#guys horror is such a Genre its god so much crap in it because horror is REALLY hard to write

[timeisacephalopod]

Weird that people treat amateur writing as inherently bad and absolutely worse than published stuff because in my experience if you want good horror amateur horror is actually way better than anything published be it movies or books. Not that there's zero good horror writers, I'm no Stephen king fan but his work is undeniably popular for a reason and I enjoy the movie adaptations of a lot of his stuff. But most horror is 5 tropes in a trenchcoat with half a plot and zero characters that are memorable or likable- a symptom of the genre killing off most of the characters in the story I think but my guys I still need to like them before they get brutally murdered.

Still, amateur writing isn't inherently bad just because Jeff the Killer exists when that amateur writing also has stories like The Russian Sleep Experiment. And god knows just because someone gave a horror flick a budget of 15 million dollars (not go mention marketing budget, which usually costs about as much as the movie) doesn't mean it's good.

#winters ramblings #guys horror is such a Genre its god so much crap in it because horror is REALLY hard to write #people have told me i should write horror because im so good at critiquing horror movies and stories #but im not that good at plot and horror is plot dependant and im no good at tension either. not that kind anyway #so like mad respect for horror writers but despite being dogshit at writing horror #im very confident i could write a horror flick better than Truth or Dare. sure itd end up being a horror comedy #but itd still be better lmao #regardless amateur writing=/= bad writing. horror is one of the few where you find stuff consistently better work than published stuff #but its a great show of how structure and trope expectations in horror movie making especially leads to trite overtired crap ass stories #and amatures arent usually so restricted by capitalism demanding you make the 10 000th exorcist movie instead of an original story #about posession. and its always christian recruitment propaganda too 🙄🙄. still though if you watch the exorcist #every other posession movie is that exactly minus sort of the exorcism of emily rose but thats because they were usuing an actual story #as the basis for that movie and no poor analisa michelle was not actually posessed

[toukenramblings]

Video Games: Mutsunokami Yoshiyuki, Aizen Kunitoshi, Atsushi Toushirou

Oh ho, a fun lil headcanon set like this is so funnnn~!

Warnings: Not much I suppose?

Mutsunokami Yoshiyuki

Sweet MuMu adores video games where we can travel the world. Fantasy world, modern world, past, present, future, he don’t care! An open world game will suit him best! There’s so much to do, and like a lil puppy, MuMu want’s to explore it all!

Extra bonus points if there’s a part of the game where there is something to do with the ocean. He adores the sea after all! Boats, driving them, exploring the ocean, exploring the unknown, oh this TouDan will drink that shit up.

The games that come to mind are Assassin’s Creed: III, Black Flag, Syndicate, Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla. Why? Most of them deal with exploring new lands and some of them deal with piloting ships! III, Black Flag, Odyssey, Origins, Valhalla to be more specific. Syndicate has guns and classy fashion. A little too much for Mutsunokami but he loves playing with the guns in the game - they are very similar in make to his own after all. he also rly likes the sea shanties in odyssey because i rly like them too

If Mutsunokami wants to relax and not play Assassin’s Creed where he goes around stabbing everything that moves, he will play Subnautica or Abzu or Journey to relax. Maybe even Animal Crossing! He loves the cute little animals but I personally think that games where he can just explore the world and meet new people and learn lore just make him happy the most.

Games MuMu would never play are horror games or anything with spiders in them. So Bayonetta and Devil May Cry are out. He loves the idea of gun-toting protagonists but nope, nope. Spiders? Bye fam.

Now that I think about it, he would just be Blathers. He can play Animal Crossing but Gods help him the minute he sees a spider in that damn game. “I THOUGHT THIS WAS A PEACEFUL GAME, WHY ARE THE SPIDERS TRYING TO KILL YOU” cue controller thrown at the television.

Oh MuMu adores party games! Can’t play Smash Bros or Mario Kart for shit. Watch him pay too much attention to the background and yeet himself off of the stage because he saw something shiny. He can kinda play though, but again he gets distracted the most. Buuut ask him to play Mario Party with the rest of the swords and damn right he will play!

Can and will make video games turn into a drinking game. MuMu adores competitive gaming with the rest of the citadel. Will start taking bets on who is gonna win and lose, and sure he may be a pouty loser but he’ll be fiine. But damn right he’ll yeet a tantou to ensure his win. No he won’t he’s not that cruel.

Mutsunokami also adores rhythm games! Taiko no Tatsujin because of Don-chan and the idea of playing with a lil taiko drum as a controller. He’s very much into music after all. There are times when he stops playing a game to just listen to the music and take it all in!

A guilty pleasure game he plays is probably Ghost of Tsushima. No he’s not checking out Jin’s ass whenever they go to a hot spring, what are you talking about? MuMu enjoys it because sometimes just going back to your roots and stabbing a ho is just what you need. dear khotun khan, eat shit

Aizen Kunitoshi

Aizen is also super big on rhythm games. As said above with Mutsunokami, Taiko no Tatsujin will be a favorite of his. He has a secret collection of Don-chan merch, no one is stopping him damn it. Just fucking tRY and take away his precious Don-chan(s). The only ones that can touch his prized collection are the rest of the Rai swords, other peeps he is close to, and maybe you if you two are close/you ask nicely. Get him some Don-chan pajamas and he’ll cry.

Aizen is also pretty good at fighting games, Street Fighter coming to mind because he adores over the top bullshit and the colors! The colors! He mains Ryu though, but he’s more than willing to try new characters!

He’s also pretty competitive at times, so he would adore playing fighting games with the rest of the swords at the citadel. Hotarumaru and he are always playing Smash Bros or Mario Kart, which ends up with a lot of broken controllers. Hotaru has been slightly banned from planning highly competitive gameplay though.

Other games that I know Aizen will be into will be Animal Crossing when he wants to relax. He loves the little yearly festivals and events in the games and it kinda mirrors how life works in the world. Of course he adores Digby and Isabelle, and has threatened Tom Nook with Hotarumaru before. “Don’t you cheat me you stupid tanuki, don’t make me get my brother in here.”

Games that Aizen cannot play are puzzle games. He doesn’t mind them, he just finds them really boring. He watches Akashi play them sometimes but even then, Akashi will conk the hell out. If you play them and have Aizen on your lap watching, Aizen will be amazed at how you are so good at them!

Aizen cannot deal with horror games or sad emotional games. He’s pretty emotional himself and will need a lot of hugs after. He will refuse to play Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons as they remind him of Hotarumaru and himself a lil too much. Horror games is because he’s too scared to. Hotarumaru doesn’t mind them, he likes playing them while Aizen and Akashi cling on to each other and scream in terror.

Aizen also loves games that not only have great music but the visuals and colors just catch his eye. Katamari Damacy comes to mind and he loves the main character a lot. The music! The colors! Ohh man its the best.

A guilty pleasure game he would love is the monster catching genre, Pokemon is an idea but he also loves Yokai Watch. Yokai Watch feels a lil more closer to home, plus Yokai Watch had a crossover with Taiko no Tatsujin! He immediately wasted no time and effort to try and recruit Don-chan. iM STILL TRYING TO GET DON-CHAN ON MY TEAM U LIL SHIt but also im rly biased towards yokai watch and digimon

This lil guy will also love collecting plushies of any characters of the games he plays! Don-chan is his first choice of course but catch him and Hotarumaru in a little cuddle puddle with 70 other plushies from various games!

Most of all, Aizen loves games where he can play with others! Friends, family, you! It doesn’t matter to him! He’ll drag you from your office to relax and just cheer anyone up with something fun! “Come play with me! You promised after all, master! I’ve found a rEALLY cool and fun game to play together with Hotaru!” bless him he’s trying his best

Atsushi Toushirou

Like Aizen, Atsushi will mostly enjoy multiplayer games because of his multitudes of brothers, younger and older. He’ll pick out games like Mario Party, Mario Kart, classics for sure. But then there’s games like Wario Ware or Smash Bros. He wants to play games with as many people as possible! He loves it when he can play with you and his brothers!

If Atsushi wants to play something more solo, he will play something along the lines of Cooking Mama. Houchou got him addicted to it gee i wonder why Houchou loves the game so much but Atsushi just loves the dishes that he can prepare and it almost feels like he can cook! He once tried to follow exactly what Cooking Mama did in the game for cooking once uh...it did not end up. But none the less, he loves the colors and the music of Cooking Mama!

He is also a big ol fan of life simulation games, Animal Crossing being his favorite. Again he and his siblings can all play together and the calm atmosphere almost lulls him to a peaceful sort of sleep that he adores the most. He loves the relaxing vibe and sometimes wishes to live there, wherever the hell these guys live.

Next to Yagen, I think Atsushi will lowkey adore horror games. Yagen does it just to get a rise out of the rest of his siblings and Atsushi is kind of the same. Sure Yagen finds the most gorey and atmospheric based horror to scare the crap outta his siblings, Atsushi will probably play the more jumpscare based horror games just to get a scare outta them too! What good is a horror game if you’re not scared as well??? Damn right he’ll wait until it’s night time to play these games!

Atsushi also does love RPG games! Star Ocean, Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, come to mind first. He just loves going on big adventures! Exploring new worlds, meeting new people, learning new things! Bonus points if the game has a really emotional story, catch him and his brothers crying about whatever happens on screen.

Atsushi has a secret fondness for rather childish games. Pokemon, Yokai Watch, so on and so forth. YEs he’s trying his best to be mature and stuff, supporting you his saniwa and all, but sometimes he just wants to be himself and have fun! He has a few mascot plushies from his brothers too, shhh.

Atsushi is also terrifyingly amazing at turn-based strategy games. Mario + Rabbids being a favorite because of the colors and overall fun atmosphere. Fire Emblem is a close second. He knows exactly how to keep his units and characters alive, what upgrades to give them, so on and so forth. “General! Come look at what I did in my game! Wouldn’t it be cool if we could also do something like this?!” he says that as Rabbid Luigi yeets himself off of normal Mario and soars through the air like a bird, landing gracefully without hurting himself. Atsushi no.

He’s the most likely of the TouDans to get into the indie gaming scene, looking at new and upcoming content creators to see what they make! He wants to support them as much as he can!

He’s also one of the more responsible of the TouDans in terms of games. Others will start buying them on a whim but Atsu knows there’s a budget to be had! He isn’t as money crunching as Hakata or anything but he knows his damn limits!

Another game genre he’s secretly into are visual novels. He loves the budding relationships between characters, romantic or not, he loves seeing where they end up! It’s like he’s growing with them!

#touken ranbu #touken danshi #touken ranbu x reader #touken ranbu imagine #tkrb #tkrb x reader #tkrb imagine #mutsunokami yoshiyuki #mutsunokami yoshiyuki x reader #mutsunokami yoshiyuki imagine #my writing #aizen kunitoshi #aizen kunitoshi x reader #aizen kunitoshi imagine #atsushi toushirou #atsushi toushirou x reader #atsushi toushirou imagine #https://toukenramblings.tumblr.com/tagged/Chaotic%20Citadel%20Correspondences #Chaotic Citadel Correspondences

[qqueenofhades]

(1/2) Honestly, Hilary, you are a blessing. I want to scream about your amazing Fic, how I love Immortal Husbands and the whole Immortal Family and how I had more fun learning history from your writing than in my whole damn school. But I also want to appreciate your TOG answers and meta. All the more because my friends outside the internet saw TOG as some boring movie with shitty plot and I'm just here in the corner, wanting to scream at someone who will understand about FINALLY seeing...

"(2/2) ...some GOOD queer representation, without throwing stereotypes in our faces, and I can't even begin with the found family trope because THE FEELS. Anyway, what I was trying to say with this rambling: thank you. <3"

....I’m sorry what. Who. Who is saying this. Straight people? I feel like the answer is definitely straight people. Because they have had EIGHTY FUCKING THOUSAND shitty action movies with the Boring White Man Hero, the disposable Muslim-coded (or actually Muslim) villains, the equally disposable eye-candy female love interest who either gets fridged or is secretly evil, Grimdark Everyone Is Secretly Bad And Nothing Matters crap philosophy, Moral Hand Wringing Over Superhero Violence, on and on. So of course they can moan and whine about “iT’s nOt OrIGinAL” and apparently not sufficiently Grimdark and Amoral, and how the dynamics of the team are completely reshuffled in a way that actually doesn’t prioritize THEM, and like.... this is why I never trust media only beloved by straight people, and only ever watch anything after it’s been recommended to me by a trusted queer friend. Because sometimes I remember the difference, and WHOOF.

Because: the gays and people of color DESERVE formulaic action/superhero movies as much as the Generic White Bro (in fact, we can all agree, far more than the Generic White Bro). This is the trap where every piece of media that’s not made by a Mediocre White Man has to be the best all-time of its genre, apparently, rather than using some of the same well-loved storytelling tropes but recoding them and re-deploying them for a more diverse audience. Instead of the Hard Bitten White Man Action Hero, we have Andy and Nile (two women, and Nile as a young Black woman who literally cannot be shot to death, in the year 2020, is fucking revolutionary on its own don’t @ me). As I said in my first meta, even Booker, who comes closest to fulfilling that trope, is made the closest thing to a “villain” there is on the team and even then for entirely sympathetic motives that rest on him having teary-eyed conversations with Nile about how he misses his family and feels like he failed them. His emotions help drive the story in an actually GOOD and useful way, rather than sacrificing everyone else to coddle him through his feeble heterosexual manchildness (why yes, I AM staring directly at the Abomination without blinking). Nobody in the story is EVER penalized or made a fool of for loving their found family (itself an intensely queer trope, even before the queerness of the individual characters) or trying to do the right thing even in the middle of the horrors, and frankly, I just want to consume more media with that as the main message. I’M SO FREAKING TIRED OF GRIMDARK. GOD. IF I WANTED THAT I COULD JUST TURN ON THE NEWS.

And of course, my BELOVED Joe and Nicky: an interracial, interreligious gay couple that has been wildly in love for literal CENTURIES and gives me the opportunity to do things like write the most self-indulgent historical romance backstory fic ever with DVLA. They met in the embodiment of religious conflict and have transcended that, there are never any cruel jokes or expectation for you to congratulate the narrative for being so beneficent as to give you “an exclusively gay moment” (fuck you Disney!). Joe and Nicky’s love story is central both to who they are as characters, doesn’t revolve around them being suffering or being Tormented over being gay (when the cops pull them apart for kissing, they beat the cops the fuck up, WE STAN), gets to unfold naturally in the background of the story with these beautiful little beats of casual intimacy (the SPOONING /clutches heart) and since THEY LITERALLY CANNOT DIE, no chance of the “burying your gays” bullshit. Even when they’re captured first by the bad guys, and I briefly, upon first viewing, worried that they were going the Gay Pain route just for cheap emotional points, they remain constantly united and fighting together and able to do stupid things like flirt when they’re strapped to gurneys by a mad scientist. Then the rest of the team ends up right there with them, so it’s not something that happens to them alone, and Nile comes in to save everyone’s asses, and Joe and Nicky get ANOTHER beautiful moment of fighting the bad guys and being worried about each other and tender even in the middle of this chaos and GOD! MY HEART! MY WHOLE ASS HEART! I LOVE THEM!

And just the fact that it’s not the Evul Mooslim Turrorists or Boilerplate Scary Eastern Europeans or whoever else who are the bad guys, but Big Pharma, nasty white men with too much money and not enough ethics, the CIA (at least tangentially; they could have pushed a lot harder on that but I’ll give Copley individually a pass), and the very forces that want to stop the Old Guard and discount what they do (helping the little people) as worthless... GOD. That is fucking POWERFUL. They literally take the time to explain with Copley’s Conspiracy Wall that even the little things the team does, when they can’t see it themselves, spiral out through centuries and have positive effects down the line. And it’s NOT just in the Western world (no scene in the movie takes place in America, none of the main four characters/heroes are American, and they only go to England when the English villains capture them). They’re in Africa, in Asia, in South America, in all these places where the Western/imperial world order has harmed people the most and in a way that Euro/American audience often gets to forget. On the surface this might be an action movie with Charlize Theron beating up men (which I mean, that alone is fine if you ask me) but there are SO MANY WAYS in which it achieves these deeper moments of meaning and subversion of the narrative that we are so often fed and the ways it could have done this (i.e. the same old Mediocre White Man ways).

I love the fact that the team unabashedly LOVES each other as their family members (I will never get over them all liking to sleep in one room even in their safe house in France), even when they struggle, and that they continue trying to make it right and never consider leaving Booker behind, because he screwed up but they still love him (and he them). I LOVE LOVE LOVE that this movie gave me not just Joe and Nicky but Andy and Quynh: two completely badass queer couples who kick tons of ass and have romance and Drama and rich and well-realized lives outside being used as emotional manipulation or suffering porn for straight people. (I realise it’s only been two weeks since the first one released, but where is my sequel, I have Needs. Especially Andy/Quynh and Quynh/Joe/Nicky needs). I was disappointed that they’d gotten rid of Quynh in a Bad Medieval Way to cause pain for Andy and then shocked and DELIGHTED when she turned up alive in Booker’s apartment at the end of the film. I LOVE that this movie gave me Nile Freeman and everything that she represents in the middle of this hellish year. I even love Booker! BOOKER! When he’s usually the character type I can’t stand and have the least patience with!

So yes. I have watched it three times already. I am sure I am going to watch it several times more. It just makes me so happy.

#the old guard #the old guard meta #joe x nicky #weaverofthenight #ask

[banalbones]

The Petite Prince: Chapter 6

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8

Chapter 6: The Prince’s Plan

Summary: Roman is a child. Virgil and Logan have finally found him, no one is pleased with Patton and Patton just wanted to give Roman some brownies.

Words: 2510

Ships: Familial prinxiety, logince and Creativitwins. Eventual familial royality, roceit and DRLAMP  

Genre: Fluff with a side dose of angst

Warnings: A few swears, arguing, falling, tell me if there’s any more!

Taglist: @pricklyfish777 @sunflowerblondeuwu @itriedandimtired @draw-your-perfect-world @cemmy @battlebunnyteardropsinthesun @nonbinary-lizard-2

________________________

Patton was glancing around Remus’s room when the ceiling fell in, two figures with it. Two figures who were…

Logan and Virgil?

Logan and Virgil!

And Remus was watching them, a hysterical grin on his face.

And then… a child?  

Patton was really confused.

It looked to him, and it’s face crumpled.

It then let out a small “Wha?” and began shrinking rapidly.

Is it regressing? And why did it seem so sad when it saw me? And who is it?

Regardless of who the child- well, now the baby- was, Patton needed to help it! He rushed over to the baby, only to be stopped by an arm barring his way.

“Hey!”

“Stay away from him,” Remus’s voice snarled. The grin had completely faded from his face, leaving only a stormy expression in its place.

All I wanted to do was give Roman brownies. What is happening?

___________________________

Remus grinned madly as the left brain boys fell through the ceiling, screaming their heads off.

Hehe… imagine if their heads actually fell off.

“Why hello there! Enjoy your trip?”

Virgil looked up and whacked Logan on the arm, whispering something to the logical side. Logan’s head whipped towards him, his expression something Remus couldn’t quite place.

“Wha?”

Remus turned his head towards his baby bro, grinning wider.

Then he saw Patton.

The grin faded from his face immediately.

The Duke looked back towards the smol one, and saw him growing smaller.

What?!

It was Patton. It had to be.

Remus moved closer to the even littler prince, before seeing that the moral side was doing the same.

He whipped his arm out, stopping the dad from getting any closer.

“Hey!”

“Stay away from him,” Remus snarled.

Like hell was he going to let the cause of this extra regression go anywhere near his brother.

________________________

Virgil screamed as the floor crashed beneath him, arms flailing madly.

He landed in a heap in the rubble of the floor (ceiling?), with Logan sprawled out beside him. He then spotted a bewildered looking Roman sitting on the floor.

“Why hello there! Enjoy your trip?”

The emo turned his head, looking for the source of the voice, and found Remus. He whacked Logan on the arm.

“Logan,” he hissed, “Remus is here. And so is Roman. He kidnapped him!”

Virgil was aware that that wasn’t the only possible thing that could have happened, but it was the first thing that his (admittedly shook up) mind came up with, and it was the thing he decided to cling to.

At least the bean seemed to be okay.

“Wha?”

Virgil heard the small, adorable voice of the petite prince and once again turned his head to see him regressing.

Wait, regressing?!

What was the cause? Regression only happened when sides were feeling too many bad feelings, or when they were overwhelmed.

Was Roman feeling overwhelmed?

Was he making him feel overwhelmed?!

And then Virgil saw Patton.

Now, Virgil loved Patton, he was like a father figure to the anxious side, and he had always been there when Virgil needed it. But at this moment in time, after hearing all of what had just happened with the dad, snake and prince, his feelings were changing.

And fast.

It was obvious that Patton was the cause of the beans re-regression, and so when he moved towards the small royal, Virgil was ready to jump up and shield the precious child-or baby.

And then the trash gremlin flung out an arm to stop the dad.

Was he… protecting Roman?

“Hey!”

“Stay away from him.”

Maybe Remus wasn’t as bad as he first thought.

______________________

Logan, though he would never admit it, screamed, as he fell through the floor.

Ow.

Wait, where am I? I can’t see. Why do I have to be blind?

The logical side looked around, seeing a few wall shaped blobs, and then a figure in red and white.

Roman?

Maybe the miniature prince could summon him a new pair of glasses.

That would be nice.

Logan was saw caught up in his thoughts of longing for clear eyesight that he missed the voice speaking to him.

Then he was whacked on the arm.

Once again, ow.

“Logan,” Virgil’s voice hissed in his ear, “Remus is here. And so is Roman. He kidnapped him!”

That doesn’t seem entirely probable.

But Logan still looked up and gazed around until catching sight of a green and black blob. It wasn’t moving much.

That really doesn’t seem likely.

“Wha?”

Well, Roman is definitely here.

He looked back to where the red and white blob was, and saw a bright teal one move towards it, only to be stopped by the green and black one.

“Hey!”

Was that Patton?

“Stay away from him.”

Logan decided that something bad was happening, and closed his eyes.

It would be much easier to deal with this if I could see.

Seriously, having less than 20/20 vision was annoying.

_________________________

“Wha?”

Roman wasn’t sure what was happening. There were too many big people! And they were getting bigger!

Roman, in the back of his mind, knew who these people were, but he couldn’t- he just couldn’t! Not now, anyway.

Then the loud noises started.

The big people were shouting at each other, most of them at the blue one.

Roman didn’t know why, but the blue one made him sad.

Sad, sad, sad.

Tears leaked from the miniature princes eyes, his lips wobbling as he held back full on sobs. He didn’t want the big people to shout at him.

But then the shouting got louder, and he couldn’t help himself.

He let out a loud wail.

The shouting stopped almost immediately.

Oh no.

__________________________

Virgil was getting mad.

Both he and Remus were trying to keep Patton away from the bean, but the moral side kept on arguing back.

“You’re the one who’s making him so upset!”

“How? I don’t even know who he is!”

“He was five before he saw you, he was getting better!”

“Well I’m sorry I wanted to give Roman brownies-”

A loud wail sounded throughout the room, and the three realized their mistake.

For in trying to protect the petite prince, they had caused him greater harm.

I made the bean cry.

I…

Holy crap what have I done?!

______________________

Logan heard the cry of the red and white blob and made his way towards it. He was now 93% certain that the blob was Roman, and that he was crying, and that crying wasn’t good.

The other three sides had fallen silent as soon as the wail sounded, so Logan decided that he was the only one who should go near the child.

Logan knelt down next to the small royal and picked him up, causing the cries to stop. The prince was a lot smaller than he remembered. What had happened?

…

A small hand reached up and whacked his face, before tapping the logical side’s nose.

And suddenly, Logan could see!

The familiar weight of his glasses on his nose was surprisingly comforting.

The same small hand from before whacked his face again, prompting him to look down.

What in the name of god…

Why is he a baby?

Logan knew that the younger the age of regression, the more intense the ‘bad’ emotions, but a side growing younger whilst already regressed? That was unheard of.

“What the fuck did you guys do?” Logan asked, at last acknowledging the other sides, “He seems to be fifteen months old. That’s the youngest any side has gotten!”

The nerd looked around, spotting the horror on Virgil’s face, the anger and shock on Remus’s and the guilt on Patton’s.

The idiot list was back and stronger than ever.

Then a quiet “Mama?”

Logan glared at the other sides before turning his attention back to Roman. “Yes?”

The small prince chubby little face broke into a grin.

“Mama!”

Logan normally would have felt overwhelmed at the cuteness in his arms, but he really needed to know what had happened.

“Well?”

Silence.

This would take longer than he thought.

__________________________

“Who… is that Roman?” Patton whispered.

Logan rolled his eyes.

“Yes.”

Patton frowned.

Roman had regressed? That wasn’t good.

That was terrible!

And he was apparently the cause? Even worse!

“I didn’t mean to… I was just trying to protect him! But I hurt him more… what if he hates me now? What if he got so sad because of me that he never grows up again? What if I broke Roman?!”

Virgil was obviously panicking, and was going on a tangent because of it.

Patton wanted to help him so, so much, but he knew that it would probably cause more harm than good.

Swallowing down his words of comfort, the dad turned to Remus, who was being strangely silent.

Roman was obviously affecting the sides in drastic ways.

And he had regressed twice.

Patton didn’t know what to do.

Because he had caused this.

____________________

I did this. I did this to my baby bro. I made him get younger all because I wanted to pull a prank.

Remus walked up to Logan.

“Do you have the crown?”

Logan frowned, before nodding towards a satchel amidst the rubble of the ceiling. Remus walked over to it and took out the piece of crinkled yellow paper.

The little prince had really wanted the crown, so it was time to give it to him, and then go.

Possibly forever.

The Duke placed the paper crown on his literal baby bro’s head, trying to ignore the big green eyes staring at him.

“Br-br-ReeRee?”

Remus gave a watery smile to the smol one, before turning on his heel to leave.

“Don’ go!”

_____________________

Roman was confused.

The big people, two of which he had identified, were all so sad.

He had thought they would be mad at him for making so much noise, like with Big him, but they were just sad.

Determination filled the little prince’s eyes.

Sad=bad.

Mama no sad, so ReeRee and the other two no sad!

And so with this excellent plan in mind, Roman’s mission began.

Just because he felt sad, that didn’t mean other people should too!

_____________________

That’s a really cute mindset!

Yeah…

It’s cute for a child, but not for an adult.

You shouldn’t push assside your own pain to sssstop others.

Oh. I guess that makes sense.

_____________________

Logan looked at the prince in his arms, at the determination in his eyes and smiled softly.

The baby had a plan.

Roman pointed to the floor, most likely wanting to be put down. Logan nodded and obliged, then watched as the tiny prince crawled over to Remus before latching himself onto to his big brothers leg, almost like a koala.

Remus then looked down at the child, who was now pouting and saying “Stay.”

The Duke stared sadly at Roman, before relenting as the prince made puppy dog eyes.

Logan smirked.

Smart kid.

The royal’s face then broke into a wide, happy grin.

“YAY!”

I think the little prince is much smarter than we give him credit for.

________________________

It’s true. I am extremely intelligent.

The child version of you is, don’t misunderstand.

Rude!

________________________

Virgil watched as the little prince grinned up at his brother and felt his heart melt a little.

So. Cute.

But the cuteness didn’t fully eliminate the creeping suspicion that Remus was up to something.

Virgil hated it.

He knew that Remus cared about his brother, he knew he knew this, but being the literal embodiment of anxiety made him think about every possible outcome, almost to a fault.

So the emo took a deep breath, focusing on the bean.

He had to admit, Roman being so clingy with Remus kind of made him jealous, especially with Remus grinning with contentedness. Maybe that was the ‘Dark Side’ overprotectiveness shining through.

Yeah, probably.

_________________________

Roman laughed loudly as he was scooped up and tickled by his brother, who was grinning happily.

Part one of his plan: success!

_________________________

Patton watched the twins (well, the brothers) grinning and laughing and smiled softly.

That’s adorable!

He wished he had a camera, this would look great in the family photo album.

As you can see, Patton often tried to ignore the bad in life in favor of the good.

The moral side then turned to Logan, who was also watching the creative sides.

“Brownie?”

Logan blinked, looking a bit disoriented.

“What?”

“Would you like a brownie?”

Paton smiled brightly.

“Are… are you serious?” Logan looked shocked.

Patton swallowed.

His smile wavered.

“Yeah! I was going to give them to Roman, but since he’s so young now, I don’t want him to damage his teeth. So…” he looked at the logical side questioningly, “Want one?”

_________________________

Logan was slightly annoyed.

A brownie?

A�� brownie?!

This was the side who had pressed skip, the side who was one of the main factors of Roman’s regression.

But, Logan reasoned, he knew that Patton hadn’t meant to be a factor, and that he had tried to comfort Roman with his (to the princely side at least) meager ‘We love you.’

With the skip though… Logan knew he was overwhelmed, but it didn’t make it hurt any less.

But… Patton was trying.

In truth, Logan didn’t want to forgive Patton, especially not so soon after the whole ‘event’.

But, perhaps the brownie would be good. Eating chocolate has been shown to increase levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which helps reduce the stress that leads to anxiety, which would definitely be helpful for him and the other sides in this situation.

Logan sighed but accepted.

“Sure.”

________________________

Remus‘s insides were screaming with joy. His baby bro wanted him to stay!

The little crown on the prince’s head sat slightly askew, causing it to cover Roman’s eyes.

Remus pushed the paper coronet away, then ruffled his brother’s dark brown curls.

Despite the moral side being in his room, the smol one’s love washed away most of the bad feelings.

The precious little prince.

________________________

Roman was glad that stage one of his mission had went well, but there were other sad big people too! And sad=bad.

The small royal narrowed his eyes and gazed around the room, before his line of sight landed on a Virgil who was anxiously chewing his thumbnail.

Next target spotted.

And so phase two of his plan began.

_________________________

Virgil saw the little bean staring at him.

Why was he staring at him?

Did he do something wrong?

Had he upset the prince in some way?

Did Roman hate him?!

His worry dissipated as the petite prince’s grin widened and he tugged at Remus’s sleeve, pointing at the anxious side.

“VeeVee!”

You know what, battling that dragon was so worth it.

So frickin’ worth it.

_________________________

Logan looked back to the small royal, seeing the adorable transfer of Roman from one side’s arms to the others.

He gave a subtle smile before returning to his conversation with Patton.

Everything was going to be fine.

Hopefully.

_________________________

Thanks for reading this chapter of the Petite Prince!

This chapter could alternatively be called ‘he’s baby. Literally.’

Any feedback would be great, so don’t be afraid to give constructive criticism.

Thanks again!

#sanders sides #thomas sanders sides #tss #the petite prince #baby roman #roman sanders #ts roman #remus sanders #ts remus #virgil sanders #ts virgil #logan sanders #ts logan #patton sanders #ts patton #how do you people think janus should be introduced? #just wondering

[cloudbeom]

Ghost stories | Huening Kai

Pairing: Huening Kai x reader; Choi Beomgyu x reader (platonic); Choi Yeonjun x reader (platonic); Choi Soobin x reader (platonic); Kang Taehyun x reader (platonic)

Warnings: none

Genre: fluffiest fluff to fluff

Words: 2.5k+

Summary: late-night sneaking with your three best friends in school ending with just two best friends left. And a sweet cliche

A/n: I was inspired to make this from this video of hyuka, tae, and beommie exploring the runaway set and saying its haunted bcs babies. and also MY FIRST TXT FIC!!!! uwu

There were almost 800 students; probably more who attended your school who you could’ve befriended with. But nooo, you had to befriend the five guys who for some reason always had trouble following them. Like murphy’s law.

“Please,” Yeonjun pouts, laying on Soobin’s bed in his dorm room. Being surrounded by his five other friends and Soobin in the kitchen making soup for the older. When no one said anything, Yeonjun grabs the person closest to him, which was, unfortunately, Beomgyu, and begs, “Please Beomgyu? Do it for hyung? Yeah? Please?” 

“Hyung we’ll be expelled if we’re caught. School grounds strictly close after 10pm. Not even club members are allowed to go there for meetings after the time limit.” Beomgyu said, “And plus, you're sick. We can't let you go out if we’re going to be carrying you around five minutes later.”

“Hyung is perfectly fine,” Yeonjun says and sneezed at the exact same time after he says it. Earning a half-hearted scoff from Taehyun.

“You’re not fine, hyung. Don’t be so stubborn and just get well, then you can apologize formally to your art teacher yourself,” he says, sounding like he’s scolding the older.

“But- but my pride!” Yeonjun says dramatically, moving his arm to his forehead as he sighs, “What would they think when they hear that popular senior Choi Yeonjun is apologizing for something he does wrong?”

“That you're humble?” Huening Kai says under his breath, and you can’t help but giggle a little at that.

“Come on, (Y/n), back hyung up here!” Yeonjun says, and you can't help but sigh at how miserable he looks.

“Alright, we’ll do it,” you say, and Yeonjun immediately brightens at that.

“Really? For real? Oh (Y/n) do you know hyung loves you so much?” Yeonjun says, throwing his arms up to cheer, but only ending in a coughing fit.

“I mean, I love (Y/n) too and support you and all,” Beomgyu turns to you, his expression saying all it needed, “But are you out of your mind!?”

“Yah don’t change her mind!” Yeonjun says desperately, “Hyung will get you ice cream when I’m better, okay (Y/n)? Just make sure you do it without getting caught!”

Kai grabs your shoulder and leans down to whisper into your ear, “No offense, but are you crazy?”

You turned around to face the four, “Aish, come on guys let’s just do it for Yeonjun. You know he’ll never shut up if his reputation gets ruined. And if his art teacher sees what he had turned in as his piece, he’ll get suspended, or worse, expelled.” You say, pleading them to help, “Come on it’s our hyung here.”

“Yeah do it for hyung!” Yeonjun says, seemingly eavesdropping, and Taehyun rolls his eyes at him.

“Fine, I’m in. But only because I know if you get your ass expelled you're not going to cook for us anymore.” Taehyun says, then walks out of the room. 

“Yay! hyung will treat you all to ice cream if you succeed, I promise!” Yeonjun says, coughing a little at the end.

“Just get some rest for now, hyung. We’ll take care of it.” Beomgyu says, defeated as he walks to the door, opening it for Soobin to walk in with a full tray of food just for the older.

“Did Yeonjun convince you?” Soobin asked, and Kai shakes his head.

“He convinced (Y/n), we’re just going to she doesn’t get her ass in trouble,” He says casually, and Beomgyu nods at what Kai says, walking out. You stare at them in disbelief.

“I can't believe them,” you mutter under your breath, and Soobin chuckles.

“Good luck sneaking into school,”

“Are you not coming with us?” You ask, and Soobin shakes his head.

“Someone needs to take care of the drama queen,” Soobin says, whispering the last part, and on cue, Yeonjun whines.

“Binnie, hyung wanna eat,” Yeonjun says from the bed, making grabby hands to the younger boy. Soobin sighs.

“Good luck with that,” You say, implying Yeonjun. Soobin smiles, dimples and all, in return and walks past you, heading to the bed and you joined the trio.

Huening Kai, Beomgyu and Taehyun were in Tae’s room, you walked in and saw he had laid various flashlights and a tool kit on the floor and on his bed was various keys, each labeled accordingly. 

“Wh.. what are all these? Where did you get the keys, Taehyun?” You asked in disbelief, to which Tae replies with a simple wink.

“Magic,” He says

“No doubt its from all his pranking,” Beomgyu mutters to himself, sighing in fake disappointment. Guess there was a reason why Taehyun was dubbed as the school’s prankster by everyone.

“Yah, gear up. We’re not going to attract attention so take these flashlights.” Taehyun says, throwing the smaller one to you, “Does anyone here have a good memory of how the school looks like?”

“Oh, I can do that!” Kai says, Taehyun handing him the bigger flashlight. Kai did have most of his classes spread out across campus, it was no surprise he knew every nook and cranny of the school.

“Here wear this,” Taehyun throws you his black hoodie, and you catch it easily.

“For what?” You asked, but complied because everything Taehyun owns was a hoodie and all his hoodies were comfortable as fuck.

“If you think pajamas with very bright yellow ducks on them will be easy to sneak in, there’s something seriously wrong with you.” 

You look down at your pajamas and sure enough, they were covered in yellow ducks, but you scoffed, “I’d have you know the ducks protect me from demons when I sleep.”

 “And by a demon, you mean Yeonjun hyung?” Kai says, interrupting your sibling bickering toying with his flashlight.

“Yeah, demons and him,” You say, chuckling as you played with the sleeves of Taehyun’s hoodie, “Oh and don’t think we don’t know that you’ve probably already done this before.” 

Taehyun only smiled sheepishly

.

“Wait this hoodie doesn’t belong to you,” You suddenly said, right when the four of you had broken in and were walking in the very, very dark and empty halls of the school. Making all three boys jump when your voice echoed, Beomgyu shushing you by clamping a hand on your mouth.

“Do you know that if you were in a horror movie, you’d die first?!” he whisper-shouted, and you tried to pry him off.

“I was just surprised, sorry!” You giggled a little, Kai shakes his head with a small smile.

“Drop it guys. We’re nearing the art room, no one will hear us if they were right outside here anyways,” he says, opening the door to the art room and shining his flashlight to the art displayed there, “What the- God that scared me,” Kai laughs a little.

“What is it?” You asked him, walking towards where he was as Taehyun and Beomgyu lags behind.

“Isn’t this fitting?” Kai shines the flashlight towards an art piece that looked like it was covered in blood, arms reaching towards the middle of the frame, “Scary.”

“Hey, isn't this your favorite candy, Beomgyu?” Taehyun asked, looking at a mannequin that was dressed in what seemed like candy wrappers made to look like an outfit, Beomgyu gasps dramatically, “It is! Oh my God... did they eat all of these candies just to make this? I didn’t know such cruel people existed,” Beomgyu says dramatically, pouting at the end. Taehyun claps the older’s back.

“Come on guys, let’s focus first,” You said, turning to the trio, “Let’s go and search for Yeonjun hyung’s art piece,” 

“Someone should keep watch,” Taehyun says, “You know, just in case,”

“I’ll do it,” you volunteer.

“I’ll go with you,” Kai chirps beside you, “Can’t have you alone out there,” He adds, motioning the flashlight to the empty hallways.

“Then it's settled, give us fifteen minutes,” Beomgyu says, Taehyun already diving into the shelves to search for wherever the art teacher had placed their Hyung’s work before she reviews it the next morning. Beomgyu pushes the two of you outside, “Just shout ‘Soobin’ if you hear someone coming,”

“Why him?” Kai asked, turning around and Beomgyu just shrugs.

“Just do it!” He says, then walks back to the art room.

Silence passes through the thick air once you and Huening Kai were left alone.

“I feel bad for Soobin hyung now,” You chuckle, trying to ease the awkward tension in the air. Leaning against the wall of the opposite room of the art room.

“For Soobin hyung? I feel bad for us,” Kai replies, and it made the both of you laugh.

Just then, the door you were leaning on creaks. You both jump at the loud sound, stilling until the door opens wide.

“Crap, I didn’t know that door opens,” You say, still staring at the door.

“It’s the old Chem lab, they don’t use it anymore,” Huening Kai says from behind you, walking forth, “Wanna check it out with me?”

You glance at the art room before turning back to Kai with a grin, “Let’s be quick,”

You crept behind the older male slowly, at first peeking inside the room. It smelled of chemicals and it was filled with boxes and cobwebs, apparatuses that were broken or we’re not transferred to the new rooms still sat in the workbenches and there were still writings on the chalkboard.

Just as Huening Kai was about to comment about the place, you both hear the door to the lab slam shut, the both of you jumping at the sound, frightened.

“What the-” Kai says, whipping around and running to the door, trying to open it, “Fuck, Beomgyu?! Taehyun?!” he says desperately, shining his flashlight towards the door which had, unfortunately, reflected the light, not projecting it outside.

“Does it not open?” You asked, trying to remain calm as you ran over to the door and try to open it yourself, hoping the door had shut because of the wind, “Taehyun this isn’t fucking funny!” You cry, hoping it was your stupid roommate who had did this as a prank for not keeping watch.

“Shit shit shit-” you panicked, all murder scenes from every horror episode coming into your mind at once, rattling the door by the knob and knocking on it several times, “It’s- It’s jammed,” you chocked, starting to hyperventilate. You were not going to have a break down now.

“Hey, hey calm down, (Y/n),” Huening Kai walks towards you, easing you with his hands, “Don’t panic, just breathe with me, okay? They’ll notice that we’re not there and come get us,” He says, pulling you to him, knowing how scared you were in situations like this.

“We’re locked in the oldest room in the furthest part of the building- we’re not fucking okay!” You shake in his arms that Kai had circled you in.

“Beomgyu and Taehyun are next doors, they’ll get us,” he says, and you notice his voice was shaky too. That's when you realized that he’s probably trying to contain his fear aswell. He was also afraid.

You crouch down, and since Kai was hugging you to him, he was pulled down with you. You both sat in the dark laboratory in silence. The air was still, and there was only a single window by the door that served no help due to the fact that it reflected the flashlight beam back. Not that the window would’ve been much help anyway.

“We’ll... we’ll be alright.. right?” you asked, and that made Huening Kai chuckle a little.

“I hope,” he says, “Is your flashlight dead?”

You look down into your hands- you had almost forgotten that you had a flashlight! You turned the switch on and, thank god, it opened. Providing you with a little more ray of light.

“It works!” You exclaim, lifting it up, and hitting Kai in the process.

“Ouch- fuck-” he cursed, covering his jaw which you had hit with the flashlight, and you covered your mouth.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry, I-” You walked towards him, reaching to rub the spot you had accidentally hit, and he raised his hands to tell you it was okay, but had shone the bigger flashlight he was holding right into your iris.

Now it was your turn to hiss, your palms coming to cover your eyes that had filled with tears, responding to his beam of light that suddenly blinded you for a moment.

“A-Are you okay?” the older male walks to you, still rubbing his jaw, and you giggled a little at the karma that you got, “Why are you laughing?” Kai asked, but his tone a little less worried now because of you giggling.

“I deserved that,” You said, now a little calmer than before, walking towards his voice and immediately cupping his face, brushing your thumb over his jaw where you had hit him, “Does it hurt?”

“I’m-” Huening Kai stutters, looking down at your concerned face, all your attention completely towards him, and he releases a soft sigh, seemingly not realizing what the words came out of his mouth next, “I’m... I’m so in love with you,”

Well, that wasn’t what you expected.

He must’ve thought you hadn’t heard him because his face started heating up in your hands, and he clears his throat, “(Y/n)?”

“Y-Yes?” You asked, “Sorry?”

Huening Kai looks awkwardly at you for a brief moment, then shakes his head.

“N-Nevermind,” He says, standing up and holding out a hand for you, “Are you okay?”

You took his hand and he pulled you up. You had heard what he said, and you really didn’t want him to regret what he had revealed because quite honestly;

You had loved him too.

“N-No, Hueningie, I’m- well actually it’s- it’s fine,” You rambled, and the older tilts his head.

“What is, (Y/n)nie?”

Explaining with your hands didn’t work, so, stressfully, you had cupped both of his cheeks in your hands, and pulled him down.

His lips were on yours in a matter of seconds.

Sure, it was a little cliche, to be kissing with your crush and simultaneously the person who had confessed to you not five minutes ago, but it was a sweet cliche. One where he had smiled into the kiss, and instead of pulling away in shock, he had wrapped his arms around the small of your waist, and one of your hands had made way into his hair. Where your lips were moving in sync as unspoken love revealed.

And where two certain best friends were giggling from outside.

“So cute,” Beomgyu giggles when he snaps a picture quietly, two of his best friends finally getting together after the frustration of you both not realizing you loved each other, “Yeonjun hyung owes me a week of free lunch!”

“You had a bet with Yeonjun hyung?” Taehyun asked the younger to which he responds with an enthusiastic nod, and the other sighs, turning back to the scene in the laboratory.

“Let’s get then out of there before someone comes,” Taehyun says, walking over to the door with his key, Yeonjun’s art piece, and a small victory smirk, “Or worse, if they start making out,” he continues, to which Beomgyu responded with a look of pure disgust.

#txt #huening kai x reader #hueningkai #kang taehyun #choi beomgyu #choi yeonjun #choi soobin #txt x reader #txt kai x reader #tomorrow x together #txt imagine #huening kai imagine #txt ff #kai txt x reader

[thedeaditeslayer]

From Evil Dead, to Believe ir of Not: A Chat with Bruce Campbell.

This interview covers working with Sam Raimi and film-making in general. 

It is hard to deny the impact Bruce Campbell has had on genre cinema. From the humble start working on the Evil Dead back in 1981 to his countless film and television roles, Bruce Campbell has made a name for himself, and a legacy that everyone in genre cinema has to respect.

Now, with him moving onto Ripley’s Believe It or Not CGMagazine got to be part of a round table interview where we got a chance to touch base with the iconic “b-list” actor to talk about his career, along with the industry of film making as a whole.

Perhaps his most endearing performance, even after over 30 years, is his portrayal of Ash. With three films and a series under his belt, he has made the character his own. His portrayal has led to numerous parodies, and countless takes and iterations on what that type of character is within horror. Yet, even the time, and new horror coming out almost daily, few can touch the timelessness of Ash.

Even with the show over, the legacy of what The Evil Dead means to fans will always remain. It is a series that stands in the pantheon of horror, cementing Bruce Cambell and Ash as staples of genre and cinema as a whole. Even with this, many questions about if the series got the ending it deserved, but it seems Bruce Campbell feels they sent the series off in the best way possible.

“I’m fine with it heck because we got to finally do it.” Campbell explained in response to his take on the legacy of the series “I got to, to address it to my maximum abilities right now. And I felt that we did that. And I felt we honoured the fans too. Because we gave them a pseudo ending. They will never be happy with anything that we do. But in this case, we were like, okay, we don’t know if we’re going to get cancelled or not. Let’s go come up with let’s make sure we end this particular season with something that could be considered an ending. So that’s what we did. And thank God we did it. Because we get canned. So if we didn’t do that ending people would be going, where is Ash? What happened. So we took care of that business.”

With the fact, the show is now over, Campbell can finally step back from the role of Ash. While an iconic character, and one he enjoyed playing, it is taxing bringing that character to life, especially on a show that pushes you both mentally and physically.

“It was painful. I pulled another hamstring,” Campbell said diving into the strain on his body while doing Ash vs.The Evil Dead. “There’s a series of embarrassing emails to Rick Jacobson, Season 2 I think where the episodes kept getting bigger and bigger because things are coming to a head storywise and there are all these fights, falling and all the worst crap. So there’d be these emails of ‘Hey Rick, I woke up this morning and I’m not sure if I can run today, can you make sure my stunt guy Raicho Vasilev is ready to go?’ Then the next day, ‘Hey Rick, my left knee is kind of fucked-up, can I just stand over the guy?’ I was falling apart. My whole body was disintegrating.”

Even with The Evil Dead now over, it is hard to deny the connection Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi have. Old high school friends, and having worked with Raimi on many features, including the Spider-man franchise and Darkman, the team brings great chemistry to the silver screen. And even after all these years knowing each other, Bruce Campbell still enjoyed working with Raimi.

“I think Sam is the best director working,” Campbell outlined responding to the question on why he likes working with Raimi so much. “He’s one of the best directors in the business, probably top five as far as technical abilities. Watch Spider-Man 2. I think it’s one of the best superhero movies period and it’s the best of the trilogy. He’s really amazing at exponential learning. What he learns from one movie to the next technically. Like, he actually read the American Cinematographer’s Manual. You want to read stuff that will make you want to hang yourself with technical information about apertures and film speeds? He read it! He’s like ‘I think I should know how a camera operates because as a director that’s my tool. How can I use apertures and exposure to get a certain look or dynamic?’ That’s what’s fun about working with Sam.”

With many horror films looking to revive practical methods, people that love classic horror are happy to see what can be done by blending the two methods. With his countless years in the industry, and has worked on plenty of practical and CGI based movies, Bruce Campbell does not mince words discussing the trend to push CGI whenever possible.

“CG had to run its course. Because everyone was fascinated with CG “Oh, let’s just do CG.” But the problem of CG is it would spray off and defy optics, like a creature, would be here and frame one, frame three, It’s right in front of your face. So to the point where our eyes can’t even adjust because the optics are not correct. So they had to kind of work that out. And then they had to come to the horrible realization that special effects could not be the actual story.” Campbell explains when responding to a question about the revival of practical methods in genre cinema. “What does he mean we have to have a story. Hopefully, they’re coming around to the realization that effects can be used very effectively to tell a story like Forrest Gump.”

“So, when you watch that movie, they made special effects work to tell the story of a single feather flipping around during the opening sequence and it lands all the way at Tom Hanks’s feet looks like a real feather. floating through the sky landing at his feet was a pain in the ass to do that opening sequence. But the point is the digital process can really help you tell a story, but it’s not the story. I mean, once you see a superhero, throw another superhero through one building, eight buildings, ten buildings. It doesn’t matter. That’s not the story. ”

Along with being a renowned actor, Bruce Campbell also has a best selling book, one that is a great read if you have the time. While working in both realms, it is no wonder he has a view on how they differ and how Hollywood could learn a thing or two from the world of publishing. “The writing world is very respectful compared to the film business. There are very few chefs when you write a book,” Bruce Campbell explained “I addressed my editor’s changes for my latest book in about 15 minutes and if I wrote a screenplay I’d have 10-pages of single-spaced notes from some 26-year-old kid who doesn’t know shit, but they feel like they got to justify their job. It’s good to do different stuff, you get exposed to different people too. Making a book is a whole different story than making a movie. It’s kinda cool, the difference.”

While his days of picking up the chainsaw as Ash may be over, he is now stepping into the role of host for the new Ripley’s Believe It or Not! on the Travel Channel.  It may mean less zombie killing, but is looking to be just as exciting for fans of the new and bizarre. Hearing Bruce discuss it, this is looking to be an exciting season of the show while keeping the legacy it has built over 100 years.

#Bruce Campbell #Sam Raimi

[wahbegan]

Red’s Retro Reviews - Condemned Criminal Origins

Hello and welcome to the tag where I use my otherwise useless and time-consuming habit of taking very old classic games that I’ve wrung all the enjoyment out of like a troubled child with an injured bird and turn it into entertainment! Maybe one day the editor of some chic magazine will hire me to talk about how much I know about Batman: Arkham Asylum and how much I hate myself for it.

Anyway, this week I thought I’d start off with an overlooked little gem that had a bit of cult notoriety and good critical reception, but which otherwise nobody gave an ounce of rat shit about: the Condemned series. More specifically, the original game.

Now, when I ask you who started the extremely lucrative habit of live-streaming themselves hilariously over-reacting to horror games, you might be tempted to say the Game Grumps, or Markiplier if you’re younger, or Pewdiepie if you’re the kind of person who unironically uses the phrase anti-white racism. But you’d all be wrong and stupid. Also possibly nazi sympathizers, but I digress.

NO! The first college-age white boys who decided it would be a good idea to beam them fucking up a video game to thousands and thousands of people online are..........lost to history because archiving of the exact history of internet trends is such an enormous clusterfuck that for years people were convinced, and some still are, that Slenderman was a real urban legend and not something some dickhead made up for a photoshop competition circa 2009

But ONE of the first was the 4 Players Network, or 4 Players Podcast, or 4PP. I know very little about these guys, so if they all turned out to be nonces and serial killers please don’t @ me, but what i DO know, is that they uploaded a video that changed my life forever. This video was “Holy Crap That’s a Bear !” Certainly not a name that would stand out in today’s massively oversaturated Let’s Play market, but this delightful video documented these two dumb assholes losing their shit over a game. The game of course, being Condemned 2: Bloodshot. Specifically, the level in which you are chased through a hunting lodge by a rabid bear. As an aside, I looked it up, having never heard of the phenomenon, and apparently it’s very rare, but yes bears can and do get rabies, usually with just about as fatal results as you would expect. So sweet dreams!

Anyway, watching this couple of dipshits get jumpscared and mauled to death by a poorly rendered bear again and again as they were repeatedly outwitted at every turn by an entity with a few lines of programming instead of a brain was, in y’know the year 2008,  the absolute most fun a 14-year-old boy could have. Clearly it still is, but you always remember your first time, particularly when the only LPs i have watched since were a handful of markiplier videos with a girl in college who liked to get me very stoned and then put them on because she thought that counted as courtship.

A n y w a y, apart from the unfortunate and definitely a mistake innovation of streaming video games, the sequence of being chased through a claustrophobic environment by a bear which can rip down doors, break through walls, run faster than you, shrug off 15 shotgun blasts to the face without so much as sneezing, etc. seemed incredibly tense and original, an amazing concept for a game. Once again, this was circa 2008 before “Run for your fucking life” had become the norm for horror games.

So then why the fuck are you not reviewing that game?? You might be thinking if you’re still reading this which someone clearly is or my narrative voice would have ceased to exist by now in that tree falling in the woods kind of way. Well, dear reader, while Condemned 2 was better than the first game in a LOT of ways, it’s always worth taking a gander at the one that started it all. Also, Condemned 1 is, if only slightly, probably better known. Also, Bloodshot commits the cardinal sin of over-explaining the first game’s mystery and a result making it kind of goofy and ridiculous see also the entire history of the Halloween franchise, and as a result the ending is....well, a bit shit, to be honest. Finally, and most importantly, it’s not on Steam for 3 dollars, so shut up

The thing about Condemned is that while Let’s Plays and seemingly inanimate objects moving only when you’re not looking at them and unstoppable juggernauts of wanton death have now become the norm for video game horror (and thanks a fucking bunch, Doctor fucking Who, for always being what people say started the inanimate object fuckery even though Stephen King did it in The Shining in the FUCKING 70s and let’s be honest it’s just a primal universal fear and i’ll be in the cold fucking ground before that bloody show sees one ounce of credit where it isn’t due), Condemned as a whole has remained remarkably unique. Not wholly unique, the developers have heavily borrowed from genre-straddling crime horror movies like Silence of the Lambs and Se7en and in fact almost beat-for-beat stole the most infamous jump scare from the latter, but if it still ends with shit in my pants, and it does, I can’t really call it a failure.

Most of the creativity the game DOES have is in the gameplay itself, or rather one aspect of the two aspects of the gameplay. It’s the combat I’m talking about the combat, seeing as that’s basically all there is. Let’s just get this out of the way first, the forensic investigation shit is........well, it’s a bit shit. Oh yes, there’s a couple crime scenes you have to “solve” in a cursory almost a cutscene sort of way, where you have helpful premonitions about where you’re supposed to look and, as your lab tech helpfully informs you, “the system will choose which tool you need for you, so don’t worry about that!” Well, Christ kill me, thank God YOU know between the three fucking tools I have, one of which is an everything sensor and one of which is just a fucking camera which I’m supposed to use, God knows I wouldn’t have liked to have solved that mystery myself. It’s a shame because some of the crime scenes are quite intricate and yes, I would have liked to have put together myself that “wait a minute there’s a handprint in the paint here that matches the killer but the UV light shows an old blood spatter on the wall right above where he’d be sitting to make it, THAT MUST MEAN-” but nope. No you just have a premonition of the guy getting clobbered over the back of the head because the game is so terrified you won’t be able to put two and two together that it points out both the twos and hands you a multiplication table and nudges you and looks meaningfully at four every few minutes if you hesitate.

Anyway, that’s all the whingeing about the gameplay out of the way, because the rest of it is just delightful. Condemned is the rare first person game that focuses almost solely on melee combat and the almost unheard of one that does it well. In fact, it is the only example I can think of that’s not shit. Weapons all have individual stats to do with their heft and how far they can reach and how much of a man’s skull you can cave in at once with it and you have to choose between the plank with nails sticking out of it you can swing three times a second but you have to beat a man so badly with it it’s tiring just to watch and the sledgehammer, which demands a two weeks’ notice in writing if you’re planning on hitting someone with it, but will basically render every living thing in its considerable swing arc sent to the fucking Shadow Realm upon impact.

Something about the sound effects and the way the weapons in this game control really gets under my skin, I was killed by a 300-pound Subway-dwelling crazy survivalist wielding the aforementioned sledgehammer, and when I went down, I was sure I was familiar with the sound effect that played when it struck my skull, a sort of distant, muffled ringing of bone hitting metal. Wait a minute, I thought, I know I’ve experienced this in real life, how did they get this sound effect? Did they kill a man with a hammer to get this sound effect? Was I killed with a hammer in a past life? Killing people is equally fucking unpleasant as even the most vicious and inhuman looking ones don’t go down easily, and you can see them spit gobs of broken teeth and blood and god knows what, hear the lovingly researched impact noises, and almost feel the impact as you necessitate years of reconstructive facial surgery with one swing of your mighty chunk of concrete attached to a rebar. Then some of them have the gall to shakily get to their knees, not quite dead, trying to mumble something and you’re required to hit them AGAIN, which is always harrowing. To quote another underappreciated piece of media about the joys of gruesome murder: Why won’t you just die?! This is hard enough for me!!

The guns you do get are absolute balls, generally having about three bullets in them, you can’t reload them even if you find the exact same type of gun later, you can’t hold them in your inventory, and if you want an aiming reticle you have to actively turn it on in the options menu, and you can almost hear the game laughing at you for being such a shameless pussy.

Well, you now might be thinking to yourself, cheers for making the effort, but I’m not an insane person and therefore do not think the idea of a brutally beating people to death simulator sounds very enticing, but that’s the thing, it’s not really supposed to be. It does have a strangely addictive quality after a while, but for the most part it’s panicky and harrowing and grotesque and you really don’t want to do it but you have no choice, which is absolutely the best kind of survival horror. See, the combat in survival horror is always a bit of a sticking point, isn’t it? Because if you give the player too much firepower it just becomes an action game with spooky set pieces, but if you give them none at all, as is chic today, you better have loads of other surprises in store buddy boy, because the sheen on that trend has died and now you’re just likely to get slapped with the dreaded WALKING SIMULATOR sticker.

No, the best kind of combat for a horror feel is exactly the kind Condemned delivers, so of course they never FUCKING did it again. You leave every fight low on supplies, exhausted, badly wounded, and a bit sick at what you just reduced a human being’s skull to. Too often, the combat in games is, even that word “combat” it’s clean, it’s cold, it’s detached, it’s a very unique euphemism for butchering God knows how many people. I play this little game in my head when I go through games sometimes trying to keep track of how many unique, thinking, feeling entities I’ve just reduced to a mess for the janitor to mop up, and I always lose track around the third level. Condemned isn’t like that. Its violence is violence: horrible, awful, terrifying violence, and it doesn’t let you forget it. 

The graphics also add a lot to the horror if you can get past the dated polygonal weird-ass xbox 360 at launch faces and cutscenes, which is actually pretty easy once you get used to it. The level and character design is fantastic, and really adds a lot to the whole feel of the game. Everywhere you look is dark and labyrinthine, crumbling with rebars jutting out and exposed paneling and plumbing beneath holes rotted in the walls and grime and blood and god knows what just staining everything. This game is really nihilistic in tone, and you get the sense just from the graphics that you’re somewhere nobody gives a shit about, in a part of a city that’s just been left to die and rot. One almost gets the feeling moving around the fourth or fifth condemned (ohhhhh I see what they did there) building that the whole city is just a ghost town full of nobody but violent lunatics, and also that if you keep playing for too long you might get hepatitis just from exposure.

Plot-wise, I could fill another twenty paragraphs with petty gripes. It’s a bit Kill List which i’m sure is a reference you all understand in that it starts as a crime thriller about catching a serial murderer and ends in some bizarre insane bullshit halfway between Hereditary and Hellraiser, and leads you into it gently enough that you never really notice a sudden lurch.

You play as Ethan Thomas, a very boring and generic FBI Agent called in to investigate a serial killer case by two cops who are REMARKABLY blithe about murdering people, and it’s a bit jarring in today’s political climate. Though distrust, fear, and hatred of the police isn’t exactly new, and violence amongst police officers is brought up at one point, albeit in a loading screen, so honestly I can’t be arsed to speculate on what level of self-awareness we’re operating on here. Regardless, it’s bothersome.

“Oh yeah, this place is full of addicts, hopped up on something, I think, just shoot ‘em. What? Lost your gun, eh? That’s fine here’s a fire axe go nuts, kid, we’ll deal with the paperwork later”

Anyway, you are ambushed by a man you believe to be the killer for.......no real reason, really. He was spying on you checking out the crime scene, but we just established this place is full of squatters, what if one of the 8 people I murdered on the way into this ambush was the killer??? Case solved! 

Anyway, needless to say, without wishing to spoil, the dude IS the main antagonist the yellow eyes are a helpful giveaway, and he takes your gun and swiftly shoots Generic Beat Cop and Generic Dick with it, then throws you out a window, whereupon some other asshole whose main role in the game is to be enigmatic and plot-convenient, you know, one of THOSE characters, spirits you away from the scene, making it look like you just killed two cops and fled.

Now, in real life, as we all know, a cop can’t be indicted for murder even if 50 people saw him do it, but in this world, it means you have to go on the run from the FBI (not your lab tech, though, who is somehow assisting you from the lab and sending confidential data to your phone unnoticed??) while trying to solve the murder.

Meanwhile, in the background, in an “I’m sure this isn’t important and will in no way inform the last level of the game going batshit bonkers” kind of way, all of the people, including the cops, in certain dilapidated and neglected areas of the unnamed City City appear to be going what is medically known as balls-to-the-wall kill crazy, and birds are dropping dead from the sky by the thousands. Even you, protagonist, are prone to horrible screaming nightmare visions coming right the blazing blue fuck out of nowhere and that you never feel the need to comment on or go take a lie-down. I’m sure it’s nothing.

The voice acting is what you’d expect from this era of video games i.e. not good and the writing has an absolutely DESPICABLE habit of having characters tell Ethan things he should already god damned well know for the sake of gameplay or exposition, leading to my current theory that Agent Ethan Thomas has some kind of horrible head injury and can’t remember anything from over 2 minutes ago like Guy Pearce in that pretentious movie where he accidentally kills his wife and then runs around for two hours terrorizing random-ass people about it.

The game never full-on plays the AND THE MAN YOU’VE BEEN PLAYING AS WAS CRAZY THE WHOLE TIME card and leaves things a bit ambiguous, but after caving in the 15th vagrant’s head and the 7th vision you’ve had of being murdered by some Cenobite-looking motherfucker while conducting an unsanctioned investigation during a suspension prompted by you presumably murdering the shit out of two guys, you start to think this may not be standard FBI protocol. 

It’s all a bit hard to swallow is me point, a bit hard to sympathize, and a bit muddy if we’re supposed to or not. But you know what? It certainly isn’t boring, and I’d be lying if I told you it wasn’t effective. This game is now one of only two to have genuinely given me nightmares, and I think it’s rather telling that after I played the hallucination part I had the nightmare about, I was having genuine trouble remembering if something happened in my nightmare of it or in the actual version.

Condemned is batshit crazy, hilariously easy to write off as “that game about killing hobos”, and very, very dated. But it is genuinely harrowing and unpleasant, and was clearly genuinely made by artists with the intent of saying.....errr i’m not exactly sure what, but SOMETHING! It’s about as far a cry as you can get from the Triple A crawling with microtransactions like your MCM is with crabs milk-you-for-money-until-your-udders-bleed look-at-how-shiny-we-are games, and even a lot of indie horror games who think it’s a measure of a masterpiece being able just to constantly trigger your fight-or-flight response again and again and again so you can make a hilarious Let’s Play out of it not to name any names Five Night’s at Freddy’s. It’s a relic of a different and i think a better time in gaming history, where big-name publishers were still taking chances and hadn’t quite yet worked out the formula for how to distill games into their most skeletal, malnourished, corporate, addictive, glorified gambling form.

Also it’s 3 dollars on Steam and you can finish it in like ffffffffucking...two days? So really why the fuck not. I have no idea how to assign numbers to things i’d probably give ir a 7 or 8 or 4 out of 5 stars but i’m bad at systems like that, just play it if you give a shit. If nothing else, a bunch of people snapping it up out of nowhere will really fuck with marketing, which is always a noble pursuit

#game reviews #Condemned Criminal Origins

[blogs-of-our-lives]

           I’m sorry to say this, but this may very well be the last of the Blogs of Our Lives post.

           :(

           I’ve had a lot of fun writing for this, but it’s just not what I want to do with my life. And as much as I enjoy it, it’s taking time away from other creative projects. For my tens of viewers, it’s not the end of a chapter, but the beginning of a new one. Thank you all for reading, and believing that I can make something wonderful and funny out of trash. I just want you all to know that deep down, from the bottom of my heart, no matter how much love I have for you all, I will never ever ever love you as much as I hate Brightburn.

             Brightburn suuuuuuuucks. It sucks sucks sucks. I couldn’t wait until later in the post to say that. I had to lead with how trash the movie was, and now I’m going to spend the next couple pages explaining why it’s trash. It’s so bad that I – shitty movie connoisseur, who is making himself watch Days of our Lives and write about it – hated the movie so much that I decided to write a whole paper about it just to prevent someone else from being tricked into seeing it.

           I will start with the only good thing about the movie. The concept. Brightburn is about a young kid (I’d estimate about sixth grade) who discovers he has super powers akin to that of a god. He has super strength, he has super speed, he can fly, he can shoot lasers out of his eyes, and he’s almost indestructible. Essentially Superman. It’s not a particularly original idea, but I was intrigued with the fact that the kid seemed to almost immediately become evil. This isn’t particularly farfetched. In fact, psychopathic traits are fairly common amongst children. The brain isn’t done developing, and in some senses the child is a psychopath. Kids simply grow out of it. Luckily, kids are small, they’re weak, they can’t drive, they can’t vote, and they can’t even get a movie ticket to an R rated movie like Brightburn, which I refuse to grant the respect of italicization. The amount of damage a kid could do is extremely limited. So the idea of a middle-schooler with superpowers is kind of terrifying. Imagine a child without empathy who you can kick your ass. If you tell them to go to bed, they can throw you through a wall. And it’s not a one in a million chance the kid will be a psychopath. Plus, when I was a kid I used to think when it rained somewhere it rained everywhere. It blew my mind that it was raining in my hometown but not in my friend’s town. When my dad was a kid he was terrified of this movie called Killdozer. About a bulldozer that came to life and killed people. In his words, “What are you going to do, hide from it? It’ll just bulldoze everything.” Kids are idiots.

           Side note, I hope it’s not lost on anyone that I italicized Killdozer but not Brightburn. It’s intentional. I respect a movie about a killer bulldozer more than a $12 million movie.

           Anyway, that was the only good part of the movie. The concept. Now I’m going to tear it apart, starting with the pacing. Nobody really knows or cares about the pacing when it’s done right. When it’s done wrong, the movies often feel like they stagnate or are rushed in parts. Brightburn is one of the worst examples I can think of. The buildup just drags on and on and on and on. By the time [SPOILER ALERT] Brendon (or whatever the fucking kid’s name is) turns evil, we had been sitting in that theater for a solid hour. Maybe more. That’s two thirds of the movie (including credits) that was spent just building up. So now, when we finally get the action payoff, it felt like the movie was rushing to the end. The kid destroys most of the house, kills four people, and then blows up a plane in like twenty minutes. It’s like trying to write on a piece of paper and running out of room so you have to make the letters smaller and smaller to fit on one page. But it’s a thousand times worse than that, because the paper had a set length. You could plan out where the letters needed to go and how big they can be. A movie isn’t made with a length in mind. So it’s like reading a sentence but the letters get smaller and smaller for no clear reason. It felt like they didn’t know how to end the movie so they just threw some crap together and tried to play it so fast we wouldn’t realize how trash it was.

           On to the acting. I have no real complaints. The mom and the dad did pretty good jobs. Even the kid did a decent job. At times it was pretty weak, but I think most of that was on the writing.

           Fuck the writing. The Chekov’s guns of the movie were stupid and obvious. In one of the first scenes, the mother whistles during a game of hide and seek in order to get him to whistle back, like an off-brand Marco Polo. My editor literally leaned over to me (like two minutes into the movie) and whispered “I bet that’s going to come back later.” It did. Later on in the movie, the dad comments to the mom that it was strange Braxton had never broken a bone or even got a cut. Like two scenes later, the kid finds his space ship and immediately cuts his hand on the metal. Sure enough, it comes back later in the film, in a way so stupid that I’m going to struggle to put it into words. The mother jumps to freedom from her house and somehow cuts her hand during the fall. She looks at the cut (which is shaped exactly like Bryson’s and positioned in the exact same place), looks at the barn where the spaceship is hidden, looks back at the cut, and says (I’m paraphrasing) “The spaceship! It’s the only thing that can hurt him.” The biggest sign of a bad writer is when the characters think about what they’re about to do, say what they’re about to do, and then do it. JUST DO IT. I remembered the garbage scene from earlier in the film that established the only thing that can hurt him. Who was that line for? Children who weren’t paying attention? The film was rated R. Maybe they assumed the only people they could trick into seeing this trash were too stupid to follow a plot. And yes, I’m one of the idiots they tricked into watching it. Jokes on them, now I’m tearing their movie apart on my blog with tens of readers.

           I’ve told you guys about I, Frankenstein. The movie was worse than that. At least the writing in I, Frankenstein, while bad, followed a formula. There was never a point in which I rolled my eyes, it just in generally wasn’t particularly good. Brightburn, on the other hand, was aggressively bad. It was like all the different facets of a movie (acting, special effects, writing, pacing, visuals) had a competition to be the worst part of this dumpster fire of a film. I’m being too hard on the special effects. They were just wildly unmemorable, not actually bad. But somehow, incredibly, Brightburn was even worse than the sum of its parts. At a certain point, I looked up and started watching the blinking light of the fire alarm. There wasn’t really a pattern to it. I was fascinated. At another point, during the resolution of the movie, a man sitting behind me got out his phone and made a phone call. And you know what, I don’t blame him. It wasn’t like he was taking away from the experience. I was glad he was having more fun than me.

           Something I didn’t realize until now, when I looked up Brightburn on Wikipedia to trash how much money went into making it ($6-12 million, so honestly they used the money pretty well), was that it’s called a “superhero horror film.” I took a class my last year in college about Horror as a genre, and the running theme of the class was the question what is horror? I’ll define horror as best as I can, and you are all free to agree or disagree as to whether or not it’s true. I personally do not consider Silence of the Lambs to be a horror film, though it is scary. It’s a crime film. Even if the film contained supernatural elements (like, say, if Hannibal Lecter was a ghost and rather than breaking out of prison he comes back to life), it would still be a crime film. On the other hand, I consider the movie Friday the 13th (the 1980 film with Kevin Bacon, not the trash remake) to be horror. Even if the film contained no supernatural elements, it would still be a horror film. Friday the 13th Part 1 doesn’t actually contain anything supernatural, but if I mentioned one that does (Parts 2-12) I wouldn’t have gotten the opportunity to remind everyone that a young Kevin Bacon not only dies in this movie, but also has a sex scene. It’s arguably his strongest performance.

           Returning to my point, a universal part of horror seems to be the haunting. It doesn’t need to be a ghost haunting, it could be a human haunting as well. I’m sure it exists, but a movie about a stalker could easily be classified as horror, depending on the tone of the movie. Hell, The Gift was a great horror movie, and nothing supernatural or even particularly out of the ordinary took place. Looking at IMDB’s top 10 horror movies of all time, it lists The Evil Dead, The Exorcist, The Shining, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Alien, The Thing, Nightmare on Elm Street (trash), Psycho, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Of these movies, I haven’t seen Psycho, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, or The Exorcist (at least not all the way through). In every single one of the films I have seen, the characters are haunted by some kind of being. In some movies, they’re hunted by it, and in others (particularly the Exorcist), they’re tormented by it. But either way, a haunting is an essential part of every movie. In Silence of the Lambs (IMDB rated it as the 14th best horror movie, naturally), the killer never haunts the characters. He’s a menace, a killer, and a danger to everyone, but he doesn’t haunt them.

           Brando from Brightburn never haunts anyone, except for a ten second scene where he spies on his crush, which was honestly more cringey than creepy. So no, it’s not a superhero horror movie. It’s not a horror movie. If you want to call it anything, call it science fiction. The kid’s an alien, for Christ’s sake. Isn’t that like the number one test to see if you’re watching sci-fi? Right now, if you google “horror movies,” Brightburn is one of the first 10 images to appear. THIS IS UNNACEPTABLE.

           I’m sure I’ve talked about this before, but horror has always been a trash genre. I don’t want to give off the impression that I’m the horror equivalent of a comic book nerd writing about how The Avengers ruined my childhood and it was all wrong because they got one detail wrong from the source material. [Side note: I really enjoyed Endgame, and at the time of writing this, it is the number one highest grossing film of all time, and honestly it deserves it more than the trash blue cat people movie. It was a really satisfying ending to one of the largest franchises of all time]. Even the golden years of horror, the Friday the 13ths and the Nightmare on Elm Streets and Halloween, are all just… pretty good. The writing was competent, the music and cinematography were original and not bad, but it’s not particularly scary, and it looks like every horror movie will eventually become that way, except for the ones that rely on cheap jump scares. That’s the nature of horror, I suppose. It preys on a current and relevant fear, and as that fear becomes irrelevant, so does the movie. So when I complain about modern horror, I complain about the cheap, shitty writing that goes into by uncreative and unoriginal people that disappoints everyone. Modern horror is an easy paycheck. It’s cheap and it’s surefire. The Brightburn garbage raised $30 million dollars on a budget of $6 million. Pet Semetary, Crawl, and Annabelle Comes Home raised a collective $366 million to a collective budget of $66 million. That is a fucking absurd return on investment. None of these movies (except for Crawl, kinda) did anything different. Pet Semetary was a remake. Annabelle Comes Home is a continuation of the Garbage Cinematic Uni-garbage-verse that spawned from The Conjuring. So horror has become a yearly money-maker for big production companies. Just put out some trash that will surprise (not scare) people, and watch the dollars roll in. Financially, this is the golden age of horror. They can make anything with a jump scare and make MILLIONS.

           I don’t know what the point of all this is. I’m not telling the genre to do better, because it’s doing pretty fine. Midsommar and Us both got pretty good reviews. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark looks pretty good. It’s not like all the talent dried up. There’s still plenty of creative and original people working on horror movies, and they’re making some really good stuff. I guess it boils down to me hating Brightburn on a deep, personal level, and I’m not really sure why. I watch tons of trash. As I type this, I’m looking at my collector’s edition DVD set of Under the Dome. It’s garbage. Truly truly terrible. But there are scenes I liked. Shots I liked. It was made by people who were bad at what they do, but they were still creative. There’s this one episode where the government tries to blow up the dome, and everyone inside thinks they’re going to die. All the characters, thinking they have minutes left on earth, all finally do something. The plot unravels into something much, much, much simpler, as all the characters stop lying or trying to hide their motives. Everything untangles for just a moment, and after they survive the blast unharmed, it leaves the question what next? Sure, the conflicts were childish and silly, and the character arcs were (to put it nicely) poorly handled. But they tried to do something well, and for just a moment they struck gold. There’s nothing like that in Brightburn. There’s not a single scene that I can look at in the movie and say you’re on to something there. Keep working. If I were given the script and a blank check and told to write a better one, I would strip it down to the foundation. I wouldn’t rewrite it, I would delete everything except the core premise and start over.

           It just really really hurts, having to type out that this movie was worse than Under the Dome.

           I know it’s too late to convince anyone not to see Brightburn. And that’s fine. Sometimes the world moves too fast for you to make a change. But I just want you to know deep down how much I hate that movie. I resent it for wasting my time, my energy, and my money. It’s worse than Days of our Lives.

           Fuck you, Brightburn.

           Thank you for reading. It means a lot to me.

#brightburn #horror #superhero #movies #the end #fuck this movie

[blueandsunny-morn]

Hello Jughead

A/N: Hello! So yeah this is a Riverdale x Scream crossover that no one asked for but I’ve been thinking about for like two weeks straight. I just really love both and the fact that Skeet is in both just makes the crossover inevitable you know? Hope you guys like it! I’ve never written anything “scary” before so please excuse if its not that great, I also wrote this at 5 AM so there’s that too.

Pairing: Jughead x reader

Warnings: In this world Sidney got pregnant and instead of going to Windsor she took off to Riverdale instead

While Sidney loved her son, she just wished he wasn’t so into scary movies. It didn’t really come up much seeing as though most of the year was spent relatively horror free, but when Halloween came around it seemed like Jughead seemingly was reminded they exist. Out came the popcorn and the blankets as Jughead and his friends overtook the living room in order to scare themselves for hours on end, except on Halloween where they’d get dressed up and head over to the Bijou where they’d watch whatever double feature was playing. Horror movies just couldn’t escape Sidney Prescott. And this year it really did her in, the Bijou was playing an old favorite of hers, Stab, and of course her son and all his friends were just so damn excited to go see it.

Sidney had never told Jughead the story of what happened in Woodsborro, she wanted to keep the boy innocent to that. She had put it in her past the second she packed up and left. She simply told him that she came from a small town in California and she left after graduation when her boyfriend dumped her for getting pregnant, a story Jughead still believed.

“The ghost masks aren't that scary.” She heard Archies voice coming from the living room.

“Anything’s scary when it’s coming at you with a knife.” Came Jugheads reply.

Sidney almost laughed at that. They were all almost ready, Jughead, Betty, Veronica, and Archie all stood in the living room waiting on the final person to arrive. Y/N, Jughead's girlfriend of about 3 years. Jughead met Y/N back in middle school during his time at the Juvenile Detention Center. While he was there for playing with matches, Y/N was there for beating the crap out of a kid at her school. Y/N didn’t have the best homelife, so Sindey let it slide, but she made sure to keep an eye on the girl. She could not afford to have another Billy Loomis in her life.

“Where is Y/N?” Betty questioned, pulling on the sleeves of her black sweater.

The group had decided to go as the Breakfast Club this year, Cheryl’s nickname had inspired them. Archie went as Andrew, Veronica as Claire, Betty as Allison, and Jughead got stuck with Brian. He originally wanted to be Bender, but Y/N decided she was the best fit to be him and that was a fight Jughead just would not win. She was a great match for Jughead in the stubbornness department.

“She’ll be here soon, apparently her car decided to not start again today so she’s trying to convince her brother to let her borrow his truck.” Jughead replied from his spot on the couch.

“Aww, don’t you all look so good.” Sidney cooed, coming out into the living room. Pushing down the wave of nausea that had settled in her stomach when she was the Scream poster printed on a flyer on the table. A chorus of thanks came her way.

“Are you doing anything fun tonight Ms. Jones? You could always come to the Bijou with us if you want” Betty told her with a smile.

“Oh no, you guys are teenagers you can’t have your parent hanging around during Halloween, just wouldn’t be cool.” Sidney said with a small laugh. “Besides Stab gives me the creeps.”

“Really? Why?”

“Scary movies were just never my thing. They’re all kind of the same, some girl running up the stairs when she should be running out the door ya know.” She said with a smile. “You guys be good!” She called as she headed back up to her room.

Just then the phone rang. Weird, Jughead thought, no one ever called their home phone anymore. Jughead, being closest to the phone, picked it up and answered.

“Hello?”

“Hello Jughead” Came a raspy voice from the other line. Confused, Jughead looks down at the caller ID, huh not a number he recognized.

“Hello, uhh who is this?” He asked, gaining the attention from his friends.

“You tell me.”

“Uhh well, I have no idea.” He said, looking up at the group, who were now watching him intently.

“Scary night isn’t it? What with the murders it’s like right out of a horror movie or something.” The voice on the other end spoke. Jughead let out a small breath as a relieved smirk spread across his face.

“Y/N you gave yourself away, are you on your way over or what? The movie starts in half a hour and you know I hate missing previews.” He scolded her playfully.  

“Do you like scary movies Jughead?” The voice on the other end had not changed the whole interaction, Y/N was good he’d have to admit.

“Is that Y/N?” Veronica asked.

“Yeah she’s just messing around.” Jughead told her before turning his attention back to the phone. “I like that thing you’re doing with your voice Y/N, its sexy.”

“What’s your favorite scary movie?”

“Oh come on Y/N, you know what my favorite scary movie is so why are you asking?”

“Are you alone in the house?”

“Oh come on, that’s so unoriginal, I’m disappointed in you Y/L/N.”

“Maybe because I’m not Y/N.” The voice growled, causing Jugheads face to fall. The mood in the room suddenly went cold. Noticing their friends distress the group now all sat around Jughead as he put the caller on speaker phone. Maybe it was a lapse in judgement, maybe it was the Halloween season getting the best of him, or maybe it was the Nightmare on Elm Streets he’d watched earlier but he was thoroughly freaked out.

There was a pregnant pause.

“So, then who are?” He questioned cautiously.

“The question isn’t who am I, the questions is where am I.” The called spoke, their voice had lost the anger in their voice and it was replaced by something almost lighter, like the caller was having fun messing with the teens.

“So, where are you?” He looked at his friends around him, all who were watching him intently.

“On your front porch.” The voice said smoothly. Causing the teens hearts to fall into their stomachs, in their panic none of them seemed to recognize the dialogue as a being apart of the movie they were all about to go see, maybe it was just creepier to be heard through your own phone rather than on a tv screen.

Archie was the first person to get up, making his way slowly to the front door as his friends trailed behind him.

“Why would you be on my front porch?”

“Well you see that’s original part.”

“Well see, I call your bluff.” Veronica snapped, for the first time since the call had started. Pushing past Archie Veronica pulled the door open, Jughead thought for a moment she might rip it off it hinges, but the worry left his head completely when a figure, dressed in all black and a ghostface mask jumped into view holding a knife.

Dropping the phone Jughead jumped back, his friends following suit as they all let out terrified screams; that was before they noticed the figure in the doorway hunched over in laughter.

The figure dropped it’s knife and pulled its costume off easily, revealing a Bender clad Y/N in all her glory.

“Oh my god, Y/N that was NOT funny!” Betty screamed, moving forward to hit the girl repeatedly on the arm. Which did not stop her laughs.

Moving away from Betty’s rath Y/N kept hold of the ghostface mask as she moved inside.

“Aw man, I can’t believe you guys fucking fell for that!” She gushed. “Come on that’s one of the best scenes in Stab, I’m disappointed in you all none of you would make it through a horror movie.

Hearing the screams Sidney quickly got out of bed, rushing through the house fearing the worst. After running into the scene, baseball bat in hand, Sidney saw the teens huddled near the door, with a very amused Y/N holding her costume in her hand. Sindey’s blood ran cold as she recognized the black and white mass, but she put down the bat and crossed her arms, assuming the true annoyed mother stance.

“What the hell was all that screaming?” She questioned, looking pointedly between her son and his girlfriend.

Jughead looked over at his mom, first startled that she had come running with a bat in hand, but it soon morphed into embarrassment as the situation set in.

“Well seeing as though we’re going to go see Stab tonight I figured I’d try and scare these guys, and like wimps they fell for it.” Y/N laughed, knocking Jughead with her elbow. “You of all people I thought would get it Jug, we’ve seen that movie like eight times.”

Looking down at his feet Jughead tried to hide the faint blush on his cheeks, Y/N was never going to let this go. “Sorry, you caught me after Nightmare on Elm Street, my guard was down.” He muttered, casing Y/N to scoff.

“You like Stab Y/N?” Sidney questioned, her voice strained a bit. Now Sindey, liked Y/N, she really did, she was a sweet kid and was always there for Jughead when she couldn’t be, but then again, so was Billy before senior year.

Noticing the off tone in her boyfriends mothers voice Y/N nodded slowly. “Oh yeah, its my favorite, redefined the whole genre you know?”

Sidney gave the girl a small, yet forced smiled as she nodded. “Right, right. Shouldn’t you guys be headed out? The movie starts at 10 doesn’t it?”

“Oh shit, you’re right we need to leave.” Jughead said, grabbing the cloak, mask, and voice changer from his girlfriend and throwing it on the coffee table. “Bye mom, love you!” Jughead kissed his mothers cheek quickly as the group headed out of the small house and into the car.

“Sorry bout the noise Ms. J!” Y/N called as Jughead dragged her out.

“Y/N that was so not funny.” Betty’s voice could be heard from outside.

“You’re right, it was hilarious.”

#jughead jones x reader #jughead x reader #jughead imagine #riverdale imagine #scream imagine #betty cooper #archie andrews #veronica lodge

[wannawrite]

Best Of Both Worlds

who?: Wanna One’s Park Woojin

genre: 🌸

type: scenario

word count: 4.3K

TW: coarse language

blog navigator. 

who said love and evil don’t mix? 

love-hate! AU

I have so much to say about this AU

⁃ admin l 

disclaimer: pictures used do not belong to me and credit goes to their original owners everything that is written here is purely fictional DO NOT READ IF TRIGGERING

~

“Excuse me? What the hell did you just say? I dare you to repeat that shit again!” Your steely glare bore into the sarcastic hazel orbs of Park Woojin’s.

Aka the most annoying person, you had ever encountered.

Woojin sighed and casually repeated his sentence. “I really like your, yes, your best friend, Clara and yes, you should help us get together.”

The words took your brain too much time to process, too much time functioning around Park Woojin.

“Wow,” you drawled. “I lost brain cells trying to comprehend your words so bye, time for me to leave.”

The most, you managed to amble two steps away from him before e caught your elbow.

“Let me go you idiot! Or I’m going to yell to this whole neighbourhood that you bullied me!” You threatened, beyond angered.

Reluctantly, Woojin released his grip on your arm.

“Why should I even help you? Clara has a heart of a puppy! She can’t even harm a damn fly! Why her?” you groaned, picturing a harmful image of Park Woojin and Clara together.

He was the embodiment of the devil while she was the angel who was in charge of the choir in heaven. As a couple, it would be awful.

Disgusting.

Woojin beamed happily. “Because you love your best friend and you want her to be happy,” he explained like he was stating the obvious.

Giving him a once over - just in case he changed in 0.5 seconds, you decided that he was definitely not cut out to be boyfriend material, let alone Clara’s sort of boyfriend material.

You snorted. “She’ll be miserable with you! What kind of guy pours his milk into a bowl before the cereal. Uncultured! Strike one!”

Woojin frowned, teeth gritted. “That was one! time when we were 8 years old!”

Then, as if a light bulb flickered on inside his rather dull head, he smirked. “Don’t you remember when we were 8? And you had this massive crush on Lee Daehwi?”

A hot red seared your cheeks at the mention of that day. The day Park Woojin embarrassed you in front of all your neighbours at the monthly barbecue. Back then, he was the only one who knew you had a crush on Daehwi.

How? Woojin stole your diary in kindergarten, deciphered your illegible handwriting during nap time and discovered your secret crush.

What a gentleman.

“You better shut your mouth before I rip out your vocal cords, sew them back then slowly snip the seams one by one!” You growled threateningly. At least, you hoped to seem more collected than you actually were.

The imagery is really starting to take its toll on me.

“Do you always have to be so graphic?” Woojin rolled his eyes. “All I’m asking is for you to put in a good word for me. What have I done to you?”

Done to me?

A perfectly cut nail jabbed its way into Woojin’s chest accusingly. “You? What have you done to me?”

“I mean, you invaded my privacy when we were kids. Told the whole neighbourhood and the Lee family that I had a crush on their son! Then everyone spent two years thinking I was a slut because you claimed I kissed two people in an hour!”

Woojin took one look at your finger on his chest and flicked it away. “Talk about harassment now.”

You wanted to scream in his face and perhaps tie him upside down to a tree.

Woojin was such a jerk! Helpful next-door neighbour my ass!

You stormed ahead of him, eager to arrive home. Just breathing the same air made your head spin. Slamming the door in his face seemed perfect.

“That was when we were kids! I’ve apologised!” He yelled from behind you before stretching his long legs and catching up with you.

“Sure.”

A sigh left Woojin’s lips as he dramatically pinched the bridge of his nose in mock despair. “Fine. I have a proposition anyway.”

“I’m not interested,” you shot back, boredom filling your tone.

“It involves Lee Daehwi,” he hummed casually.

Those three words. Someone’s name. Those were enough to make you freeze, and cause your heart to pound.

You cleared your throat and tried to appear nonchalant in front of Woojin, hoping he would not notice.

“Okay,” you groaned reluctantly. “I’m listening now.”

If only your complete infatuation allowed you to tune out to whatever Woojin would propose.

Hell, who would make a deal with the devil?

“How fickle of you. I’m wondering if Daehwi even deserves someone like you,” Woojin commented, a teasing smirk on his lips.

Annoyed, you kicked an innocent stray pebble on the sidewalk, wishing it was Woojin’s face.

“Get on with the deal or I’m backing out.”

The boy put his hands up in mock surrender, faking shock. “Woah, okay.”

Surprisingly, he obeyed.

“I’ll set you up with Daehwi, if you help me get into Clara’s good books.”

“You make it sound like-“

“You don’t even have to help me until your ship is sailing,” he cut in hurriedly. “Who else would you go to? I’m Daehwi’s best friend and your next door neighbour, so perfect !”

It sounded like the most perfect proposal in the world. But Woojin wasn’t from this world. Far from it. Down under.

However, because of my stupid adoration for Lee Daehwi, I’m going to give Woojin a chance.

And Clara sleep paralysis.

But how bad could it be? It’ll be a win-win situation at the end.

Hopefully.

Clara’s a strong woman, she can handle herself. Like this, I can also regulate Woojin’s behaviour around her, maybe even sabotage it.

Thoughts like those filled your mind as you weighed out the pros and cons.

You chuckled quietly to yourself and offered Woojin an outstretched hand.

“I believe you’ve got yourself a deal.”

~

It was way past visiting hours at your house, after dinner and the time when the whole family was doing their own thing.

For example, you were holed up in your room, watching the latest drama on your laptop and grinning like an idiot.

That was when your father knocked on your door and announced that someone was here to see you.

Eyes narrowed in suspicion, you padded out to the living room to meet your uninvited guest.

“You!”

Your jaw fell open in disbelief and shock, a finger instinctively pointed accusingly at the person sitting on your sofa.

“What are you doing here?” you hissed, clearly frustrated, mildly annoyed Woojin had to see you in your lazing around outfit.

“Well, hello to you too. I feel so welcome here,” Woojin replied sarcastically.

While you were in your comfiest t-shirt and shorts, Woojin was clearly dressed up for a night out. That fact alone made you worried.

Plopping yourself into space next to him, you asked once more, “What are you doing here?”.

Woojin grinned like the Cheshire cat, wide and proud. “Someone I know is throwing a party tonight and...Daehwi will be there. Facts only.”

“And if you’re lying?”

In all honesty, you wouldn’t put it past him for lying.

He scoffed. “Why would I be? Our pact starts today. The faster I get you and Daehwi together, the faster I can get Clara.”

Woojin stretched out a hand, eyes almost challenging you to grab it. “So, party or no?”

Taking his hand, you shook it. “Give me a while, I need to change and tell my parents. Drinks or whatever are in the fridge.”

Daehwi. Daehwi. Daehwi. He’ll be there.

~

“Impossible,” you muttered under your breath, scanning the crowd frantically for any sign of Woojin or Daehwi.

Half an hour after losing Woojin, he was still nowhere to be found. Sure, he had instructed you to wait in the kitchen while he fetched Daehwi but he was taking way too long.

Plus, the kitchen began filling up with hungry drunkards and you figured it was time to scram.

Even though this party could be considered ‘small’, you weren’t exactly familiar with any of the faces. 

Who even threw this party? Their snack selection sucked.

“Y/N!”

Finally!

Pushing through the crowd, you reached the other side of the house, from where Woojin was calling.

“Damnit! Don’t you know how to pick up a phone?” He flashed his phone screen in your face, the device was calling yours.

“Sorry. But you, you took way too much time to fetch him,” you fired back. “And, I called you twice as well!”

Luckily, Daehwi noticed your presence and decided to break the ice.

“Hey y/n, good to see you. Woojin never mentioned you would be here tonight,” he said with a smile.

“Hi!” You glared in Woojin’s direction to ask for help. “Uh, I love giving surprises so, here I am!”

You swore he facepalmed.

“Uh, I love parties and all!” You added much to Woojin’s horror.

To your relief, Daehwi only chuckled in amusement.

“Oh my god! Guys, it’s MY song! This is MY jam and...it’s time to dance! Come along,” Woojin shouted, dragging you and Daehwi to dance without waiting for replies.

“Oh, I didn’t know you listened to Taylor Swift,” Daehwi murmured. Woojin paid no mind to his accurate comment.

Woojin didn’t. As his next-door neighbour, all you had heard for the past few nights were pop and rap songs with the occasional ballad thrown in.

“Guess he’s trying out something new,” you added, trying to seem casual and composed.

In reality, your heart was going to leap out of your chest.

Quite a graphic scene.

Suddenly, Woojin announced that he needed a drink, or saw someone he knew, whichever excuse came first. He left you and Daehwi in the centre of the dance floor with a wink.

Shit! That prick knows I can’t dance!

Act composed. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

“I love this song,” you said, attempting to groove but ended up stepping on someone’s toes.

“Um, looks like you and Woojin have similar tastes, haha! Y’all must spend a lot of time together,” Daehwi responded, somewhat unsure of how to react.

Crap!

“Oh, nah.” You quickly tried to brush off the assumption. “We’re just neighbours. You know that. You’re my neighbour too. Wait, why am I telling you this. You already know this. I-“

Ahh, the rambling.

Inhaling deeply, you calmed down and gathered your words properly.

“Sorry for my rambling. I think the party has me a little woozy,” you explained sheepishly.

People began to jostled you around, so you ended up finding your spot on the sidelines. Daehwi trailed after you.

He shook his head in, disagreeing. “Don’t be.”

Then, his thick brows furrowed with concern, eyes searching for any signs of distress. “Are you okay? Do you want me to call Woojin? You should be heading home if you’re feeling unwell.”

This is why he’s so perfect. He is THE sweetest man on this planet and no one can change my opinion.

“No!” The yell was a little too loud, causing a couple of odd looks to be thrown your way. You hastily made up a believable excuse, trying to smile flirtatiously, “Uh, I just got here. Besides, we just met!”

“I’ll be taking that away from you.”

In one swift motion, Woojin had swooped your cup of ‘whatever it was from the kitchen bar’ and throwing it into the trash.

You blinked twice at him, almost unable to believe what had just happened. “Woojin! Wha-“

Daehwi looked relieved to find Woojin. “Thank god you’re here! Uh, I...oh! Youngmin hyung!”

He looked to you, then to Woojin and back to you. “If you don’t mind...”

Woojin nodded in ‘Youngmin’s’ direction, grabbing a hold of your elbow. “Go ahead.”

Your mutter was incomprehensible.

“I guess, I’ll see you guys around! Nice meeting you here! Drive safely!” Daehwi bid the two of you goodbye with a wave. He disappeared pretty quickly into the crowd.

“Do you want to stay?” Woojin gestured to the most happening place of the party. Sighing, you rubbed your temples and shook your head, kicking the trash bin on the way out.

When you were seated in Woojin’s car and definitely out of earshot, did you begin to spill the short encounter to your friend.

“He asked me if I was okay!”

“He does that all the time.” Was his muted reply. “...But good job, I saw you guys talking.”

Woojin took a left down the lane.

A scoff left your lips. “Of course, until you interrupted us and threw my drink in the trash.”

He remained nonchalant with his answer. “Okay. Whatever that was had reached your brain and you were acting like a malfunctioning Ken doll. I saved your ass from embarrassing yourself in front of Daehwi.”

Reclining into the plush leather seat, you nodded playfully. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

With another turn, Woojin cleared his throat. “So, about our deal...”

“Yeah, yeah, Clara and all.”

Honestly, no bones in your body were excited to introduce Woojin to Clara. Even though she had witnessed your ‘banter’ with him, she never knew who he was. Plus, she was the nicest type of friend who thought of everyone in the best possible light.

Most people.

Woojin? Definitely.

Settling on her contact, your finger hovered directly above the illuminated blue button.

Text or call?

“How about next Saturday, a double date, bbq place next to the library?” You suggested.

“Double date?” Woojin questioned, brow quirked.

“Yeah, you, me, Daehwi, Clara. She loves barbecue by the way. I’ll say you suggested the idea,” you said, throwing in ideas as they came.

A smile broke out on Woojin’s face, so wide it made your heart flutter. You reached over and pinched one of his cheeks.

“You’re blushing,” you sang with delight.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” Woojin admitted without hesitation. “Barbecue?”

“Text sent!” You confirmed happily, nearly tossing your phone to the back seat.

“Let’s get it.”

~

You: hey Clara, caught a fever, not coming to school so help me tell everyone, okay?

Clara: omg :((( i hope you get better soon and I’ll drop by later. Get some rest now💖

Right after you received her reply, you sent a heart back and threw your phone across your room.

The fever had really gotten you all worked up. It was incredibly annoying that your immune system picked and chose the times to malfunction.

Such as a fever two days before you were scheduled for a double date!

Wonderful.

The thought of cancelling the date mad you blush hotly with anger and frustration. Maybe you cried once or twice thinking about how the ‘breaking the news’ scenario would play out.

All you could do was to wait for the fever to subside then sweet talk your way into your parent’s approval. They would feel uneasy.

You hissed, retracting a hand away from your forehead that burned like hot coals.

Well, nothing could materialise unless the fever broke.

Sulkily, you slipped under the blankets again and hoped for rest to come.

Somehow, you wondered if Woojin had noticed your absence from school, or whether he noticed you hadn’t left your house that morning.

The fever must have severe impacts on your prefrontal cortex. Who would think of him? Why do I want him to notice? Do I want him to care?

At least, you managed to quietly slip into a serene dream.

~

“Rise and shine, brat .” A voice rang, echoing off the walls of your brain.

“Get up! You need to wake up! Your forehead’s burning, you have to take your pills!”

Mum? But,,,mum doesn’t swear and she’s meant to be at work. Clara? Clara never swears! Besides, she has tuition today. Neither of them have deep voices...Dad is at work too...

Woojin?

Wait, it could be Daehwi?

Trying to guess the person from voice alone was a seemingly easy task for a person whose brain wasn’t being eaten up by a fire.

Strange, it placed Woojin on the list too.

“What,” you whispered, unamused.

Claps sounded through the atmosphere, and a sarcastic voice followed suit. “Fantastic! Sleeping beauty has awoken! Though, I must say you look much more like the beast when asleep.”

At that comment, your eyes flew open and you leapt up to confront the intruder.

“Park Woojin! What are you doing here?”

Isn’t this the second time in two weeks that he has adventured into my house? First my living room and now my bedroom?

“Woojin! Now, I have to disinfect my whole house because of your germs!”

With a gentle push on your shoulder, you fell back onto your bed. “Relax,” Woojin said. “I come in peace.”

He gestured to his mysterious metal tureen, a teddy bear and a balloon. “The notes are from your friends. Clara got you the balloon and, I bought you the bear.”

Weirdly enough, you felt paper wings of tiny butterflies flap in your stomach and heart begin to thud.

“Oh,” you muttered wordlessly, accepting his teddy bear.

Woojin then proceeded to offer you the container of chicken broth stew, saying how he spent hours broiling it. He also managed to brag about his excellent chef skills.

After which, he presented a folder of all the work you had missed, with a sticky note of instructions. It was neatly organised and even had colourful sticky tabs.

“Clara collected the work and asked me to deliver it,” he clarified.

Clara’s handwriting was a whole lot neater and more cursive than his boxy letters.

Still, you played along, not wanting to put him in a spot.

“Why are you doing all this for me? You really didn’t have to.”

A part of you was reluctant to hear the truth because Park Woojin came up with the most ridiculous reasons ever. But the other half wanted to know if this meant something, at least platonically.

For a minute, Woojin distracted himself by looking anywhere but in your direction.

“You idiot,” he finally snickered. “I still need my favourite wingman for Saturday. Can’t have you bailing on me.”

You sort of knew he was joking and truthfully, it made a whole lot of sense. Yet, why did it somehow hurt?

Sensing the shift in your mood, Woojin grew anxious. He gave your shoulder a pat. “Hey, all that aside. I came here as your next door neighbour and your friend. You can call me anytime.”

Reassuring.

His words were so reassuring.

Friends.

We were friends now.

Maybe you were sick and ignoring his usual stupid, goofy side and tapping into the soppy, emotional perspective but you appreciated this unseen side of your new friend.

“Thank you for caring,” you expressed with gratitude.

He gave a charming boyish nod before enveloping you in a bone-crushing hug.

Woojin looks like the kind of guy to give good hugs

~

A glance at the clock told you that you were five minutes late to the barbecue place.

The main reason: the cool, calm, playful Park Woojin was having a total breakdown in his bedroom

First, it was about the colour of his shirt. Then, how he did his hair and how many earrings he should wear.

The past hour or so was spent on you trying to encourage and reassure him.

“Cheer up! You always look amazing in everything and you’ll look even better when you show off your cooking skills! I know you can make a mean fried rice!”

“But, what if-“

“No buts! You can do this! You’re Park Woojin! And, you have me! The best wingman in the world!”

Your energetic pep talk seemed to have calmed his nerves for the time being.

Meanwhile, you received text updates of food Daehwi and Clara had ordered.

It seemed like the two of them hit it off well in the short time they had been sitting at the same table. Their casual banter got on your nerves more than it should have.

Yet, your mind was more preoccupied thinking about Woojin.

He had barely uttered a word to Clara.

Deciding that enough was enough, you kicked him in the shin under the table.

“Ouch!” He exclaimed. “What the hell?”

“That’s...not...how you grill meat, Woojin! Let me teach you how. I think food is an essential part of a conversation starter, don’t ruin it,” you warned through gritted teeth.

“Hey! It's not like you do any better in cooking,” Woojin shot back, clearly not getting the message.

Clara smiled sweetly and awed. “These two argue like a married couple! How cute!”

You picked up the scissors and gave a little ‘snip-snip’. “I’ll chop off my ring finger before he ever proposes!”

Clara motioned for you to calm down before whining about your dramatic ways.

“I think they’re funny,” Woojin suddenly defended. “I-I mean...it’s fun to challenge someone.”

Daehwi and Clara exchanged not-so-subtle looks.

Oh no.

They think that this ‘double date’ is for them to wingman us! Plus, they do look like they enjoy each other’s company.

Woojin would be so crushed! I need to warn him.

“Woojin,” you coughed. “I think I left my...wallet in the car. Could you come with me to get it?”

Wordlessly and with shaky hands, he passed you the car keys. You swore you saw him suck in a deep breath when your fingers brushed.

You felt sparks too, you were just better at concealing them, for the sake of Clara and Daehwi.

Woojin couldn’t stay here alone. What if they get the wrong idea and interrogate him until he is forced to reveal our pact? That’ll end his chances with Clara forever!

This pact was so stupid!

But it did give me some of the best moments of my life. Woojin bringing soup over, going to parties together...

“Uh, I forgot where we parked the car.”

Groaning, Woojin got up from his seat, back to his usual self. “Seriously? I suppose it comes with age. Your skin looks a lot more wrinkly than before.”

Yes, he was back to his usual self.

“You’re insufferable! I can’t believe it,” you grumbled, quickly steering both of you out of the shop.

Out of sight, you filled him in on how the current, dire situation. But that didn’t faze him one bit.

“Hello? Woojin! You have to talk to Clara okay? Giving her a yoghurt smoothie every day isn’t going to suffice!”

You continued to talk once the car came into sight.

“Besides, you were so nervous about meeting her! Chill, calm down. Now’s the perfect time to use all your charm on her!”

“I like you.”

You stopped dead in your tracks, jaw dropping open as you locked eyes with Woojin. Surely, he’s kidding.

Right?

It has to be his confession for Clara. That’s what he’s so nervous about! He just needed to rehearse with me.

A half-hearted laugh let your lips. “Woojin, don’t play with my feelings.  At least give me a warning before you practice your confession on me.”

He glanced away then looked straight into your eyes.

“Hey, Clara,” he began confidently.

You offered a thumbs up for encouragement.

“Don’t get me wrong, I think you’re an amazing person but, it isn’t working out between us-“

A frowned etched into your face and you reminded that it was love confession, not a breakup scene.

“I like your friend, y/n. So, please help me tell them to stop being so dense!”

I. Like. You.

What the hell.

“You don’t have to tell me anything now, or ever. I just wanted you to know,” he said. “Come on, let’s go back before they finish lunch.”

“Why do you like me?” you blurted out. “I mean, we hated each other from day one, remember?”

He shrugged, his cute shrug. “You are a lot different from the version that I ‘hated’. I think getting to know and understand you made me realise how much I enjoyed being together.”

“As for Clara, I was infatuated, we talked about it on one of our many yogurt smoothie encounters. She...likes someone else anyway, but I’m not hurt or anything.”

Even though your face burned and your head hung low, every single bone in your body was bursting with joy.

“I don’t know what to say,” you finally admitted.

Truthfully, your whole Daehwi crush had died down the more time you spent with Woojin. Daehwi was a good friend and Woojin? Well, you had to work that out.

“Can I get back to you on it? We live next door, we can talk any time,” you suggested shyly.

Woojin burst out laughing. “Woah. You gon’ break my heart just like that? Bold. I like it.”

Ahhh, my favourite side of Park Woojin is back.

Snickering, you fought back. “Can’t wait till I set your hair on fire and you’ll feel what it’s like to be...roasted.”

“Oops, forgot you feel that all the time whenever I’m around.”

Woojin rolled his eyes and smirked, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Funny, but you’re the one always getting clowned. Remember that time I threw slime into your hair, you never realised and your crush had to point it out to you? History can repeat itself today.”

Damn, now I’m going to lie awake tonight thinking about that incident.

“You better take that back before give you all the burnt meat today!” you declared. “God, I can’t stand you!”

Chortling, Woojin wrapped an arm around your shoulder, pulling you closer. “Watch out for cars. Your blind ass is going to get run over one day.”

He leaned down to whisper in your ear, leaving a shiver running down your spine.

“You know you love me.”

Two fingers gently pinched his cheek in response.

“Please. I love barbecued meat more than you. Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

But secretly, once he was looking away, you grinned, stretching from ear to ear and your heart never felt warmer.

#admin l #wanna one #wanna one scenarios #produce 101 scenarios #park woojin #produce 101

[elizabethrobertajones]

Is there a particular reason supernatural hates twilight?

Oh my god that’s a complicated one :P I think it’s largely a cultural response to Twilight, which was really disliked in general pop culture by everyone but the target audience of teen girls, largely for its creepy message of stalking and purity culture, and the fear that tweens were soaking up a bad message of shitty relationships and shame. Which I guess wanders a bunch of territory about how much tweens know their own heads and can be allowed to like the things they like without being mocked for it, but then I grew up as a teen during the craze but surrounded by virulent anti-Twilight feeling from intellectual writing snobs outside and in the relevant genres, and have since wandered into the YA fantasy genre myself as a writer so I have a lot of feelings about this and need to fiercely learn to defend my own writing against the instinct that saying the 4 main characters are all 17 and female in the first book is an instant cause for deflection and embarrassment about its perception, so, you know, this first paragraph ends in the meme about “in this essay I will -”

Sera Gamble is an actual Twilight fan, however, fitting the secondary demographic of attractive women of the same broad description of Bella/Stephanie Meyer with a heart shaped face and long brown hair so I can totally see HOW it got her when you add in whatever amount of personal spookiness ends up with you writing on a horror show for 6 years at least :P Very much the secondary demographic of the novels after the teen versions of the same women >.> 

The writer of 6x05, however, is a dude, and there’s something deeply mocking about most of the portrayal, except I suspect the bar scene in the cold open, which IS mocking but seems to have been overseen by a Twilight fan to get in tons of accurate details with a level of absolute parody perfection. Kristen and Robert are honestly some of the best rando side characters :’)

Dean also is avidly not the sort of Twilight demographic and given his job probably finds the whole mythology ridiculous, so making jokes about killing vampires and calling them “Twilight” derogatorily is one of his favourite jokes. 6x05 implies Sam and Dean have a fair amount of passing knowledge of Twilight because it was a huge craze, and even outside my circles of fandom and writing and being a teenage girl etc at the time it was inescapable culturally… It’s one of the few things for teenage girls that Dean genuinely seems not to like, and he even seems to be totally cool with other YA, like mockingly calling Kevin “Katniss” with a reasonable amount of affection/implied admiration of her archery skills or whatever. 

I kinda think the new writer (Brett Matthews) went overboard on selling Adult Men Mock Teenage Girls For Their Interests in that scene where they’re in Kristen’s bedroom, because for once Sam and Dean - and this is SOULLESS SAM too - are in agreement about the other books and Twilight, and Dean having his own Pattinson moment later with Lisa, is not confronting being a sexy creature of the night stalking and harming his love interest at night after sneaking into her room, in any sort of way betraying interest in a supposedly female/teenage property like a bunch of other stuff he likes. Since Sam is soulless that scene should be written that Dean has a secret “it’s not so bad” feeling, but it never comes and he slaughters all the vampires and reclaims his agency and the metaphor that Twilight is rapey and bad represented by those vampires remains the entire main message with the girls being disproportionately punished, while even the guys who Boris assaulted and turned being socially better off, with the women as angsty poetry writing chattel the recruiters are “allowed to bang”

It’s enough of a bad taste that it goes past the point of being fair and has strong and disappointingly surface level misogyny about how vampire romances suck, and for an episode that deals heavily with assault themes, still misses the mark by punishing and blaming the girls without seeing them as sympathetic victims, instead punishing them for liking the crap edgy teenagers like >.> Idk if Sera missed the nuance or it only got worse once it was filmed or if it was funny to her and she was engaging in some self-deprecation as well or what (no one would argue Twilight is well-written but its narrative and love story is compelling to the psyche in a way that can’t be denied considering its massive hysterical popularity at the time and that means I’m shamefully coming to realise that bashing it and dismissing it outright even if I think it’s a bad book is shamey and thoughtless, and not considering the people who DO like it and why…) 

Whatever it is we ended up with an episode which somehow starts as a loving if kind of mocking parody/subversion of Twilight that rapidly turns into shitting all over it in a really depressing way, which gives the entire flavour of the show’s teasing of Twilight that bad flavour… At the end of the day it’s all common garden variety misogyny and hating what teenage girls are interested in, though. Lovingly told through a lens of a whoooole bunch of adult men mocking it, in the writing, directing, characters and actors, and only the show runner is actually a fan, which just gives it that really weird flavour of being a KNOWLEDGEABLE hate-wank about the books.

#Asks #6x05 #we don't talk about season 6

[sparda3g]

Attack on Titan Chapter 101 Review

Are you tired with pep talk? Are you done with history lesson? Are you really hungry for mayhem? Well, wait no more! This chapter delivers it and my God, it was as epic as I can imagine after series of buildup and developments. The series may go on a slow pace with its setting and build from the start, but once it gets to the heated moment, it goes above and beyond on the epic scale. Simply put, it’s an epic chapter.

So where do we begin? Let’s start off with the upmost intense atmosphere with thousands of panic people that set the tone as the world coming to an end. One of the strengths is how it captures the deep dreadful sight of apocalypse-esque feel from everyone. Regardless that they are technically the enemy, it continues to paint the series far more than a simple black and white case. I actually almost feel sorry for the people to witness the terror that resembles a Kaiju genre.

One part that struck me hard is the sight of a child crushed by Eren’s destruction. Zofia was among the future warriors that had a lot of time to enjoy life. Now that she was brutally crushed, the thought of Reiner taking care of the kids punch me like a KO blow. Just how much he has to suffer before he can finally put to rest? I don’t know what to think but good Lord, this series is heartless; yes, I know it’s obvious but it had to be said again.  

On top of that, Udo lost his mind and believes that Zofia needs some help to stay alive. In other media, it would have come off really silly, much like a person asked the guy who has his head blown off if he’s dead. Fortunately, Isayama does a terrific job to capture the true horror of the moment and it affects me on how much I actually feel some sympathy from this. They’re only kids and they didn’t act like those kids that were begging to die because of their intolerant behaviors. Bottom line, Eren truly is a monster to behold.

As killing a kid wasn’t enough, Udo gets severely crushed by hoard of panic people and his head looks brutally bad. Actually, it’s best to say that he’s dead. This is some freaky stuff that I keep forgetting it is Shounen. I started to feel bad for Gabi to witness her friends dying in front of her. It’s a cold way for her to mature after her reasonable child behavior. This chapter doesn’t show what happened to Reiner and Falco, but if they are alive and I am almost positive that they are, I can’t imagine the reaction from them. If this doesn’t put them over the edge, I’ll be very surprised.

There is one developing scenario and that’s with Porko and Pieck making their way back to the surface. This is obviously a big deal, now that the other Titans can join in the battlefield, though it may have been toppled by the next scene. I’m glad that they actually fill in on why Pieck randomly hug a fan and it turns out it’s a backup insurance since she always had a suspicious of one of the guard following. The Panzer Unit may have helped and possibly saved the day, but then something awesome occurs.

Just when Pieck wants to observe the area before going into Titan, they look at the sky, and they’re not birds or planes. They’re hype machine flying by. When I saw that, I was like, “Oh God Yes! This chapter is easily the best of the year.” It’s done for your blood to be pumping with excitement and it will only become a serious rush by the end.

Now that we are done with new development, credible sensation of horror, and terrifying display of destruction, let’s talk about the action. Man, it was riveting as hell. Willy was confirmed dead and it only did in further when he was eaten by Eren. For those who believe he was alive and War Hammer Titan, that wish is completely dead. Instead, we have a maid from the Tybur Family that is actually the user of the said Titan. Who said women can’t kick ass in Shounen?

I have to admit, I was disappointed to see the War Hammer Titan to get demolished quick and look rather weak. However, when I reread the same pages, I didn’t realize that Eren was actually pummeling her before she can complete the transformation and because of that, I now love that moment. It answers the thought of why let them change when you can strike first. It also shows the intellect of how taking it down can save the hardship. It’s tensed as hell when he tried and tried to take it down, but when that spike goes through him, I was like, “Aw shit!” From there on, it becomes gratifying.

The War Hammer Titan’s design looks awesome. It’s probably the best design of the Titans. What I love about it is how it fits the description of how the title should present it. The hammer is obvious but the expression it gives is vicious and powerful. It’s amazing how it went from disappointment due to lack of attention I gave to a hype delivered beastly design.

As far as the action goes, it’s one intense strike after another. Not only she lives up to the design, but she is also quite powerful in strengths and abilities. She can swing that hammer at ease and strike hard as a Thor’s hammer. She can summons spikes from the ground, whether it’s multiple small ones or a large deadly one. Eren does a good job including the armored hands, but holy crap, that hammer is lethal.

Magath and his military forces do help as well, which probably cause Eren more trouble than he already has. Because of that, the disadvantage is clear as day; it’s no wonder Eren lost badly. That said he still comes off looking strong and not downplay by his sheer devastation, which is carefully addressed. Even at his loss, he looks like he still conquers the field.

The biggest mark out or fan freaking out moment is just when Eren is about to get crushed by War Hammer, he was asked if he has any last words. His last words are “Do it now, Mikasa.” When I read that, my face was like The Scream painting; I was going wild. As soon as I saw her in epic double page, I cheered like I saw a fantastic film or wonderful Broadway show. It’s just an amazing feeling to finally see the old cast, even if it’s just one. She even has an awesome entrance by knocking down the Titan. Welcome back.

The rest of the Survey Corps show up, though no standalone intro, but that’s fine. Just seeing them again is enough for me to get excited. Their new outfit looks badass. The reunion of Mikasa and Eren is what I expected to happen first and it didn’t disappoint. That said there’s this ominous tone from Mikasa about Eren’s status.

It could be just me but it sounds like Eren has disappeared for a while and because of that letter, it’s now that they are finally reunited. Maybe that earlier story of his is actually true; he probably did run away. Maybe he has been exploring to try to “cleanse the world.” Perhaps it could just be her saying to return home now since this mission has gotten too hectic. It’s hard to determine which the case is but it certainly got me not only excited but highly invested.

The presentation is pretty stellar with its dreary atmosphere and the intensity of the setting. I already covered the designs but again, they are really badass all in all. The action is tensed. The entrance from Mikasa was marvelous and I couldn’t be any more hype.

We have waited for a while for some intense moment and it was well worth the wait. With its well buildup to the characters and lore, the moment felt even more special than it initially started off. Next year is going to be epic; I can already tell from the past writing routine. I simply cannot wait.

#shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #chapter 101 #review

[svt-husbands]

How the Hell Are You this High?

Member: Joshua

Genre: ANGST, fluff, smut

Word Count: 10,983

Part 1 / Part 2

The car horn blared out as Joshua smashed his head against the driving wheel. He groaned at the pain crackling at the front of his skull and slowly sat back up. A hand carded through his freshly dyed hair and his eyes scanned the parking lot, watching other students climbing out of their own cars and walking towards the school with their friends. A lump formed in Joshua’s throat. He had friends of course, but none of which he could talk to freely about his problems. His best friend Jeonghan moved away only two years before. His girlfriend broke up with him only two months ago. Joshua hasn’t been the same ever since. He gripped on the steering wheel and contemplated if he should just go home and lie in the comfort of his bed.

The sound of his phone buzzing brought Joshua back to his senses. He picked his phone up from the passenger seat and stared down at the message sent to him.

Mingyu: well? did u go in yet? (7:46)

Joshua bit his lip. Mingyu knew way too much for his own good. No, he did not go in yet. He wasn’t sure if he could. He thought he could go through with this plan, but it seemed that he was chickening out at the last moment. The phone buzzed again.

Mingyu: don’t be a pussy (7:49) Mingyu: get ur ass in there and show her the new u (7:50)

Joshua grunted and finally made a move to open the door. Cool air blasted into the car and a shiver traveled down his spine. It was getting closer to spring, day by day, and yet here he was, bitter and cold and just feeling like shit. He reached around to the back seat and grabbed the leather jacket Mingyu gave him. The worn out leather was soft to the touch and smelled of Old Spice. It smelled just like Mingyu. Memories of Mingyu giving him the jacket and how this whole ordeal began to rush to Joshua’s head.

He had first met Mingyu a few months prior to this whole issue involving you and Seungcheol; Mingyu had just moved into the house across the street with his parents and was going to school on the other side of town. His parents were rarely there, but they were aware of the influence their son had on other people and the trouble he was causing in their previous neighborhood. So, when they moved in, Joshua steered clear of Mingyu and only interacted with him when necessary. Mingyu was a bad boy. Simple as that.

It had occurred to Joshua many times that the people that impacted his life were all similar in the same sense. You, being the bad girl that you were, snatched Joshua’s heart and made him love life; Seungcheol, the “bad boy” (a.k.a. douchebag) who had nothing to offer you besides his dick and tongue; and Mingyu, a bad kid who was helping Joshua get back his girl. He knew that he shouldn’t have dropped so low as to ask someone like Mingyu for help, but he was desperate.

And so, Joshua figured he had nothing to lose and was at Mingyu’s front door one day, fist up and ready to knock. His knuckles had barely touched the wood once when the door swung open, revealing Mingyu’s tall form and set jaw, his dark eyes twinkling. “Can I help you?” he asked, and Joshua took a moment to gape up at him. Mingyu smirked back. “Listen, buddy, I know that I look good, but haven’t your parents ever taught you that it’s rude to stare?” Joshua snapped his mouth shut and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his coat.

“I need your help.” Mingyu’s eyebrows furrowed together at Joshua’s request.

“What is it? Can’t do manual labor because it’ll bust your pretty little nails?”

“Teach me the ways of being a badass,” Joshua responded bluntly, a determined gleam settling in his eyes. Mingyu’s eyebrows separated and shot up his forehead in disbelief.

“Show you the ways? What the hell is that even supposed to mean? And why? Why should I do that when I barely even know you, Hong?” As expected, Mingyu became skeptical. Joshua resisted the urge to bite his lip and look away like a scared dog with its tail between its legs.

“Because I screwed up,” he managed to say, and the words brought a stab of pain to his chest, “and I need to get her back.” That seemed to pique Mingyu’s interest.

“So this is because of a girl, huh? Tell you what; tell me your wondrous tale and I’ll see what I can do. How does that sound?”

At that particular moment in time, Joshua knew that his future was going to be changed forever, and it all relied on Mingyu. He invited Joshua into his “humble abode” and slung his arm across Joshua’s shoulders like they were old pals. Joshua wasn’t sure what was more surprising: the fact that he told Mingyu everything that happened during the past few months or that Mingyu actually listened. He nodded his head and asked the right questions at the right times, his eyes never leaving Joshua’s. It turned out that underneath the sarcastic, tough demeanor, Mingyu was a good man at heart. He agreed to take Joshua “under his wing” and “make him a badass before he even knew it”. It was like there was a silent understanding between them; they both knew Joshua needed help and Mingyu was the guy to do it. When Joshua left the house, a new feeling of hope had blossomed in his chest. The plan was bound to work.

It had to.

“Good God, no wonder you’ve never had a serious girlfriend. Look at all the freaking turtlenecks that are in here! Show some skin, man. Girls and guys alike love collarbones,” Mingyu exclaimed as he rummaged through Joshua’s closet and pulled clothing off of their hangers and threw them behind him. Joshua merely watched from his spot on the bed. One of the first steps to becoming a bad boy was to develop the attitude and to feel like one, and as Mingyu explained, Joshua had to dress the part to get his emotions and attitude attuned.

“I wear what I consider comfortable,” Joshua said as he watched a sweater fly through the air. “And what’s affordable.”

Mingyu clucked his tongue and glanced over his shoulder. “We’ll make you comfortable enough. Just don’t wear these. Like, ever again.”

“Then what? Am I supposed to go shopping for new clothes then?”

“Yes,” Mingyu immediately responded. His slipped the leather jacket he was wearing down his shoulders and tossed it at Joshua. “You can start by having this. It’s just a jacket, but it’ll do you some good.” Joshua brushed his fingers over the soft leather and flashed Mingyu an unsure look. “Well? Aren’t you going to put it on? I’m giving it to you for a reason, Josh.” Joshua’s nostrils flared out in a snort but he remained silent and put the jacket on, letting its warmth envelop him.

“Are you sure about this? I mean, it’s your jacket and all-”

“That,” Mingyu interrupted, “is your problem. You’re too polite and you need to get out of that mindset if you want to achieve your goal. I’m not saying that you have to be a dick to everybody, but don’t treat them like they’re your grandma or some shit.”

Joshua sighed and leaned back on his hands. “Okay, fine. Can you stop wrecking my closet now? It’s not like you’re the one who has to clean it up.”

“I’m cleaning it up right now. Jesus, do you ever pick out your own clothes?”

“Insulting my fashion sense isn’t helping anything, Mingyu.”

BANG!

“Stop that,” Mingyu hissed. His knuckles were white. Joshua wasn’t sure if he should be more concerned about Mingyu’s sudden anger or the newly formed crack in his wall. Even worse, his own health. “You keep taking crap from me and won’t go a goddamn thing about it! Doesn’t it piss you off whenever somebody annoys the ever living shit out of you? Or are you just going to continue to let people walk all over you?” Mingyu chuckled then, and Joshua paid more attention to his sharp canines that gleamed in the light. He scooted back on his bed a bit.

“Mingyu, just take a second and calm down,” Joshua warned. Mingyu’s grin grew.

“Hell no! And I can see why (y/n) left you! Seungcheol basically stole her from you and you didn’t do a single thing! You are such a coward.”

Joshua never knew he could move so fast in his whole life. One moment, he was sitting on the bed listening to Mingyu rant, the next, he was up on his feet in front of Mingyu and sending his fist into the other boy’s mouth. Both his and Mingyu’s eyes went wide at the same moment. Joshua stared at his now shaking fist and Mingyu’s smile came back, only this time his some of his teeth and his bottom lip were covered with blood.

“Didn’t know you had it in ya, Hong.”

“Neither did I,” Joshua whispered. He stared at Mingyu’s split lip. “I’m sorry… I-I didn’t mean to do it.”

Mingyu shook his head at the apology. “Don’t be. After all, I just gave you the push you needed to stop being a pussy and stand up for yourself. Next time though, I won’t let you off this easy. I’ll make you drop to the floor.” He clapped Joshua on the shoulder. “Congratulations. You’re on your way in becoming a badass.”

“Uh… Hot Topic?” Joshua gazed up at the store’s sign with a look of confusement on his face. He and Mingyu had just arrived at the mall, and Mingyu instantly took off in the direction of said store. Joshua practically had to jog to keep up with Mingyu’s long strides.

“We’re starting you off easy. And you’re pretty emo, so this place will do you wonders,” Mingyu replied, looking down at him with a smirk.

Joshua inhaled sharply through his nose and sent a silent prayer up to God. Please, give me strength. This guy is going to kill me before the day is even over. He was wrong. Oh, so very, very wrong. It took very little time for his arms to be full of shirts with bands he’s never even heard of on them, a hoodie or two, and other shirts Mingyu felt that were appealing. It was when Mingyu picked up a set of earrings that Joshua’s eyebrows shot up his forehead.

“Earrings…?” he started slowly, and Mingyu flashed him an evil look. Oh God…

“Hm? These? Oh, they’re for you. You’re going to get your ears pierced,” Mingyu told him and began to laugh at the look of pure horror that overcame Joshua’s features. “Don’t worry; it only hurts if you want it to. Besides, ear piercings don’t even hurt. Now, if you want your nipples pierced-”

“NO!” Joshua shouted, causing everyone else in the store to glance over at him in confusion or annoyance. “Not the nipples…” He cringed at the thought. Mingyu snickered.

“Alright, alright, no nipple piercings. Your reaction was pretty funny though,” he said to Joshua and punched his shoulder. “Oh, and by the way, you’re getting your hair done too. What color do you want?”

At the end of the day, Joshua’s feet and ears were aching and a buzz settled in between his temples. The scent of shampoo and dye still lingered in the air about him and honestly, it was starting to make him feel queasy. Joshua wondered if going through all of this change was even worth it, but then he decided against it and remembered that it was all for you. Bags full of clothing littered the carpeted floor and his bed, but he paid no mind as he flopped down on the mattress and heaved a great sigh. Mingyu had already left, but not without warning Joshua that he had better be in some of his new clothes if he didn’t want to have a black eye to go with his new appearance. There was some mumbling on Joshua’s part, but he still agreed to Mingyu’s terms.

He wanted to dye his hair back to black, but Mingyu insisted on going with someone completely different and unexpected. And so, Joshua was stuck with purple hair for the next few weeks until the color washed out. Luckily, it was okay to have it in school, so he didn’t have to worry about something like that. Not like he shouldn’t have anyway. Like Mingyu mentioned many times before, he had to change his way of thinking if he truly wanted to achieve the “bad boy” look he was aiming for. He didn’t know if the effort was even going to pay off, but he by the next day he would find the answer to his question.

And then, all at once, the memory flew from Joshua’s head and he was back at the present, his hand on the handle and ready to pull the front door open. “It’s now or never,” he muttered to himself and entered the building. At first, nobody paid any attention to him. Joshua made his way down the middle of the hall instead of sticking to the side by the lockers and everything seemed like it was going to be okay. But then a person decided  to do a double take.

“HOLY SHIT!” they yelled, and then everybody in the hallway turned to look at the new Joshua.

He cursed under his breath but managed to keep his face straight as everybody either started to shout something or just stare with their mouths gaping open. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked over to a boy. “You’re going to catch flies,” Joshua said simply and heard someone spit out their water behind him. He clucked his tongue in feign disgust and continued on down the hallway, feeling all eyes on his back.

He didn’t like the feeling.

He seeked refuge in the library, knowing that he would at least get some well deserved peace and quiet in there. The librarian gawked as he sauntered past her desk and threw himself down on the couch where you and him had frequented during the time when he had been with you. He slung an arm over his face and inhaled the scent of Mingyu’s old jacket, relaxed yet anxious at the same time.

“Jesus Christ.”

Take that back.

It was all anxiety now.

Joshua sat up too quickly when he heard your voice. There you were, in ripped jeans and a t-shirt, and Joshua could feel his heartbeat quicken inside his chest. He glanced down and saw that your knees were bruised. He knew without a doubt why they were there, but he didn’t want to say anything or even think about it. He cleared his throat and looked back up at your eyes.

“So that’s what you’re calling me these days?” He was trying to sound smug, but even in his own ears it sounded fake and weaker than he intended it to be.

“Joshua? What the hell happened to you?” you asked, and genuine concern laced your voice.

“What’s it look like, honey? Reality punched me in the face and then decided to take me out on a date. I needed a change; so I got one. All that’s different is my hair and style of clothing.” He managed to flash a small smirk. Good. He was getting somewhere.

You furrowed your eyebrows at him. “You ‘needed a change’? And what is that supposed to mean?”

Joshua clucked his tongue at you. “I thought you were smart, honey.”

“Honey? Listen here, Hong. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but don’t call me your fucking ‘honey’. I’ll kick your ass if you say that to my face again.”

Joshua’s only response was a mere shrug. He knew exactly where this was going, but he neither wanted to back away or annoy you further. He was well aware that you would keep your promise and gladly kick his ass, but he was also aware that he could stand up for himself. “I know you can,” he heard himself say, “but I’m not afraid of you. Never was. Never will be. And especially not right now.” He pulled himself up off the couch and stood in front of you. “I said it once and I’ll say it again: I thought you were smart.”

You clenched your jaw and breathed hard through your nose. “Joshua, I’m warning you. Knock it off or I will fuck you over.”

“You already did,” Joshua replied, his voice much softer and more quiet than before. You inhaled sharply. His face contorted with heartache for a split second before relaxing into a more stoic one. “Besides, I think you have more important things to do, like sucking Seungcheol off.”

“I told you before that the only thing I blow are kisses.“ Your voice sounded tight and forced.

“That’s a lie. I was there that day when you gave Seungcheol a bj. And you’re not fooling me with those bruises on your knees. Next time, invest in some knee pads.”

And then he walked away.

It hurt to say it, dammit, but it had to be done. Joshua had to leave so he wouldn’t be punched or see the look of pain that clouded over your eyes. He was doing this for you. He didn’t like being mean,  but apparently you were into assholes. Besides, you were tough. You could take it.

That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt Joshua though. He felt like he was going to hurl at any given moment, but he kept his face straight and his head held high. Life has been a bitch, but now it was time to make it his bitch.

Or at least he hoped.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. That son of a bitch did what now?” Seungcheol hissed through clenched teeth. He was seething. Of course, you had told him about your encounter with Joshua. At first, he laughed and called Joshua stupid. Seungcheol could “see through his facade” and supposedly knew exactly what Joshua was trying to do. In all honesty, you were surprised that Seungcheol even knew a word like facade. But as you continued with your story, his amusement melted away and quickly turned into anger.

“Yes, I know. He’s a little bastard and I should’ve punched him in the face when I had the chance,” you told him in return.

Seungcheol swore harshly and punched the lockers with a loud bang. “That little fuck. I’ll knock his teeth out the next time I see him. Maybe knock the purple out of his damned head if I hit hard enough.”

“There isn’t going to be any of that.” You reached forward and placed a hand on Seungcheol’s arm. “I’m pissed at him too. But knocking his teeth out is a bit too far, don’t you think?”

Seungcheol scoffed. “That’s because you still like him,” he responded with a bitter tone.

“If I liked him, I would be with him, wouldn’t I? We’ve talked about this before, Seungcheol. He can go rot for all I care.”

“Then why defend him?” Seungcheol barked, his anger now being directed towards you. Your hand gripped onto his arm.

“Stop being a little bitch and listen to me for once,” you warned. “He isn’t worth it.”

Seungcheol opened his mouth to snap something at you, no doubt, but was cut off by his phone vibrating in his pocket. He sent you a scowl and fished his phone out of his jacket’s pocket and read the text displayed on the screen.

Vernon: there’s a party going on friday at this one of my friends house (10:15) Vernon: he says to invite all your friends (10:16) Vernon: you interested in going???? you can bring your gf along

“What is it?” you asked.

“Vernon says there’s a party going on Friday. You up for it or are you gonna bitch the entire time?”

“Maybe. I’ll decide when you quit being an ass.”

“Love you too, baby doll.” The phone buzzed again.

Vernon: there’s gonna be booze

Seungcheol bit his lip.

Seungcheol: count us in

Vernon: sweet. i’ll send you the details later

“You’re having a what?”

Mingyu sighed. “I’m having a party. You know, music, girls, guys, booze-”

“No thanks,” Joshua said, keeping his gaze set on the television screen. “I’m not into those.”

“Think about it this way: the old you wasn’t into parties, and the new you is. Get out of your house for once and go have fun. If you don’t like it, you can leave and won’t have to say a thing. I mean, for God’s sake, I live across the street from you. It’s not like you have to drive or some shit. Besides, I heard that Seungcheol and (y/n) are going.”

That made Joshua perk up and finally looked to Mingyu, who had a sly smirk on his face. “(y/n)’s going? Seriously? Why would you invite her?!”

Mingyu held his hands up in mock defense and his smile grew wider. “I told a friend to spread the word. I guess they must have heard it from him and decided to have fun. You can learn something from those two, Josh. Come to the party. Maybe you can make a move on your girl or something.”

Joshua bit his lip and looked away. “I’m not so sure about that. I was an asshole to her this morning at school. Actually, I was kind of an ass to everyone, but in the silent way. Does that make sense?”

Mingyu sat forward and raised his eyebrows. “Well? What did you say to her?”

It took a few moments for Joshua to respond. “…We argued. And then I told her she had more important things to do, like sucking Seungcheol off…”

Mingyu groaned and slapped a hand to his forehead. “Out of all the fucking things… Great. What a way to make an impression. Personally, I wouldn’t have said that to her, but I’ll admit that you got balls for saying that to her. What did she do when you said that?”

Joshua started to fiddle with the zipper on his jacket, refusing to glance at Mingyu. “I just…walked away. I don’t know what she did. Do you think I blew whatever chance I still had left?” He stared at Mingyu with shining eyes.

“Maybe. But, if you came to the party-”

“I told you I didn’t want to. After what I pulled, she probably doesn’t even want to be in the same room as me.” A sigh came out of his mouth as he ran a hand through his hair.

Mingyu snorted and tapped his fingers on the arm rest. “I still think you should come. You might get some shit on Seungcheol.”

That seemed to catch Joshua’s attention for he snapped his head to Mingyu. “What do you mean? I thought you didn’t know the guy.”

The smirk returned to Mingyu’s lips. “I know a lot more than you think. Take last week for instance. I saw him at the mall with a short chick with red hair hanging off his arm. She was pretty cute if you asked me.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Joshua interjected and blinked hard. “You saw Seungcheol with another girl? Did you see them do anything?”

Mingyu shrugged. “I can’t remember. If you agree to come to the party, that might jog my memory…” Joshua had to urge to punch Minygu’s foxy smile.

“I hate you,” he grunted. “But I’ll go to your stupid party since you won’t shut up about it. And tell me about this girl you saw with Seungcheol!”

“He kissed her.”

Joshua’s jaw clenched and his hands curled into fists on their own accord. “He what?”

“You heard me,” Mingyu said, clearly amused with Joshua’s reaction.

“I’m going to kill him.”

The party was in full swing by the time Joshua showed up at Mingyu’s front door. Loud music was thumping along with strident squeals and boisterous laughter. In fact, Joshua was more than half tempted to turn around and head right back home. He rubbed the back of his neck and opened the door with the other hand, cringing immediately at the smell of sweat and booze. He almost wanted to gag.

“Josh!”

Joshua looked around until he spotted Mingyu casually leaning against the wall, two plastic red cups in his hands. Joshua pushed his way through the crowd of sweaty bodies until he reached Mingyu, who had a small smile on his face.

“Glad you could make it!” Mingyu exclaimed and shoved a cup into Joshua’s hand. Joshua could tell that Mingyu was drunk, or just very close to being so.

Joshua looked down at the cup in disgust and scrunched up his face. “I don’t drink,” he said simply.

Mingyu snickered and brought his own cup up to his lips. “Now you do. Your girly has the balls to do it, so you can too.”

“What?”

“Yeah. She’s right over there with that ‘douchebag’. I think she’s the one by the table with the fishnets on. I have no idea why, but they make her look even better than she already does.” He didn’t even flinch at Joshua’s harsh glare. “What? Just saying.”

Joshua grumbled to himself and swore lightly. When he looked across the room, he realized that Mingyu was right. You were right there with a plastic cup in hand and were laughing at something Seungcheol said. The sight made Joshua sick to the stomach and he had to look away.

“Why did you have to invite them again?” he asked Mingyu, and the amount of bitterness in his voice surprised himself.

“I told you I didn’t. I said to some people that a party was going on and the word was passed around. I invited you here since I knew that she was going to be here and maybe you could make a move. And you need to relax. Big time.” Mingyu motioned down to the cup in Joshua’s hand and took a sip from his own. “Come on, Josh. Lighten up.”

Joshua sighed and turned away from you and looked down at his cup. Mingyu was right. He needed to relax and maybe he’d forget about you for one night if he did. The beer tasted downright wrong as it went down his throat, but he managed the chug the whole thing at once. He felt Mingyu’s hand pat his shoulder in approval and a weak smile make its way to his lips. He was going to get through tonight; he knew he would.

“And here, you might need these,” Mingyu added as he slipped a condom and a small tube of lube into Joshua’s free hand, much to the latter’s dismay.

Joshua watched as Mingyu sauntered off and stared down at the things in his hand with horror. “What the fuck…?” He shuddered and stuffed them into the back pocket of his jeans, where they would be out of sight and out of mind.

As it turns out, Joshua managed to down another cup or two of the beer and watched people move along to the loud music until they started to blur together and he wasn’t sure whose face was whose. Time and time again he would glance over to where you could possibly be; one moment you were leaning against the wall, the next you were weaving around on the dance floor, swaying your glorious hips to the music, one hand running through your hair and the other holding tightly onto whatever you were drinking. Joshua barely acknowledged the girl who was starting to bump and grind into him until she pulled on his hair and tried to kiss him. Of course, he pushed her away and moved to a new spot, only to start watching you dance again.

Jealousy and anger made his blood boil as he watched you, just like so many other people at the party. They knew better than to touch you, knowing that you’d punch them on sight, but in their drunken haze they were getting more ballsy and your guard was dropping. Multiple people swayed right alongside you or grabbed your ass, but you just pushed them away and wagged your finger at them like they were a bad dog. You were being flirty the entire time by tucking your bottom lip under your teeth and narrowing your eyes, daring anybody and everybody to try and pull a move. It made Joshua crazy.

He remembered what Mingyu told him, about Seungcheol being a conniving, lying bastard and how he cheated on you. He couldn’t fathom why anybody would want to cheat on you, especially when you were looking like that. Mingyu was right; the fishnets you wore were very pleasing to look at. The bare skin that flashed was tempting, and Joshua knew that even more was hidden under that oversized t-shirt. And, in his sole opinion, you should not be allowed to wear thigh high boots.

At least not in front of other people.

You walked away from the crowd of moving bodies, a tired smile on your face and strands of hair sticking to your sweaty face. Joshua could make his move, right then and there. But he felt stuck. You were getting closer and farther away at the same time and Joshua realized he had to say something to you or he would regret it. He called out your name, which made you turn and look at him with wide eyes. All at once he felt like he was asking you out again, the butterflies fluttering erratically in his stomach and his face on fire.

Your wide eyes snapped into narrow slits. “Hong. What do you want?” you asked while crossing your arms over your chest. Joshua almost laughed out loud; he didn’t know how much he missed the look you pulled off when you were pissed.

He quickly cleared his throat and refrained himself from appearing happy. “Can I talk to you? Just for a moment?”

You rolled your eyes and pushed the hairs away from your face. “It better be worth my damn time or so help me God.”

“(y/n), listen; it’s about Seungcheol. He's…” Joshua hesitated for a moment and licked his lips nervously. “He’s cheating on you with someone else.”

To his surprise, you chuckled. “It’s that little red head, am I right?” You tsked and cast your glance to the side. “I saw them together at one of Seungcheol’s small get togethers. They didn’t really do anything, besides flirt and stare at each other like the other one was a piece of fucking meat…”

“(y/n)-”

You put a hand up to silence him. “Don’t. I date you, I get branded a skank. I date Seungcheol, I get cheated on.” You sighed. “I… I just want to leave. Like, now.”

Joshua quickly nodded his head and grabbed your arm. Even more to his surprise, you let him do it and guide you away from the crowd and out of Mingyu’s house. The cool air struck his face the instant he was outside and his eyes had to adjust to the darkness.

“You live right across the street, right? It’s been awhile since I was here last.” You flashed Joshua a wistful smile. He swallowed thickly.

“Yeah. Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“Why are you being less…well, salty? Most of the time when you see me you look like you want to punch a baby.”

Your light laughter echoed throughout Joshua’s head. “Maybe. And what about you? When you talk to me nowadays, you act like a complete dick and say something inappropriate.”

It was Joshua’s turn to laugh. “But you do that to everyone. So what’s the difference if I do it to you?” he asked as he fished his keys out of his pocket.

“How many times do I have to tell you? Being an asshole doesn’t suit you.”

Joshua dropped the keys and whipped his head back to stare at you with big eyes. “…I don’t know what you are talking about,” he croaked.

“And you suck at lying. You’re not fooling anybody with your new ‘look’. Purple hair? Seriously? You stick out like a sore thumb. And for a ‘bad boy’, you don’t act like it. You’re sassier, yes, but anyone can tell how uncomfortable you are like that- mmph!”

It was a cliché straight out of romance movies and books alike. It was super cheesy on Joshua’s part, but that’s just how he is. He could be served with crackers for God’s sake. But he really, really wanted to kiss you. He missed the warmth of your skin when he caressed your face, the feathery feeling of your lips. His whole was being was tingling like crazy at this point. And when you kissed him back, he felt like his heart was going to leap out of his chest.

He missed you.

When he finally pulled away, his eyes felt wet and his cheeks felt warm. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“So am I,” you whispered back.

Joshua finally let out the delighted laugh that was building up in his chest and pressed his forehead to yours, his nose brushing against yours. “You won’t believe how many things I regret. Not strangling Seungcheol when I had the chance is one of them.”

“Don’t worry; I’ve got that covered.” Your breath smelled of alcohol, but Joshua didn’t care. Not when your eyes were shining like that. “Do you want to unlock your door now? It’s getting chilly,” you murmured and ran a hand down Joshua’s arm. He snapped back to reality and bent over to retrieve the keys, a flustered expression on his features.

“Of course.” Joshua hastily unlocked the door and motioned for you to enter before him. Once inside, you instantly took off your boots and set them against the wall like you have done so many times before. Joshua sent you a pleased smile. “You know, for someone who hasn’t been here in awhile, you seem to remember the house rules.”

“Hell yeah. Where are your parents at? I thought they’d be up for sure with all the noise coming from what’s-his-name’s place.”

“Business trip.”

You snorted and flashed Joshua a sly smile. “I bet I know the way to your bedroom too.”

Your words sent a shiver down Joshua’s spine. He licked his lips and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his denim jacket. “I doubt you do,” he teased.

“Alright then. I’ll just go upstairs and see if I’m right,” you shot back and then hurried up the stairs. Joshua smiled to himself and ran up the stairs after you. He caught up to you rather quickly and grabbed you from behind, causing you to squeal out with laughter and sink your nails into his hands. Joshua winced and let go of your waist, mumbling how you were being unfair. You pushed him into his bedroom and closed the door with a victorious smirk. “Looks like I was right after all.”

“Now’s not the time to be cocky,” Joshua continued to mumble.

The smirk disappeared from your face and turned into something softer. “Then what is it time for?” You took a seat next to Joshua on his bed and settled a hand on his thigh. “Tell me, sweet cheeks, what exactly do you regret?”

A lump was starting to form in his throat. You called him sweet cheeks… He hadn’t realized how much he missed the nickname. After clearing his throat, Joshua began to speak. “Well… There’s a lot. I should have stood up to Seungcheol more, that’s one. I regret not saying anything when everybody was talking bad behind your back… The worst part is that for a moment I believed them. That’s the reason why I didn’t sleep with you that one time. I didn’t want to see you in that kind of light. ” Joshua paused for a moment and directed his attention onto your hand. “And I didn’t do anything after you left me. I should have chased after you or called or something- but I didn’t. And… And I didn’t express what I feel for you when you and I both wanted to.”

Your hand gripped onto his thigh. “What do you mean?” you questioned, your voice light.

Joshua looked back up into your eyes. “You know exactly what I mean.”

Joshua marveled the way your pupils expanded at his words and how you kissed him, though this time with more pressure and movement than the sweet one that happened at his front door. His hands found their way onto your waist and pulled you up into his lap. “God, (y/n),” he murmured against your mouth, “I love you. I love you so, so much.”

He heard you gasp and felt your lips twitch in a smile. “I love you too,” you responded in a breathy tone as you yanked off your large shirt. Joshua followed along in your footsteps and hastily discarded his jacket and shirt. “Pants, off. Now.”

You and Joshua both hopped up and pulled off whatever that was unnecessary: you, your fishnets, and Joshua, his jeans. It took only seconds for you to be underneath Joshua on the bed and have his hands on your back, his eyes seeking yours for permission. You smiled at his hesitation and gave him a slight nod, and then your bra was off and slung to the floor.

Joshua was in awe. Your breasts looked as perfect as he always believed they would be, the flesh all soft and supple and for him. He glanced back up for your approval and you nodded your head eagerly. His hands cupped your breasts and he squeezed them gently while inhaling sharply. He continued to knead them and brushed his thumbs over the nipples, relishing the way your breath hitched and a soft moan fell past your lips. He leaned in slowly and flicked his tongue over one, the sensation causing you to arch into his touch and grip onto his shoulders. His bangs tickled the exposed flesh of your chest as he took your nipple into his mouth completely and sucked on it gingerly.

His movements were slow and careful as to see what you found pleasurable. You sighed his name and he switched sides to give each breast equal treatment. Your fingers pulled him away by tugging his hair lightly and you gave him a needy look. Joshua smiled and took hold of one of your wrists, bringing your hand to his mouth and kissed your fingers. “It’s alright, Numnums, I got you.” You nodded at his words and he dipped his head back down and started lay kisses on your tummy. He gradually got lower until he reached the hem of your underwear before glancing back up. “Is this alright?”

“Yes,” you whispered.

Joshua smiled again and patted your thighs. “Can you do me one favor and move to the end of the bed?” You did as you were asked to do and quickly scooted towards the edge of the mattress as Joshua got up and kneeled back down on the floor in front of you. His fingers shook as they took hold of the band of your underwear and managed to get them off with your help. He swallowed thickly and placed his hands on your thighs. “I’ve never done this before.”

“Neither have I,” you told him, making him look up at you in confusion. “Seungcheol hasn’t done anything like this. The only thing that’s happened is me giving him a handjob or head.” Joshua suddenly felt angry at Seungcheol for not doing anything to make you feel pleasurable while he got everything. He was right; Seungcheol was a complete and utter douche.

“I’ll do good, I promise,” he said, and he meant it. You gave him a soft smile and spread your legs open to him and watched as his eyes went wide. “Oh wow…” Joshua gazed in wonder as he brought a finger against your folds and brushed over them.

“Joshua,” you whimpered as your thighs flinched.

“Sorry, sorry,” he apologized and massaged your thighs. He slung one of your legs over his shoulder, took a deep breath, and then finally pressed his mouth against you. Your brain turned to mush when he slid his tongue over your clit with a flat tongue over and over in slow movements. You carded your fingers through his hair and watched as he continued with his ministrations. Soft moans filled the air and Joshua looked up at you with blown out eyes.

“U-use your fingers too…” you mumbled, and fortunately, Joshua heard. He brought his free hand up and ran his fingers across you, making sure they were covered with your juices before slowly pressing a finger in. Your fingers took hold of his hair as you clenched around his finger, a drawn out hiss suddenly filling the atmosphere. Joshua smiled and started to suck on your clit, making you cry out in pleasure. A sense of heat and pride flooded his body and he picked up his movements, sucking harder and starting to move his finger. A second one soon joined when your body finally relaxed and unfiltered noises filled his ears.

Joshua’s refusal to blink made his eyes burn as he watched your facial emotions and the way your chest heaved with each breath. It seemed like you were going to crack under all the pressure, and it was all because of him. Happiness made his heart swell up in his chest and made his fingers move faster. You managed to crack your eyes open and glance down at him one last time before your whole body seized up as you inhaled sharply and then your taste flooded into his mouth. Joshua generously lapped up the juices as you fell back against the bed, trying to get your breathing under control.

Joshua pried himself away and wiped his mouth off. Good lord, he never felt so turned on in his life. He scrambled up onto his feet and searched for his jeans. His fingers shook even more when he found them and took the little tube of lube and the condom out of his back pocket and clutched them in his hands. He looked back to see you readjusting yourself comfortably on his bed and swallowed thickly. In one swift move, he was hovering over your naked form and pressing heated kisses against your mouth.

Your hands found their place on his stomach and they drifted down, your fingers hooking around the waistband of his boxer briefs and tugging it down. Your hand wrapped around the base of his cock and Joshua groaned lowly against your mouth. He rid himself of the last piece of clothing and fully pressed himself against your body.

“Joshua,” your voice cracked. Your fingertips drifted up his spine and then dug into his shoulders. “Can you…?”

His initial response was to kiss you. “Yes, Numnums. I will.”

In mere minutes, Joshua was in you, moving at a sweet and sensual pace. His hands caressed whatever skin they found and his eyes watched your slightly heaving chest, letting the image burn into his brain. Your light panting filled the room along with breathless sighs of both his name and yours. Your hands gripped tightly onto the sheets as you thought that you were going to fly away if you didn’t have something to hang on. A clammy hand left your thigh and instead held on to your left one.

Your breath hitched and Joshua took that as a sign to push harder and to go deeper. You couldn’t help but clench your thighs around his waist and enjoy the snug feeling of his hips rutting against yours. The pants coming from your mouth became deeper and became mixed with small moans.

“You alright, baby?” Joshua muttered, and the new name sent a shiver down your spine.

You nodded in response. “Yeah. It actually feels better than what I anticipated…” Joshua chuckled and caressed your cheek with his other hand, his thumb brushing against your skin as he pressed another loving kiss to your mouth.

“I um, read up on some things before,” he continued, “and I guess girls don’t really… you know, do that the first time round?”

Now it was your turn to laugh. “You really need to shut up.”

“Hey! I just want to make sure you’re comfortable and enjoying this as much as I am.” Joshua’s eyes shone with such a raw emotion and the dim light coming through the window from across the street cast shadows across his pretty face. You felt your heart swell.

You kissed him again and a brilliant light flashed behind your eyelids, making you sigh against his lips. Joshua’s breath hitched and then he started to giggle, unable to help himself. He pulled away and set his forehead against your shoulder and you could see his chest shaking. “Are you seriously laughing because I came?” you snapped at him, suddenly feeling hurt.

“No, no,” Joshua quickly said and looked back into your eyes. “I just can’t believe it. I’m more happy than anything. Seriously, my heart’s beating like crazy because of you.”

You could tell he was blushing, even though you couldn’t see it. You pressed your free hand against his chest and realized that he was telling the truth. You felt the corners of your mouth stretch wide. “Then finish.”

Joshua went silent for a moment. “…I already did. I uh… It was when I was laughing?”

“Oh, man! Are you freaking kidding me? Jesus, Joshua! Don’t tell me you have some weird fucking fetish for laughing-”

“I didn’t realize it was happening until it happened!”

You snorted and bit down on your lip to keep from laughing yourself. Joshua smacked your arm and pulled away from you completely, but you could tell he was smiling.

“You are one kinky piece of shit, sweet cheeks.”

Joshua felt his face grow hotter. “Shut up.”

The following Monday morning came quicker than Joshua anticipated. He wasn’t nervous for himself, but what was supposed to be going down. The morning after Joshua had slept with you, you told him how you were going to confront Seungcheol about his cheating. Though, he had to admit that you weren’t much better. But secretly he was excited that you were going to end it with Seungcheol.

Joshua turned the corner to head to your locker, but he slowed his step as he watched Seungcheol get up in your face. That much wasn’t a surprise on a normal day, but this time it seemed Seungcheol was practically snarling at you. Your face remained stoic, but Joshua noticed that your hand was balled into a fist. He bit his lip, knowing that he shouldn’t interfere, but both the new and old him did not want to see you in a fight with your boyfriend.

He was unaware of his feet moving on their own accord or his hand yanking Seungcheol back by the collar. Seungcheol’s eyes widened but quickly disappeared from view as Joshua’s fist sailed right into his jaw. “Stay away from her!” he yelled.

Seungcheol staggered for a moment and then realized what just happened. “Stay the hell out of this, Hong. We all know that’s the best option for you,” he warned.

“Hell no. This is my business, Seungcheol. And there’s no way I’m backing out. Just leave her alone.”

Seungcheol smiled, but Joshua could still see his jaw tick. “So this is the motherfucker who fucked you? I’m not even surprised,” he said, directing his attention back to you. He quickly glanced back to Joshua. “You little bitch. I’m going to fucking kill you.”

Joshua opened his mouth to retort, but Seungcheol’s fist collided with his eye, knocking him back. His vision became dangerously fuzzy and an unpleasant feeling settled in his stomach. He could hear Seungcheol laughing, and then a very blurry fist came into view. This time, though, whatever light was visible disappeared when it made contact.

Muffled voices echoed throughout his head. Speaking of which, his head hurt like hell. A groan slipped out of his mouth and Joshua tried to sit up, but a hand hastily pushed him back down. He was lying down? Weird.

“Joshua? Can you hear me? Don’t sit up so quickly, you idiot,” he heard your voice say.

Slowly, Joshua managed to open his eyes to see you leaning over top of him, a concerned look adorning your features. “(y/n)? What happened?” Joshua noticed the metallic taste in his mouth and had the urge to throw up.

“Seungcheol knocked you onto your ass, that’s what happened. You shouldn’t have gotten between us like that. You would have ended up in an even worse condition if I wasn’t there.”

Joshua groaned.

“You’re an idiot, you know that? I can handle myself, everyone- including you- knows that. So, like, why?”

“He was going to hurt you, the asshole. I couldn’t stand back and watch.”

“Joshua, this isn’t some teen drama on TV or some cheesy love story where I’m the damsel in distress. I know you’ve got this whole ‘bad boy’ image trying to go on, but you need to stop. It’s only going to get worse from here. Seungcheol is going to kill you.”

“Then let him kill me. I already feel brain dead from his punches. Which, by the way, hurts like a fucking bitch, excuse my language.”

“You don’t get it, do you? There’s nothing left to prove. You slept with me. I broke up with Seungcheol. What more do you want? You can drop the dumb role or whatever you’re trying to play and just be yourself again.”

Joshua heaved a sigh and pressed the base of his palms against his eyes. “You know I can’t do that, at least not now. Seungcheol needs to be dealt with.”

In a swift move, you retracted back into the chair you sat in, your jaw clenched in anger. “You’re such a fucking egomaniac. First you couldn’t deal with me having better grades than you, then you couldn’t stand that people judged you for being with a ‘slut’, and now you’re more concerned with outdoing Seungcheol at his own game? Spoiler alert, Joshua. You’ll lose. And if you don’t believe me now, you’ll believe it when your face gets smashed in. I’m trying to save you, Joshua. Just give it up.”

He was silent for a moment. “…I’m already in too deep.”

You sucked in a sharp breath. “Fine. I’m done. I’m so freakin’ done with all of this bullshit.” You grabbed your bag off the floor and hastily stood up. “Congratulations, Hong. You’ll get what you’ve always wanted.”

Joshua watched as you stormed out of the nurse’s office. How many times has he screwed up now? It was becoming too much to even keep count of. His chest ached, possibly more than when you broke up with him. What you said to him seemed vague, but deep down he knew that whatever you meant was not good at all.

In a week, Joshua, along with the rest of the student body, became more than aware of what you meant. Your grades dropped dramatically and all too suddenly. You were right; Joshua did get what he wanted. He was number one in the class, but at what cost? Oh yeah, a broken heart and a poor diet. The situation really set in when the principal came up to him that morning and congratulated Joshua for his “outstanding effort”.

“Mr. Hong!” the principal said with a cheery voice and clapped Joshua upon the shoulder, “I’m sure you already know the news, but on behalf of myself and the rest of the staff, we’d like to congratulate you on your becoming of valedictorian.”

Joshua’s stomach dropped to the floor and his throat went dry. He thanked the principal in a small voice and hurried away.

Driving home, it seemed, was a difficult task. Dark thoughts crept into Joshua’s mind as he stared straight at the road. What if he just took a sudden left and crashed into the car that was passing by? What if he just kept going and going without ever letting go of the gas? He shook his head. No, that would just be stupid. Doing something reckless such as that would just make matters worse, not fix them.

Without realizing it, Joshua pulled into your driveway and shut the motor off. He stared at the front steps to your house, remembering how you would sit out and wait for his sorry ass to come and pick you up for school. He wished you were sitting there now, ready to hop up and get into his car to kiss him hello.

Joshua’s throat constricted and he coughed roughly to make the feeling go away. His eyes felt wet and his hands were shaking. This was all his fault. He was so full of himself, just like you said. He had to prove himself better than you, he had to be the golden boy in everyone’s eyes, and when that didn’t satisfy him, he changed himself completely because he thought that would have been for the better. He was wrong.

He’s been wrong this whole time.

He ripped off the leather jacket Mingyu gave him what felt like forever again and smoothed down his ruffled hair. He was done with all of this “bad boy” bullshit. The plan didn’t work out. The breeze ripped through his hair and made goosebumps raise up on his arms when he opened the car door and fast walked up to your front door.

He didn’t bother ringing the doorbell and entered, which startled your mom and made her jump. “Joshua-” she started, but Joshua cut her off with a single look and hurried up the stairs two at a time to your room.

You were sitting on your bed, staring blankly at the wall and earbuds protruding from your skull. Your barely glanced at Joshua when he made his abrupt entrance and simply paused your music. “What do you want now?” you asked blandly and removed the earbuds.

“I was wrong. I was wrong this whole time. I didn’t need a change. What I need-” Joshua paused and licked his bottom lip. He knew that he was spewing out word vomit, but frankly, he did not give a damn. And he realized in that moment what he truly needed in his life, what he truly wanted. He thought it was to be the best, to put you in your place and rub it in as he did so, but that all changed the moment he started to crush on you.

What he wanted was your heart, but when he had it, he threw it away. Like how the saying goes, you never know what you got until it’s gone. How true it was, and it was extremely painful.

“I need to be myself,” he finally said at last. God, he was such an idiot.

You slowly got up off your bed and regarded him with tight lips. “So? Your point? Are you going to have this long ass monologue about how you realized how much of a douche you really are and that you’re not much different from everyone, especially Seungcheol? You got what you’ve always wanted, ever since the day you started school. But tell me this, Joshua: was it even worth it?”

And the answer was no. Joshua didn’t even want it. He somehow convinced himself that he could face his demons, whatever they were, and maybe relieve some of the pain that refused to leave his heart.

“No,” he replied with a voice raw with emotion. “I have it and I’m not satisfied. I don’t think I even want it.”

You snickered and slowly clapped your hands. “Well whoopdy-fucking-doo. Welcome to the real world, Joshua. Nobody’s ever satisfied with anything. Give a man unlimited wealth and he wants more. Give a girl the perfect body and she’ll still feel insecure. Make someone a different color and there will always be problems-”

“Give somebody love and they won’t realize how much they wanted it until it’s taken away,” Joshua interrupted.

Your eyes narrowed your eyes at him. “Do you mind? I was having a theatrical moment there.”

“I don’t want to be better than you, (y/n). I just wanted you to know how I feel about you and that nothing can ever change that. I love you. I love you with all my heart and every single fiber of my being and I’m breaking my own heart over this.”

“Well, sorry to inform you, Joshua, but I don’t love you.”

Joshua’s heart seized up and he choked. “But- but when we… you know…”

“That was then. I did love you, but I don’t anymore. You’re not the Joshua I fell in love with. All I see in front of me is another person that I don’t want to see or be around. I guess I’m breaking your heart again, aren’t I? Too bad. You broke mine a long time ago.” You walked over to him and gestured to the door. “You should probably leave.”

The pants coming out of Joshua’s mouth were short and ragged. “Can’t we just talk about this? Please?”

Your face, just like your eyes, were emotionless. “No.”

The single word was a blow to the heart. “I can change,” Joshua begged.

“You’ve changed enough for my liking. Now go. Please.”

Joshua drew a shaky breath that betrayed his feelings. Tears began to well at his eyes. He gave a short nod and exited the room, leaving you and the fragments of his heart behind.

They say that wounds took time to heal. But how long did it really take?

Joshua felt like he was constantly in pain and it didn’t help one bit that he had lost so much weight. Graduation was right around the corner, and Joshua was dreading it more and more with each passing day. He was valedictorian for Pete’s sake. He should be proud, just like the teachers and his parents, but he couldn’t force himself to.

His hair was back to the brown color that he preferred, and he was unsure that he could ever look at the color purple the same ever again. His closet was back to the way it used to be, no longer full of black and gray but now full of color and his beloved turtlenecks. His decided to keep the ear piercings though, mostly because they cost a good bit of cash but he secretly liked them more than he probably should have. Mingyu even stopped talking to him for a while, but when he caught word of Joshua’s condition he became the supportive friend that Joshua desperately needed. It was like having Jeonghan again but not.

“Josh, you need to eat,” Mingyu said to him one night. “At the rate you’re going, you’re going to be dead within the year.”

Joshua shrugged numbly and furrowed deeper within the blanket he wrapped around himself. “I’m not hungry, that’s all.”

Mingyu sighed. “That’s what you always say. I’m going to start force feeding you if you don’t shove one of these goddamn crackers into your cakehole this instant.”

Joshua submitted and reached a bony hand out to snatch a few crackers. “I don’t feel like myself anymore.”

“You’re telling me,” Mingyu said over a mouthful of cracker, “You’re more emo than before. But you do know it’s pointless to beat yourself up this much over some girl. There’s plenty more out there, and there’s guys too, if you’re into that.”

“How bad are the bags under my eyes?”

“Shitty, just like the rest of ya. Starving yourself isn’t making anything better. And what about graduation? What if you pass out in front of all those people?”

Joshua grimaced. “Screw graduation. All I want is to lie in bed and watch crappy movies.”

“Man, seriously. What happened to you? You used to be so ambitious and stubborn. Now you’re a legitimate potato that won’t move besides getting up to pee. You can’t sit around watching Netflix all day.”

“I’ll do what I want. I go to school, avoid human interaction whenever possible, and then come home. I’m in the clear, man. Graduation is on Friday and then I’m free.”

Mingyu frowned. “You’re full of fucking shit, Hong. You’re not giving up on life because your feelings took a hit to the nuts. You just gotta pick yourself up take the bull by the horns.”

“I did. Look where it got me. I’ve fulfilled my dream of becoming a blanket burrito.” Joshua then whooped weakly and pumped a fist into the air.

Mingyu sighed again and dragged a hand over his face. “You need to get off of Tumblr. And get off your ass while you’re at it.”

Joshua snorted. “No thanks.”

Mingyu stared at Joshua until the latter finally looked at him. Mingyu’s eyes stayed put while he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small velvet box and tossed it into Joshua’s lap. “I found that in your room. A promise ring? Seriously? How long has that been there?”

Joshua swallowed thickly. “I bought that awhile back, before all this shit went down. I was just waiting for the right moment, but it never came.”

“Oh that’s cute. I swear I’m a supporting character in a romantic tragedy or something. You know what? You can still give it to her.” Mingyu smiled when Joshua looked at him with wide eyes. “You know, maybe on Friday? That’d be a great.”

Joshua straightened up and shook his head fervently. “No way. She said that she doesn’t love me. She’ll never agree to that.”

“You’ll never know unless you try. And besides, I have more experience with girls than you do. And from what I’ve heard, I still think she loves you. She just won’t admit it. You know, to save herself from heartbreak or some shit like that.”

Joshua had to admit that Mingyu had a point.

That doesn’t mean that he believed him though.

Friday came much too quickly for Joshua’s taste. The small box felt heavy in the pocket of his slacks and he couldn’t stop his hands from sweating. The bright lights beaming down on him didn’t help, and he was pretty sure that everyone was staring at his waxy skin and the dark circles under his eyes. The multiple speeches that were given went in one ear and out the other, including the one Joshua had to give himself.

Most of the things he talked about were school and how far his class had come and how they would probably never see each other ever again. It was the classic let’s-make-everyone-cry type of speech. Joshua’s voice was full of vigor, but his heart wasn’t in it. At the end of his speech, everyone in the auditorium applauded and some even cheered. The moment had finally come, and he wanted nothing more than to go sleep in a ditch. He cleared his throat and gestured for the audience to silence themselves.

“There’s one more thing I’d like to mention, if that’s alright with all of you. You see, during this year, I’ve changed massively. I’ve had my ups and downs; hell, I’ve even become valedictorian. But I’ve realized what it truly means to feel, and what a mistake really is.

“I’m in love. That is what I’ve learned. And it’s with someone I would have never guessed.” He paused when the audience went “aww”. “I’ve also messed up. I found out that I loved myself more than I could have possibly known, and that is my fatal flaw. I hurt the person I love, and thus hurt myself. As of right now, I’d like to introduce her. (y/n) (l/n), would you please stand and come to the front of the stage?”

The crowd went wild as you stood up, face red with a mixture of embarrassment and anger. You reluctantly made your way to stand at the front of the stage next to Joshua. “What are you doing?” you hissed, quiet enough so that nobody else heard.

“Something I should have done a long time ago.” With that, Joshua cleared his throat and grabbed the microphone in one hand while the other fished the box out of his pocket. Your angry expression melted into shock as Joshua got down on one knee and held the open box in front of him. There was a collective gasp from the crowd.

“I’m an idiot, I know,” Joshua began. “And this is a really dumb idea, but I’m going through with it anyway. (y/n), you know how much I love you. Everything went to crap and I never really got the chance to tell you how I truly feel. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, but I wanted to be sure of how I felt. And as it turns out, I am. (y/n), will you go steady with me?”

The world stopped then, along with both Joshua’s and your hearts. A look of disgust and doubt came across your face, and Joshua was scared of your response.

At last you sucked in a breath. “You are so stupid. Of course I will.”

~Fin

~Ash

#seventeen scenarios #joshua scenarios #jisoo scenarios #seventeen fics #joshua fics #jisoo fics #seventeen imagines #joshua imagines #jisoo imagines #kpop scenarios #kpop fics #kpop imagines #kpop smut #kpop fluff #joshua #jisoo #joshua hong #angst #smut #fluff

[mangon3cta]

FWU (NCT Part 2)

Genre: idolverse, angsty sorta, smuttish

Word count: 2.7K

also, i do make some of the nct members look mean and rude in this but like its just fiction so....

You had a breakout in the morning. You sighed, not wanting to get up and face the boys after what Mark told you last night. This day is not gonna get any better, you thought, climbing out of bed and observing the bumps on your forehead. It was better not to cover it up like you usually did, you just didn’t find it so important right now. 

Whipping your hair into a messy top bun, you didn’t even bother changing out of your pajamas before entering the dining room. To your horror, the members were already up and dining, and they all turned to look at you as you stepped in. 

You attempted to look somewhere else but it was impossible for you to avoid contact since there were so many pairs of eyes piercing into yours. The only thought you had was to pretend you didn’t know a single thing. But that backfired on you as well. 

“Can I sit here?” You asked Johnny with fake cheerfulness. Without looking, he  nodded and you sat down beside him. “Its really hot today, right?” No one replied and you reached over the table to grab a piece of toast. Thankfully the younger boys weren’t around. 

“The dream babies must be working so hard!” You exclaimed while buttering you toast. You tried to act normal, but on the inside you were close to having a panic attack. “I hope it really pays off, Jeno was so excited for this comeback. Promotions should end soon, right, so hopefully they get some rest.”

“You talk a lot,” Taeil suddenly said. It was like the room had unanimously stopped breathing. You glanced at Taeil who was sitting a couple chairs across from you. You felt alone here since Mark was away with the rest of Dream.

“Yeah...I know,” You laughed softly. “I guess I’m-”

“And why do you call them dream babies, you know, they aren’t babies and thats the cringiest thing I’ve ever heard.” 

You felt your heart drop. You always called them babies, why was it such a problem now. Oh, right. You looked around the table, making contact for seconds with each member. 

“I’m sorry you don’t like it,” you said quietly. “I thought it was cute.”

“Just cut the crap, Y/N,” Ten spoke up. “You don’t have to act like that, we already know everything.” You aren’t the type to take shit from anyone and that was one of your best and worst qualities. 

“You already said that,” you replied sharply. “I’m not brain dead, I knew what you meant.” 

“Are you seriously going to start with me right now? You’re going to act like that?”

You scoffed. “What do you want me to say? I’m not just going to...” You faltered, suddenly aware of they eyes on you again. You stood up. “I’m sorry. I guess you all hate me then?” You caught Sicheng’s gaze for a moment and nearly burst into tears. 

“I  never meant to hurt anyone, I was just having fun. It’s just who I am. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to all of you. But if it makes you guys feel any better, I already told my dad I wanted to move out. So I’ll be doing that.” You flipped around and ran to your room. It was actually the manager’s - your dad’s - room but he pretty much gave it to you. 

Your bags were already packed and everything. You just had to wait for your driver. It wasn’t easy sitting alone in your room when your routine usually started and ended by hanging out with the NCT members. 

There was a knock on the door and Mark stepped inside. Seeing him comforted you a little and you managed a small smile. “I heard what happened this morning.”

You looked down at your lap. “There’s no way I can live under the same roof as you guys anymore. I totally humiliated myself and it’s all my fault. I’m sure they don’t want me here either.”

Mark stat quiet for a while and then spoke softly. “They don’t hate you, Y/N. They just didn’t like what you did.” You didn’t reply, unsure of what to say. You didn’t want to defend yourself because that would just be an excuse and what you did could never be justified. 

“You know, you are one of our closest friends...you’ve been with most of us since before debut and helped us through a lot of things.”

You laughed to yourself, thinking of the days when you helped Yuta and Sicheng study Korean, and the time when Johnny taught you some dance moves and you broke your wrist in the process. 

“Y/N, Ten hyung really likes you, he likes you.”

You scoffed. “That doesn’t really make me feel better. It makes things worse actually.”

“Well,” Mark said, picking at a thread on his jeans. “I would be really mad too if I was in love with you and went and screwed around with other people after...you know.” He blushed and you smiled slightly. Mark held your gaze. “All I’m saying is that...maybe a simple apology will do.”

“How am I supposed to apologize to any of them, they all hate me!”

Mark shrugged. “Like I said, they don’t hate you. They’re all ready to forgive you. Just don’t leave.” You gave in. Mark was right. You should at least give it a shot. 

You talked things over with your father and told him you had a change of mind. He was pretty annoyed but he couldn’t deny you. The first person you decided to apologize to was Ten. It didn’t take long for him to forgive you. 

“I just thought it was only me,” he said, laughing softly. “But I forgive you.”

“I’ll change,” you told him, smiling. Ten stepped closer.

“It’s just that...I’ve always really liked you.” He didn’t continue. Instead, his fingers cupped your chin, pulling you into a kiss. You gasped against his mouth. This was unexpected. But you didn’t want to be rude. You kissed him back with the same vigor.

After that, it wasn’t hard to apologize to the other boys. Taeil was nice(er than usual), Taeyong almost ignored but you did aegyo to make him pay attention and Jaehyun was quick to forgive you. 

By the next week, it was almost as if nothing ever happened. And you were grateful for that. But you couldn’t forget. Not while you were now with Ten, but you still catered feelings for Sicheng. 

"Jagi!” Ten barged into your room after dance practice while you were seated on the couch, texting an old friend. He wrapped his arms around you, snuggling his face in your neck. “Mark said he was gonna bring me bread sticks to eat.”

“What’s up, baby?” You asked, kissing his head and then drawing your attention back to your phone. 

“Who’re you texting?”

“A high school friend. We haven’t talked in ages.” You let out a giggle as Ten nibbled on your ear lobe. 

“Ask her who her NCT bias is.”

You laughed and did as you were told. “Who wants to know?” With a wink emoji was her reply. You closed your phone and set aside. Someone really needed your attention. Ten was like this at times. And it was really cute, but also a tad bit annoying. You didn’t mind. 

“Looks like your day didn’t go so well,” you whispered against his hair. Ten just hummed into the crook of your neck. He was practically laying over you on the couch. 

“I just missed you today.”

You wrapped your arms around his neck, twirling your fingers into his soft brown hair. “Well, I’m here now.” Ten shifted a little, getting into a more comfortable - and intimate - position. 

His lips were trailing kissed down your neck and across your shoulder, biting into your skin ever so softly. Eventually, his hand had made its way in your jeans, his fingers playing at the hem of your panties. 

Butterflies erupted in the pit of your stomach while you knew it was wrong, but you couldn’t help yourself. A part of you wanted to stop him while the other went, oh what the hell, why not indulge him? 

You moved your hips slightly so that Ten’s hand was just ghosting over your center and just as a soft moan left your lips, the door opened and you were brought back to your senses.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” Mark exclaimed almost dropping the plate he was holding in the process. Ten was startled as he quickly pulled his hand away from you and you sat upright, hoping Mark didn’t see all that.

“It’s okay,” you said, purposefully enunciating your voice. “We weren’t really doing anything, you can come in.” Mark stepped inside, his face red with embarrassment. 

“Hyung, you wanted these so I just came to give them,” he said, handing the plate of bread sticks to Ten. “I’m really sorry, I should’ve knocked, I just wasn’t thinking -”

“Mark, calm down,” Ten laughed upon seeing how flustered he was. “It’s fine.” Mark just gave you two an awkward smile before leaving the room. Ten turned to you. “He’s such a cute kid.”

You giggled. “Anyway, don’t you have something to do?”

“Nope,” Ten grinned, his lips hovering over yours once again. “I’m free for the rest of the day.”

You had never been to any of NCT’s MV shoots before so this was a first experience for you. Ten wasn’t around since he wouldn’t be part of this comeback. Despite how many times they had to repeat the choreography, it seemed really fun. Donghyuk seemed to be having the most fun; fooling around with the other members and pretty much causing a ruckus. 

The director summoned everyone over to the computer to check how the scene turned out. Sicheng stood behind you as you enjoyed how great the first part of the video looked. You felt him rest his head on your shoulder. This wasn’t new since you were close with almost all the members, they’ve all done it before; mostly Jisung and Donghyuck though. 

But this time it felt different. Sicheng’s braids tickled your neck and you surprised yourself by turning your head and connecting your lips. You realized what you had a second too late and Sicheng had already stepped away, looking around to see if anyone had seen. 

You went red, cursing yourself for being so careless and thoughtless and stupid. “I’m so-”

Sicheng stopped you. “Not now,” he said, looking away. “Later.” You felt uneasy. How could you have messed everything up? Again. 

The two of you did talk it out later, but you knew this would haunt you during those times when you’re alone. You tried to shoo it away. It was just an honest mistake, right?

For a while you did forget, but every time you looked at Ten, the thought would come back to you: you cheated on Ten even after you told you had changed. So you decided to just pretend everything was okay. It could work. 

“You’re going to sleep this early?” asked Ten, walking into your room. You rolled around to look at him. 

“I didn’t sleep last night so I feel sleepy, what’s your problem?”

Ten laughed, climbing over you. “Whoa, baby, I was just asking.” You smiled. How could you not after him calling you baby in that - that voice. Ten leaned his head down, kissing you, and then tugging at your bottom lip. He was always so demanding. One of his best traits. 

“Stooooppp!” You giggled, hands cupping Ten’s cheeks to keep him away from your face. “My lips are getting sore from you kissing me so much!”

Ten leaned down more, his lips right next to your ear. “You’re a fucking tease,” he whispered, his hands bunching your shirt at your waist. “You know you like it, so stop pretending.” You bit your lip as your hands snaked up his thighs, slipping through the bottom of his shorts. 

“Wow, dance practice really payed off,” you said softly. “You’ve got some nice thighs.”

“I’ve got something nicer between them,” Ten smirked, his hand guiding yours up his thigh. Before he could stop, you pulled your hand away, suddenly pushing him off and sitting upright. Ten raised his eyebrows in surprise as you sat on the edge of the bed, avoiding his gaze.

“Hey,” he said softly, moving to sit crossed legged beside you. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” You didn’t say anything, just staring at your lap in discomfort. “We don’t have to do that, you know. Heck, I don’t even want to if you don’t want to.” When you still didn’t reply, Ten breathed out, lifting your chin up to face him. 

“Baby, I’m really sorry,” he said almost desperately. 

“Ten, I kissed Sicheng,” you blurted out. It hurt too much to keep it in any longer than you already did. Ten’s eyes got bigger and he looked betrayed for a second.

Then he said. “It’s okay, it was just an accident right?” You shook her head and the tears just came rolling out. You hated it, you didn’t want appeal to his guilt just by crying but you couldn’t hold it anymore. 

“I did it on purpose.”

Ten stood up. “What? Why?”

“I’m really really sorry. I didn’t mean to, I just had feelings for him for so long and it was just in the heat of the moment.” Ten looked like he didn’t know what to say. 

“Wait, let me get this straight. You like Sicheng?” You nodded, sniffing. “But you’re with me?”

“I mean...you didn’t really ask me to be your girlfriend, you just sorta assumed-”

“Are you fucking serious?” Ten cut you off immediately. “You’re really going to play the victim card?”

You stood up, facing Ten. “No, baby, I was just saying...”

“Don’t call me baby. And don’t start with me. You’re the one who couldn’t even tell me no when you liked Winwin all this time and made me look like a fucking idiot.”

“I’m so sorry!” You cried, furiously wiping away your tears. “I really am. I just thought I’d start to fall in love with you or something. What I did can’t be excused.” You were never good with words and your thoughts were running faster than your mouth could form complete sentences. “Listen, its my fault. Not Sicheng’s, he didn’t even kiss me. He said he didn’t want to as long as I’m with you.”

“You said you changed, Y/N, but I don’t see it,” Ten said, his tone imitating hurt and disbelief. “Who else have you kissed?”

“Ten, please, it was-”

“Hmm, I’m gonna guess...Mark? You two have been hanging out more than usual.”

“Don’t bring Mark into it, please!” You begged furiously. Ten seemed unmovable. And he wasn’t the same lovable and affectionate Ten he usually was. “He’s just my friend.”

Ten scoffed, almost red with anger. “Yeah so was Taeil hyung, and Taeyong hyung and Jaehyun before you went and fucked all of them.”

“I didn’t...” You stepped closer and cupped his cheeks. “I’m sorry, please don’t talk so loud.”

Ten swatted your hands away. “Why so no one will know that you cheated on me with Sicheng?” His voice became louder on purpose. “I assure you, everyone will find out soon enough.” He made his way to the door but you got there first, hand on it so he couldn’t leave.

“Ten, please, I’m so sorry.”

“No, you’re a fucking slut.” You gasped at his rude words and even though you knew it was true, you couldn’t stand being called that. Ten opened the door to see Johnny and Mark standing at the doorway.

“What is going on here?” Johnny asked, concerned. 

“Ask her,” said Ten coldly. He glanced at Mark. “Oh look, its your boy toy.”

“Don’t call him that!” You exclaimed, pushing him back in anger. Johnny got in between you two. 

“That’s not cool, Ten.” He said. Ten stormed away and Johnny followed him. Mark turned to leave as well, but you grabbed his wrist.

“Mark, please don’t,” you whispered, tears streaming down your face. Mark looked ashamed, but he slowly pulled his hand away. 

“I don’t want to,” he said quietly. “But I just can’t defend you anymore.”

yooooooo

there wasn’t supposed to be a part two but part one had such a shitty ending and it looked like you guys wanted another part too. i just needed the closure so here’s the less shitty part two. idk if there should be part three, but if u guys want one then just send me an ask !!

!!psa!! i don’t write smut so like if any of these seems lame or cheesy its bc i’m not used to it lol

#nct #nct 127 #nct u #nct dream #taeil #hansol #taeyong #jaehyun #yuta #winwin #mark lee #haechan #donghyuk #jisung #jeno #renjun #jaemin #chenle #doyoung #johnny #ten #ten chittaphon #nct chittaphon #kpop #kpop scenarios #nct scenarios #kpop smut #nct smut

[illustir]

Highlights for Neoreaction a Basilisk

Angela Nagle’s appalling Kill All Normies, which takes the jaw-droppingly foolish methodology of simply reporting all of the alt-right’s self-justifications as self-evident truths so as to conclude that the real reason neo-nazis have been sweeping into power is because we’re too tolerant of trans people.

This brings us to our second relatively uninteresting question, which is what to do about the alt-right. In this case the answer is even easier and more obvious than the first: you smash their bases of power, with violent resistance if necessary. If you want a more general solution that also takes care of the factors that led to a bunch of idiot racists being emboldened in the first place you drag all the billionaires out of their houses and put their heads on spikes.

The lethal meme, known as Roko’s Basilisk, used the peculiarities of Yudkowskian thought to posit a future AI that would condemn to eternal torture everyone from the present who had ever imagined it if they subsequently failed to do whatever they could to bring about its existence.

I want to be clear, with all possible sincerity, that I love the braggadocio here. I want what he is selling. Yes, Mencius, savagely tear away the veil of lies with which I cope with the abject horror that is reality and reveal to me the awful, agonizing truth of being. Give me the red pill. The problem is, once we get our golf ball-sized reality distortion pill home, put on some Laibach, and settle in for an epic bout of Thanatosian psychedelia, we discover the unfortunate truth: we’re actually just huffing paint in an unhygienic gas station bathroom. Jesus, this isn’t even bat country.

By “crap,” of course, I do not mean “wrong.” Rather, I mean obvious, in the sense of sounding like the guy at the bar watching the news (probably Fox) and muttering about how “they’re all a bunch of crooks.” Liberal democracy a hopelessly inadequate and doomed system preserved by a system of continual indoctrination? You don’t say.

And this really is stunningly weird in the context of all his red pill rhetoric about the corrupt horrors of liberal democracy. Because while there are a great many obvious critiques of contemporary society, “there’s just not enough respect for profit” really doesn’t feel like one of them.

With this, we have a genuinely tricky moment, simply because of the sheer and unbridled number of unexamined assumptions going on here.

But all the same, if you’re going to talk about suppressed ideologies that oppose the interests of entrenched power, you’ve really got to talk about the original red pill: Marxism.

It is tempting to suggest that Moldbug is a failed Marxist in the sense that Jupiter is a failed star, its mass falling tantalizingly short of the tipping point whereby nuclear fusion begins. Over and over again, Moldbug asks questions much like those that Marx asked, and his answers begin with many of the same initial observations. But inevitably, a few steps in, he makes some ridiculously broad generalization or fails to consider some obvious alternative possibility, and the train of thought fizzles into characteristic idiocy.

This sort of “the world can be saved if only everyone listens to me” narcissism belongs in the genre of fiction, where it can accomplish something, and not in the visionary manifesto, where it only reveals its own impotence.

That is not to say they can get away with being wrong, at least not straightforwardly so, but it is to reiterate that the key problem with Moldbug, Yudkowsky, and Land is that they are in key regards uninteresting—that they offer dull and unsatisfying answers to their most compelling questions, of which “hang out with a bunch of racist nerdbros” is merely the worst.

Terence McKenna’s suggestion that DMT is an alien intelligence’s attempt to communicate directly with the human brain

That’s the whole point of the right to exit—a final and decisive rescue of individual liberty at all costs. But exiting requires that people stay behind; if we all go, we’ll just have to storm out again. The entire point of the project is to separate the wheat from the chaff.

He posits that in this situation the “absolute limit to our ability to adequately understand the world at all” becomes increasingly relevant, and observes that this is a frequent theme of both philosophy and horror.

The truth is that, despite Land’s evident fascination with them, the bulk of neoreactionaries are not people one would want to have a beer with, and there’s not a great case for reading their books either.

Yudkowsky isn’t just running from error; he’s running from the idea of authority. The real horror of the Basilisk is that the AI at the end of the universe is just another third grade teacher who doesn’t care if you understand the material, just if you apply the rote method being taught.

Hauntology comes from within us; the Weird from outside.

The red pill, pwnage, and for that matter the horror reading, monstrous offspring, and Satanic inversions all follow the same basic pattern—a sort of conceptual infiltration of someone’s thought in which their own methods and systems are used against them.

It is, after all, the great one-liner critique of Mencius Moldbug: he’s exactly what you’d expect to happen if you asked a software engineer to redesign political philosophy. And crucially, Moldbug basically agrees with it—he just also genuinely believes that the Silicon Valley “disruptor” crowd would be capable of running the world with no problems if only people would let them.

Which is to say, Satan opens by negging Eve, accusing her of looking at him “with disdain, Displeas’d that I approach thee thus, and gaze Insatiate, I thus single, nor have feard Thy awful brow,”112 which may be the earliest instance of telling someone they have resting bitch face.

In the face of an ecologically brutal planet, the guys with guns and tribal loyalties are a depressingly compelling bet to stick around.

With Moldbug the sense is overwhelmingly that empathy just never crossed his mind as something to factor into his design. He flat out didn’t think of it. Yudkowsky, on the other hand, thinks about it a lot and cares very deeply about it; he’s just incompetent at it.

The result of this approach is that Yudkowsky, without really meaning to, tends to look at everyone else in the world as inefficient Eliezer Yudkowskys instead of people as such.

Moldbug, Yudkowsky, and Land don’t just “do poorly” with empathy—they represent the most visible and explicit edge of a Cathedral-scaled system of values that casts the desire to listen and try to understand people who are different from you as anathema to reason itself.

This forces us to consider white culture as a set of perpetual ruins—as something that has always been lost, and that can only be apprehended as a tenuous and incomplete reconstruction.

No, what’s really notable here is Moldbug’s doe-eyed certainty that such a thing as an absolute truth service could be built; that there is a general plan of action so self-evidently compelling that if he only expressed it properly everyone would immediately flock to his side. In short, after thousands of words railing against the Cathedral for secretly being a religion, he’s accidentally reinvented religion. And then lost the holy text. You couldn’t parody it better.

They have that marvelous feature of the best gods: perfectly answering a question you didn’t know you had.

And a few, such as Ahania, are genuinely breathtaking in their scope: a pleasure goddess representing intellectual curiosity who is bound in a Persephone-like structure of death and rebirth is a metaphysical/literary construct to rival Milton’s Satan, and one Blake barely scratches the surface of.

And it’s hard not to suggest that the world would be a better place if Yudkowsky had stuck to children’s literature for adult geeks as opposed to starting a weird AI cult that derails efforts to curtail malaria.

And while Gamergate usually doesn’t have a product to sell in quite the same literal way, it’s worth noting how, for instance, two doors down from them is someone like Stefan Molyneux, whose output amounts to 30-60 minute PowerPoint presentations consisting of a by-now familiar sort of low-content dissembling, and whose business endgame is literally a cult.

The Gamergate narrative has always required a vast quasi-conspiracy to function, some story whereby feminists or SJWs or cultural Marxists exercise near-complete control over video games and video game journalism.

Not even a monoculture then—an anticulture, with Vivian James ironically its perfect representation. It’s a desire to befit their worldview, its adamance dwarfed only by its fundamental emptiness. There’s nothing there. There’s never been anything there.

And Gamergate as a whole is scarcely better. It’s always been notable for its near-complete lack of actual discussion of videogames.

More interesting is where his basic inclination towards racial stereotyping originates from: the material realities of New York real estate, its patterns of historical ethnic migrations geologically stratified across the city’s expansion.

He might have had a name. But then he literally built a six-hundred-and-sixty-six foot tower to which he offered up that name, sacrificing it upon its black altar such that the building became a titanic sigil of the sixteenth Major Arcana of the Tarot of the Golden Dawn, symbolizing destruction and ruin, with only the remnants of the man whose name it ate living within the rotting heart of its penthouse.

He sold his name, yes, but what did he get out of the deal? The answer, simply put, is what he would hereafter treat as his most valuable asset: his brand. In short, he became a creature of pure image.

But it also includes the raw allostatic load of living under his rule; the basic psychological wear and tear of waking up every morning in a post-fact world dominated by a bullying narcissist. The act of living in a world where the basic validity of your identity is contingent and perpetually imperiled, where the very definition of “fact” is in dispute, and where a brutish logic of dominance and humiliation pervades the entire social order.

Individuals can act all they want. They won’t make the end of the world go away, any more than their freedom to quit work can make them free to not starve

It helps that one can be against today’s racist wars—though not on the grounds of anti-racism, except of the most specious variety—while quietly accepting and utilising the racial inequities inherited from the racist imperialism of the past. As usual, reactionary thinking is dependant upon amnesia.

It admits that value is a mental construct, but one that is ‘real’ because it has a real social basis and real social effects. Value, for Marx, is neither a thing nor an essence, neither quality nor spirit. It is a social reality because of what humans actually do.

Theoretically detached from the objective and the material, and connected to business as a client, mainstream economics has become—to a large extent—an ideological discourse.

This is how Moldbug and Thiel’s view that democracy is incompatible with liberty arises. A democracy is a society in which the mass of the population—who are, by definition, mostly without property—can shape policy so that it curtails the freedom of the propertied to make their choices. In a free society—by their definition—the capitalists get to make their choices unfettered.

For the Austrians, democracy is to blame for capitalism going into crisis. Democracy breeds special claims by people who are not really concerned with making the choices that regulate the economy. The people without a big stake—the masses—thus destabilise the system.

This is the so-called Austrian ‘Business Cycle.’ Boiled right down: crashes and recessions happen because central banks set interest rates too low. Easy credit results, which screws up market signals. Loaners go crazy. Bubbles inflate and burst. Such lopsided production can only be remedied via letting interest rates rise to their ‘natural’ rate. In other words, the Austrian prescription is: let the crisis rip. It will be harsher but quicker. The only cure for god’s wrath is to wait for the plague to exhaust itself.

Opposition to democracy is entailed by the Austrian view of how capitalism works. Democracy is the rule of the ignorant and selfish public, and the state is their tyrannical arm. Moronic majoritarianism wields unjustifiable power over the propertied and the entrepreneurs who are, for Hayek for instance, almost promethean artists in their special sensitivity and understanding.

The logically consequent idea that emergency dictatorship may be necessary to preserve liberal society from democracy is in neoliberalism’s source code. Neoliberalism, contrary to myth, is an authoritarian ideology, committed to defending property and wealth by violence both physical and structural.

The leaders of Rothbard’s revolution would be the libertarians and the minarchists. The troops would be the masses, spurred to fight the elites. And the spurring would take the form of appeals to racism.

The disproportionate number of former-libertarians in American fascism is revealing because conservatives are far more numerous in America than libertarians, which suggests that libertarianism is statistically over-represented.

The Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory now espoused across the alt-right is a reiteration of what the (actual) Nazis called kulturbolschewismus, an idea central to Nazi dogma, about degenerate art and culture being manufactured by Jewish communists to undermine the unity of the German people. The resurrection and repackaging of this idea across a movement soaked in libertarianism is not surprising, because antagonism to socialism goes right back to the dawn of libertarianism, to the Austrian School’s foundational and self-chosen role as the intellectual foe of Marx.

People might not necessarily formulate their objections to the content of newspapers that way, but they’re nevertheless absenting themselves from daily exposure to one of the main means by which the ruling class produce ideology and public consent. This is at least as big a concern to the people running the media as the need to claw back profits.

In all of these cases, the strategy is to play on insecurities of young men in an age where there are mounting ideological challenges out there—especially on the Internet—to their untroubled social privilege. Coupled with the twin legacies of decades of neoliberalism—increasing ideological and political disorientation, and a future far less secure than that which faced their parents and grandparents at their age—such challenges can terrify the semi-privileged layer of young, white, middle class men, who enjoy all those privileges without also enjoying actual material security.

Reactionary politics once again takes advantage of having a wide batrachian mouth, both sides of which may be used for talking.

The reason actions don’t lead inevitably to goals isn’t because there are complex material structures of oppression that heavily shape people’s lives, but because we exist in linear time. Not only does Rothbard not connect time to what dominates it for most people in capitalist society—work—but hilariously, he doesn’t even bother connecting time to its ultimate horror and constraint, death.

To quote the monster directly: “Milton produced Paradise Lost in the way that a silkworm produces silk, as the expression of his own nature.” Marx would like all labour to be like that, and sees no fundamental reason why it shouldn’t.

It’s pretty clear that the Austrian School doesn’t even remotely care about this fact, but it doesn’t inherently contradict anything they say. But that is, in the end, the point, and one I’ve made before: they don’t care. That’s clear, in a sense, all the way back in the basic axiom, with its active foregrounding of the heroic individual acting upon the world, as opposed to the state of affairs that most actual people experience, which is mostly being buffeted around by various external forces, whether they be governments, history, or the class system. Indeed, “individual human beings are acted upon” would be every bit as justifiable an axiom as “individual human beings act,” if not moreso.

They have been hugging Marxism on the brink of the Reichenbach Falls for a century and a half, staring into its eyes, but have never really seen it.

Mises’ only invocation of courage is in the context of statesmen standing up to labor unions. Decency only comes up in the context of “laws of morality and decency.” And his sole mention of kindness is a complete and grotesque misunderstanding of the very concept as he declares that “the indigent has no claim to the kindness shown to him,” as if being unearned isn’t the entire fucking point of kindness. It is a conception of human action without a shred of concern for empathy – human action devoid of all humanity.

But the real reason for this is that, more than anyone else, Marx provided an alternative to the charade on which their entire philosophical edifice was constructed. He showed the need for the destruction of that which, to them, gives the world meaning—and a method by which it might be achieved.

Given that no small number of conspiracy theories are, in point of fact, anti-Semitic, any attempt to uncritically synthesize them will be as well.

Icke’s theory is much the same way. We know wealthy elites control our minds. Knowing they’re lizards (or, for that matter, Jews) doesn’t actually change anything. It is, to borrow a phrase, malignantly useless knowledge.

Not only does nothing follow from Icke’s conclusions, nothing follows within the argument itself. Icke does not so much lay out a case for the lizard people as blunder among vague associations, hoping that the aggregate of a bunch of extremely tenuous connections will somehow be persuasive instead of a discombobulated mess of shoddy research and sloppy reasoning.

The history of the world consists of a lot of wealthy assholes sleeping with each other and killing people. Changing up which assholes slept with and killed who doesn’t actually make much of a difference.

Ridiculous arguments, especially ones that recognize their absurdity, are capable of revealing things that do not follow obviously, if at all, from self-consciously serious approaches, but that are nevertheless true and valuable realizations.

So is his inclination to be skeptical of the “official” version of history. The value of this, to be clear, is not simply skepticism for its own sake (an approach that is just as likely to lead to things like climate change denial or creationism as it is to some productive insight), but rather the realization that, as the saying goes, history is written by the victors, and the standard version of history is inevitably the one that most flatters those in power.

It is not entirely clear why monstrous truth must take reptilian form, but just as the weird turns instinctively to tentacles and the hauntological inevitably drifts towards skulls, for some reason awful truth must take the form of a reptile, whether a petrifying basilisk or just a bunch of pan-dimensional aliens.

This is a leftist book, and so must engage in a circular firing squad at least once.

This set a pattern whereby trans rights were repeatedly employed by the gay rights movement as a bargaining chip—as the thing they were pointedly willing to sell out in the name of compromise, as they spectacularly did when lobbying for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which excluded trans people in every version that was brought to Congress prior to 2009.

Thiel’s vision of corporate success is blatantly just the Moldbug/Land vision of how authoritarian capitalism will save us from the Great Filter.

Rather, it’s that once you’re willing to question the basic fact of Thiel’s competence it rapidly becomes apparent that the only actual evidence for this competence is that he has a lot of money.

And his fascination with seasteading numbers him among the litany of people interested in micronations, which is such a rich vein of complete crackpottery that I’d hate to deprive you of the pleasure of Googling it. This borders on the investment portfolio you’d get if you gave David Icke several billion dollars.

Who would craft such a thing as the alt-right? Only a fucking idiot. What other answer were we possibly going to find? It’s been idiots all the way down. And so of course even its billionaire supervillains bankrolling world-conquering AIs, vampiric life extension, and Donald Trump are idiots. This borders on “A is A.” And yet for all its obviousness, it captures what is perhaps the key realization about the alt-right—one that’s been implicit through much of this book, but is worth making explicit as we come to a close: they’re stupid.

I do not suggest this to diminish their horror. Far from it: the essential horror of the abyss is stupidity. That’s why it’s an abyss. The unique and exquisite danger of stupidity is that by its nature, it is beyond reason. There is nothing that can be said to it, because by definition it wouldn’t understand. It is an ur-basilisk—the one terrifying possibility that haunts every single argument that has ever been made. It is a move without response, playing by no rules other than its own, which do not generally include any obligation towards consistency. It is, in its way, the only approach that can never lose an argument. And in the alt-right and its affiliates we have one of the most staggeringly vast nexuses of raw stupidity the world has ever crafted.

The post Highlights for Neoreaction a Basilisk appeared first on alper.nl.

via English – alper.nl https://ift.tt/2LPiKQ2

#IFTTT #English – alper.nl

[thesoundofsimple]

TV Shows

So i got rid of my cable subscription and just have internet. Which means i have netflix. mostly. sometimes i watch these shows on the way to work on the train and stick the company with the bandwith. anyway, ive binge watched a few TV shows. Let me see if i can remember them:

Black Mirror: I watched a whole 2 episodes. the pig episode was enough to keep me from coming back. it was just too dark for me. maybe ill try it again.

Ray Donovan: been a few years since ive seen it, only watched the first two seasons, ill watch it again sometime but dont have Showtime. it also was dark and stresful and you sometimes dont know who to root for really but i liked the boston connection and the acting is really good.

Sherlock Holmes: that hobbit and the bumberbun guy are in it. watched  2 episodes, it seemed good but is very long. like each episode is a movie but is good. ill prob come back to this. feels like im supposed to watch this and dr. who and that crap

Gotham: havent watched since 2014 prob but watched the first season only. i like origin stories. i like batman. ill go back someday

Narcos: good lord this was a good show. loved the tone, the mood, everything. i def think its a “boy” show but its amazing because it was a true story. whats odd is i had no problem watching a show about Pablo Escobar but i would never, NEVER condone a movie made about whitey bulger and struggle with movies about real mob guys like gotti. i cant really explain that

El Chapo - Again more drug guys. only a few episodes in. not nearly as good as narcos but decent. again, true story so its more compelling to me

Breaking Bad: As good as I was told over and over and over. What else can you say about this. ive always wondered how i would do as a criminal. im not a dummy but would marginal intelligence translate into me being a successful criminal? I sometimes wish i could find out somehow. anyway, amazing characters, great music, los pollos hermanos, pizza on the roof, etc etc etc. too much walter white in his underwear however.  

I saw the dave chappelle specials (great) and the louis Ck specials (yikes)

Also siendfeld special. that MF’er sorta got off the hook for dating that kid 20 years ago huh?

Ozark: god damn this was stresful but i liked it. jason batement was good again, normal guy turned to life of crime

Walking Dead: never watched this, my friend mike got me to watch it. I sorta wish i never started. its horror, where people just do appaling things to each other. i dont know if thats really entertaining. look if the world was going to end im sure it would go something like this. total lord of the rings shit but its just brutal and overly stresful and i think i mostly hate all the characters. im also just not a horror guy. like gore just for the sake of gore. scary? sure im good with scary, but just somebody getting their head beaten in with a bat, graphically, why? in these  days of trying to be kinder and all that, i dont really understand the appeal of watching humans treat each other with such brutality and bloodlust. 

Better Call Saul: this show is so fantastic. helps to have seen breaking bad probably but this show is honestly as good. dark as usual but with a lot more light hearted momentrs that keep me attached. love this one .

Game of thrones: still watching this despite some of the problems that plague walking dead, but more boobs here, and well, who doenst like boobs?

Mad Men: went back and watched all these. its a great show. don worries me that im going to end up like him. i dont want to be don. i have donlike tendencies. id like to avoid that. 

Arrested Develkopment: people rave and rave about this. i thought it was pretty good. not the best. but pretty good, kept my interest and there were some really funny parts, I give it a B

A series of unfortunate events: watched with my kids. they loved it so i did too. weird and sorta creepy. kids need more weird and creepy in this saccharine world if you ask me, this helps 

Making a murderer: everybody was watching this so i did too. people are horrible horrible creatures and this is a scary world to be living much less raising kids

House of Cards: the show, not the song - watched one episode, then spacey turned out to be a real creep. i prob wont watch it anymore

Westworld: so this is pretty good. its shot so well and the music is absolutly fantastic. got through season 1. ill prob come back for second

Supergirl: my girls love this and so i love watching it with them. jimmy olsen was a little too suave at first but he grew on me. i hate i mean HATE alove triangle subplot but it worked itself out. anyway, i like that they like this genre basically. my little one likes to go to comic stores and stuff. its cute

Curb: i love larry david. i mean i really love that guy. sometimes i think im him. i always think his right.

Stranger Things: fav show since x files. it just captures the mood in my memory of exactly what its like to be htat exact age and that exact time. these kids were my age when this takes place. its great - plus one of the kids sorta has the same name as me. let my older kid watch it this fall, thought she would be a huge frady cat, she watched the whole thing in 2 days. i havent seen season 2 yet. 

I’m a little disgusted with how much TV this is. whoa.