#but yeah angels in my time thesis | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kentophilia · 8 days

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HIIII SALEM i hope ill be ur first req :3 can i have making out w TA geto in like your dorm room or smtg - i love that secretive/will they get caught dynamic <3 u can make it a little steamy but all in all i just want geto to relax after stressing over his masters 😇

contains: teaching assistant!geto, established relationship, afab!reader, making out, some suggestiveness, shoko cameo, pet names (my love, angel, baby)

word count: 1.1k

a/n: WAAAAH i finally got to writing this!!! i hope you're doing well seline, i miss you :( reminder that my requests are still open, please read my rules!!

reblogs and feedback are greatly appreciated!!

minors and ageless / blank blogs will be blocked immediately!

sugu bear <3: can i come over?

sugu bear <3: need ur mental support for submitting my thesis pls

you smiled at your phone, responding with ‘ofc baby get ur ass over here rn’ in light speed.

ever since he started his position as a teaching assistant, he has been even more stressed as usual. there was no doubt that he was enjoying it, sometimes even taking over the class for the day and doing the meticulous work of grading essays and tests. however, it would take up a lot of his free time and subsequently, your time together as well.

sure, you'd see him on campus and in your shared classes, sneaking in as much physical contact as possible. but you missed spending actual time with him. watching movies, cooking together, going on dates, you name it. you got used to it, but sometimes you would feel a bit lonely. so you were elated to hear him coming over.

even better, your roommate shoko was out on a date with her girlfriend so you’d have the dorm to yourself. getting all giddy, you decided to tidy up a little for your boyfriend.

just a short time later, there was a knock on your dorm door and you rushed to see your sweet suguru standing there. he had a nervous smile on his face, his laptop in one hand and a small bouquet of your favorite flowers in the other.

“this is all i could get, hope you like it,” he murmured. you flung yourself onto him, inhaling his familiar scent. oh, how you missed him.

you squealed, “are you kidding, sugu? these are beautiful, you didn't have to get me anything!”

his smile grew wider, walking you backwards into your living space and closing the door behind him with his foot. you parted from him, placing a kiss onto his plump lips. he leaned into it, closing his eyes with a soft hum. soon enough, you broke the kiss and took the flowers to put them in a vase.

while you were rummaging through your kitchen, suguru made himself comfortable on your couch. he opened the laptop and got to work, finishing up his thesis. he had stressed about it for so long, he was scared about making typos so he read over it until his eyes burned. you soon joined him, curling into his side as you watched your boyfriend add the last finished touches to the document.

after a few minutes of comfortable silence, suguru let out a heavy sigh.

“want me to submit it for you?” you offered when you saw his shaky hand hovering over the touchpad, the mouse set on the big red submit button.

he quietly spoke: “you know what? yeah, i’d like that. no way to back out now.”

you took the laptop from him, setting it on your lap and clicking the button. as the confirmation screen lit up, you closed the window and laptop to put it on your coffee table. turning towards him, you noticed how pale he had gotten over the course of the last few minutes.

“are you okay?” you giggled, tucking one of the stray hairs behind his ear.

he sighed, “yeah, it's finally done.”

he pulled you on top of him, making you squeal. you settled on his lap, looping your arms around his broad shoulders and playing with the hairs on his nape. suguru placed his large hands on your waist, their weight and warmth comforting against your skin. you squirmed a little to get more comfortable as he leaned back with a sigh. with his eyes closed, his long lashes cast tiny shadows on his cheeks.

opening his eyes after a few breaths, suguru looked up at you with adoration in his eyes. a small smile tugged at the corner of his lips, mirroring yours.

“i'm proud of you, sugu. you've worked so hard. i was worried you’d get grey hair by the time i’d see you next.”

his heart thumped in his ribcage, threatening to burst out.

“don't i deserve a reward then, my love?” he mused. you chuckled, knowing what he was insinuating.

you leaned forward to gently cover his face in kisses. starting at his forehead, going down his warm cheeks and sharp nose and lastly, his lips. they were roughed up from all the biting but still plump against yours. after a few light pecks, suguru gave you a small appreciative hum, his hands sliding around to your back to pull you closer to him. the warmth of his body made you melt into his touch, your chest pressed against his as close didn't seem close enough. your eyes fluttered close, a small whine getting stuck in your throat as suguru’s lips locked onto yours.

his tongue swiped over your bottom lip and you obediently opened your mouth, gently pulling at his now disheveled hair. he moaned quietly, his scalp tingling from your ministrations. your tongues swirled around each other in a tentative dance, the air getting hotter by the minute. spit was exchanged, deep inhales through the nose as you got drunk on each other. one of his hands settled on the side of your neck, tilting your head to deepen the kiss further.

shivers ran down your spine at his gentle touch, the pit in your tummy getting hotter and hotter. your hips started gyrating on top of his needily, feeling how hard he was getting just from your lips on his own. a low rumble erupted from his chest at that, his hands sliding down to grip your hips tightly. guiding you gently, he bucked his hips up to your heated core, making you part from him with a whimper.

a small string of spit connected your mouths, heavy lidded eyes watching as you gripped his shoulders for leverage as your hips grew a mind of their own.

“missed you s’much,” you whined, placing your forehead against his. you were watching how he parted his lips to pant as your clothed core rubbed against his boner so deliciously.

he let out a small moan, “missed you too, angel. i’m sorry for neglecting my poor baby.”

his mouth stretched into a grin as he watched you use him to get yourself off, desperate to feel his skin on yours. suguru slid his hands under your shirt, drawing figure eights against your blazing skin.

you could feel yourself getting wetter and coming closer to your peak when at the cusp of it, a harsh knock resonated through the living room. following that, shoko’s voice came muffled through the door.

“can we come in or are y'all still humping each other?”

tags: @sttoru @kizoken @prncessrindou and thank you to @screampied and @redskyvenus for proofreading!!! :3

#༄ storybook #me 🤝🏼 our favs bringing us flowers #suguru geto #geto suguru #geto fluff #suguru fluff #jjk fluff #jujutsu kaisen fluff #geto x reader #geto x you #suguru x reader #suguru x you #jjk x you #jjk x reader #jjk geto #jjk suguru #jujutsu kaisen x you #jujutsu kaisen x reader #divider by cafekitsune

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samwinchesterism · 1 month

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in re: “cas knows dean better than sam”

“cas sees dean as a whole person and sam just sees dean’s façade as his big brother slash parent” but like how and where. outside of your fanfiction. season and episode. scene and line. if it’s so obvious and apparent you should have at least 3-5 concrete examples right? “sam doesn’t know dean carried him out of the burning house” yeah but did cas? outside of a footnote in the angelic manila folder they gave him between seasons 3 and 4 so he could better manipulate him and sam into doing heaven’s bidding? like if you’re going to say “cas knows dean better than sam” than you need to show how cas succeeds where you perceive sam to be failing at the very least. but even your perceptions of how sam doesn’t measure up are so warped, blinkered, and moronic that it wouldn’t even be worth much if you could provide the textual evidence, but at least you’d have a semblance of a point. like say anything without going “as an eldest daughter…” “well my relationship with my sibling isn’t…” please say anything without fucking projecting your own self-pitying crybaby bullshit onto your little woobie dean and using the actual canon text of the show. I’m literally begging you.

like the thing of it all is and always has been that you’re so hell-bent on twisting the sam and dean relationship to fit into this narrow and almost entirely inaccurate mold which is the basis upon which you build the entire Destiel Mythos that you literally lose all sense of media literacy. you don’t even miss the forest for the trees, you miss the trees for like, the pretend invisible things you’re seeing in between the trees, the forest is a whole long way away from your current level of perception. because the Destiel Mythos is based entirely on the fact that dean is Not Seen and Not Appreciated and Not Loved and Cannot Be Himself until cas comes along, and that Family (read: sam) Is Only A Burden on Him That He Must Be Freed From In Order to Flourish, so you keep trying to warp the sam relationship into something that is only one dimension of it – and keep ignoring the ways in which dean is seen, loved and understood within it, because you need to keep lying to yourselves that there is a narrative need to emancipate dean from something that he has never wanted emancipation from because it is ultimately a net good for dean in the particular circumstances of their lives. it’s also profoundly unhealthy, codependent, evil and toxic etc. (a lot more dean’s fault than sam’s but I will nawt be getting into all that right now) but that doesn’t change the fact that sam and dean both know and understand and feel deeply that they are each other’s person – that they know the best and love the most in the world. but that – which IS true canon fact – is incompatible with the Destiel Mythos so it must be ignored and all good sense must be thrown out the window in order to do it.

anyway i digress there are two main categories of Bad Thinking that i will be addressing below

childhood/ “parent/child” / blah blah blah

every single thing people are saying in favour of the deeply stupid thesis in the title of this post is proof positive of the very silly form of ‘analysis’ I just described. a few things:

“wah sam didn’t know that dean carried him out of the burning house :( this means that dean withholds things from sam to protect him because he is a PARENT and sam can only know things about him in the context of him being a PARENT to him” – what the fuck are you on about genuinely. first of all reducing the sam/dean relationship exclusively to parent/child is in itself foolishness for so many reasons that I don’t have time for right now. but also, it’s clear that this is just something that happened when sam was a baby that just never came up. in the scene (1.09) where this is brought up, dean is mildly surprised that he or john never mentioned that detail and then states that sam knows the rest of the story (i.e. the actual traumatic stuff) just as well as dean does – which is true, demonstrably whenever they talk about it.

obviously there are some things that happened to dean in their childhood that sam doesn’t know about (or didn’t know about, until told in whatever episode they come up in). equally, there are things dean doesn’t know about sam’s childhood, e.g. the fact that he was so lonely he needed a zanna (11.08). or how dean didn’t remember that sam was friends with barry cook until he mentions it when they go back to their old school (4.13). or about the nature of sam’s relationship with amy pond (7.03). these don’t mean that ‘sam withheld these things to protect dean out of parental love’ lol, it’s just that there are details and events in each of their lives that the other happens to not have been told about.

similarly “sam didn’t even know dean wanted to be a firefighter L” girl did dean know sam wanted to be a lawyer? in 1.01 he’s pretty surprised that sam has a law school interview. the point here isn’t “neither sam nor dean know each other well,” these are minutiae that aren’t relevant to how well you know someone as a whole, and very poorly demonstrate the bad and inaccurate point that dean withholds things from sam the way a parent does a child (on a constant or regular basis). obviously the way they were raised, sam was deemed too young to know about certain things until he got older and dean had to keep that secret, but as shown in 3.08 flashbacks, most if not all of this is eventually revealed throughout their childhood when sam is still fairly young.

or possibly the dumbest one is that “wah sam doesn’t even know that dean reads books L” whenever that was he was also obviously joking because in more serious moments (e.g. 8.14) he admits that dean is smart/a better researcher than he is, literally remembers dean reading to him as a kid (8.21) so like. clam down

one of the extra annoying variants of this type of ‘proof’ covers things that are very clearly novel pieces of information about dean that dean, sam, and the audience are learning about dean in real time. like if you’re actually watching the show to comprehend it as it was intended to be comprehended, instead of funnelling everything through the Destiel Machine until it’s unrecognizable slop that fits neatly into your pre-ordained molds that Make Destiel Necessary In the Narrative (when it actually isn’t, at all) it’s abundantly clear. the top two worst offenders:

“sam didn’t even know that dean is good with kids :( he doesn’t even realize that dean raised him :(” first of all you people need to understand that parentification does not literally create a parent-child dynamic between siblings but I digress – this doesn’t make any sense bro. in 1.03 dean admits he doesn’t know any kids as an adult. dean being good with his own kid brother when they were both kids is to any reasonable person not necessarily linked with him being good with other random kids when he’s an adult. in 1.03 it’s clear that dean himself is a bit surprised that he’s able to connect w/ lucas so well because he’s clearly not dealt with a lot of kids since sam grew up. the whole point of this is that dean, sam, and the audience are all sort of seeing a new side of dean. who again is just 26. after this very early episode, there’s no question from sam that dean is able to connect w kids. sam being a bit surprised by this also has absolutely zero connection with him not understanding or realizing that dean looked out for him when they were both kids – sam is standing there at 22 years of age talking about adult dean and children – of fucking course he doesn’t mean himself are you stupid.

from the very first season, sam is very clearly aware of everything dean ~did for him~ when they were kids, see e.g. 1.21: “Dean...ah...I wanna thank you. […] For everything. You've always had my back you know? Even when I couldn't count on anyone I could always count on you. And I don't know, I just wanted to let you know, just in case.”

and 1.06: DEAN: Well, I’m a freak, too. I’m right there with ya, all the way. (SAM laughs.) SAM: Yeah, I know you are.

and then possibly even more stupidly, the one where it’s like “wah sam doesn’t even know dean can cook :( he doesn’t even know that DEAN was the one making him food as a babe in arms :(” – when sam is surprised that dean made something fairly gourmet and from scratch literally the first time they have ever had a permanent living space with a functional kitchen. in this VERY scene (8.14), dean himself points out that they haven’t had a kitchen before and when sam remarks on the irregularity of him doing serious cooking, he says “I’m nesting”, clearly showing that this is a novel development because they now have a kitchen, and that it’s irregular relative to past behaviour – both of them acknowledge this. because real proper in-depth cooking and making box mac and cheese for sam until he was like 11 and old enough to be left alone are two different things, which sam understands because he’s smart, unlike whoever chooses to make this point. dean never showed significant signs of liking to cook before this, which is what the exchange is about, but he did have to prepare food for them both when sam was too young – of course sam knows he had to, there are childhood memories referred to (e.g. 14.11) where sam is mentioned to literally help dean do the cooking as kids lol (and yes, genius, sam says ‘I didn’t know you knew what a kitchen was’ or something to that effect, but if you think he’s being 100% literal there I have an oceanfront property in Kansas to sell you)

again, obviously there are pieces that sam doesn’t know about dean, e.g. when he’s talking about his response to mary dying in 1.03. but again, Sam is 22, dean is 26, the last time they were in regular contact was when sam was 18-20, these are things that happen when people grow up, they’re able to reflect and share on childhood experiences if they’re close with their siblings as adults. it’s clearly not something that 26 y/o dean wanted to hide from 22 y/o sam. yes sam didn’t know everything about how dean felt when they were young, but that’s equally true in the other direction, and it’s such an irrelevant point in this discussion when, crucially, sam does learn these things about dean mostly fairly early on in the series (i.e. when they’re really not that deep into adulthood yet). cas was also not magically blessed w/ knowledge about dean, he also had to learn whatever it is that he knows, but somehow sam has to know everything about dean from age 7 or it doesn’t count when it’s sam lol.

“sam doesn’t know the One True Dean / doesn’t see through his facades”

the next branch of defending this flawed thesis is invariably that sam has little idea of the fronts and facades that dean puts up and is content to just believe them, whereas cas digs deep and sees the One True Dean that stupid sam always misses. there is nothing in the text that demonstrates this is true. multiple times, we see sam being very knowing of the fact that dean puts up fronts and facades. sam is also knowledgeable of the way dean perceives himself, and – demonstrated in multiple episodes before such sam lines were very poorly recycled and regurgitated into cas’s dialogue in 15.18, but keep acting like that was the first time anyone ever showed that they knew the One True Dean.

Obviously there are times where sam teases dean when he’s being more touchy-feely than usual, but 9.99 times out of 10 (as a conservative estimate in case there's something i'm forgetting otherwise i would say every time) that’s very clearly coming from a place of knowing the real dean vs. the façade he puts up because that’s the whole joke. and it’s allowed to be a joke because they’re siblings and that’s what siblings do lol. esp since sam and dean have touchy feely moments at the end of like every episode.

examples of all of the above off the top of my head (there are more than these, but these are the ones I can think of):

2.02 (about John’s death)

Sam: “I mean this ‘strong silent’ thing of yours, it's crap. […] I'm over it. This isn't just anyone we're talking about, this is Dad. I know how you felt about the man.”

Dean: “You know what, back off, all right? Just because I'm not caring and sharing like you want me to.”

Sam: “No, no, no, that's not what this is about, Dean. I don't care how you deal with this. But you have to deal with it, man. Listen, I'm your brother, all right? I just want to make sure you're okay.”

2.03 (Sam to Dean, also about John’s death): “You know, you slap on this big fake smile but I can see right through it. Because I know how you feel, Dean. Dad's dead. And he left a hole, and it hurts so bad you can't take it, but you can't just fill up that hole with whoever you want to. It's an insult to his memory.”

Note that Dean essentially admits that Sam is right in these two instances in 2.04 bc I know yall have stupid shit to say about john too that has nothing to do with how anyone actually felt about him in canon

3.07 (about Dean’s demon deal – also proven true in later episodes)

SAM: Dude, drop the attitude, Dean. Quit turning everything into a punch line. And you know something else? Stop trying to act like you're not afraid.

DEAN: I'm not!

SAM: You're lying. And you may as well drop it 'cause I can see right through you.

DEAN: You got no idea what you're talking about.

SAM: Yeah, I do. You're scared, Dean. You're scared because your year is running out, and you're still going to Hell, and you're freaked.

DEAN: And how do you know that?

SAM: Because I know you! […] Yeah, I've been following you around my entire life! I mean, I've been looking up to you since I was four, Dean. Studying you, trying to be just like my big brother. So yeah, I know you. Better than anyone else in the entire world. And this is exactly how you act when you're terrified. And, I mean, I can't blame you. It's just […] I wish you would drop the show and be my brother again. 'Cause... (can't find words; tears in his eyes) just 'cause.

5.18 [Sam figures out what Dean is doing re: his plan to let Michael possess him, tracks him down, and eventually is the catalyst for Dean ‘making the right call’, which he predicts] – e.g.:

SAM: No, you won’t. When push shoves, you’ll make the right call

DEAN: You know, if tables were turned…I’d let you rot in here. Hell, I have let you rot in here.

SAM: Yeah, well…I guess I’m not that smart.

DEAN: I—I don’t get it. Sam, why are you doing this?

SAM: Because… you’re still my big brother.

8.14 (basically the o.g. version of whatever went on in 15.18 + sam intrinsically understanding the trials are a death wish for dean): “I'm closing the gates. It's a suicide mission for you. I want to slam hell shut, too, okay? But I want to survive it. I want to live, and so should you. You have friends up here, family. I mean, hell, you even got your own room now. You were right, okay? I see light at the end of this tunnel. And I'm sorry you don't – I am. But it's there. And if you come with me, I can take you to it. […] I AM smart, and so are you. You're not a grunt, Dean. You're a genius – when it comes to lore, to – you're the best damn hunter I have ever seen – better than me, better than dad. I believe in you, Dean. So, please – please believe in me, too.”

10.22 (understanding how much dean has ~done for him~)

SAM: I'm saving my brother.

CASTIEL: You told Dean—

SAM: —I know what I told Dean. Cas, look. I've been the one out there, messed up and scared. And alone. And Dean—

CASTIEL: He did whatever he could to save you.

SAM: Yes. I mean, it's become his thing. I owe him this. I owe him everything.

10.23 (basically the o.g. version of whatever went on in 15.18, x2 – from Sam to Dean): “You were also willing to summon death to make sure you could never do any more harm. You summoned me because you knew I would do anything to protect you. That's not evil, Dean. That's not an evil man. That is a good man crying to be heard, searching for... some other way. […] You will never, ever hear me say that you -- the real you -- is anything but good.”

11.13 (Sam understanding exactly how Dean feels about Amara being his ‘deepest desire’, and confirming that it doesn’t make him a bad person)

Dean: Why? Because if she is that means that I’m…

Sam: Means you’re what? Complicit? Weak? Evil?

Dean: For starters, yeah.

Sam: Dean. Do you honestly think you ever had a choice in the matter? She’s the sister of God, and for some reason she picked you and that sucks, but if you think I’m gonna blame you or judge you…I’m not.

Dean: You know that I want her ass dead.

Sam: Yes. Of course. And I know you’ve also probably beaten yourself up a hundred times over it, but where has that gotten us? (Long silence) Just how bad is it?

13.02 (Sam perfectly explaining Dean’s psyche to Jack)

JACK: Is that why Dean hates me?

SAM: Dean doesn’t hate you. It… Look, sometimes the wires in Dean’s head get crossed and—and he gets frustrated, and then he mixes frustration with anger, and—and fear.

JACK: Why would he be afraid?

SAM: Because Dean feels like it’s his job to protect everyone. And right now, we need to protect you. But we may also need to protect people from you.

14.03 [Sam assesses Dean’s psychological/emotional response to the Michael possession; end of episode, Dean confirms that Sam’s assessment was fully accurate]

14.10 [Sam is the only one able to snap Dean out of his weird Michael mind loop by using their code word]

14.11 [Sam figuring out that something is troubling Dean just based on the fact that Dean hugs him]

15.17 (self explanatory at this point)

DEAN: Chuck has to die. He has to! Otherwise he'll keep us tap dancing forever, and I can't live like that, man! I can't live like that! I won't!

SAM: I know you feel like that right now, okay. I know you do. But you gotta trust me. My entire life, you've protected me— from Dad, from Lucifer, from everything. I didn't always like it, you know, but... it's the one thing in the whole world that I could always count on. It's the only thing I've ever known that was true. So please... put the gun away. Just put it away, and we'll figure it out, Dean, we'll find another way, you and me. We always do.

like maybe there are some cas moments w dean along these lines too. i don't know, i don't remember what the guy says or does anymore it's been too many years and he is not memorable. but the point is where and in what capacity and based on what metric other than the amount of bad fanfic you've read does cas exceed sam in these respects.

so basically just. genuinely, what are you people literally ever talking about. go watch the show instead of saying stupid wrong stuff about sam on the hellsites all day. or watch another show (please for the love of god watch any other show this one is absolutely lost on you and it’s such a stupid one too i'm embarrassed for you)

#sorry i wasnt gonna be able to sleep otherwise my blood pressure got too high #sam winchester meta #sam winchester #anti destiel #sam and dean #whatever else my tags are #haven't done this in a minute #i'm sorry for being a cunty sam stan (tm) in this but have you considered we'd be nicer if you ppl were less dumb #this is not proofread it's not real meta

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queers-gambit · 7 months

Text

Affirmation King

prompt: ( requested ) attending university as a full-time student is hard, but your boyfriend makes some of the stress worth it.

fandom masterlist: FX's The Bear

word count: 3.1k+

note: author gives unsolicited advice in the form of sharing a citation website to make college essays a little easier! this is not meant as promotion or anything, it's just your author trying to share a resource they know of.

warnings: cursing, small hurt large comfort (reader snaps a little at Carmy but he handles it like a fucking pro), author gives unsolicited college advice in the form of a recommended website, reader is in a masters program and not undergrad, fluff.

The 16 inch screen glared into your retinas, fingers feeling numb from the hours pounding away at the loose keyboard. When the screen started to warble and darken, your head ducked down slightly to try and preserve your visual; glaring up at the offender when they pressed the screen closed after forcing you to retract your hands.

"You're cute and all, but not so cute as to interrupt me like that," you deadpanned, eyes wide and burning from your lack of lubrication via blinking.

"You've been sat here for hours, it's time for a break."

"Funny when I say that to you, it's always, 'Get outta my kitchen.'"

Carmy smirked, "Come eat something."

"Let me finish this essay and - "

"No, it's time for a meal."

You felt your irritation spike, narrowing your eyes slightly, "I'm on a deadline, Carmen, so either be fucking helpful and productive or get the fuck out of my space. I've got work to do and you're just slowing me down."

He offered a patient look, asking, "Is that what you really wanted to say?"

You paused, then shook your head, "No... May I try again?"

"Of course," he nodded.

"I appreciate you trying to... Alleviate some of my stress," you spoke slowly, stringing the sentence together in realtime, "but this project isn't something I can ignore right now, so, I'd like to finish this thing before we do whatever else."

"Better," he teased, knowing you ran a short fuse when stressed out and overworked. "What's got you riled up?"

"I have this 20-page paper due."

"20 pages!?"

"It's not that bad, honestly, once you have your thesis together," you chuckled dryly. "it's just time consuming and meticulous."

He frowned and stepped forward to press a kiss to your forehead, mocking in a sarcastic tone, "You're doing amazing, sweetie."

"I'm so tired," you pouted up at him. "Do I really need this degree? This is so much stress for such a little thing such as a piece of paper that cost me $50k just to say I'm allowed to join the work force."

"Hey, hey," he laughed. "Just remember what you're working towards. You're one assignment closer to your internship turning into a full-time gig, right?"

You nodded, "You're right. I want that job so bad... I just hate how busy I feel - it's like, how can I remember to eat let alone write 6 different response posts to my classmate's work?"

Carmy nodded with empathy, "Just remember that end goal, baby. Keep grinding, keep moving. Almost at the finish line, right?"

"Right," you nodded with a smile. "Thank you, angel face."

Carmy smiled at you before softly asking, "Want me to bring you anything? Something to eat, drink, a condom?"

"Stop quoting Mean Girls at me!"

His hands shot up in defense, deflecting, "I was just trying to be a gracious host. If the missus wants anything, I'll make sure she has it."

"Pretty sure 'missus' is a term used for wives - " His groan made you laugh lightly, then covering, "No, thank you, baby, I'm okay. I should only be about another hour or so...?"

"All right, yeah, sure. I'll start dinner in 30, okay?"

"Sure," you smiled, already distracted again as you lifted your screen again to stare at the Word document that had been haunting your hard-drive for about 3 weeks now.

"Hey," he interrupted, "don't forget your glasses."

"Thank you," you mumbled, reaching for the special, blue-light filtering glasses Carmy had gifted you when you first started your Master's program. He claimed staring at a computer screen was going to cause long-term damage (he read an article) and got you a pair, which, you had to admit, made a huge difference.

Your hair was raked into a new bun as you reread the last of your essay, trying to get back in the academic mindset in order to finish the last bit of your assignment. There were textbooks spewed around your work table; laptop plugged in, highlighters and pens and notebooks within reach and a nearly-finished bottle of water was set to the side. You wrote ferociously once you got back on the right mental track, feeling your headache stir to life as you blindly reached for your water bottle.

However, when you picked it up, you blinked in mild shock when the bottle was heavier than before. Glancing over, you realized Carmy had replaced the bottle because there, under where it had sat, he left you a handwritten note:

replenish what you lost from crying!

You chuckled, knowing you were a stress cryer and when tackling big assignments like this, you were ten times as stressed as usual. Still you worked, even putting your headphones on to play soothing background noise - like rainfall. Your neck cramped, back ached, temples throbbed, and hands were cramping. Still you worked, using sticky notes to flag the important quotes you wanted to use from your textbooks and notebooks. Your stomach growled, your eyes begged for reprieve, chest felt tight, and shoulders were too tense.

Still. You. Worked.

Deadlines were important to you, and while you were a professional procrastinator, you always turned everything in on time - no matter your mental state. You could smell whatever Carmy had started cooking, focused on writing as you only used spellcheck as you went - and still you worked. You knew you surpassed the hour limit you told Carmy, but you couldn't stop, you were so close to finishing, it almost put tears back in your eyes, but this time out of relief. You only paused to look at online sources and apply chapstick, cracking your tightly-wound knuckles, and when you finished the last body paragraph of the essay, grinned to yourself.

All that was left was your conclusion, to create a bibliography, and to edit - but you were almost home free!

Suddenly, you jumped in fright when a hand planted on your shoulder; whipping around to see your boyfriend's own startled expression. "Sorry," Carmy apologized with a wince when you removed your headphones, "didn't mean to scare you, just wanted to check on you."

You nodded, 'Yeah, no, I'm almost done. Like give me 20 minutes, almost done-almost done."

He smiled softly, "Dinner's ready when you are."

"I'll be there soon, thank you, angel face."

"Can I help with anything?"

"Uh," you cocked your head, "you know what? Maaaaybe..."

"Really?" He grinned, perking up. "You never let me help!"

"It's not really work, per se," you amended, "but would you mind letting me read this out loud to you - see if it makes sense? The mark of a good writer is to act as if the audience knows nothing about the subject and make them understand, and you're exactly that."

"Lemme hear it," he nodded, taking a seat, "I might not be much help but I can still try."

You agreed and finished typing the outline of your conclusion, then scrolled to the top of your word document, and explained to him what your class was before starting to read. He listened intently, sitting on a spare stool with his elbows resting on his knees; keeping him leaned forward to provide his undivided attention. You managed to reword a few sentences, only noticing they didn't make sense when you read them out loud. Once or twice, Carmy even offered an alternative phrasing you liked - making the changes and rereading, then continuing through your assignment.

By the end, you were able to beef up the conclusion and Carmy was grinning at you in pride. "That's real good, baby," he complimented, "it all made sense and rolled nice together. I think that has to be an 'A'-worthy paper."

"You should be the one grading theses, my professor's the worst," you frowned. "It's why I got so in my head, I got a fucking 76 on my last essay and need to do really well on the next few to help average my grade."

"What about the tests?"

"We don't have any, this class is all about writing material and turning it in," you pouted.

"Hey," he spoke seriously, making you look at him in question, "I'm really proud of you."

You giggled nervously, "Oh, yeah? Why? What for?"

"For doing this," he nodded to the desk. "Look at all you're doing, baby, there's no way I'd ever be able to keep up with this kinda shit. You're doing such a great fucking job - I want you to remember that. What you're doing ain't easy, but you're handling this like a pro."

"I cry, like, everyday..."

"So what? You still get shit done while emoting - call that multitasking, baby."

"Got me there."

"Seriously, though, you're not told enough what a fantastic job you're doing; how strong and resilient you have to be to deal with this kind of stress day-in and day-out. I see the hard work you put in," he promised, "and I want you to know how fucking proud I am of you. It's all gonna be worth it one day, but until then, I love watching you grind through school. I might not take the classes with you, but I'll help however I can, whenever I can."

"Thank you," you whispered. "It's really nice to hear... I feel myself burning out and it's nice to be reminded that what I do now will influence my future. Validates me in feeling stressed out, you know? Sometimes, I feel silly 'cause, like, there's so many bigger things to be upset about and here I am, stressed out at a place that's guaranteed to stress me out..."

"It's not silly, it's normal. College ain't easy," he reminded, "and you're just trying to keep yourself afloat."

"Yeah, but there's bigger things in life than something trivial as my education."

Carmy scoffed at you, shaking his head, "Ain't no way."

"What?"

"My girl just said her feelings are trivial... Nah, she said her emotions about her education is trivial," he shook his head again. "Should wash your mouth out with soap - talkin' crazy like that. Baby, you know, first and foremost, your education is high on our priorities list, but your emotions? You think they're trivial? Nah, if anything causes you to have any emotion, it's valid - it's not something silly or redundant."

You pouted slightly, "You always know what to say."

"Hungry?"

"You're the perfect man," you laughed, looking at your document again and humming. "Okay, so, lemme just cite my sources and turn this in."

"Then you wanna have date night?" He smirked.

"No, no, I'm so tired - "

"I meant we can stay in."

"Oh, then count me in!"

"Change into something cozy when you're done, we can watch a movie with dinner. Yeah?"

You agreed, accepted his kiss of encouragement, and then took his leave to reheat the dinner that had surely cooled off. It didn't take long to cite everything when you used an online citation source website - that IS N O T plagiarizing! It's a handy-dandy tool you discovered your undergraduate freshman year by an actual professor. It was as simple as choosing which style, APA or MLA, and then to either paste the URL of the website you need sourced or you type in the book's information. Hit the generate button and BAM! A perfect citation for your bibliography every single time.

Or if you didn't like that, you could always just Google citation examples and do your best to write it out yourself. But the website, Citation Machine dot net, was a great tool. After perfecting your in-text citations and saving your work, you uploaded it to your university's assignment portal, crossed the essay off your to-do list, and stretched on your feet.

Cleaning up your space minimally, you hustled to your bedroom to get a quick hot, relieving shower, change, and then met Carmy in the kitchen. "Hey," you sighed with a soft smile.

"Hey, doll. All done?"

"For tonight," you groaned, "but tomorrow's a new day with new assignments."

"That's a future problem we'll handle at a later time," he eased, showing you your dinner plate. "Ta-daaaa!"

You grinned, "Oh, baby, this looks amazing!"

"Yeah, well, I kinda figured as a full-time student right now, nobody was gonna remind you what incredible job you're doing, so, I'm more than happy to step up to the plate. And what better treat than your favorite meal, huh?"

"Thank you," you whispered, pecking his lips.

You often thought his love language was "food", but then you realized it was technically under the acts of service and quality time. He loved cooking for you - it was like a gift. He loved cooking with you - it was time spent bonding. He loved introducing you to new dishes - it's a present! He loved when you let him give you a culinary lesson - it was time well spent.

"C'mon," Carmy lead you to the living room, both crashing on the couch you had been gifted from your grandmother's house when she was put in a nursing home. Normally, you wouldn't have splurged on something like this, but considering it was free, you and Carmy were happy to use it. Settling together on the couch, you got cozy under a shared blanket and Carmy flicked some movie on for background noise, but instead of watching, he just asked you about your coursework.

You told him what you could, shaking your head and huffing about how annoying your program was. How hectic. How jam packed and fast-paced it all seemed to be. How your head felt like it was spinning. How you couldn't nail down workable coping mechanisms and just felt totally out of control. You were spiraling.

You needed this rant session.

Carmy listened intently.

He never once tried to say, "oh, but if you had time management," or anything like, "if you do THIS instead..." or some bullshit, "my way works better." His bright and wide blue eyes watched you the entire time, sighing when you got to the end of your meal and vent session.

"It just feels like, I turn in one assignment, I get three more right after. Turn in those three, and all of a sudden, there's another 10!"

"Does the syllabus say anything about that?" He wondered.

"No, it just said what our reading schedules were and when major assignments are due. But those dates all got shuffled around that it feels like a train wreck. You know, if the original schedule was kept from the syllabus, I wouldn't feel so worked up! It's the rearrangement and added assignments without warning that's throwing me off."

"That doesn't sound easy," he validated. "Anything I can do to help?"

"No, you're doing more than enough," you whispered, pecking his lips. "Thank you for dinner."

"I made dessert, too."

"No!" You gasped with a grin.

"Mhm - wait here. I'll grab it."

"Wow, dinner, movie, and dessert?" You teased, "I'm being spoiled tonight."

"You've been working your ass off for weeks now," he smirked, standing from his seat to pick up your plates, "this is the least I could do. I know I said it, but you know how good a job you're doing, right? Damn, baby," he chuckled, "ain't no way I could ever handle shit like that on the regular."

"I could't do what you do, either."

"We all balance our crazy different. Want some tea? Wine?"

"Tea would be great."

"Comin' up."

When Carmy returned, you pulled the blanket back to let him sit again with the dessert plate between you both; two steaming mugs of tea sat on the coffee table. "What's this?" You wondered, seeing a sort of pastry.

"Marcus told me 'bout this," he chuckled. "Kinda like a poor man's version of this one thing he makes. So, look, it's Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, right? In the middle, there's raspberry preserves - or jam if you want that instead. It's baked then drizzled in melted white chocolate."

"Wow, you got all fancy on me," you beamed.

"Hardly, more like I was a little impulsive after hearing your essay. Figured you could use some dessert - you really earned it, baby. You always earn dessert," he grinned, "but tonight, you were kickass. Know that? Hear me?"

You shook your head, "This is nothing compared - "

"Hey, hey, nah," he interrupted, "nah, nah, don't do that, don't try to invalidate or downplay yourself. Look, shit is always hard in college, right? But you handle it so well, I can see the work you're putting in and the little reward you receive in return, and know that shit's gotta add up for you. But my baby just keeps cool, does her work, and does what she can to earn the grades she does. Right?"

"I mean, I try to..."

"You succeed. C'mon, lemme hear you say it. 'I kick college's ass.'"

"I kick college's ass."

"'I work hard.'"

"Carmy - "

"Saaay it!"

You huffed, "I work hard."

"'I'm an incredible hard worker.'"

"I'm an incredible hard worker."

"'I am only human.'"

Another breath in, repeating, "I am only human."

"'I am a success.'"

"I try to be a success."

"That wasn't the quote."

"Well, I don't know if I'm succeeding because grades aren't finalized yet and I have - "

"No, no, no," he smirked again, "you're still successful 'cause you're doing such a kickass job. You could get a fucking 'D' on something, and guess what? You're still successful 'cause you don't let this tear you down, you learn from mistakes and apply whatever lessons you learn to your upcoming assignments. Some people say you might even learn more from losing and failing than from undisputed success. Look, I'll be honest, I thought my job was hectic as shit, but hearing your essay tonight? Goddamn, you're not just beautiful, but so fucking intelligent, too. Baby, I was shook - that sounded like some academic paper that college kids need to defend their thesis or some shit. Something scholarly, not some assignment you gotta hand in by a deadline so you just wrote down whatever. So, give yourself credit and tell yourself you're a success."

With a long, deep breath, you answered earnestly, "I'm a success."

"Good girl," he muttered, handing you a fork finally. However, unlike Mikey all those years ago, you didn't launch your utensil at anyone and used it to cut off a corner of pastry.

You moaned when you tasted the gooey goodness. You managed through a mouthful, "Mmhhh! Mhm! Mhm! If you make this every time I have some assignment pissing me off and stressing me out, I'm afraid I'll get used to this treatment."

Carmy grinned, "You deserve whatever dessert you want, whenever you want. Huh? Yeah? Lemme hear you say it."

With another grin, you mused, "I deserve whatever I want, when I want it... And however I want it!"

"Atta girl!"

"You're so fucking corny," you laughed lightly, feeling as if you were falling in love with him again, "but thank you, my Affirmation King."

requesting rules and masterlist

The Bear masterlist

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mendely · 3 months

Text

So anyway, Hazbin Hotel. I watched some of the new series, I have a lot of thoughts, but I'll TL;DR:

In my honest opinion, its biggest weakness is that it feels utterly directionless, scattershot, and inconsistent. It feels like the series hasn't evolved past "I put a bunch of disparate childhood OCs in the same place together" and hasn't figured out any coherent theme or thesis statement to make as a narrative. This applies to both the writing and the art direction. Characters feel like they come from vastly different settings/genres and so do the plot points explored from episode to episode. In general it's really hard to get a read on what the series has to say, overall.

other comments:

this has been the most ineffective use of swearing I have ever seen in writing

genocide as a plot point and handled like that in the show... yeah this was really poorly timed. obviously this wasn't done on purpose, but not a good look at the moment considering irl situations

Adam is highly underwhelming both design and writing wise

I like the TV head corporate magnate, but imo he's not really suited for this setting. He feels more like a sci-fi cartoon villain to me

Alastor supposedly being black and/or creole is not well portrayed. There's also cultural appropriation issues with his character but everyone has talked about that already

the characters supposedly being from different cultures and historical eras is poorly handled, e. g. I can't really believe Angel Dust is an Italian mobster from the 1940s because practically all of the characters strike me as modern and American

overall this show is so SO americentric and I'm kinda not vibing with that

#not meant as hate #hazbin hotel critical #vivziepop critical #hazbin critique

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honey-milk-depresso · 3 months

Note

Batboys watching anime with reader

You know my ass went FULL ON LOCK MODE with Tim. I went crazy- 💀

***S/o is above 18, which means characters below are also aged up!

Doing requests until 1 Feb! Please see my pinned post and read the request rules on the navi! Thank you!🩷

Batbros watching anime with you

Dick Grayson

He’s watched a few 90s anime before, more the basic ones like One Piece and Pokémon, and he probably still watches them to this day. Boy has old CDs he has and you should probably try finding a Blue Ray (or use his if he can have Tim help fix it because it’s good as dead 💀) because he’s popping in every CD of old anime’s he have lying about.

“Wow, I didn’t know I had cowboy bebop! Or Slam Dunk!” He got a few rare gems, which makes it all the more fun to sit down on the couch under a blanket as you huddle and watch the nostalgic 90s anime shows together while eating popcorn.

He doesn’t mind watching new, modern day animes, just be prepared for when you two watch sad anime shows because he will sob like it’s the end of the world.

“NO, WHY WOULD KAORI DIE LIKE THIS?? AND SHE LOVES ARIMA- OH MY GOD IM SO—”sobs even more. He gets emotional while watching them because it’s so sad that it’s sO GOOD-

Loves dancing to those danceable anime music with you. He goes ALL. OUT. He even sings all of it in Japanese like wow-

I would love to hear him sing Cruel Angel’s Thesis in his Discowing suit and with goth makeup on it because it “sets the mood”, PLEASE-

Overall, great time watching with Dick. <3

Jason Todd

You expect someone like him to like Chainsaw Man, Trigun or something like those grunge-y, guns and knives animes, right? I mean, he does, but only with you and ONLY with you will he let his inner Magical Girl enthusiast ass shine. Because he LOVES Magical Girl animes. That’s probably the reason and one point of time why he wore red ribbons around his arms, he wanted that Sailor Moon experience and Tim might’ve just teased him about that era without knowing his love for Magical Girl animes and Jason might’ve flipped and freaked the fuck out and started chasing him down the manor.

Jason watches Sailor Moon, Madoka when he feels edgier than usual, Cardcaptor Sakura, every Precure series, Tokyo Mew Mew, man has all these shows somehow. He swears they weren’t through illegal means and he just worked very hard to gather all of them. He also might be a shoujo anime fan because if he loves Jane Austen books, you bet his ass would be reading Fruits Basket, Maid Sama or something because of course he would.

Also a Studio Ghibli fan, although watching the Tale of Princess Kaguya might make him feel too much, especially getting pissed off with the dad who forces his daughter into a wealthy life without her input and- yeah, you gotta calm him down as he cries bitterly and sourly with a pout on his face.

The two of you can go on and on about debating about unclear endings of animes all day long. You know the “AND SHE WAS A PRINCESS” video? That’s Jason.

Great man to watch anime with, and he’ll gladly be your Tuxedo Mask to your Sailor Moon (and not the “But you did nothing meme- or the other way around- he don’t mind being the Usagi-). <3

Tim Drake

I’m very convinced this man got into his whole detective shit because he watched Detective Conan and honestly I can’t blame him. Tim has probably the largest vessel of anime knowledge out of all of them. He doesn’t really have a specific genre he likes but he’s pretty fond of old 90s and 80s animes. He can explain the whole lore of One Piece, Fairytale, Pokémon like Jesus Tim, calm down- 💀

I can see him watching Neon Genesis Evangelion, Serial Experiments Lain or Key the Metal Doll because he likes that little bit of horror nature and mystery and thriller in his animes although he really doesn’t mind watching Haikyuu all over again if you want to.

Might introduce you to underrated and/or old animes like Revolutionary Girl Utena, Nadia the Secrets of Blue Water, every Studio Ghibli movie, those kinds of animes that give off the really pretty and aesthetic old anime animations that is just so pretty to watch and with really good storylines that both of you can cuddle on a couch together and watch. I bet he even watches anime with you even before you two got together, so you guys pretty much have “watching anime together” as part of the foundation of your relationship. Owns so much manga that you can’t even count, too.

Just… don’t make him watch those really slow burn, comedy love animes, specifically Love War. Not that he don’t like romance animes, he watches Ouran High School Host Club and Your Name, trust me, but Love War? He is going absolutely insane because of it.

“OH MY GOD- PLEASE JUST KISS ALREADY. ME AND S/O ARE ALREADY TOGETHER FIVE MONTHS AGO ANF YOU TWO ARE STILL TOO PROUD TO ADMIT YOU LOVE EACH OTHER WHILE BLUSHING- JUST KISS ALREADY-” <3

Damian Wayne

Damian likes anime. Would 100% go to an anime convention with you as a date if you’re up for it. He doesn’t mind (surprisingly- just for you only-).

He doesn’t necessarily like showmen animes although he has enjoyed a few, but he really loves slice of life, I feel. It just feels like he wants to put himself in a normal life and with a tad bit of drama in it like what the characters go through. The touching ones like Hyouka or Natsume’s Book of Friends.

Also animal related anime maybe except Beastars because he didn’t understand shit-?? He calls that peak anime. Aggretsuko, Chi’s Sweet Home and My Roommate is a Cat?? Damian loves this shit, he watches it intently with his arm around you. Even if he doesn’t smile, you know he loves it by the way his eyes sparkle.

Just don’t tell his brothers. He will seriously feel betrayed if you do so because he only watches these kinds of shows with you: the cute animal ones that are actually wholesome and/or funny.

The whole family is into Studio Ghibli, and he is no exception. He feels like it’s the best kinds of anime to watch with you when you guys just want to turn in for the day and huddle up on the couch. It’s one of the rare times he relaxes and softens and he’s glad to have quality time with you. <3

Duke Thomas

He likes anime! Studio Ghibli is definitely a favourite of his and he would gladly watch it together with you! He also love a fair bit of Shounen animes, the more popular ones like Jujutsu Kaisen, One Piece, Haikyuu, or Spy x Family. He likes them a lot!

A big fan of romance animes too: Ouran High School Host Club and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (if you two are in the mood to huddle on the couch together and cry).

Duke doesn’t mind any kind of anime so long as it doesn’t have too much horror or gore like… Higurashi. He gets chills when that anime is mentioned. D-Don’t watch it for your own sake if you don’t know. And if you do, avoid it with him at all cost because he will.

Duke also like singing some good anime songs with you and you guys can go crazy and dance around, just not as dramatic as Dick.

He would be super excited to spend a date with you watching shounen anime movies like from Jujutsu Kaisen and he would be so hype to spend time with you being a fanboy while also sharing that romantic air for the shared love of anime between you two and the love that you two share, although that love is far stronger. <3

Reblogs help! ^^

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soraviie · 1 year

Text

you intimidate them.txt

━ type: bts x f! reader ━ navigation

━ about: fluff?, heavy crack, stupidest thing I've written no it's a lie I did write my university thesis, so the second most stupid thing ━ pictures taken from Pinterest

━ previously posted on soraviii

NAMJOON: "Dude, will you stop sweating?" Yoongi asks with a distinct frown and resentment laced in his tone. In his defence, elevators were not known as being the most spacious and well-ventilated places, as well as the fact that by all biological assumptions Namjoon must be sweating spinal fluid. The man was part liquid right now.

"It's not something I can control," he growls back and pounds the handkerchief against his forehead like a machine gun.

"Maybe she's forgotten all about it," Jimin, an ever-helpful angel, pipes up from his corner of the elevator simultaneously trying to maintain as much distance as possible. "It happened a year ago."

"I doubt-" the doors open to your face and Namjoon swears his soul rips through his throat as he sweats in mute stroke-ridden silence. There you stood and from the fiery look in your eyes that promises him nothing but a lifetime of misery and suffering, he knows the small, minuscule tiny incident has not wandered off your mind.

"Hello, Miss ____________," Yoongi bids quietly and politely, brushing past as well as Jimin who offers a cheery wave. Your face lightens momentarily only to drop into a deeper frown once settled upon him. It doesn't help his nerves at all that Jin and Jungkook were in the absolute trenches fighting for their breath on the side, with tears in their eyes, doubled over in laughter.

"Would you like to step outside the elevator?" you ask him coldly and he flinches, shrivelling smaller.

"No," he audibly squeaks and Jungkook is rolling on the floor.

"Please, step outside the elevator so we could get started," you order and he waddles away from the safety of the metal box.

"I'm sure this year will be uh...more peaceful," Hoseok interjects, the mediator of all things.

"You mean, we don't want anyone here managing to break my glasses, burning my hand by dumping hot coffee all over it and then. Losing. My. Passport."

Namjoon now shrunken down to 2cm in size was counting the threads in the carpet. 2803, he counts, 2804.

Hoseok tosses an uneasy side glance to a remaining ectoplasm of his friend spinning somewhere around the globe.

"Yeah."

"Of course," you smile and Namjoon nearly begins to cry from fear. It's so terrifying and murderous that he doesn't even know how to breathe. "That would be greatly preferable. God knows what would someone do," your eyes glint as you nail the final coffin in Namjoon's grave. "If subjected to it again."

YOONGI: The day is busy and your hands are shaking and everything's so hectic that when you bring the many folders of who should be wearing what on which day of the show, they fall from your hands and spill all across the floor page by one page. Which is not that bad but then-

A laugh.

A highly amused laugh.

Sort of noiseless and accompanied by many shoulder wags.

You turn to glance back, counting the years that will be spent in a jail cell, and find Min Yoongi having eyes the size of saucers even though the rest of the face is unreadable.

And instead of apologizing or even helping he, in an oddly pitched tone, only responds with:

"Funny."

Then folds in on himself and mutters something that vaguely sounds like a:

"You fucking idiot."

You can't kill him you think. It'll call for execution at the very least. So you politely and subtly flip him the bird and walk away.

An entire year is lived without this heinous man's presence and now he's in front of you once more and he's laughing. Every time his gaze lands on you he begins to smile.

Because your very existence must be a joke to him so once again you politely flip him the bird and exit the room.

"My dude, stop laughing at the girl you're crushing on!" Hoseok threatens into his ears and while still battling the smile, Yoongi hisses back.

"I'm not laughing at her! I can't stop smiling whenever I see her face. I'm telling you she's a witch."

"The only thing magical is the speed with which you get a boner for her," Namjoon adds to the flame with the most neutral, UN-ready expression faced towards the camera.

"You think she'll ever talk to me?" he asks, wilting in discontent.

"Nah she hates you."

"Spit in your drink is what she'll do."

Hoseok and Namjoon look rather proud of themselves.

It's shortly before going on stage that Yoongi, adrenaline-fueled, bumps you with his hip and says with a wink.

"Wish me luck, our brave stylist."

"Break a leg," monotonously, you reply.

He sweats.

"Like for good luck you mean."

"Yeah," you narrow your eyes. "That's what I mean."

He swallows in fright and scurries away as fast as he's capable.

"I'm telling you she's a witch!" he yells in pain while being carded to an ambulance.

"Yoongi, you slipped because the stage was wet and twisted an ankle," Namjoon reiterates, tired, struggling, contemplating whether or not he should sit himself into this very ambulance.

"No, she definitely cursed me!" he argues.

"Why would you call a girl you like a witch?" Taehyung innocently wonders and Yoongi sighs with all the world's age.

"Isn't all love witchcraft?"

JIN: "I'm not going there alone."

"You're thirty! You're an adult, thirty years old male!"

"So, either you hold my hand as I go or I'm not going there at all."

"You're about to enlist!"

"Trust me, I'd much rather enlist right fucking now than go to," he shudders. "Her."

Namjoon sighs.

"I'm not holding your hand to go to the accounting."

Jin turns, hopeful, but everyone is conveniently averting their eyes. Taehyung has pressed his face against the window. Jimin was staring at the ceiling whilst Jungkook seemed to have resigned from his body entirely.

"Cowards, the lot of you."

Jin knows for 100% that the hallway to Hell itself, as he calls it, is haunted. He can see his breath in the air, and hear the laments of the dead. It's here that all souls come to die.

He chickens out several times but knows this is urgent and so swallowing his own skin, he timidly knocks on the door.

"Come in," comes the omnipresent voice and he shivers.

"Mr Kim Seokjin," you greet him cooly bringing down a stamp like an axe upon a head.

Playing with his fingers, he squeaks:

"Want to hear a joke?"

"No."

He swallows.

"I forgot it anyway."

"How clever of you."

There's a deep, pregnant pause in which he calculates the possibility of jumping out the window and surviving.

0. Chances are 0.

"We uh...need more...money for...the sunglasses...I uh...broke some."

"Is that all?"

"ʸᵉˢ."

"I'll arrange it."

"ᵗʰᵃⁿᵏ ʸᵒᵘ."

"Are you bowing?"

"ᴺᵒ, ᵗʰᶦˢ ᶦˢ ʰᵒʷ ᴵ ʷᵃˡᵏ"

"Just go."

He pushes the door open with his ass and takes off running.

HOSEOK: "It's just one woman. Just go talk to her if you find her interesting."

"She'll eat me!"

"She won't eat you!"

Another man approaches. You assess him like a Black Widow might assess a male too brave.

"Hello, I was admiring you from the distance and may I just say, I'll do anything to buy you a drink."

"Anything?" you ask with a smile and being a sleazy male he falls head first into a trap.

"Yes, anything," he nods, eagerly thinking you were an easy lay.

"Rip your liver out" you order that smile staying intact.

"What?" he blanches, laughing awkwardly.

"You said you'll do anything. So rip your liver out."

"Why would you need my liver?" the man asks, sweat rolling down his neck as he sees your aura of terror grow bolder, enveloping him whole.

"I'll eat it," your smile widens. "Why else?"

The man, just having promised his all, takes over the hills and you tut after him.

"Love is so damn fickle."

Yoongi, dragged along for the emotional support, pulls a breath through his teeth.

"So, she could eat you. Hoseok, how can a scaredy cat such as yourself like such terrifying women?"

"I don't know, just keep covering me! Though there's not a lot of you to cover."

Yoongi grimaces and cruelly leaves his friend to defend himself on his own in the wilderness. As you glance at the sound of someone whimpering you stumble upon a beautiful man whose eyes tell he was definitely shitting himself.

"Hello?" you wave at him and he screeches in fright.

JIMIN: "He's lost his mind," Jin gasps behind the couch.

"He's suicidal," Namjoon assesses also behind the couch.

"He's an idiot," Taehyung, the best friend, concluded calmly whilst scrolling through the phone.

Jimin with the determination of a wide-eyed duckling and romance of a prince, approaches the working, hunched figure, sweating and terrified but otherwise optimistic.

Heavy metal music streams in his direction but he has his eyes set.

He taps on her shoulder, smiles and then -

Deflates.

Says nothing.

Sweats.

In silence.

"There was a sign," you growl at him pointing the paintbrush at the stand nearby.

STAY AWAY! DO NOT COME CLOSER! LEAVE!

Jimin gathering all his wits, replies brightly:

"I can't read!"

"Yeah, I figured."

He swallows. You should not be this scary. But you are.

"I just wanted to ask maybe you need help? You've been working on our MV mural for a long time."

"I don't need your help."

"But do you want it?"

Your eyes narrow.

"Also no. Leave."

Head hung low he toddles away.

It's night already when Jimin leaves the studio and there's only one light streaming in the entire building - the projector illuminating the mural.

"Please, go home, you've been working for like 24 hours," he pipes up gently, partially tucking himself away in the dark.

"I can't," you reply, tired and worn out. "If I don't finish this today, I'll be a disappointment."

That feeling Jimin knew like no one else.

"Your health should be the first priority. Go rest. You won't be a disappointment, I promise."

The paintbrush clatters on the ground. Your hands are too tired to hold it anymore.

"Guess so," resignedly, you sigh. Pulling yourself up with great difficulty, you cast the partially hidden man a harmless glare. "Do you have to be so kind? You make me feel like an asshole."

"You're a bit of an asshole," Jimin agrees, heart beating a thousand beats per nanosecond. "But I think you do it to push people away. And you push people away because you can get hurt easily. And you get hurt easily because you have a big heart. And that's the best quality one can have. So in the end you're a good person."

"Still, you're scared of me," you point out at his hands clutching the door like a lifeline.

"A little bit," he chuckles self-consciously. "But I'll get over it, don't worry."

TAEHYUNG: "Look, __________, there's BT-oh not again!"

You sit stony-faced staring down that annoying, chiselled figure once more.

"This is ridiculous! You can't glare at him every time you meet in these things!"

Sinking your nails into the countertop of the bar shoved to the side, you growl back, doubling down on the ired grimace.

"Fucking watch me! I'm not letting some rich asshole intimidate me!"

"Maybe he just has an RBF? One would think, you'd know, given how you have one as well."

"No, no, he's definitely mocking me. I don't care how handsome he is I'll tear this guy a new one if he even dares-"

"You've got anger issues up the kazoo," your friend sighs, resigned on the matter. "Most girls would be lucky to have Kim Taehyung staring at them."

"The only way to stare at me is in awe! And he's not doing that!"

"Not to mention the ego," your friend rolls her eyes, faintly wondering why the rest of the BTS was so avidly arguing.

"Taehyung! Is your head made of spinach?! She's not going to marry you because you keep staring at her!"

Without changing a single muscle of his expression, he keeps staring, sending you his thoughts across the audience. Your hand grabs the bottle and he can't discern whether you want to drink it or fling it at his head.

"She might," he argues back. "I'm Kim Taehyung. Observe the awe in my face."

The face in question couldn't be more neutral if he was gambling his entire life away in a poker.

"Weren't you afraid of her?" Yoongi inquires conversationally.

"That only makes me horny," he tosses out casually and Namjoon scowls in disgust.

"Jesus, just choke already."

JUNGKOOK: "Stop sitting so menacingly!"

"Straighten your spine!"

"Start smiling! Jesus, could you please smile for once!"

Their hazing makes your expression sour even more and the awkwardly lingering masked guy seems to physically wilt away.

Jin and Namjoon who walk into the gymnasium behind Jungkook watch the situation almost bored.

"Oh, look there's that emo coordinator he's crushing on," Jin points out.

"Yeah, they're cute. If he ever gets the balls to talk to her or at least breathe at her, they can hop around like two crows," Namjoon admits.

"That depends how much play Jungkook can pull off."

"So zero?" Namjoon arches an eyebrow and they leave the youngest one to fend for himself. At last, Jungkook springs when your friends finally leave and he's not stared at by the other four girls like some sort of biological experiment.

He opens his mouth.

"You look like a steamed bun."

Then nods, quickly turns around and walks into a wall.

"Yeah, that ship won't sail anytime soon," Jin laments getting ready for practice.

After several more run-ins and mishaps, everyone is allowed to go home as you leave you cross glances with Jungkook who appears to...vibrate.

"You did well," you praise, tossing a bag over your shoulder and he breathes a near inaudible "thanks". The rest of them observe the interaction with some small amount of pride. Just look at him go!

"She said I did well!" he whispers to Jimin.

"Congratulations. Did you just cream your pants because of fear or joy?" he asks his friend shamelessly but Jungkook is too far out of it to care.

"Dunno. Don't care actually."

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whatthebodygraspsnot · 2 months

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#canon divergence where they get drunk as hell on hot toddies one night and keep calling each other papa bear and baby bear

.....can i have this? pretty please? how can i get this? what can i do?

one (1) beautiful kiss is my fee

it’s a dark and chilly night. spring is just around the corner, but before it comes, winter’s using its icy clutches to snatch them up one more time.

ian is grumbly (“we’re so close to tomatoes mick 😩 i can practically taste em”) but mickey sees it as an opportunity to trap his husband in for the night and get him good n liquored up.

they’ve been on a bit of a hot toddy kick for a lot of winter, claiming that it’s something they can be overly decadent about because what they’re spending on ingredients, they’re saving on their heating bills - their internal temps and shared body heat rendering their furnace unnecessary.

they’ve tried apple cider toddies, ginger, even a coffee recipe that left them both grimacing at each other after a single sip, never to drink again.

tonight it’s a tried and true favorite - bourbon, honey, a lil cinnamon stick that mickey always ends up puffing on like a cigar to make ian laugh. he’s returning with their third round (it’s very cold, okay?) and ian is a heavy-lidded, slightly swaying angel where he’s waiting for him on the couch, the blanket bunched over his lap.

“thank you, honey,” he grins, amused beyond belief with his own joke as he accepts the warm glass with both hands. it’s only interrupted when his sip leaves him sucking in quickly, cooling his mouth with a breath. “oo…that shit is too hot.”

mickey helps himself to the other end of the couch, “yeah alright, goldilocks,” remembering to at least blow on his first because this has to be their hundredth hot toddy of the season, and his husband is sometimes a simple man, bless his fucking heart.

and speaking of.

the sound of glass hitting their coffee table is mickey’s first warning of the approach. what comes next is the shifting of the couch cushions, ian helping himself to every inch of his personal space. “goldilocks, huh?” he murmurs through a drunken grin, lifting mickey’s glass now too and taking it away with great care. “think i’m more of a papa bear, no?”

mickey blinks. can’t help the smile that tugs at his own mouth. “no.”

but he’ll definitely take ian loving up on him, all that warm, spiced bourbon warming his belly. “mhm…”

“and who’s that make me, huh…?”

ian noses close, sharing his smile with him as their lips brush. “mm…baby bear, of course…”

mickey can taste the honey. the cinnamon. the deep, infectious desire to play as it radiates off his husband. “you callin’ me short?”

a beat… “no, baby…”

“think i’m more of a papa bear outta the two of us.”

ian’s big ol head lists back a little, his heavy-blink unconvinced. “no, baby…”

and really, how is that not an invitation to play?

“oh yeah,” mickey insists, using the space to flip the script and start crowding ian instead, pushing him back to the other end of the couch until he’s made himself sooo fucking comfortable in his lap. “you’re baby bear, on account-a how fuckin’ cute you are.”

ian looks up at him, trapped in now by mickey’s thighs squeezing him on both sides. “whole point of goldilocks is sizes, mick,” he slurs. like he’s really doin somethin with it. his big thesis statement. “papa bear’s biggest.” and of course those big ol arms wrap around mickey to prove it. “like me.”

mickey grins down at him from his seat in his lap. can’t deny that ian being so fucking huge is a very real turn on for him. but. “‘big’ don’t gotta mean size, ya know.”

“that right…?”

“uh uh,” mickey explains. and damn, fucking on the couch could be nice right now, huh? “‘big’… ‘papa bear’… s’all about power.”

ian blinks up at him. processes. and then slowly, his brows furrow in amusement. “mick…you want me to call you daddy, just fuckin’ say so.”

it’s got them both collapsing into a mess of drunken, breathy giggles, the wind whipping away outside as ian gains the upper hand and lowers mickey onto his back on the couch, following him down with a steamy “c’mere, baby bear.”

by the time they make it back to their drinks, they are no longer too hot.

#julissa the things i do for you are far reaching and never ending #gallavich #asks #ray writes

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night-dark-woods · 17 days

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15, 21, 23, 24!!

THANK U ECHO this got so long oops.

15. that one thing you see in fanart all the time

hmmm not destiny-specific (i dont have any d2 specific gripes i dont think) & i mostly follow cool gay & trans ppl so this is much less of an issue than in the wider fandom (every so often some Main Fandom Art makes its way to me and i do a full double take) but like. i knowww they are almost all the same character model in-game but can we please get some characters who arent super skinny supermodels in here. please.

21. part of canon you think is overhyped

not to sound like an edgelord but. the traveler. if we can acknowledge that the Darkness isnt ontologically Evil, i think we can (PLEASE) acknowledge that the Light isnt inherently good. and im not talking about the superpowers we get, they've (narrative team) made it quite clear that individuals choose to do what they will with based on their own morals. but the traveler is, imo, positioned as a Morally Good Agent Of The Light far more than the witness is Of The Darkness, and i think we need to talk more about the traveler's agenda!!! again, this complexity isnt completely absent from the narrative, but it doesnt feel like those interpretations are... metatextually supported igss? like zavala's frustration with the traveler leaving feels more like a very christian (as someone who was not raised religious) test of faith that zavala (and the canonical YW) have Passed and will be Rewarded.

where's tevis my best friend tevis. we need more characters with that pov. god is real god resurrected you god gave you a second chance at life with no memories of your past and a guardian angel (a "chattering oversoul," to quote toland) to tell you where to go and who deserves to die and raise you every time you fail just to throw you back into the divine crusade. like. lets talk about that a little more!!!

23. ship you've unwillingly come around to

this is hard bc i am in general very willing to "yes-and" ANYTHING with a hint of chemistry or a fun dynamic. it may not compell me but if you can point out a narrative similarity btwn characters i will almost always be down. unless its one i hate ("hate" being a strong word. really its just the strongest possible apathy) bc i contain multiudes :thumbsup:.

i can't think of a pairing i started out disliking and then changed my mind about due to fandom unfortunately. the closest would be igss that i hate crow/amanda as its written in the text BUT my perhaps controversial opinion is i think transitioning could fix crow specifically the version of crow i have in my head who did not get uldren's memories back. SotL was so good for the overarching plot of d2 but so so so bad for the type of awoken-enjoyer i am & imo the like... thesis statement of what a guardian is lol!

so unfortunately i dont have an answer for this one (i dont think "i like the pretend version i made up in my head" counts as coming around on a ship lmfao), bc you can pair any two destiny women and ill be like yeah for sure! and i have curated my online space well enough that i rarely see any other kind of ship, and when i do its gay men (o14, uldren/jolyon, someone i follow is cooking something with saladin/drifter which is inspired. i love whatever is happening there) which is like cheering absently for a sports team idc about but support on principle.

24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

mara. its always fucking mara. literally spent an hour and a half last night rehashing d1 mara-course in a server with someone who has not read any lore. which is fine! thats a fine way to engage with the game! its a valuable perspective! but use i-statements and accept that you are coming to the table with 10% of the facts about the character.

honorable mention goes to anything about redemption arcs (and savathun specifically)- most recently that fuuucking saint killing sav repeatedly lore tab. and if you (general) cant be assed to care about evil women (skill issue, but whatever), thats also backsliding YEARS on saints characterization and i dont even care about saint!!!

so really the answer is misogyny lmfao.

#ask games #planet4546b #thank uuu

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mayo-advance · 9 months

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Guys, GUYS- Good Omens 2 has been out for a hot minute and I don’t see enough people discussing the end of EP 2. I was literally watching that scene thinking the entire time “this is it. This is what good omens is.”

Like yeah it’s still a little lighthearted at the start, Aziraphale thinks he’s going to hell for what was basically a white lie. But then Crowley says he won’t tell in the softest fucking voice you’ve ever heard and the whole tone changes.

“What am I?

“You’re just an angel, who goes along with Heaven as far as he can.”

“That sounds…”

“Lonely? Yeah.”

“But you said it wasn’t.”

“I’m a demon. I lied.”

This is literally like the thesis statement to their characters and their relationship. They’re both outcasts and at this point Heaven and He’ll don’t know that yet and there’s nobody out there like them to turn to. Except each other. This is like probably one of the three most important scenes in season 2 and I just wish people could talk about how important it is. This scene IS their relationship.

(Sorry I get personal under the cut. the other two most important scenes were Angel Crowley and the end of ep 6 obviously but those are both very much being discussed)

This scene also speaks to me so much in terms of my queer identity and religious trauma. It’s obvious where the queerness fits in- but also that feeling when you first begin to doubt and question your faith and there’s no one to turn to is so alienating and this captures it

The feeling of not being religious but still wanting to believe in SOMETHING despite despite despite and having nobody get it because all of your not religious friends are content where they are- all captured in this scene and in this season. Crowley doesn’t really want to go back to heaven but he wants to be good and kind and idk where I’m going with this I’m having so many feelings

#Good omens 2 #gos2 spoilers #good omens #good omens 2 spoilers #mayo rambles #delete later

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clarajohnson · 3 months

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the magicians s2e6

quentin coldwater you are so goddamn embarrassing i love you

once again alice is such a fun fucking character. she liked when q did pretend cirque du soleil ????? i could cry !!!!

margo's outfits are improving but i'm looking forward to when we get past the amazon corsets

the only thing better than "no offense q but you're a little crazy right now" is him blithely acknowledging it, "maybe, yeah"

my children loved me i was a good mother!

NIFFIN ALICE I LOVE YOU FOREVER !!!!!!!!!!!!!

i couldn't possibly make fun of q for trying to summon niffin alice like sorry you would do it too for alice quinn

best bitches !!!! they could've parented a demon baby together it would've been okay

okay i think he actually would've liked a unicorn milk latte. or have requested one in earnest at least.

like i need more people calling me daddy!

something hale and summer do is they occasionally adopt the same affect, the same intonation, it's such a subtle thing and it doesn't come up all the time but it so clearly telegraphs that these people are completely tethered to each other

"i know my daughter she's trying to protect us" oh PLEASE

ughhhhhhhhhhh i forgot about loria. oh my god fuck your parents dude. BUT ELIOT DON'T !!!!!

cin-ci-nahhh-tee.

SCREAM at the virgin queen margo

god fillory is so much fun like it's total bullshit all the time but it's also SO fun i enjoy that half of the plot so much

what's fen's title? do we know? queen consort? she has to have a title right

"if ess was a girl and you found pussy you know interesting in a sometimes you like thai food kind of way"

not to do this because i do this constantly all the time but margo hanson is my best friend i'm in love with her

don't worry the thing will not be born AUGH once again i feel like this is such a randomly traumatic plot to force on julia

niffin alice has terrible posture. somebody get her a better niffin bra!

q thinks people's love for him is so conditional every time it comes up it makes me so sad. also i would like for him to get a better hair routine i know grief and everything but dude it's stringy.

i remember when i first watched this episode i wanted daniel to have died from falling off the ladder he doesn't even deserve all that i was just mad at him for being a shit dad

ess is hot but not hot enough to act like this. you're a virgin to me sweetheart? i think margo should be allowed to kill him.

actually margo should be allowed to kill me if she wants to

queliot obviously first most tragic romance in the magicians but fen/baylor is possibly ranked second when you think about it. wait kady/penny. okay fen/baylor is top three.

JESUS CHRIST I FORGOT ABOUT DANA'S WHOLE THING

even i studied and i'm dead!

it's so sweet that she has dreams about forgetting to study. sorry i feel like somebody applauding disney for having a gay character but i genuinely like the female characters in this show so much. they get to do all kinds of shit! and feel shit!

yeah honestly the reynard plot occasionally veers into an almost anti-choice rhetoric, i could have done without like 90% of this plot

i love asking questions that have a 50/50 shot of being resolved in this episode but do we ever find out who dana's son is

once again! best bitches!

you guys have been so royally fucked with! sometimes the florida jumps out of him

"she never figured out how to be a woman" is such an insane thing to say. the magicians should've dug into motherhood more. haha. wrote a thesis on motherhood voice.

I FORGOT ALICE WAS IN THE TATTOO OH MY GODDDDDDD

cripes reynard is so fucking scary

benedict you are an angel

"we're gonna put our jimmy choos so far up your ass you're gonna taste next season" as a declaration of war is unbelievably good

#unauthorized magicians rewatch #the magicians #text

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dayurno · 5 months

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bro with the kevin day mitski thing i was just re-listening to lush….that’s such a him album but then i was thinking….i could probably listen to every album and say that every album is a him album you know? he’s just so…yea….second choice to ppl?

LUSH IS ONE OF THE KEVIN ALBUMS AT ALL TIMES and its not even because theres a song named Wife if you can believe it...........!!!!! conversationally i think eric is one of the kevin&riko song of all times :3 this view the view of the top of your head makes me forgive you but how long how long can we play this way?

yeah yeah (nods thoughtfully) kevin's second place syndrome it's truly something to consider. never the bride always the bridesmaid..... always an angel never a god........... i think he will spend such a long time grappling with that idea and it will never really amount to anything. its natural of him to think theres a list or a rank or some thing that will tell him if he's good enough to be first place but eventually he will realize no one thinks this stuff. and then he'll be free (finally!) of this old old jealousy

ive been listening to a LOT of tv girl lately theyre another kevinband for me i think.... pretty boy - tv girl literally MADE for him no exceptions. here's my thesis:

#oh pretty boyyyyyy dont speak!!!!!!!!! you pretty boys are only good for one thing...........#bah. bah. bah!#asks #kevin

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comicaurora · 2 years

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(Now I would have used Tumblr's handy dandy reblog function on my last ask, but I felt too self conscious making a long post Even Longer over a single section, BUT!)

'If I put Falst in a notably hostile and unjust city and then just… left him alone, that risked turning the in-universe established fact of people being casually shitty to ferin into a tell-don't-show thing. The last thing I wanted was for it to seem like Falst was being oversensitive, that things weren't that bad or that he could've been hanging out in cities this whole time. ... It was very important that I not shy away from showing the gross, bad side of his experience, because doing so could risk producing the opposite effect.'

Y'know as (half of) a black person, this honestly never occurred to me, like I just Instantly grasped from the way others talked about Falst in his intro arc when he wasn't there "Oh. Oh I Know That." And so seeing him in active peril in the city as opposed to him playing cards with Alinua in the one spot he knew was primarily safest didn't register to me at all as a big difference in presentation because you're not allowed to just Forget that people can and will treat you worse than you are due on sight when you're in Falst's position. But the audience watching a story is allowed and very likely to forget or not register danger levels unless they are being actively shown those things at prudent intervals. Like the silent pressure constantly on Falst is something I Fully Get without having to be given examples, but also it's a silent omnipresent pressure on top of all his other issues that he refuses to bring out of himself, so in crafting a story around All Of That, you gotta shake the jar or else the glitter at the bottom will become such a non-thing that people might just kinda go 'I mean it's just a jar with something at the bottom, I don't see what the deal there is.'

Yeah, it's… a tough balance to strike. I'm not a fan of stories that aggressively fire off nonstop reminders of in-story prejudice (netflix's shadow and bone went so hard on the in-universe anti-"shu" racism I kept cringing away from the screen wondering how this world seemed to be composed 95% of people with nothing else going on in their lives except being racist), but on the flip side you get stories with, as I like to call it, Elf Racism, where some demographic of gorgeous superhumans like elves or angels or catgirls will be allegedly discriminated against or hated by some specific in-universe group and it will usually either be brought up (a) only once in a Very Special Episode where someone is taught quickly and cleanly that Racism Is Bad, (b) literally never, except maybe the token elf/angel/catgirl will be like "you think my ears/wings/kawaii kitty vibes are beautiful? but……… all my life I was told they were hideous", or (c) solely in the context of Radical Anarchist Rebels whose reasonable points about "racism is bad" are obscured by their startling habit of committing random atrocities for our heroes to morally oppose without addressing their actual moral thesis.

My biggest complaint with these executions is that they are wildly, wildly unrelatable. "My life is hard because I have adorable kitty ears, angel wings or superpowers" is the kind of thing that needs supporting evidence before an audience will buy it. "This world is prejudiced, by which I mean elves and dwarves hate each other - but not THIS elf and dwarf, they're besties, but all other elves and dwarves hate each other and in those cases it's just a fun quirk we will never attempt to address" produces a setting that can't decide if prejudice is a moral failing or a funny quirk. "There is prejudice in this world, by which I mean all the bad guys are racist and all the good guys are 100% enlightened and unproblematic" isn't much better, because it's being used as just another flavor of Good Vs Evil - plus the execution on the bad guys' part tends to be so cartoonishly over-the-top as to be completely implausible.

This is a problem, because if the "prejudice is bad" story is trying to communicate, for instance, the complex moral message "prejudice is bad," the prejudice enacted in the story probably shouldn't be so cartoonishly implausible that the audience has no chance of recognizing it within themselves or within anyone whose flavor of bias is anything less blatant than foaming-at-the-mouth-and-cranking-the-hate-crimes-dial-up-to-11. Most people will accept the idea that "people being ridiculously terribly prejudiced is bad," but when the image of prejudice the story paints is so divorced from any sort of lived experience, they will not see prejudice as a harmful flaw that real human people are capable of perpetuating, and they won't recognize it when they see it from the outside in real life - they'll see it as another hypothetical flavor of evil villainy that some bad people intrinsically do.

Prejudice is such a widely experienced issue, especially the "omnipresent invisible uncertainty of whether or not I am safe right now" thing, that it's baffling to me that so many of these stories don't seem to… get it? While the specific nature varies in every case, there is fundamental overlap in the experience! Like, I absolutely do not experience it the same way a lot of other people do - I am very white-looking, and too blonde for the garden-variety antisemites to figure me out, so race-based harassment has never targeted me - but I've been an underage woman in creepy-older-male-dominated spaces, I spent about half my middle school years as the target of nearly-nonstop bullying (a lot of it from people who I otherwise got along fine with and knew were ultimately well-meaning with a blind spot for casual cruelty), and in the past I've been cyberstalked and harassed by random entitled weirdos for long periods of time. I am very aware of the feeling of "there is a target on my back, and I just hope nobody hits it too hard today," and it seems to me that that specific feeling cannot possibly be this difficult to communicate.

It's like these writers read about how prejudice worked and were like "some people hate people for how they were born, got it" and just put that in their world without any nuance. Actually, I say it's like that, but considering the demographics dominating publishing, that's probably exactly why it happens so much.

#asks #writing stuff

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sentiniel · 14 days

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hello! i rrly like ur writing from the dragin result from i assign you love messages to people ive known uquiz you made. i was wondering if i could get permission from you to be inspired by it for the novel im writing? idk im afraid i'd be plagiarizing ur words. the specific line is "you still see me as a human being; not an angel, not a demon, just me. and for that i am thankful. for that i am saved." ive written it as "You still think, see, know me as a mortal, like you know everyone else. I think you're the only one who still thinks that way. Nowadays it's all devil and demon, hellspawn and monstrous fiend. But I'm not an angel either, just "human"." im so sorry if it's actually plagiarizing and im just wasting ur time

oh fuck. king shit. yeah you're allowed to. you've changed so much that it's new stuff you came up with, even if the intent is the same. and if it helps, i took that idea from the characterization of haganai's kashiwazaki sena, but other stories like ubaware literally opens the first chapter with that concept as its working thesis. i'm just thankful that out of all sources, you found my work and was inspired by me. go out there and do good mate. 🫡

#anon #asks #draginraptor #this is for you

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lovejustforaday · 3 months

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2023 Year End List - #3

Desire, I Want to Turn Into You - Caroline Polachek

Main genres: Art Pop, Electronic

A decent sampling of: Downtempo, Alternative R&B, Dance Pop, UK Garage

Seizing the essence of life itself. The search for the meaning of everything. The sheer sense of adventure and danger that is going it alone for the first time.

Caroline Polachek has more artistic vision than just about any other pop artist out there right now. She takes a concept and runs marathons with it, working to achieve its platonic ideal.

This ethos is reflected in her intricate songs, laden with layers of meticulous, hyperreal production courtesy of her long-time co-producer Danny L. Harle, her commitment to weaving rich lyrical webs of different aesthetics, ideals, and mindsets that all fall into place like a great jigsaw puzzle, and her equally impressive, high-concept music videos that harkens back to the likes of other cinematically ambitious female artists such as Lady Gaga, Björk, and M.I.A.

Her voice has often been compared to the function of auto-tune itself, mostly thanks to how masterfully and seamlessly she modulates across complex melodies that jump notes seemingly almost at random, but actually follow an elaborated structure. Meanwhile, the timbral qualities of her voice are crystal clear and hyper-articulate, almost to the point of crossing the uncanny valley and into the supernatural.

So yeah, suffice to say, this was my #1 anticipated release of 2023. It certainly helped that she kept on teasing it, dropping the lead single all the way back in summer of 2021, and then another one in the first few weeks of 2022. It also obviously helped that her first album was simply one of the best art pop records in recent memory (eclipsed only in it's own release year by Twigs' Magdalene).

Polachek's solo pop debut Pang was a headfirst dive into painful love, and the act of relieving oneself from the shackles of self-doubt. The album played out like a series of short stories in a greater narrative storybook anthology, each song its own cerebral headspace, dissecting and sometimes psychoanalyzing the artist's own emotions. To put it concisely, my own interpretation was that of an album about learning to listen to what the self feels, needs, and wants.

This record then, broadly speaking, is about the restless pursuit of those wants.

Desire, I Want to Turn Into You is like the flickering light from the torch's flame that illuminates the ancient wall glyphs inside of an old cave of ruins. It is the feeling of catching your breath, and quenching yourself with that vital taste of water after you’ve just ran a marathon. It’s a thrilling and euphoric experience from start to finish. Art pop with adrenaline and passion.

The prominent Alternative R&B elements that made her previous record more rhythmically complex and sonically contemplative take a bit of a step back on this project, peeking through every now and then on tracks like "Billions" and "Pretty In Possible".

But by and large, Polachek leans more towards sugary pop and dance-oriented songs with high art ambitions, with many tracks influenced by the hop-and-skip beats of the UK Garage EDM scene. There's also a fair bit of more atmospheric downtempo moments in similar fashion to tracks like "Go As A Dream" on Pang, but even they have a little more pulse on this record. A more extroverted sound altogether this time around.

There are also frequent references to Greek mythology, as well as a myriad of melodic motifs that are revisited and re-imagined between different tracks, like the opening melody of "Crude Drawing of An Angel" appearing in the second verse of "Butterfly Net", or the chorus of "Fly To You" being interpreted by a bag pipe solo in "Blood and Butter". Never underestimate Caroline Polachek's ability to tie an album's concepts together into a beautifully interwoven and interconnected symbiosis.

The album takes off with its central thesis, "Welcome To My Island", a declaration to defy all expectations and become desire itself. It opens with a single rapturous siren cry, soaring into the stratosphere and heralding the beginning of a new era. Suddenly, the song's aircraft comes to meet its landing strip. Bright, beady, bubbly little synths make pops and flares over the verses, before the unleashing of a total power chorus that showcases the very best of Polachek's ability to carry zephyrous long notes, meanwhile with her irresistibly cute and sassy "hey, hey ,hey, HEY!" chants forming the backing vocals. Every last ounce of her unapologetically bold artistic personality is lavishly painted over this ridiculously catchy and charming pop song.

"Sunset" pays homage to Spanish flamenco and appears to be taking some cheeky inspiration from the Gerudo Valley theme in Zelda: Ocarina of Time according to a TikTok that Polachek herself posted. This song tastes of the juiciest citrus fruits and the richest olive oil, pouring out of a marble chalice like a waterfall. An excellent demonstration of her artistic versatility.

"I Believe" immediately gets my heart racing with its crisp piano stabs and exhilarating 2-step shuffle. Makes me feel like some kind of JRPG mage, hopping through the air by casting levitation spells and gazing upon the cloudswept Earth below. Totally dreamy and life-affirming.

I find myself deeply immersed in the humid forests of "Blood and Butter". This downtempo track incorporates some very SNES era sound fonts, hand drums, kalimba, and acoustic guitars into a euphoric and ritualistic performance, with the atmosphere of swirling magic mists and even a left-field instrumental bridge featuring some very festive bagpipes. Simply impeccable sound design; listening to this one with headphones is like discovering a sixth sense I didn't know I had.

"Butterfly Net" is the sublime sunrise that turns the entire sky a goldenrod yellow. It's an auditory gateway to beautiful plains of crested wheatgrass, with psychedelic folk undertones and echoing vocals and digital landscapes that stretch off into the horizon for dozens of miles. One of her greatest songs yet, and one I couldn't get enough of for basically all of spring last year.

"Billions" would be my song of the year, had it not already been released in 2022. I cannot overstate, nor begin to describe with all due credit it deserves, just how fucking brilliant the production on this track is. If "Blood and Butter" was the sixth sense, then this is the seventh. Tantalizing, mystifying, erotic, bountiful, reaching towards enlightenment. Everything that must be and will be, maybe truth itself is contained somewhere hidden under the plentiful layers of beats and microbeats in this stunning art pop pedestal. Musically, it sounds ancient, medieval, renaissance, modern, and post-modern all at once. Also - maybe the best incorporation of a children's choir in all of music history? What a bold move to put this as the album closer. If this is the page she chooses to close this chapter on, I can only imagine what magnificence is to come next.

I thought for sure this was going to be my AOTY when it was announced. The fact it didn't end up being so and landed at number 3 instead is just a testimony to how brutally stacked this year's competition was.

I could still nit-pick this quite a bit if I really wanted to. "Hopedrunk Everlasting" and "Bunny Is A Rider" are not only both easily weaker than any of the other material here, but both of them seem to disrupt the respective flow of their placements on this record. But barring that, this is damn close to a masterpiece.

Naturally, this has landed on loads of other 2023 year end lists besides my own, and its definitely not hard to see why. Caroline Polachek is a staunch perfectionist and over-achiever, and shows no signs of stopping any time soon, and Desire, I Want to Turn Into You is an uplifting work of creative genius that only she could have made.

9/10

Highlights: "Billions", "Butterfly Net", "Welcome To My Island", "Blood and Butter", "I Believe", "Sunset", "Pretty In Possible", "Crude Drawing of an Angel"

#album review #music review #list #aoty #year end list #2023 #aoty2023 #desire i want to turn into you #caroline polachek #danny l harle #art pop #electronic

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