#nothing else to add this comment section had me dying on my break

[torsamors]

#no id #GSOAHDKWBDKABSI #nothing else to add this comment section had me dying on my break #* #**

[alltheworldsinmyhead]

ON FEYSAND’S PLOTLINE IN ACOSF

              !!!!MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE ACOSF!!!!

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Let’s be honest for a while, okay?

ACOCF had potential to be SJM’s best book, if not for any other reason then because of the sheer idea of it. Coming-of-age, healing story of the most complex and polarizing character she has ever created set in the time of peace, away from the familiar setting (according to the later changed concept which still remains in the snippet at the end of ACOFAS), development of her arguably most feisty and angsty love story... It could be her absolute trumph. Even with the change to stick to Velaris instead of exploring the Illyrian culture of the Mountains and with the added conflict of the Mortal Queens and Koshei, it still could work quite well. 

It didn’t. For many, many reasons, but the most important one, in my opinion, being the feysand pregnancy plot. 

Nothing about this plotline made sense. Not a single thing. From start to finish, it was an absolute disaster from the character-writing POV, from the narration POV, from every single context of it. It broke the rules of real-life logic, it broke the rules of this fantasy world setting and it completely exposed that Rhysand, while not a bad guy, is a pretty terrible partner, even worse ruler and an absolutely terrible contender for the High King title. 

Let’s break this whole mess down (and expect this post to be mammoth-sized. it’s not my fault, though, write to SJM if you have any complains):

1) Feyre, 21, decides to get pregnant, even though less than a year earlier, she expresses the delight with not being forced to bear children to her new mate and told him herself she wants to wait a while and enjoy her life with him. Feyre decides she wants a baby though and Rhysand goes along with it, even though he is aware how young Feyre is and how hard her life has been up until this point. He wants a baby too much to have an honest discussion with Feyre about it, to stop and wonder what is the reason for her sudden change of heart, to reassure her that they have a lot of time ahead of them and don’t need to rush. No. She mades a sudden decision to have a baby after A YEAR OF MARRIAGE and not much more of being turned fae, JUST AFTER having her whole world put upside down, having received a completely new title and responsibilities, surviving the wat and being mated. Great. 

2) Feyre decides to get pregnant and Rhys goes along with it less than a year after the end of the bloody war. It is politically a delicate time, everyone is still not sure how the balance will shift, some countries don;t want to sign the peace treaty, etc. There are a lot of enemies and a lot of turmoil remaining. But sure. Let’s have a baby. Perfect time to add yet another target, another weakness that can be use by the Mortal Queens, Beron or whatever else with malicious intent towards the Night Court. 

2) Feyre gets pregnant after approximately a year of trying. I know healthy people of reproductive age for whom it takes ages more than this. Fae’s pregnancies are rare af and precious and happen once in a blue moon, but ofc SJM broke the world’s rules for her darling Feyre. And again, for Kallas and Vivianne who are also expecting the baby, even though it has been a maximum of 3 years since they’ve mated. 3 years is also not a particularly long time to try to have a baby for those who have issues with their reproductive systems like Fae women. Thank you, next. 

3) Rhys has unprotected sex with Feyre in her Illyrian form when she conceives, even though he knows full well having a winged baby would kill her. He does it anyway, for shits and giggles apparently. They probably have sex in the sky above Velaris, for all we know. 

4) The baby has wings. Now, the whole explanation with Illyrian wings being bony (bc they resemble bat wings) and Seraphin ones being more flexible (bc they resemble bird ones) is so insanely stupid that it takes around 3 seconds to wikipedia this shit and find out it’s exactly the opposite. But okay, the baby has wings and Feyre will die while giving birth, along with the baby. Madja forbids Feyre from turning into an Illyrian to carry the pregnancy because it MIGHT hurt the baby. Now, remember, Feyre conceived while in Illyrian form and then turned into High Fae. The baby survived it just fine. The baby MIGHT be hurt by Feyre turning .... but it will FOR SURE die if she stays High Fae and Feyre will too. Idk about you, but I would take the risk of MIGHT instead of FOR SURE. Especially when she is already in labour and dying. Cauldron or Nesta or idk who alters Feyre’s pelvis after the baby is cut out of her for no apparent reason but to allow feysand to make exactly the same mistakes later on. How convinient. And Nesta also alters her own pelvis bc god forbid she won’t be able give Cassian babies like the little useful mate she is now. She should’ve probably done it with Elain too, just in case she decides to fuck Az in the future, because fuck consequences and fuck the stakes in the story that make the readers actually CARE about characters bc they know the author may actually kill them and not save their life every fucking time.  

5) I don’t even want to comment on the fact Rhys hid the true danger of this pregnancy for Feyre and their family went along with it. It is absolutely disgusting. And Nesta telling her and that being condemned as the act of the ultimate cruelty which is a final straw to break her self-loathing back.... is abhorrent. It made my sick, actually, phisically sick. There is no justification for it. No at all. And the fact that they did not even consider abortion sends a message that I really don’t want to think too much about it. Feyre was 2 months along when they learned the baby is winged. 2 months. 8 weeks. It wasn’t a baby yet, let’s be honest. They could’ve at least discussed it. She - oh my god, I cannot believe SJM wrote it this way, I’m gonna be sick. 

6) For the entirety of Feyre’s pregnancy, they have no plan to really help her. Labour plan? Haven’t heard if it.  They have money and power and access to the healers of the whole land. And did not figure out how to stop her from bleeding out after a fucking C-section. THIS WORLD HAS MAGIC AND THEY COULDN’T STOP HER FROM BLEEDING OUT AFTER A FUCKING C-SECTION. Didn’t even ask Thesan, the High Lord of Healing, to be present. Cassian had guts hanging out of his stomach and survived. Az was fucking slashed apart in Hybern and survived. But yeah, Feyre was on a brink of death after a C-section. Great, Sarah. Keep it up. Let’s force the thought into young girls’ heads that labour is the most lethal thing ever, why not. 

7) Also, for the entirety of Feyre’s pregnancy, Rhys keeps quiet about this idiotic bargain. He, as far as we know, doesn’t make any plans for the moment when him and Feyre and possibly their baby are dead. If they died and baby survived.. who would take care of it? Does Rhys have a conversation with his family about it? NAH. Doesn’t write any sort of plan how to keep the Court going, doesn’t inform even the closest of his co-workers how they should proceed to act after he’s gone and his and Feyre’s power go to god-knows-who. Their deaths would mean a sure chaos for the weakend and fragile Prythian and the Night Court especially and yet nor Rhys nor Feyre make any sort of preparations for it. Rhys doesn’t tell his brothers or Mor or HIS SECOND IN COMMAND they will all soon have to somehow manage without him. He was about to just leave them to their own devices and told them in the last. possible. moment. 

And this man - this man is, according to Amren, the best candidate to handle the whole country? To unite it? This fool who makes idiotic bargains, who thinks first about his cock and his own selfish desires and considers his subjects and his responsibilities as a High Lord last and least important of all? Who has so much trust in his wife, in his High Lady, the mother of his son that he doesn’t tell her she will almost surely die on a birthing bed because it MAY UPSET HER? 

This plotline was the straw that broke my back. ACOTAR, at it’s heart has always been a ya fantasy with added ‘spice’ and I was willing to bend my critical-thinking skills in many cases and forget and forgive many smaller idiotic issues in this series. But this? It is not idiotic. It is massive and stupid to the point when it becomes insulting to the reader. It was a plot straight out of a bad fanfic, not something that should be in a published book written by someone who writes for a living. You could even argue that Twilight has handled this toxic trope better.  I have wasted my money on this book and thinking about it will always be painful for me. So yeah.

ACOSF could be great. Ended up quite pathetic. 

#acosf #acosf spoilers #a court of silver flames #rhysand #feysand

[pucksnsticksnhockeyboys]

all wrapped up for you

summary: you’d do anything for your best friend, even if that means helping him buy the perfect gift for the person he truly likes.

word count: 3k

note from the writer: day three! make sure to check back for the next nine fics! / masterpost of the Christmas fics

tagging: @bqstqnbruin @broadstbroskis @laurenairay​ @calgarycanuck​ @justjosty​ @sorryjustafangirl​ @tayella13​ @wastedheartcth​  @kiedhara​  @writinghockey​  / add yourself to my Christmas fics taglist

You really wished you were better at telling Anthony no. Wished you had taken up your friend’s offer to get brunch so you had an excuse to say you were busy on Saturday. Wished you weren’t so gone for him that the moment he said he needed help you didn’t clear your calendar.

Because now you were stuck helping the guy you were practically in love with buy a gift for someone else.

He showed up to your apartment half an hour earlier, before you had even gotten dressed for the day, and let himself into your apartment as if he owned the place. You couldn’t be mad, truly, because you had given him a key and it was far from the first time he had done so.

“Are you ready?” Anthony asked excitedly, making his way into your kitchen where you were putting your now empty mug in the sink. You rolled your eyes, grin tugging at your lips as you turned to face him and gestured to the baggy t-shirt and old shorts you slept in.

“Does it look like I’m ready, Beau?” You questioned teasingly, watching as he sighed dramatically with a grin that rivaled yours. A thought crossed your mind then, one that dampened your mood and you bit your lip to try and stop yourself from voicing it, but it was too little too late and suddenly you were speaking without your permission. “You must really like this girl if you’re showing up early and trying to drag me out of here.”

“Yeah, I do.” Anthony responded easily, and thankfully his back was turned as he dug through your cupboards for something to snack on so he didn’t see the way your face fell and shoulders slumped. You hurt your own feelings with that comment, the dreaminess in his words tugging at your heart. You wanted nothing more than to be his, but if you couldn't have him, you at least wanted him to be happy.

“I’m going to go change.” You murmured, and if Anthony picked on the sudden change in your tone he didn’t say anything. The time it took for you to get dressed and put the final touches on your outfit gave you the break you needed to collect yourself and your thoughts.

You knew the next few hours were going to be rough; you’d be spending time with Anthony, which you always looked forward to, but it’d come with a cost. That cost being helping him get the perfect gift for the person he had feelings for. The person who was, very clearly, not you.

“Ready?” You questioned as you emerged from your bedroom to find Anthony sitting on your couch waiting patiently. He jumped to his feet, clearly anxious to get started, and you tried your best to chase away any and all thoughts regarding your current predicament with him.

If he asked your help, then you’d give it to him.

“So, what are we thinking? Jewelry? Perfume? Shoes?” You asked the moment you entered the department store he had taken you to. Glancing up to him, you couldn’t help but laugh at the bewildered look on his face, clearly unsure of where to start.

“Is that stuff you would like?” He turned to face you, brows furrowed and for a moment he caught you off guard. This was a dangerous game, picking out stuff you would like only to have Anthony turn around and buy it for someone else. But he looked so completely lost and out of his element that you forced a tight smile and curled your hand around his bicep to lead him further into the store.

“Do you know her sizes? Shoes could be nice, or we can look at jewelry if you want it to be more romantic.” You mused, pulling him towards the shoe section to start. Even if he wanted to look for other stuff, you could still buy yourself something nice. Maybe you’d get something out of this trip other than your own hurt feelings and the confirmation that he definitely did not feel the same about it. A little retail therapy never hurt, right?

“She’s about your size, yeah.” He told you, certain in his tone despite not giving you a solid answer. You tried to stop yourself from running through the list of people Anthony hung out with that were roughly your size, but you came up short, certain that he would have told you if it was one of your mutual friends.

“Maybe we should look at perfumes, then.” You steered him away from the clothing section. If he didn’t know her exact sizes, then you didn’t want him to get her something that didn’t fit. Standing in front of the display shelf full of perfume, you getsured for Anthony to take his pick.

“Isn’t this the kind you wear?” He asked, grabbing a bottle off the shelf and spraying it. You shot him a look, unsure of why he would know that and how he was able to pick it out easily. It wasn’t as if he had smelt it and recognized it; he had picked it up off the shelf completely unprompted. Part of you wanted to melt at his words, to overthink and hurt your own feelings once more, but you shoved that part aside.

“And you know that, how?” You asked, grabbing the bottle out of his hands and putting it back on the shelf. There was absolutely no way he was going to be getting the same perfume you wore for some other girl.

“I don’t know, I’ve seen you getting ready for nights out too many times, I guess.” He said with a shrug, but you would have sworn you saw a blush on his cheeks. He turned away from you before you could be certain, and you were left standing in front of the shelf of perfume confused while Anthony wandered off to the counter full of different types of jewelry. “Jewelry is romantic, right?”

“Yeah, what are you thinking?” You confirmed, trying not to seem as defeated as you were by his choice of words. He was looking for a romantic gift, a gift that was not for you and you were helping him pick it out.

“I don’t know, what do you like?” He questioned, looking over the case of rings, bracelets, earrings and necklaces with confusion. You couldn’t help but chuckle at how lost he looked, and it was that tiny bit of pity that had you turning to look at the jewelry to pick out something you liked.

“I think those necklaces are really pretty.” You hummed, pointing out a row of beautiful gold chains with different pendants and designs. They weren’t overly gaudy but strikingly simple, and they had caught your eye almost immediately.

“The diamond ones?” Anthony questioned, looking to the rack just next to the one you had been pointing to. Shaking your head, your head, you moved closer so that the necklaces were in reach. They truly were a gift you’d love to receive, and it stung a bit that Anthony might be buying one for someone other than you.

“No, not necessarily. I don’t think the price tag matters, but maybe something a little more personal, you know?” You explained, your fingers brushing over the dainty gold chains absentmindedly. Glancing up, you noticed a far away look in his eyes as he studied you and most definitely not the jewelry you were showing him. “Beau?”

“Yeah, I got it.” Anthony said quietly, like he was having a completely different conversation that you were unaware of. You gave him a confused look, but chose not to question him. Your heart was hammering in your chest as a result of the way he was looking at you, a soft smile on his lips and a look that was too similar to adoration in his eyes. All too soon, though, his gaze drifted over your shoulder as if searching for something. “What about that?”

“A candle?” You asked, following his gaze to the section of seasonal and decorative candles. Anthony nodded, a slight flush to his cheeks as he grabbed your hand and pulled you away from the jewelry and to the candles. “Beau, you asked me to come along for gift ideas but you haven’t listened to a single thing I’ve suggested.”

“Just trust me on this? I promise she’ll like this.” He assured you, though he didn’t sound all too convinced. Candles weren’t the most romantic gift, certainly not as much as the jewelry and perfume you had just been looking at, but he had the advantage of knowing who you were shopping for.

“You know, this would be a lot easier if you told me who she is. Have I met her before?” You questioned, grabbing the first candle off the shelf and smelling it. You were trying to act inconspicuous, but you were dying for information.

“Yeah, but I’m not telling you.” He said, a bashful look on his face as he avoided your gaze and examined the candles as if they were the most interesting thing in the world. He must have felt the weight of your stare, because he shot you a mischievous smile that nearly knocked the wind out of you. “It’s a secret.”

“Does Barzy know?” You challenged, picking up another candle and inspecting it as a way to try and seem less interested than you were in Anthony’s love life.

“That’s not important.”

“So he does.” You stated, a victorious smile on your lips despite the way your heart raced at the thought of getting closer to finding out who had Anthony all worked up. Maybe it would be best if you didn’t know who it was, to live in blissful ignorance for a little while longer, but you had never been the best at preserving your own feelings. Hence the reason you had agreed to spend your free Saturday helping Anthony buy a gift for someone else. “Come on, why won’t you tell me?”

“How does this smell?” He dodged the question, grabbing the closest candle and holding it up to your face to get your opinion. You gave him a curious look, but otherwise dropped the subject and focused on the apple cinnamon scented candle he held.

“Here, try this one instead.” You sighed, handing him the candle you had previously been testing. With a heavy heart, you watched as he gave the candle sniff before looking to you for guidance. “Wisteria and jasmine, it’s supposed to be a romantic combination. I’m sure she’ll love that, whoever she is.”

“Yeah,” Anthony started, watching you with the same adoring look in his eyes that made your heart race. “Whoever she is.”

You couldn’t help but feel a little guilty satisfaction as you watched Anthony hand the candle to the cashier, because even though some other girl would be getting his attention along with that gift, at least it wasn’t something entirely too romantic.

It was a few days until Anthony finally came around to your place again. He had told you that he needed to come over and give you his gift, because he was supposed to be heading back home to see his family soon and wanted you to have it before he left. Your present for him was sitting on your kitchen table, a nice leather wallet wrapped and ready to be exchanged, and when he finally knocked on your door you jumped to your feet to let him in.

He was nervous, you could tell from the way that he knocked instead of letting himself in and how he rushed past you with little more than a quiet ‘hello’ and a kiss pressed to your forehead. With a furrowed brow, you shut your apartment door and followed after him into your living room, where instead of making himself at home on your couch like he usually did, he was pacing the length of the room.

“Beau, are you alright?” He stopped at the sound of your voice, and spun to face you a little too quickly. He didn’t say anything at first, just dragged his hand through his hair and nodded despite looking anything but alright.

“Here’s your present.” He blurted, holding out a wide, flat box. Definitely not a candle. It was evident that he had wrapped it himself, you could see how much tape he used and how the folds were less than neat, but you smiled happily all the same.

“Let me go get your gift, and we can open them together—” You started, but Anthony shook his head quickly to shoot down the idea.

“No, you need to open yours first.” He said decidedly. You didn’t put up an argument, and instead took the box he was extending towards you and settling down on the couch. Anthony stayed standing, and you tried not to let that unnerve you, but something was going on with him.

After unwrapping the present, you opened the lid of the box to find a familiar blue and orange jersey inside. With a chuckle, you lifted the fabric up to better read the name and number on the back of the jersey. Beavullier, number eighteen. It was a running joke between the two of you, that somehow you, his good luck charm, didn’t even own one of his jerseys.

“Thanks, Beau.” You smiled genuinely, but before Anthony could say anything in response your gaze caught on something else in the box with the jersey. It was a smaller, black box that you instantly recognized as one for jewelry. Your breath caught in your throat and you glanced up to Anthony, but he was just watching you with a nearly unreadable look in his eyes.

You opened the box, a shocked grin instantly making its way onto your face as you saw the dainty gold chain and the tiny circular pendant of the necklace. You remembered it as one of the necklaces you had pointed out to him in the department store.

“You said personal.” Anthony said quietly as you brushed the pad of your finger across the lowercase ‘a’ engraved on the pendant. You felt your heart skip three beats at the realization of what the ‘a’ meant. It was for Anthony. He was giving you a necklace with his initial on it.

And he had you convinced that he was terrible at buying romantic gifts.

“Yeah, I did.” You replied just as quietly, carefully setting the boxes on the coffee table before standing and crossing the short distance to where he was standing in your living room anxiously. “Who is the other girl, Beau?”

“There isn’t another girl. Never was, never will be.” He confessed, his hands slowly finding purchase on your waist as you stepped closer to him with each word that passed his lips. Your heart was hammering in your chest, but a thin veil of confusion still covered you. Regardless, your hands fell to his chest, and you could feel the rapid beat of his own heart under your palm.

“Why’d you buy the candle that day, then?” You questioned, because for the past few days you had done nothing but think about how he bought another gift for another girl. Anthony smiled sheepishly, ducking his head slightly in nerves.

“I couldn’t exactly buy your gift with you right there, now could I?” He explained and you couldn’t help the chuckle that fell past your lips then at his comment.

“What’d you do with it?” You were teasing him then, simply bidding time until the conversation that you felt was inevitable came. The one where you finally told Anthony how you felt, the one where he, hopefully, said he felt the same.

“Gave it to Barzy. He really appreciated you picking out the scent, by the way. Said it was exactly what he was looking for.” He mumbled, his head dropping lower and lower in search of a kiss you wouldn’t hesitate to give him. He was teasing, buying time for you to pull back but you stayed still, tilting your chin up slightly in a bid to get him to finally connect your lips.

“Well, tell him I said you’re welcome.” You grinned, shaking your head in mirth at their close friendship. It was then that Anthony closed the gap between you and him, your hands moving of their own accord to hold his face as he kissed you with everything he had. It was a little dizzying, to finally have his lips on yours after so long spent dreaming of this moment. Even when you pulled back ever so slightly to breathe, it was clear both of you had smiles that would last for days.

“Besides, I needed to take you shopping to see what you liked. Pretty smart, eh?” He grinned, clearly proud of himself. You rolled your eyes playfully at his comment, but he only tugged you closer to him until you were flush against his front.

“Beau, I’ve spent the past week and a half thinking you had feelings for someone else. You could have played it a little smarter.” You teased, shifting so your arms were wrapped loosely around his neck. His expression flickered then, to one a bit more serious and he was looking at you with a sincerity in his eyes that would have made you melt, if his kiss hadn’t already done so.

“So, you like me too?” He questioned, and though his wording felt a little juvenile you nodded honestly, your gaze shifting to match his.

“Wouldn’t have kissed you if I didn’t.” You told him, tilting your chin up in search of another kiss that Anthony wasted no time in giving you. “And I definitely wouldn’t have done it again.”

“Do you want to put on the necklace? I want to see you with my initial.” He commented, a little cheekily but mostly happily. You nodded, slowly slipping from his arms to pick up the box you had set on the coffee table. With a sly smile of your own, you asked;

“Help me put it on?”

#anthony beauvillier #Anthony beauvillier x reader #Anthony beauvillier imagine #tito beauvillier #tito beauvilliier x reader #tito beauvillier imagine #New York Islanders #New York islanders imagine #hockey fic #hockey imagine #nhl fic #nhl imagine #12 days fics

[mrvdocks]

Streets

His phone pinged with another comment.

BobbyBaseCamp: You should fuck her.

Kurt had to do a double take. Surely there was no way Bobby had just asked him to make a whole sex tape.

There were other ways to become famous, Kurt thought.

But he was desperate. And Bobby needed content.

Warning: some choking, sexual encounter

As if this day couldn’t get any worse.

You knew if you were late to work one more time you would be fired and then you wouldn’t be able to make rent this week, and then the crippling feeling of adulting and being a massive failure would hit you during a 3 am binge of cheap wine. You’d already promised your roommate you’d pay them back but it just seemed like a shitty week.

Your car wouldn’t start, unsurprisingly, since it had been making all sorts of noises the day before. Add it to the list of things you’d have to inevitably pay for.

You sighed, bringing your phone out and going through the apps. Lyft? Too expensive right now. Uber? Too many creeps. Spree? It was some new rideshare app you never really paid attention to until now. But the sweet sweet price of a trip from your home to work was unmistakable.

You eagerly awaited your chariot to hell, eyes glued on the screen to the driver’s name. Kurt.

He’s there almost instantly, and you have to make the connection between driver and image just in case. You can never be too careful.

“Kurt?” You ask, bending to meet him at eye level from the outside.

A notification bar from the top of your screen indicates that your card was declined and so the Spree ride was canceled. Kurt’s name disappears from your phone. You grimace, looking back to him.

“You know what? It just canceled. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright, I’ll get some other people today. No need to worry about it.”

You raise a brow. “Are you sure? I mean I’m sure there’s someone else who needs you right now.”

Oh but I do need you. He thinks.

He gives you a smile and waves your concern away. “Hop in! Don’t worry about it.”

In his head, he thinks this might work, no trail at all. No having to break into your phone and text or call someone about your whereabouts.

You hop in the backseat, finding solace in the silence for a few moments before Kurt turns to talk to you.

“Going deep huh?”

“Sorry?”

“I meant, you know, you were going to Vine and Hollywood. Must know some big people.”

You laugh nervously, most drivers wouldn’t make small talk with you sometimes. But that would stem from you not wanting to talk to them as much. Better to keep at your own business.

“Uh yeah I guess. Even if some of them are assholes sometimes.” You chuckle.

“You know anyone personally? Maybe you could get the word out for me. Have them tag me. My handle’s KurtsWorld96.”

You chuckled to yourself. This was Los Angeles after all, particularly Hollywood. Land of people who want to be a star by any means necessary.

“Yeah sure, I’ll bring it up sometime,” you say, bringing your attention back onto your phone to pass the time.

Before you can get a look into what’s new on your timeline you notice there are cameras everywhere in the car. One facing you, one in the back, two on opposite sides of Kurt and one next to you on the other seat. Oh geez.

Have you landed into a wrong ride share service? Was this a couch situation?

Kurt must’ve noticed your silent panic as he glanced at the mirror and pointed to his cameras.

“For safety.” He assured.

You nod understandingly.

You flip back to your phone, more aware of being filmed. You have to wonder if this footage were to get out if your employers will notice you called them assholes.

Kurt glances at his phone, seeing Bobby comment.

BobbyBaseCamp: This is boring.

BobbyBaseCamp: You have to do something WTF worthy!!

Kurt rolls his eyes. Though, he knew Bobby was right in some way. If he was gonna get anywhere with this live stream and get #TheLesson out there, he’d have to do something bigger than he had planned.

You’d been nothing but pleasant to him so far, and he’d been keeping an eye out on those waters that sat a mere few inches away from you.

His phone pinged with another comment.

BobbyBaseCamp: You should fuck her.

Kurt had to do a double-take. Surely there was no way Bobby had just asked him to make a whole sex tape.

There were other ways to become famous, Kurt thought.

But he was desperate. And Bobby needed content.

It didn’t hurt that you were attractive. And while it would’ve been a shame to kill you to further his agenda, for some reason he had to try to talk himself out of it. Maybe you had a boyfriend. Maybe he wasn’t your type. Maybe you’d freak.

Bobby’s insults swirled in his head and in the comment section.

Fuck it.

Kurt swerved into an abandoned parking garage, hidden from view. Either thing he had planned today could work here, he just didn’t know it would be something else entirely.

He gets out of the car, and you finally snap from your phone daze to notice you’re not where you’re supposed to be. If anything you were somewhat still far from work.

Your eyes meet Kurt’s own as he opens the door to your side. You’re visibly confused but nonetheless move backward which lets him lean into the back and close enough to you to hover over. 

It doesn’t even register that he’s kissing you until you relax under him, hands coming up to his sweatshirt. You don’t push him away yet, but revel in how he slides in between your legs awkwardly and closes the door behind him.

It had been a while, and while you weren’t complaining, you didn’t really know Kurt all that well.

Pulling back to get some air, you have to ask. “You don’t have like anything right?”

You don’t think he gets it until he responds that he’s never really done this.

One night stands were reserved for nights, right? Not abandoned parking garages in Old Hollywood territory during daylight.

“I’m sorry. We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” He sighs, pulling back.

You don’t really know what to say. He wasn’t so bad looking. His appearance wasn’t too presenting. His hair wasn’t styled or cut, a little greasy maybe but he seemed sweet at first glance. Albeit a little socially awkward and persistent with his social following.

You answer him by lifting the ends of his sweatshirt up and over his head. He catches your drift and helps you, his tee going right after as your hands come down to his jeans. You pop the buttons, somewhat eager to unzip this complete stranger.

Kurt is faster, his fingers coming up to his mouth to lubricate. It’s the small things he’s trying to remember from porn.

Before you can get his pants down, his left-hand slides over your stomach and down into your own pants. You buck against his hand instantly, the feeling taking you by surprise and earning him a moan. You prop yourself up by your elbows and buck again, feeling his knuckle graze your most sensitive area.

He’s so focused on being able to sell this and you’re so entranced that you don’t notice when his other hand makes quick work under your bra. He squeezes lightly, thumb circling your nub. His other hand just pumping in and out of you painfully slow.

The oh so good feeling has you rolling back onto your back and moving closer to him to get the most out of his slender fingers.

The pornstar worthy moans make him smirk.

“Kurt,” you manage out, guiding him closer in between your legs and trying to get your damn jeans off.

He obliges, pulling your shirt up and over and letting it settle in the passenger seat where his camera was.

He’s quick at pulling your jeans and panties off, letting them fall somewhere in the pile. He dives back into you, legs fully spread, and locking him in. With one hand under the dip of your back and the other grasping onto your thigh roughly, he thrusts himself in, a deep grunt erupting from his chest.

He lets his head fall to the crook of your neck, muttering to himself. The feeling of you being so wet and tight makes his body go out of control. It’s unlike anything he’s ever experienced.

You whine as he pulls out, your arms coming up to wrap onto his torso and bring him as close as you can manage. It doesn’t feel fair, having you be naked all the way and him just halfway there but it doesn’t matter at this point.

He thrusts back in with abandon. Grunts, moans, and heavy breaths from both of you filling the car. He pulls your left leg up to his waist, angling himself close to where when he thrusts in again and again you clutch and scratch onto his back harder than before.

Your back arches with each hard and rough thrust he gives you, your legs close in on his lower back, trying to get as much of him as you can in you greedily.

He bottoms out, capturing your lips in a sloppy kiss, the action only intensifying what you were feeling tenfold. His lips leave yours and peck at your neck, collarbone, and breasts.

There was no way he was going to last long now. The feeling of you rocking and bucking to match his thrusts was euphoric and enough to make him come any second.

“Choke me.” You say breathlessly in between thrusts.

“What?” He’s out of breath as well and your request takes him by surprise but he complies and brings the hand that held your thigh to your throat. He presses his fingers down hard.

“Harder.”

Your hand reaches up to grasp his wrist as he grips your throat tighter than before. You smile in content, your eyes closing to revel at the moment.

Somehow the position of being in total control and having the opportunity to put you in some danger stimulated him even more. It fulfilled some primal desire in him.

If he couldn’t kill you, he’d have more fun edging himself.

“Don’t stop, oh god please,” you mewled, on the very cusp of release.

His fingers slipped back down in between your bodies, rubbing at you until you felt your eyes roll back.

Kurt felt close as you clenched around him. His thrusts became sloppy, the sound of skin against skin dying down. He let his head fall again, biting down onto your shoulder somewhat gently as his orgasm wracked through his body. The groan coming from him sent waves through your body and only added to your ecstasy.

But you weren’t done yet, lifting yourself and flipping the both of you over. Once you had him lying where you were, you rode out your high, grinding until you were nearly crying out from the overstimulation. The sight of him lost in pleasure, crying out and brows furrowed was a sight you knew you wouldn’t forget.

Your orgasm leaves you shaking like never before. You collapse on top of him soon after, satisfied. You almost would’ve initiated another round but instead reached for your discarded phone on the floor.

The time nearly made you jump out of the car naked, you were five minutes late.

“Shit!” You jumped, lifting yourself up and letting his cock fall back against his lower belly. “I’m late.”

As though he too was alarmed and more aware of what he just did, he sat up and you both rushed to get your clothes back on. He glanced at his phone, seeing the notifications from Bobby blowing up one after the other.

He might have to ask Bobby not to release this.

“I got it,” Kurt said, returning to the driver’s seat in a second and turning the car back on.

You fixed yourself up again, trying not to look like you just had sweaty spontaneous sex with your driver like some kind of tacky porno. All eyes would be on you.

Kurt drove like a madman and braked hard as he parked right outside the building of where you worked.

You gathered your things and rushed out of the car before turning back to bend to Kurt’s window again. “Do you have a pen?”

Kurt passed you one but instead of writing on paper, you used it to write your name and number on his hand.

Were you really giving this guy your information? He wasn’t such a bad lay, to be honest.

Feeling a blush creep up on your cheeks you smiled, “Maybe you can come over or something.”

Clearly flustered but still appreciative, he smiled back that innocent charming smile.

With that, you headed into work running and trying to come up with an excuse. Completely unaware of what was about to go down that day. Oblivious to the truth about your new crush until you went onto social media later on.

#spree #spree 2020 #kurt kunkle #joe keery #kurt kunkle x reader #joe keery x reader #anyway sorry if this is trash I really needed to vent this lol #smut #idk your consensus here but dc’s streets song really made me think of Kurt

[seeker-of-stories19]

Found this article about things Ian did wrong in Shameless and I’m not saying he’s perfect but this didn’t even make sense so I’m fixing it. (Part 2)

10/20

C’mon I’m dying here so I’ll just reiterate what I was saying in part one of this. He’s mentally ill, so no he’s not making great decisions but that’s not his fault. Also at this point in the show he’s really starting to live with his bipolar disorder, he’s on better meds and he’s moving forward in his life. And seriously if you want to have sex with a ton of people who cares as long as your safe and honest with your partners, which wasn’t the case for Ian but I was annoyed by the overall negativity of this section’s title because it’s really no one else business.

9/20

I don’t have a lot to say about this one because it was a pretty bad thing to do regardless of the circumstances. But I’d like to add that they didn’t have enough of a relationship to be massively affected, and that the last sentence makes Frank out to be the victim of the series. It’s obviously referring to the bridge incident in which he was a victim but saying “he struggled to get over this act of betrayal and cruelty” seems unfounded and out of character. It’s never mentioned again and isn’t this big moment of shattered relationships it’s made out to be in the article.

8/20

Personally I really liked Trevor as a character and I even thought his relationship with Ian was good for the series because it kind of represented everything Ian wanted from Mickey that he couldn’t give and I think being with someone who was maybe his dream guy when he was younger helped him move past whatever idealism he had surrounding his relationship with Mickey by realizing that it wasn’t really what he wanted or needed. And as for Mickey their relationship is clearly unconventional in a variety of ways but they love each other so much and overcome so much more than most people in their relationship. It wouldn’t be considered ‘healthy’ from a phycological standpoint but they work really well together and complement each other and make each other happy. Whatever they have works for them and that’s all that matters.

7/20

This one is also pretty bad but while I’m not justifying his behavior here I still didn’t like how it was presented. Starting once again with the fact that Ian shouldn’t blackmail an old client but at the same time old men shouldn’t be having sex with underage teenagers. And overall I could see Ian’s power play being the result of a mental illness induced trauma that caused him to make decisions he wouldn’t have in a stable mindset. He was not mentally stable and he was high which means he was being taken advantage of even if it was consensual and his clients didn’t have this information. It not being intentional wouldn’t stop it from being traumatizing or hurtful to Ian and I could understand why he’d want to take a little bit of power back after being helpless for so long. Also its nothing like Frank because he’s doing it for a good reason, not to get wasted or high so that again doesn’t make sense.

6/20

Yeah so not his best moment but I’d just like to add that he was genuinely trying to help people so no one would have to struggle the way he (and Mickey) did. And while his behavior quickly turned erratic he was still trying to help albeit in his own unstable way. But it is later revealed that Ian was off his meds at this point which kind of dissolves any validity this claim may have had. And his attitude toward Trevor could be attributed to this as well (or maybe Ian was just losing interest, who knows?)

5/20

His meds don’t cure his illness they just balance it out and sometimes it’s not enough. He doesn’t stop taking his medication because he’s selfish but because he’s sick. And as for the rest of it he’s mentally ill, he’s not thinking straight, and it’s not his fault.

4/20

He’s bipolar and he’s off his meds, not sure how many more ways I can think to say this.

3/20

Great well they’ve been giving him a hard time for at least the past three sections and now the opposite criticism is being made. He believed in the cause and he said he believed in it at his hearing but telling the judge and a group of his followers that the way he’d handled the issue was wrong took courage and I was upset at his followers, some of whom were friends as well, for abandoning him when he admitted he was off his medication. Saying he shouldn’t have withheld a child from their parents and that he shouldn’t have blown up a van aren’t the same as saying he didn’t believe wholeheartedly in the cause.

2/20

Ian lives a life he’s happy with and that’s what matters. So he didn’t go to college (and get kicked out) or buy real estate (and then lose it and subsequently go off the deep end) he manages his bipolar disorder, works as an EMT, and is married to the love of his life while looking out for his siblings too. This seems like a pretty great life to me and despite its challenges he still has room to grow. And again with the medication, seriously?

1/20

Well this is so bad it’s almost funny. Literally Ian and Mickey are the only reason to watch this show and this comment had me torn between laughing and throwing my phone when I read it. I’m going to break it down a little anyway though for fun. So Mickey denied his feelings for Ian (internalized homophobia by the way) considering how his dad behaves when given this news can you blame him for wanting to protect himself? There was the rape incident with Svetlana, Terry tried to beat him to death when he came out, he burned down their wedding venue and tried to kill them on their honeymoon. I wonder why he didn’t accept he was gay sooner? And I’m sorry but are you kidding me, Ian being bipolar does not keep them from being happy, this is discriminatory towards people with mental illness in relationships, insulting to their characters, and blatantly untrue. The whole article was underplaying his mental illness and now they’re saying he can’t be in a happy relationship because of it? Also, the only time they weren’t faithful was when Ian was first suffering bipolar symptoms and didn’t have his meds which isn’t his fault, before that Mickey was just trying to force himself into being someone he could never be because he’s traumatized and afraid (and they weren’t exclusive and Ian knew he was with other people.) I’d like to point out again that there was heat on Ian for this earlier and it’s contradictory but so what he didn’t run away with Mickey. He wanted too but felt responsible for taking care of his family and things worked out better for him having stayed. Their relationship is unique and funny and sexy and they make each other happy so I don’t know what else there is to say.

I really hope people enjoyed this because it took me forever, I’d love to know everyone else’s thoughts.

P. S. The full article is posted to part one of this post for anyone who wants to check it out but mostly to give the writer credit.

Part 2/2

#shameless #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich #gallagher’s #gallavich #rant post #ranting #bipolar disorder #mental illness #mental disorder #my thoughts

[rkjinwook]

• • •  STARTING LIVE!

       02AUG2020  |   🐥 JINWOOK’S HAPPY BIRTHDAY 🥳 🥳        DURATION   |   1:02:22

it’s a cute set, albeit typical for this kind of broadcast. the staff have provided jinwook with a fixed camera framing his mini birthday table, complete with multicolored balloons decorating the back wall. there’s a small tablet to monitor the stream and comment feed, which jinwook fiddles with as he waits. in retrospect, he thinks it would’ve been nicer to hold a more casual conversation with fans for his first solo live, but that might just be the nerves talking.

he fills the silence with music, his guitar in his lap. it’s an everyday sight, but jinwook realizes most fans won’t have heard him play much, so he takes care to warm up cleanly, and warm up his vocals too. he only alternates between a few simple chords, though. it’s the sort of background music he used to hear when he’d occasionally attend church services with eve. as jinwook plays he imagines an audience quietly filing in, taking their seats at his birthday party as they each receive the live notification. finally the staff motions for jinwook that the actual video is starting, and he rests the instrument in his lap, out of view for now.

“hello! i’m convex’s sunshine, jinwook.” the greeting is bright and familiar as he dips his head toward the camera. it’s unlikely that the viewers, who arrived so early from a notification, don’t know his name, but it can’t hurt to start off formally. “today is my birthday! yay!!” also evident from the title and the backdrop. jinwook gives himself a round of applause anyway. then he picks up a party hat from the table and slips the cone over his head. “tada~” 

“since we can’t meet in person, i wanted to greet you all with a live today to celebrate.” there’s a pause as jinwook adjusts the thin elastic of the party hat. he takes a breath. “last year, hmm...” he taps a finger to his cheek as he thinks back. “oh, last year i made cupcakes! i was helping our team sphere on the mgas.. so i couldn’t meet consta that time, either.” jinwook hums in thought, suddenly a bit nostalgic about his time as a coach. he shakes his head. “so i’m excited to try this out now.”

“let’s see...” he says, quickly moving on, “is everyone settling in here alright?” he peers over the tablet and rests a finger over the chat to pause its scrolling speed. the amount of viewers is staggering and the number only keeps rising, but jinwook focuses on the individual users sending messages instead. it’s a relief to see the majority in his native language. “hello and hello and hello,” he says, reading off a string of usernames and greeting each one individually, “and thank you for coming, and thank you for coming, and thank you for coming~!”

when jinwook releases his finger from the screen, the chat jumps back to life, shifting too quickly to read. he frowns and tries to pause it again. it takes some concentration to read off the unusual username combinations, but he does his best.

💬  :  happy bday 🥳 🥳 🥳 💬  :  you look handsome!!! 💬  :  happy birthday oppa~ 💬  :  thank you for being born 💖🎁🎁 💬  :  bare faced jinwook is the best!

“ah, thank you~ hello!! thank you too~ thank you for being by my side! oh! this one...” jinwook is startled into a laugh at the last comment, bringing a hand over his mouth. when he drops his hand he shows his full face to the camera, grinning. “this is definitely not bare faced jinwook, but, still i appreciate you thinking so~”

as he tries to keep reading, he tilts his head and squints. many of the messages are just full of celebrating emoji or animated emotes. it’s less to parse, but more noise to sort through. “ah, so much emoji in chat, you all must’ve learned from me, huh...” he muses.

after another minute he leans back again, his nerves settled. well, jinwook’s never had much trouble even talking to himself, so it shouldn’t surprise him that speaking to a bustling chat window comes naturally, too.

💬  :  did you have a good day so far?

“i’m happy today!” jinwook answers confidently. “my grandmother always wakes up early on sunday mornings, so i called her on the way to practice! and later tonight i’m going to video call with my family. actually i told my sister what time i was going live, so she might be listening too?” jinwook squints back down at the tablet and bites his lower lip. “ah, the chat is going way too fast to tell...”

💬  :  where are the other members!!

“hmm, training?” jinwook grins. “i’m taking a break to talk for right now~ but we are all working very hard otherwise!” he shares another smile, proud of himself for not mentioning anything further - although if his eyes sparkle, he can’t be held responsible. “they might stop by at the end!”

“that reminds me!” jinwook reaches below the table for his bag, pulling out a fresh journal that jaehyun had gifted him in the morning. he holds it up for the camera, proudly showing off the nice foil accents and the fold-out attachment. “my roommate, haru, got me this really pretty notebook. it’s supposed to work as a real midi keyboard.” jinwook’s runs his fingers over the cover. “he has good timing since i am almost out of pages in my old notebook... i’m excited to use it.”

💬  :  oppa’s hair is cool today!

“my hair, ah..” jinwook reaches absently to touch it, pleased. “it grew!” it’s worn longer than it was for pretty u era, freshly dyed and parted down the middle. he’s lucky he’s even allowed to have it showing for the live right now, since it’s a similar shade to his old cut. “i’m kind of happy, since it feels healthy recently...” he chuckles a little, the compliment leading him to another train of thought.

“speaking of cool, consta, did you guys see our call me baby special stage last week?” jinwook looks up to the camera and leans in, curious. “the concept was slightly darker for us, since unit black is so, you know... cool.” jinwook gestures vaguely but laughs at the understatement. it’s not a big enough word to describe some of the biggest superstars in the industry. “we have songs like rock but it’s different from convex‘s usual image, maybe,” he adds thoughtfully, knowing full well that their next comeback is inching in that direction. “do you think we suited it well?”

💬  :  convex is cool too!

jinwook nods, pleased by the positive responses in the chat. “so it was okay, then?” he laughs a little because of course, they’re all biased fans and he asked for it on his birthday, but it’s still reaffirming. “mmm, it still felt a bit refreshing and funky like convex, too. so i think there can be a middle ground,” he says, as if simply imagining how things could evolve in the future. “something smooth like that stage?”

something smooth. jinwook’s thinking of crazy in love, specifically, but the title song itself is an even bigger departure from their pretty u sound and aesthetic. “ah..” he shakes his head with a sheepish grin, “i think i’m rambling a lot.” jinwook takes a dramatic deep breath and collects his thoughts.

then he shifts away from the tablet to pull up the guitar in his lap. “i wanted to answer a lot of messages, but i actually prepared a song for you, too.” he strums a bright chord for emphasis. “it’s nothing fancy but i thought consta would maybe enjoy something like this. so i don’t have to sing happy birthday to myself, or anything,” he jokes.

🎵  :  heartz / minhee&luda — i’ll be there

“this is one of my favorite songs recently! i thought it would be nice for our fans, too.” it’d been an easy choice when jinwook was preparing for this stream. it’s a recent sphere release, plus he’s been listening to and singing the song since it came out, so he already knew most of the words. still, jinwook pulls up the lyrics on the tablet just in case. since he frames it as a fan song, there’s no need to change the gendered parts, although he doesn’t think he would have bothered, either way. 

jinwook only slows the tempo and lowers the key slightly to fit his guitar and his voice. the song has a different energy with an acoustic guitar instead of the bouncy synths, but it’s just as sweet and upbeat. he takes his time, singing all the way through both verses and two choruses. 

just before the bridge, jinwook trails off with a little smile. “ah, i just practiced up until here so far...” he keeps strumming idly as he leans over the tablet again. the comments flood with cheers that jinwook only can read some pieces of. it feels good, though, and jinwook feels confident about the vibe.

he watches several prying questions about heartz fly by in response, and carefully doesn’t acknowledge any of them. “of course i’ve been cheering for heartz,” is all he says. “i really liked around you and vivid also! and i’m excited for the next singles released this week, too.”

💬  :  please a convex song next!!

“oh,” he says, “a convex song?” jinwook takes a break, first, to roll out his wrists. then he hums in thought, searching for something he could play on the spot. “do you remember this one?”

🎵  :  convex — 20

he transitions into a familiar guitar intro. long-time fans might recognize it as the vocal unit song from convex’s debut album, but jinwook is pleased to introduce it to anyone else who’s unfamiliar. personally, he thinks it has held up pretty well over the past two years. “shh—” he mimics the sharp first line, then smiles as he continues strumming and begins to sing.

the song proves difficult to solo, and jinwook wishes he’d thought to prepare more material ahead of time. a medley could’ve been nice, but with all of the comeback preparations going on..... instead jinwook giggles as he trips over the lyrics, attempting the first verse’s backing and lead vocals both together. “hm..” he mumbles, glancing up at the camera. he casually redoes the section to make a decent recovery, and the chorus soars as intended. 

“ah...” says jinwook wistfully after he eases to a stop, “i’ll have to come back to that one someday. that one is nice to sing to consta, too. i always liked the lyrics a lot. you’re my twenties~”

he taps his fingers against the body of the guitar and is reminded of the special day. “but today my twenties are officially half-over, aren’t they? wah... scary....”

twenty-five. he stares blankly toward the tablet, thinking he should follow up: then i’ll just spend the second half of my twenties with consta!

these days, though, it feels like an unfair promise to make.

💬  :  like a gorilla like a gorilla!

his eye catches on one of the suggestions breezing down the chat window, and it interrupts his brooding with a burst of laughter. “gorilla? de:code’s gorilla?” he repeats. he tries a few chords but they’re not in the right key, and jinwook grins as he puts away his guitar on its stand. “i don’t know, that one would be an interesting acoustic cover.” he sings a little phrase of it anyway, a random adlib from the ending: “girl you make me feel~!”

“but!” he points a finger at the camera, not wanting his opinions to be twisted. “maybe one day i could cover their song beautiful, or i’m fine from predebut!”

💬  :  what are you listening to recently?

“hmm... what is new?” jinwook absently adjusts his elastic party hat elastic and pulls out his phone. “i like lee hi’s holo! per_se have a nice summer album.. with o sole mio, and of course...” jinwook hits a pretty falsetto as he opens the music app: “this is how i feel about you, twilight~”

“it’s like twilight, yeah~” he flicks through his playlist and wonders if he should just share screenshots of the whole thing on fancafe. “ah, and eclipse’s comeback!” he adds. “look, isn’t the album cover pretty?” his screen is probably illegible, when he holds it up close to show the camera, but at least his enthusiasm is clear. “i like their night side the best, with that unique rock sound...” jinwook pauses, and reconsiders. “actually, navillera was totally my style, too.” he shakes his head and grins. “eclipse is definitely cool no matter what.”

💬  :  it is already 4 in the morning here why 😭

english. jinwook has glazed over every message in foreign languages but he laughs at this one. he trips over a stilted reading of the comment, and quickly switches back to korean to answer. “i’m sorry ahh, next time i have to think of different timezones, right?” he tilts his head. “mm, it seems impossible to find a good time for everyone all around the world? but i’m happy you could visit with me for even a little bit. please make sure to rest well~” as an afterthought, he finishes in english: “and goodnight~”

💬  :  can you show a rap verse? 

“rapping?” jinwook’s eyes light up at the suggestion, and he laughs out loud. “can i tell a secret?” it’s not the right question to ask, judging by the staff’s reaction. but jinwook leans in sneakily, and continues despite their concerned looks. “we tried to switch parts for adore u once, so i learned seungcheol’s rap! that choi seungcheol,” he says with a grin, “has pretty good expressions on stage these days... his parts are fun! i like practicing his pretty u verse, too.”

he tells the story casually, although that part switch was not just boredom in the practice rooms, but an official planned anniversary release. that weekend in incheon is still a fond memory despite the disappointment of never getting to see the final edit.

he rolls his shoulders. “anyway, i don’t have the nice low voice for it, but there is a little melody to his parts a lot of the time...” jinwook postures up for full effect and puts on his best rapper expression. “how can you dazzle so much? you’re so pretty it’s—”

it’s probably for the best that he is interrupted by a loud knock and a rowdy chorus of happy birthday starting right outside the door.

➡️  :  continued in part two...

#& sns #&& vlive #rkvlive #& solo #&& 07.20 #wc / 2500

[efortmanteau]

TMA Headcanons

I sort of spoiled myself in terms of headcanons for The Adventure Zone, so now I try to finish/get caught up on podcasts and form impressions entirely in my head before introducing visual ideas via fanart. And lately I've been focusing on The Magnus Archives SOOOO here we go:

My headcanons for The Magnus Archives. A few were originally written after listening through s2. I've added my s3 thoughts below characters or in a new section. I'm only 3 episodes in to s4 so no spoilers after the end of s3.

Jon (I only recently discovered that there's no H in his spelling, whoops) aka The Archivist - Obviously Jon doesn't really have fun ever, so the main word I think of is 'austere.' He's a pale white guy with dark hair and greyish or brownish eyes who basically always dresses formally--collared shirts, slacks, maybe even vests, usually neutral colors. He's thin, but not fit--just the type of guy who doesn't put on weight since he doesn't focus much on food. Rectangular face, maybe has facial hair… I haven't decided, but if he does, it's like a goatee/mustache scenario that's always well trimmed. In my mind, he's young to mid 30s, but could look older. When he's scared or disshevelled though, he looks a lot younger. I think he's also kind of short, maybe 5'8", so he keeps really good posture to make up for it. Ben Whishaw is almost right, but he'd have to be homelier. S3 updates: Not really any? Although apparently it's Jon without an H. I've confirmed that he looks older than he is since the spider picturebook episode (which I would love Don Hertzfeld to animate, perhaps with assistance from Jules Feiffer who is 90 gd years old… that episode is so vivid in my head). Also I forgot Jon has worm… scars? Pock-marks? Not sure how that works, but you probably don't see them much, given I can't imagine him in short sleeves or shorts, although maybe he has a few on his neck visible pretty frequently, above collars. I'm was pleased to learn he is canonically asexual, but not all that surprised. Something about the way he interacted with Georgie in her apartment had me wondering… maybe it reminds me of me and my ex (I'm the asexual one, my ex isn't, but we still get along).

Martin - I immediately imagined Marty (Terry Gross Waters-Waters SAT tutor in Gayle) when I learned more about soft, sweet lad Martin, so Matty Cardarople has always kind of been in my head. That is probably just a similar name situation, but it's kind of perfect. Since Martin said he wasn't the smallest of guys but still made it into a basement window, I imagine he's kind of tall and chubby, but doesn't seem tall, slouchy, not the most confident person. Sort of a Neville Longbottom situation (before the glow-up). I think somewhere between Matty and Nick Robinson is around the correct appearance: a little more clean shaven and formally dressed than Matty often is with shorter hair (but still flippy), but softer than Nick is. This guy wears sweaters a lot. I guess he's canonically 29 at the end of s1--I had imagined him in his mid 20s somewhere, but I guess he was pretending to be older since he claimed he had a master's degree. S3 updates: Martin is probably the one who was most easy for me to imagine. I never really thought of his fixation on Jon to be a crush, which I'm really intrigued by in terms of character development. I was parsing it more of Martin being a bit of a subservient character, that he was like that to everyone in the office, but we only saw it from Jon's POV as the primary narrator. If I do a re-listen, I'll be very interested to pick out some Martin/Jon moments now that I have a different context.

Sasha (or maybe Sascha) - I sort of had Sally Donovan from BBC's Sherlock in mind initially. I tried to stray away from that and looked up "half black actress." I picked out Zawe Ashton without even realizing that she had in fact played Sally (in one episode, so not her main actress) because of her hair and skin and the fact that her face is pleasant, but not the typical hyper-button baby doll face that some actresses have. Sasha has natural hair with light curls (sometimes straightened). I originally pictured a small afro, but I think in s2, they refer to her as having long hair, so I guess not? I'm also not clear if that was Not-Sasha imitating her, or just straight up not looking like real-Sasha at all. She's slim, pretty posh/minimalist in style--grey herringbone peacoat, umbrella, boots. I imagine she's half Russian heritage-wise, since is a common Russian diminutive for Aleksandra. I would put her in the 25-27 age range. S3 updates: I caught on to Not-Sasha (partially because I saw the name in the voice actor credits, whoops), but I think I also caught something in Lottie's flat affect that clued me in. I thought that the imposter was just good at disguise, not that people had been cursed to forget what real Sasha looked like, so Melanie's introduction and take on Sasha/Not-Sasha threw me off a bit. I don't remember if the "long hair" comment was for real- or Not-Sasha. But I don't have any headcanons about Not-Sasha… just that she looks nothing like the original.

Tim - In my head Tim is the tallest main character, maybe 6'2", and pretty fit. He's imposing at first glance, but since he's so congenial and laid back (at least in s1 before Jon totally pisses him off) everyone who knows him knows he's a nice, fun guy. He's black, with fairly dark complexion, short hair, clean shaven. He probably wears sweaters too, but like… the thinner kind. None of this bulky knit from grandma that Martin rocks. I first think of Alan from Russian Doll (Charlie Barnett), but darker, just black instead of more mixed. I'd say he's around Jon's age. S3 updates: RIP in pepperinos. I guess him being fit is not unreasonable since he is… canonically? (does Alex and Jonny joking about it make it canonical) an outdoorsy adventurer. I certainly missed his friendly nature, but my headcanons didn't really change. He just looked a lot more tired up until the end of s3.

Elias - He is older than the rest of them, I would guess in his 40s or 50s, but given that it's canon that he rose in the ranks kind of quickly, maybe he's not that old after all. I don't really have a good mental picture of him, maybe because I can't differentiate his voice from John's a lot of the time until I piece the context together. In my mind he has a beard and mustache though, kind of full, and maybe dirty blonde hair that's greying a bit. S3 updates: I wouldn't be surprised if he carried a cane that was actually a sword or a gun (I'm American, so having a gun seems very easy to me, so I'm not sure if that would be rare in England). Also, did I hear something about having a grey bun? Maybe I'm completely confusing it with something else, but I'm chuckling about man bun Elias.

Michael - Well, he isn't human… but he looks kind of like a really pale guy who is mishapen and thus wearing a lot of clothing at first glance? He probably wears a lot of clothes so you can't really make him out under the trench coat, scarf, hat, etc. (I might be confusing him with someone else). I think it's canon that his hands are large and maybe have too many bones. For some reason, Michael reminds me of tourmalinated quartz--black and white for the most part, striations cutting through the clearer crystal--sort of like a metaphor for how he kind of… dimension hops? Ends up where he isn't supposed to? I imagine striations of his appearance sort of blip in and out when you look at him based on the static he causes on recordings. S3 updates: I now know that he was an assistant to Gertrude. I guess my idea of his human form is basically the same color and demeanor, just not other-worldly in proportions and bone count. Probably the tall gangly type of white guy. ALSO I guess he's kind of Helen now…? I'll do a separate one for Helen.

---BREAK to add characters I didn't write about until the end of s3---

Basira - I assume she is a Muslim woman, based on her name. I imagine she wears a hijab. I picture her as Middle-Eastern, perhaps Iranian, but she could also be black (there are a fair amount of black Muslims in America, not sure if it's common in England). Other than the hijab, she's not very feminine in her styling. Being on the force probably means you want pretty functional, utilitarian garments. I don't remember if she talked in great detail about how she joined the police, whether it was straight from school, but in my mind she's late 30s.

Daisy - I think I recall she has a back tattoo? She's a murderer so she has a tough air about her, but she's also a subtle murderer, so nothing about her screams that she's dangerous… you just get that feeling, you know? I imagine a white lady, short blonde hair, blue eyes. Kind of like Brienne of Tarth, but more plain than ugly. She's maybe early to mid 40s. I'm not sure if her relationship with Basira is supposed to be romantic or not. I kind of prefer this weird closeness that doesn't always equate to trust given their specific experiences. Regardless, I imagine they are around the same age.

Melanie - Melanie is probably the youngest, early to mid 20s. Typical build and height, maybe a little chubby, but not unable to climb fences or anything (gotta hunt them ghosts). She has a short, asymmetrical bob, dark hair, but part is dyed a bright color of pink, purple, maybe green. I imagine she has a go-to windbreaker that has some neon colors.

Helen - I'm so sad that we had to lose Michael to gain Helen. I really love the Spiral and the characters we've met who are involved with them. Helen in my mind was a badass realtor, ready to close a deal, very driven… and that carried over into becoming SpiralHelen. She sort of outsmarted it with the locked door, didn't she? I can't imagine that's very common for humans/avatars to get the better of their entities. She seems really strong willed, so I'm excited to see where she goes as a human who is becoming an avatar. I think her personality translates into her being 40-something but like lowkey hot? She probably rocks a suit with a skirt in bold colors that men's wear usually doesn't offer (all over red suit, tailored to her, pumps, straight brown hair, nice makeup). I'm not sure how the Spiral would affect her… maybe her angles just get a little more pronounced? She's probably not yet to the point of disfiguration that Michael was anyway.

Georgie - She is like a terrier who will bark at a big dog because they don't know to be afraid of it (or… how to be afraid of it, in her case). She is short, 5'2" or less (I just remembered that a lot of the listeners probably use metric measurements, so sorry for that, but I'm not going to bother converting). I imagine she is cute--she dresses up for her dates to Hungarian restaurants (my favorite detail omg girl get it) and wants to look hot, but really she can't get away from cute. Brown curly hair, big brown eyes, button nose. But resting bitch face… gotta ward off those catcalls and get taken seriously somehow.

Jergen? I can’t spell, it’s Jurgen - Jowly white guy. Wispy caramelly colored hair that's going white. Probably pretty tall, which I'm sure what an annoyance in those tunnels.

Gertrude - At first glance, just some old white lady. But after you get to know her, you realize she can probably murder you and is nowhere near as frail as you think. Curly, wiry grey hair.

#tma #the magnus archives

[recentanimenews]

The GREAT CRUNCHYROLL Re:ZERO REWATCH Kicks Off With Episodes 1-5

Welcome to the GREAT CRUNCHYROLL Re:ZERO REWATCH! I'm Jared Clemons, and I'll be your host this week as we make our way through Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-. Last week, we answered our initial questions about the series, and this week we began episodes 1-5.

  Going into Re:ZERO, for the most part blind, made for some surprising moments in just these first five episodes alone. I wasn’t expecting Subaru to just switch worlds with seemingly nothing happening to him in his original world. Nor did I think constantly redoing periods of time would be a thing. Somehow, that aspect of the show completely passed me by when it was airing a few years ago. I’m not completely bought into Subaru as a hero quite yet. There’s something about him that just feels fake or off to me. Maybe that’s the point though. I’m sure I'll figure that out along with everyone else over the course of the next four weeks. Regardless, I’m interested to see where this whole thing goes and why this has the reputation it does. Gotta figure out who made Subaru turn into mush at the end of episode 5, which I have some theories about.

    Before we discuss these episodes, let's check out some questions and comments you had from our last installment!

  Acapo asks: “so how are these rewatch things decided? Do we vote somewhere? Or...”

  We came to a consensus together as the Features team. While taking suggestions from you guys wouldn’t be a bad idea, we have tentatively booked ourselves for the next two Rewatches, so it’ll be awhile before we could ask for ideas.

  MachaiArcanum asks: “So how exactly does this rewatch thing work exactly? This is the first time I’ve heard of it and I’m not sure what exactly is going on.”

  So, we are going to watch five episodes each week and you'll get to read the Features team's thoughts and opinions on that set of episodes. We welcome all of you to watch along with us and you can ask questions or give your comments about these episodes similarly to what we're doing. Plus, you can be featured in this segment of the Rewatch as well!

  Deatherz007 says: “Time for Subaru to suffer once more”

  Only a little bit.

    Now, let's see what the Crunchyroll Features team thought of this week's episodes!

  We kick things off with, depending on the version you’re watching, two episode ones or a longer episode one. Did this longer episode do a good job of introducing you to the world of Re:ZERO? Would you have liked it to have been shorter or cut down in specific spots?

  David: The only thing I would change is the cut in the middle being completely abrupt. You can imagine a commercial break there or something but having no transition at all makes it feel very odd.

  Austin: I wouldn’t say it introduces the world of Re:ZERO well so much as it introduces the slums and the characters well while making the capital feel as huge as it is. That said, I really like longer first episodes of anime since they’re great for setting the tone and almost always make me want to watch more right away.

  René: I’m with Austin on this. Longer episodes really give you that opportunity to establish a proper mood and mindset for a show that is way harder to accomplish with only 20 minutes. Whenever an anime serves me a double-length episode, it immediately piques my interest since it’s obviously something special if it gets this kind of production treatment.

  Kevin: It’s a bit hard for my to say, since this is my third or fourth time watching the show, so I already know a lot more about the world than I should. I’ll say that I like some of the worldbuilding that they hint at, like mentioning Satella and the Jealous Witch early on. As for stuff that could be cut down, I’ve always felt like while a bunch of stuff is repeated due to the time loope mechanic, very little is actually wasted, and speeding much of it up would make things fly by too quickly. 

  Carolyn: I thought the point of it was not so much to introduce the world but to set up the storytelling device of semi-time travel and constantly dying, which it did very well.

    Paul: I watched the Japanese version with English subtitles, and while I was initially lukewarm on the premise, I must admit that the first two episodes hooked me. From what I've seen, I think Re:ZERO works best when it's structured like a horror movie or a murder mystery, and these early episodes demonstrate a lot of that.

  Joshua: I think for the story Re:ZERO is trying to tell, and the emotional depth it’s trying to tell it with, a standard 25-ish minute introduction would have been nowhere near as effective. We had to learn not only of Return by Death, but the impact it has on Subaru, and there’s really only one way to do that (over and over again!). This hefty run-time even came without an explanation for Subaru being isekai’d! While Truck-kun won’t be getting a paycheck this time, and there was no other crazy reason like other shows in the genre, I actually respect how Re:ZERO skipped a convoluted set-up in favor of what actually matters right now. I felt that the double episode gave me a firm anchor on the characters and their feelings, which is a useful connection to make early on.

  Noelle: I think the setup was effective enough. I haven’t seen this show before, and I don’t know anything about it, but the first few episodes delivered enough information to get me interested, but not enough to give me all the answers, and that’s fine. I don’t think the world as a whole has been introduced, because it’s still filtered through our protag’s eyes, but we don’t need an opening history lesson in this case. 

  Danni: I thought it worked really well as a two-parter. It was a long, but effective, introduction to the world and Subaru’s predicament as a whole. It also managed to do so without any big exposition dumps, which I really appreciated. 

  Kara: Nothing felt wasted or overly long in that first episode. As others have said, there was a lot to set up, and going for the standard 22-minute runtime wouldn’t necessarily have allowed for enough room to lay things out adequately. I wasn’t checking the time at all, which is always my high sign for what feels decently paced.

    Subaru quickly learns that he is reliving time after getting killed. Since you may have known about this already, what did you think about how it was executed in these episodes? Was anime Groundhog Day what you were expecting and do you think it’s been explained well thus far?

  David: It takes him a few times in to figure it out, I was actually kind of surprised to realize how many times he went through it before he understood he was going through the same day over and over again. That said, I think it’s well explained because of how natural it comes to Subaru. The show literally starts with him realizing he has been isekai’d, but it takes him a while to realize he is reliving scenarios.

  Austin: “Quickly”, he says… Sarcasm aside, I think it was done well since it adds a kind of unique weight to everything. Sure, Subaru can die with relatively low risk, but I tense up every time he gets in a fight or near anything sharp and pointy since I really don’t want to see the poor guy have to suffer both another death and having to redo a section of time but this time figure out what he did wrong.

  René: The gruesomeness of his deaths are what really sells the memetic “suffering” part of this show. Yes, it may be of little consequence for him to die but the way his deaths are depicted just really shows you how painful it actually is and moves it away from just being a videogame-y element as in many other isekai shows.

  Kevin: Once Subaru finally realized his power, I looked down into the episode comments and saw “out of everything that has happened it’s the chips that make him realize what’s going on,” and that pretty much sums up Re:ZERO. The time loops make sense, and they keep happening in part because the main character is either too stupid or stubborn to stop dying. As for what I was expecting when I first watched the show, I remember quite appreciating how much Subaru tries to learn each time he dies, using past loops to influence how he acts in the current loop. He’s genre savvy enough to know that if he does things the exact same, then the same outcome will happen, but human enough that he can’t repeat things exactly, which then leads to different outcomes. The actual ability hasn’t really been explained yet, but it’s easy enough to get a grasp of how it works.

  Carolyn: I was trying to figure out if he actually died on what we would consider Earth? That seems pretty clear but it’s not totally cut and dry, I guess. If so, is he in Heaven/Purgatory/whathaveyou? I’m still kind of stuck on that.

    Paul: The mechanics of Subaru's “Return by Death” ability haven't been explained at all, although I have an inkling of how it works as a result of encountering some spoilers years ago. I think the series works best when it leans heavily on the dramatic irony, to the point where neither the audience nor the main character knows exactly what is going on. It's satisfying when something unexpected happens.

  Joshua: I really liked how Subaru didn’t twig it the first time, so we could join in his confusion as he tried to figure out exactly what was happening to him. It does make a little sad that some neat conversations are lost to everyone but Subaru though; like his chat with Old Man Rom. So I hope the series is able to counterbalance that loss of character development as it moves forward.

  René made a great point about the impacts of Subaru’s many deaths though. In fact, my Mum walked in on me watching one of them and called it “horrific”! It’d be easy for a show like this to lose all sense of any stakes if viewers become too comfortable with Subaru simply waking up at the last “save point”, but seeing the physical and emotional pain each death causes him, really makes me want to see him break the loops!

  Noelle: I wouldn’t call him keying in quick by any means, but then again, it takes people some time to process information, especially if it’s been after a traumatic experience. I don’t think the deaths themselves are that gruesome all things considering (I do watch a lot of horror), but they do a great job at showing Subaru’s terror. When you’re a kid with no combat experience, going up against very experienced enemies, that’s only inevitable…

  Danni: This is my first time watching it, but I actually didn’t realize it was a Groundhog Day situation until we started planning out this rewatch in the group chat. I think it worked about how you’d expect with him taking a few runs to really understand what was happening. Honestly the only thing in the premise I took issue with was how quickly he was on board with suddenly being summoned to a parallel world and a tiny bit put off by how self-aware he was of isekai tropes. 

  Kara: I literally had no idea. Time loops are one of my favorite narrative devices to see played with. If I’d known this was a major part of the concept of Re:ZERO I probably would have come to it of my own volition much sooner.

    Since we’re now 20% (yes, that does sound weird) of the way through Re:ZERO, give me your thoughts on Subaru as a protagonist so far. What do you like or dislike about him? Is his heroism heartfelt or insincere?

  David: So this is actually my favorite part about this show—Subaru’s “heroism” isn’t “heroic” as much as it is “altruistic”. He doesn’t do things because he expects rewards, but because his actions will help make the world around him better in some way. Emilia is the same, and their conversation on the bridge in the first episode highlights this.

  Austin: I really like Subaru at this point, and I think these early episodes do a good job of painting him as a sympathetic character. He’s seemingly selfless to a fault and just wants to make Emilia happy since in turn that’ll make him happy.

  René: These first few episodes do a great job divorcing Subaru from your run-of-the-mill isekai protagonist. Not only is there seemingly no actual reason for him to be isekai’d as he just randomly pops up, it also undermines every heroic deed he tries to accomplish almost immediately. It really drives home the fact that he is just your regular guy who doesn’t get to be The Chosen One simply because he came to this world.

  Kevin: Oh boy are we going to have a lot to talk about in a few weeks. For now, Subaru is goofy and driven and as a result is generally likable. At the same time, he clearly has no idea what to do to move forward, so is just fumbling around until something catches his eye. He’s basically like a lost puppy, so that helps to endear the audience and characters to him. His heroism is heartful, just misguided. He wants to help Emilia, but he has no actual reason to. 

  Carolyn: I immediately saw him as the Deadpool of Isekai. Deadpool knows he’s in a comic and all the tropes that come with it, Subaru knows all the tropes that come with this strange new land he’s in. I found that to be entertaining. As for his intentions, I think he’s been very straightforward about that. He’s sincere, but his motivations aren’t entirely noble. He will help others but does intend to get something out of it. He’s just honest about that.

    Paul: I like Subaru more than I expected to, although I don't know whether that's because he's well-written or because of the pathos evoked by his Job-like suffering. His biggest flaw seems to be that he keeps treating the world like a video game, and he doesn't realize that he is not the protagonist. Subaru also doesn't realize that his affection for Emilia is one-sided. He mistakes her basic empathy for romantic interest, and as someone who made the same mistake as a dumb teenager, I can only see that ending poorly.

  Joshua: I’m honestly not sure how to read Subaru. Puck keeps on saying he has no ill-intent, yet he’s usually the first to make some off-handed weird comments. He’s definitely complex, and I wouldn’t mind this becoming a recurring question each week! For now, I’d say he’s earnest but his constant self-deprecation will make others see him in a worse light. He can also be a bit too cocky at times, like his meeting with Roswaal. So I’d like to see him gain a bit more respect for others not called Emilia, and himself.

  Noelle: I’m on the fence. Subaru is by no means a bad kid, he’s nice and he sticks his neck out for other people, and he is kind deep down. At the same time, there’s a profound sense of entitlement to him, for he doesn’t seem to realize that he’s dealing with people with lives of their own, not characters. He also expects the world to revolve around him because he’s supposed to be special, and that’s pretty yikes. 

  Danni: I like him more than I thought I would, but not as much as I probably should. The fact he knows what isekai is and essentially that he’s the protagonist of an isekai anime is pretty grating. I like him more when he’s being himself than when he’s trying to be a protagonist. 

  Kara: I kind of agree with, like, literally everyone in the show that Subaru is not terribly ambitious, and I’m kind of wondering what the hell he’s been through. His “skeevy” comments don’t seem skeevy to me so much as an attempt to assume a role he thinks he’s accepted to fill. Also, he hasn’t once displayed any sort of concern about going home or missing anyone or anything from the “real” world. More than anything, I’m curious what he’s been through to the point that he’s downplaying himself so much and basically pretends his previous life doesn’t exist.

    The last two episodes of this initial set sees Subaru taken to the Roswaal mansion and beginning work there. Here, we learn a bit more about the state of the world Subaru has been summoned to and meet Rem, Ram, Beatrice, and Roswaal along with Emilia. What were your initial impressions of this cast of characters and Subaru’s interactions with them?

  David: Roswaal is the teacher in Isekai Quartet, and I forgot he was even a character in this show, so I keep hearing him and associating it more with Isekai Quartet than this show. Beatrice is great.

  Austin: When I first watched this show I saw every character sans for Emilia as kind of distant and suspicious. Now that I’m rewatching it, I realise that they all have a very good reason for being this way; one thing I really like that I noticed now that I’m rewatching is that Beatrice seems much more aware of Subaru’s situation and current death loop than he is. Also, Emilia is still as wonderful as I remember her being.

  René: The Roswaal mansion arc is what really lays the groundwork for what the show is all about for me: This isn’t a world that revolves around the protagonist but one in which he must find his place and the distant and mysterious nature of the mansion inhabitants really drives that fact home. Since we are almost exclusively kept within Subaru’s POV, it really is up to the viewer to piece together the mystery of why he is dying again. We don’t yet understand the new characters and there isn’t an obvious threat like Elsa. It’s basically a murder mystery in which the victim is also the detective.

  Also, I have to second Austin’s sentiment: Emilia truly is wonderful!

  Kevin: Pretty much what Subaru said. Oh, it’s Emilia, the twin maids, red one and blue one, and a drill loli that clearly isn’t human. Also, Roswaal, but I got that before Subaru. As for his interactions, I really like that Rem and Ram are differentiated, even this early on, and that everyone is going about their own schedules, since they actually have lives outside of tending to Subaru. Roswaal is the only one that doesn’t really get much development, and even he finds a scene or two to talk with Subaru and generally show that there is more going on than we know about.

  Carolyn: At first I didn’t like them at all. They are all very odd with a bizarre manner of speaking and behaving and I couldn’t figure it out. But after the reveals that not everything is exactly what it seems in the castle it started to make more sense and now I’m very interested in finding out what they are actually up to.

    Paul: It's fine as far as world-building goes. I appreciate that they don't dwell too much on the lore, because often those are the least interesting elements of the early set-up of an isekai story, and here we get the impression that the world is much bigger and more conflicted than Subaru fully comprehends.

  Joshua: Roswaal is just fabulous. I’ve been watching the series in Japanese, and Koyasu Takehito’s voice alone is a scene stealer. This being my first rewatch of the show in years, I was actually taken aback by how cold Rem was here, and I really appreciated Ram’s dry humor a lot more (like that sly comment about Subaru’s “sorry thing”). I can see the twins talking in unison getting very annoying very fast though, so luckily that was kept to a minimum!

  Thinking about it, Subaru and Emilia are a bit alike, aren’t they? Both have selfless qualities that they try and cover with more selfish pretenses, so I can definitely see why they’ve developed chemistry. While she can seem warm and inviting, that occasional cold glare of Emilia’s is genuinely unsettling though. It makes me wonder what kind of person she really is. Beatrice is precious though. I’d like her to guard my manga collection with that baby cactus attitude of hers!

  Noelle: I think the mansion gives us a little slice of the world at large, but isn’t enough to be overwhelming. We really don’t need to know everything after all, just enough to situate us in the situation that Subaru is currently in. I think it’s a little too early for me to gauge the mansion characters, but they’re all a pretty interesting cast. Roswaal especially. 

  Danni: None of the girls so far seem to match up to how I thought they’d be, or how they come across in all the art of them I’ve seen. I kind of expected a bunch of meek pushovers—particularly Rem and Emilia—but they all have some endearing bite to them. I especially like the antagonistic rapport between Beatrice and Subaru with both of them getting the better of each other. It’s a lot of fun watching this cast interact. 

  Kara: I’m so glad to have some good old-fashioned Koyasu madness back in my anime with Roswaal. Emilia is lovely, but Ram is still my favorite of the girls so far despite everything she seems spring-loaded to do over the course of the show. I can, uh, absolutely see why Rem is such a fave and it doesn’t do much for me. If that makes sense.

    We wrap things up with the gore factor getting ramped up and poor Subaru having to give up an arm and an eye amongst other parts to figure out why he’s going to barf city. Since this was a cliffhanger for our first group of episodes, what’s your initial theory on who this mysterious attacker could have been? (For those of you that aren’t new, if you can remember, tell me what you initially thought of this or just give me your wildest theory possible.)

  David: My first thought was Roswaal. Seems suspicious.

  Austin: I’m in a troublesome spot right now since I remember why he died the first loop and who killed him the second loop, but I don’t remember exactly why they did and it’s bothering me… The first time I watched it I thought Elsa had hired someone to go kill Subaru; not sure if I would have liked it more if that was the case or if what’s really going on remained in place.

  René: The first time watching it to this point, I actually suspected Puck. Since Knox’s 1st Commandment forbids introducing the culprit later on and I couldn’t yet deduct any possible motive for the mansion residents, Puck seemed the most likely. His fondness for and protectiveness of Emilia had already been established and jealousy would’ve made for a possible motive since Subaru started getting closer and closer to Emilia, forcing himself into her life to the point of becoming her servant.

  Kevin: It’s Beatrice. She has the power to connect the library to any door in the mansion, and so can get around without any issues; and clearly has at least enough power to throw someone out of a room without any effort, so more lethal attacks are almost certainly possible. Subaru was also acting very strange in the second mansion loop, as we saw in a couple of cutaways. Since we already know that Roswaal was wondering if he was a spy, that could be enough for him to enlist Beatrice to kill Subaru in his sleep. The first time, Subaru didn’t know to resist, while the second time he fought her magic, so she either used a more lethal attack or enlisted the other mansion staff to assist her. She attacked during the first loop, when Roswaal knew that Subaru was unlikely to be a spy, because of how much he annoyed her. The only way to progress the loop is for Subaru to tell everyone about his power, which calls Beatrice off because she knows at that point that it would be useless to attack him. 

  Carolyn: The first time he died in his sleep he was poisoned, but he was asleep so he didn’t vomit. Whoever did that (I suspect Ram, she claims to be a bad cook but is skilled with the knife so she isn’t that bad and that could be cover for her poisoning his food) poisoned him again the second loop but because he wouldn’t let himself sleep he felt more of the effects of it and vomited. He could also have built up a little bit of a resistance to it the second time around. Either way, I think the results of those two things are the same. I do not think whoever poisoned him killed/dismembered him in the second loop. That was someone different who saw an opportunity and took it. 

    Paul: Unfortunately, this is a detail that was spoiled for me long ago, so although I know who the culprit is, I don't know why they are behaving in such a brutal and murderous manner.

  Joshua: Having already watched the series, I know who, but I genuinely had no idea on my first viewing. Rather than thinking too much about it, back then I just went along with the ride.

  As I can't offer a serious guess though, I’ll just make a joke about whether Rem’s really as good a cook as she claims, and it was just a really bad reaction to off-chicken or something. Feeling really cold, vomiting… sounds like bad food poisoning to me.

  Noelle: I admit, I’m really not sure. It has to be one of the characters introduced so far, it can’t be a random stranger we haven’t seen. The problem is that I can’t quite figure out the killer’s motive. Subaru is seen as suspicious, and it’s been made clear that he hasn’t earned trust just yet, but that doesn’t seem to be a reason to kill him (at the moment). There’s a who but also a why.

  Danni: It’s definitely Ram. I have no idea if it actually is or why I think so, but it’s definitely Ram. 

  Kara: I haven’t got the first clue, but I want it to be Rem just so there can be something about her that interests me.

    Let’s continue our final question tradition with the Rewatch. Give me your highs and lows for episodes 1-5.

  David: High is the conversation between Subaru and Emilia on the bridge. That’s the thesis of the whole show I think. Low point is when Subaru almost died on the last go around of the initial day. I thought he might die and absolutely didn’t want to have to sit through that same day again.

  Austin: One of my favourite scenes in the whole show is when Subaru asks Emilia her name after the fight with Elsa. Something about the delivery of Subaru’s lines and Emilia’s little laugh before her answer makes me feel so bubbly inside. Seeing exactly why Felt gets taken away by Reinhard was also a nice connecting of dots in my head. As for lows, I don’t think I’ve really hit anything notable yet; these first episodes are really strong in my opinion.

  René: My high in these first few episodes is definitely the set-up around the mystery of Emilia posing as Satella in the first loop and the first meet-up between the Subaru with her in the second one. I just adore the shots with them being reflected in each other’s eyes and how it calls into question their perception of each other (I would heavily recommend this interview with the show’s director on this scene—do beware of SPOILERS for later episodes, though).

  And since I can’t think of a low point, I’ll just sneak in a second highlight: Takehito Koyasu’s performance as Roswaal is just deliciously exaggerated. He’s already legendary for voicing Dio Brando but the way he sings every line is just pure joy to listen to.

  Kevin: High - Subaru thinking about how he was going to die the second time, and then realizing that he was going to fight anyway. Myself and many other people joked during the series that Subaru was going to start carrying a bomb or something so that every time he messed anything up, he could just Return by Death to redo any mistake. This is a great moment though, because it both gives a reason why he won’t do that and is also extremely relatable. Even if you knew that you would come back to life, dying isn’t fun, so you’d want to avoid it if at all possible, which is exactly the conclusion that Subaru comes to. 

  Low - Elsa’s final attack. Subaru is clearly moving around, standing up straight, and generally doing a lot of things that use at least a few core muscles, and nothing happens. But when it’s convenient, it turns out that the attack went straight through the club, his clothes, and his stomach, when the club previous stopped all of her attacks and there was nothing supporting Subaru’s track suit or shirt. 

    Carolyn: High points, just the mystery and twists that have been unfolding so far. I like all the suspense around the people at the mansion. Also the line about not knowing what Subaru is talking about but that it’s stupid and that’s disappointing. That was pretty great. Low point, I’m not sure I have one but I could definitely do with more of the cat.

  Paul: My high point was Subaru awakening, noticing the lack of scars on his hands, and realizing he'd somehow died in his sleep and reset the time-line. That was a chef's kiss perfect cliffhanger to end an episode upon. My low point is that it takes Subaru a few lives too many to realize he's resetting from a save point. Anyone who brags about playing video games all day like Subaru does should have picked up on that detail by the third life, tops.

  Joshua: Subaru and Emilia doing aerobics in the garden is a definite high point, that makes me think back to the equally adorable scene with Ema in Shirobako. I also really appreciated how the series even humanises characters like Rom, instead of taking the easy route and making him a one-note shady dealer. Despite his hulking appearance, he genuinely seems like a decent guy who just got the wrong stick (or club) in life. The music is also great—that kind of eerie ringing when disturbing shenanigans are afoot is so effective at capturing the mood, and won’t leave my head.

  As for low points, how many times did we need to see that initial mugging attempt? I liked how the show always found a new absurd comment of Subaru’s for the trio to react to, but I hope the series balances just how many times certain scenarios are reset. Subaru’s exaggerated statements can also be a bit awkward, so I’m glad the rest of the cast react like I do.

  Noelle: High point: the mystery! I want to know why the time loop is happening, what’s the driving force for all of this, why Subaru in particular. We don’t really have any clear answers, and it’s the main point of the story. Tell me the answers! Low point is that Subaru takes a really long time to realize that he’s in a time loop. Isn’t he supposed to be really familiar with games? It makes sense realistically speaking but for a story, it drags a little. 

  Danni: Hard to think of a singular high point because I loved the heck out of this batch of episodes. I guess I gotta go with any time Beatrice is on screen. I love her so much. Low point is tough as well, but I have to give it to Subaru’s immediate acceptance of his new isekai life. 

  Kara: Gotta agree, the high point was Subaru waking up without the scars. That was so well played, and I loved seeing that the audience was being trusted to let the revelation hit us as it hit him. Good visual storytelling, would watch again. Honorable mention to Roswaal’s crazy voice. I thought they were playing it up in Isekai Quartet but no, that’s just how he is. Low point is I’m pretty sure Subaru and Emilia are never gonna go on this date and that makes me sad.

    COUNTERS:

Ram calling Subaru “Barusu”: 10

Subaru death count: 5

Different ways Subaru has died: Disembowelment, Disembowelment, Stabbing, Unknown, Combination (Unknown+Dismemberment)

  And that's everything for this week! Remember that you're always welcome to join us for this rewatch, especially if you haven't watched Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- yet!

  Here's our upcoming schedule!

  -Next week, on September 27th, Kara continues the Rewatch with episodes 6-10

-Then, on October 4th, Carolyn takes us past the halfway mark with episodes 11-15

  Thank you for joining us for the Great Crunchyroll Re:ZERO Rewatch! Have a great weekend, and we'll see you all next time!

    CATCH UP ON THE REWATCH:

Re:ZERO Introduction Questions

  Have anything to say about our thoughts on the episodes watched? Let us know in the comments! Don't forget, we're also accepting questions and comments for next week, so don't be shy and feel free to ask away!

---

Jared Clemons is a writer and podcaster for Seasonal Anime Checkup where he can be found always wanting to talk about Love Live! Sunshine!! or whatever else he's into at the moment. He can be found on Twitter @ragbag.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

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[individuationfic]

Hoping I’ve Got It All Right Chapter 5: I’m Just As Dangerous As You

AO3

The next time they venture into the Palace, Morgana claims they need codenames.

“We don’t know what effect shouting our real names in Kamoshida’s Palace will have on the real Kamoshida,” he explains. “Our plan could be ruined if he somehow figures out what we’re doing. The masks and costumes help, but we should be as careful as possible.”

“What do you suggest, then?” Akira asks.

Before Morgana can answer, Ryuji starts wiggling like a little kid and his hand shoots up in the air. “Ooh! Can I be ‘Skull?’ Y’know, ‘cause of my mask?”

The conversation that ensues probably takes more time than it’s worth but it makes Shiho smile, so Akira decides not to complain.

*

“Skull, Mona, Widow, Panther, and Joker… Were all of these codenames tied to your masks?”

“Only Skull and Panther’s codenames are based off of their masks. And Fox and Crow’s, eventually. Everyone else’s are too abstract for that.”

“Please explain how the other codenames came to be.”

“The won’t give you clues to the others’ identities, Prosecutor-san. They would be pretty bad codenames otherwise.”

“Humor me.”

“Mona is just a shortened form of his name. Widow decided on hers in the spirit of a black widow spider.”

“And you?”

“Why, Prosecutor-san, what else could you call a trump card if not Joker?”

*

Akira decides to text Dad and Papa after he drops Shiho off at her apartment. He’d offered to let her sleep at the café again, but she refused. I can’t rely on you forever,” she’d said.”You’ve been really supportive, and I appreciate it, I really do, but I need some time alone to really process everything.”

So he makes her promise to reach out if she needs anything, gives her a hug, and pulls his phone out of his pocket when she’s safely inside. He’s always had a great relationship with Dad and Papa, and this is the first time in his life he’s ever wondered how to start a conversation with them.

[Akira]: You guys remember how I’m a triplet, right?

[Tatsuya]: Of course. We helped you look for them for years.

[Jun]: Why do you ask?

[Akira]: I found my sister.

[Jun]: !!!!!!!!

[Akira]: Her name is Suzui Shiho. She goes to Shujin, too.

[Jun]: That’s great, Akira!

[Tatsuya]: What is she like?

[Akira]: Something awful happened to her recently. Our friends and I are trying to help, but it’s been hard on her.

[Jun]: The poor dear…

[Jun]: Is there any way we can help?

[Akira]: I don’t really think so. She’s doing her best to come to terms with it right now so all we can do is be there for her while she does.

[Tatsuya]: That’s a very mature thing to do, Akira. Good job.

[Akira]: Thank you, Dad.

[Jun]: How are things otherwise? Is school going okay?

[Akira]: Shiho’s friend Ann sits in front of me in class, so we’ve become friends, too. She’s ¼ American and doesn’t look Japanese at all.

[Tatsuya]: Well, neither do you.

[Akira]: Fair enough.

[Jun]: Have you joined any clubs?

[Akira]: I don’t think any clubs will let me join.

[Jun]: Why not?

[Akira]: Someone leaked my records. The whole school knows about my assault charge.

[Jun]: Oh, honey, are you okay?

[Akira]: Yeah.

[Tatsuya]: I can’t believe the school would let that happen. Do you want me to call the principal?

[Akira]: There’s nothing that can be done about it now.

[Tatsuya]: You still shouldn’t have to deal with that.

[Akira]: I can manage.

[Akira]: My cat’s nagging at me to go to bed, so I’ll text you later. Love you.

[Jun]: Love you too, sweetie.

[Jun]: Wait. Cat?

[Jun]: AKIRA?

Akira plugs his phone in and lays on his bed. Morgana wastes almost no time curling up on the center of his chest. “Your dads seem nice,” he says.

“Yeah,” Akira says, “they are.”

*

They have to dedicate a whole afternoon to getting through the tower because of the swinging axes.

“If Shadows hae the keys,” Skull gripes as they head back into the fray, “why didn’t they drop them the first time we kicked their asses?”

“Us becoming aware we need the keys brought them into existence,” says Mona.

“That sounds like bullshit.”

“It’s cognition.”

Joker spots a Shadow in golden armor and snaps to get everyone’s attention. “Widow, Skull, with me. Panther and Mona, focus on keeping us healed up.”

“Got it, Joker,” Panther says, and the rest of them nod in agreement.

“Let’s do this.” And then they pounce.

*

Now that the path to the Treasure is secured, they have to think about the calling card.

They gather on the roof after classes end to begin planning. Shiho sits gym style in front of Akira and lets him braid a scarlet geranium into her hair. The color looks good in her dark hair; maybe he can convince Ann to help him get Shiho more colorful clothes. Ryuji is leaning against the wall, and Ann is sitting, legs crossed at the knee, on one of the abandoned desks that litter the rooftop. All in all, Akira thinks, we really do look like a group of delinquents.

After a few moments of silence, during which Akira can feel Ann and Ryuji staring at him as he works, Ryuji finally says, “Okay, what’s up with you two? How’re you so close when Akira only moved here like a week ago?”

Shiho looks up at him over her shoulder. There’s a little bit of humor glittering in her eyes, Akira is pleased to note. “What do you think, Akira? Should we tell them or make them guess?”

“We could give them a hint or two.” Usually he would just be honest about it, but if playing along cheers Shiho up a little, he’ll gladly do it. He glances up at their friends and smirks. “I’ll go first: we’ve known each other our whole lives.”

Ann jolts a little at that. “But how? Shiho was raised in Tokyo and you… weren’t.”

Shiho leans back against Akira’s legs. “I was raised here, yeah, but until I was four, I lived in Sumaru City.” 

“It’s a great place,” Akira adds “It’s on the coast. Hey, Shiho, remember that time you and Ren buried me in the sand at the beach and I got that awful sunburn on my face?”

Next to his thigh, Morgana shifts a little. Before Akira can comment on it, Shiho laughs and says, “Amamiya-san was so mad at us!”

“She was always mad at us,” Akira points out. “The other kids kept making fun of me, so Ren would beat them up, and you would encourage him, so he’d do it more…”

“Hey, no one gets to pick on my baby brother but me.”

“I’m, like, an hour younger than you, at most. Stop calling me your ‘baby’ brother.”

Ryuji makes a noise not unlike a dying whale and Akira and Shiho’s heads whip over to look at their friends. It’s then that Akira realizes he and Shiho let the cat out of the bag a little early. “You’re siblings?!” Ryuji demands.

“As entertaining as this is,” Morgana says, voice strangely snappish, “can we focus on the calling card?”

And so the conversation turns to a more serious topic.

*

Akira agrees to let Ryuji handle the calling card, but drags him to a nearby supermarket before letting him go home. He has to search the produce section for a while before he finds what he’s looking for: unplucked celery flowers. They’re small, white, and unassuming—to the untrained eye, that is. But Akira knows better. Akira knows they mean “lust.”

He grabs a handful off some celery stalks and holds them to Ryuji. “Use these in the calling card,” he says.

“You know flowers?”

“My dad’s partner owns a flower shop.”

“Don’t cha think that could link you to… the thing?”

God bless Ryuji, but he’s not very good at being subtle. “It’s not like I advertise knowing a lot about flowers, and I doubt I’m the only person in Tokyo who does.”

“If you’re sure, man…”

“I am.” He softens his voice. “Please, Ryuji. If you’re putting your neck on the line writing it, let me have something to do with it, too.”

Ryuji swallows hard and clenches his jaw. A hard sort of vulnerability enters his eyes. “I’ll do my best.”

Akira squeezes his shoulder. “I know you will. I trust you.”

That was the right thing to say, because Ryuji’s answering smile could outshine the sun.

*

Akira grins when he sees the calling card—or, rather, calling cards—plastered on the bulletin board the next morning. They’re not professional by any means (the logo Ryuji came up with is lacking, and the flowers are just taped onto the cards in a blank space), but the message is clear.

He knows this could end up on the news, so he takes a photo of the board and sends it to Dad and Papa and pretends to be confused. Then he pockets his phone and goes to his friends. They have a heist to pull off, after all.

*

The fight against Kamoshida’s Shadow is a lot easier than any of them anticipated. As soon as they take out his healing factor, he goes down laughably quickly.

After, when they Have Kamoshida’s crown in their possession, Widow steps forward. Her eyes are cold beneath her black lace mask. “You hurt me,” she tells Kamoshida’s quivering Shadow. “You beat me and berated me and tried to break me.”

Amazingly, the Shadow tries to defend himself. “You don’t understand! I was under so much pressure!”

“That doesn’t justify what you did to me!” Widow’s shout echoes, harsh. “Nothing could!”

“I—” The Shadow slumps. “You’re right.” He tilts his head to the side, baring his neck. “If you’re going to kill me, just make it quick.”

Joker sees Widow’s grip on her cane go white-knuckled and moves to restrain her, but is beaten to the punch. Panther places on pink-gloved hand over Widow’s and wraps her other arm around her shoulders. “He’s going to pay for what he did to you and to everyone else,” Joker hears her whisper. “But he has to be able to confess what he did.”

Widow sighs and goes slack in Panther’s grip, and Joker takes the opportunity to step forward and address Kamoshida’s Shadow. “Go back to yourself. Go back without your broken, distorted heart, and confess all of your sins. Only then can you begin working to redeem yourself.”

And the Shadow disappears, and the castle begins to crumble around them.

*

Shiho comes back to the café with Akira that night. Morgana hops out of Akira’s bag and into Shiho’s arms once they’re off the train, and the way she cradles him to her chest tells Akira she really needs to talk about what happened today.

Sakura-san raises an eyebrow at them but doesn't otherwise comment as Akira leads Shiho up to his attic. Shiho sinks into the couch and waits for Akira to sit beside her before she starts talking. “I thought confronting him would make me feel better,” she says, “but it didn’t. I’m still scared.”

Akira gently puts an arm around her and tugs her into a loose embrace against his shoulder. Morgana shifts a little so he’s half on Shiho’s lap and half on Akira’s, purring so hard Akira can feel it in his chest. “There’s no set timeline for your recovery,” he tells her, his voice gently above a whisper. “Take as much time as you need.”

“We’re all here for you,” Morgana adds. “None of us are whole, not really. I don’t think there’s a group of people out there who can understand you better than us.”

If the fabric of his shirt where Shiho’s face is pressed into it is a little damp, he doesn’t mention it, and the three of them fall asleep like that, almost restful for the first time in a long time.

#individuation #ao3fic #persona series #persona 5

[zdbztumble]

Ah yes...this one...

Well, I was writing posts back when the Japanese release was imminent about how spoilers painted M20 as overstuffed, that I wasn’t happy about swapping in two new characters for the OS cast, etc., so I obviously didn’t come to my viewing without baggage. Still, I kept as open a mind as I could about I Choose You.

And there’s credit to be given here. Aside from the usual stellar animation - which may be at its best to-date in this flick - I Choose You is, ironically enough for a film that’s part-retelling, different. Volcanion laid bare just how stale the typical pattern these movies follow had become, so even a look back to the start of the series represents a welcome break from routine. And the divergence from those early days comes fairly early in the film. Even having been spoiled on the broadstrokes of the plot, I didn’t feel like I knew exactly how things would play out, which was another pleasant change of pace.

FROM HERE, THERE BE SPOILERS

And those first few scenes, telling an abridged version of the first episode, are delightful. This is the most personality Pikachu’s shown in quite a while - cheeky, mischievous, even bratty. Voice acting and animation work together beautifully to sell that side of him, and it’s easily one of the highlights of the film. Ash is given some great lines unique to this telling (”There’s something wrong with this Pokemon,” Oak tells him. “That’s alright - I was late, so there’s something wrong with me, too!”), and if you overlook the absence of a certain redhead, this is about as nice a retelling of Ash and Pikachu’s first meeting as you could ask for.

I Choose You earns credit on another score - it actually has Ash as the protagonist. It’s still shocking to me how rarely the main character of the anime gets the through-line, or even an arc, in these movies, but he certainly does here. The plot isn’t as laser-focused on his and Pikachu’s friendship as some of the comments by staff would have you believe, but I wouldn’t say that’s bad in and of itself. Reviving the “Chosen One” angle for Ash was something that wasn’t spoiled for me, and seemed appropriate for a story featuring the second member of the Legendary Duo.

And there are Easter eggs aplenty here for hardcore fans. I suspect there are many more that went over my head, me still being so far behind on the series.

But these highlights can’t compensate for all the defects. I Choose You is a seriously flawed film, in ways that could be predicted from the synopsis, and in unexpected ways as well.

Everyone who’s reported that the film is overstuffed is correct, but that doesn’t hurt the film in the way one might think. An overstuffed plot will often feel overbearing and unrelenting - too much going on for there to be any focus. Diancie is a good example of this from the Pokemon canon. This is the odd overstuffed film where, too often, it feels like nothing is happening. And I blame this on the way the film structures the middle section. After the abridged first episode section, the movie falls into what I can best describe as the almost-montage. An example: Ash and Pikachu are battling the Celadon Gym, but instead of leading into a montage of Gym Battles, we go into Ash calling his mom at the Pokemon Center. Or, when Ash and his friends are battling some Trainers after getting together - instead of leading into a montage of traveling and battling, it leads into an encounter with Cross. Time and again in the middle of the film, vignettes that feel like they should be part of a sequence instead segue into scenes that introduce plot elements. This isn’t an inherently wrong way to plot the film out, but these elements never get followed up on immediately; they just peter out into another vignette, which in turn leads to a different element. The effect, then, is one of momentum getting lost over and over again, and nothing substantive happening until the last third of the movie. It makes watching the middle section extremely tedious.

Worse, many of the elements introduced don’t have much of a purpose for being here. The abridged recap of Ash’s Butterfree’s story is probably the worst example. It’s devoid of any of the rough times or more quirky, humorous moments that played out in the series, it’s so compressed that it’s impossible for their departure to carry the impact it did in the original, and it’s completely unconnected from everything else in the film. It’s a lushly-animated abridgment of a well-known OS arc, just for the sake of having it.

But while Butterfree’s inclusion is probably the most disparate meaningless plot thread, the Legendary Beasts are the most frustrating for me, because there was a lot of potential there. Exploring the origin story of those Pokemon and how they tie in to Ho-Oh was a wonderful concept, and Entei at least provides a decent action scene. But it all amounts to nothing. The Beasts do not in any meaningful way affect Ash’s journey to find Ho-Oh, and their connection to him only serves as a neat bit of trivia. Like Butterfee, they’re just shown for the sake of showing some Legendary Pokemon - Legendaries that had already been used in previous films.

I Choose You also struggles with forced moments. I know some people were moved by how Ash dismisses Pikachu in his moment of frustration after losing to Cross, but I found that scene a dreadful piece of writing. Ash’s reaction to that loss - especially compared with how OS Ash would’ve reacted - is rather muted. It isn’t nearly strong enough to suggest that it’s eating away inside of him and tempting him down Cross’s path. This in turn makes the rest of the group’s impatience with him seem needlessly harsh, which makes Ash’s continued muted reaction seem like a failure to move his character  forward, which makes his comment to Pikachu a random, unearned moment of anger rather than a significant moment of weakness springing organically from his character. It takes a lot of the impact away from the subsequent dream sequence, because Ash never feels like he’s fallen low enough to have that sort of nightmare or take away any lesson that he really needed.

And then...there are the new guys.

Let’s get this out of the way up-front: being upset that Brock and Misty aren’t in this movie is a pet peeve. In and of itself, creating new characters to be Ash’s first friends on his journey is not a writing flaw. And Sorrel, at least, is very much his own character, not a cheap stand-in or replacement for Brock. He has an interesting personality and a shockingly dark backstory. Verity is a less successful character. A tomboy with a Water-Type who gets into a bickering/teasing relationship with Ash right off the bat and has family she wants to prove something to - she does feel like a replacement, and a rip-off, of Misty, with a bit of Dawn thrown in. (Side note: if her mother really is meant to be Cynthia, then that photo could’ve looked more like her.)

But the thing is: both of them are expendable. If you took them out of the film, Ash would still get the Rainbow Feather from Ho-Oh and be on his way. You could say that he wouldn’t get the background on Ho-Oh that Sorrel provides, but old man Bonji could’ve done those honors. Neither of their backstories factor into anything in the main plot, they don’t have arcs for themselves; they’re just there to be Ash’s friends, provide some brief character moments, and drop exposition now and again. I would have rather this been Ash’s solo journey than have two new characters with some potential but no payoff, but if there had to be traveling companions...with all the other homages to the OS, why not use two characters from the OS? Two characters well-loved by much of the audience and who played an important role in the show’s history, I might add.

I don’t have much to say about Cross. He’s what I imagine many fans think Paul is, if you took away any humanizing characteristics. Cross’s turn to the side of right at the end was an arbitrary change that didn’t really sell as organic character growth to me. Leaving him as the villain would have been preferable to the sudden heel turn by Marshadow, something that felt very much as if the staff felt obligated to have a big battle with a Mythical Pokemon. It’s a point where the old formula rears its ugly, tired head. As is Ash’s not-death, a concept that should be retired permanently. At this point, the only way Ash dying can have any impact anymore is if he really dies.

Oh, and the TRio were there. They were a waste of screentime. Nothing else to say.

All in all, I can’t say the film isn’t without its charms. And I do hope anyone who’s refused to see it thus far over Brock and Misty’s absence will give it a chance. But if it isn’t the worst of these films, it’s far from the best, and outside its opening moments is a very flawed if well-meaning effort at a 20th anniversary.

5/10

(You may have noticed I didn’t comment on The Speech. Frankly, I don’t see what’s so offensive about it. It was a dumb idea poorly executed, but nowhere near the low point for me.)

#critique #commentary #pokefilm #pokemon #M20 #Pokemon the movie: i choose you! #film school training at work #z's crits

[baker-mayfield]

Just Keep Breathing - Seth Rollins (2)

A/N: sooo I’m back at it again. here’s part two!!! honestly didn’t think you guys would enjoy it as much as you did. thanks to all your nice comments and likes. it means the world to me. as usual, sorry for any errors or mistakes. i tried to read over and find them all. next time, i’ll try to work on keeping it shorter lol. enjoy! edit: i totes forgot to add in everyone that wanted to be tagged!

TAGGED: @shieldgirl95 @spine-buster @alexekaydus (if you want to be tagged let me know) <3

WORDS: 2.3K

WARNINGS: angst and swearing.

Here I was at Summerslam,the biggest party of the summer. Any other time, I would have been happy to be here. Okay, I was happy to be here. I was in the presence of some of my old-time favorites backstage. 

The inner fan girl in me just couldn’t stay calm about it. When I arrived to the Barclay Arena, I had a hoodie on along with a hat and sunglasses. No one was supposed to know I was there. I was supposed to be this big secret, which I liked. It meant the longer I could go without Seth knowing I was backstage. However, that didn’t stop me from telling Becky the big news. It just happened to slip out of my mouth “by accident”.

I was sitting in the women’s locker room, far away from the small corner of the arena I was supposed to hide in until I had to go into the crowd mid-show. I couldn’t help myself. She was my favorite person, and since she didn’t have a match tonight, I figured we could keep each other company until I made my debut tonight… In a few hours.

“Remember when you got so nervous you almost puked?! I swear I saw you turn green.” Becky mocked as she brought up that dreadful moment of my life. I always cringed at that moment. If anyone had a bad debut, it was me. I was 100% sure that Hunter used me as an example of how bad your first match can be.

“Thank you, Becky. You try stepping in the ring with Charlotte and tell me you wouldn’t be nervous!” I laughed while shaking my head. It was the first time I had to fight someone and it meant something. “The only thing I could think about was me stepping in the ring with Ric Flair’s daughter. Okay. He’s a legend which meant I was facing a legend’s daughter.” As if that made a difference. Becky was still laughing her ass off and I waved her off.

“I’ve faced her so many times, Y/N! Just admit it, you were nervous! Poor Seth had to be a trooper and tell you that you didn’t suck because… you did.” Becky was still laughing and by now, I had stopped. I played with the sleeves of my sweatshirt and forced myself to smile. Seth. I had totally forgotten about him. Now, all my worries were coming back up again. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean….”

I waved her off and continued to smile- even if it was only a half ass one. She would have never said anything on purpose to make me uncomfortable. She knew more than anyone that Seth was literally my world. When we broke up, she had been the one that I cried to for hours. Even when I had cried about everything on repeat - she would listen to me cry and tell me all her bad puns.

“Becks, it’s fine. I’m a big girl. I can handle seeing my ex boyfriend. After all, we’re co-workers. We can handle this.” As I spoke, I was sure I was talking just to convince myself rather than her. I didn’t know how well I can handle this, but I was willing to try since we had no choice but to be on the same brand these days. Becky sighed and she opened her mouth to talk again. “No, I don’t need you to kick his ass for me.” I laughed while shaking my head. Becky wanted to fight him the moment I had texted her a long essay about what had happened.

She nodded her head and placed a hand on my knee as she looked at me. She was probably looking for any hint of nervousness. But, I should admit- I was hiding how nervous I was pretty good. Maybe it was because I had already came up with a list of worst case scenarios and all my options. Most of them ended with me calling it quits and just walking out and going to ROH. Hell, TNA sounded good right now. I refused to be that girl to have her life dictated over a stupid ex.

“If you need anything, call me.” Becky told me while smiling. “If you had came up two years ago, we wouldn’t have to worry about you cheating on me with another best friend!” She pouted with a wink. She was still a little upset that I had moved to the main roster a year after she had been moved to Smackdown. After all, she was the one begging for me to come to RAW before the break up even happened.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I will take you on that offer.” I told her while standing up and leaving. We said our goodbyes as I left the locker room.

With my hands in my pockets, I walked to my designated area. My hoodie was up. The baseball cap covered my face. There was no way anyone could’ve leaked that I was backstage. I looked like I was ready to join The Usos at any moment. I understood that management wanted to keep me a secret. But damn. Couldn’t they have given me Brock Lesnar’s locker room and let him change with the other guys? It was the least they could’ve done. On my way there, I had bumped into someone. I quickly said sorry without looking up at the person.

“Watch where you’re going!” They shouted at me. I cringed and just kept on walking and I could hear the person saying something but I didn’t stop to talk to them. I wasn’t supposed to be talking to anyone.

When I was far enough to look at them without them noticing, I looked at them. More like, I stared until I recognized the person. I must sound like an idiot but there are way too many guys with long black hair on the roster. But then, I saw the words Crossfit. If I didn’t have to throw up earlier, I sure as hell did now.

I just stood there staring at Seth. It had to be Seth. No one religiously wears shirts that says Crossfit the way he does. Actually, I don’t think anyone liked Crossfit as much as he does. He looked a lot better now that there wasn’t blonde in his hair. I told him it was a stupid idea, but he went ahead and dyed a section of his hair blonde. I wouldn’t stop with the bad jokes about him never letting go of his emo side. Thankfully, he listened to me. I made him promise that once the blonde fade, to never dye his hair again or I’ll break up with him. It seems really ironic now. My heart was skipping beats as I thought about the last two years and I thought about our past. I was surprised that he didn’t recognize me. Maybe it’s not too late for me to tell Vince that I would rather be fired than be on RAW.

After a moment, I picked up my feet. No, I didn’t need to fear Seth. This was what I’ve been looking forward to for years. It’s my fucking moment. He wasn’t the only person that can run the place. I was going to be the future of the Women’s division. If he didn’t like that I was there, oh well. I worked my ass off for two years. As ungrateful as I sound, I really wanted this too.

It was during the RAW Women’s Title match. Sasha Banks vs Alexa Bliss. I was in the middle of the crowd, blending in until my cue. I watched as Sasha climbed onto the turnbuckle ready to do a frog splash. Alexa was laying on the ground. Sasha was too busy hyping the crowd when I ran down to the ring and pushed Sasha off and watched as she hit the apron. I was wearing my hoodie and hat. The crowd was booing and chanting for Sasha until I took off my hoodie and hat. Throwing them into the crowd. It was at that very moment- I felt like I had the world in my hands. There was no longer people booing for me, they were also cheering me on. I smiled and did my finishing move on Sasha before sliding out the ring and embracing in the cheers and boos. The referee had rung the bell, disqualifying Alexa Bliss, and all I could do was smile. Other than the fact that I was trying to play a major heel, I was happy that the fans were actually reacting to me. I was no longer the NXT girl. I was the future of the Women’s Division. If only I could hear what Corey Graves had to say about me. Thank God for the WWE Network.

After going out with the girls, I was sliding into my hotel bed. Thankfully tonight wasn’t one of the nights where I was the life of the party. I had only been on the main roster officially for a few hours. I charged my phone for what seemed like the first time in forever. Just as Nia Jax and I were about to take a picture, my phone died much to my disappointment. I wanted to see the fans reactions, which were so far nice and positive. I rolled over to start to sleep, which is when I heard my phone go off. I was going to ignore it, but it seemed like one ding after another. Groaning, I rolled over and read the messages…

Unknown Caller: Hey, it’s Seth… I have no idea if you changed your phone number by now.

Unknown Caller: Wow, wouldn’t it be funny if you did?

Unknown Caller: Your debut was amazing, and I’m happy for you. You’ve worked so hard for it

Unknown Caller: You’re mad at me, I know but since you’ve blocked me on everything else I didn’t know how else to contact you…

Unknown Caller: Fine, you don’t have to respond to me. But, you can’t avoid me forever, we’re on the same show.

I cringed and closed my eyes enough to take this in. He texted me. After two years, he texted me. He didn’t text me when I won the NXT Women’s Championship, so what’s so different now? Matter of fact, he texted me five times. It shouldn’t be a surprise that he knew my number. He was the only one that can remember it and had to repeat it back to me one million times during our friendship and relationship. Leave it to Seth to remind me that we were on the same show. I turned the sound off and put my phone down as I laid down. Do I text him? Do I not text him? After all, it’s been two years. Clearly, I’m not upset anymore… I sat up and replied to his text message.

Thanks.

Straight to the point. There was nothing to show how upset I was. No hidden meanings, just me telling him thanks. My debut was amazing. Instead of thinking about it some more, I laid down and went to sleep. I’ll deal with it in the morning. If I see him tomorrow night- oh well. We’re grown adults, we can do this.

RAW was done for the night. I made my RAW debut by surprise attacking Sasha in the middle of her promos before dropping my own about ‘why Kurt Angle needed me on the RAW roster’. I was pulling my luggage behind me and on my way outside with Alexa and Sasha beside me. While the three of us were laughing and joking, I stopped and looked at Seth, who had done the same thing. That was the first time we saw each other all night. It was an uncomfortable silence as Sasha and Alexa head to our rental car. “I am still driving!” I yelled after them and Sasha waved me off and I rolled my eyes.

It seems like he had a lot to say, and for once I had nothing to say to him. After our breakup, I had so much I wanted to say to him. But now that we had to work together, I don’t think I could. Instead, I just looked at him. He was a stranger to me instead of the guy that used to make me feel like the most important girl in the world. This Seth wasn’t the guy who would go to every McDonald’s while we were traveling just to find one who’s machine wasn’t working

He laughed at me, and shook his head. “You were such a bad driver...” I couldn’t help but smile at him. It wasn’t exactly a lie. There was a reason why I bought him a coffee tumblr for all those long nights that he had to drive.

“Yeah, but not anymore. You’ll be happy to know that I don’t miss exits anymore.”

“Oh really? About time.” He was still laughing at me, and I couldn’t help but join in. I was terrible and Seth always made sure to joke about it with everyone on the NXT roster.

“So, um. Thanks for those text messages last night. They were… Nice.” I told him while looking down at my feet.

He nodded his head and began to look at his feet too. “You’re welcome.” He looked ahead of me, and I looked behind me, seeing that there wasn’t anyone there. “I have to go. I think Cesaro is waiting for me. You know how he is.” Just like that, he grabbed his suit case and started walking outside.

“No, this won’t be awkward at all.” I mumbled to myself as I walked outside too.

#wwe imagines #seth rollins fanfic #wwe #let's see how this goes #imagines #seth rollins imagines #seth rollins

[meganmazing]

An All Phlint Rec List!

One guess which pairing I fell head-first into this time...

Need more time? No problem, I’ll give you a hint. It involves SHEILD’s #1 eye in the sky and his long-suffering, slightly anal-retentive handler. The purple Avenger and the dead-not-dead agent. You know them, and if you don’t already love them, these fics will fix that for you. Sorry in advance for how long this is, but there are so many fics and I have too many feelings.

Some of them even feature Pizza Dog, because we are a blessed fandom.

Most of these are rated Explicit, but not all! I even mention a G-rated fic, and I’m proud of me for branching out my recs. I don’t read non-con/dub-con, and I’m not usually into ABO stuff, so you won’t find any of that here, if it’s a concern. Just in case, read the tags! I also don’t read unhappy endings, becasue I’m not about that life.  

Click the bold titles (sometimes the little lines indicating a link aren’t there, but the link still is) and don’t forget to leave kudos/comments on the ones you love, to spread that love to the authors! And as always, there will always be more fics that I love/bookmark/scream about in my bookmarks page on my ao3 account: megamazing

College AU

Launch Your Assault by foxxcub  Words: 30k  Rating: E

Phil Coulson was more than halfway through his six year plan, and everything was chugging along nicely.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t foreseen a cocky junior Art major waltzing into his life, or his floor.

So this is within the same universe as Bulletproof, a stony College AU fic, but I never read that one. Phlint College AU’s I love, but not so much with stony? I have weirdly subjective preferences when it comes to fics.

However, I will rec this one with my dying breath. It is Phil’s POV, and I have such a soft spot for college age Phil now, thanks to this story. As a college student myself, I felt that everything was really realistic and I believed everything. More than that, I want to give both the boys a hug. They need it after this. 

Also, as you’ll see later on in this list, I love the “fuck buddies” trope with hidden feelings that are so not hidden it’s embarrassing. And heartbreaking. As much as I want to hug Phil, I also think he needs a swift kick or seven.  

Safety Not Guaranteed by foxxcub  words: 4k+ (nearly 5k) Rating: M

Phil was informed of the Sigma Iota tradition of White Elephant two weeks before Christmas break. He’d heard of other chapters on campus having holiday parties and had figured the SI’s did the same.

But he was quickly learning the SI’s didn’t do things quite like other fraternities.

Short, sweet, and funny. Of course this would happen to them, within a group of people where blatant, verbal communication is a practically a foreign notion. I laughed, I sympathetically cringed, and there are sexytimes, too. What’s not to love here, really? (Wade has a great cameo, too, so of course this was going on the list)

I'll Learn To Dance If You Promise Not To Laugh by torakowalski  words: 10k+ rating: E

A College AU in which there are long distance relationships, misunderstandings, and no one actually spends any time in college.

The insecurity in this fic kills me in the best way. Clint puts on an act sometimes, acting stronger and suaver than maybe he feels. When your bf is older and cooler and smarter and too good for you, what else can you do? Naturally, that strategy works great until it doesn’t. 

Thor, Darcy, and Jane are wonderful and I just want more of them! I would never have pictured them as Phil’s roommates, but it works so well and watching Clint interact with them is great. 

Everyone deserves a hug: Clint for being a sweet idiot, Phil for being a well-meaning moron, and the roommate squad for putting up with their shit and making it fun.  

(more torakowalski fics in the final section, because I’m in love with their work and need to throw more at you)

Other AU

Kindergarten ‘verse by soniclipstick (veriscence)  total words: 38k+ Respective ratings: E, G, and E

Kindergarten teacher Clint Barton has never been in a healthy stable relationship in his life. Hell, mostly he doesn't bother leaving his house unless his best friend drags him out for 'socialising'. He's happy with his life as a hermit; he has a dog, and fifteen sticky tiny humans to teach core skills to. That's more than enough commitment for him

But that's all about to change when the new school year brings along with it some major surprises, such as Phil Coulson, the widowed father of one of his students and owner of the bluest eyes Clint's ever seen.

(summary from the first fic in the series)

I am rec’ing the whole series here, because I want to curl up and live in the world the author created. It has everyone you could think of wanting to see from both general Marvel canon and also Agents of SHIELD. Look, as I’m writing this, I want to go back and re-read the first fic. As the author states in the tags, it’s totally Fraction’s Hawkeye, aka my favorite and the best (soz MCU Clint, you’re cool too, sometimes).

This could have been so stupid. It’s a kindergarten teacher AU, it very easily could have been something I read two paragraphs of and clicked away. But it isn’t. When the author says fluff and angst, they mean it. It hurt my heart and made me giddy by turns. Also, sexytimes. But the feelings! I connected so much with Clint in this, and felt so much for Phil, and the payoff feels so earned by the time it happens.

The supporting cast is phenomenal, and it may be my favorite of this whole list, which is saying a lot because I love them all. Even the smaller cameos were hilarious and made me smile.

EVEN IF YOU READ NO OTHER FIC ON THIS LIST, READ THIS SERIES.

Pre-Avengers (mostly)

Slow and Soft by onthewaters  Words: 23k Rating: E 

When Coulson adds Barton to his team, he expects smartassery. Except there isn't any...

This is it. This is the story I was looking for and craving without even knowing it. That may make zero sense, but I don’t know how else to put it. The writing and the storytelling here are on another level, and I mean that in the best possible way. It shows them getting together - including the beginning of the incredible friendship between the trio (Nat, Clint, and Phil) and Nat and Clint's bond - as well as the most believable/subtle pinning I’ve read in awhile. 

Phil's characterization is the best in this one. It’s his POV, and his personality just shines. This is one of the ones I really treasure, and I won’t apologize for how extra I am about it. 

Operation Snapdragon by Laura Kaye (laurakaye) words: 10k+ rating: E

They’d decided to call it Operation Snapdragon, Jasper had explained, because snapdragons meant “deception” in the language of flowers.

It would be more accurate to call it Operation Rip Out Phil's Heart And Grind It Beneath The Feet Of Mobsters, but apparently there wasn't a flower for that.

The humor is on point, and I am a sucker for pining!Phil and sarcasm. It’s a fake marriage fic, where they’re undercover as a couple. Tell me that doesn’t sound perfect for these two. BUT WAIT, there’s more: they’re already a thing before the fake marriage mission, and Phil has been feeling insecure in the relationship! Voicing concerns in a healthy manner is out of the question, naturally. Idiots.

It takes place over six months, featuring flashbacks to how Phil ended up in a strip club run by the mob, smiling lovingly at his husband while a mobster talks about how great they are together. 

Plenty of miscommunication on par with the trope, and you just want to give Clint a hug, becasue you know what’s going on, but Phil can’t catch a hint. It has art at the end, too, which is adorable.

The Clothes that Make the Man by orderlychaos  words: 17k+ rating: E

There was something comforting in the way Clint could focus on Coulson’s dry, deadpan tone as bullets and explosions sounded around him. Come rain, hail or bursts of experimental weaponry, Agent Coulson would be there, calm and controlled in that damn suit, like the personification of order against chaos.

However, contrary to rumour, Phil Coulson was not born in a suit. This is the story of how Clint Barton glimpsed the man underneath and fell in love.

(Or five times Clint saw Phil outside of a suit and the one time he wore a suit himself).

IT’S A FIVE AND ONE, boys, we’ve made it. This my favorite trope in all of fanfiction history. It’s also pre-avengers for the first half, but then kinda after? Coulson isn’t dead and doesn’t appear to ever have been, but in the later chapters, the Avengers are a thing? I’m not sure about timelines. It’s an AU, and it’s awesome. 

The important part is that there’s Clint POV and insecurity on both sides, as well as really sweet moments and pinning galore. Plus, it’s rated E, so obviously that too. It’s fairly lighthearted in general as well (meaning there are feelings and angst but there aren’t feelings and angst, if you know what I mean), and after some of the angst on this list, lighthearted fics are a gift. 

Coulson Lives - Reunion

Give a Dog a Bone by  Laura Kaye (laurakaye)  Words: 86k+ Rating: E

What do you do when your dead best friend turns up alive after three years? a) yell at him b) hug him c) ignore him to his face while following him around the Tower like a creeper d) maybe fall in love with him a little e) all of the above

Best summary, or best summary? 

This does not have enough kudos or recognition. I know it’s at nearly 960, and that’s a great amount, but it deserves so much more! I still think about this story, and it’s another one I want to re-read soon. 

When I mentioned Pizza Dog, this is one of the ones I had in mind.   

And Kate!!! His friendship with Kate is everything I’ve ever wanted. And his friendship with Tony, and obviously Nat. Basically, I love Clint having friends and getting to be petty becasue holy shit he deserves to be petty after everything SHIELD has put them all through. At the same time, nothing feels like Phil!whump or emotionally beating a character down unnecessarily. 

Clint does everything I want him to, and some stuff I didn’t even know I wanted him to do. There is so much pain, as you’d expect, but there is so much payoff and the balance is perfect. I connect with Clint’s characterization in general, but especially here. Just yes. 

Phil’s journey with the loss of his hand and adjusting to life with a prosthetic is also really cool, and something I hardly ever see. Same goes for Clint’s hearing loss. He isn’t deal, but and is completely capable/confident in himself, but there are struggles at times that make me wonder if the author has personal experience because it’s stuff I recognize from my mom’s experiences.  

doesn't matter if I bleed by t_fic (topaz), topaz, topaz119 (topaz)  Words: 25k+ Rating: E

Clint's never pretended to be deep. He's just the guy who sits back and watches, the guy who makes the shot when he needs to. He's seen a lot of crap in his time, sat through a lot of fucked-up scenes to get to where he needs to be, but this, now--he can't stand another second of it.

This feels like an argument for why the pairing works, and I loved it. It really deep dives into the issues all three of them - Clint, Nat, and Phil - have in a way that feels so real and relatable to me, personally, that it cut me right to the core. I still can't get over the incredible friendship between Clint and Nat in this. I loved every minute, and every win was so, so deserved. I want to curl up and live in the world the author created, tbh. Also, there are sexytimes. Can't forget those.

Tony also has the line early on that nearly made me cry: "Someone has some serious fucking explaining to do, because you," he pokes at Coulson, "we fucking buried you." The scene is already so emotionally charged, and then this and it kills me becasue of all the off-page backstory and emotional weight it gives for the rest of the story.

I’m emo and dramatic about all of these, but I mean it when I say it feels like proof for why Clint and Phil work. Just, yes.

Coulson Lives - some point after the off-page reunion

The Best Bad Ideas by copperbadge words: 17k+  rating: M

When Clint Barton put on the Captain America costume for a mission, he didn't count on Phil Coulson's reaction. Coulson didn't count on Clint crashing his new team to do something about it.

Oh yeah, you read that right. It’s just as funny as it sounds, and all of a sudden you get hit with the angst and it works. Even so, this one is a lot lighter and it’s fun. Cap and Co’s reactions are just as funny, and the gossip sessions between the ensemble are some of my favorite bits. (side note: why have I never considered the badass-ery that would be a Nat and Melinda May friendship?) 

Pine Lake Oasis by infiniteeight  words: 32k+  rating: E

When SHIELD gets intel that an arms dealer might soon be receiving Chitauri technology, Fury sends Clint and Coulson undercover to establish surveillance, ingratiate themselves with the arms dealer and his right hand man, and possibly intercept the sale. The catch? The arms dealer and his lieutenant are apparently posing as a couple, which means the best way for Clint and Coulson to get close is to pose as a couple, too. The longer the op goes on, the more Clint wonders which relationship is more real.

MORE PRETEND MARRIED TROPES! We can never have too many, in my humble opinion. This one is very different from the mobster one, because it’s set in suberbia with plenty of nosy neighbors and also some arms dealers who are also posing as a couple. Frankly, I’m not sure anyone is posing as anything in this fic when it comes to feelings. 

The domesticity in this story is so good and it’s so sad watching them get used to it and hearing Clint think it can’t last...but then! And everything feels earned by the end, instead of just tossed in. You watch them get closer over the course of the story and I love it. 

They’re sassy and sarcastic and funny, and so true to the characters we’ve come to love that it all feels so believable. 

Just torakowalski Fics 

(Yes. I did add a whole section just for one author. If I hadn’t, every category would be overrun, and there are so many good fics out there! But this author gets me, and more importantly, gets Clint and Phil, so it had to be done.)

Been Looking at You Forever  words: 18k+ (closer to 19k)  rating: E

Clint and Phil are friends. Friends who have sex. That’s all there is to it. Honestly. 

Fuckbuddies with a healthy dose of accidental relationship because whoops, who knew “casual” sex with hidden feelings would lead to complications and more feelings?? Set post-Avengers movie, and including all the main faves as side characters. 

Guys, I’ll be real with you for a second. I don’t ship either stucky or Tony/Pepper, and yet this has both as background but blatant relationships. And I still don’t ship them, but I believed it within the story and I wasn’t bothered? If that doesn’t tell you how good of a writer tora is...

I am addicted to the way they write Clint and Phil, and the fact that it doesn’t look like they’ll be writing more for that pairing makes me hold on tighter to the stories we do have. Sure, the premise of this fic is a trope, but the relationships between the characters puts it on another level for me. This one will make you crave more of this trope out of all your fave pairings, trust me.

And All the Clocks Came Back to Life  Words: 4k+ Rating: T

Phil Coulson isn't a big fan of birthdays, but they're better than being dead.

Pizza Dog is a character again, and so is my favorite apartment complex in Marvel Comics continuity. This is the sweetest story (it’s also the shortest one on this list *gasp*) and it doesn’t have anything explicit, which I know some people prefer, but trust me. The way tora writes these boys is so worth the read. I have the warm-fuzzies just thinking about this fic again - I dare you not to feel like smiling with this one. Naturally, there are grounded feels too, and I just want to protect Clint with my whole being. Luckily, I’m pretty sure Coulson does, too. 

Both characterizations are on point.

Keeping the World at Bay  Words: 25k+ Rating: E

Finding out that Phil's alive and working with a new team isn't easy for Clint, and neither is helping Captain America track down the brainwashed Hydra assassin that used to be Bucky Barnes. 

This is another one where I still don’t ship stucky, but god damnit I’m here for everything in this fic. Clint gets to be fucking amazing in this one, both physically and on an emotional connective-ness level. It uses his own neuroses and backlog of problem/coping mechanisms and puts them to use in the best way. You know, if you’ve seen the movie Age of Ultron (meh movie overall but there are elements I adored) that Clint has the potential to fill the mentor position so well. He gets to do that here, or at least begin down that sort of path, and I loved it. 

For all my stony babes, I urge you to give it a shot. Just this once, let me peer pressure you.

I am also always here for Clint getting to be pissed off, because HELLO, he’s got a right. And my heart went out to Phil so hard. Guys, it’s a double reunion fic, as well as the first time potential best friends meet, why are you sleeping on this??

Back to The Place You Are  Words: 7k+  Rating: E 

Phil Coulson was sitting two tables over from Clint and wearing his Dress Blues. This was making concentrating on anything else pretty much impossible.

Normally, I am Not A Fan of fics where they are broken up from the get-go. Or maybe I just have to be in the right mood/mind set for that brand of angst. AND YET. This fic.  

It’s Tony and Pepper’s wedding, and naturally Phil has to dress the part right? Clint should have been prepared, but clearly, he was not. This one is pretty much smut with angst and feels, and like Clint, I was not prepared for how much I would love reading it. 

What We've Got Here Is Enough words: 7k+ rating: E

They don’t fuck in the Avengers’ Mansion, that’s rule number one of Having A Secret Relationship With Your Ex-Handler.

This one was great, and involves how the rest of the team finds out about their relationship. Not a ton to say aside from what I’ve already said about how tora writes these two! 

Want more recommendations? Let me know! Maybe I ship what you ship and we can scream about the great fanfic together. 

#phlint #phlint fic rec #marvel #marvel fic rec #clint barton #phil coulson #clint barton/phil coulson #fanfiction rec #fanfic rec #fanfiction recommendation #phlint fanfic #phlint fanfiction

[entergamingxp]

Five of the Best: Cheat Codes • Eurogamer.net

Five of the Best is a weekly series about the incidental details we don’t celebrate enough. We’ve talked about all kinds of things so far from Game Over screens to Scares and Villains – there’s a whole Five of the Best archive if you’re interested. But there’s so much more to talk about too.

Five of the Best works like this. Various Eurogamer writers share memories and then you – probably outraged we haven’t included the thing you’re thinking of – can share that thing you’ve been thinking of in the comments below. Then we all have a lovely chat about it. Your collective memory has never failed to amaze us – don’t let it stop now!

No, no, I won’t do it, I won’t cheat, you can’t make me. I’m going to play this game properly and if it gets hard then so be it. That’s the challenge, that’s when I really learn the game. If I cut corners then what kind of player am I? But gosh this section is hard, I don’t think I can take dying again. Maybe I’ll just pop in one little code in to help…

We’ve all done it. Tell me you’ve never used a cheat code and I’ll call you a liar. But are they really so bad? Was typing PANZER to drop a tank on your location in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City really that bad? No! It’s hardly unfair to have a tank is it? Precisely. And aren’t cheat codes secretly what games charge us for in their stores these days anyway?

So here’s to cheat codes, those little developer hacks we don’t like to admit we can’t live without. And here are five of the best.

Blind-typing in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

When I arrived back from three months in Australia, many years ago, I had a broken heel and a broken wrist. I had been a silly boy and jumped off a roof. Both breaks were on the same side of my body, I should add, so I was only allowed one crutch and hobbled around like a pirate. It was a strong look. You should have seen my dad’s face when he picked me up at Heathrow.

Anyway, it meant I couldn’t do much that summer but stay in and play games (I’m sure there probably were other things I could do but I didn’t want to), and one of the games that kept me – and my lovely friend Tom, who kept popping round to see me – busy, was Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. We loved it, pootling around 80s Miami getting into all kinds of trouble.

Pretty soon, though, trouble piled up and, well, GTA games can be really annoying sometimes so we reached for a bit of help. We cheated. We began blind-typing (we couldn’t see what we were writing) cheat phrases that would do all manner of wonderful things. “PANZER” to spawn a tank – it just fell out of the sky next to us. “GETTHEREFAST” to spawn a speedy Sabre Turbo. “BIGBANG” to blow up all vehicles nearby. (There’s a whole list of GTA: Vice City cheat codes elsewhere on Eurogamer but fair warning, some haven’t aged well.)

We got really good at typing them – hey, some weren’t easy! And I’ve got fond memories of us both knowing instinctively which phrases to deploy and when. Ah, that was a lovely summer.

-Bertie

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Sheng Long in Street Fighter 2

There were a lot of fake Street Fighter 2 cheats floating around my school. I remember someone (could have been me, honestly, it was that long ago) claimed you could unlock the bosses – Balrog, Vega, Sagat and M. Bison – as playable characters. That was rubbish. Someone else (again, could have been me) told everyone there was a cheat code to get blood in the censored SNES version. Again, rubbish.

But one that definitely got me was Sheng Long. “You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance,” Ryu would say after winning a match. What a troll. There was no Sheng Long. No cheat code to unlock him. And yet, I spent hours trying to.

I can’t remember exactly how I became aware of this infamous Street Fighter 2 hoax, but I think it originated from an import copy of Electronic Gaming Monthly, a US magazine the newsagent around the corner from my secondary school on Beulah Hill in South London would sell a couple of months late (I used to get so excited for EGM as it had screenshots for games we wouldn’t see sold in the UK for months, sometimes years).

In early 1992, EGM ran an April Fool’s article explaining how to unlock Sheng Long, complete with photoshopped screenshots. To unlock Sheng Long you had to beat all the computer players without taking a single pixel of damage. Then, when you got to evil boss M. Bison, you had to draw 10 rounds in a row without taking any damage. Do that, EGM said, and Sheng Long would appear on-screen, chuck M. Bison out of the arena and fight you. This was all, quite clearly, bollocks, but 11-year-old me didn’t realise it was a joke. I didn’t realise this joke was supposed to be about the arcade version of Street Fighter 2, either. I didn’t even realise Capcom changed the mistranslation in Ryu’s win quote from “Sheng Long” to “Dragon Punch” for the console release. I was 11.

But as people in my school claimed they’d managed to unlock Sheng Long by doing this cheat (the liars!), I tried my hand. I tried. And tried. And tried. And tried, for hours and hours and hours until my fingers literally bled on the SNES d-pad. Every now and then I’d get to M. Bison without taking any damage, but the bastard dictator would always nick a pixel off me, usually through cheap chip damage. I raged.

Eventually I gave up, and the Sheng Long hoax sort of just went away. But it got me. I could not defeat Sheng Long. I did not stand a chance.

Bastards.

-Wes

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Going west in Wonder Boy 3

Wonder Boy 3 was one of those crucial games that blew my mind – one of the rare games that pops up every now and then to tell you that everything you thought about the possibilities of video games has to be re-evaluated. It was an RPG that behaved like a platformer. Since platformers were linear, this was a revelation – a platformer in which you could go everywhere! I played it endlessly with my school friends. And there was a rumour in the playground about this cheat code for it.

“Type in West One” someone told me one day. The game used a password save system. Couldn’t be too hard? But what my friend and I heard was “Type in West 1.” So we did. Nothing. We retyped it. Retyped it again. And again.

Then we started adding ones. Or 1s. Anyway something magical happened. West 111111 worked. It’s a weird cheat – drops you about halfway through the game with a fair amount of loot and also casts you as Wonder Boy, who you don’t get to play as very often here. It’s not as good as West One, which drops you at the end of the game with everything.

But it felt special: it belonged to us, my friend Gareth and I. We found it. We were the only people who knew about it.

Years later I discovered that West One is actually Westone, the developer of the game. Years later than that a beautiful new version of the game came out. And West One still works! As does West 111111. An incredible feeling.

BTW, I think it was actually We5t One back in the day, because the system didn’t have an S.

-Donlan

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Wonder Boy is wonderful, in case you’re wondering. Skip to around the twenty-minute mark if you’re impatient!

God

I’ve got a confession to make: You know Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines? I cheated at it. I pulled down that console and typed ‘god’ and never looked back. It’s hardly my fault if they make it that easy to do, is it? Plus which, vampires kind of are gods, aren’t they? I don’t think it was unreasonable of me to try and role-play one that way (they’ll never buy it Bertie).

Truth is it’s not the first game I’ve done it in, either. God mode propelled me through a few games from what I can remember. Jedi Academy; Duke Nukem 3D; the Quakes. And that’s where it all started: Quake. By pulling down the console with the tilde key, or the key above TAB in my case, you could enter the code IDDQD and become invincible. This was quickly coined as “god mode” by the community and so the code became “god” ever since.

-Bertie

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This seems like a nice playthrough series. I can’t wait for the sequel!

Ms Pac-Man and Galaga 20th Anniversary

Years ago, though of course it feels like a month or two at most, I had a gloriously tedious data-entry job in Brighton. I could pretend it was toil, but that kind of empty-headed typing gig has always brought me a certain kind of pleasure – I’m pretty empty-headed typing this right now – and even better there was another temp working with me called Stu who loved video games and actually got me back into the scene after a few years away from it all.

Every lunchtime Stu and I, and another colleague called Fi who wasn’t a temp but was allowed to come along anyway, would go down to one of the arcades on West Street. One of them had a 20th Anniversary Namco machine, Ms Pac-Man and Galaga on a single cabinet. We were terrible at these games but we’d each have a go, and we were soon fighting a couple of strangers for regular spots on the leaderboard.

Then Stu did a bit of research and discovered that if you entered a code with the joystick before you chose your game you could play the original Pac-Man. I gather – I may be wrong – that the original Pac-Man is nowhere near as good as Ms Pac-Man. But it had rarity – just playing it on the machine felt illicit. I would love to tell you that we ended up fighting over the scoreboard with the same strangers who regularly beat us at Galaga and standard Pac-Man, but I just can’t remember.

What I remember is that the first time Stu input the code and a new game appeared. It felt impossible, like a tiny 8-bit hole had been poked in the universe. And on the other side of that hole were pixels and dots and power pills.

-Donlan

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This is not Donlan’s friend Stu by the way – but I bet he wishes it was!

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/five-of-the-best-cheat-codes-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=five-of-the-best-cheat-codes-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

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How to Get Through a Breakup When You’re Still in Love

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How to Get Through a Breakup When You’re Still in Love

Breaking up was the right thing to do, but your heart aches. Here’s how to get through a breakup when you’re still in love with him, you miss him, and you wish your relationship could have turned out differently… “I broke up with my boyfriend of six years, and I know it was the right thing to do,” says Adelle on 6 Things You Need to Know About Uncoupling After a Breakup. “I had started to emotionally detach from him about a month before the actual breakup. But still, I’m finding it hard to go through this. I’m surprised that the breakup is so painful, especially since I’m not still in love with him. I love him but I know I’m not in love with him, if that makes sense. I think I just miss the idea of being in a relationship with him because he was a great guy. And what if I don’t find someone else? My struggle is learning how to get through a breakup when love is still alive, and not being scared of the future.” Getting through a breakup it is never easy – even when you know breaking up is better than staying together. We were created to love and be loved. We were meant to be in relationship with each other. Being alone isn’t natural, even for people like me who are introverted and who prefer to be alone most of the time! I love spending my days writing and blogging alone… and I love when my husband comes home at the end of the day.

You are normal if you’re wondering how to get through a breakup when you’re still in love. Your feelings of sadness, regret, and loss are natural – even though you know you have to accept that your relationship is over. You are not alone. How to Get Through a Breakup When You’re Still in Love Have you written about your feelings yet? If you haven’t spent time working through your thoughts and feelings about the relationship and breakup yet, then I encourage you to start writing today. I recommend writing in a private journal. But, many people find it helpful and healing to write online in their own blogs or in the comments section of articles like this. There is something about writing – especially by hand on paper – that helps you get to your true feelings and thoughts. And that’s one of the best tips on how to get through a breakup, especially when you’re still in love. Get to the heart of the matter, and you will start healing. Give yourself time, space, and room to breathe Take time to heal. Getting through a breakup isn’t something that you can do quickly in one day, or overnight, or in one week. You won’t find quick tips for healing after breaking up online or in a book – though books can be incredibly helpful! Books are always my first “go to” places whenever I’m encountering a new problem or situation in my life. Take a deep breath. Give yourself space, time, freedom. Unplug. Allow your feelings to untangle themselves. Give your soul room to breathe. Let your body heal from the loss of this relationship. Let your mind accept that this person won’t be a major part of your life anymore. You will get through this breakup if you surrender to this loss. Just let it be. Just be here, now. Take a deep breath and know that everything will be okay. You will heal, you will get through this breakup, and you will eventually love again. You have time. Balance times of quiet healing with bouts of energized activity “Give yourself time to actively grieve,” writes Lora in In How to Stop Thinking About Your Ex and Get On With Your Life. “You have lost a huge part of your life and it takes time to heal. But at the same time start thinking about who you are going to become. You have lost a piece of your self-identity, and you need to recreate yourself. This can be good news, if you allow yourself to think that way. This breakup can be a massively and hugely positive life changing event for you, if you teach yourself to be strong, positive, and healthy. At the same time, start thinking about how it would feel if you let go of your pain and grief. What will it feel like to wake up in the morning and not be burdened by grief? If you really want to know how to get through a breakup when you’re still in love with him, think about what would it be like to feel happy, light, and YOURSELF again! It’s time to let go of the pain and pick up the healing.” One of my favorite things about life with God is the freedom to rest in His will, and the requirement to actually do things to move forward in my life. How does this relate to you, to learning how to get through a breakup when you’re still in love? The idea of balance. After breaking up, the healthiest way to heal is to give yourself time to grieve the end of the relationship and push yourself to get out of your comfort zone. Be careful what you feed your mind and soul When I was searching for tips on how to get through a breakup when you’re still in love, I found websites and blogs that were screaming at me. How to Get Through a Breakup When You’re Still in Love All that noise, those popups, the big flashing advertisements, the two sentence paragraph broken up by huge photos and pictures of things not related to getting through a breakup after losing someone you love. There is so much noise on the Internet – even if your laptop or phone is turned off. The noise isn’t just what your ears hear, it’s the flashy splashy pictures and celebrity news and Click Here and Sign Up for This and Watch Me and on and on and on…it’s not healthy, it’s not conducive to healing, and it won’t get you through a breakup when you’re still in love. It may distract you for a time, but it won’t heal you. Turn off the noise Instead of searching for answers on Facebook or YouTube or Pinterest or Twitter, turn it all off. The answers you need are already within you. You already know what you can do to get through this breakup. You already know how to heal and recover! There is a still small voice inside you – call it your intuition, call it your gut instincts, call it God – that is so wise. It wants to give you good things, to heal and grow, to be happy and find love again. Your job is to tune in to it and hear what it is saying to you. You don’t have to stop using the Internet forever or for the afternoon. Just take 30 minutes away from your phone. Take an hour to read a book (even if it’s an ebook on how to get through a breakup when you’re still in love!). Take two hours and go for a hike, a walk in the forest, a stroll down your street. Take your dog for a long hike in the mountains or a romp by the lake. Take your best friend for a walk on the seawall. Turn off NetFlix for an hour, and maybe even all day Saturday or Sunday. If your relationship isn’t actually over yet, read How to Break Up With Someone You Don’t Love Anymore.

Ask for help getting through a breakup Stop saying that you’re okay when you’re not okay. Don’t tell your coworkers, family, friends, and neighbors that you are fine. Stop putting up walls and pretending that you know how to get through a breakup when in fact you’re dying on the inside because you’re still in love. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It feels uncomfortable and even scary to say to somebody, “I need help getting through this breakup.” But if you choose the right person to say this to, you will find help and support that will show you how loved you are. There is nothing to be ashamed of and there is nothing wrong with saying, “I feel lonely and I need to talk. Do you have time to listen?” This is the sign of a brave, courageous, smart woman. Saying, “I feel anxious about the upcoming holidays or birthday because I’m not sure I will be over the breakup by then. I may still feel like I’m in love with him. Do you have any suggestions to help me? What worked for you?” Choose acceptance over resistance One of the most important lessons I’ve learned about life is the value of accepting instead of resisting the things that happen to us. “Resistance of any kind is a major source of stress, negativity, and even depression,” writes Brian Tracy in Kiss That Frog!: 12 Great Ways to Turn Negatives into Positives in Your Life and Work. “The opposite of resistance is acceptance. It is important for you to accept that a change has taken place in your life and then move on.” Tracy adds that accepting fact as reality is the first step to taking charge of your self and your emotions, getting through the breakup, and moving on to a relationship that is healthier and better for you. “The inability to get over a bad situation is a major block that holds people back, often for many years,” he writes. “One of the marks of maturity is to accept that you are not perfect, that you make mistakes. You have made bad choices and decisions in the past that have led to bad results and consequences. So has everyone else. So, accept that your relationship is over. Even more importantly, eliminate the words ‘if only’ from your vocabulary. Accept that the breakup has happened and cannot be changed.” Accept that you still love him…and your love will fade in time. You will get through this breakup, you will heal, and you will be happy and whole again. Learn how to let go of someone you love If you really want to survive a broken relationship when you’re still in love, stop distracting yourself from the pain. Instead, go through it until you come to the other side. I wrote 75 How to Let Go of Someone You Love: 3 Powerful Secrets (and 75 Tips!) for Healing Your Heart because I had to get through a breakup with someone I still love: my sister. She cut me out of her life several years ago, and it was the most painful “breakup” I ever experienced. To write this ebook, I interviewed life coaches, counselors, and grief coaches on letting go. I know how shocking, confusing, and heart-wrenching it is when you’re letting go of a loved one. It’s devastating – and it changes how you see yourself. Learning how to detach when you’re still in love is about rediscovering your passion and identity. Going through the pain of a breakup is not for the faint of heart. That’s why we tend to ignore our grief after a relationship ends. We shove the pain down and pretend it doesn’t exist. This may be a short-term way to get through the day – especially with the distraction of the noise of the Internet – but it is deadly in the long run. Unfelt pain will rise up again in the future. It must be felt to be healed. How are you feeling? Feel free to share your thoughts below on getting through a breakup when you still love him. While I can’t offer advice or help, I do read every comment. I encourage you to respond to other readers’ comments on this or other articles if you feel led, and to share your story. Writing often brings clarity and insight, and can help you process your feelings. Help Getting Through a Breakup When You’re Still in Love In Getting Over A Breakup: 75 Easy Steps To Get Over A Breakup, Kate Anderson offers easy to follow steps, broken into three sections, to help you get over the pain of a breakup and to move on with your life. My tips on how to get through a breakup are more emotional and spiritual and practical; if you need practical advice and help, you need Kate’s book. She shares: tips for dealing with social media, friends and family after breaking up, huge mistakes to avoid, help for getting through the moments of pain and anguish when you still love him, and methods for remembering the good times but never forgetting the bad times, help dealing with being single and alone, and different ways to move on with life. Necessary Endings by Dr Henry Cloud is one of my favorite books on how to get through a breakup of any type. I love this book because it’s not just about recovering from the end of a romantic relationship; it’s about ending a variety of different relationships without getting stuck in the past. Beloved reader, May you find wisdom and healing, strength and courage. May you give yourself time to heal and get through this breakup in healthy ways. May your love grow more mature, and may this relationship teach you valuable things about life, yourself, and love. Blessings, Laurie

xo

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Focus Zx1 With Using This Product You Can Increase Brain IQ

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New Post has been published on Side Quest Fitness

New Post has been published on http://sidequestfitness.com/9-keys-to-make-your-writing-great/

How to Fuck Up Some Commas: Or, The 9 Keys You Need to Make Your Writing Great

170.

No, that’s not the number of video games I’ve beaten in my life. And it sure as hell isn’t the number of women I slept with before my wife (that was less than 10).

It’s the number of articles I’ve written over a two year period on my site, and across the Internet on sites like:

Roman Fitness Systems

BroBible

MyProtein

AskMen

J Max Fitness

Listen, Money Matters

That doesn’t count all the ghostwriting, emails, e-books, and social media posts I’ve written either.

I’m not writing this as some form of public masturbation about what I’ve accomplished (okay, fine, maybe there’s a little jerking off going on).

What spurred these thoughts are the handful of emails and messages from random people I’ve received in the last few weeks/months asking about writing. Most of these coming from people new to the world of online fitness.

This article serves two purposes then: 1) it’s a bit of a reflective piece for myself, and 2) it’s a piece I can now use when someone asks me about writing or content creation on the Internet.

So to the young bucks who’ve asked me about writing, here’s what you need to know about getting better as an Internet scribe.

  Copyright: Image by StockUnlimited

Do the Work

How do you improve at anything?

Repetition. Repetition. Repetition.

It’s how you get stronger in the gym, how you get better at guitar, and it’s how you improve as a writer. The more you write, the more opportunities you have to improve. And that’s why if you’re an aspiring scrivener, you need to write every day.

Writing every day doesn’t mean you have to publish every day. But unless you completely excommunicate yourself from social media, you’re gonna write something. And as Tim Ferriss has said before:

“How you do one thing, is how you do everything.”

It took me a little while to learn this; and by little while, I mean one soul-burning John Romaniello “goddamn it” look before I realized that everything I write — Tweets; Facebook Posts/Comments; Instagram posts; Text Messages; Emails; FB Messenger conversations — should be treated with the same care and diligence I’d give any article.

There’s another reason why you need to write every day. The online world is saturated with content. And the way you make yourself stand out is to be really fucking good. Not mediocre; not so-so; not worthy of a gentleman’s C.

No. You need have to be better.

And if you want to be better, you have to put in the work.

The simple act of writing every day, and paying attention to what you write—no matter the medium—generates awareness to how you write. And like the awareness that comes from tracking calories, you begin to deconstruct your own writing to see where you suck.

From there, you’re able to improve and get better. Because if you’re not getting better, you’re dying.

Vomit is Better Than Perfection

Some things write themselves.

You know it. You write it. Edit a bit. And, “voila!”, you’re done. But the deep shit—the words you bleed onto the page—sometimes need to come out in whatever way possible.

And if what comes out at first is incoherent babble, that’s okay—the first draft is supposed to suck. Everything sucks the first time.

Don’t try and be perfect. Let your sentences sound like the ramblings of a drunken madman teetering down Bourbon Street. That’s okay. Because you’re getting it out.

Most of the time, that’s the hardest part: getting it out. Your brain wants you to make it perfect; your soul needs to exude it; and your hands are sitting there stuck in the middle trying to placate both parties.

So nothing happens. You stare at a blank screen and tell yourself this is impossible.

Hemingway put it best:

Write drunk. Edit sober.

Let your soul bare itself however it sees fit. Then let your brain clean up its mess and make it sound better. Whatever you do, get the words down. Then go back and clean up the vomit.

The Building Blocks  

Ultimately, writing is a lot like playing with LEGOs.

As a kid, I never claimed the rank of master builder. I pretty much built towers to see how high I could take them before I had my action figures demolish them.

But you can build some amazing shit out of LEGOs. And words are kind of like LEGOs. (And yes, you can choke on both.)

When you write a sentence and break it down—not only grammatically but visually (or how it flows when you read it)—you’ll begin to see how you can alter the structure, meaning, and cadence of a sentence with punctuation or changes in vocabulary.

Take the sentence below that I pulled from my first draft:

There are hard rules about grammar. And you need to know the rules—master them, actually—before you can break them.

If you look at this sentence as LEGOs, and punctuation and vocabulary as LEGO pieces, you’ll begin to see how you can add or change certain pieces that change the sentence completely.

Add a comma after the word “and,” and it adds a slight pause and emphasis for needing to know the rules:

There are hard rules about grammar. And, you need to know the rules—master them, actually—before you can break them.

You could also replace the em dash with parenthesis, which makes the words “master them, actually” more like an aside. But parentheticals only work when you’re able to remove the words within them without jacking up the sentence. In this case, it does; but to me, it loses a bit of oomph.

There are hard rules about grammar. And you need to know the rules (master them, actually) before you can break them.

There are hard rules about grammar. And you need to know the rules before you can break them.

Those small tweaks to punctuation change how you read the words in your mind or out loud. And if you wanted to change the cadence of the sentence, you could do so by adding a few more periods.

There are hard rules about grammar. And you need to know the rules. Master them, actually. Before you can break the rules.

(“them” needed to be changed to “the rules,” otherwise, that would have been a sentence fragment)

I don’t proclaim to be a grammar master. I’m still learning. But, I am experimenting with how to structure sentences, and when, what, and where the right punctuation should go to change the rhythm, emphasis, or spirit of a sentence.

Like the LEGO towers that my action figures shattered in my youth, sometimes a laconic sentence is more useful:

Master the hard rules of grammar, before you break them.

Read a Book, Read a Book, Read a Motherfucking Book

Before 2016, I’d read a total of 25, maybe 30 books. Last year, I read 27.

And besides the fact that many of those 27 books inspired articles or emails, the biggest lesson I learned from reading more books is that it makes you a better writer. Why?

If for no other reason than it’s research. Sure, you’re learning new ways to improve yourself or your business or diving deep into an exciting world full of interesting characters, but more than that, it allows me—as a writer—to see how the best wordsmiths craft their work.

How do they create tension and mood within their writing?

Why did they choose to use an em dash and not a comma?

When, how, or why did they change cadence, and how did that change impact me?

What words do these authors use that will expand my 6th-grade lexicon?

I love reading now. It’s the first thing I do every day. And it’s the one thing I feel—next to writing every day—that’s improved my skills the most.

Write By Hand

(Confession: I wrote this entire section on my phone while on the subway in NYC.)

Listen, I’ll be the first to admit, my penmanship is grotesque. Doctors have better handwriting than I do. Still, something happens when you write by hand.

Over the last decade, a few studies have even shown that there’s a clear distinction between writing by hand or on a keyboard. For instance, one study showed that the brains of children “lit up” when asked to write a word by hand vs using a computer. And some doctors believe that as you age, it’s better to write by hand because it improves motor skills, memory, and acts as a good cognitive activity as you age.

I can read the science and I can agree with most of it. But, for me, writing by hand—even the simple act of taking notes while listening to a podcast or reading an article—spurs something more visceral and taps into a creative vein in my mind that writing in Google Docs or iNotes can’t.

That doesn’t mean I write every word of an email, an article, or social media post by hand. 65-70% of what I write is done electronically. But the stuff that burns, that scratches at my soul, and threatens to haunt me if I don’t put it down, comes out on paper.

Where a word processor has distractions like a toolbar or even the ability for you to open another tab and check Facebook/email, what you write on paper stabs you in the eyes—forcing you to examine and come to terms with what’s on the page.

You can erase it and change it, sure. But the remnants of it—the shadow of your erasures or the strike through of your pen—stare back at you and remind you that those are words you wrote; words you believe.

There’s a cathartic connection—a bleeding—that happens when your mind connects with your hand; you struggle less and write more truthfully.

The Best Form of Flattery

Imitation does not mean plagiarization.

Do. Not. Steal.

That’s wrong, and if you do it, you’re a douche-canoe. 

(Douche-canoe is something my friend Aadam says all the time—yes, he has two A’s in his name, that’s not a spelling error. And though I could have made you think I invented the funny word “douche-canoe,” I did not. Aadam did. See, I’m giving him credit and not stealing it.)

When I taught myself how to play the guitar, the first songs I played weren’t my own. I played everyone else’s. And when I did decide to write my first song(s), I imitated the chord progressions from the artists I was listening to at the time. (Thanks, Howie Day.)

But that’s how everyone who picks up a guitar starts their career.

You play Bob Dylan, Deep Purple, Hootie and the Blowfish, and once you’ve nailed the basic chord progressions of your favorite songs, then you’re more likely to experiment and find your voice and create your own music.

And in a lot of ways, that’s what I’ve done as a writer. Writers that I admire and find extremely engaging have been the ones I’ve tried to imitate. Not because I want to be them. But because I needed to play their chords to find my voice.

That’s one of the first things I’ve told anyone who has asked me for writing advice:

“take something you want to write, and write it as if your favorite author wrote it.”

Examine how they use and shape words. And then try and play their song.

But please, don’t steal. There’s a difference between stealing and imitating.

How to Unblock Writer’s Block

This is the 2nd time, and it won’t be the last, that I’ve mentioned Roman in this article. And it might sound like I’m sucking his dick a little bit (I am), but without Roman, there is no Side Quest Fitness; and really there’s no Robbie Farlow as I stand now.

But when it comes to writing, Roman knows his shit. And he often posts tidbits about the (or his) writing process on Facebook or Instagram. When he does, it’s fucking gold; and I hoard it in a secret folder on my phone.

For instance, this is is a screenshot of a comment he left my friend Aadam Ali when Aadam was struggling with writer’s block.

“So Robbie, what do you do when you have writer’s block?”

My usual response to this question is that I throw on some Dashboard, cast myself on the floor, and scream the lyrics to the heavens while I beseech my muse to return. I’m like half joking when I say that. (Half.)

The other half involves one or two of the following, and these are usually what I recommend others do as well:

Masturbate

Take a walk

Listen to a podcast

Read

Write something other than fitness

Film yourself speaking about what you’re trying to write. Walk around your room with a camera on and just record yourself talking about what you want to say.

Drink whiskey

Play video games

Learn a new song on the guitar

Take a shower

Sing This Bitter Pill as loud as possible

Writer’s block, for me, is usually a sign that I’m fighting something I should be writing. Or that I’m trying to make it “perfect,” instead of vomiting my soul on the page.

Writing What You Know

Before I ever decided to become a trainer or even launch my coaching business, I read articles by the giants in the industry. And these guys are smart. Like, the best of the best. But I’m no Tony Gentilcore, Dean Somerset, Dan John, or Ben Bruno.

Those guys dive deep into the science behind how the body works while you lift. But, me?

I love reading anything written by the best of the best, and (for the most part) I understand the super-sciency terminology they use.

But my friends who first came to me and asked about getting in shape, probably don’t. And the clients I work with don’t really care about the science either. What they want are the exercises that help them feel better, move better, and look better naked.

And it’s my job to take the knowledge I have, and that I continue to seek, and add a bit of a nerdtastic flare to it—providing my readers and clients with a frame of reference they connect with, be it video games, comics, Star Wars, or sports.

Those four things above are what I know. They are who I am; and the lens through which I view the world around me.

I don’t know everything about kinesiology. But, I do know how to connect diet to Indiana Jones, motivation to Lord of the Rings, leadership to Call of Duty, and pretty much everything else to Star Wars or my love for UNC basketball.

So that’s what I’m gonna write about. Oh, and Buffy.

It’s Not the Tool, It’s How You Use It

Before I joined the Roman Fitness Systems Mastermind, I remember having a long conversation with Tanner Baze about how we hated reading sales copy. We felt dirty. Icky.

Like the words we were reading were written by He Who Shall Not Be Named himself.

God, were we stupid.

We were looking at copywriting all wrong. Or, at least, I was (I don’t know about ole dtbaze).

Because the truth is, all writing is copywriting.

Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Rothfuss, King, Shakespeare, every single author who has ever written a story or a screenplay, was, essentially, writing sales copy.

Copywriting—in the sales realm—has one primary goal: to get you to buy whatever product the ad is selling. 

And if it’s good copy, each word will sell you on reading the next line in the sales ad until you buy.

Oh, shit. That’s exactly what good authors do as well.

Each line sales you on reading the next line. Why else would you read a gigantic 1,200-page book if you weren’t buying each line and spending the only currency you can’t get back: time.

And of course there’s bad, smarmy, snake-oily sales copy out there that makes a ton of money selling bullshit.

But hey, someone made a gazillion dollars writing Twilight fan fiction that then became a best-selling series and Hollywood film franchise. So sometimes evil wins. And yes, you can use the power of words in 50 different shades of evil to sell bullshit.

Or, you can learn to harness the power and use it for good. And that’s what a good writer, or copywriter, would do: use words for the betterment of humanity.

The Penis Pen is Mightier

Truth is: I’ve always been a writer.

I wrote my first story on a piece of cardboard I pulled from a trash bin. It wasn’t very good. It sounded like a five-year-old wrote it. Because a five-year-old did write it.

But I stopped writing around the time I got a Nintendo. And only picked the pen back up when I fell in love with poetry as a teen.

My years as a poet ended when a few friends accused me of being a bit too emo (whatever the fuck that means). And from that point, the only writing I engaged in were the mandatory papers I had to write in high school or college.

Secretly, though, I missed writing.

I may never be a Hemingway. Or a Strauss. And I sure as hell won’t ever be a Shakespeare. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t, or shouldn’t write.

Writing every day for two years has improved my quality of life.

I don’t wake up and despise the morning anymore. My thoughts are more clear. I’ve taken more stock into what I think and believe because I’ve been forced to write them down and confront those words face-to-face.

And, above all, I’ve found something that’s galvanized my soul and that I’m driven to improve upon every, single, day.

So if you’re an aspiring writer, whether you want to write fitness blogs, short stories, or a novel. Do one thing, and one thing only—write.

Write like a motherfucker. Then, continually look for ways to improve. Study the authors you read and imitate their style. Treat every word you write on social, in text messages, or in your journal as if it were being published in The New York Times.

And as the great Romaniello once said:

Don’t let the idea of “what your writing may become” interfere with the process of actually writing it.

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