#my results turned out pretty much exactly like the reviewers

[mejomonster]

Hi there! I hope you don't mind me asking, but I really love your pink hair, it look so good and I got really curious, if you always use the same hair dye? Or if there is a certain type of hair dye that you can recommend?

Okay so! If your goal is also light to pastel pink hair, a ton of good options. I have never tried a pink hair dye that didn't turn out nice, so if you already like a certain brand I'd say just buy pink in that brand. The only difference I tend to find is some pinks fade faster than others, but how damaged your hair is affects that (so my hair has held onto 'easily fades' dye for several months, and faded out 'quite long lasting dye' within a month).

I personally think the more warm toned pinks are more likely to turn out a pink color, if your hair is a darker blonde or orange in places or has some cool tones hanging around (like turquoise bits that never washed out etc). For me warmer tones just tend to mess up less. If you want a more lavender look, but don't want to risk it going muddy swamp color grey/green/brown, it will work more reliably on fully bleach blonde hair, and if you use a more pinkish-lavender again you're less likely to get a silver/grey result. (If you've done lavender successfully before then ignore any input about this lol - I've just messed up lavender and ended up swampy brown so often I just do NOT try lavender anymore unless its a pinkish-lavender).

I use lime crime right now for my pinks. I usually use Bunny (tint) when my hair is bleach blonde. But my hair grew out, has darker blonde in it now (golden blonde level 8-9 spots), so I picked a darker pink this time. I used Full Coverage Lime Crime Bubblegum Rose and left it in 2 hours, then washed it out 3 times with head and shoulders shampoo (so I faded it a bit). So I'd assume to get a similar result to mine, leave it in just 1 hour or less (depending on how damaged your hair is - my hair is very damaged so it took the color quickly).

Lime Crime Tints fade in about 2 months, slower if you take care of the color (like 4-5 months), and much faster if you purposely try to fade it with dandruff shampoo/clarifying shampoo/etc (if you're trying to switch colors faster). Full Coverage lasts I'm assuming 4-5 months, I usually use the tints and they last in my hair 1-5 months depending on how much I purposely try to wash them out toward the end. I like lime crime because the pinks ALL fade into rose gold, then golden blonde, then platinum blonde if you started with it. So when you're ready to switch colors you can just wash your hair a ton to fade it to blonde, then slap on the blonde toner of the shade you want (if you want to go back to say silver blonde). I have also used the Sushi tint to tone out blue/turquoise/grey sections out of my blonde hair after a mistake with silver tone lol (the Sushi tint turned my hair back into a golden blonde).

When my hair was platinum blonde instead of darker blonde like it was just before dying, I would usually use Tint Bunny. Its a very pretty pastel bubblegum pink and always came out nice. If your hair is too dark, it turns your hair a pretty rose gold color. I also used Tint Sext (which turns it a lavender-pink pastel color or if your hair is too dark it turns it a cool-tone lavender-rose gold). I've used the Tint Sushi (turns hair a peachy color right between orange and pink, fades into a peachy blonde then golden blonde, and works great on color correcting hair that's too cold toned with greys/blues/greens). I also REALLY like the Tint Shook - it says its a tint but goes on as DARK as full coverage, and gives you a berry-purple-pink color that fades into a pastel version of that and then fades into a neutral blonde. Its much more saturated than Sext (Sext is very pale and in some ways looks like a silvery blonde more than pink).

I pretty much exclusively used the Shook and Bunny tints, depending on if I wanted darker closer to purple, or lighter bubblegum pastel pink. Then Sushi tint for color correcting issues.

summary: This recent dye job is the Full Coverage Bubblegum Rose dye and I suspected it would turn out like Bunny tint but darker (so it should fade into the same color as Bunny). I think I was right. I was aiming for hair like the lead Goo Ryeon in Tomorrow, which I think turned out pretty close. A neutral light pink that will fade into a pastel then a blonde. (If your hair is at the Platinum Blonde level, lighter than mine, I recommend the Bunny tint for an easy pretty pastel pink. If you want a light pink very likely to work on slightly darker hair, I recommend Shook for a cooler tone or Bubblegum Rose for a warmer tone).

One downside of Lime Crime dyes though - if you're sensitive to perfumes (I am) the dye is VERY perfumed, that's why I had to wash it out 3 times and only left it in a couple hours, the dye irritates my skin if its on too long just because I cannot tolerate perfumes. I have to make sure I get it completely off or I will Feel it until its washed out. However, manic panic gave me the same problem as do many dyes, so if you've tolerated these types of dyes in the past then lime crime is not likely to irritate u any more than another brand.

alternatives: honestly manic panic Cotton Candy Pink looks similar, I used to use it a lot and its a good alternative (manic panic can be hard to fade out for me). I've heard amazing things about Arctic Fox colors too, though I've never used them (Frose looks like a good alternative to Bunny, Electric Paradise looks like a good alternative to Bubblegum Rose). Ion Brights colors are hit and misses for me - my nieces looked great in them and they faded easily out of virgin hair, however on me they easily turn too dark and swamp colored so I don't personally love them. I do NOT recommend Splat or N'Rage every time I use them horrible results occur and my hair gets damaged and they refuse to fade out. L'Oreal's line of pastel colors are ALSO hit or miss for me - I never used them because I can tell just by looking they will turn out too dark and look bad, but I've had a friend use them and get the correct result (I'm guessing it depends on how platinum your hair is and if you managed to get all the gold and warm tones out ahead of time). For the most Expected results, I personally recommend Arctic Fox and Lime Crime - those are the only bright colored dyes where me And my friends actually get the result on the bottle on our hair relatively close and good looking every time.

#hair #hairdye #pink hair #ask #i am Sorry i never shut up about hair #i absolutely love talking about hair stuff lol #@lucientelrunya #i can dig up some reference pics if you want but i have lost some of the pics #i do think the lime crime website reference pictures/review pictures are Quite accurate though #my results turned out pretty much exactly like the reviewers #its why i kept using the dye. i get exactly the results i expect #if u already dye ur hair bright colors u know this already but #1 if youre going for pastel i highly recommend getting Platinum Blonde first (level 10 blonde or above preferably little to no gold tone) #then 2 using Shook if you want a cooler tone pink or to tone out some of the gold left in ur bleached hair (if theres any gold in there) #3 if your hair is NOT bleach blonde but just various shades of darker blonde #i highly recommend a full Coverage dye like the one i used Bubblegum Rose or Peach or #if you use a tint use Shook (it covers well and looks good on darker blonde too) #4 if your hair IS platinum blonde. Sext looks more like a purple-shampoo/silver tint tbh than an actual pink #and Sushi tint can tone out any grey/cool tones if youre trying to go for a WARMER blonde or pink color

[seungkwansphd]

fixer upper

pairing: minghao x reader wordcount: 9.5k summary: you love your friends dearly, but do they really think that they can match make for their resident matchmaker? minghao’s certainly interesting, though, so maybe you can fix him up with someone else instead. genre/themes: s2f2l. “beg” minghao. LOTS OF PLOT with eventual smut. slow and i mean SLOW burn. some member slander(affectionate), lol. set in the ‘we get along infamously’ universe.

a/n: i have nothing to say for myself regarding the length of this.

    You tapped the bartop impatiently as you waited for your blind date to show up. You couldn’t believe that Danbi had roped you into this, but you had lost the game of darts fair and square. As a result, you were here waiting for a man named Minghao to show up. Part of you really wanted to skip out on this, because you just did not trust Danbi’s romantic sensibilities. She had dated a string of truly boring and strange people for months before you had finally set her up with Seungcheol. There was no way this Minghao was going to be anywhere near suited for you, but you were a person of your word, so you would do the date and be done with it.

“Hey, are you YN?” a voice called from above your left shoulder. You turned your head to see a tall, lanky individual with dark hair looking curiously at you.

“Yes, are you Minghao?” you sat up straight, fixing him with a smile. He wasn’t your usual type, physically, but you couldn’t deny he was handsome.

“Yes, nice to meet you,” he smiled, taking the barstool next to you.

“So how do you know Danbi?” you asked after he had ordered with the bartender.

“Ah, so,” Minghao looked almost sheepish, “I helped Jeonghan get together with the person he’s dating now. One of my close friends! And so I met Seungcheol and Danbi through Jeonghan.”

“Oh?” you calculated the degrees of separation quickly in your mind. “So you don’t really know Danbi at all, then!”

“Not well,” Minghao shook his head. “I was kind of surprised when Jeonghan told me that she wanted to set me up on a date.”

“I-,” you laughed, somehow relieved to find out that this hadn’t been any serious effort on your friend’s part. “Honestly, thank god! No offense to you, I obviously don’t know you, but Danbi historically has not impressed me with her taste in men.”

“No offense taken,” Minghao chuckled, bringing his cocktail to his lips for a quick sip. “So does that mean you’re the resident matchmaker in your friend group as well?”

“Very much so,” you nodded, “So I’m not sure exactly what Danbi thinks she’s up to, trying to take my title. In fact, I bet even I could set you up with someone better! And I don’t even know you at all!” you blustered.

“Oh really?” Minghao’s eyebrow raised. You were funny.

“What, you don’t believe me?” you furrowed your brows at him.

“I mean, no one is a better matchmaker than me, so my bar is pretty high,” he replied smugly. “I’ve only ever had one couple break up, and it was due to one of their jobs making them move away.”

“Out of how many?” you found yourself curious.

“...Eight?” Minghao had to tally in his mind quickly.

“Hah! That’s nothing!” you waved him off easily, “I’ve successfully set up eleven couples and none of them have broken up yet!”

    Minghao smiled, amused by your bright and confident energy. While you clearly weren’t suited for him, he found himself wanting to beat you at your own game.

“Set me up then,” he invited confidently. “But I bet I can find you a match sooner than you can find one for me.”

“Oh?” you grinned at his gamelike proposal. Before you even knew it, the words came out of your mouth, “You’re on!”

    Minghao laughed, shaking your hand enthusiastically. You spent the rest of your “date” exchanging phone numbers and excitedly reviewing each other’s basic likes and dislikes. Minghao wasn’t your type, but he certainly was interesting! He worked in HR for a tech company, had interests in art and fashion, and also had trained in mixed martial arts as a child? Quite a strange array of hobbies, but you were so going to win this thing!

…

“So, how did it go?” Minghao’s voice sounded slightly tinny through your headphones.

“Not good,” you were almost excited to report on how badly the date had gone. “I would rate your matchmaking skills like a 4 out of 10 right now!”

“Excuse me?” Minghao stopped in his tracks. Surely he had misheard you.

“Four. Out of ten.” you repeated yourself, grinning at the way you could tell he was surprised by your feedback.

“No, that can’t be right.”

“Allow me to elaborate,” you pressed on as you decided to take the long way home so you could regale Minghao with every last detail of why your date with Wonwoo had not been stellar. “First…could you have found someone more quiet or disinterested to have set me up with? You’d think I was trying to pull his teeth out!”

    Minghao squeezed his eyes together. He and Wonwoo had built up their rapport over many years and he’d somehow forgotten just how tight-lipped his friend could be when meeting someone new.

“Also his only hobby seems to be gaming? I don’t know anything about that nor do I have an interest,” you continued. “Ah, it’s so nice out!” you commented as an aside while you pulled a pink bloom to your nose to inhale.

“Oh are you outside?” Minghao couldn’t help but ask.

“Yep, I’m walking home!” you nodded, “Oh I’m glad I took the long way! I forgot how much I like this park.”

“It is a nice day out,” Minghao looked out the glass panes of his office. He was painfully close to the end of his day and truth be told, he was excited to run out the clock with you on the phone. “So anyways, where are my four points coming from, because I haven’t heard anything positive yet.”

“Oh, well, I mean. I’m going to chalk that up to Wonwoo’s looks, really. He’s unbelievably handsome. Almost too handsome!” you threw your hands up in the air, drawing a few odd looks from other pedestrians.

    Minghao laughed. It was true, Wonwoo was probably his most conventionally attractive friend, so it wasn’t a surprise to hear you say it too.

“Okay, so then…very cold on the personality traits, but very hot on the physical features. I can work off of that,” Minghao nodded, scanning through his mental roster of friends. Luckily, Wonwoo was probably the most introverted of them all, so it could only go upwards from here.

“Yep. Oh which! I have a candidate for you,” you clapped excitedly as you waited for the crosswalk to turn green. “My friend Yena!”

    Minghao nodded contemplatively as you rattled off the list of compatible points that you saw for him and this Yena. He had his doubts, but he put your proposed date and time in his calendar. A deal was a deal.

“Okay, I’m almost home, so I’m going to hang up now! I’ll text Yena to confirm! Eee, I’m excited to hear what you think!”

“Okay, bye,” Minghao laughed, glancing at the clock again. It was officially quitting time, so he packed up his bag and headed out of the office. You’d been right, it was a beautiful day out, so he decided to switch up his commute as well. As he walked, he found himself wondering which park you had passed through on your way home.

…

[yn]: ‘sooooooo…………yena?!?!???!’

[minghao]: ‘6/10’

    You narrowed your eyes in disbelief. Six out of ten?!

[yn]: ‘BE SO FUCKIN FR RIGHT NOW’

[minghao]: ‘no, I actually really liked her, but she said she doesn’t eat chinese food?! i can’t live like that’

    What? Surely you had eaten Chinese food with Yena before, right? You racked your brain, but unfortunately came up empty handed. You had to admit, that was a big blind spot on your part.

[yn]: ‘.........i guess that has never come up before. my bad! i know that’s important to you’

[yn]: ‘i’m still up 2 tho! 6 against your 4.’

    Minghao threw his head back to laugh. You were so competitive.

[yn]: ‘ok feedback on other qualities tho! plz & thank u’

    Minghao waited, an amused smile on his lips, for your three dots to vanish before providing your requested feedback. As he had said, overall he had quite enjoyed meeting Yena. She had been a little quiet and shy at first, but had opened up quite a bit as the date went on. They shared an interest in art and had had quite a nice discussion before she revealed that she did not like Chinese food. Normally an aversion to specific food wouldn’t bother Minghao so much, but after moving, it was important for him to continue to engage with his culture and food was a major way in which he did that.

[yn]: ‘ok, got it, got it. that makes perfect sense’

    A soft smile settled on his lips. Minghao was glad that you weren’t taking too much offense to his negative feedback. Part of him was glad that the date hadn’t gone that well and he was sure that it was just his competitive nature. It would have been humiliating for him if you had actually found him someone perfect on the first try.

[minghao]: ‘what are your plans for the weekend?’

[yn]: ‘theres a textile and apparel exhibit opening at the folk art museum that i wanted to check out’

[minghao]: ‘oh?? i was planning to go too! when are you going?’

    You cocked your head curiously at your phone. That was weird. But you realized it would be very helpful to observe Minghao in the wild so as to do a better job choosing prospective dates for him. Then you could review your roster of candidates for him after the museum, so it could be a productive time! With a fluttery feeling in your chest, for whatever reason, you chose a meeting time to visit the museum with Minghao. Together.

…

    You tapped your fisted hands against your hips as you scanned the crowds for Minghao. It had been a few weeks since you had first met him in person and you had an unreasonable worry that you’d forgotten what his face looked like. Glancing at your watch, you wondered if you had gotten the time wrong.

“YN!” a clear voice caught your attention.

“Ah, there you are!” your face cracked into a smile up at Minghao. “Ok, I’m glad I decided to dress up!” you exhaled with relief after taking in his outfit. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he was interested in fashion.

“This outfit is very cool,” he nodded approvingly, eyes raking over you. An unreasonable warmth spread across you at his assessment. You had spent longer than usual picking and re-picking necklaces to match the hardware on your boots. It was nice to see that it was appreciated.

“Thank you!” you beamed up at him, eyes creasing into semi-circles. “Now let’s go!” you gestured forcefully at the museum entrance.

“Okay, okay,” Minghao chuckled goodnaturedly, allowing you to lead the way.

“Holy fuck,” you breathed, hands fisted in excitement as you peered closely at the thread and beadwork on a contemporary bobbin lace exhibit. “Unreal.”

    Minghao had to do a double take. Your mouth had fallen slightly open, enthralled, as you took in the detail and your eyes were as wide as saucers. You looked like a cartoon frog.

“You’ll catch a fly like that,” he teased, slipping two fingertips under your chin to snap your mouth shut.

    You narrowed your eyes at him. If you’d learned one thing today, it was that Minghao was quite prone to teasing. It was a good thing that you had agreed to this museum trip after all, because otherwise your list of next candidates would’ve been wildly out of order.

“Do you want to see the other exhibits too? Or are you only interested in fiber arts?” Minghao asked, looking up from the museum layout map.

“No, I’m interested in all mediums!” you nodded at him. “I just think textile arts have been woefully excluded from the mainstream art world because, you know, misogyny,” you rolled your eyes theatrically at him as you followed his lead. “So I am particularly interested when museums put together exhibits like that!”

    Minghao’s lips pinched slightly in amusement. He agreed with you, of course, but he found your animated enthusiasm in high contrast to the serious backdrop of the museum hall. He led the way to one of his favorite areas and you two passed the rest of the afternoon walking through the displays in contemplative quiet.

“I’m hungry,” you frowned as you left the museum.

“Me too,” Minghao grabbed at his midsection. “Let’s go find something to eat!”

“There’s a Chinese restaurant around here that I like! Let’s go there!” you suggested. Minghao nodded furiously, stomach grumbling insistently at him.

…

    You glanced at your date out of the side of your eye as you wondered how rude it might be to just leave. While Joshua was certainly your physical type, all arms and chest, you quickly found out that the contents of his brain were just not for you. You weren’t religious at all and if he broke out into song, singing ‘Sunday Morning’ at or near you one more time, you might actually run away.

    After going through the motions of saying goodbye, you pulled your phone out to dial Minghao as soon as you started walking home.

“Hello?” he answered, sounding slightly groggy.

“I need to understand your thought process with this one,” you shook your head in disbelief.

“Huh?” Minghao rubbed his eyes, pulling his phone away to check who had called. “Oh, hey! Sorry I just woke up.”

“Oh, did I wake you up?” you paused, “Shit, sorry! You didn’t have to answer me!”

“I didn’t know it was you! I also hadn’t meant to fall asleep,” Minghao chuckled and you heard some rustling of sheets in the background. “Sorry, what did you ask me again?”

“I need to know why you set me up with Joshua,” you frowned. “Do I give off a vibe that he’s my type?”

“Is he not?” Minghao wondered, “He’s more outgoing than Wonwoo, still handsome, and family oriented.”

“Okay, those things are true, but he’s also super religious, which I’m not. And I do not like to be sung at in public…or at all, I don’t think.”

“No, please,” Minghao started laughing, “Did he? I didn’t think he’d bring that out on a first date!” Minghao couldn’t stop laughing, practically kicking his feet in delight at the absurdity of it.

“Yeah, several times, in fact,” you rolled your eyes.

“Why are you so difficult to match for?” Minghao found himself asking. He was partially teasing, but also somewhat serious. People generally threw themselves at both Wonwoo and Joshua, so to hear you be so turned off by them was surprising and confusing.

“I’m not difficult! I think my expectations are more than reasonable,” you nodded firmly to yourself.

“Okay, elaborate on these expectations, please, because I’m clearly missing the mark.”

“Hm, well, okay. Someone funny and intelligent with a wide variety of interests or knowledge. Someone who would challenge me in ways that make me grow. Someone who also can understand that I should have my own endeavors and activities without feeling insecure. I dunno, someone who just gets me!”

“Very reasonable,” Minghao’s flat voice came back across the phone.

“It is reasonable!” you stamped your foot. You felt like he was teasing you again, but it was hard to tell over the phone.

“No, that’s helpful!” he clarified.

“Why are you asleep at 8pm anyways, you old man?” you suddenly remembered.

“Ugh, it was a long day,” he groaned into your ear, “I had to get to work early to prepare onboarding materials for new hires and then when I got home, I just passed out I guess.”

“Ah, well, do you want me to let you go? You should go back to sleep and catch up on yesterday.”

“No, I’m up now,” Minghao shook his head, reluctant to end the phone call. “Tell me about the restaurant, was the food at least good?”

    You smiled, happy to stay on the line with him. The food had indeed been good and you described your meal and cocktails to him in vivid detail. You were now in your second month of knowing Minghao and your relationship had evolved into a tentatively comfortable friendship. Between all of the set up activities, you’d actually gotten to know him a bit and grown used to discussing and sharing other aspects of your lives. Minghao was definitely an introvert, but he was well balanced with an energy and enthusiasm that ensured you were never bored.

…

“Wait, I’m confused. You told me that the date with Minghao didn’t go well, but you’ve stayed in touch with him?” Danbi’s forehead wrinkled in confusion.

“What are you confused about? That’s exactly right,” you returned her confused look.

“Why would you stay in touch with someone you don’t like?”

“I never said I didn’t like him!” you shook your head, confused at her statement.

“You liked him, but the date didn’t go well? Why wouldn’t the date go well if you like him?”

“I can like him as a friend and not want to date him!”

    Danbi narrowed her eyes at you. She didn’t think you were that petty, but it was almost as if you were purposefully maintaining a distance between yourself and Minghao just to spite her.

“So what do you two talk about?” she was curious.

“We’ve been setting each other up on dates! Supposedly he’s the friend group matchmaker, like me, but he’s pretty bad at it,” you chuckled, rolling your eyes. “But we talk about other things too! He likes art and fashion. We went to the textile exhibit opening a few weeks ago.”

    Danbi shook her head; she was lost. Wasn’t that just a date? Luckily she knew you better than to prod too much further.

“Well that’s good! It’s always nice to make a new friend,” she smiled at you, “He should come to Soonyoung’s housewarming party next week!”

“Should he?”

“Yeah, of course! Jeonghan will be there and I think he invited a few of his coworkers too so see if Minghao wants to come!”

“Ah, I guess so,” you nodded, somehow nervous, “I’ll ask, but no promises.”

“Sure!” Danbi laughed, “Now let me show you some pictures of Doyun with Jeonghan and his new partner! Who you also have to meet!”

You giggled happily as Danbi flipped through her photos. Doyun had always looked more like Seungcheol as a baby, but now that he was getting older, he was taking on more and more of your friend’s features.

“Ah, he looks so much like you there! Ahhhh!” you shook your fists excitedly.

“He does look more like me recently, doesn’t he?” she beamed proudly at you.

    For all the headache you had posed to her with this Minghao situation, she did love you and was grateful towards you for gently nudging her towards Seungcheol many years ago. You were very astute at reading others and as a result, she now had a wonderful husband and son. It had always interested and amused her that your insightfulness didn’t quite extend to yourself.

…

“Eeeee!” you and Soonyoung clapped your hands together excitedly after you’d sunk another ping pong ball into a plastic cup.

“Just perfect! Look at that technique! You duds don’t stand a chance!” he crowed, jeering at Seungcheol and Seokmin excitedly.

    Danbi giggled excitedly at her husband’s rotten luck, to which Seungcheol pouted.

“Ya! Who are you even cheering for?!” he shouted playfully, leveling an accusing finger at his wife, inspiring another round of giggles.

“Me, of course! I can find her another husband, she can’t find another me!” you laughed, jumping up and down in delight at the way that Seungcheol fumed.

“You’re dead!” he furrowed his brows at you, “You’re so dead!” He made a show of stretching his neck and shoulders before taking his next shot at beer pong.

“Hah!” you shouted and shook Hoshi excitedly, collapsing into a puddle of laughter as Seungcheol’s ball ricocheted dramatically off of the rim and bounced anticlimactically across the ground. “Oh no, oh Cheol please I’m crying!” you hiccuped, wiping your eyes.

    Minghao had slipped in quietly while you were taunting Seungcheol and he was shocked at the way you did it so loudly and unapologetically. He didn’t know Seungcheol quite that well yet, but he had been under the impression that he probably shouldn’t be messed with too much. A smile toyed at the corners of his mouth before he moved away to grab a beverage.

“You made it!” Danbi appeared at his side while he popped the cap off of a beer.

“Hi Danbi,” Hao smiled kindly at her. He had met Danbi through Jeonghan a while ago and for whatever reason, she had really taken a shine to him.

“Did you find the place alright?”

“Yes, YN’s instructions were very easy to follow.”

“Great! Let me know if there’s anyone here that you haven’t met yet, but I think you may know them all!”

    Minghao nodded. Looking around the room, it did seem like he knew most of the attendees. Jeonghan and his girlfriend were flanked by a few of their other coworkers. By some miracle Seokmin and Seungcheol had both managed to find babysitters tonight, and so were able to attend with their wives, Hana and Danbi. Joshua was on another date, after he and YN had not managed to hit things off, so Jeonghan’s friend group was short just one of the usual count.

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” you laughed with Hoshi after winning yet another game of beer pong. You and he had been nearly undefeatable since college and it was nice to see that this hadn’t changed, even after he had moved away for a few years. “Oh pink?” you wondered aloud when you spotted Minghao chatting with Jeonghan over a beer.

“You’re here!” you interrupted their conversation easily, fingers itching to touch his pink hair. “Is this a fade out color?”

“Yes,” he laughed, “The murder scene every time I showered was starting to get old.”

“I can’t believe your hair hasn’t just fallen straight out of your head,” Jeonghan’s girlfriend shook her head with a laugh.

“Hah!” you laughed heartily, struggling to imagine Minghao bald.

“I’d love it if you didn’t curse me with this foul energy,” he rolled his eyes at all of you.

“Did you all see how I swept the floor with Seungcheol? Again?” you crowed excitedly to Jeonghan.

“Yes, yes, very good,” Jeonghan rolled his eyes at you. You were always such a braggart about pong.

“I can’t believe he lets you tease him like that,” Minghao gestured to Seungcheol incredulously.

“Ah, I’m a lovable scamp!” you shrugged, sticking your tongue out at your newest friend.

“That’s true,” Hao laughed, a soft smile crossing his face.

    Jeonghan and his girlfriend both looked at Minghao with interest while your attention was pulled elsewhere. Danbi and Hana summoned you from across the room so you gave everyone a small wave before you left.

“So-,” Jeonghan opened his mouth to dig, but his girlfriend stopped him with a quick shake of her head. She knew Minghao would not respond to anything that direct, so it was best to meddle gently.

“What is it?” you asked once you were close enough to Danbi and Hana for them to hear you.

“We were wondering if Minghao had set you up on a successful date yet?” Hana asked, “If not, I actually met this kind of cool guy at the school yesterday.”

“Oh, no, not yet. I actually need to follow up with him on that,” you shook your head.

“Follow up? You’re being so project manager-y about this,” Hana laughed.

“I mean…it is a project that I’m managing,” you flushed, already knowing that you would say no to Hana’s proposed guy.

“Well, what do you think? He came to service the computers, so he works in IT. He���s tall, pretty broad, and has a very nice smile.”

“What’s his personality like?” you queried. It didn’t make any sense at all, but for whatever reason you felt guilty of the idea of being set by someone other than Minghao.

“I didn’t get to talk to him too much, but he seemed nice! He volunteers at an animal shelter.”

“Aww,” Danbi cooed excitedly.

“You’re going to make fun of me for saying this, but I don’t think I care,” you inhaled deeply before rejecting Danbi’s proposal. “It feels weird to think about going on a date with someone that Minghao doesn’t pick for me. So I kind of want to see how things play out with that?”

“I’m not going to make fun of you!” Danbi looked at you indignantly.

“I am!” Hana made a face at you, “You are so attached to him, like come on YN!” she gestured forcefully at you.

“Of course I’m attached to him, we’re friends!” you shrugged. “I’m attached to you doofuses too,” you gestured back with your palms up. Hana and Danbi laughed. Your love language was, indeed, teasing and they’d grown used to it long ago. You were watching them whisper to each other suspiciously before Danbi jutted her chin out, pointing at something behind you.

“Oh, JESUS!” you jumped after realizing Minghao was standing behind you. “Snuck up on me, fuckin’ hell,” you mumbled curses as you put a few paces between him and yourself.

“Let’s go play beer pong. Apparently you’re unstoppable and I need to witness this for myself,” he smirked, giving you a disbelieving once over.

“Don’t…,” you found yourself shivering under his gaze, “Look at me like that! I will win,” you let yourself think that you had recovered smoothly.

    With each ball that Minghao sank into your cups, you stood up just a little straighter and your expression grew just a little more baffled. You’d never been in such a closely matched game of pong before and, honestly, you didn’t care for it.

“Hey, let’s make this more interesting,” Minghao spoke up when you were each down to one cup. You raised an eyebrow at him, gesturing for him to proceed with his idea. “If I win, I take you out on a date.”

“I-,” you choked, heart clogging your throat momentarily. “What?”

“For research purposes,” he clarified, triple checking his foot placement as he squared up his aim. “You can give me feedback and that’ll help me better tailor my matches for you in the future.” He launched the ball into the air and it sailed into your final cup easily.

“I-, wait,” you stuttered, partially in disbelief over your loss and partially for a reason that you weren’t able to identify yet. Your mouth opened and closed a few times before you could accept it.

“What, are you scared?” Minghao stepped towards you. He felt a perverse joy in the way you were reacting to his win. Something about seeing you flounder tickled his brain very specifically.

“You lost fair and square!” Soonyoung waved you off to make room for the next players.

“What exactly would I be scared of?” you blustered as Minghao herded you away from the table. “A date with you?”

“Scared you’ll like it,” he laughed, peering down at you, stepping into your personal space just slightly.

“Hah!” you let out a honking laugh. That was absurd, right? “Fine, take me out on our little date. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of feedback.”

“Great,” he grinned at you, patting you on the head condescendingly.

    You were baffled. You could tell you were blushing and you weren’t really sure if you could just blame it on the beer pong loss. You snuck a glance at Minghao, whose attention was back on the party, watching Soonyoung trounce Seokmin quite soundly. He was right, you were terrified for this date.

…

“Ugh you look so cute!” Hana squealed excitedly, “It’s such a shame it’s just for a practice run!”

    You chuckled. Sure, it was true that this date with Minghao was just for research purposes, but it hadn’t stopped you from thinking of it as if it were real.

‘wear a dress or skirt. something short or unrestricted at the bottom and shoes you can move in’ was all of the instruction that Minghao had given you.

“Maybe he’s taking you dancing?” Hana wondered aloud. “It’s kinda romantic that he’s keeping everything a surprise!”

“So romantic,” you parroted at her sarcastically.

    You didn’t know why, but you felt quite nervous about this one. You had been on more than your fair share of first dates recently, so it really didn’t make sense to feel this way about the fake one. Probably just because everything was a surprise.

“Ya! Why am I nervous!?” you jumped up and down aggressively, shouting at yourself.

    Hana shrugged, even though she knew the answer. Best to let you come to your own epiphany. She fretted and cooed the appropriate amount as she helped you finish your makeup and hair. You were satisfied when you looked in the mirror, but that didn’t make your armpits any less sweaty. Thank god for prescription grade antiperspirant.

“Ready?” Minghao greeted you at your door with a bouquet of flowers around half an hour later.

“I think,” you eyed him suspiciously, still irked that he hadn’t spilled a single clue about your activities.

“Put these in water so we can go!” he thrust the bouquet at you impatiently.

“Okay, okay,” you muttered. You scanned the blooms quickly and were pleased and surprised that all of them were cat safe. He’d remembered. You grabbed an empty jar and plunked the stems into it before returning to Minghao. “Is this outfit acceptable?” you paused to check, turning in a full circle so he could inspect.

“Yes,” he nodded, eyes full of something you couldn’t quite place, but it vanished just as quickly. “Now let’s go! We need to be on time.”

    Minghao shepherded you into the car and drove towards your destination. You were, strangely, at a loss for words and so spent the time inspecting his car and marveled at how clean it was. Usually you couldn’t stop yourself from babbling about nonsense at him, but this simulated date seemed to have rendered you speechless. As he pulled into the parking lot, your eyes lit up reading the sign.

“Hana was right!” you grinned at him triumphantly. “It is dancing!”

“Yes,” he chuckled at your expression. It wasn’t like you were the one who had guessed right, but he’d never know that with the way you beamed at him. “Intro to Rumba! I thought it’d be fun to try something new together.”

“Rumba?” you thought hard. You weren’t well versed in ballroom dance styles, but the name rang a bell. You had definitely seen it on a ‘Something-est Things To Do With Your Partner’ kind of list. “I don’t know how to dance,” you whispered to Minghao as the other students filtered into the class.

“That’s why it’s fun,” he grinned down at you.

    After beating you at beer pong last week, Minghao had been itching to get the upper hand on you again. While he wasn’t very skilled at ballroom, he did have some dance experience from his past. Rumba was also fairly sensual in nature and he would be lying if he said he wasn’t looking forward to watching you squirm and be flustered over it.

    With your hands tucked behind your back, you watched intently as the instructors demonstrated the short routine that you would work on during class. You did your best to keep your cool, but you felt like everyone probably heard the sound of your loud gulp as you registered just how close together you would be with Minghao. There was probably technically some distance between the instructors, but not that you could see with the naked eye.

    Minghao blinked a few times as he watched the demo with you. This was closer quarters than any other style of dance he had ever tried before and he wondered if he had made a mistake.

“Okay, right hand to left hand. Leading partner’s right hand on the following partner’s waist. Following partner’s left hand resting gently at the back of the leading partner’s neck,” the instructions came.

“Okay, right hand here, left hand here,” you muttered to yourself as Minghao clasped his left hand into your right and you hooked your left hand around the back of his neck. You managed to follow the first set of steps without tripping over yourself too spectacularly, but the next combination threw you for quite the loop.

“So now comes a sexy part,” the instructors grinned mischievously, “Leading is going to spin the following out and then pull them back in to face them. And then following partner is going to drop in a slow and sexy wiggle, their hand trailing down the leading partner’s chest.

    Oh. Your lips pursed as your mind painted the mental picture of what that would look like. You resisted the urge to glance furtively at Minghao, pink rising in your cheeks.

    Next to you, Minghao blinked. Once, twice, and then one more time for good measure. He had been so busy considering how this class might affect you that he hadn’t even thought of himself. The idea of you trailing your fingertips down the centerline of his chest made him want to shake his head furiously.

“Five, six, seven, eight!” The rapid counts snapped both of you out of your thoughts. “Spin out!”

    You held onto Minghao’s fingers tightly as you spun away from him.

“Fancy arm!”

    You flung your arm out theatrically and were inordinately pleased to make Minghao laugh.

“Now tuck your arm as you spin back in!” the instructions continued.

    You bit your lip to keep from laughing before you brought your arm back to your center and spun into Minghao’s chest. Slowly, your hips drew figure eights as you worked your way down into a squat and your eyes followed your hand’s slow trail down his chest. Like watching a train wreck.

    Minghao looked to the instructors for the next directions, desperate to be not looking at you. He wanted to groan. Even in this wordless touch, you were mischievous, not drawing straight down, but rather trailing a wavy line, timed with the movement of your hips on the way down.

“Now leading partner, you are going to pull them back up! Forceful! Dramatic! What are they doing down there? They’re up to no good!”

    You had wanted to laugh, but when Minghao dragged you back up to your feet and looked deeply into your eyes…all of that went out the window. For a moment, the directions barked by the instructors faded into the background and all you could hear was a soft buzzing in your ears as you held his gaze.

“Very good, very good you two!” the instructors clapped excitedly as they walked towards you. “Tension! Eye contact! That’s what the rumba is all about, excellent!”

“Thank you!” You almost shouted. You were so excited to be able to rip your eyes away from Minghao that you plastered a wide grin across your face and gave an awkward thumbs up to the whole class.

“How do you do this dance without falling in love with each other?” another student wondered aloud.

“You don’t!” the instructor replied with a laugh. “Every so often you get a pair that falls in love and gets married, but in general you break up but you keep dancing together because you have good physical chemistry.”

“Yikes.” you turned to Minghao with a bemused look on your face. You were relieved to see that the tension seemed to have dissipated and he found your instructor’s comments as strange as you did. The rest of the class passed with relative ease, but the feel of his fingers resting at your waist and nipping into your hips certainly lingered longer than was ideal.

“What’d you think?” Minghao asked as he started driving to the next destination.

“That was fun,” you nodded after some consideration. “Definitely out of the box and a new experience for me. Also a very good way to gauge physical chemistry. Honestly a very good early date activity. Ten out of ten.”

    He preened under your compliment. You wondered what your next activity would be, but knew that asking would get you nowhere, so you tried to fill your brain with other thoughts. After a while, you ran out of things to think about and your eyes decided to regard Minghao as he drove. His right hand lingered at the gearshift, fingers tapping every so often as his eyes stayed glued to the road. You shifted in your seat as you watched the tendons of his forearms flex in a very distracting way. The way he looked when he was focused was…unfortunately attractive.

    Minghao could feel your eyes on him as he drove. He struggled to keep his attention on the road as his mind played back snippets from class. Namely, the moment when he had pulled you back up to your feet and locked eyes with you for just a little too long. Your eyes had widened and your lips had parted just slightly as you gazed back up at him and rational thought had almost left him completely.

“No, Minghao! Really?!” you squealed excitedly as he pulled into the parking lot of the botanical garden. “You remembered!”

“Of course,” he nodded, parking the car. You had mentioned the Poisonous Plants special exhibit off-handedly a few weeks ago and he had filed it away in his brain. He liked the botanical garden too.

“Look how beautiful!” you gasped as you looked at the Atropa belladonna, or Deadly Nightshade. “I can’t believe a flower this beautiful is also poison! Isn’t that cool? Such a good name too.”

    Minghao chuckled. You were making your little frog face again. He didn’t know if he thought of poison as cool, but he enjoyed seeing your excitement over such a morbid topic. The expression you made when you were enthralled by something was painfully endearing to him.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” you wrapped your arms around him excitedly as you headed towards the exit archway of the garden.

“You’re welcome,” Minghao was surprised by your sudden physical affection. “You’re such a nerd, I’m glad you had a good time,” he teased as his arms folded around your waist naturally.

    You wrinkled your nose at him playfully. You couldn’t help the slight hitch in your breath before you pulled away, looping your arm in his happily as you walked through the other areas of the garden. This closeness grew less and less foreign as the day went on and was directly correlated to your concern for your own sanity.

…

“So…what do you think?” Minghao inquired after you had settled in at your table at a rooftop restaurant and bar. He really enjoyed the ambiance here and thought you’d enjoy the food as well.

“Of?” you replied blankly, having been busy reading over the menu.

“Our date?” his brows creased together, he had not been expecting that response.

“Oh! Good! Really good, actually,” you nodded, trying to speak of it in a detached way. “You did a really good job picking activities and this restaurant. This menu is so interesting! But at the same time, I feel like you are at an unfair advantage because you know me pretty well by now. I don’t think this is a reasonable expectation to have for a first blind date. I also probably wouldn’t agree to so many things in one day with them, because what if we didn’t hit it off? Also wouldn’t let them drive me because what if they’re a murderer?”

“You think I’d set you up with a murderer?”

“You never know,” you shook your finger at him playfully, “People are full of surprises, unfortunately.”

    Minghao watched you as you watched the sunset. He agreed with you, this had been a really good date. For whatever reason, you had leaned into the physical affection at the botanical garden and it had made his brain go haywire. He found that he not only didn’t want this date to end, but he wanted a second and a third (maybe to infinity) with you. He wanted to watch you try really hard at things that you had never done before and wanted to watch you make your little cartoon frog face when you were delighted by something.

“What?” you asked, turning back to meet Minghao’s lingering gaze.

“Nothing. I’m just having a really great time with you today,” he smiled back.

    Your smile faltered as your heart pounded. You searched his face for some hint that he was teasing you, like usual, but it wasn’t there.

“Minghao!” an excited voice pulled your attention away suddenly. You turned to see two men, one tall and muscular and the other slighter and shorter.

“Mingyu, Jae,” Minghao waved at them easily, “Coworkers,” he explained to you as they approached. “This is YN.”

“Oh, are you on a date?” the taller man’s eyes flitted between you and Minghao, slowly coming to a realization.

“Wait no. YN. No, they’re not dating!” the other man interjected as he connected his brain cells, “Jeonghan told me about this! You two have been setting each other up on dates, right? Or something like that?”

“That’s right,” you laughed, “So sorry, who’s Mingyu and who’s Jae?”

“Ah, sorry, yes,” Minghao chuckled, “Mingyu and Jae,” he gestured towards them respectively.

“Nice to meet you,” you smiled, unable to help the way your eyes raked over Mingyu. He was your exact physical type and his eyes sparkled obviously at you when he talked.

“Well, we’ll get out of your hair! We were on our way out,” Jae nodded at you after not too long.

“I hope to see you again sometime,” Mingyu smiled at you, leaning down for another handshake before they left. Minghao bristled.

“Him,” you turned to Minghao, oblivious to his irritation. “Set me up with him, he’s my exact type!”

“Mingyu?” Minghao’s nose wrinkled slightly. “You don’t even know him.”

“He’s so hot though,” you exhaled theatrically, not really caring what his personality was like when he had a body like that. “That’s what a blind date is for, right? Blind to the red flags that I don’t want to see.”

    Minghao scoffed at your absurdity. On the one hand, Mingyu was a perfectly nice guy. Maybe too eager and bubbly for you, but he trusted that he could treat you well. On the other hand, he had just been grappling with the idea of wanting you for himself, so the two sides of his brains clashed violently and he really had no explanation for the next word that left his mouth.

“Beg.”

“Excuse me?” you must have misheard him.

“Beg me. And I’ll set you up with him,” he leaned back, smirk playing across his lips as he teased you mercilessly.

“P-please?” you stuttered, thighs pressing together inexplicably at the look on his face.

“Cuter,” he goaded you, tongue tracing across his lips as the flush rose in your cheeks. Your heart threatened to stop.

“Hao, please?” your eyes became doe-like and your lower lip pouted out just slightly. You didn’t even know why you were humoring him, you’d never let a man make you beg for anything before.

“There, see? That wasn’t so hard,” he sat back up, clearing his throat slightly as he glanced away. “I’ll set it up,” he nodded, heart sinking in his chest.

“Great,” you smiled, chest feeling tight. Your heart was racing.

…

    You found yourself perplexed and kicking a small pebble down the sidewalk after your date with Mingyu. It wasn’t that it had gone poorly, no in fact just the opposite. You were surprised that he had even been available to be set up because he was, on paper, perfect. He was funny, sweet, eager and all in that body? It was simply unfair.

    No, the thing that you were confused and frustrated about was that you didn’t really want to go on another date with him. For whatever reason, the only feeling you could muster for him was a lukewarm fondness and it really made you mad. Typically, you would call Minghao to debrief, but you were mad at him too! Your date with him last week was the reason the bar was so unreasonably high now, after all.

“Damn,” you sighed to yourself as you gave the poor pebble another swift kick.

…

    Minghao glanced at his phone, irritated to see that you still hadn’t messaged him with any updates. Dinner had to be over by now, right? Normally you at least snuck away to text him from the bathroom, so for his phone to be this dry could only be a sign that the date had gone well. Probably too well.

[mingyu]: ‘dude! YN is wonderful! thank you for setting this up!’

[hao]: ‘ah, so it went well?’

[mingyu]: ‘i think so! she’s cool as hell man’

[mingyu]: ‘she makes such a cute face when she gets excited’

    Minghao saw red for a moment. The intensity of his jealousy caught him by surprise and he had to reign himself in before he replied to Mingyu’s text.

[hao]: ‘yeah, i like her too, lol’

    Minghao threw his phone onto the sofa. Stupid idiot.

…

[hao]: ‘are you ever going to admit defeat or are you going to just ignore me forever?’

    You had been doom scrolling in bed when his text appeared and before you knew it, you were calling him.

“Hey,” his voice was soft when he picked up. The way his heart had jumped when he’d seen your incoming call was unreasonable.

“Hi,” you greeted him, your voice sounded small.

“So…,” Minghao waffled. He didn’t really want to talk about Mingyu, but he wasn’t really sure what else to talk to you about. “Mingyu said he liked you.”

“Oh, did he?” you chuckled, “He seems like the type of person that likes everyone.”

    Hao laughed because you weren’t wrong.

“It went well, though, right?” He wished that, like all the other dates, this one had been a dud too.

“It was okay,” you shrugged, “I don’t see myself going on another date with him though, to be honest. He’s a little too…I don’t know?” you trailed off trying to explain.

“Oh?” Minghao’s voice piqued with interest, “Well I’m starting to run out of friends,” he joked.

“I don’t think I want you to set me up with any more of your friends,” you sighed. “No more first dates for a while, I think.”

    Minghao froze as he saw his opening. He knew he would forever be kicking himself if he didn’t take the shot now.

“Are you home?”

“Yes?”

“Okay, I’m in the middle of errands, but I’ll be there in ten. I have to ask you something in person.”

“Oh okay.”

    Minghao didn’t leave much more room for discussion as he hung up and turned the car around, driving towards your place. You checked your appearance nervously as you waited.

[hao]: ‘here’

    Your pulse pounded in your ears as you opened the door for him, more nervous now than you had been for your date.

“Hi,” he greeted you from under a black baseball cap. It was annoying how he looked so good in it. “Can I come in?”

“No,” you joked as you opened the door for him.

“So no more first dates, does that mean you’re officially tapping out of our game?” he asked, looking down at you.

“N-,” your instinct was to push back, but he was right this time. “I mean, yes, I guess so. I’m tired of this meeting people business, I just want to spend time with people that I already like.”

“Would that include me?” he grinned, stepping towards you and until you backed into the kitchen counter.

“I-, I have mixed feelings about you,” you answered honestly, unable to meet his gaze.

“Can I take you out on a second date?” he ducked his head towards yours, hands coming to rest at your hips.

“I-,” you squeezed your eyelids together. In the past you would’ve panicked, but this closeness was now familiar to you and you only wanted to sink into it further. “Maybe you should beg this ti-,” you raised your brows, flicking your eyes mischievously to his.

“Ah!” Minghao cut you off sternly. “I’d think twice about that.”

“But-,” you couldn’t help yourself.

    He cut you off with a firm grip at the base of your throat. His longer fingers tapped against the side of your neck as he regarded you sternly. “Will you behave?”

    You knew you should say yes. Part of you might have even wanted to say yes, but you were you to your core. “Maybe.”

“We’ll just have to see, won’t we?” he teased you in a sing-songy voice. “Where’s your bedroom?”

“There,” you pointed to a door towards your right. Without so much as a warning, you found yourself being hauled and plunked onto the edge of your bed.

“You have been driving me crazy for months, so let’s see if I can return the favor,” he looked down at you, tongue poking in his cheek.

“Months?” you wondered, thighs squeezing together nervously.

“Yes, months,” Minghao reached out and patted you on the cheek condescendingly. “So picky and difficult about every single person that I set you up with. Were you doing it on purpose or did you really not notice?”

“Not on purpose! They just…,” you trailed off sheepishly.

“What’s that? Speak up.”

“They sucked cause you’re bad at picking,” you squinted at him defiantly. You hated that you loved the way he was treating you.

“Try again?” he grabbed you around the jaw, his fingertips pressing your lips into an unflattering fish face. You could see in his eyes that he wouldn’t humor you for much longer.

“They weren’t you,” came your muffled reply, your lips moving in an exaggerated manner between his long fingers.

“One more time?” Minghao’s eyes danced at you, fingers relinquishing their grip. He wanted to hear it again, clearly.

“They weren’t you!” you replied, sickeningly sweetly eyes creasing into sarcastic half moons as you smiled at him.

“Tch,” he scoffed, pushing you back onto the bed and climbing over you. “You are so difficult,” he shook his head as his eyes raked across you, admiring your shape. “You’re lucky I like you.”

    You let out a simpering sigh as his lips nibbled from just behind your earlobe down to your collarbone. His teeth nipped roughly as his fingertips trailed from your knee to your hip and gripped tightly.

“Hao,” you sighed, “Kiss me?”

“Hmm, do you deserve that?” he rebutted, pulling back to look in your eyes.

“Please?” you pouted, tugging at the front of his shirt. “I’ll be good.”

“Somehow I don’t believe you,” he laughed, his lips grazing yours.

“Minghao, please,” you insisted and he indulged you.

    Minghao brought his lips to yours, kissing you thoroughly. His hands kneaded possessively at your hip as you nipped at his lips. Your kisses were peppered with soft moans and exaltations.

“You make such desperate sounds,” he teased appreciatively. You flushed at his description, but he wasn’t wrong. “Lay back and let me appreciate you,” he pressed a kiss to your temple before helping you undress completely.

    Starting at the bottom of the bed, he trailed soft, plush kisses from your ankles to your knees and then from your knees to your hips. He nipped, bit, and sucked his way up your inner thighs until you were glistening and slick for him. His fingers pried your legs apart, allowing him to taste you for the first time.

“Hao!” your thighs closed instinctively around his ears as he lapped long, leisurely strokes with his tongue. You heard him chuckle as he gripped above your knees, holding you open for him. He teased you with his hot breath, enjoying watching you shift and writhe, just for him.

“So gorgeous,” he rested his cheek against your thigh for a moment, enjoying the way your chest heaved with shallow breaths as you came down from the edge for the second time.

“Ming-hao!” you squealed as he brought his lips back around your clit, sucking with a torturous pressure. “I-, I-, I,” you malfunctioned, hand gripping his hair tightly as you came hard against his lips.

“Very good,” he grinned up at you, his lips and chin glossy with your slick. “Can I finger you now?”

“I mean, yes?” you laughed nervously, a little concerned at what his hands would be able to achieve after experiencing his mouth alone.

“Don’t cum until I say so,” he directed as his fingertips slid through your wet folds. “You are so wet,” he commented offhandedly as he pressed two fingers in a v-shape against you, squeezing around your swollen clit. Your mouth formed a silent ‘o’ shape as he ground his fingers against you, avoiding direct contact where you wanted it most.

“Hao,” you cried, hand resting around his wrist as you squirmed helplessly under him. “Why are you torturing me?!”

    Minghao paused for a moment. He supposed he was going a bit more out of his way to undo you than was typical for him. It wasn’t fair, but his pent up jealousy was manifesting and you were there to pay the price.

“Are you telling me you don’t like it?” he asked, cocking his head at you.

“Well, no,” you blushed, sinking into the pillow shyly.

“Then let me torture you a bit, sweetheart,” he grinned sweetly at you, fingers pinching together firmly around your clit again. “You’re so incredibly wet, just for me?” he marveled rhetorically as he slid two fingers into you, parting your wet, warm walls.

“Yes,” you nodded, pressing your hips up to meet him. You rolled your hips, desperate for as much as he would give. “More,” you begged until he added a third finger, stretching you slightly.

“Look at you,” Hao cooed appreciatively, nipping at your upper thigh as he stroked his fingers in and out of your deeply. The scrape of his teeth oversensitized you suddenly and you became a whimpering, desperate mess quickly.

“Hao, please, darling,” you clutched at him urgently, “I need, please let me cum!”

“Cum for me, darling,” he cooed the pet name back at you as he kept up the pace until you had collapsed into a pile of mush for him. “So good,” he praised you, pressing soft kisses along your jaw as you recomposed yourself.

“Blurple?” you asked, now that you had the presence of mind to register his hair color. “This is pretty,” you grinned, running your fingers through the colorful strands.

“You’re pretty,” he nuzzled you gently, fingertips trailing across the underside of your breasts.

“Oh,” you flushed.

“You are.”

“You are…wearing too many clothes,” you observed impishly, fingers tugging at his waistband. He laughed as he helped you shrug off his layers.

“How would you like me?”

    Minghao visibly thought as he slipped on a condom. “You would look absolutely gorgeous on top of me, riding me,” he smiled.

    You flushed, grinning at his flowery praise as you straddled his hips, grinding yourself along his length. Your hands splayed across his chest and you took a moment to admire his lithe physique. “So handsome,” you whispered before lowering yourself onto him slowly.

“Fuck,” he hissed as you took him in completely. The tendons in his neck were taut as you drew back up and back down.

“You feel good, Hao,” you breathed, holding onto him for support as your hips found a comfortable rhythm. Each stroke, each intrusion made you shudder with pleasure and the wet sounds were joined by your soft moans and Minghao’s tense hisses.

“You feel incredible, petal,” he grabbed you tightly around the ribcage, bringing you down on him with slightly more force. You faltered at the additional impact.

“I’m so close,” you leaned forward, looking directly into Minghao’s eyes. Nodding, he gripped your hips, grinding your clit against his pubic crest as he bucked up, deeply, into you.

“Come with me, YN,” he coaxed breathlessly. The way he purred your name undid you. An anguished wail left your lips as you clenched around him, triggering his release as well.

“So did I earn a second date?” Minghao teased as he folded you into his chest, cuddling you closely.

“I think you might have,” you grinned up at him, pressing a soft kiss to his nose.

“Danbi is going to be happy when she finds out about this,” Minghao chuckled into your hair.

“Oh we’re never going to hear the end of it,” you moaned. “Maybe let’s no-”

“Ah,” he reached to press your jaw shut and you stilled. You delighted at this subtle, domineering action. Quite a match indeed.

#minghao fic #svthub #minghao fluff #minghao smut #the8 fic #the8 smut #the8 fluff #seventeen fic #seventeen smut #seventeen fluff #minghao imagine #minghao scenario #the8 imagine #the8 scenario #seungkwansphd:writes #we get along infamously #minghao fanfic #the8 fanfic

[bluemidnightmelody]

lover/fighter - my favorite moments

[Little snippets from my Finnick/OC longfic that are stuck in my head]

From Chapter 43 - My crying hero

Finnick licks his lips and sighs softly before facing the icy sea of her eyes. "It's not quite over, but for us it is," he explains. It is both doom and salvation. He constantly longs for it to finally be over, but the end always means defeat in a way, a failure for him.

"Oh no, I'm so sorry." Rhea suddenly seems to forget her own worries and all that remains is sympathy. Even if his wording was more than vague, it can only be interpreted in one way. Hector has died. If she was feeling better, she should have realized it sooner, because if he was still a mentor, he wouldn't be here, he would be fulfilling his duties.

"Yes, me too," he replies weakly. It came as such a surprise after he'd spent the last three days preoccupied with nothing but Hector. Of course, he always takes his task seriously, but this time the fact that he needed to somehow distract himself from Rhea was also a factor. To stop his thoughts from running amok in his head, he poured all his energy into Hector and convinced himself more than ever that he would get the boy out of the arena alive. It all looked good until the wind suddenly changed.

"It only happened just now, and I couldn't bear to go back. Then somehow I ended up here." He has to turn his head away as his self-control threatens to go. Saying it out loud makes it so much worse, plus the overwhelming exhaustion and still very fresh emotional stress from the service he's done for Ambrose.

The only person who has seen him cry in years is Mags, but that could be about to change as his eyes are already getting moist. Even in front of Annie he pulls himself together, because there's no way she needs to see him like this, but at home in District 4 it's usually easier than here.

Otherwise, he manages to escape into some dark corner, at least for such weak moments. Now he has neither the opportunity nor the strength to run away while Rhea pulls him close this time. The result is that they are now sitting intertwined on the sofa, with her half-sitting on his lap, hugging him to her chest and gently running her fingers through the soft hair above his neck as he is wrapped around her, both to keep her from falling off and to keep himself grounded.

"It's not your fault," she whispers somewhere near his ear. She doesn't need to know what's really going on in his head, because the guilt he's radiating is almost palpable. Somewhere in the back of her mind is the question of where exactly he came from when he says he didn't want to go back. What could have prompted him to leave the Victory Building despite the mentoring, especially while Hector's situation is uncertain? The answer is pretty obvious and only makes it worse.

Finnick can just about hold back the emotional outburst but balances on the very edge of a ledge. He feels his fluttering breath, which he can't calm, and stammers with difficulty, "But it kind of is." His tribute needed him, and he wasn't there.

Rhea bites her lip, and she feels the trembling in his back as she strokes it gently in an attempt to calm him. The worst state she has seen him in so far was when she had to rescue him from that nightclub, but tonight probably supersedes that memory. When she reviews it all again, it's actually amazing how often she's seen him in such weak and vulnerable moments, but he's never been as close to her as he is now. It's not that she felt any less sorry for him back then, it's just different now.

Now and here, she has to admit to herself once and for all that there is nothing professional about this relationship anymore. There is not a shred of distance left, which is proven by the fact that Finnick is now emotionally closer to her than any of her friends. That doesn't mean they're any less important to her, it's just not the same.

"No. It isn't. You tried to save them and if you couldn't, no one else could have," she replies with honest conviction. Anyone would be lucky to have him as a mentor, as distorted as that may be, because she knows by now that there's probably nothing he wouldn't do to fulfill this task. She may not like it, but it is a fact that he will never be able to blame himself for not living up to his responsibilities.

"You are amazing. You have no idea how much."

They have already strayed so far from the path of a healthy relationship between doctor and patient that it makes no sense to hold on to it any longer. She'll happily leave the field entirely to Linus because, if she's honest, he's probably already doing most of her job as far as Finnick is concerned. It's certainly better this way, because otherwise it could all go in an unpleasant direction very quickly. On paper, everything can remain as it is, but the simple truth is that this has become something thoroughly personal and there's no point in trying to put any useless labels on it. There is no definition and therefore no standard procedure or behavioral protocol to follow or hold them back.

Finnick slowly understands what has actually brought him here. Getting the comfort he craves feels good and there seems nothing wrong with burying his face in her soft sweater. It's nice to be treated so tenderly, the way she plays with his hair, just the way he likes it, the way she smells so sweetly of vanilla, just like her whole home. "At the risk of coming across as conceited, can you please say that again?"

It doesn't sound the slightest bit conceited. It just sounds like someone who desperately needs some words of encouragement to avoid succumbing to the feeling of worthlessness that haunts them. She used to sound like that herself, and probably still does from time to time. "You're amazing, and trustworthy, and selfless, and anyone who thinks you wouldn't have done everything for this is an idiot," she says openly, and with enough emphasis to make it clear that these are not just empty words. "That also includes you, by the way. So, if you don't trust yourself, then believe me. I promised not to lie, and I know you've really done absolutely everything." And she comforts herself with the fact that it's really not a lie, even if she doesn't dare to speak the whole truth.

He has done truly everything, even if it means throwing away his own self-esteem for it. It's admirable in the most horrible way, what he willingly sacrifices for a game he knows no one can ever win. He deserves so much better than what this life is forcing on him.

She can feel it on her shoulder even before she hears it in his voice. Finnick has lost the battle with himself and can't stop the tears dampening the fabric of her sweater. "You're not so bad at this anymore," he replies, even if he has trouble getting the words out because of the lump in his throat.

Rhea remembers the conversation in District 4 when she told him how bad she was at comforting people. The truth is that it depends on the reason why someone feels bad. She's actually very empathetic, it's just that when it comes to topics where her eloquence fails, she sometimes looks a bit lost. But it is much more significant that he still remembers this. She doesn't realize it for the first time, but he seems to remember everything she's ever said to him, and she likes it when people can listen, really listen. "Yeah, and I don't know if you can tell, but I'm not even at my best right now," she remarks in an attempt to lighten the mood. He's usually so good at it, but today she has to take it from him.

It actually elicits a small laugh from Finnick, even if it almost sounds like a sob. "You've been practicing in secret, haven't you?" he asks, and you can detect the tiniest bit of amusement in his voice beneath the heavy layers of sadness, but that's enough for now.

"Just for you. You can feel honored," she counters the assertion with a light laugh. She can laugh again, she feels so much better, even though tears are now welling up in her eyes as well. It's so easy to make her cry at the moment, but this time she's not even sure if she's crying because she's sad or if something else has triggered it. What does it really matter?

Links to all the chapters: lover/fighter - Chapter Index

fanfiction on ao3 and wattpad

#finnick odair #finnick odair fanfic #finnick odair x oc #finnick x oc #finnick odair x reader #the hunger games x oc #hunger games #the hunger games #fanfiction #ao3

[moviemunchies]

Many years ago, someone was kicking around a script for a movie called ‘Scorn’ about a retired assassin getting pulled back into the life of a killer. Eventually, someone filmed it under a different title, starring Keanu Reeves and directed by a stuntman, and the result was John Wick. 

And no one wanted to buy this movie.

Lionsgate finally did, hoping that maybe, just maybe, this movie would be moderately successful.

And then this movie changed action film history.

(Also I had the great fun recently of sitting next to someone who was going into this movie pretty much blind.)

A simple story! A man is mourning the recent death of his wife. His wife left him a puppy to take care of to help him grieve and move on. But then after being firm but polite with some Russian gangster’s son, Russian mob douchebags break into his house, steal his car, and kill his dog. Except, it turns out that the guy who they screwed with isn’t just anyone, he’s John Wick, a former assassin for the Russian mob, known for completing impossible tasks, earning the nickname “Baba Yaga,”--not the Boogeyman, the one you call to kill the Boogeyman. Now John returns to the criminal underworld of NYC to find this loser who killed his dog, and absolutely destroy him.

So, as I said, I watched this with my brother, who did not know what this movie was actually about other than that it was an action movie. I’ve told him in previous conversations that the dog dies, but that evening I don’t know if he remembered that when we actually put in the movie, and I was very concerned that he would hate me when the dog died. Especially when he first saw that puppy and expressed excitement at how cute she was.

Luckily, my brother did not disown me and he seemed to enjoy the movie.

I have trouble reviewing this movie because so many of my thoughts about it are about how it fits with the other movies. It’s weird, for instance, that Marcus doesn’t come up in future films, nor does Addy in the Continental. And Perkins is a freaking idiot in hindsight, because the Continental is an international organization, and there’s no possible way to get out of the situation alive.

Of course, these aren’t issues if you only take the first movie by itself. And so I can’t judge the film on those issues. You should judge a film on its own terms.

Thankfully, this movie is fantastic.

Do you remember how standard action movies shot their action scenes before this movie? Do you remember Shaky Cam? That horrible thing where directors would make up for crappy choreography by having the camera shake and not show you exactly what the fudge is going on? It was such a pain to deal with. Sure, it made sense in the Bourne movies, because it’s supposed to be frantic and the title character’s brain is all scrambled. That’s not the case in a lot of action movies in the 2000’s and early 2010’s–in those instances, it was copying a deliberate stylistic choice because they thought it was the way it was supposed to be done, resulting in fight scenes that looked like crap. 

And then John Wick, which again, is directed by an actual stuntman, made a point to have wide shots and discernible actions in its major fight scenes, so that you could actually see what’s happening. And it’s wonderful! The point of the movie is watching John Wick take down a bunch of douchebag mobsters, and it’s going to make sure you see it, darn it!

What’s really fascinating about this movie is the worldbuilding. Not only is there a mob underworld of New York City, but it apparently runs by its own rules and has its own currency. The later movies reveal that this isn’t exclusive to NYC, but here we have no idea, and it feels mysterious by how much is implied without being said. They use gold coins to pay for everything, there’s a guy you pay to clean up the bodies, and apparently everyone in authority knows who John Wick is–including the local police officer. The Continental is such a cool idea I would love to see a movie or television series about it by itself.

Not an origin story for Winston, like what we actually got in the Peacock series (which I haven’t seen so I don’t know much about it). I mean, I would like to see a story about the everyday life of people working at these hotels.

[Also it’s a bummer we don’t see Addy again, Bridget Regan absolutely deserved to come back in one of these movies.]

The film raises the interesting question of, how do we create a likable assassin character? Most movies and video games do that by making it a revenge story, and to be fair, John Wick IS a revenge story. But it also shows us John being really nice to the people around him? One of the things that’s interesting and goes along with the worldbuilding is we see John interact with the people in the Continental and… he’s unfailingly polite and nice to them. They all love him, except the people who are trying to kill him. Like, yeah, he’s an assassin, but aside from the people who want him dead, he’s actually a really nice guy.

[sigh] If only they hadn’t killed his dog…

Okay, so the premise is kind of dumb, but that doesn’t change that it’s a really good movie. A surprisingly good movie, actually. I guess this is what you get when you tell a fairly basic story in a really interesting way. It’s a revenge story, but one that sounds unique and fun and interesting, with a cool protagonist and an intriguing world. What else can you ask for in an action movie?

[By the way, if you enjoy this movie, or the rest of the series, I highly recommend you look up the book They Shouldn’t Have Killed His Dog, which is about this series, how it got made, and the effects it has had on the action film genre.]

#John Wick #Movie Munchies #reviews #Keanu Reves

[louisetteschuunishenanigans]

(Apparently y'all liked when I posted about Danganronpa and I got this hc I want out there so here comes the food guys)

Is it likely we'll ever get another Danganronpa game? Nah

Do I want this nonexistent game to be about Rantaro's killing game and do I know exactly how it must end anyway? Hell yeah

Of course it's entirely possible that the Ultimate Survivor thing isn't a unique case in the in-universe DR franchise and it's just a way of bringing back a fan-favourite candidate like they probably do on reality shows.

But wouldn't it be MUCH more fun if Rantaro alone got that title bc he really was the sole survivor of his game, in what could have been a first in the series?

The thing with a series being as formulaic as DR is that the same structure becomes expected. NDRV3 Trial 1 worked so well bc according to The Formula, everyone can die EXCEPT the protagonist, so throwing that out the window is an instant shocker so long as it's decently executed. And while I have my issues with Kaede's plan and her just jumping to killing the mastermind like that (idk it just felt ooc for her to resort to killing so soon), I can't deny the twist was very well prepared and all that stealth foreshadowing HURTS on second watch.

So when all the shit in NDRV3 Chapter 5 happened, no one, not a single mf believed that could be it, because according to The Formula, all the actually important lore shows up on Trial 6 alongside the Mastermind, and the game can't end before that reveal. No one believed in the unsolvable case, because The Formula says there is always one culprit and there can never be a wrong answer. This, even when actually having more than one culprit would actually make a more interesting story as previously stated.

But with Rantaro's game? The fact that he survives isn't too bad a foregone conclusion when we still have to discover HOW he survived, who else was with him and how they died. But what of Trial 6, when everything about the Mastermind (Tsumugi/Junko) and the meta aspects is foregone conclusion?

So... How about we just skip Chapter 6 entirely? What if we overthrew The Formula by stopping at Trial 5, if there is nothing more shocking a Trial 6 could possibly do?

So if Rantaro really is the sole survivor of his game. Okay, the idea of the protagonist soloing a trial against the Mastermind is actually pretty awesome, but isn't there a more plausible explanation as to why only one person would walk out of a killing game alive?

Imagine going through an intense trial, but finally coming close to the truth and uncovering the killer's plot, and getting to the vote... Only, for the first time in the franchise, to see the result be WRONG. To realize the game pulled a little unreliable narrator on us and the "truth" was just the narrative the very character we play as wanted us to follow. To witness what a mass execution is like at last and for it to unveil Rantaro as the first blackened to have successfully gotten away with it.

And for the game to just. End there, without the expected Trial 6.

Now imagine replaying through that chapter knowing the end and picking up on all the subtle hints of what Rantaro was doing behind everyone's back, even ours. Worse, replaying the game and following the Ultimate Adventurer's character development along the whole game now knowing it all culminates with him finding the resolve to betray all the other students.

Oh how cruel and utterly beautiful that would be </3

(Bonus headcanon I got while reviewing this before posting: What if that game introduced red herring truth bullets, as in clues you collect that are never meant to be used at all in the trial and just here to misguide the player, so an added difficulty is now picking out the right clues that will lead to the truth. But in hindsight, the final trial turns out to have been about picking your clues to derail the trial and push YOUR narrative when some of the "red herrings" were clues that could've exposed you)

#danganronpa #ndrv3 #rantaro amami #danganronpa au #fuck i love my blackened!Rantaro AU/theory and I need everyone to agree with it #so ironic that the first person to have gotten away with a murder would be killed by someone who also evaded punishment #hell nah Tsumugi you aren't special for successfully framing someone to avoid execution #and he did it without mastermind privileges so boo

[treesap-blogs]

GUYS YOUR MAN IS BACK! WITH A REVIEW OF “THE HONEYS” BY RYAN LA SALA!

Hello, Tumblrians! It’s been a while. I thought I’d post more consistently due to it being my Spring Break time, but alas, I was fatigued and to be honest just needed a break. Even if I post once a week, I put a lot into reviewing everything! Yeah.

BUT! I read some bangers recently. I will get those out of the way first and foremost.

The Honeys is a 2022 horror novel by Ryan La Sala, following a genderfluid teen named Mars. (I’ll be addressing them with they/he/she pronouns this whole review btw, as the MC uses all of those pronounse.) His sister recently died a grisly death after running away from the prestigious summer academy she was attending, and although the uncharacteristic behavior and aggression in her final moments can be attributed to a tumor in her brain by doctors, Mars suggests there was some foul play involved. So, he goes back to the summer academy/camp in question: Aspen, a cisnormative, kinda cultish nightmare, which Mars swore they wouldn’t return to after an incident that happened years prior, but has to in order to investigate their sister’s death. There, they end up somehow befriending the local trio of popular girls: The Honeys, called that because of their beekeeping, are alluringly and suspiciously perfect girls with a pretty exclusive friend group that Caroline was part of right before she died. But, The Honeys are definitely not as they seem, and undoubtedly have a connection to Mars’ sister’s death. On top of that, in the daytime, something within the camp starts messing with Mars’ memories, and they need to get to the bottom of what exactly that is before it’s too late.

The Honeys holds a Book Backstory that, similar to Mars’ memory/POV for most of the book, is a little hazy to me now and I have a vague recollection of the series of events that led to this being something of high priority on my TBR. Maybe I just learned it was a queer horror and was intrigued based on the premise alone! But, my school library had this in its horror shelves, and I checked this one out along with Belladonna in order to clear off some of my Digital TBR. (I hadn’t gotten around to reading Belladonna yet with the Trans Rights Readathon going on, sorry.)

Anyhow! As only my second horror novel, this took a bit of adapting to, but halfway through I was expecting it to be tamer than it turned out. See, for a chunk of the novel, Mars lives in a bit of a haze and doesn’t have much recollection of their original investigation plan due to supernatural events, and as a result a third or so of this novel is summer camp shenanigans that are typical until a creepy event happens and gets shrugged off about 20 pages later. In that sense, it’s close to a slow burn psychological horror. So, if you’re expecting a lot of dead bodies and fear from our protagonist, just…know you’ll have to wait until the last 100 pages for more of that haha. Originally though, this kinda frustrated me because I disliked knowing more than the protagonist did when we technically knew about the same things at different points, but I liked how that part of the plot was wrapped up, and although I was critical of it at the time it makes a lot of sense in hindsight (I was just impatient and wanted a bloodbath I guess).

This also gave me a new interest, or I guess a new…buzzword…to look for in books and the like (collective crowd booing): Bee horror!!! I loved it so much. Bee horror isn’t really something new, I know, just look at Candyman for instance(and the new Amazon Prime series Swarm), but I just loved what they did with the body horror here. I loved the bits of bee research put into writing the apiary segments, the absolutely gross body horror we got (spoilers: people get TURNED INTO HONEY. Like, they melt and stuff!!), how the main hive mind was connected to everything and used actual beehive imagery in both metaphor and social structure. So cool. We love to see it.

Also, that ending!! No spoiler section for this review, but I will say that it’s absolutely BATSHIT!

Actually nevermind, changed my mind, WE’RE ADDING A SPOILER SECTION!!

SPOILER SECTION!! Buzz away if that’s not what you feel like reading or you want to go into this book blind.🐝

Ok!!! So. The ending. I was predicting that Mars would end up siding with the Honeys after they accepted them into their friend group, but I was absolutely not predicting the kind of scale or power their group had. The aforementioned “Hive Mind” was connected to the Honeys; they harvested honey from body-horroring some of the counselors into it, and they’d eat the honey to gain connection to this weird plane of reality called The Lace, which connects everyone’s minds together as one entity and makes them like..omnipresent or whatever. It’s so weird, I loved it.

Mars is forced to take on the leading role of Queen Bee, since his sister’s biology and stuff didn’t work with the literal throne and the stuff that came with that, and his parents are insistent about one of their bloodline taking on the title. To have this be put onto a transfemme character, after Aspen’s higher-ups were insistent about them remaining a “boy”, was fascinating to me. I’d have to do more lengthy analysis to properly dissect this, but to have Mars turn against the adult higher-ups while she’s Queen Bee felt like a way of reclaiming that as a means of affirming her identity and gender. (I mean, she’s presented femme throughout the book but that’s one of the only times they’re addressed with she/her pronouns by their parents, and Mars, while they were terrified of the Honeys themselves for a chunk of the ending, doesn’t have any discomfort in how they’re addressed gender-wise once they take on this role and it’s abilities.) Maybe that scene could be enough to convince a few girlies that, by the end, this could probably be a “Good For Her” horror, although it gets a little sketchy once we look into dissecting that? Just looking into the morals and stuff of The Honeys and how they fucked around with memories, will a little bit, and all that. (Not that Mars sides with that or decides to replicate it, even with their new abilities.)

But, I really liked the ending. I’m glad Mars got to get their revenge. It did feel a little “Good For Her”-y.

I do really want to do some analysis on it at some point though because I was thinking about some of the subtext within it and was, again, fascinated. Perhaps I’ll do a reread at some point, see if I liked things more or less, see if there’s anything I missed.

END OF SPOILER SECTION! (There was a flimsy Baby’s First Analysis y’all were not missing out if you skipped)

TL;DR(or TS;DR)(Too Spoilery, Didn’t Read), the ending was delightfully trippy and I tried my hand at dissecting some of the gender subtext within it.

Overall, a solid read! I was a little frustrated at the slowness sometimes, but that paid off in the end and I liked how everything wrapped up. I will always LOVE queer horror, especially stuff with trans protagonists 💪 

Book rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 stars.

~Paz, signing off! ^^

(Book content/trigger warnings: Body horror, loss of autonomy(memory altercation), transphobic and homophobic bullying, frequent insects, blood and gore.)

[sir-klauz]

I posted 2,886 times in 2022

That's 1,886 more posts than 2021!

808 posts created (28%)

2,078 posts reblogged (72%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@sir-klauz

@wizardpotions

@treesofgreen

@galactic-bi-cat

@tired-small-gremlin

I tagged 2,163 of my posts in 2022

Only 25% of my posts had no tags

#manga - 483 posts

#genshin impact - 302 posts

#anime - 197 posts

#requiem of the rose king - 126 posts

#mcr tag - 110 posts

#baraou no souretsu - 100 posts

#genshin posting - 99 posts

#mcr - 97 posts

#therapy game - 94 posts

#genshin impact forum - 94 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#‘you’re so happy and you love this so much dont you’ no i’m actually manic and can’t think can’t think right now n squealing to expel energy

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

See the full post

203 notes - Posted June 18, 2022

#4

“Do your chores!”

Me: “ok..!” *adhd brain possession midway thru washing a bowl* *5 hours later* “how did I get up here”

210 notes - Posted November 10, 2022

#3

𖤐 found in a charity shop, gorgeous 𖤐

254 notes - Posted September 24, 2022

#2

How are you watching Heartstopper and taking in the entire plot whilst bullying the actor who has an undefined sexuality off of their own social media in the same way the story literally shows the bullies behaving. You’re quick to attack someone who’s not even defined. If this wasn’t a celebrity, and was alone, then deleting social media over this bullying could further isolate them, which if someone is queer, we get pushed into isolation enough as it is. It could be dangerous, it could result in much worse things.

God forbid someone might be bisexual as well, because all bisexuals are totally queer baiting fake gays and fake straights (sarcasm).

Someone said on Twitter: “If I was Kit Connor I wouldn't come out either. He's not exactly been welcomed with open arms."

And I absolutely agree, you’re creating an unsafe environment. Did you even watch the series properly? Look at yourselves.

The start and predominant part of the story is literally about a guy being forced out before he was ready and then experiencing bullying, fear and being alone pretty much for the rest of the school year until he met Nick.

It’s swinging to “you have to come out or else we will destroy your life” vibes yet even if he did, he would still very much have to experience homophobia straight away/bullying if he is, because it is still risky to come out in our society, and people can take as long as they want to feel like doing that. He’s comfortable in his sexuality, and that’s all that matters and it’s no one’s business but his but jumping to “faking it” to someone who doesn’t wanna define it, is 100% disgusting. You don’t know anything about what he likes so don’t dish your judgment, bully.

Come out and be attacked by homophobes or don’t come out and be attacked by us (tbh that behaviour in some cases is homophobic bc of the instant denial and bullying surrounding their potential queerness being real despite not even knowing them or anything).

9/10 queer baiting massacres I’ve personally seen have be towards queer people, or those who later come out as queer. Ya think?? Yeah lemme just make out with the same gender for the lols despite knowing it could end my career in this pretty homophobic industry.

Jessie J came out much later because she was told her career would be over if she came out as gay, and was barely “allowed” to come out as bi, many more older celebrities are finally able to come out now as well and have recently too, which shows how much the industry repressed them and how unsafe it still is and has been, to come out as a celebrity.

283 notes - Posted September 14, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

It’s the Irodori grand festival in Inazuma and Venti just gets wasted and passes out the night before and turns up very confused on a ship the next morning

Credits: s_selyn

584 notes - Posted April 17, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

[watching-pictures-move]

Viddying the Nasties | Delirium (Maris, 1979)

This review contains mild spoilers.

I’m reading the back cover of my Severin Blu-ray, and there’s a blurb from some publication or website I don’t recognize claiming that this is the “first psycho-killer movie to exploit the graphic nature of the its murders”, which is the kind of claim that I suspect holds up only if you haven’t seen any movies made before this one. But credit where credit is due, there are at least a few gruesome murders in this, including one by spear and another where an actor’s hand is lopped off. The person doing the murdering is a PTSD-stricken Vietnam vet, who another blurb on the back of the Blu-ray describes as a “cracked-out Seth McFarlane”, but I think he looks more like Nathan Fielder myself. Given their comic sensibilities, I’d wager Fielder is a bit more deranged than McFarlane, but neither strikes me as likely to go on a killing spree.

But the movie doesn’t stop there. It turns out this Vietnam vet was part of an underground vigilante group of Vietnam vets hired to kill criminals the justice system failed to convict. The group is run by a bald hardass type played by Barron Winchester, whose name sounds like the upper class villain in a spaghetti western and whose presence brings to mind an even flintier James Tolkan. Winchester plays most of his scenes wearing sunglasses, even when indoors. I wear transition lenses, and anytime I step indoors when it’s been sunny outside, I’m blind as a bat for a minute, so I gotta respect his commitment to the bit. But the sunglasses are also an astute bit of costuming, as they make him look much meaner, and also hide the fact that he’s kinda weird looking when he takes them off. Out to stop him are a pair of detectives and the friend of the first victim, who frankly does more to solve the case than any of the cops. She also wears a cute floral dress late in the movie, although I personally would have used this fabric to make a Hawaiian shirt. Also, one of the detectives ends up dating her, and the other one is bizarrely enthusiastic about the relationship. I guess it’s nice when your friends are happy for you.

I was seeing a lot of less than stellar ratings of this from my Letterboxd circle, so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this. This is a low budget regional production, and the best thing you can say about it is how well made it is. This apparently was an effort to salvage an unfinished movie, but the end result holds together surprisingly well. Certainly the budget shows, but some smart use of locations (some of the St. Louis locations were later used in Escape From New York, although they look less hellish here) hides the lack of production value. (Fun fact: the hand-chopping scene was improvised after the director found an extra who was born without a hand.) And when the movie pivots from slasher to action thriller, the action elements feel sturdier than one might expect. The climactic shootout is fairly coherent, if not exactly stylish.

If anything, the relative slickness of the movie takes some of the sting out of the murders, which don’t have the pungency they might have achieved in a more slapdash production. But this isn’t quite as grimy as its reputation as a Video Nasty might suggest. Politically, it’s quite a bit less reactionary than the average vigilante thriller, suggesting that extrajudicial killings might be a bad idea, while also sympathizing with the plight of Vietnam vets. There is a disarmingly poignant moment in the climax when the villain flashes back to an aborted rescue during the war. And with a handful of pretty good performances, from the discount James Tolkan, the two cops and the plucky friend, I found the proceedings surprisingly involving.

#film #movie review #viddying the nasties #delirium #peter maris

[inkofamethyst]

April 14, 2024

Realized that I might be setting myself up to get back on the path of burnout. It's just that there are so many things I want to do here. I know I've got six years but I don't want a single one to go to waste. I want to do everything. I want to try for every opportunity. This means, however, that I need faculty advocates. Which also means that I need to make and maintain relationships. But that can get tiring. Idk.

My mom says I baby my sister too much. She says that in always being so available to her to pull her through any trouble she has, I'm hindering her development and making her mildly codependent on me. I told her that I was only acting in accordance with kin selection, but in retrospect evolutionary theory did not have any place in a sociological argument (she wasn't having it). Anyway she's right :/

I binged Hazbin Hotel this weekend (it caused a little scuffle in a subreddit I was scrolling through, and I wanted to know what the fuss was about) and while I would hesitate before recommending it to anyone (for so many reasons), I did enjoy it, actually. Anytime you have a show with demon characters who are humanized, it's going to be controversial. But the great thing about being an adult is that I can separate fiction from reality lol. I don't always enjoy edgy humor, and a lot of it was quite crass, but the story and world were interesting.

Today I'm thankful that I've actually learned and retained quite a lot since I've started grad school. Like we had a homework assignment for my genetics class and and several of the prompts were slightly off in that the experimental design described didn't actually test what they intended to test, and I was able to pick those out! And we had a guest speaker come in for the same class and I actually came up with several really solid questions (but was never called on for some reason even though we made eye contact while my hand was in the air and that interaction bothers me, but I'm going to let it go) that were based in the thinking that's related to my research (which is notable for me because I'm generally too timid to ask my questions). And then I was able to at least partially explain an experimental technique that my lab uses (which I'm beginning to wrap my head around) to my cohort which was pretty cool.

Also thankful that one of the papers I read last week for my seminar shed light on some results from my senior project which I presented on last year (and received a ton of commentary from the department's popgen lab when I re-presented my results earlier this school year). I had been super confused by my initial findings when I got them and tried to tamp them down as much as possible with averaging and stuff, but it turns out that they could actually make sense with what we know about that group's migration? So those weird results didn't exactly answer my research question, but they did line up with what's known/assumed about the group's migratory pattern (that literature was available at the time, but I was so laser focused on my group that I didn't find it--I think I'm better at lit reviews now (tangential articles and articles with different keywords should not be passed over!)). So, vindication!!!!!

[lifeafterthelayoff]

Part II: Day 70

Measuring up.

“Just hold the stake in the ground where they landed,” said the coach. 

He handed me a stake with a measuring tape attached to the bottom. I place the stake and the coach takes the reading on the other end.

I signed up as a volunteer for today’s track meet, originally to be one of the people that rakes the pit for the long jumps. They needed me for this other thing, and since I had exactly ZERO experience in either role, I grabbed the measuring stake and got to work.

Measuring success in other places isn’t as easy. I might look at this job search and imagine ways to gauge it. What’s working? How can I tell?

One measure: the number of roles I’ve been offered. (Zero, at the moment.) That’s a very binary, all-or-nothing measure that doesn’t offer much in the way of nuance or direction. Stop or go, on or off. Very blunt.

When some of those athletes launched their long jumps, they put their toe over the line, disqualifying that turn. Call it foul or call it a scratch— the end result is pretty much the same. It’s a measure, but not a great one.

I could look at the number of active interview processes I’ve got rolling right now—that might measure some aspects of my search (my resume made it past the bots, I didn’t come off as a monster in the phone screens.)

Or, I could look at a number of jobs I reviewed and applied for as yet another measure. That speaks more to the job market, the relative suitability of available roles, and whether or not I want to relocate.

In every interview, I’ve taken to asking about success measures for the role. The classic, “What does success look like for the person that fills this position?”

Spice it up with variables like time frame and perspective (who enjoys the success: the discipline community, the project team, leadership, or you? Or some combination thereof?) and you’ll get a better idea of expectations in this job.

However, stated measures of success often come with an implied measure of success nearby. Sometimes figuring out that success measure in itself is a measure of success. I know that reads like a palindrome or something, but it’s a REAL THING.

If you are looking for a new role, how are you measuring success along the way?

[princepestilence]

NYR: October in review

Post-October horoscope: Make it a duty to celebrate your small wins. There’s no need to wait for major milestones or for others to acknowledge it.

Entering the last week and a bit of my twenties. Feeling exhausted from another too-busy month, but also pretty great! A lot of things happening, as always. Some small, some pretty big.

Doctor appointment actually went well. I was braced for worse! But the results were okay to good for most things, and apparently my liver is quote unquote pristine.

Duolingo every day. Managed to keep it up but only barely. It honestly shouldn't count, but I am counting it.

Became chair + hosted my first double meeting, including AGM.Technically, I hosted both meetings and then became chairman after getting voted in during the AGM. I haven't really had time to process any of it, but also it's sort of no different to what I was already doing except I have the full title instead of the Acting one.

Revised all of chapter four! I've since started work on the last leg of the dissertation, writing the introduction / conclusion. The closer I get to being really truly finished, the more excited and also afeared I'm getting.

House anniversary. It snuck up on us and we only realised by chance, but it's been a year since we settled and moved in. I love our home.

Nephew was born. My best friend had her baby a week ago. This is no achievement of mine, but I want to commemorate it anyway.

Booked a holiday. We've been thinking about it for about a year or so, but finally did it! It's not until March, by which time everything will have chilled out a good deal. We haven't been on a proper holiday (as compared to a long weekend thing with friends) since the very beginning of 2020.

Painted for the first time in over a decade. I had an opportunity to paint the other day and it was so fun. It was so healing? I didn't realise how viscerally I missed making art like that until I was doing it. Now I want to do it all the time.

In November, I will:

turn thirty! Still have more party planning to do but we're getting there.

finish introduction + final mop up of chapters. A bit ambitious given how intense work is at the moment, but still doable.

2024 season launch. Not exactly a goal, since it's inevitable, but surviving the month counts as a feat. Today was bonkers busy and it's going to be like this for a while. I will have deserved the time off by the time I get to have it.

have fun at my birthday party. Reminding myself that this is actually the goal of the whole thing. There's so much happening at the moment that part of me regrets committing to this, but I don't want to not have a great night with my friends just because work + dissertation take up a lot of my time and energy.

#2023 resolutions

[nickelstudy]

TOPIK II Review

It's been a while since the test has come out so I figure I should take the time to write about it before my memory fades away more than it does now.

Here is my 89th TOPIK II result!

As you can see, it's not a lot, and not up to my expectation either.. bUT it's pretty decent for the first-timer. A little salty that I could have got 4급 if I earned 2 more points.

Let's start from going there. The test location was a place I'd never been to, plus I had no one to escort me there so it was a pain going alone. It took only 21 Baht (around 0.6 USD) to get there. Pretty cheap!

The test location was a campus so when I arrived I was confused about where I should settle. I wound up at a cafeteria, seeing how it would rain soon (which I was correct hah!) I had lunch and prepared for the exam. I don't think I read any stuff at that point. My knowledge was pretty much saturated and couldn't intake any more words or grammar. Ok and so I walked out in the rain to get to the building where I would have a test. It didn't rain hard so it was alright.

SO, right when I entered the exam room, a Korean exam invigilator (i don't know the common term send help) asked me what my exam number was so that she could find my seat in Korean. The problem is I FORGOT MY NUMBER DESPITE REMEMBERING IT IN ADVANCE. What was worse is I had already turned off my phone so I couldn't look it up. So I answered shits like "번호를- 잊어버렸어요" See how i didn't even use a more polite form (lmfao). Anyway, she went and picked up a list of test examinees which contained everyone's faces... (im scared) but then I realized, it was in the test paper I brought along!

They didn't let us use our own stationery. These were what they gave.

A two-sided black marker. One side for writing and the other for filling a circle

That's it... wait... how am I gonna change my ans-

WELL You could ask for a correction tape that got shared around the room. Fun fact, I barely have experience using it so I was nervous about whether I would fuck it up or not.

Ok, enough nonsense. Let's talk about the test

Listening（듣기）

It was hard. I struggled a lot trying to understand the choices in one glance while listening to the conversation. There wasn't much to be said. I was so done at the 3rd or 4th question. I think if one space out for just 2 seconds, it's going to be hard to catch up, especially with an amateur like me.

Writing (쓰기)

The first two weren't that easy. It took a while to understand what they were about and I managed to fill in the answers.

Number 52 was talking about 갈증. I didn't know what it meant and I don't think they expected us to know either. (gotta figure it out by context amirite)

Quote from a conversation I had with my friend

"There was a part where it's about the sugar component in the juice would make the water inside your body go out or sth idk Because they mention 물이 빠져나가면 so I assume it's that But the problem is idk what to write exactly It's like sth sth 성분은 몸 안의 물이 (...). 빠져나가게 할 것이다?? 될 것이다??? I DON'T KNOW WHY WAS IT 물이 and not 물을 ??? or maybe I was stupid and I don't include the important part so you can't help me now Could it be 부족하게 instead? Idk"

For the 53th problem, I know how to space when writing in a Wongoji paper. BUT I forgot to NOT space after a period (it's a habit from Japanese). After 2 sentences I realized it and tried not to do it again but then I DID IT AGAIN. The content I wrote is decent, I belive. but the spacing...

The last one is about discovering talent, why is it good? How does one do it? I didn't have time to write it ofc. It was like 2 minutes left.

Reading (읽기)

I took too long at the start. Yes, it got progressively harder as I did. I was at the 33rd out of 50 when the time ran out. Nothing out of my expectations to be honest. So yes, I blind-guessed the rest and somehow got more than halves

Other stuff

So when they let us break after the writing section. I tried to go down stairs and get some air. The test was rough haha. They didn't let us go to the 1st floor! They even thought I was going to use a toilet lmfao.

Anyway, it was raining after everything ended. I walked a bit to get to the bus stop and headed back without buying any of the stuff there. End of the story.

Thank you for reading! It was super fun trying out the exam. I'm not going to take a test in the near future for sure because the price is costly. It's not my end goal either! I just want to understand what Korean artists write in their work.

After this (which is right now) I'm focusing more on JLPT N1. I'll write about my method and some updates soon.

#log #KRlog #KR

[cyarsk52-20]

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FORBESINNOVATIONGAMES

'The Idol' Is Officially The Worst Reviewed Show In HBO History, By Far

Paul Tassi

Senior Contributor

News and opinion about video games, television, movies and the internet.

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Jul 10, 2023,10:24am EDT

the idol

The IdolHBO

If there was any question that the David Zaslav era of WB/Discovery/HBO/Max is on shaky ground, it might be the fact that The Idol was approved to be released under the prestigious HBO banner.

The sex and misogyny-drenched show starring Lily-Rose Depp and The Weeknd was trash by critics, audiences, everyone, with some of its worst moments turned into memes. It was so bad there’s some measure of theorizing that the show actually pulled its last episode to end at five instead, just so it would be over faster.

In fact, if you want to visualize just how bad The Idol is, you can look at the grand total of every HBO and HBO Max series ever released. Out of 106 shows tallied, The Idol is ranked…106th, and by a good margin at that. Here’s the bottom 10, in reverse order:

The Idol – 19%

The Time Traveler’s Wife – 38%

Velma - 40%

The Nevers – 49%

Coastal Elites – 57%

Arli$$ - 62%

Little Britain USA – 64%

Entourage – 65%

The Vow – 68%

True Blood – 68%

That should give you some measure of HBO’s overall quality by itself, the fact that only five shows in its history are rated “rotten” out of 106 total, and by the end of the list we get into shows that are still considered classics of the service. Arli$$ was already regarded as universally pretty bad. I actually liked The Nevers and was sad it didn’t get picked up again. I don’t know much about the formerly worst series before this, The Time Traveler’s Wife, only that it starred Rose Leslie from Game of Thrones. I guess it went poorly.

idol

The IdolHBO

But The Idol is on another plane of existence, 19% lower than other lowest show here and 38% below even the fourth-worst HBO series of all time. But it’s not just critics. The Time Traveler’s Wife and The Nevers actually have decently high, 80%+ audience scores. The Idol has a 41%. Everyone hated this show.

It feels like Sam Levinson from Euphoria was given free reign to do whatever he wanted with The Weeknd, and unlike Euphoria, the result was catastrophic. This is deeply embarrassing for The Weeknd on every level, from the conception of this project to his role and acting within it. I’ve never seen someone have so much control over something that makes them look so, so bad. It’s a rarified degree of self-unawareness.

This show should have never seen the light of day and HBO/Max/Zaslav/whoever needs to figure out exactly what happened here and how it can never happen again. They already took the HBO out of the Max name, but if they take the quality out of HBO, it’s game over.

Follow me on Twitter, Threads, YouTube, and Instagram. Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.

Forbes Daily: Get our best stories, exclusive reporting and essential analysis of the day’s news in your inbox every weekday.

#Spotify #theidol #jocelyn #troyesivan #lilyrosedepp #JENNIE #rachelsennott #mosessumney #The idol hbo #dyanne #jennie ruby jane #sam levinson #the idol #the weeknd #abel tesfaye #guys guys ive got the most revolutionary idea #what if… women were lying about the male violence they experience??? #never fucking been done before!!! god im a genius! #sam levinson i will disembowl you with a garden spade #Justice for Amy seimetz #the idol hbo #The idol #tedros #The Weeknd #amy seimetz

[saal-school-project]

Part 5

9th grade 

The entirety of 9th grade was online school. Well, actually, we did go to school for like a week, but that was mainly for the exams, so we can ignore the fact that they are not important. And you know how online school is; I don't need to explain much. It was chill. I had a lot of free time, which led me to develop quite a few interests that year.

I got into transformers.

I started getting into Transformers during that time. At first, some clips of Transformers Prime on YouTube were randomly recommended to me (it was exactly this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZAwYv_N-RQ). " And while searching for it to paste here, I also ended up watching a half-hour essay on Starscream's Wings, and it was mind-blowing, so here's the link to that too, I guess: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFYk_ZFpo9A "). I remembered the show back when I was still watching TV; it aired on CN, and honestly, I never really liked the show back then. Then I realized the reason for that was the fact that I remembered absolutely nothing about the decepticons. Perhaps I decided to give the show a shot back then, and it happened to be an episode that Desepticons weren't in, and I decided that "this show is boring; I'm not watching it" and would change the channel whenever I saw it on. I can't think of another explanation. because the autobots in that show are really boring, like, Omg, why are you so boring? I'm going to be honest, as I've admitted so many things already that it's too late to turn back now. I watched the show solely for Starscream (yeah, Transformers do have weird names, but I love them for them, like imagine them being named Michael or something bruh). Have you seen his design? He has built-in heels, he is the skrunkly

To be fair, he looks kinda weird in this pic idk.

The other decepticons were fine too, I guess. Then I checked out other series too, because Transformers is a pretty old franchise, and as a result, there are many different cartoons and spin-offs about it. There is "G1", which stands for generation one. It's a really old cartoon that aired in 1984, but the whole show is basically just an elaborate toy commercial if you consider the fact that the toys came before the show. And oh yeah, they do have toys; thats the best part about transformers, to be honest, and they do actually transform. G1 toys aren't really impressive engineering-wise, but they get better over the years. There is also a spinoff called "Beast Wars," in which robots turn into animals rather than vehicles. There are other shows, comic books, videogames, and life-action movies that fans often like to ignore or denigrate as bayformers) (and we also do not talk about kiss players), etc. but let's get to the good part. If I hadn't stumbled upon Transformers toy reviewing channels (mostly jobby i guess) on YouTube, things would have taken a different turn for me, and I wouldn't be owning any Transformers figures now.

 From the start, I liked the character designs; yes, I'm also a character design enthusiast. Human designs can get pretty boring after a while; but with robots, you can have all different shapes, sizes, and colors, which is great if you want to make unique and memorable designs (I guess with humans, you can have unique clothing, but whatever!). The idea of robots transforming into vehicles was an excellent touch too; this way you wouldn't just slap on random shapes and hope for the best but instead figure out a way where the vehicle parts would go to form an astechnically pleasing robot, and the vehicle form should reflect the robot's personality too and even on its own be recognizable—we all recognize the Optimus Prime truck, right? All of that on its own impressed me, but what absolutely blew my mind away was this.

(Please politely ignore fact that it turns into a gun)

Yes, that robot indeed transformes into this.

(Here's another link if you want to watch it transform: https://youtu.be/_EvBRGjaXHM)

Never once did I think this level of engineering was possible. It's like black magic. Incomprehensible. I want to transform it myself to understand how it works better, but oh god, the prices are just... well, there are a few things to know about transformer figure collecting. There are official toys. Hasbro (American-based) and Takartomy (Japanese-based) companies own the Transformers franchise, or something like that. I'm not fact-checking. These are both, like, toy companies? Hasbro also owns Monopoly, so imagine stuff like that. The one I showed you above is a masterpiece figure, and the number comes from how many figures there were before in that toy line, so they just basically enumerated them. That above is mp36 (as in Masterpice and the 36th figure), and the character's name is Megatron. That figure is one of my favorites, and I would buy it if I had the money.

Masterpiece figures aim to recreate the characters' G1 appearance as faithfully as is physically possible while being able to transform and be posable at the same time. There is "mpm" too; it stands for "masterpiece movie," which is just life-action versions of the characters (live-action movie). Transformers have completely different designs thanks to the director of those movies, Michael Bay, which is where the name Bayformers comes from. Needless to say, all of the masterpiece figures are hella expensive; their prices usually vary depending on the size of the character, but no, it's expensive; there is no cheap masterpiece unless you buy knockoffs, which goes into the unofficial third-party market that I will get to in a bit.

Then theres Hasbro; now Hasbro makes relatively cheaper toys targeted at children currently consuming the myriad of Transformers content out there as opposed to Takaraatomy making collectible figures for people who back in the day grew up with G1, so they are now grown adults and can afford those steep prices. These toys come in three classes: leader class, voyager class, and deluxe class, with deluxe being the cheapest and smallest and leader being the biggest and most expensive of the bunch. I personally own 1 leader class, 1 deluxe class, and 4 voyager class figures.

Here’s some of my figures:

My first and favorite figure is this one. His name is Skyhammer.

I got more but I dont have pictures of them.

Honestly how i got these figures has a story on its own as toy stores rarely sell them due to their prices being too high. I got most of these second hand.

Those were the official figures. and then there are third-party figures. the meat of the topic. It's basically just companies other than Takara and Hasbro making figures, and their legality is kind of questionable as it borders on intellectual theft because they own the copyrights for the Transformers franchise. but that doesn't really concern us. Another thing about third-party services is that what you get can drastically vary in quality; it could be an amazing figure or it could be really bad. You can't really be sure until you personally hold it in your hands, but Toy Rewiev channels have got you covered. Don't worry. Third parties are usually for official masterpiece-class figure quality, but they are a little cheaper. Then there are knockoffs. Knockoffs are just knockoffs; they literally just copy the official figures engineering and just remove the Aoutobot/Decepticon logo or something like that and sell it for cheaper. These companies are often Chinese for some reason, and the engineering can be more mind-blowing than the officials. Saddly, I don't own any third-party figures; I was so close to buying one, though. But, uh, I don't know about buying something that expensive overseas; I didn't want my package to get stuck in customs, so I decided against it.

There are also non-transforming transformer figures; it's just an articulating robot mode. They do this because it's more aesthetically pleasing. There is a term called kibble, which refers to pieces that have no clear purpose in one mode but are there only because they are part of another mode.

Usually shellformers suffers from this the most. Look at all those penguin parts in the robot mode. Making those parts removable is an option, but that would be partsforming. No one likes partsforming.

 some of the kibble is accurate to the character's appearance on TV, it is part of the character's design. but they are not; there are extra parts that stick out, and then there is less than excellent kibble management.

Oh god look at this things backpack.

So if the figure doesn't transform, they can just focus on making it more accurate and posable; it's just an action figure. And, oh yeah, most of the time, the fact that a figure transforms can hinder its poseability. and I think poseability is very important. and a non-transformable Transformers figure is just... meaningless? Like, why are you taking away the best part? I personally wouldn't buy one.

GUNDAMS

Now you can't be in the Transformers fandom for too long before you inevitably hear about Gundams too, and vice versa. They are very similar, minus the transformation, and the robots are way bigger and more pilotable now. They are both old anime that aired around the 1980s, and they are both about giant robots. The best part of both of them is the merchandise.

Gundam merchandise is now available in the form of model kits. They come in pieces. You cut the pieces out of the sheet of plastic with a pair of side cutters before you assembled them like Legos. In the end, you have an action figure of a robot. and they are more customizable than transformers; you can paint them and add details as you like as you build them, unlike transformers.

But I prefer transformers over gundams because you can only build a gundam once (technically, you can disassemble it and build it again, but thats a pain), whereas you can transform transformers as many times as you like. Gundams are also more fragile; I learned that the hard way when I broke my first gundam the day after I finished building it. but then I got another one. Here are some pictures of my Gundams.

Here’s my gundams. Well there is only two of them:

My beloved first gundam, high grade beyond global. Don’t  ask why that pose. This is like, the last picture I took of him before I accidently broke his leg.

I like this picture. He’s standing on one of my many journals.

Gundam model kits also have classes like Transformers toys do, but they are called grades from small to big: SD grade (basically just chibi). high grade (mine are both high grades, so they are small). real grade (real grade is small like high grade but way more detailed) Master grade (bigger) perfect grade (even bigger)

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.

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This is enough, right? I mean, I've got more things to talk about; we barely scratched the surface. I could go on, but I feel kind of tired now. sooooooo goodbye?

#this one is really long #transformers figures #gundam model kits #forgot to mention I yoinked half of the images from internet

[delta-queerdrant]

banjos in space (Caretaker, s1 e1/2)

Prologue

A nice pickle we have landed ourselves into, Mr. Frodo! The internet informs me that there are 172 episodes of Star Trek Voyager. I am, in fact, capable of finishing things; just recently, I reread Middlemarch like an absolute fucking boss. I have written novels and completed thousand-mile road trips. Let us choose to believe that this project that I have quixotically set myself, for an audience of, approximately, no one, will be a successful one.

I will not be summarizing episodes. I expect these reviews to be 80% sentiment and 20% analyzing story mechanics. To crib a line from a podcast I like, this is a feelings blog about starships.

The prose will be more or less silly and stream-of-consciousness as the mood takes me. Despite being a Digital Native(tm), I have literally never figured out the trick of talking like I live on the internet, instead I alternate between sounding like Angela Chase writing in her diary and like a college professor who is prone to multisyllabic words, malapropisms, and deducting points for misplaced commas.

Hmm, I seem to be stalling.

Let’s Talk About Caretaker

I started watching Voyager midway through the series’ original run, so my fondness for these episodes is less weighted down with early adolescent emotion. Nevertheless, I was charmed.

Caretaker is just shy of being a banger pilot episode, and the whole first season is pretty strong if you compare it to, say, season one of TNG. (It’s a low bar.) We meet our two crews, we have a lively science fiction mystery that feels extremely Star Trek with its gentle horror-adjacent tropes and insistence on making the cultural referents of the twentieth-century US central to this multi-species science fiction universe. If nothing else, it’s a romp.

The worst thing about this episode, hands down, is Tom Paris, our bad boy rapscallion who turns a new leaf under duress. As a young person I received each of these characters in exactly the way I was meant to receive them; i.e. I found Tom Paris to be charming comic relief.

Does he become charming? In this episode I want to punch his face, a lot, and the sentiment holds throughout season one. It is, of course, the nineties, and so the only character with an unmarked identity (straight white male, not an alien or a hologram) is centered in the pilot episode of our ensemble show. In the process, he goes through a season’s worth of character growth in ninety minutes, to the detriment of future episodes.

The fandom was right and he and Harry Kim (whose only attribute here is BABY) have hilariously good chemistry. (”Look, I know those guys told you to stay away from me,” he purrs to Kim during the mess hall follow-up to their meet-cute.) Why do the good girls always want the bad boys? Don’t fall for his rakish charms, Harry, you can do so much better, even if you have only been given half a personality.

We meet the Ocampa, who seem to live in a subterranean shopping mall or perhaps an airport terminal, and the Kazon-Ogla, who are bargain-bin Klingons without the cool factor or (so far) cultural nuance. I do not love an SFF property with “good” and “bad” species, and find Janeway’s pivotal decision to destroy the Caretaker’s array a bit suspect as a result, but it is a Star Trek, but here we are.

Other than Robert Duncan McNeill, who has been given an impossible script, it feels like all of the actors know their assignments out of the gate. There are so many cute as shit platonic friendships in this show; I love B’Elanna and Harry’s rapport (”Starfleet”). Also, Neelix. I am going on the record here to confess that I am probably going to be a Neelix apologist for the duration of this rewatch. He is just a darling hot mess of a space hobbit, and I find Ethan Phillip’s performance weirdly compelling and nuanced. I won’t be papering over his sexism, which should have been handled with more care. But so far he is absolutely the most plausible and lived-in character in this whole ridiculous show.

Kate Mulgrew’s Janeway, of course, is a close contender. She is so fucking good from scene one (walking so fast to keep up with McNeill’s long gait) - just absolutely sparkling with charisma, and with a warm, self-assured carriage that makes her effortless at inhabiting this role. “Confirmed, a hot lady,” my notes read (yes I was taking notes about this rewatch for myself like an absolute nerd).

We don’t get much backstory for her in season one, other than here, where we meet her dry-toast fiance, and much more importantly, MOLLIE. I had forgotten about Mollie, and holy crap, never mind the trauma and pining and muted sexual confusion that will accompany this character on her journey through the Delta Quadrant - SHE LEFT HER DOG BEHIND!?

^^^ ICONIC. Mark can’t even get an arm around her shoulder because Mollie is the cockblocker of our hearts. Love this for all concerned

Anyway. Our characters are thrown together and overcome adversity, Janeway blows up the array, and we get a rushed conclusion and a mission-statement speech that all feel terribly unearned. There’s nothing much to say about the Maquis subplot here, because the show just... doesn’t grapple with it, at least not in the first season. The very premise that our intrepid crew can only operate this starship by adopting the political structure of the dominant majority deserves interrogation, but nah.

We were never going to get a politically radical Voyager. Still, we could have gotten a politically conscious one. It’s a shame, because these actors and even, I dare say, writers were obviously up to the task of having a more nuanced conversation about leadership and workplace politics and whether an ostensibly egalitarian society’s professional adventurer/diplomats can only function under a military command structure. 

But we’re at the beginning, and we don’t know any of that yet. Anything could happen! We’re lost in the woods, in the middle of our lives, looking for our way home. 

#star trek voyager #rewatch #janeway #star trek #dogs of trek