in its sheath.

"What!? No fight scene, no slicing or any action!?" Nora yelled as she wanted to see two enemies fight each other and hoped that Cinder on the screen would fall.

"Calm your beast Ozpin, some of us are trying to watch." Salem said smirking as she saw Nora's glare. She was easy to anger in this situation.

"Its alright Nora just ignore her." Ren said as Jaune nodded and calmed Nora down by patting her shoulder. The Valkyrie sighed and pouted as she sat in her chair.

Raven smiles a bit before responding.

"First… You must share with me the story of Ozma."

"Is anyone else confused, or is it just me?" Oscar asked as he had no idea what was happening in the screen, the others thought the same thing and were utterly confused, even Salem, and Ozpin didn't know what was going on, and one of them didn't like it.

The scene cuts and transitions to a shot of the moon. The sound of blade clashing against each other and as the scene continues there are two figures fighting on top of a large roofless building. As they fight Yang's voice is heard.

"You heard of it haven't you? The legend of Spadra. My father used to tell the story to my sister and I when I was young..."

Ruby and her group were surprised to heard Yang's voice come out and apparently it turns out that Ruby herself was also involved in the story as well.

As she speaks, the two figures continue to fight as it rains.

"Long ago in ancient times, a demon rebel against his own kind for the sake of the human race."

One of the figure's attempts to jab the other with their greatsword, the other parry and attack with a downward slice aimed for the shoulder with their blade. They jump out of the way.

"With his sword, he shut the portal to the demonic realm and sealed the evil entities off from our human world. But since he was a demon himself, his power was also trapped on the other side."

Yang's voice chuckles before she continued.

"I never believed it. I thought it was a child's fairy tale."

"Yeah. We thought fairy tales weren't real too." Jaune said as team RWBY and his team agreed. Ever since the Maidens, and other stories were actually real, they didn't know what to believe now.

The two opponents slice and swipe and each other landing the blows. Blood spills to the ground and is washed away by the rain as the two keep going despite this.

"But I discovered that this so-called legend wasn't a myth. Ozma existed."

Yang's voice wavered as she said it, as if she still couldn't believe that it was true.

"How do I know? Well…" She trailed off.

The two were lock in an exchange, sparks flying as the sound of blade clashing once again appeared. The one of their face's where finally shown and one was Jaune Arc.

"Hey look jaune, its you!" Nora said as she looked at her leader who was mostly confused about this,

"I met the children of Ozma… Both of them."

The second figure face was also shown. It was Cinder Fall from earlier.

"Though the blood the same blood of their father flowed through their veins, the two battle each other fiercely like arch enemies.

Cinder and Jaune's clash of blades became faster and fiercer to the point where their blades could not be seen as anymore but blurs. The two of them move fast enough that it seem like the rain had come to a standstill. They smacked their blade into each other and the shockwave from it made a small slash from the water on the ground. They were lock against each other, staring each other dead in the eyes.

Everyone's eyes widened when they saw and heard what Yang was talking about. "No way." Nora said as she realized that Jaune, and Cinder were siblings in this.

"Your kidding me." Cinder said as she looked at Jaune who just looked more annoyed and confused about the ordeal.

"It seemed as if they derived some sort of twisted pleasure from this sibling rivalry."

And true to Yang's words, we see that Jaune and Cinder are enjoying the fight as they both has smirked at each other. But then with a flick of her wrist, Cinder sends Jaune's sword flying away. And in that moment take her chance to impale her brother with her blade, driving into his abdomen a bit before yanking it out. Jaune begins to fall to his back.

"But in the end…"

Jaune lay on the ground of his back and Cinder runs her fingers through her hair, trying to dry it off.

"Only one was left standing"

"What!?" Ruby said as she saw that Jaune had apparently died. She like her other friends were pissed and gave cinders glares, while the fall maiden was passive about it.

Cinder goes to pick up Jaune's sword and walks away. As her brother tries to get up, she turns around. The scene cuts once again and is on a black screen. The only noise that can be heard is the sound of a telephone ringing. It then shows a room. There a drum set in one corner, a pool table in one, a jukebox in near a door that leads out outside. In the middle of the room was a desk and it had the ringing phone as well as a box of pizza. A shirtless Jaune shows up drying his hair as he walks toward the desk, he kicks the chair up to its legs, and as he sits down place his feet on the desk hard enough for the phone to launch up. He catches answering the call.

"Hey, look guys he's alive! Jaune your alive!" Nora said excitingly as she shook her leader and made him yell out as she and the others were glad their friend hadn't died. Meanwhile Cinder let out a groan seeing that he wasn't dead.

Though as they were relieved one girl among them had her cheeks dusted red when she saw Jaune's toned body on the screen and looked at the original before blushing more and turning to see what else would happen.

"Sorry, not open for business yet." Jaune throw the phone back on the stand, ending the call. He sighs and grabs a slice of pizza

"I haven't even picked a name for this joint and I'm already getting calls."

Raven enter the shop to see Jaune eating his pizza. The blonde stops eating to look at the red eyed woman.

"You a customer too?" He asked, looking annoyed. "Well, if you wanna use the bathroom help yourself. The toilet's in the back."

"I don't think she there for that." Nora pointed out while Yang focused on what she would do.

Raven pay him no mind and walk around the room, almost like she was a vulture waiting to strike.

"Is your name Jaune? Son of Ozma?"

Jaune turns and glare at the woman.

"Where did you hear that?" He questioned.

"Guessing he's still pissed about the stab."

Raven smirks and walk up to the desk with her arms behind her back.

"From your sister." She looks down and see the neckless Jaune was wearing. Raven look at it for a few seconds before continuing.

'Why was she look at the necklace so much.' Salem and Ozpin thought as they focused on her and the item of interest.

"She sent this invitation for you." She said. "Please accept it."

After saying that she flips the desk over, Jaune jumping as soon as she does. He lands on his feet and pulls out a pistol to shoot her, but she had all but disappear. The son of Ozma places his gun away, walking forward and catching the pizza box in his hand.

Yang groaned and crossed her arms annoyed. "She ran away of course."

"This jaune is very acrobatic" Blake noticed and said while Ruby drools over the guns, and more than just one.

"Invitation huh?" He mutters to himself. The demon hybrid goes to take a bite out of a slice of pizza but suddenly, several creature's wielding scythe appear and impaled the young man on them. Blood spilled on the floor.

"GAAAHHHH!/JAUNE!" Nora and Ruby screamed thinking jaune had died while the others on their side looked in shock.

Jaune then thrusted his palm forward, smacking the creature away from him killing it. The creatures look up to see the Son of Ozma twirling the mask that their ally wore on his fingertips. Jaune walks forward, with blades in his arms and legs, dragging along one of the creatures for a ride. Seemly not bothered by the implement. He goes over to the to his jukebox, kicking the demon he dragged along and grabbling a slice of Pizza. The Blonde rip a blade out of his chest and toss it up at one of his celling fans, causing it to fall on top of a few demon.

Everyone was shocked that Jaune is still alive and kicking. While Ozpin and Salem think that Jaune might be immortal like the grimm queen herself.

"This party's getting crazy! Let's rock!" He cheers and goes to turn on his jukebox, but it's doesn't work. He tries a few more time before slamming his fist into the jukebox hard enough to dent it and music starts to play, tapping his foot in tone with the music. Jaune goes on to take down the demon with ease, using the blades on his arms and legs to kill the demons. Using his guns Evory and Ivory to shoot them to bit, using one of the demons as a skateboard as he shoots the others while pass by. Grabbing his sword and flipping his pool table to shoot one pool ball and having it collide with all the other to smack the demons it the face. In no time the demons were defeated. Jaune look over his office with a frown.

They laugh at Jaune's attempts to turn on his jukebox. Jaune slumped a bit while yang smirked and patted his shoulder.

Then everyone Expressed their surprise that that how well he's able to fight while Ruby drools a bit over his gun skills and his sword.

"Damnit. Already wreck the place up and I haven't even named it yet. Cinder better pay up."

He smiles however and grabs his jacket.

"Well Cindy. I can tell this is gonna be one hell of a party!" He shouts kicking down his door.

Then as he moved the screen turned off. "'WHAT!? It can't end there!" Nora said as Ruby let out her own groan at the action being stopped.

The viewers in the theatre do take notice to the screen turns back on and a song plays. It seems like another is going to play.

#rwby #rwby jaune arc #rwby ruby rose #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #rwby mercury black #salem #ozpin #cinder fall #emerald sustrai #rwby nora valkyrie #rwby lie ren #react fic #dmc au #look into the multiverse #rwby raven branwen

[ourownsideimagines]

The Eye of the Storm (Crowley x Fem!College Student!Reader)

Characters: Crowley, fem!reader, reader’s asshole ex boyfriend, a friend named Raul.

Requested: Yes 

Requested by: Anon

Point of View: Second Person

Summary: When your ex won’t stop bothering you, your boyfriend Crowley takes it upon himself to help you.

Warnings: Stalking from an ex, harassment from ex, unwanted touching from ex, minimal editing. I might have cursed???

Words: 1436

A/N: I sprinkled in a thing from the book where when Crowley is under stress his eyes go red.

---

You’d never exactly thought of school as a safe haven - especially not now.

You’d been going to the same university for a number of years now, and in that time had met and dated a young man named Steven. The relationship had only lasted a little under a year, and ended when you’d realized just how controlling he was.

He’d never let you go out with friends, especially not other male or masculine-presenting friends. He had to know where you were at all times, and if you couldn’t talk for a certain period of time (like during tests or going to the cinema) he threw a fit. The last straw was when he began to track your phone.

After the initial break up he continued to show up after your classes, and he’d follow you around like a lost puppy begging for forgiveness. He even found your new place of work, much to your dismay. But now it seemed like he was finally leaving you alone. It had been months since your last encounter with him, and you had happily began to date the demon Crowley. You’d known him for a while, having met him your freshman year when taking a trip to A. Z. Fell and Co. Bookshop in Soho with your sister. You couldn’t remember just how you’d become friends, let alone how you’d figured out what he was, but you could remember every moment of falling in love with him.

In fact, he’d been the one to finally convince you to dump Steven. You’d neglected to tell him about the harassment that had followed, not wanting to get him all mixed up in your affairs but when your relationship developed you became nervous - you knew you’d have to tell him at one point or another. When it came to an end, it was a relief.

At least, you thought it was.

As another class came to an end, you exited the classroom with your friend, Raul, who was excitedly blabbing on about his plans for the next essay. You were only half listening, and your eyes wandered down the hall. You felt your blood run cold when you spotted Steven waiting by the exit route you usually took. You grabbed Raul’s arm and he came to a halt.

“Let’s take the other exit.” You said. Raul gave you a funny look.

“Is something wrong, (name)?” He asked. “You look white as a sheet.” You took in a deep breath.

“There’s just someone I’ve been trying to avoid over there.” You tugged him back in the direction of the other exit. It would mean more walking to get to your class, but you’d take that over Steven any way.

“Okay, okay,” He laughed nervously but allowed you to guide him. You weren’t sure if Steven saw you, but at that point you didn’t much care. Maybe if he saw you with Raul, he’d have the brains to keep away. Sure, despite his height and his muscles, Raul wouldn’t hurt a fly. But Steven didn’t know that.

“Oscar’s waiting for me in the cafeteria,” He told you. Oscar was his boyfriend. “Do you want to join us?”

“Can’t.” You sighed. “My next class starts in ten minutes.”

“Oh, then you better run.” Raul laughed. “Don’t want to miss Mr. Gibson’s lecture.” Raul had taken Mr. Gibson’s class last semester and would often listen to you rant on about it. And to be honest, a part of you couldn’t wait to get to the class. You weaved in and out of foot-traffic, head down as you texted Crowley, asking him to come pick you up. Typically you’d take the bus and then grab a taxi to Aziraphale’s shop, but you didn’t want to risk being stuck on public transport with Steven. Crowley texted you back almost immediately, saying to meet him out front when your class let out.

Your mind couldn’t help but wander during Mr. Gibson’s lecture. Typically you’d be able to at least scribble down a word here and there but all you could think of was the fear that Steven was waiting for you.

And he was. You didn’t notice him at first because he was unusually blended in with the crowd. It didn’t take you long to spot him, though, and your feet instinctively began to carry you a bit faster away. If there hadn’t been such a crowd flooding out of the classroom with you, you had no doubt he would have tried to make a scene - then make it look like you had started it. He was good at that kind of stuff, and it was another one of the many reasons you’d broken things off.

You were halfway to the meeting point with Crowley when he’d finally caught up with you. You tried to ignore him, each gentle call of your name. And you tried not to flinch at the more aggressive ones.

“Love,” He grabbed for your wrist, which you quickly yanked away, turning finally to face him.

“Don’t touch me.” You snapped at him. A few people nearby turned their heads, and you had to bite your tongue to keep from snapping at them as well. “Don’t call me that. I don’t want to talk to you, leave me alone.” You began walking again, and Steven followed.

“Love, c’mon I haven’t seen you in ages.” He didn’t make an attempt to grab you this time, to your relief. But he wasn’t slowing down. The cars were coming into view. A part of you hoped Crowley had decided to stand outside his car - the other part worried momentarily what might happen if he was.

“That’s why I broke up with you.” You were almost there. You began to walk a bit faster, but Steven sped up to keep pace.

“C’mon, I’ve learned my lesson, this really isn’t funny anymore.” To anyone, his tone would have sounded playful. But you knew better. He was seconds away from snapping, and that terrified you.

“You’re right, it’s not funny, so stop following me.” You all but spat. Just when you thought you were in the clear Steven seized your wrists and pulled you to him, face to face. “What the hell, let me go!” You cried out.

“Look at me,” He demanded. “Look at me.” You weren’t going to give him the satisfaction. “Come on, love, let me see those pretty eyes-”

“Pardon me,” A wave of relief crashed over you when Crowley’s words hit your ears. “But I’m gonna have to ask you to get your hands off of my partner.” He said, and you could hear the low hiss in his voice.

“(Name), who the bloody hell is this?”

“I’m her boyfriend.” Crowley put an arm around your waist and pulled you away from Steven, who had fought to keep his hold on your wrists, but you jerked both arms back quickly. Steven was flabbergasted. “And who might you be?”

“My ex,” You mumbled, remembering that they had never met during your period of dating. “Steven.”

“How… How could you do this to me?” Steven put a hand over his heart. “We had something, and you’re gonna throw it away for this…” Steven stopped mid sentence as his gaze came back to Crowley.

“This what?” Crowley hissed. Steven said nothing. You could see a faint glow of red beneath Crowley’s sunglasses. “What am I, Steven?” Said man opened his mouth to speak, but found his throat dry. “That’s what I thought. Now, how about you go back to your normal, boring classes? And how about you start leaving (name) alone? Because if I ever hear you’ve bothered her again you’ll have much more to worry about than failing the semester.”

There was a split second between the end of Crowley’s words and Steven making a mad dash back towards campus. The red from behind Crowley’s glasses had yet to fade, and you took it upon yourself to calm him down. You took his hand gently, and his head snapped in your direction. You brought his hand up to your face, placing a gentle kiss to his palm before pressing your face into it. You nuzzled his hand for a moment before reaching up your other hand to caress his face. The red began to dull, and if the two of you hadn't been standing out there in the open you might have dared to try to remove his glasses. You would have to settle for gentle touches though, which you didn’t mind.

Crowley rested his forehead against yours.

“I hate men.” He murmured.

“Yeah,” You replied. “Yeah, I know.”

#good omens #good omens x reader #Crowley x reader #crowley x fem!reader #Crowley x reader good omens #crowley x fem!reader good omens #crowley #crowley good omens #anthony j crowley #x reader #x fem!reader #reader insert #good omens reader insert #my writing #reese writes #the ineffable queue

[goatsandgangsters]

Okay so now it is time for The Thinky Thoughts About Actual Hamlet, rather than just The Encounter

tl;dr: the production was iNCREDIBLE, the entire cast was phenomenal, the staging was very interesting and they made a lot of cool choices, it was also one of the funniest productions of Hamlet I’ve ever seen and there were times when I laughed until my sides hurt, but also I wanted to cry very often too, my review is going to admittedly be Biased, but like I said, the entire cast was phenomenal

The entirety of the opening scene was done with all of the lights completely off, except for the occasional very, very dim spot on the ghost. This was repeated again when Hamlet tags along for the watch, and I thought it was a great lighting choice to have us literally in the dark

Regarding humorous touches, Anatol’s first line when he’s addressed is like... he’s just taken a sip of his drink and gets a very deer-in-headlights “I was called on by the teacher and I don’t know the answer” look and momentarily just kind of... freezes with panic. There was a lot of subtle humor and also humanizing.

They stripped away a lot of the nobility and the pomp from the characters and they seemed very un-artistocratic. It really centered it as a family drama, which I loved. Cladius also had such a wonderful skeeze factor to him, like he was more your gross drunk uncle than your well-bred aristocrat uncle

The “methinks I see my father” was hilarious, with horatio and co. freezing and turning in sync, completely panicked that they’re about to see the ghost again. the humor of that whole exchange was really fresh

huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurgh ophelia and laertes sibling feelings. they completely nailed the teasing sibling dynamic

also, um. so those jeans that he was wearing were... very tight. very, very tight. they were tighter than the skinny jeans I was wearing, let’s put it that way. and at one point he bent over directly in front of us and uh, wow. worth the price of admission just for that (a very talented actor but um, that was a bonus)

In general, I really love Polonius. He was bumbling and like Such a Dad, without seeming too incompetent? I think sometimes he can be too much of a buffoon and you’re left wondering why he’s been employed this long? And like, he was definitely a buffoon, but it was too much? That, or maybe my threshold for belief that absolute idiots can hold positions of political power has expanded

And as long as I’m on the subject, Ophelia was incredible. Easily my second-fave performance of everyone. She was very... solid? I feel like acting choices usually make Ophelia very delicate and waifish and fragile, but she felt like a snarky young girl who might be the protagonist of a coming of age indie movie about a snarky young girl making her way in indie new york, with like, a guitar or something. You know? Like, you never got the sense that she was a breakable wisp. She stress ate a lasagna on stage. She “nope”d the fuck out of her brother giving her The Sex Talk and rolled under a table to ignore him. #Relatable

Most of the cast doubled as the theatre troupe that comes for a visit, which was great for, you know, reasons. Reasons of your fave not fucking off to France for half the show

I won’t lie, there were definite times when I completely tuned out what was happening on stage in favor of watching Anatol just like... exist. His calves, man. His calves are mighty and sculpted. He was moving furniture during one scene and I have no idea what anyone said. I cannot express to you how tight these jeans were

Keegan-Michael Key doing the prologue of the play-within-a-play was the honest to god funniest thing I’ve ever seen. It was just five straight minutes of him making odd noises and gesticulating wildly. I laughed until my face hurt. I laughed until my sides ached. I cannot remember the last time I laughed that hard. And this is not something I usually say about a production of Hamlet

My favorite part about this though was that I get the sense he may have gone on longer than usual? Because when he started it, the cast was relatively composed, and then even they started to lose it. Like there was a definite shift where like... he was done but then oH NO HE WAS NOT DONE and you could tell suddenly that the whole cast was struggling to keep their shit together. anatol went from stoic, to hand over his mouth with telltale eyebrows raised so you knew he was smiling, to honest to god covering his entire face with his hand

Oh, going backwards a little bit, Oscar Isaac was very frequently in his underwear and stabbed a poor defenseless lasagna to death. It was not honestly as bad as what the cryptic tweets about it made it seem. Unless he decided to scale back that night, but he only stabbed it to death. But yeah, I have... seen more of him than perhaps I cared to see, if I’m honest

So, okay, not to make it seem like Oscar Isaac wasn’t amazing, because he was absolutely amazing, but this was the first production of Hamlet that really seemed like it was about the ensemble. Everything else I’ve seen has always been Hamlet centered, with everything else always seeming to orbit him (which, you know, he is the title), but this was very much... I really felt like this was as much about everyone else as it was about him. All in all, it was just such a stellar cast

The scene with Hamlet joking about Polonius’s dead body is hilarious no matter what, but it’s even better when he literally kicks someone out of their front row seat to throw Polonius into it and hide him under a playbill (there was, on the whole, a lot of audience engagement)

SPEAKING OF POLONIUS, dear god I feel bad for this guy. and for whoever has to clean the theatre after every show. BEARING IN MIND THAT THE STAGE IS CARPETED, the poor guy is lying dead on the ground, while Ophelia drags in two giant plants from the lobby of the theatre, yanks out the plant, and dumps two giant things of dirt on him. and then arranges the flowers on his face.

which, getting ahead of myself here, but instead of having an off-stage death, she hauls an actual working hose on stage, completely drenches herself, places the hose on the mound of dirt that is Polonius, WHICH IS NOW  QUICKLY BECOMING A RIVER OF MUD ON THE CARPETED FLOOR, and then she lies down next to him to also die in the mud and the flowers, which was visually very powerful, but I also couldn’t stop thinking about how uncomfortable it must be to lie on stage covered in mud

but yeah, backtracking a bit. the BELLOWING ROAR OF “WHERE IS THIS KING” from off-stage as Anatol comes charging on and immediately runs at Claudius with a butcher knife. mm boy.

contrasted with the only moment in the play where I actually did cry, which was the piteous way that he crumpled upon hearing of Ophelia’s death. hhhhhhhrgh

I’m not sure whether it was hilarious or painful that Polonius and Ophelia played the gravediggers. I mean they WERE hilarious and that scene was so excellent, but also like. ouch. harsh. way harsh. way to pour mud in the wounds. (there was so much mud on this poor carpet)

Hamlet and Horatio were chilling in the audience for this scene. I’m pretty sure Keegan was on some woman’s lap.

and now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for, kICK HIS ASS TINY LAERTES!!!!!!!!!!!! and that’s the story of how I watched anatol (in very tight jeans) tackle oscar isaac to the ground and choke the fuck out of him in a giant pool of actual mud. oscar isaac’s face was actually turning red, I could see the tendons in anatol’s hands, and I was honestly a little concerned

anyway then Hamlet like... talked about himself or some shit while cuddling Ophelia’s dead body, but I was honestly paying more attention to Claudius and Horatio, who were still wrestling with Anatol in the mud. #filthy #noliterally

uUUMMMM WHAT ELSE WHAT ELSE well, okay, at that point. I kind of feel like I had already ascended onto another plane of existence, such was The Strength of that entire scene, between Polonius and Ophelia being hilarious gravediggers, the clever wordplay (and oh, the irony, of Polonius now being the one to best Hamlet in contest of words and wits), between me being in agony about brokenhearted and enraged Laertes, between Professional Mud Wrestling Smackdown ... what more could I possibly need in my life?

but yeah, then anatol and oscar isaac beat each other up in full fencing gear

then everyone was dead

me included

just drag my body on stage and throw it in with the rest of the carnage (and mud) because I am dead. completely dead. consider my mortal coil completely shuffled off. 

everyone was incredible, the choices they made were incredible, anatol’s jeans were incredible, the double casting was very deliberate and drew a lot of interesting parallels (the hecuba speech and laertes in general as foils for hamlet, by the same actor; polonius finally outwitting hamlet; and of course claudius as claudius and his brother goes without saying)

it was funny, it was moving, it was fresh, it was creative, it was stellar, it was very muddy

#this is REALLY LONG sorry but. I have a lot to say and also hamlet... is long #even though it absolutely DID NOT feel long at all #those were the fastest three and a half hours of my life #hamlet weekend

[sugasgrowl]

Saturdays (pt 1)

Genre: Fluff/Smut (in pt 2)

Member: Jungkook

Warnings: None 

Word Count: 4484

Summary: After three months of loneliness and insecurities while on tour, Jungkook comes home to you.

Part 2

This is just pure fluff tbh. But Part 2 will much more explicit (and will be posted within the next two or three days at most). Enjoy!

You weren’t sure exactly how long you’d been sitting on the window seat with your knees pulled into your chest, the cool wall leaching all the warmth from your spine through the thick material of your hoodie. All day you’d been lounging in the comfort of your apartment, basking in the calming serenity of the pouring rain pattering against the wide window. The view of the Seoul skyline piercing the gray swirling clouds above was beautiful in the most hazy and sleepy way, almost as if the entirety of South Korea had just woken up from a Saturday-afternoon nap and hadn’t yet wiped the sleep from its eyes.

Saturdays were one of your favorite days, mainly because you didn’t have to worry about your usual responsibilities of college and work. You preferred to spend most of your Saturdays at home to recharge before having to finish up any assignments you’d been procrastinating over on Sunday, and you often found yourself devoting Saturdays to pampering yourself. Eating whatever you wanted, messily slathering on a face mask, taking a long steaming bath to relax your tense muscles, the works. At that point in the day, you’d already cooked yourself chocolate chip pancakes (You woke up around 11:30am, but who’s to say pancakes have to be reserved solely for breakfast time?) while your favorite moisturizing mask was caked on your skin. You stuffed the fluffy, sweet deliciousness in your face ravenously as you binge-watched YouTube videos, the only worry you had being that you may not have enough syrup.

Now you sat, four hours later, curled up by the window, still sucked into the void that is YouTube and enjoying the melancholy rainfall that was baptizing the streets of Seoul.

As much as you loved Saturdays, you couldn’t help but feel sad that you’d spent so many without your boyfriend around to participate in the self-care. The two of you had made it a tradition to spend Saturdays together and bond over cartoons and unhealthy snacks. Even though he basically lived with you when he wasn’t forced to stay at the dorms or travel for a tour, Jungkook was insistent on coming over and talking about each of your weeks through mouthfuls of pizza.

You heaved a sigh at the slight sinking feeling in your chest at remembering the last Saturday Jungkook had been home. The two of you had both gotten a little too tipsy (aka: you were both piss drunk) on cheap wine and ended up singing at the top of your lungs and clumsily dancing around the apartment to the Friends opening credits, the obnoxiously loud volume of the TV and your booming laughter causing your neighbor to complain the next morning. You were both ridiculously hungover the next day, and poor Kookie had a six hour dance practice starting at one in the afternoon. The stubborn motherfucker insisted that he was fine, dammit, and he would just go to practice and suffer through “like a man”. The memory of Namjoon calling you to tell you that Jungkook had puked all over the practice room floor in the middle of rehearsal brought a small smile to your face. God, he’s such an idiot.

You groaned as you raised your arms above your head in a stretch, all the joints in your body seeming to snap at once. At least he’s coming home today.

You unlocked your phone and reread the last messages you’d gotten from him.

[Jungkook] 6:03am: I’m getting on the plane. I’ll be home with you soon. I love you

[You] 11:32am: Be safe! I love you too

[Jungkook] 11:41am: Well good morning

[Jungkook] 11:42am: I guess I’m glad nothing bad happened to me. You would’ve just slept right on through it.

[You] 11:42am: To be honest, I’m a bit disappointed. I was expecting you and Taehyung to find a way to crash the plane by now.

[Jungkook] 11:45am: Lmao sorry to disappoint but Tae is sitting with Jimin instead this time

[You] 11:45am: Did you make a scene

[You] 11:46am: Did you #expose them for the cheating boyfriends that they are

[You] 11:46am: Did #Nochu come thru

[Jungkook] 11:48am: Of course. My emotional speech about their betrayals made the stewardess and several passengers cry.

[You] 11:51am: Where is this man’s Oscar

You didn’t hear from him again until an hour ago, and you could practically feel his excitement buzzing through the phone grasped in your hands.

[Jungkook] 3:30pm: We’re about to land!

[Jungkook] 4:17pm: We’re waiting for our luggage!!

[Jungkook] 4:39pm: Jimin’s bag is lost

[Jungkook] 4:56pm: God this is taking forever

[Jungkook] 4:59pm: I just asked if we could leave Jimin behind but they said no

[Jungkook] 5:11pm: We’re leaving the airport!!!!!!!!!!!! I’ll be home soon!!!!!!!

The last message made you smile so big it made your cheeks hurt. He was so excited to be coming home--and you were so excited for him to rest, if even for a short while. You knew that he was so much more exhausted than he would ever admit. Jungkook loved his job more than anything, but he was still human. Well, you debated that fact on occasion. The boy had a tendency to go and go and go until he was half dead, but even then, the average person would have already been put in a padded room from the amount of stress he faced on the daily.

The past three months had been rough without him--it only being the second time Jungkook had ever had to leave you on tour with Bangtan--but aside from feeling lonely at night after having a particularly rough day, you were handling yourself amazingly well and even gave your boyfriend the space that you felt that he wanted during the stress of touring. Jungkook, on the other hand…

It wasn’t that he wasn’t handling it well. It was more like he just missed you so damn much that he didn’t know what to do with himself. While the touring process was new to you, you had easily adapted because that was just what had to be done and it was all you'd ever known. The first time that Jungkook had to leave for a tour, you had merely been on a few extremely casual dates, so there were really no huge emotional investments on either side yet. You’d formed a closer bond over time by sending texts and links to ridiculous YouTube videos back and forth--Jungkook’s sense of humor more often than not making you snort out loud in the middle of your lectures, the sudden outbursts forcing you to cover it up by pretending to go into a coughing fit. After the first tour, loving Jungkook through a pixelated screen had just become half of your relationship, and you'd both accepted that. But that didn't mean it was easy.

You knew Jungkook wasn’t used to having someone to miss while he was away aside from his family, and the unfamiliar emptiness in his arms where you would normally be made him feel exposed and vulnerable--like he was going into battle without his most important and protective armor. The insecurities plagued him, a swirling mass of what ifs echoing against the interior of his skull. There were many nights where you would be roughly yanked out of sleep, your ringtone blaring so loud that you would scramble to find your phone amidst the tangle of sheets and the throw of darkness--your heart beating so hard in your chest that it felt like it was going to burst through your ribs and flop into bed beside you, only to find that it was merely Jungkook needing to hear your voice.

The last night that he had called in such a state was a week ago, the conversation still fresh on your mind as you waited for him to come home from the airport, your eyes trailing after a couple of silvery raindrops that rolled down the windowpanes in front of you.

“Hello?” That night you answered on the sixth ring with a tongue thick with sleep and eyes still unable to fully open.

“Baby?” Jungkook’s voice was almost always strained when he called you like this, as if he was trying his hardest to keep from showing just how vulnerable and needy he was--although you always knew. That time in particular, the pet name tumbled past his lips in a hurried rush.

“Hey, Jungkookie,” you smiled as you rubbed your eyes. He hesitated, the four seconds worth of grainy silence confirming your suspicions of him calling out of feeling alone in a crowd of six. “Bad day?”

He sighed lowly, and you could practically see him raising his thumb to his lips to nervously gnaw on the ragged cuticle. You could just faintly make out the sound of a rustling somewhere on the other end of the line, and you knew he was bouncing his leg, the nervous energy desperately trying to escape.

“Sort of...” he trailed off, not wanting to voice his actual feelings, god forbid, but you always patiently waited in silence until he felt ready to talk. “I really miss you.”

“I miss you too, more than you know,” even with thousands of miles between the two of you, the sounds of the wheels turning in his head were nearly audible as he tried to think of how to word his burdens.

“Talk to me, boy…” You sang the phrase to the tune of Rock Your Body by Justin Timberlake as out of tune and off pitch as you could, your voice that was still gravelly with sleep only adding to the effect. Anything to make Jungkook smile.

You often used this trick to get him to spill whatever was bothering him, and more often than not, it would illicit an airy chuckle to escape from him and begin to thaw the anxiety that had begun icing over his stomach. But that time all you got was a weak puff of air, a sorry excuse for a laugh.

He must really be upset, you thought.

After a moment, he spoke.

“You don’t….regret being with me, do you?” his voice was quiet, and even through the phone you could see his eyes timidly glued to his lap as he picked at the frayed holes in his jeans. “I mean...do you resent that I have to leave you for so long? Do you wish that you were with someone...normal?”

You blinked in confusion.

“What?” your voice hitched up in surprise.

“Never mind. Forget I called,” he babbled, “I shouldn’t have woken you up. I mean, it’s what? Almost four in--”

“Jeon Jungkook, hush,” you firmly interrupted, causing nervous rambling to die in his throat. “Why would you ask me that?”

He paused.

“Um…” the humiliated blush that was burning his cheeks was nearly audible.

“I….” he began, but the words dissolved on his tongue like a bitter cotton candy. He let out a huff of frustration.

“I’m scared,” a tone of hopelessness tinged with shame dripped from his lilting voice. “I love you so much, and I’m scared that you’re going to realize that this? What we have? Isn’t what you deserve.”

Your brow furrowed as you processed his words. How could he be so dumb sometimes? Couldn’t he tell that you were madly in love with him? That he was your best friend, and you could never give him up for anything? You been together for almost a year, shouldn’t he know that by now?

“Jungkook--”

“I’m the man, I‘m supposed to be reassuring you! And instead I’m the one calling you all the time because I miss you so much that I can’t focus on anything. You don’t ever call me like this. I’m the one calling you in the middle of the night because I’m feeling real anxiety for the first time in my life over the thought of losing you. And I’m a fucking singer!” his voice was growing louder as he let his stress out into the light, and his bouncy Busan accent peaked through the more worked up he got.

“I get followed by crazy fans and have hate thrown at me every day, and yet the only thing that really cuts me deep is the thought of not getting to hear you do Justin Timberlake an injustice over the phone anymore.”

The sentiment was meant to be joking, because he didn��t like talking about his feelings nine times out of ten--it made him feel guilty for not being content with his job and his life all the time. He didn’t want to seem ungrateful.

He paused for a moment to catch his breath, and that was when you jumped in.

“Jungkook,” you softly said, “you do call me when you’re upset. I can always tell the difference between a call like one of these and a normal phone call to check in. But have you failed to notice that I always answer these urgent phone calls?”

He didn’t answer, so you continued.

“I’m scared, too. I’m terrified you’re going to find a much hotter, more talented, idol girlfriend to love. But the reason I don’t call you like this very often is because for one thing, I hardly ever know where the hell you are. For all I know, you’re back in Seoul chilling in the dorms right now,” Jungkook let out a single grunt of a chuckle.

“And I also don’t call you freaking out because right around the time when I start to feel lonely or sad, you end up calling me. I may not know where you are in the world, but you’ll always know where I am. I’m not going anywhere.”

There were a few beats of warm silence as your reassuring words released the tension in Jungkook’s shoulders and loosened the uneasy knot pulled lethally tight in his chest.

“So you don’t want someone normal?” the smile in his voice was evident, but you could still make out a hint of uncertainty in his tone.

“Kookie, if I wanted someone normal, I wouldn’t have chosen you to begin with, you dumbass,” a grin broke out across your face as the sound of Jungkook’s musical laughter floated back to your ears. The mental image of him throwing his head back with his eyes scrunched tight with a genuine smile made you swoon.

“Promise?” he giggled.

“I promise, okay? You being famous isn’t what makes you abnormal to me. It’s your inherent dorkiness and embarrassing outbursts,” you teased.

“Don’t act like you don’t contribute,” he sassed.

“You love it.”

“I really, really do.”

At the end of the phone call, you could tell he felt better. It was like his burden dissipating also lifted one from your own shoulders, as if you had cleared up an insecurity you didn’t even know you had.

Before you, Jungkook had never loved someone at all, period, and now that he was madly in love with you, he felt as if he wasn’t doing enough. He hated not being able to take you on dates, real dates, where you could both go out without worrying if he would be followed by fans or paparazzi. He hated that he couldn't hold you every night and feel your icy toes shove themselves under his thighs, the biting cold nearly making him jump out of his skin every time. He hated never getting to post the cute pictures that he would take of you while you slept, or the horrendous selfies you would send him as you sat in class while he was at rehearsal. He wanted to shout how much he loved you from the rooftops, loud enough for all of both North and South Korea to hear. But the job that he loved so much prevented that.

He hated those things, but god, did he love you.

The thought that after all that time, you would finally be able to see him, and hold him, and do all the things you were able to do with him three months prior made you feel as if your body weighed twenty pounds lighter. Loneliness was a much heavier burden than you realized.

The sound of keys jingling and sliding into the lock made your head automatically whip towards the long awaited noise. For whatever reason, be it the suddenness of the noise while you were so deep in thought or the fact that your Jungkook was finally home, your heart fluttered inside your chest. On instinct, you rose to your feet and stood with your eyes glued to the entrance to your apartment. He’s home.

When the door finally swung open after what felt like an eternity of him fumbling with the knob that always seemed to stick, Jeon Jungkook stood before you for the first time in three months.

His hair was a dishevelled mess, the caramel blond and faded pink stripes sticking up in every which way in wispy tendrils around his brow that had collected the brunt of the rain on the way to your apartment. If you hadn’t been so stunned, you would have laughed at the very obvious line where his hat had protected the crown of his head from getting wet, leaving the top of his hair to be dry and fluffy--a stark contrast to the ends of his locks that were dripping wet and darkened with the freezing rain. Jungkook’s soaked beanie was clutched so tightly in his fist that his knuckles were white and little streams of water were dripping down his fingers and onto the floor from the fabric being wrung so extremely. His black hoodie was bunched up over one of his hips, as if he hadn’t bothered to pull it down or fix it in it any way when he stepped off the subway. The fabric was significantly darker over the broad expanse of his shoulders and chest where the rain had initially struck him, making it hopelessly cling to his leanly muscled frame.

Your heart skipped a beat as your eyes raked over his body and landed on his face. Without a stitch of makeup on his skin to hinder your view, you were able to see every little detail on him--even from across the room. The wind must have been much chillier than you thought, because his nose and cheeks were bright pink from the abuse of the nipping temperatures. All of his freckles and dark circles and scars were right in front of you, and they were so goddamn gorgeous that it made a lump form in your throat. He was so real. So real and so solid and so very, very beautiful. It was as if his image was enhanced and hyper-focused after being without him for so long.

The expression of disbelief written on your face must have been amusing, because Jungkook’s red, chill-swollen lips quirked themselves into a bright grin.

“I’m home,” he softly said, his smile growing even wider--the rise of his cheeks making his sparkling eyes disappear into slits that sat on the top of his cheekbones and nearly all thirty-two of his teeth flash in your direction.

The broken silence snapped you out of your trance, and you quickly found yourself shuffling across the room towards your boyfriend while muttering an ecstatic mantra of “You’re home, you’re home, you’re home, you’re home!” with a beaming smile on your face. He met you halfway, his long strides carrying him to you in a matter of three steps. You threw your arms around his neck and nestled your frame into his torso. Muscled arms wound themselves around your waist--one firmly snaking around the circumference of your lower back and the other trailing up your spine to gently grip at the curve of your shoulder--as he mumbled an incoherent string of words declaring just how much he missed you, his voice sounding an awful lot like he was trying not to cry.

“I missed you too,” your fingers wound themselves into his hair as you felt a sting behind your eyes. “I missed you so incredibly much, Jungkook.”

A startled gasp flew past your lips when the tip of Jungkook’s frigidly cold nose nuzzled itself into the warmth of your neck.

“Jesus,” you attempted to squirm away from the way from the way he was using you to thaw himself, but he simply pulled you tighter into his body.

“You’re freezing! Why didn’t you wear a coat, Jungkook? You’re going to get sick, you idiot!” you half laughed and half scolded, the smile on your face causing a single happy tear to squeeze from your eye.

His cheeks rose devilishly in the crook of your neck. He’d missed your playful insults so much.

“I was so excited to see you that I forgot to grab one from the dorm when I dropped off my suitcase,” his words were muffled by the fabric of your sweatshirt.

His dripping wet clothes were beginning to soak into your own and make you shiver. You placed your palms on both of his cheeks and pulled him back to get a better look at him up close--and partially to get his icicle of a nose the hell away from your flesh. Your eyes locked with his, the nearly-black irises seeming to place gentle kisses on every inch of your face as he surveyed your features. His mouth dropped open in a look of false and exaggerated surprise, his doe eyes twinkling like a thousand galaxies.

“Are you crying, (Y/N)?” he chided.

You let out a laugh poked his cheek.

“Are you? You’re looking a bit waterlogged.”

“What?” his brows raised, feigning innocence.

“This?” he gestured to his soaked lashes. “No, no. It’s not crying if the tears never fall, baby.”

You giggled and pulled his face closer to yours, the scent of his favorite cologne washing over you in the close proximity. Your lips brushed against his in a teasing kiss, the feeling of his chilled lips lightly grazing yours sending chills down your spine.

“God, you’re so warm,” he whispered, awestruck, his breath fanning over your face.

Jungkook’s hand ran itself painstakingly slow up your arm and the side of your neck, his icy fingertips trailing against your skin so lightly that goosebumps erupted across the expanse of your exposed flesh. Long fingers knotted themselves in the hair at the back of your neck to pull you into a deeper kiss, and the way his fingernails lightly grazed your scalp had your breath catching in your throat. The kiss was slow and languid, everything seeming to be moving at half its normal speed. With each move he made, icy droplets would drip from the ends of Jungkook’s hair and splatter faintly on your skin. Every brush of his lips and unhurried swipe of his tongue against yours was purposeful. Each shaky breath and quiet sigh was a message, a secret code that you’d cracked months and months before--every tender nibble on your lower lip and stroke of his swollen lips against your jaw a declaration of how much he loved you, punctuated with gentle swipes of his thumb against your cheekbone.

The way Jungkook was not only suddenly present in your life again, but also painting your lips with his most intimate and passionate kisses was making you weak in the knees. After all the months of being apart, you finally had him back in your arms. The crushing feeling of love for him was so overwhelming that your head started to spin. You brought your hand up to rest against his cheek and pulled away from the kiss ever so slightly--just enough to speak.

“I missed you,” you rested your forehead against his and looked into his eyes, your mouth beginning to water at the sight of his flushed cheeks and blown out pupils.

“I missed you so much. God, every single day it was like I was walking around in a daze,” you gave him a lingering peck before continuing. “I love you so much, Jungkook. I don’t think you realize how much.”

You began peppering kisses along his jaw, gentle at first--pulling a satisfied hum from him that quickly turned into a low moan when you switched to leaving burning open mouthed kisses that seared the still freezing skin on his neck. The contrast of your warm mouth and his cold skin was so drastic that it felt almost painful, his nerve endings having long forgotten what warmth was in the mile long walk from the subway to your apartment.

You pulled back to make eye contact with him and make sure that he was listening to what you were saying. He stared back at you with hooded eyes, doing his best to actually process your words.

“I’m sorry if I seemed distant while you were away. I just figured you would want some space to focus on work,” you brought your lips back to his, kissing the top and then the bottom before slowly tracing his lower lip with your tongue. His hands gripped your hips in an attempt to keep from losing focus on your loving words.

“I let the space change from an inch to a mile, and you felt insecure in our relationship because of that. Am I correct?”

Jungkook’s golden cheeks flushed a deep russet, his eyes leaving yours to wander aimlessly before dropping to the floor. He nodded, embarrassment  evident on his face. He hated admitting when he was struggling. He wasn’t supposed to struggle, he was the golden maknae.

You smiled fondly at him before intertwining your fingers with his and raising the tangle of warm and cold digits to brush your lips across his knuckles.

“Let me make it up to you,” you slyly said.

Jungkook’s eyes snapped up to meet yours, a knowing smirk tugging on the corner of his lips.

“Whatever do you have in mind, m’lady?” he suggestively raised his eyebrows and wrapped his arms around your waist.

You shivered at the chill that your now soaked clothes brought.

“Well, you feel like you’ve been inside a deep freeze for four days. Let’s warm you up.”

Jungkook’s eyes gleamed.

“You don’t mean…?” he began, a wide smile spreading across his face.

You nodded.

“Yes. I ordered more bath bombs and saved them all so we could use them together.”

Jungkook wiggled in excitement, doing a quick dance of waggling fingers and spastically tapping his toes.

“You’re the beeeeest,” he cheered as he heaved you over his shoulder--causing a surprised shriek to rip from your throat--and pranced off towards the master bedroom.

You couldn't contain your giddiness as your laughter rang out across your apartment. Jungkook was finally home, and your Saturday was finally as warm and relaxing as they used to be before he left.

#bts #bts writing #bts fluff #jungkook fluff #jungkook smut #jungkook fic #jungkook one shot #jungkook imagine #jungkook scenario #jeon jungkook #jungkook bts #jungkook au #bts scenarios #bts one shot #bts drabble #jungkook drabble #my writing

[thecounterplan]

What the United 3411 Incident is Really About

by Brice Ezell

If you've followed the news at all in the past week, a recap of the events of United Express flight 3411 is unnecessary. For those who limit their news intake or even avoid the news – in this political climate, not an unreasonable move as far as stress and mental health are concerned – here's a recap: 3411, a plane leaving Chicago's O'Hare Airport for a short-haul flight to Louisville, Kentucky, was overbooked the day of its departure, Sunday 9 April. Overbooking is problem enough for paying customers, but in the case of 3411 there was an additional complication. United had several employees that needed to be on the plane, as they had to work on a flight in Louisville the next day.

With the flight being overbooked, United offered to give a night's stay in a hotel plus $400 USD to any customer willing to give up their seat. When no one took that offer, United upped the offer to $800. No one was enticed by that, a clearly considerable sum that likely outweighed the cost of the original plane ticket. According to some reports, United ended up offering $1000. When no one accepted these cash incentives, United randomly selected four passengers to be removed from the plane to accommodate the United staffers that needed to be in Louisville the next day. Three left the plane, undoubtedly frustrated, but without making much of a scene. The fourth, one Dr. David Dao, a practicing physician, refused to leave on the grounds that (a) he paid for his seat and (b) he needed to be at the hospital the next day to tend to patients. Despite the reasonability of those claims, United called the airport police on Dao, who was physically yanked out of his seat and dragged off the plane, leaving him bloodied.

Since then, United has faced a hailstorm of media criticism, and with good reason. As it turns out, using state-sanctioned violence to take from someone a service he had paid for makes for bad PR. It didn't help that the official Twitter statement by Oscar Munoz, the CEO of United, sounded like it was drafted by a corporate jargon bot, like horse_ebooks attempting to give an apology. United presumably compensated Dao and the other individuals removed from the plane, and in a surprisingly classy move, the airline did later refund all passengers on the plane the price of their ticket. Yet in examining how this thoroughly terrible event came to pass, it doesn't take long to figure out that this is but a single manifestation of a much larger problem, and that United could have saved itself a lot of grief by acting sensibly.

Before getting to the crux of what 3411 represents, there is one particularly bad argument that is worth addressing right out of the gate. I've seen it crop up across social media, but one grating iteration of it appears in the post called "I Know You're Mad at United but… (Thoughts from a Pilot Life about Flight 3411)", by Angelia J. Griffin. An early paragraph in Griffin's post features this confession, "If a federal law enforcement officer asks me to exit a plane, no matter how royally pissed off I am, I’m going to do it and then seek other means of legal reimbursement. True story."

This kind of argument is popular any time there is an instance of accused (or even likely) abuse of power by a law enforcement officer. "If only that unarmed black man who wasn't doing anything wrong at all simply did exactly what the officer told him, he would still be alive today!" This mindset is a curious thing to exist in America, a country founded on rebellion from the government that’s also home to the most guns per capita by a long shot – almost one gun per American (skip to page 47 of that PDF). Thee "if an officer says, you do" mentality is a whisper away from total fascism, if not an outright capitulation to it. I know that in the era of Donald Trump it's popular to bandy the word "fascism" about the minute something bad happens, but I do not use the term lightly here.

Just so it is crystal clear: a badge and a gun do not prima facie put an officer in the right. The presence of a badge does not mean that everything an officer says or does is correct. Asserting the high standing of the law does not negate the fact that many officers of the law fail to uphold their obligations to the law, and in some cases even abuse the law. Respectfully questioning an officer, or standing your ground when you know you are within your rights, does not make you a criminal or a degenerate. It makes you a human being, one that does not let the mere presence of power take away your dignity. Griffin's tone in her piece turns her seemingly "I don't want to cause any trouble" point into something closer to, "Shut up and obey orders when you're told." I and I don't think most Americans want to live in a society where that is the default response to authority figures.

Dao was not in the wrong for insisting that he needed to tend to patients the next day. I'm willing to bet that his reason for needing to be in Louisville the was better than most of the others' on board.

While the initial response to Dao's injuries was widespread sympathy and outrage, it wasn't long before a certain disingenuous brand of argumentation reared its head in opposition to the outrage. Basically, it boils down to this: "But the rules!" United Airlines, like all airlines, has each passenger sign a contract of carriage with each ticket – though, of course, most passengers click "I accept" on this contract without ever actually reading it. One stipulation of most if not all contracts of carriage is that airlines can in fact deny boarding to paying customers, given a particular set of circumstances. This brief primer by USA Today illustrates some of the myriad reasons why one might be denied entrance to a plane even after she has bought a ticket. (The article also notes that a contract of carriage runs up to 37,000 words.)

Descriptively, the "play by the rules" argument is valuable, for it reminds airport passengers of just how much legal scaffolding exists for the process of air travel. United and the other major airline carriers have their asses covered, and the minute you cry foul, they will let you know of that. Given that most customers don't have time to parse through 37,000+ words of text every time they need to buy a plane ticket, it is good to know what stipulations come in the contract of carriage.

As a claim against Dao's sympathizers, however, the "play by the rules" argument – espoused by Griffin and many others – is nothing more than pedantry. Yes, it is true that airlines have contracts of carriage that come with certain rules. Yes, it is true that people should be better informed about these things. But the fact that rules exist isn't the substance of the matter for those angry about what happened on 3411. In the battle of Single Paying Customer versus Giant Corporate Airline With Its Army of Lawyers and Whatnot, everyone knows that the latter will always win out, even if slight concessions are granted. The outrage isn't that rules exist at all; it's that the rules set by the airlines are fundamentally unjust and result in pernicious outcomes like 3411's.

It is first of all worth noting that the "rules are rules" line of reasoning might not even exonerate United in the case of 3411. As many have already observed, there is a distinction in contracts of carriage between being denied boarding and being refused transport. The former is what the "rules are rules" crowd is leaning on: if a plane is overbooked or there are airline employees in need of transportation, it is true that passengers can be denied boarding. However, being denied transport – that is, an airline's refusal to fly a customer to his destination after she has boarded the airline – is a different situation. Were Dao denied boarding prior to getting on the plane, legally United would have been in the clear, but since Dao was violently removed from the plane having already been boarded and seated, United's legal footing is a lot less sure. There is ambiguity in the contract of carriage on the line between "denied boarding" and "refusal of transport," but in contract law, ambiguity in a contract stipulation works against whoever drafted the contract – in this case, United.

United also promised federal regulators in 2014 that all ticketed passengers were guaranteed seats, but unsurprisingly a "promise" from a large corporation without any legal apparatus behind holds as much water as the notion of Southwest Airlines being a budget carrier.

Furthermore, there is a practical consideration in the case of 3411. Given that the flight was full of paying customers and the airline did have a need to send employees to Louisville for work the next day, the easy solution would have been to rent a car for the four employees and have them drive to Louisville, a four and a half hour trip which would have put them in Louisville with time enough for sleep. Airline employee's unions do require certain standards of accommodation for employees, and considering that I am unaware of them I might be speaking out of turn here. But on the surface, at least, this solution would have met the airline's need of getting its employees to their next work location without depriving paying customers of their seats.

But suppose United was legally in the clear, and that at best Dao would get a tiny settlement in going after the airline through legal means. I'm not one to elevate late night talk show hosts as beacons of reason, Jimmy Kimmel made an excellent point in his televised remarks on 3411: in no other industry would customers tolerate the policy of overbooking. Imagine, Kimmel suggests, going to an Applebee's and after having ordered your food, you are removed for other paying customers who wanted to sit down. Applebee's would be out of business in a heartbeat. (That is, unless people really love riblets.) Yet for some reason, with airlines overbooking comes with the cost of soaring through the skies. No federal or state law prohibits overbooking.

In the first instance, it makes sense why airlines overbook flights. Air travel, even when an airline has economies of scale, is an expensive enterprise, and all airlines have the financial prerogative to ensure that every seat is filled. Any unfilled seat represents wasted space and lost revenue. Hedging on the possibility that some travelers won't make the flight for which they've bought a ticket – which given the expense of a plane ticket strikes me as a low possibility – air carriers overbook flights such that if a seat becomes empty, a passenger on the wait list can board, and the airline is then ensured of its revenue. I am thinking in the aside of that last sentence that most travelers wouldn't outright skip a flight; I am aware there are other reasons to miss flights, including the not insubstantial number of people who miss flights due to TSA security delays. However, I have yet to see compelling statistical data that shows that missed flights pose such a profit problem for airlines that the practice of overbooking becomes necessary.

It is incumbent upon airlines to prove the financial need for overbooking. Even with the practice of overbooking in place, airlines remain almost systemically unprofitable, and it is implausible that missed flights by some customers would constitute absolute financial ruin for air carriers, above and beyond the harms caused by the already problematic standard operating procedures in the industry. But logical scrutiny and good business are not correlated, so for the time being it appears that the outrage over 3411 will fizzle out in the short term, and airlines will go back to doing whatever they want in the long term because they know air travel is a necessity in a globalized business world.

The fact that airlines know that necessity has in large part enabled the industry to become anything but the free market many would like to think it is. Alex Pareene puts it directly and astutely in the title of his article “Airlines Can Treat You Like Garbage Because They are an Oligopoly.” An oligopoly (think “oligarch”) is a market controlled by a few core players, in this case the “Big Four” of commercial American aviation: American, United, Delta, and Southwest. 

Central to an oligopoly is the limitation of competition, and in the aviation game, there is little of it. If you go on Kayak or any airfare aggregator like it, you’ll find that with few exceptions, most airlines stay within a predictable cost range for their flights. For example, I can fly to New York City from Austin round-trip -- if I buy well in advance -- for around $200-$250, and in most cases I can have my choice of American, United, or Delta. (As for Southwest: see my previous comment about it being definitely not cheap.) I could go to a budget airline like Spirit (or Frontier if I was heading west), but those airlines are only deceptively cheap. The budget flights on those airlines usually only exist for select airports, and even for those fares that are comparatively lower than those of the Big Four there is a well-known nickel-and-diming that occurs after the initial ticket purchase. (For reasons that remain opaque to me, it costs more on Frontier and Spirit to bring a carry-on bag -- which the major carriers don’t charge for -- than it is to check a bag.) This may seem odd on face: wouldn’t each member of the Big Four want to stake out the most competitive rates, thereby ensuring that they draw more customers?

Well, as it turns out, no. The Big Four appear quite happy with the sky oligopoly. (Skoligopoly?) As Pareene puts it,

This is called oligopoly, and, for airline shareholders, this is great! It truly is a new golden age of aviation, for people who fly in private jets but own stock in airlines. For the rest of us, this is most of why flying sucks now (the rest of it is the ever-expanding and largely incompetent security state), and also why United is not that worried about you sharing that video of a man being brutally dragged off their plane. They are not embarrassed, and you will not embarrass them. Airlines feel no need to perform the dance of corporate penitence. If you’ve chosen to fly somewhere, it’s probably because you don’t have a good alternative to flying...

What does United care if the internet is mad at it? The airlines divvied up the sky between themselves, and if you live or work in United territory, at some point you’ll face the real “choice” offered to consumers in a post-consolidation industry: flying with them, flying a more time-consuming and circuitous route with some other, probably equally horrible airline (if such a route is available), or not flying anywhere. Do you need to get from Fargo to Denver in a hurry? Congratulations, you are now a United customer.

So long as each airline can generate profit and earn regional advantage in certain places, these companies have no incentive to compete for the purpose of lowering prices. The utter hilarity of the “trickle-down” notion of profit-seeking is also illustrated by the airline oligopoly. Writing for Vox, Alex Abad-Santos points out,

Flights are still expensive, even though the cost of jet fuel, a reason commonly cited by airlines for raising prices and adding fees, has gone down — in 2016, jet fuel prices were a third of what they were in 2014, but ticket prices didn’t decrease in kind. It’s cheaper for airlines to operate now than it was a few years ago, but they haven’t passed any savings on to customers.

To boil it down to its essence: United, along with the three other members of the Big Four controls the skies. Who cares what passengers want? What power do they have against the airlines?

In response to the outrage following 3411, many in the “rules are rules” crowd also touted the classic “hit ‘em with your wallet!” line of reasoning. “If you don’t like it, don’t give your money to United! That will show them what their customers prioritize, and if enough people do it United will change its behavior.” This argument is predicated on the notion that the airline industry resembles anything like a free market, and that airlines are responsive to customer inputs in the way a market competitor theoretically would be. But since the skies are ruled by just four airlines, corporations like United don’t have to care about customers in the way a business freely competing with others would. Many have touted the heavy airline deregulation instigated under the Carter administration in the late 1970s -- prior to that, airlines were highly regulated by the government -- as an example of giving choice and lower prices to the consumer, thereby making air travel more democratic. In seeing the corporate merger-driven oligopoly that now controls the air, I cannot help but think of the classic line from the film No Country for Old Men, a question I think well applies to more than one stipulation of United’s contract of carriage: “If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?”

This is the heart of the matter when it comes to 3411. The anger following Dao’s horrible mistreatment is not about what the rules are, but rather why the rules are, why the airlines are in such a place that they can treat customers in this way. The airlines are able to implement policies like their overbooking practices because there is no regulation that forbids it -- or, seemingly, even tempers it -- and there is no means by which customers can hold these companies to account. This compounds the initial frustration of 3411 further: it’s not just that airlines behave in a way anathema to good customer relations, but they also have no incentive to change. 

Some will instinctively backpedal at the slightest hint of regulation, suggesting that deregulation led to lower fares and greater choice for consumers when shopping for plane tickets. Given the increasingly non-competitive airline marketplace, one wonders how competition will be fostered by the status quo. But more importantly, knee-jerk anti-regulation relies on a fundamental misunderstanding of coercion. Matt Bruenig writes,

What’s amusing about libertarians and laissez-faire people (and the loose way certain economists talk) is that they will describe my choice to pay rent as non-coerced and voluntary while describing my choice to pay income taxes as coerced and involuntary. But there is no neutral construction of “coercion” that would ever support such a distinction. As [Robert] Hale aptly demonstrates, coercion occurs when there are “background constraints on the universe of socially available choices from which an individual might ‘freely’ choose.”...

...When we talk about the economy, we are not arguing about whether we want coercion. We are arguing about what coercion we’d like.

The same holds true for airlines. There will always be rules for flying on a commercial airliner, and customers should know those rules. But wanting a different set of rules isn’t tantamount to a new imposition of coercion; instead, it’s a question of how coercion ought to function in an airline-to-customer transaction. Looking at how United’s overbooking policies -- which are similar if not the same to the other contracts of carriage in the Big Four -- resulted in Dao being yanked out of his seat and bloodied in the process, I think it’s high time those rules be reconsidered. So long as things stay the same, let’s not pretend that the air is just another competitive marketplace.

In thinking on 3411 and all the follies of American capitalism it represents, I've come up with what I call the Greenspan Rule, the name of which is inspired by this classic observation of Noam Chomsky's, which he delivered in response to one of former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan’s characteristic panegyrics on the free market. The Greenspan principle is simple: if you hear a businessman, CEO, corporation, or pro-corporate politician singing the praises of the free market, you can almost be certain that the market they envision is anything but free. 

Some further reading on Chomsky's response to Greenspan's claims about the virtues of the free market can be found here. See specifically the section "Saint Greenspan and the transistor."

#United Airlines #United #Flight 3411 #economics #airlines #David Dao #airline industry

[tanakavox]

A look into the multiverse chapter 6.

Aka the worst written chapter I've ever done. I hate the reacts for this one, feels... weak. Hope you guys enjoy it.

The theater screen lights up and carama begins to pan over a city during night time Citizens mingle down the sidewalks on evening strolls. Above them, a helicopter flies low between the buildings heading for something. A red orb of light appears to chase after it. Shortly thereafter, a flash of gray bounced between the building at high speeds landing on the roof of one. The gray blur was a young Mercury Black, a grin on his face as he looked over the city. He looked to be around 11-12 and his hair was spiker then normal. He had a pair of ears on his head and short tails.

"Ah,yeah! This is happening!" Mercury exclaimed smiling.

"Mercury? Oh no."Emerald said shaking her head afraid of the ego trip her panter might get from this universe.

"He's fast, and… so young." Ruby pointed out.

"What's happening and why is he a fanaus?" Yang asked.

"He's not. He has two traits." Blake pointed. "He looks like a hedgehog though.

The young boy turned to sounds of sirens, looked down to see four police cars rushing to an emergency with screeching tires. He jumps down just in time to see them disappear around the corner.

"What's going down there?'' he mutters to himself. He curls into a ball and rockets after the cars, rolling like a bowling ball.

"That's actually a cool move." Mercury pointed out with a grin.

The police cars have formed a perimeter in front of a large building. Two helicopters hover overhead with their searchlights on as an odd watery figure lands on a police car and stand in place without moving or making a sound.

"That's a interesting creature…" Salem gave a little smile cross her legs thinking of a grimm similar to it.

"You are completely surrounded! Surrender yourself!" officer yelled as the squad aim their guns at figure. It hop over the police squad and they take aim and fire. The bullets only drop to the ground after colliding with it, the aqua figure giving off a low growl.

"Oh, no! Our weapons are useless! Retreat! All personnel, fall back!" The officer cried, him and the rest of the squad running away, a few firing a few more rounds as they ran.

"So it's bulletproof as well? This creature gets more and more interesting." Salem's smile grew larger as she watched the creature in action.

Mercury lands on the car and grins, looking at the being in excitement.

"This could be fun!" He stated he jumps into the air and attacks the monster with a kick, hitting it in what seem to be it's faces knocking it into a car, denting it. Mercury smirks a bit and immediately gets hit by the car that he had sent it into. The boy lifts the car off himself, not seeing to care that he got hit by a car. He cruels into a ball and rams into the creature and soon after the creature starts to run away. Mercury had a look of disappointment of how easy the fight was and chased after the creature.

Come on, ya big drip! Where ya goin'?"

"Yeah Mini me. That was an easy and boring fight." Mercury said with a shake of his head..

"Such a disappointing creature." Salem mutters while uncrossing her legs."

"That 12 year old got hit by a freaking car, and his only reaction was to pick it up and throw it back." Weiss pointed out. "Does nothing think that's amazing for a 12 year without AURA?" When one no answered she just looked back at the screen and muttered to herself: "I guess not."

The creature falls through a drain getting away, Mercury snaps his fingers in frustration as the camera pans into the air and shows smirking, evilly as he looks down at the hedgehog.

"Foolish child. That was Chaos, God of Destruction! And soon my plans will be realized! Watts begins to cackle madly.

Salem raises an eyebrow at the sight of Watts and Chaos. "God of destruction? An unfitting name for such a weak creature."

The scene cuts to Mercury lounging near a pool, sleeping as he hears a noise of a plane. He turns to see a younger Oscar flying out of control.

"Hey look another tiny Oscar!" Nora cooed at the sight of the farmboy." Oscar blush a bit in embarrassment.

"Why is he flying a biplane?" Ren asked.

"Tails?" He asked no one in confusion. His eye widen as he watch out Oscar's plan begans to pummel toward the ground. "Watch out! You're gonna crash! AHHH!" Oscar's plane crashs on the beach and Mercury facepalms groaning a bit. "Oh Tails. What am I gonna do with you?" Mercury curl into a ball again in a blink of an eyes rockets towards where Oscar had crash landed. He sees two legs poking out of the ground and grabs one, yanking the boy out of the sand and giving a closer look at Oscar. He was a fox, but a fox with two tails instead of one and he looked to be around 8.

Blake's stares a bit a Oscar's tails. "That's…. New. "

"Yeah a 8 year old flying a biplane is new right Blake?" Ruby said.

"I think she meant the fact the Oscars had two tails Ruby." Jaune replied.

Oscar blinks a few times and grins at the sight of his friend.

"Oh hey Sonic! Long Time no see huh?" He said casually.

"A child his age surviving a plane crash and only casually reacting to it. He must be very durable." Winter mused to herself.

"Hey Tails." Mercury greeted back, placing Oscar on his feet. "What happened there? You're too good of a pilot to make such a sloppy landing.

Oscar rubs his head. "That was a test run using a new prototype propulsion system. It's got a few bugs to iron out." Mercury raises an eyebrow. "Okay…... A Lot of bugs."

"No shit kid." Mercury snarks

" Why not just use my plane, the Tornado?"

"Thanks, but you gotta check out my newest power supply! Ta dahhh!" Oscar pulls a purple looking gem.

"WHOA! A Chaos Emerald!" Mercury looked it over in astosment.

"Oscar smiles a bit. "Yep! I just happened to find one of the 7 Emeralds during one of my test flights. This thing has unlimited powers, ya know... So I figured, why not use it to power my plane. Super charged! You gotta come over my workshop, Sonic! I've got something I've gotta show you! It's in the Mystic Ruins. The fastest way is by train. Let's go!"

The scene cuts to Mercury and Oscar running in a field when a voice stops them in their place.

"Ha ha ha ha! If it isn't !" Watts descended down in an egg shaped pod grinning maniacally. Oscar's tails stiffen in fear and he hides behind Mercury. Mercury however just looks at Watts with a grin.

Look! It's a giant talking egg!

Yang begins to laugh hard. "He does look like an egg!"

Salem didn't say anything but quietly laugh to herself, not seeing Ozpin catching her laugh with a bit of shock before quickly turning back to the show.

"Silence! I am , the greatest scientific genius in the world!" Watts growled

"Whatever you say, Eggman!" Mercury replied with a roll of his eyes and a dismal wave of his hand.

"Damn. Kid's got balls." Qrow said.

"Hell yeah I do. I'm always badass." Mercury boosted.

"Enough! I've got big plans and now I'm gonna put them to work!"

"You're always up to no good. Now what d'ya want?" Oscar piped up from behind Mercury. Watts glared at Oscar, causing the fox cub to to flinch and hide behind Mercury. Watts begins to rise higher in his pod.

"Awww. He scared little fox Oscar." Nora cooed again.

"I want all the Chaos Emeralds. Better not interfere! Or else!" Watts said looking down at the two.

"Or else what wimp?" Mercury taunted.

"Or else I'll take them from you by force... the hard way!" Watts goes behind the cliff and raise with his pod turning into a hornet like form.

It flies after the two firing missile that Mercury and Oscar dodge without any problems. Watts snarls as he attempts to ram into Mercury, the boy hopping over the machine, causing it to get stuck in the ground. Mercury land on his feet and curls into a ball, rocketing into Watts' machine knocking it loose from the ground. Watts flies around again firing more missiles at Mercury, But he plays hopscotch on each missile, About to reach the Egg hornet before Watts smiles as Mercury falls for his trap.

"Felt for it fool!" Watts cried and he powered the machine up for another ram attack. Before he made contact with Mercury's body, in a quick blur Oscar grabbed Mercury's hand and flew away from the attack, using his two tails as like helicopter blades to fly.

"Holy shit, he can fly?" Yang asked in surprised."

"Why the hell does he need a plane then?" Qrow asked being surprised as well.

Watts screamed in rage as he got stuck in the ground again. Mercury look up at Oscar and smiled.

"Nice job Tails now throw me so we can end this!"

Oscar smiled and threw Mercury as hard as he could. Mercury curls into a ball again and rams into Watts machine breaking it down. Oscar lands next to Mercury and they look over their work.

"Well, that wasn't so hard!" Mercury turned and ruffled Oscar's hair. Good work Tails!"

Watts fake being unconscious for a time and then let out a :Aha!" as giant claw came out of his machine and grabbed the chaos emerald Oscar's person. TThe two look in horror as Watts laughed himself silly. "Come on Chaos, time to eat!" The same creature Mercury fought last night appears and Watts give it the Chaos emerald, The creature name Chaos growing bigger. Watts look over the creature in glee. " Ooooh, yes! It's just as the stone tablets predicted. Ha ha ha ha ha! His strength increases every time I feed him a Chaos Emerald! With all 7 Emeralds in him, he'll be invincible! And work for me! Together, we'll destroy Station Square! And on its ruins, I will build Wattsland, the ultimate city! Where I will rule it all! Come on Chaos! Let's find another Emerald, shall we?" And with that Watts teleported away with Chaos." And with that, Watts and Chaos teleport away.

"So if he eats more of those gems he gets stronger? That doesn't sound good!"

Salem's interest in the creature was back and she was excited to see more of it.

The end!

.

See? This is the weakest I've done by myself.

#rwby #jaune arc #ruby rose #rwby mercury black #rwby oscar pine #blake bellodona #rwby nora valkyrie #emerald sustrai #cinder fall #rwby salem #ozpin #qrow #rwby lie ren #team rwby #team alpn #sonic adventure #look into the multiverse #arthur watts