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#they didn’t play a decade long gay chicken for this???
fromwarmclimate · 29 days
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The reaction to this bland as hell interview from the anti-Maxiel peeps is wild.
I think Daniel mentioned Lando because he and the journalist were talking about him before the interview started. But only because Lando has just won his first GP. That’s it.
Daniel either did mention Max and it was edited out (possibly for length), or he didn’t think he had to state the obvious and mention Max like he has in every other interview he’s given since 2016.
yessss anon omg that interview is blandddd as hell lmaooo. i think the only reason why we’re even talking about it is the fact that daniel said lando, when anyone who has eyes can tell how that relationship went down 😭 and he didn’t even say that lando’s his bestie or anything he said ‘let’s say… mates’ like 😭? such a random ass PR answer to a random ass PR question.
we have no way to know exactly when this interview happened so i wouldn’t speculate but you are right, he has been mentioning max for almost a decade in basically everything. and now just because of this one they are suddenly ✨PR✨ and ✨fanservice✨ and bs like that??? 😭 girlies pls where’s your logic
i also find it hilarious that the non maxiel community keeps harping on them, saying what they have is ✌️fan service✌️. fanservice? by whom? mr. max i-just-wanna-go-home-screw-media verstappen or mr. daniel internalized-homophobia-gay-chicken-loser ricciardo?? they just can’t control themselves next to each other and that’s how we’ve gotten them at all 😭😭😭
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unrequited-words · 1 year
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03/05/23 Sunday 8:42
I decided to make a grilled cheese, and she hated it. She usually likes summer sausage, green apples peeled and sliced, and goldfish. At least it isn’t chicken nuggets again.
I’m eating cut up cold grilled cheese and playing an DLC of GTQ 4: The Ballad of Gay Tony. I almost finished The Lost and Damned and I forgot when I played it a decade ago how lame it was.
With work, I took off three days and in the beginning I had 713 points and I was in. I shape to be working with food poisoning. I still feel guilty for taking those days off. I can build that time off again for whatever I need.
Why is it when I have so many points I have to use it for sick days. I’ve accepted the fact that those points were I guess a vacation I spent at home fucking sick. Least it was paid. I’ll look at my time in the morning and see where I am at. I’ll work extra hours because I feel guilty since I have had five days off including my days off. I shouldn’t feel guilty but I do.
I have a meeting with my boss tomorrow before I get off of work and I hate these meetings. We will go over numbers and I am sure I didn’t bonus which adds to fiscal February. If this is how 2023 will go, fuck this shit.
Zod’s out for the night so it’s just me and Astrid. No idea when she will go to bed. Tomorrow will be a long day. Happy Monday? Hope the laundry finishes in the next two hours and maybe I can get some sleep 😂
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popculturebuffet · 3 years
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Ducktales Final Four!: The Lost Cargo of Kit Cloudkicker!
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Hello You Happy People. SPIN IT! OHOHOHOHOHOHO LETS’ BEGIN IT!
After 10,000 years we’re finally at the motherducking Talespin episode! And only 8000 of those years were the last 14 months as Ducktales 2017 has been working toward this for a while with Cape Suzette being prominently mentioned in both the first episode and the season 1 finale, and Don Karnage being a regular part of the rouges gallery, voiced by the wonderous Jamie Camil. So this episode was less a matter of “If”, since Don’s presence meant Disney wasn’t really against it happening, and more a matter of “When and How.” The how, to a point was settled at the big NYCC panel for Ducktales that revealed Daisy and Goofy... as it also revealed aged up versions of Kit and Molly, meaning a proper tailspin episode was on the way.  I could not have been more pumped. While I didn’t remember the cartoon well, i’d always loved Talespin since I was a kid and as an adult my curosity only grew. Still need to watch way more of it mind you, I really have slept on most of the Disney Plus Libarary and that’s dumb of me, but what i’ve seen is impressive. The story of an irresponsible bear forced to work with a buisnesswoman bear after she buys his seaplane, his loveable kid sidekick and said buisness bear’s daughter whose cute as a button but suprisingly tolerable for a little kid character. Opposing them were masterful buisnessman Shere Kahn, who sadly does not show up here and could be friend , foe or neutral depending on the episode, and Don Karnage, a kooky sky pirate who as mentioned is already in this series and was Balloo’s arch enemy. The series was colorful, creative, had a great premise and cast and in general was just awesome and out of the Disney Afternoon shows is honestly my faviorite, though Darkwing is getting close. I even recently finally got the Shere Kahn funko, which is starring into my soul as I type this review! Hurrah! 
So I waited impatiently like I did for Daisy and Goofy, both also things I’d wanted in the series since the start. Thing was.. Goofy showed up in the second episode of the season, that was part of the premiere, and while the wait for Daisy was agonizing, she still showed up pretty early into the season at episode five. Gosalyn showed up at episode 12. This is episode  20.  
I do get it: This season was built to be the last just in case.. and ended up being the last so good job there. There was a LOT to wrap up in one season and on top of that they had a double and TRIPLE length episode taking up 5 episodes of the season, AND two holiday episodes. So that gave them only 18 normal episodes they had to place very carefully. So likely, given that they had some episodes important to the finale that couldn’t wait for the last minute in “The First Adventure” and “The Battle for Castle McDuck!”, as I highly doubt pepper was given such  a build up to not be important in the finale, still think she’s webby’s mom, we’ll see soon enough. And New Gods on the Block, while not as important was probably not swapped with this one because they wanted a lighter episode after three plot important episodes in a row, two of which are fairly intense and had lasting consequences and one of which, while a bit of a breather, was still indulging in the new FOWL status quo. This one ended up crammed into the last block.. because they likely really wanted to do this one, wanted it to tie into FOWL... and had nowhere else to put it, with Life and Crimes likely serving as one last break from FOWL, if it doesn’t end up tying into it, before the finale movie. Doesn’t make waiting forever for it any less grating, but hey it’s finally here. So how was it? Was it worth the hype? And how do the Wuzzles factor into this? Join me under the cut and spin it with me to find out and count down to 3!
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So we open with an adult Kid Cloudkicker at work, voiced by Adam Pally!
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If you haven’t heard of him, and one of my Patreons had not, he was on Happy Endings and the Mindy Project, and has a very distinct voice and is very funny, so it was a pleasant surprise to have him pop up here as Kit and given aforementioned roles were messes in some way shape or form, especially Max from happy endings whose essentially Oscar the Grouch, just as gay only not living in a trash can. Though if he had to he would. 
Since he was a kid KIt’s picked up the old family business, and is now running hire for hire.. and has also picked up his Dad’s old enemies as Don Karnage chases after Kit, his second greatest nemesis, who freely mocks him. It’s a lovely sequence but shows Kit isn’t the best pilot, and his fancy flying, while beating Don, also opens both crates, freeing the livestock he’s carrying.. and the other cargo, a mysterious stone that was in a F.O.W.L. crate that merges the chicken with  a goat, and scares kit, and he ends up causing his cargo to drop out of the plane.  Cue titles. 
Back with our heroes for this series, Della is recroding Dewey as he flies solo the first time!
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That is so precious. Huey is along for the ride and is taking having his reckless brother with the attention span of a coked up ferret at the helm exactly how you’d expect. 
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Of course his helmet says safety boy and of course he has a helmet on over his hat. Awww. Dewey, while good at it, he’s a 12 year old flying a rather sizeable plane with no difficulty that’s  pretty impressive.. he’s also Dewey so just flying a plane normally isn’t enough and he wants to Dewey it instead and do all the fancy stuff. He wants to be special as is usual for him, not realizing this is how you get to being good as his mom or Launchpad. And he’s 12 so that makes sense just on the basic level.. but it also makes sense on a comparison level: Dewey’s done a LOT of impressive stuff over the course of the series: rattling it off because why not, and this is just things he acomplished himself: he found the Lost Jewel of Atlantis (Getting it home was still a team effort but he is the one who identified it), is a golf pro better than his uncle whose played the game for centuries at this point,   defeated Don Karnage in a sword fight with little to no sword training, was crucial in beating Magica during the Shadow War, travled through time, by accident or not, consulted on a major motion picture, defeated a Gandra, even if she was going easy on him, BLIND, and biggest of all defeated the World Serpent Jormunngandr, by himself, a GOD that’s fought Scrooge evenly for decades. AND FINISHED HIM WITH A PILEDRIVER. To reitirate this was ONLY the stuff he did himself. So I get why he’d think just flying a plane when his mom and best friend have done so much more with it is boring and that being a pilot when two people he looks up to are already one is just.. boring. I’ts not special or unique and given his family name is built on the two, I can see why he’d chafe under this. 
Della for her part isn’t doing things wrong entirely, she wants him to start with the basics, the fact he can DO those basics at such a young age with minimal training shows he has a true knack for it, and it takes experince to pull off death defying stunts. The First Adventure backs this up as while Della was so talented as a kid she could land a plane herself.. that was all she did. And it’s still incredibly impressive a ten year old landed a seaplane with no real world training or hours in a full on flight simulator. The issue that’s never really adressed is while she’s mostly doing it right she dosen’t get that despite his talent, Dewey just dosen’t find this INTRESTING or get how impressive he is, and that dressing it up a bit migh’tve helped. It’s an understandable mistake though, teaching someone something in any context is hard. It’s one of many, MANY reasons like currently horribly hazzarodus conditions, long hours, having to buy their own suplies at times, that teachers are badly underpayed. 
Before we get into why their headed to Cape Suzette at long last, there is one notiacble absence in this episode I can’t really ignore: Launchpad. While he has been absent in every episode since Let’s Get Dangerous, not counting “How Santa Stole Christmas!” as the two holiday episodes were made to fit in anywhere story wise and timeline and production wise take place before the rest of Season 3 , which takes place during Spring given both the March note on Boyd and Huey’s photos in Astro BOYD, and Forbidden Fountain taking place during spring break. At most it’s currently running into Summer. I put too much thought into this with someone i’ve lost contact with. 
My point, I had one trust me, is that Launchpad has just been gone for the second half of the season . And up till now it wasn’t necesarily a bad thing: He was a major part of Let’s Get Dangerous and wasn’t really needed for any of the episodes so far: The Manor side of things in ImpossiBin was purposfully intense and while he would’ve had some thoughts on Beakly’s actions, it just worked better with him gone and the only other adult in the house at the moment busy doing other stuff for their protection till the climax. Split Sword was kid focused, New Gods didn’t really involve him at all, though I am sad he and Storkules never met as far as I can tell, The First Adventure was a flashback, Fight for CastleMcDuck was about the family unit more, and Beaks in the Shell is the only one so far I think he could’ve been included in at all and again shoving him in would’ve just cluttered things up. Like a lot of character ballance issues of the series, there’s a good enough reason.. this is just the one exception in the last batch I think would’ve been improved by having him. He’s Dewey’s best friend, he’s been there for him, he would’ve been a good counterpoint as a teacher and it could’ve been intersting having both he and della have constrasting styles but valuable things to teach and I would’ve loved to see him interact with Kit. It also just feels really weird to be down a pilot in the episode about the franchise about a pilot. \
The fact Dewey ends up crashing while landing after Huey applauds him on his safe normal landing, which ticks him off because he dosen’t want to be normal, hammers in it in a bit as he missed his buddy’s first crash. I get leaving him out as Kit is just as irresponsible and the episodes just as much about Kit if not more so as it is about Dewey, so I understand it but it dosne’t make it feel like any less of a lost opportunity. 
As for why their in the cape at last, it’s unsuprsingly another missing mystery, the stone of what is which can combine two things, the stone seen in the intro. Kit loosing it turns out to be a good thing as it meant FOWL didn’t get it, and they can find it, and are in town to find him. They pass the hire for hire offices which have a ton of notices on the door, and Dewey is entranced by the idea of cloud kicking, aka sky surfing, aka that thing kit did in the original. We also get to see updated versions of Baloo, Kit and Molly. Sadly no Rebecca. Can’t win em all. 
Our trio find Kit whose asleep, clearly having no customers and trying to pass it off like he does. It turns out he knows Della, as they went to flight school together, though she only vaugely remembers him at best. She does remember Molly though, wouldn’t be suprised if that’s another ex of hers either, and wonders what happen to her.. and not just because htere’s always room in Della’s harem.  Kit dodges.. and it’s likely in large part because it’s clear to anyone looking despite his statments he’s kinda stalled as an adult. It’s very clear from his surroudings, him being a pilot for hire, and him eagerly taking Dewey on as a sidekick when Dewey shows intresting in Cloud Kicking, that he’s trying to be Baloo. This idea was, according to Frank, the brainchild of the episode’s director, and one of it’s writers and storyboarders, Tanner Johnson. Tanner pitched “What if Kit never outgrew his Baloo fanboying?”. 
It’s an intresting idea: while it is sad we don’t get to see the old boy at any point and I do wonder where he is now and what he’s up to in his retirment, probably just flying about free as a bird would be my guess given how he never liked working to begin with, I applaud them for doing something unique with the Tailspin cast that fits into the themes of the season rather than just have them show up. By making it Kit instead of Baloo cargoing them, it gives us more of an arc to work with character wise as Kit has become so obessed with becoming his dad, he never stopped to consider if he was even good at it or enjoyed it.
  Using Della is part of what makes this work as she too grew up with a larger than life mentor and adopted dad.. but unlike Kit, she grew up a bit and saw the flaws in her dad. His greed, his selfishness, his tendency to hog the glory, his ego.. she stopped putting him on a pedestal. She still loves him, still wants his respect and admiration to this day, but she gets he’s not perfect and not who she wants to be.  Kit clearly never got this message. He never grew out of putting Baloo on a pedsteal and wanting ot literally be him instead of his own man. So he ignored the many flaws in how Baloo lived: Baloo started Talespin having lost his plane because he was so obessed with freedom and doing what he wanted, he didn’t bother actually paying on it and chafed under actually doing work half the time. He’s talented, fun to be around and a hell of pilot bar none, he honestly outclasses Della, but he was entirely irresponsible. Kit’s found himself in the same position Baloo was in: living alone, having not a lot going on, and on the verge of loosing his plane. Not only that he’s worse off because Baloo at least, while lazy, had enough talent. Kit.. isn’t a good pilot as we’ve seen and will see again, and clearly not only dosen’t have a knack for it, but is only doing it because Baloo did. He’s so obsessed with being who he THINKS baloo would want him to be, he never stopped to think that the actual Baloo would just want him to be happy and has probably told him this, or was probably too proud of what Kit was doing to realize what he was doing to his life. 
But Della dosen’t have time to get him a therapist, they need to find that stone before FOWL, and Kit offers to take them.. if they hire him. Della scoffs at this and insults the Sea Duck
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Yeah Della your fantastic.. but you do NOT insult the Sea Duck and your very, VERY lucky it’s not Baloo you were dealing with as he would’ve turned you down out of principal. The Sea Duck is fucking awesome, and a national treasure. Thankfully Kit instead points out the Sunchaser isn’t in a better place after Dewey Dewed what he dew, so they really don’t have a choice. 
Della does draw the line at letting Kit fly as she eventually realizes he’s not good at this, mostly letting Crowby his crowbar do all the work, and finds he has a map to where he dropped the stone, so he dosen’t even have that leg to stand on and throws him out of his own cockpit before he gets them all killed. Okay that time on her side. Kit takes this time to try and train Dewey on cloudkicking... but despite being encaustic at the idea of it the reality leaves Dewford scared shitless.. and doubles up on bad things as Don Karnage and his crew are closing in on the island. FOWL hired them to get it for them, though why FOWL didn’t do so themselves I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong i’m happy to have Jamie back and it really wouldn’t feel right ot have a Tailspin ep without Don Karnage, I just find it odd Bradford would hire outside contractors for this given he has a full staff and not at least send Heron or Steelbeak along to supervise.  Regardless, Don puts pleasure before buisness spotting Kit.. and fully commits after finding out Dewey is ALSO involved. I also find it hilarous DEWEY outranks Kit on Don Karnage’s enemy list. So naturally he goes after him, int he personal plane he used in the series which also showed up in the cold open, and with Dewey not having the skill to take Don on, Kit is forced ot step in. He also calls him “Little briches” which while another sign of how much he wants to be his own dad.. is still too awesome not to apricate. Don cuts the line but thanks to Kit’s fancy footwork, they make it out alive and wash up on an island. Della soon joins them, thanks kit for saving her kid then rightfully slaps him for putting him in danger in the first place. Dewey also has to stop her from punching him when he explains he had no idea the stone ended up on this island, which granted she is justified in but Dewey , of all people, rightly saw this means they don’t have to drag a  unconcious bear around who probably hasn’t showered in a while. I mean the smell will be there either way but there’s less chance of accidnetlly inhaling too much while he’s conconcious. They also find out what the Stone’s been doing: combining the wildlife leading to rhino monkey hybrid trying to murder them. So at the last minute Frank also squeezed in another disney aftenroon show but one tha’ts not streaming and most don’t care about: the wuzzles, a bunch of hybrids of various animals... Frank couldn’t do much with that as is and just decided to rightfully play it for horror. 
Our heroes find Don, whose found the stone.. and is simply throwing most of hi crew  at it rather than doing anything productive, with them turning into just.. utterly horrifying combinations. Hands for heads and everything, bug legs, a non-anthro parrot head. it’s pretty tough to watch and I question why the episode did this as Don’s crew did not deserve this and this episode is mostly lightearted before and after this. A tailspin tribute episode episode should not pair well with the song no spill blood.. seroiusly you paid for all I do is win, and rightfully but you couldn’t get this?
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Regardless the kids and manchild are told to stay put while the slightly more functional womanchild takes care of Don. Dewey and Kit naturally don’t, which is fair: what did della expect, the sugared up rabbit in a small duck’s body and the incompitent but charming manchild she’s insulted repedadtly to listen? Naturally they both beef it as Dewey can’t board and while Kit does get Don’s plane, he ends up crashing it instead of doing anything productive. I mean even Launchpad would’ve at least got back to the seaduck.. he would’ve crashed into it but still. Look when you make Launchpad look compietnet you really need to rethink your life.  Della has bigger problems though as it turns out the thing they were on.. was a coocoon.. for a butterbear. Oh no. Thankfully this goes better than you’d expect as she’s able to ride the thing and it tangles up some rope, taking the stone of what was with it and Don takes off after it with what pirates he has left. 
Our remaining heros return to the Sea Duck. Dewey and Kit plan to do the same thing again and expect diffrent results but Huey.. has some words for them. 
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He’s fed up with this and points out they need to swap jobs. Dewey CAN fly, and Kit really is good at cloudkicking, it’s in the name, and he needs to return to it. While Dewey balks again stating anyone can be a pilot.. Kit finally admits that’s not true and he’s just not good at it and Huey finally snaps them out o fthier neurosis, Kit a bit late but better late than never given the state of his life, and points out the episode’s aseop: YOU make something special just by doing what you like to do and are good at well. I’ts been hard making these reviews, but I feel i’m getting the hang at it and it’s what I was meant to do, I just had to find it. It’s not always easy to find your calling but when you got it, go for it instead of some version of you you think you should be.  So we get pured distilled awesome for the climax. Besides Della again riding a bear that’s also a butterfly, Kit, also a bear I did not miss that gag, proceeds to finally spin it and begin again it as he tears through them with Crowby and easily deispatches the planes finally earning Della’s respect and finally back in his element, using his newfound size and strength combined with his still inherent acrobatics to easily take them out and land on Carnage’s plane and beat him. 
So the day is saved: The stone lands on the plane and our heroes properly secure it. Della releases her bear fly but it’ll find it’s way home i’m sure... so majestic. Or it’ll eat all the world’s seagulls. Good news either way. 
Back at the bay Kit packs up the stone safetly and gives them the bill. Which Della grumbles at but whiel he didn’t fly he did save their asses.. after endagenring them but still and does have a buisness to run. Plus he has to save his plane. 
But it turns out someone’s already bought it. And you can probably guess who. 
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No not you sweetie.. though he is an investor for the person who DID buy it: Molly, whose taken being danger woman from a 4 year old’s play time to her career running an air stunt show. This is the other thing that cemented the whole aged up versions of these guys working for me: HIstory Repeating itself. Once again an enterprising young woman with a lot of ideas has bought the seaduck from it’s incompitent owner and hires the former owner to work for her.  But things are warmer this time: Kit wasn’t happy doing what he was doing, and it’s clear unlike Rebecca, who just bought the first plane she could get and hired baloo because he was who she could afford, they became friends with time and patience if not more but that’s still vauge... Molly did this out of love. She knew Kit was struggling and probably has as many fond memories of the sea duck and baloo as he does and didn’t want someone else to get the old girl. Her air show seems to be going fine, she apparently has a full crew, fans and enough money to purchase another plane on a whim from the bank to expand the show.. she wanted her old plane back and her old brother back. And wheras again Rebecca offered Baloo the job because he wanted to keep his baby safe from some half assed pilot she could afford and she knew it and thus could manipulate him with that. Plus he worked cheap so there. Here Molly just admires her brothers skills and hires them on it and he’s frankly more comfortable being a sidekick than the main star anyway. 
He TRIES to brush it off but gladly accepts. God another possible spinoff.. please make this Disney.. and if not at least Reboot tailspin I miss it. Still it’s a very satisfying ending. But what of Don Karnage? Well he’s lost everything as a result of this, unable to get back to his carrier, his crew mostly gone, and FOWL sure to be gunning for him. This is seemingly the end for him.. until he finds a chunk of the stone. “Or the start of an encore”. Wether this was a setup for a possible part of season 4, a possible spinoff or is going to come back in the finale.. we’re just going to have to wait and see won’t we?
Final Thoughts: I really liked this one. It’s not the best of the season: Kit’s arc is kinda telegraphed and Dewey’s arc while intresting isn’t focused on enough to really be that engaging. But the ideas at the core are solid and fit into the series well, the idea to age up our kid heroes from Talespin was really clever and paid off and as usual Adam Pally is a delight and as I said at the top was pitch perfect casting. Couldn’t figure out who played molly and the credits cut out on me, so let mek now if you do but yeah I enjoyed this one> It wasn’t the series at it’s best but given the last two are liable to get pretty intense it was a nice breezy break. And it got me wanting to watch Talespin again and there’s nothing bad about that. 
NEXT WEEK: In our penultimate adventure, Ducktales reinacts that one episode of Batman the Animated Series where all of Batman’s foes put him on Trial, as Scrooge’s Rogues put him on trial with Doofus as prosecuter and Louie for the defense. Well at least it’s not Lionel Hutz. 
This Week: Lots of Ducks! The lena retrospective continues as we take a detour for some comix, and we begin the Della arc as we go back to the start. It’s finally time to talk about Woo-Ooo!. 
If any of this sounds appealing follow my blog for more. If you like these reviews head over to my patreon, patreon.com/popculturebuffet, and become a patreon. At the 5 dollar level you get a review a month and even a dollar helps get to my stretch goals. I’m up to 15 a month so 20 is next and that means a darkwing duck review every month! And if you really like Talespin like I do, 25 nets you a tailspin review a month and a review of the pilot. Ohohohohohohoo. See you at the next rainbow. 
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yukipri · 4 years
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Marco’s Bauble Part 4 - a One Piece Mermaid AU Text Story
Next part of Marco’s Bauble! Was posted in advance on Patreon ^ ^
In which the Whitebeards gossip
Contains mention of Marco x Luffy.
Continues off of, and should be read after:
👒🐟Marco’s Bauble Part 1
👒🐟Marco’s Bauble Part 2
👒🐟Marco’s Bauble Part 3
~~
Namur values his crew's privacy. And given that he doubts he was even supposed to see Marco's secret, he absolutely can't disclose it to anyone.
Which is why he's snuck into Izo's room at ass o'clock in the morning, when everyone but the morning shift is asleep, but Izo's awake because he takes a few hours doing his hair and makeup.
"This had better be good, I don't usually enjoy an audience before I'm presentable," Izo says.
Namur doesn't really get what's unpresentable about Izo now. Sure he looks different, with his ridiculously long hair still loose and spilling to his waist, pulled back from his face with a seemingly simple band that Namur saw Izo drop a small fortune for. Izo's plucking up various bottles of liquid lined up on his vanity, methodically shaking a few measured drops into his palm before patting them into his face. Namur doesn't see any difference before and after the drops are applied.
"It's...it's not my secret to tell, but no one else seems to know, and I need to talk to someone, it's too big for just me," Namur says, reluctantly. "But you can't tell anyone, Izo, I mean it."
Izo just hums in response, and Namur sweats. He seems to be doing a lot of that these days. Maybe he needs to take a few days to just swim, being above sea level for too long can be stressful for fishmen.
Because this is already seeming like an increasingly bad idea. Izo isn't known for being particularly good at keeping secrets; if anything, he's a known gossip. That being said, he's also one of the best listeners aboard the Moby (it's how he gets his info), and more importantly, is the third best person to go to for good, thoughtful advice.
The best person to go to for advice is, of course, Pops, but Namur wilts at the mere thought because it really, really isn't his place to talk to Pops about this without Marco's consent. And unfortunately, the close second for Best Person to Go to For Advice is none other than Marco himself, everyone's Big Brother and caring Mother Hen Supreme.
And, well. It's not like Namur can go to Marco to talk about Marco.
"Well, I'm waiting," Izo says, and apparently he'd gone through his entire lineup of six little bottles of mysterious liquids, and is now blotting some paste onto his skin with a weird brush-like contraption. Namur squints, but can barely see any difference between the areas with the paste and without.
"Please don't tell anyone, unless they already know," Namur stresses again, praying.
"Yes, yes." Izo continues blotting.
"Marco proposed to someone."
Izo continues blotting.
Namur sweats.
Izo's hand gradually slows, and Namur realizes he's finished covering his entire face. Namur sees zero difference.
"Just so we're clear," Izo says, as he finally turns to face Namur. "When you say 'Marco,' we're talking about the fire chicken one, and when you say 'propose,' we're talking about the marriage, weddings, and babies type?"
"Babies?!"
No, no, that actually hadn't crossed Namur's mind, but it's there now, and he knows logically that devil fruits don't work like that, but his mind is suddenly filled with the image of an entire school? flock? of tiny colorful winged merbabies, and he's oh, oh NO they're so cu--
"Namur! Focus, please!"
Namur blinks. He doesn't know when it happened, but one of Izo's eyebrows is more defined than the other now.
"Yeah, that Marco," he confirms. "And I, I don't know about...the last thing, but yeah, if successful, usually the kind that results in marriage type."
Izo's oddly calm, and is facing his mirror again. He frowns momentarily, but then smooths his expression and begins applying his other eyebrow. Namur realizes that Izo's able to keep his face so smooth because he wants to draw on his face evenly, and that's actually quite impressive. Though, he has no idea why Izo needs more eyebrows, when he already has perfectly normal ones growing on his face.
"Who's the boy who stole the stupid pineapple's heart, it must be someone we know," Izo says, voice light.
Namur wasn't exactly planning on disclosing this much, he'd just wanted someone else to help him think of how best to support their brother's potentially upcoming union, but Izo's definitely not taking no for an answer, and that's a fight he knows he can't win.
"It's Ace's little brother, the one Thatch went to go fetch," he says reluctantly. "And even though she's his 'little brother,' she's apparently a girl, and a mermaid."
There's a clatter, and Izo curses. Namur tries to peer at Izo's face in the mirror, and notices a weird black blob by his eye that Izo's now trying to delicately smudge off. It wouldn't have been there in the first place if Izo hadn't been trying to poke himself in the eye with the weird brush thing. Namur really doesn't get this makeup business.
"You're telling me," Izo growls, and Namur flinches at the irritation, though he gets the feeling it's directed mostly at the eye blob. "That Marco's straight? I could have sworn he was gay!"
Namur blinks at Izo.
Izo blinks at Namur through the mirror. The eye blob makes his face look slightly crooked.
"Oh, right," Izo mutters, picking up his brush with face distorting ink again. "I thought Marco only liked guys like that, so it surprised me that he likes a girl. Maybe he's bi. Don't worry about it, it's a dumb human thing."
"Oh," Namur says, and yeah, he's heard vaguely about humans being weirdly obsessed with only liking a specific gender or two. It's a very foreign concept that Namur doesn't really get because it doesn't exist on Fishman Island, and romance stuff rarely comes up on the Moby, shockingly enough, or at least in front of Namur. But he's glad Izo doesn't seem too upset, because that would upset Namur. Namur's never met Ace's little brother, but he imagines she'd look so very charming next to Marco, given how in love Marco looked when he was sending off his proposal. He wants to root for them.
"Although, hm, does Ace know? I doubt he'd be very happy about Marco sweeping his dearest little brother off her feet, er, fins," Izo says, seemingly more relaxed now that his face distorting paint is cooperating. His face is now even, although his eyes actually do look different now, more like the Izo Namur usually sees. It's fascinating.
"I don't know," Namur confesses, and he's suddenly feeling very glum at the thought of their little fire cracker baby brother not being happy. Even though Ace didn't formally join, he's still their littlest brother, and Namur's very fond of him, and has honestly lost track of the number of times he's dived into the sea to fetch the reckless kid. He was honestly devastated when Ace said he was leaving. It's alright now, now that Namur knows it was just to bring home Marco's future bride, but he hopes Ace will be supportive too.
"And how did you know he was proposing?"
At this point, what does it matter what else Namur shares? "Well..."
By the time Namur's done answering all of Izo's questions on Fishman Island courtship and Marco's respectful application of it, Izo's done with his face.
"Well, that was certainly a fascinating talk," Izo says with lips the color of a raw fish's innards. "Now I'll have to kick you out before I do my hair. At least I finished my face."
Namur knows he's been excused. "Thank you for your time. Also, it looks very nice, your face," he says politely as he gets up. It seems awkward not to comment on it, after having watched Izo work so hard on it for the past half hour. "Although it looked nice before too. I like the eye paint."
Izo pauses contemplatively, then nods. "That's an acceptable compliment. Thank you. Now, shoo."
~~
"So, who's the wedding for?"
Izo jolts as Haruta settles his tray on the other side of the table.
"What wedding?"
"Don't play dumb. You're planning a wedding. I noticed some of our books were moved in the library, and you were the only one who was in there before me. You were looking up Grand Line marriage traditions, and going through shitty wedding magazines that no one's touched in a decade," Haruta rattles off as he stirs his soup, and Izo inwardly curses.
He thought he'd placed them all back where he'd found them, but alas, apparently nothing gets by Haruta's observation skills, and his talent for butting into business that has nothing to do with him.
"And given the selections, I'd say it's not for you." Haruta continues, as though he knows Izo's tastes by heart and sadly, he probably does, and not just Izo's but the whole crew's. "So someone's getting married, or they're thinking about it, and you're planning. I want to know who."
"You're a nosey little shit," Izo says, because he knows there's really no point in denying it to Haruta without tangible evidence, which he lacks. He's also too tired to deal with this shit, because he did his hair in a hurry in order to make it to the library before everyone woke up, which means it's slightly less perfect than usual. And being anything less than perfect is a truly exhausting business.
"Mm-hmm," Haruta says, and momentarily seems distracted by his plate. There's a tiny, almost imperceptible frown on his lips, and Izo only recognizes it because he'd had the same thought.
The food's by no means bad, and they have many fine cooks on the Moby. It's just, it's a little different, without Thatch's personal touch. Izo hates that their brother's temporary absence is so tangible. Damn him for going on his little vacation.
They continue their meal in silence, and Izo hopes that Haruta's forgotten, his mind having moved on to terrorizing other innocent brothers. Izo thinks he might be able to get away, when Haruta gets up right alongside Izo to return his tray.
"So who is it?" he repeats, as though they hadn't just sat in thirty minutes of silence, and Izo wants to tear out Haruta's hair in frustration, because Izo would never tear out his own hair for any reason.
"It's none of your business, don't you have work to do?"
"My work is knowing stuff. Tell me."
"This isn't something you need to know. That's what I'm telling you."
"Nice try. Lemme guess. Is it Marco?"
Haruta laughs at his own joke, and promptly walks into Izo's back. Izo tries to get over his momentary freeze, but the damage is done.
"Holy shit, it's MARCO?!"
"What happened to Marco?" Vista has the absolute worst timing in entering the cafeteria, because he's standing directly in front of them. He already has his sword sheaths removed from his belt, no doubt so he can polish them in a corner after he's done eating, as is his usual ritual.
Haruta's eyes are blown wide, and Izo wants to stop him but no one can out-talk Haruta when he wants to talk, so it's like watching a cannonball hurtling towards an inevitable collision.
"Marco's getting married."
Vista never drops his swords.
Vista's swords clatter to the ground.
And now everyone inside the cafeteria, and those in the line forming outside behind Vista, all stop to stare.
~~
~~
Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed!
And as always, comments/reblogs/tags always immensely appreciated!!! People sharing their thoughts with me motivates me to write so much more, and update more frequently, so thank you so much for everyone who’s so kindly done so in the past!! ;A;
(The next part’s already up on Patreon if anyone wants to read in advance <3)
❀ ❀ Send YukiPri an Ask! ❀ ❀
Read the next part: Marco’s Bauble, Part 5
~This ask has been added to the Mermaid AU Text Headcanons Compilation post~
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bittysvalentines · 4 years
Text
Would That I
From: @lizards-online
To: @pieandpucks
Sometimes in life, things are missed. Opportunities are lost, but as a whole we cannot stop moving. Still, something feels left behind, dropped in a time before. We keep going, with something lost and something gained, until life gives us our chance again,to take destiny’s chance to reconnect and find what is lost. 
At Samwell University resided one Dr. Jack Zimmermann, a professor of history with an affinity for ice sports and queer literature. His smile was kind and his hair was just beginning to hint at touches of grey. He was a hard grader, and his readings were long, but his passion for teaching and his love of his students always showed through in his work. Students left his classes better thinkers, harder workers, and with only the smallest crush on him. Okay sometimes, not so small. Even the straightest of men recognized that Dr.Jack Zimmermann was a resident hottie. Rumor had it that he was voted “Samwell’s Most Gorgeous” four years straight back in the day.  
 Jack shuffled a few papers at his podium so as to get them in order before the end of his lecture. “Everyone, thank you for your attention today, just remember if you want to earn some extra credit points, you can attend one of the alumni guest lectures that will be on campus this weekend, and then write a one page response on the speaker’s topic and your thoughts. I’ll be popping in to a couple of the speakers myself, so if you see me, don’t be afraid to say hello.” 
Jack began walking across the front of the classroom, dispersing flyers advertising the Alumni Symposium to be passed back. 
A student in the back of the room raised her hand, staring down at the flyer in her hand “Dr. Zimmermann, when did you graduate Samwell?”   
Jack paused for a moment. “2015. Why?”
“Well, I was just looking at the graduation year of some of these alumni, and it says here Eric Bittle Graduated in 2017. So that means you were only two years ahead of Eric Bittle when he went here!” 
The class erupted in murmurs and comments. Eric Bittle was one of Samwell’s most famous alumni. He led Samwell to the Frozen Four his senior year, while being the first out NCAA hockey captain, was drafted by the Falconers and was the first openly LGBT+ player in the league. He won the Stanley Cup his rookie year (first of many) along with the Calder and Art Ross. Even outside of hockey he was famous for his witty vlog which evolved from a cooking vlog to a hockey, cooking and life blog with now over 18 million followers from all walks of life. 
Jack swallowed hard. Yes, it was true, his time at Samwell and Eric Bittle’s time did overlap by two years, and in fact, during those two years, he ran into Eric all the time. They were...friends. Shitty made sure of that. Jack would watch the hockey team’s games, not only to support Shitty, but to watch Eric weave and maneuver across the ice unlike anyone else. Even though Jack had decided against playing in college, he never did lose his love of the game. Meanwhile Eric would hover about the library doing anything but homework when Jack was working. Plus, the semester they took a class together was definitely a bonding experience. But it had been a long time since they had spoken. After Jack graduated, he felt too awkward reaching out to someone who he had a massive crush on but was WAY out of his league. And when one month turned into two, and then one year turned into five, and five years into a decade, Jack had trouble remembering where all the time had gone.
“Hah. Uh, yes he was two years younger than me. We had a class together once.” Jack decided firmly against mentioning his large crush on the blond to his entire History 336 Seminar. 
The students in the room all lamented about how cool it was that their professor knew a celebrity. 
Jack closed the door to his office and scrubbed his hand over his face and let out a sigh. Would it be awkward to see Eric again? Would Eric even remember him? Probably not. It was just a youthful crush. Even if Eric was still as attractive and charming and wonderful as he was back in the day, Jack was far past his prime. He could just not go to that lecture, but he felt drawn to it, as if something wanted him to see Eric speak. Jack picked up his phone and dialed the most recent number. It picked up on the first ring. 
“What the FUCK is up Zimmermann, to what do I owe the pleasure of one of your rare and coveted calls? Are you in legal trouble? Did you kill someone? Did you kick a goose and now you’re losing your Canadian citizenship?” Shitty was Jack’s best friend. He was boisterous and energetic but genuine nonetheless. His words washed over Jack with a wave of excitement and familiarity. 
“Haha Shits. I’m good. And no, no geese, at least not this time. I was just wondering, would you want to come down to Samwell this weekend? There’s an alumni symposium going on, and I think you’d enjoy the speakers.” 
“Ah ha old Jackabelle misses me. Of fuckin course I’ll come down to the symposium, but I’ll warn ya man I’m not gonna sit through more than ONE old white man talk. ONE. Who's the lineup anyway?”   
“I can forward you the flyer but  just off the top of my head: there's the current head of the English department, Dr. Masawa, she’s gonna be talking about her book, um Dr. Atley is going to present some research, and um, Eric Bittle is going to be there.” 
“Bitty fucking Bittle? The myth, the man, the legend himself? Well fuck my ass and call me chicken we HAVE to go to that. It’s been like FOREVER since I’ve seen Bits. What a fucking beaut. We texted a bit last month but it's been like a year and some since I last got to hang with him. You know he’s got a daughter now?” 
“Oh. Uh, no?” A daughter. Jack’s head spinned. He knew he didn’t have a chance with Eric but he didn’t realize that Eric had gotten married and had a kid. That would’ve been big news right? Was Jack really that out of the loop? He needed to read the news more. 
“Yeah she’s fuckin adorable as fuck. Like, two, three now maybe? He posts pictures of her on Facebook like all the time.”
“That’s uh pretty cool. Listen Shits, I have to go I have a, uh, book to read. I’ll see you this weekend. You can stay at my place. Text you bye.”
“Bye Jac-” Jack hung up the phone before Shitty could fully say goodbye. Why did he feel like there was a pit in his stomach? He didn’t care that Eric Bittle was a married father. So what? It’s not like he had a chance with him anyway. What would he have done? Gone up to him after his speech and say “Hello, I had a crush on you in college, and then we never talked after I graduated. Want to go on a date?” Even if Jack had had the confidence to do so, it was literally impossible now because Eric was a married father, a professional hockey player, celebrity, and an A Level hottie. All Jack had was a doctorate, a wall of books and a million papers to grade. He wasn’t even in the shape he had been in when he was in college, so really, he didn’t have anything to offer. Jack should just shut out all the fantasies of those big brown eyes, and golden hair, and gorgeous toned legs. Gosh what was he doing? 
Jack crossed the room and slumped into his chair behind his desk and picked up a stack of papers sitting on a chair beside the desk. The best way to distract himself was to drown in work. 
Eric Bittle woke up at 6 a.m. Saturday morning to the sound of his daughter crying. He was tired and sore from his game the night before, and a bruise was starting to form on his left thigh due to a nasty check from a Bruins defenceman but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. 
Eric threw off his sheets and rushed into his daughter’s room. Allie was just about two and a half years old, and was in the midst of potty training. Unfortunately for him, Eric was also in the middle of the thralls of hockey season so a lot of the potty training fell on her daycare teachers. Being a single parent was tough. When his cousin Elizabeth had passed away, leaving her and her partner’s daughter to him, he had no idea what to do. He had been five years into his professional hockey career, out, single and totally unprepared for the hurdles of parenthood. 
He pushed open the door to the nursery to find his daughter sitting upright whimpering. “Oh you poor thing. Looks like we’re going to have to get you changed real quick now aren’t we Miss Allie?”
Eric brought her to the changing table and cleaned her and dressed her for the day. It was a little earlier in the morning than he had planned, but he needed to get a move on to get to Samwell in time for his guest lecture. Eric had reached out to his old advisor and she recommended him an education major who would be glad to watch his daughter while he spoke and mingled, not wanting to be away from her for the entirety of his day off. He dressed her in cute bunny socks and a yellow shirt and white pants. She was just about the cutest thing in the world. Soon Eric himself got dressed, packed a diaper bag and headed out. 
On his way Eric’s thoughts winded through his head. It had been quite some time since he’d been back to his alma mater. Samwell had been such an influential and formative place for him. From developing his hockey skills to coming into his own as a gay man. And even though he never did have a long lasting romantic relationship, the friendships he made there pushed him through his life and helped him become who he was. Thinking back to some of the people, he thought about the boys, Lardo, some of the other team captains, and his mind landed on one Jack Zimmermann. 
Eric had always had such a massive crush on Jack, with his boyband bangs, his droopy eyes, jaw that could cut glass and a behind that would give greek statues a run for their money. Eric had first met Jack through Shitty, but then subsequently kept running into him in the dining hall, gym and then one semester for a class. Jack would come to their games and Eric would watch him stack books in the campus library while he pretended to do homework, but always ended up back at the circulation desk, talking about everything and nothing until it closed. They had been friends, and Eric had had the largest crush on earth on the sad-eyed Canadian. But Jack was way out of Eric’s league.  He had been voted Samwell’s Most Beautiful for four years straight, and suitors were constantly trying to ask him out. And then Jack graduated, leaving Bitty yearning for what could have been. According to Shitty, Jack was a professor at Samwell, but the two hadn’t really kept in contact. After the fact, there had been some boys, some boyfriends, even some hookups, but nothing lasting more than a few months at a time. At 30 years old Eric Bittle had never been in a relationship longer than 9 months. 
The sight of Samwell pulled Eric out of his thoughts and Eric shook his head. He had things to do, and he wasn’t going to let ghosts from the past distract him from his job today: to speak about Samwell, sports, and his activism. 
Jack entered the packed auditorium with Shitty in tow. He smiled and waved to a few of his students while Shitty was speaking as if he was a physical manifestation of stream of consciousness. They took their seats in the front row reserved for faculty, staff and alumni. 
“I wonder what he’s gonna talk about. I hope he brings up all the swawesome shit the SMH did. Like that one kegster when-” 
“Wait Shits shhh there he is” Jack cut Shitty off. 
Eric Bittle walked onto the stage with a mic affixed to his shirt. He wore tight fitting navy blue slacks that highlighted just how well the NHL had bulked him up. His top two shirt buttons were unbuttoned on his white and navy blue patterned shirt. The sleeves were rolled up ¾ of the way showing off the definition in his arms. Jack’s throat immediately went dry with his face getting more red as the moments ticked on. 
Fuck. Eric Bittle was even hotter than he remembered and was a million times more attractive in person than he had been in promotional pictures. And his voice, the accent was so cute! Keep it together Zimmermann, that’s a married man. Jack was going to have a hard time sitting through this entire speech. 
  Fuck. Eric walked on stage, scanning the audience and almost immediately his eyes landed on one Jack Zimmermann. He was wearing a tweed jacket, with glasses and his hair was just a touch grey. Time had been very kind to Jack. Eric’s throat became dry as he stumbled his way through his introduction. Shit Jack was in the front row. How was Eric going to concentrate when the hottest man in the world was right in front of him, watching him speak for an hour and a half. 
Clapping. Jack was clapping. He zoned back in after having not actually comprehended a single word for the past 90 minutes. He had just sat and stared at the most gorgeous man he had ever seen and tried not to get a boner. Shitty was speaking to him. Jack needed to respond. 
“Yeah. He does look good in those pants” Shit. Probably not what Shitty asked him. 
“Not what I was talking about, but yeah you know what now that you mention it, mother fucker looks fresh as fuck! I gotta fuckin tell him those pants are doing it for him.” Shitty bolstered himself out of his chair, and up the steps and onto the stage where some faculty were gathering to congratulate him on his speech. Jack followed. 
“Eric Mother fucking Bittle” Shitty bellowed as he walked, Jack close behind, to where Eric stood, now holding a young baby girl on his hip as he spoke with alumni and faculty alike. 
Eric turned to face the two men and smiled. “Shitty B. Knight you best not be swearing around my daughter like that. And Jack, it’s good to see you. It’s been awhile.”
“Fuck yeah it has been. You two were adorable back in the day. You should’ve kept touch more!”  Shitty laughed. 
Jack smiled awkwardly. “Yeah it has been a bit hasn’t it? I’m sorry I never kept touch. Congrats on the hockey, and the Stanley Cup, and the marriage and uh, kid.” 
Eric’s face twisted into a confused half smile. “Marriage? Jack Zimmermann I am not married. I was her godfather. Life happened and now I’m her Daddy.” Eric looked at her, and kissed her forehead softly.
Jack’s brain short circuited. Not...married? “Oh so are you…”
“No I’m not seeing anyone. I’m doing quite fine with her all by myself.” Eric blushed. 
“Okay I see where this is going, I’m gonna back out of this convo..” Shitty etched away from the two men. The latter hardly noticing. 
Jack awkwardly ran a hand through his hair. “In all honesty, Eric, remember all those years ago, when we went to Samwell together. I had the biggest crush on you, but you were so out of league I never did anything about it. I should have, but I was a bit of a coward.”
Eric’s face turned a bright shade of pink as he stammered out a response. “Jack Laurent Zimmermann! You had a crush on me back then? I’ll have you know I pined for you for two whole years thinking you were straight until someone told me YEARS later that you weren’t, and then when I did realize you were an option, I never thought in a million years that you would be in my league anyway. You’re meaning to tell me you had a crush on me that entire time?” 
Jack blushed furiously. “We both had crushes on eachother I guess. I’m sorry I never made a move on you back then. If it means anything, I’d like to uh make one now.”
“Well how about our timing. Gladly Jack. Here, ” Eric pulled out his phone with one hand, careful not to disturb Allie, and handed it over to Jack. “ text me.” 
Jack put his number into the phone and texted himself. “In the meantime, would you like to catch up? It’s been a long time.”
Unbeknownst to the two men, several students stood by in shock, watching their professor flirt with and score a date with a literal celebrity. Two in the front high fived. “Get it Dr. Zimmermann!”
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mistryethan · 4 years
Text
Hey hi I’m Sarah, this is Ethan, he’s Trying His Best
35 cis male, Bev Rep, native enough to Tupelo that he’s not “the new guy”, single, no kids
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Canadian dad, mom is from Tupelo and her family still lives in town. His aunts are like, the Reigning Lesbians and they’re involved with All The Gay Stuff so if your character is at all involved in the LGBT community they’ve probably met
He’s bi himself but he’s not super out about it cause he likes his privacy
Grew up playing hockey, went pro when he got drafted out of college
He’d hoped to spend at least a decade in the NHL, but 2 years in a trucker ran a red light into the side of his car, ending his career and also his left leg at the knee.
It’s been a while since it all happened, he’s mostly learned to live with it but some days are worse than others.
Got super into wine when he was 19 because he was trying to impress a girl, which did not work even a little bit. Wound up going back to it when he retired, and works for a statewide bev rep. If your character works at a bar or restaurant, or anywhere that would host wine tasting events, they probably know him.
Kinda sarcastic/sardonic/occasionally a bit rude when he doesn’t remember to not be a dick, but he does mean well. Deals with all interpersonal problems with Very Clear Communication which he think should work but obviously people are nuanced so it doesn’t. Will tell you if he thinks you’re in the wrong unless you do it first.
But then he’ll still drive to your house at 2 in the morning if you need a sink fixed or got dumped or something. Even if you’re fighting, as long as you didn’t maliciously hurt anyone he cares about.
Literally wears nothing but jeans and hockey or alcohol branded shirts. He has like 5 dress shirts for events but otherwise he’s in a shirsey or he’s got the fireball logo stamped across his back. His mother hates it.
Wanted Connections!
Ex - I would really prefer some kind of unhealthy/combative dynamic here honestly, maybe they tended to fight so they broke up because they were arguing all the time but there’s still a lot of ~feelings~ there or the breakup took a couple tries to actually stick? I’m open to suggestions.
Drinking buddies - he doesn’t cook for himself much (like he can but all he can make is grilled chicken and veggies) so he’s a regular at a lot of bars and restaurants in town, most employees and regulars would know him at least by sight. He likes to buy a round for whoever he’s talking to because drinking alone is just sad.
Neighbor but like literally - He bought a condo because the idea of lawn care makes him want to kill something, so I’d love to see him have get along really well with his neighbors in the building to the point that they petsit for each other and have block parties and shit
@tupeloextras​
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lovemesomesurveys · 4 years
Text
Do you feel guilty? if yes, why so? There’s a few things I feel guilty about, but I don’t feel like getting into any of it right now.
Has someone you cared about moved recently? No.
Do you know the band DiscoToTheStars? If you like Nickasaur, NeverShoutNever, shit like that, you should look them up. I’m not familiar with them and I don’t feel like looking them up. I know of NeverShoutNever, but I haven’t listened to them in like a decade.
Are you trying hard in life? No. :/
Do you need to brush your teeth? Not at this moment.
Does your tongue hurt? No.
Where are you?. I’m in my room sitting on my bed.
Are you sad? That’s just who I am, man.
Do you like xbox? I have played one in years.
Do you eat peanut butter? Yeah. I haven’t had any in awhile, though. Now that I think of it it’s probably been a few years. :O
How many fingers do you have? 10. I’m not counting thumbs separate.
Will you be mad at me if i don't make this survey very long? Um, no. I’ll be fine.
Does your tummy hurt? Not at the moment.
Who do you sit with at lunch? I’m not in school. I rarely have lunch these days, but if I do I’m either eating in bed or with my mom. 
Were you wrong all along? Yep. 
Tell me a story about a stupid kid. : Uh, what?
Have you seen "Ferrets" on YouTube?. No.
I fucking hate Rihanna, do you? No. I don’t have anything against her as a person and I like a lot of her songs.
Are you the only person awake right now? In my house, yes.
Do you feel alone? Sometimes. Not so much physically, though sometimes, but more so in other ways.
Are you itchy? No.
Do you need to wash your face? No.
Do you want animals when you grow up? . I’ve had a pet(s) throughout my life. I currently have my 3 year old German Shepherd/Lab mix named Princess Leia.
Do you have an annoying old grandmother? No. I had a great relationship with both my grandmothers, but sadly my maternal grandmother passed away over a decade ago. She and I were really close. My paternal grandmother is still in my life and she’s very sweet and loving.
What year are you taking this? Good ol’ 2020....  -______-
Do you think the world will end in 2012? We’re still here in 2020, but barely.
What's your name? Stephanie.
Are you eating chicken? No. I’m not eating anything at the moment.
Do you like llamas? I LOVE LLAMAS! Sure.
Do you have pubic hair? Casually just throw this in among random questions about chicken, llamas, and ice cream. Okay then.
What's your favorite flavor ice-cream? Strawberry. I’ve answered this quite a bit lately. 
Have you made a survey before? Once, several years ago. I wish I could find it, but it was on Xanga. :(
What's the nearest rainbow object around you? I don’t have any.
Do you have a phone? i don't. Yes.
Do you like the new Myspace? Damn, this is old.
Who are you dating? Wanna tell me about them? I’m single. 
How would you like to kill someone? Um, I wouldn’t wtf. Should I be worried about you, survey maker?
Do you like to wear clothes? Yes. I don’t like being naked, I feel so uncomfortable. 
When's the last time you pooped? You are quite weird.
Are you wearing armpit perfume? Can i sniff? What did I get myself into...
Are you happy? No.
Pencils or markers? Uh, depends?
Do you draw, or sing? Nope.
Don't you hate hangnails? They’re the worst.
What kind of surveys do you like? Long with interesting and random questions. This one is a little too much at times, though.
Have you ever gave someone a hand/blow job? Received one? No.
Did it snow for you on Christmas? It doesn’t snow here. :(
What's the date? Sunday, October 25th, 2020.
Do you feel like a stalker? No, cause I’m not one.
What's worse? Getting a boner or your period in the middle of class? Both would likely be uncomfortable and embarrassing, I’m sure.
Do you read FML, MLIA, OMGFACTS, etc? I used to frequent FML and OMGFACTS back in the day.
Wanna Fuck? No, I’m good.
What's up? I’m listening to an ASMR video and trying to get through this survey.
Are you hungry? No, I ate like an hour ago.
What's your worst fear? Losing my loved ones, dying, getting worse/never getting better, never doing anything with my life... stuff like that. 
What's your favorite pattern? Plaid.
Ever seen a blue waffle? No, but then again I don’t often eat waffles, either. You’d just add food coloring, no? <<< Sadly, that’s not what it is. :X I hate that I know that.
Do you shop at Hot Topic? Yeah. I get majority of my graphic tees from there and their sister store, Boxlunch. 
What's your favorite song? I have numerous favorite songs.
How long is your penis? I don’t have one. Wow, a survey that actually didn’t assume the one taking it was female.
Do your boobs hang low? No. 
Do you ever replace the lyrics in songs to make them inappropriate? No, but I do the opposite of that.
Do you like the band Three Days Grace? Yeah.
I hate the new Gatorade shit, do you? Not sure what new Gatorade “shit” you were referring to.
Do you like ranting? I don’t like it, but it helps to do it sometimes. I like to save them for surveys and Twitter, ha.
Do you like pooping? Sigh.
Are you single? Yes.
So, i'm guessing your bored? Nope.
Do you go out to eat today? I’m not going anywhere today.
Have you ever thought about how the questions asked in a survey might reflect on what happened in the person asking’s life? Yes. I’ve definitely found myself thinking that during this survey.
Do you have fingernails? Yes. Barely, ha.
What's your opinion on Miley Cyrus? I don’t have an issue with her and I like some of her songs.
Do you know who Destry Moore is? Nope.
Can i have your number? Sure, it’s 555-5555. 
Do you know anyone nicknamed Booger? No. Reminds me of that movie, Revenge of the Nerds.
Am i entertaining you? I’m over this survey to be honest.
What's your gender? Female.
What did you call your privates when you were little?
Have you ever named a penis? Do you have a penis? There’s still a lot left to this survey and I’m over it omg.
What's your favorite smiley face? :)
Have you ever worn silly bands? Yeah.
Do you cut yourself? No.
Need a friend? We could be friends. No thank you. 
is this survey getting to long for you? Yes. What's your favorite name? Alexander.
What's your current mood? Tired and blah.
How loud do you like your music? I don’t like it blaring, just a comfortable level to enjoy it. Some may be a little louder than others.
Do you like toast? Sure.
Do you like the band "A Day To Remember" ? I’m familiar with them, but I can’t think of a song of theirs.
Do you have AIDS ? No. Wow, you’re quite invasive.
Are you awkward? Pfft, awkward is my middle name. <<< Saaaame.
Can you joke about rape? Wowww. What's your favorite type of drink? Mine is monster. Coffee and Starbucks Doubleshot energy drnk.
What kind of heart do you make on the computer? <3
Does blood interest you? Nooo. I’m too squeamish and it makes me feel faint. 
Have you realized that there are enough surveys on here for you to never be bored? Well, I’ve been doing them for like 15 years, so I guess so. Although, I’m sure a lot are repeats. And the questions are sure repetitive. 
Do you have a laptop? Yes, which is what I’m on.
Do you have good eye sight? With my glasses on.
How many burnt cds do you have? None anymore. I used to have a ton. I loved making them.
Are you good at English? Yes.
Do you like bands like BrokenCYDE and Blood on the Dance Floor? Never heard of ‘em.
Do you have a favorite movie? I have many. Color? Pastels, rose gold, mint green, coral, and yellow.
Number? Eight.
Have you ever seen a penis? Mhm.
Are you bi-sexual? No.
What do you think about gay people? Um, I think they’re people who are attracted to the same gender. 
Do you believe in God? I do.
Do you like snoop dog? I’ve liked a few songs of his.
Are you horny? No.
Do you like ham? I like oven baked ham with gravy, but not deli ham. I’m weird, I know.
Does Stacyes mom, really have it going on? To him she did.
Do you have dandruff? Not so much anymore. I did when I was younger.
When your watching a video, does it bother if you can see the cursor? I’d likely move it.
is your computer slow? : No.
Do you miss your boyfriend? I’m single.
Do you have toes? Yes.
Are you fucking sick? I'm fucking sick. I’m not feeling well.
Do you want to puke? No.
What color are your knees? The color of my skin.
Are what age did you realize that knees was spelt with a k? I can’t exactly pinpoint the time.
Do you like twist ties? They can be useful.
Do you trust a hoe? I know this is a 3OH!3 reference. I can tell by your vibe.
Are you a vegetarian? Nope.
Will you forgive me for not being able to spell? I don’t care, man. 
TV or Youtube? I like both. I do watch quite a bit of YouTube, though.
Do you live with your grandparents? No. 
Do you hate your family? Nooo. I love my family.
Do you like applesauce? Sure. I couldn’t tell you the last time I had any, though.
is Bzoink the only survey site you can find on the internet? I never use Bzoink to find surveys. I get majority from others on here, but occasionally I’ll go to LiveJournal. I haven’t had to do that in awhile, though.
Do you use smiley faces? Yeah. I don’t go crazy with them, but I use them as I see fit.
Do you like TECHNO?!!?!?!?!?!!??!!!?!?! Not sure why you typed it that way, but nah.
Are you a retarded seal? I hope you’ve grown up and educated yourself since making this survey.
Are you sexy? Nope.
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Text
You Engraved This? AU
Bear with me, I don’t usually do this sort of thing with ships. I do skip a bit 😂
Requests open
Trigger Warnings: swear, mentions of blood, death, homophobia.
Spoilers
———————————————————————
As Richie goes out in search for his token, he walked past the old arcade, that is now boarded up. “Oh no.” Richie muttered to himself. He knew what would happen as soon as he would enter the grime old place, he would relive the moment that deterred him away from arcades forever.
The door creaked open and sure enough he was suffocated by the dust and cobwebs that covered the interior.
His mind filled in the blanks.
A reasonably cute, dirty blonde haired boy was playing Street Fighter and Richie had basically asked him out in a friendly manner. Except the boy was a homophobe and took Richie’s kind gesture the wrong way. Not only that but he was cousin to Henry Bowers.
“It’s not real.” Adult Richie said to himself imagining far more than he bargained for. He saw the scene happen right in front of him as if he were in a 3D film. But Pennywise didn’t want to stop.
Richie grabs the gaming token and heads out to the giant statue. And there sat Pennywise on the shoulder of lumberjack statue. “I know your secret.” Pennywise tormented, just like he did 27 years ago.
Richie badly wanted to scream to the supernatural being (that was obviously not there) that he loved Eddie, no longer caring, but nothing came out. He knew that the town was just as homophobic as it was when he was a kid. He knew he would be shamed, even as an adult.
The fear came back, he wanted to leave but he couldn’t leave the Losers especially Eddie. So he went back to the inn with the intention with taking a roadtrip with his best friend and leaving the hell hole that Derry was.
****
The Losers Club enter the entry of the sewers. “Is that rope still safe?” Bev asked.
“Only one way to find out.” Mike said. Fear crept onto everyone but the adults pushed it aside. They needed to be brave so that their fear didn’t make them vulnerable to Pennywise.
Mike went down first with Richie heading down last. Richie looked directly atEddie as soon as his feet touched the ground. The hidden fear in Eddie’s eyes made his heart ache. He reached for Eddie’s hand but instantly chickened out.
Eddie was married, to a woman! Dammit Richard, get your shit together
But then he felt someone grab his hand, he looked down and sure enough it was Eddie’s. “I don’t remember there being this much water.” Ben said. Richie and Eddie pulled their hands away.
“It flooded years ago.” Mike replied. The 6 of them started swimming towards the pile of junk that sat in the middle of the sewer. They all had made it onto the wood pile except Bev. She disappeared from the surface and immediately the losers dived back in to sesrch for her. All but Eddie, that is.
He had a horrible feeling that one of them was gonna die. He wasn’t prepared for what was about to happen in that lair. “Right, down we go.” Mike said. One by one they went down.Eddie hesitated, he felt Richie grab his arm, stopping him.
“You’re braver than you think Eds.” Richie had said to the other man.
“He’s right Eddie. And this, this arrow. If you believe, you can kill any monster.” Beverly said handing him the arrow. Eddie nodded, he took a deep breath and followed to two into Pennywise’s home.
It was gloomy, slimy and claustrophobic. It was an unsettling place. It was like a visual representation of Pennywise’s personality.
Cold, grim and creepy.
Mike led them to where they were going to do the ritual. “Everyone got their tokens?” Mike asked, the rest of them nodded. One by one they threw their objects in.
Richie wanted to be beside Eddie. He saw the fear that Eddie trued to conceal. He wanted to comfort him. “Is that from the arcade?” Eddie asked Richie.
“Huh? Oh uh, yeah.” Richie replied tossing the small coin into the metal bin.
“It’s not going to burn!”
“It will when it meets your fucking inhaler!”
“It still won’t burn.”
“There are chemicals in that inhaler, Eduardo!”
“Guys, this is not the time to fight each other!” Bev yelled.
“Sh-sh-she’s right, guys.” Bill backed Bev up.
After they threw Stan’s token, the shower cap, the next step of the ritual began.
That’s when Mike screams for them to shut their eyes.
Fear crept onto the group of adults but Richie felt a deeper fear. He didn’t want to die without telling Eddie. Heaven forbid! If Eddie died, Richie didn’t want Eddie to leave him without him knowing how Richie truely felt.
That’s when a red balloon appeared in the centre of the circle. The Losers scrambled away from the growing balloon. Richie and Eddie immediately went for each other.
“Wanna tell them why the ritual didn’t work, Mike?” Pennywise chuckled.
Mike was quiet, he knew why but he couldn’t bring himself to see the disappointment on their faces.
“Wanna play truth or dare Richie?” Pennywise tried again. “Wanna tell them your dirty little secret?”
The cogs in Richie’s mind starred turning faster and faster until he couldn’t contain his anger he needed to do something but fear crept onto him.
He did the thing that they all agreed not to do.
He made himself vulnerable.
****
During the fight, Richie and Eddie found themselves running in a dark tunnel. The two men came to a halt as they found themseves in frint of 3 doors with words written in blood. “‘Scary’, ‘not scary’, ‘very scary’?” Richie read out loud. He gingerly walked towards the ‘Very Scary’ door. He gripped Eddie’s wrist a little tighter as they opened the door.
As the door creaked opened, the two were faced with a closet and half a torso. With a scream they slammed the door. “‘Not Scary’?” Eddie asked.
“Why not.” Richie replied. They ran to the final door.
They were met with a ginger fluff ball. “Awe.” The two exclaimed simultaneously. They started obsessing over the small fluffy animal, telling it how cute it was. In the process, completely ignoring the sound of IT’s extension that was coming towards them.
“Sit!” Richie commanded. The small Pomeranian sat. “Good boy.”
The scraping of the sharp extension drew closer but the men were still caught up in the dog.
But alas! It was too good too be true, the dog turned out to be a monster. Much to Richie’s disappointment.
They regained their breath from running and Richie announced, “when we get outta here, we’re adopting a dog!”
Richie miraculously finds the strength and picks up a reasonably large rock, thinking that he could distract Pennywise from his friends. “Yipee Kayay Motherfu-“ Richie screamed before he was caught in the deadlights.
****
It was white for a split second before Richie saw a vision. It was sort of clear, everything had fuzzy edges though.
He was in IT’s lair only brighter. He saw all his friends screaming at the creature, attempting to belittle the creature. But he couldn’t see Eddie or himself , he tried to move but he was stuck, he turned his head to the right and sure enough there was Eddie, bleeding from his abdomen and Richie holding the wound.
He wondered how Eddie ended up in that position. Sure enough, Pennywise took him 5 minites earlier.
He saw himself get saved by Eddie but what shocked him was that he watched himself kissing Eddie. But just as they come apart, Eddie is impaled.
Richie watched as Eddie’s blood was spurted onto his clothes and face (glasses included). He watched himsef cry out in agony.
If he ever made it out of the deadlights, his mission was to keep Eddie from the psychotic clown and tell him how he feels!
****
“Huh?” Richie regained consciousness, he saw his best friend and life long crush, hovering over him. “Oh my God! Eddie!” He hugged him but that was over within a second.
That’s when he remembered what he just saw in the desdlights. He pulled Eddie away, hiding in the cave they were just in. “I saved you!” Eddie screamed excitedly. Eddie’s excitement disappeared when he looked at Richie’s concerned face. “What did you see in the deadlights?”
“You getting impaled. Wasn’t going to let that happen.” Richie replied hesitantly. That’s when he saw the fear in Eddie’s eyes and he knew he’d start hyperventilating shortly. “Focus on me okay. Block out any fear.” Richie handed Eddie the spare inhaler that he took from Eddie’s bag before they left the inn.
****
“We should go before we’re arrested for destruction.” Bill said, everyone snapped their heads towards the previous ringleader. “What?”
“You didn’t stutter once.” Richie said.
“You said that the last time, before we defeated IT as kids.” Eddie pointed to Richie. They all laughed.
It was like 27 years earlier. Heading towards the Quarry to hang out. The nostalgia that they felt as they walked the route but something told them that they would not forget each other this time. They were no longer afraid of the things that Pennywise feasted upon. Their bond was even stronger than it was back when they were kids.
As the group was nearing the entrance to the Quarry. Richie said, “We’ll meet you at the Quarry. I’ve got to show Eds something.” He pulled Eddie a little further up the road towards the kissing bridge.
“Richard?” Eddie question Richie as he saw Richie finishing off a carving. There was half a faint ‘E’ written beside an obvious ‘R’. “When did you start this engraving?”
It would’ve been clear to anyone walking past that the ‘R’ and the ‘+’ looked as though they had been carved decades ago.
“When Bowers caught me checking out his cousin and called me a fag in front of the whole arcade. Oh and that was right before my encounter with Pennywise and his worse rendition of what Bowers said.” Richie replied. “I realised they were both right. I just didn’t want to believe I was gay, especially with being in a town like Derry.”
“I’m proud of you, opening up about your sexuality. But, um, you liked me when we were 13?!”
“Thanks and uh yeah I did, still do.” Richie gulped and muttered to himself, “In fact, I think it might be love now.”
“You hesitated before when I asked so I could only assume there’s more.” Eddie took a breath. “What else did you see in the deadlights?”
Richie sighed heavily and braced himself.
“I uh, I kissed you and Pennywise. He uh, he took the opportunity to kill you. Well actually, he made it a slow death.” Richie choked on his spit and tried to fight the tears. “I couldn’t let that happen. You’re my best friend, even if we didn’t remember each other for 27 years. You’re still my best friend Eds.”
“Let’s head back to the others.”
A cloud of disappointment hovered above Richie as they walked back towards the Quarry.
I knew I shouldn’t have told him. I’m an idiot! He’s married. Dammit Richie!!
He ducked under the fence and ran toward the cliff, jumping into the gross water below. Eddie followed after him.
He completely ignored Eddie, not wanting to wait for him before swimming over to the others sitting on the bank.
****
Eddie looked at the tall dark haired man. It was clear that Richie was upset, he was hunched over and didn’t care that his glasses were almost off his nose. He felt bad for dismissing Richie’s admission of love. He didn’t mean to, it was just too much.
But he started putting the pieces together, starting back from that Summer. Not only did Richie go to him when his parents were giving him a harsh time or when he couldn’t sleep. It was that particular day at the clubhouse.
The day when Eddie sat in the hammock with him because Richie refused to move. Richie clearly did that on purpose, not to mention his hand on his leg.
He thinked back to every single action of Richie’s but more importantly his own. Eddie knew he liked guys, that was no lie, but his mother made him marry Myra.
Eddie couldn’t pinpoint the day but he remembered when he bought Richie an icecream. He loved hugging and cuddling with Richie at 3am. He had always thought Richie was hot, even if he annoyed the shit outta him.
Eddie gasped loudly, catching the attention of every loser. Richie even looked up. “What?” Bev asked. Not wanting to face the others, Eddie looked down to avoid eye contact.
“I liked you too, Richie, I, uh, I still do.” Eddie said.
“Eds don’t – ” Richie began.
“Don’t call me Eds.” Eddie stated. “I didn’t want to admit it. But those cuddles we shared as kids, the egging you on was because I wanted your attention asshole!”
“The ‘I fucked your mom’ jokes were to get you attention!” Richie exclaimed.
“You’re both oblivious! We’ve known for years!” Bill yelled.
Ben and Beverly laughed and swam away, Mike and Bill then left, leaving Riche with Eddie. Eddie waded through the shallow water towards Richie.
“What will you do about Myra?” Richie asked.
“I’m divorcing her. I never loved her. Mom forced me to date her when I came out.” Eddie admitted. “Said, I was sick and that Myra would help.”
“I know I offered it to you once before we graduate high school and you said no but, come with me back to Cali.”
Eddie smiled and nodded, he kissed Richie. “I would love that, boyfriend. Oh and we can even adopt a pomeranian.” Richie laughed and kissed his boyfriend again.
“Boyfriend?” Richie giggled.
“We waited long enough, eh?” The two laughed.
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tokumusume · 4 years
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tokumusume’s list of best and worst movies and dramas watched in 2019:
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There’s a new category this year. Inspired by kpopalypse, welcome the Honorable Mentions! Movies that weren’t exactly bad but also weren’t good. Movies and dramas are qualified to enter if I watched them for the first time this year, not that they were released this year. Click on ‘keep reading’~~
Best Movies:
1.      Parasite
Another masterpiece from the director of Snowpiercer (let’s pretend Okja never existed). A poor family con their way to a rich household. Choi Woo-Shik from The Witch (see below) is the eldest son and mastermind, fabulous as always. Definitely the best movie of this year. For me, movie of the decade.
2.      The Witch Part 1 The Subversion
This movie is amazing, hard to describe without spoilers. A perfect mix of Stranger Things and Hanna. Choi Woo-Shik can come to my house and kick my ass anytime. I can’t wait for part two.
3.      Death Trance
Visually stunning, kinda like Amemiya Keita’s style in early Garo or Mad Max. I wish the movie was longer and the characters were better fleshed out, Ryuen the monk and the little girl had so much potential... The most interesting thing about this movie is how sexualized the main male character is compared to the female ones, and apparently, the swords were designed to look like veiny penises (can’t find a source for this info), and yes, they do look like veiny penises. The final showdown is heavy with sexual energy. Have I already said that Ryuen deserved better? #RyuenRights
4.      Gintama 2: Rules are made to be broken
The barber shop scene is a fucking cinematic masterpiece. I never laughed so much like I did with this movie. The way it doesn’t take itself seriously, the meta jokes, everything is perfect. Even better than the first one.
5.      Kingdom
While I think that some fight scenes were way too long (like the bamboo forest one), the dynamics between Shin and Hyou/Eisei were highly entertaining, at least in my shipper eyes. I like that (SPOILER) the King of the Mountain People is a woman and not once they try to call her Queen. She is a King. Hashimoto Kanna is adorable as a Ten, Kanata Hongo does a great job as Eisei’s psycho brother, Sakaguchi Tak waves his sword around, the usual stuff but with added layers of dirt and sweat.
6.      Bravestorm
A movie I lovingly call “Japanese Pacific Rim”. Full of Kamen Rider stars (Hino Eiji! Misuzawa Haruka! That girl from Heisei Generations, the one with a sword! She has a sword in this as well!) and giant robots (god, I love giant robots!), I waited so much for this movie and it exceeded my expectations. I just wish I could’ve watched in theaters, it had a limited showing in my country.
7.      Twelve Suicidal Children
What begins as a murder mystery ends with a twist you won’t see coming. All of the actors are amazing, but special mention to Sugisaki Hana and that guy from that one boy group I forgot the name but can’t be bothered to Google.
8.      Gakkou Gurashi
Four girls and their teacher try to survive the zombie apocalypse trapped inside the school. This one destroyed me for days.
9.      Forest of Love
I’ve watched some Sono Sion movies but nothing prepared me for this. Be aware of extremely gory sequences and sensitive topics. Hinami Kyoko is so amazing as blue-haired, punk girl crush Taeko that I totally didn’t notice she was AkibaBlue in Akibaranger.
10.  The Host
After watching Parasite I decided to go on a Bong Joon Ho binge and watched this horror movie. Not as good as Snowpiercer and Parasite in my opinion but heart-wrenching nevertheless. The little girl is the star of the movie.
11.  The Hungry Lion
A story about the dangers of social media and slut-shaming. I want to punch Mizuishi Atom in the face.
12.  Cromartie High
A little absurd comedy about yakuza-style high school boys (played by middle-aged men lol) forming a club to battle aliens summoned by themselves just because. It made me laugh like a child. A hidden gem.
Honorable Mentions:
1.      River’s Edge
Depressing as fuck. Warning: the cats die. It’s not graphic but it’s traumatizing. Yoshizawa Ryo is a gay boy who sleeps with old men for money. There’s a graphic sex scene (not Yoshizawa, sadly) where my only thought was “That thing is gonna get stuck in there! Use a condom!” Can’t remember much from it except for these three scenes.
2.      The Disastrous Life of Saiki K
Yamazaki Kento has the acting chops of a dead fish but it comes handy for playing a teen with psychic abilities and zero social skills. Hashimoto Kanna is one of the prettiest girls in Japan. Yoshizawa Ryo with white and blueish hair looks more like Sakata Gintoki than Oguri Shun in the Gintama live action. The end is a huge let down but the fun ride is worth it.
3.      Ano ko no, Toriko
Congratulations to Yoshizawa Ryo, he has FIVE movies in my list of favorite movies this year! This is to make up for crowning GIVER as the biggest waste of time of 2018, this list is totally not biased, lol. “Ano ko” could be just another romance movie but the (very) little insight into how the entertainment industry works and not focusing on school life made me love it. Poor Sugino Yosuke being left behind again, when will this boy get the main girl?
4.      Monstrum
It doesn’t reinvent the wheel but it’s pleasant enough to fill a rainy afternoon with a lot of blood and spilled guts. Hyeri of Girl’s Day is the heroine and Choi Woo Shik is the commander she falls in love with.
5.      Weirdo Go
I confess I watched this one just to see Ji Li (aka my snake son Nie Huaisang) dressed as a woman but it was enjoyable and not that problematic.
6.      Real - Kanzen Naru Kubinagaryu no Hi
Directed by the same guy that did “Creepy” and “Before we vanish”, there are lots of twists you won’t see coming. And a dinosaur. A fucking dinosaur.
7.      Tomodachi Game: The Final
The movie loses its focus halfway through then picks up again minutes before ending. Yoshizawa Ryo delivers again as the sadistic Yuuichi, much like his role in Gintama. The plot twists are the star of the movie.
8.     The Living Dead
Sorry Wen Ning. I saw the plot twist coming in the first 30 minutes of the movie, not very smart of the writer. His personality did a 180° turn for worse and I’ll demote the movie to an honorable mention for it. Gao Han is cute though, I would like to see him as a better character.
9.      Backstreet Girls
Some recycled scenes from the drama to situate the viewers, a completely new story for the movie, it is certainly funny and enjoyable, if you can get past the forced gender reassignment surgery background and transphobic jokes (you shouldn’t get past it btw). I like the soundtrack.
Best Dramas:
1.      The Untamed
Do I need to say more?
2.      The Tale of Nokdu
This Korean romance had everything to be a mess but it wasn’t!!! *claps* I don’t hate the main female character and the whole palace politics actually kept me interested until the end. The complete shift of atmosphere mid-season was strange at first but ultimately very welcomed.
3.      The Naked Director
Netflix original Japanese content is amazing. This one is a look at the life of a legendary porn director in the late 80s, I learned a lot about the history of Japanese porn and censorship (yay pixels!) and went looking for his, erm, works. Very graphic, 69/10 don’t recommend watching with people in the house.
4.      Channel wa Sonomama!
I don’t remember it well but it’s about a news station and what is like to be a journalist and it was very interesting and funny.
5.      SCAMS
Forgettable. Sugino Yosuke with black hair cons old people via phone calls.
Worst Movies and Dramas:
1.      The cat in their arms
The cats spend 90% of the movie in human forms, and halfway through it they simply abandon the cats’ plot to show a fucking long montage of a weird guy painting a picture of a nude girl. It’s also super creepy to see a grown-up man acting like a cat, getting belly rubs and eating cat food from a bowl. Yoshizawa needs to choose his roles more wisely.
2.      Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun
A waste of Suda Masaki’s talent. Can Japan stop casting Tsuchiya Tao already?
3.      Samurai Marathon
Almost two hours of dirty men running through a forest. Maybe Japanese History experts will enjoy it, because I certainly didn’t.
4.      Lady Vengeance
While there are legit great moments, I didn’t find this “classic” to be anything special. The animal cruelty was too much for me.
5.      Hot Gimmick
This movie makes Bohemian Rhapsody’s editing look like a work of art. There are more flashing cuts than a T-ARA music video. I have no idea who likes who, who’s banging who, what even are they saying. Too much poetic shit for my like. I wanted to see Shimizu Hiroya naked. I was bamboozled.
6.      The Divine Fury
While some parts were interesting, at the end I still don’t know if the protagonist is possessed by a demon (if yes, then why would he help a priest destroy his friends?) or if he was blessed by God when his father died and talked to him (the glowing hand thing, why and how??). The exorcism parts are really, really scary, or maybe I’m just a chicken, but I had to avert my eyes. The best (only) part is that the protagonists are hot. Hello Woo Do-Hwan, you can sacrifice me to Satan any time…
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chungledown-bimothy · 5 years
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Music and the Mirror (and the chance to dance with you)
Hey look! I actually finished something! :D
AO3     Masterlist
Summary: It had been five years, and Virgil was finally ready to dance again. The last thing he expected was Roman and that goddamn tongue piercing.
Warnings: some swearing, sympathetic deceit, accidental misgendering, dysphoria. lmk if i missed anything!
Pairing(s): prinxiety, background remceit and logicality
Word Count: 4,739
Tag List:  @ren-allen​ @ccecode​ @emo-sanders-sides-loving-unicorn​ @ilovemygaydad​ @bloodropsblog​ @funsizedgremlin​ @raygelkitty​ @roxiefox23​ @thomasthesandersengine​
If I don't do this now, I never will, and I'll regret it for the rest of my life. Virgil took a deep breath, staring at the cursor blinking in the empty search bar. After a few minutes and a significant amount of emotional effort, he searched for 'adult dance classes'. Almost immediately, the screen was full of dance studios offering classes, and he had to breathe through the knot of anxiety that formed from the sheer number of options. He scrolled past ballet (I couldn't do ballet back when I was in shape), hip hop (I'm not nearly confident enough for that), and tango (No way I'm getting that close to a stranger), but none of them felt right. It had been so long; if he made the wrong choice, it would destroy what little confidence he had, potentially stopping him from ever dancing again. That's a bit dramatic, the small, logical part of his brain insisted. Dancing is part of you; it's in your blood. You could never give it up forever. You're here now, after everything that happened. That voice, however, was drowned out by his anxiety. Until he saw it.
Beginner West Coast Swing! No experience or partner needed. 8-9pm Tuesdays. $18 drop-in, $45 all 3 weeks.
West Coast Swing. Perfect. Upbeat and energetic, but not too technically demanding at first, and half the fun is in the tension held in the space between partners. And it starts tomorrow, so there's no time to chicken out. He followed the website's registration process, signing up for all four weeks. It's only four hours over the course of the month, he figured. Even if it went horribly, he'd gotten through worse.
After registering, he quickly shut his laptop and went to dig out his old dance shoes. Hopefully they still fit; a lot has changed over the last five years. They did, just barely.
-
Tuesday
Virgil walked into the studio at 7:55, his heart pounding. Immediately, he was greeted by a very tall man, likely in his early thirties, with a clipboard in one hand.
"Hello, and welcome! I am Logan Sanders; I own the studio. Are you here for west coast swing?" Logan stuck his hand out.
"Uh, hi, nice to meet you. My name's Virgil." Virgil shook his hand. "Yeah, I registered online yesterday." Logan checked the clipboard, and looked back up at Virgil.
"Wonderful, I have you right here. Follow me, your class is going to be held in the Blue Room." Virgil followed him through a huge room with floor-to-ceiling mirrors and through a door off to the side. Silently, he thanked whatever deities that might be listening that the class wasn't in that room and prayed that the Blue Room would have fewer mirrors. Fortunately, it only had a few mirrors on the far wall; it was clear that they would rarely, if ever, use them. "Alright, here we are. Have fun, and please do not hesitate to let me know if there are any issues." Logan gave him a small smile and adjusted his glasses before practically gliding out of the room. That man did decades of ballet; I'd bet my life on it.
Virgil slunk around the fifteen or so people who were milling about on the dance floor waiting for the class to start. Once he got to a bench in the corner, he changed into his dance shoes and reluctantly took off his hoodie. Instead of joining his classmates on the floor; he took this opportunity to observe them. They were largely what he expected, most of them looked to be between twenty-five and thirty, with the exceptions of himself, at twenty-two, and a couple who were probably around sixty.
"Good evening! My name is Patton Sanders, and I'm your west coast swing teacher! Alright, let's line up; leads to my left, and follows to my right."
Virgil froze. He hadn't considered if he'd rather lead or follow. He felt the teacher's eyes on him, however, and had to make a decision. Something in his gut told him to follow, so he fell in line to Patton's right. He immediately noticed that there were more follows than leads, and briefly chastised himself for choosing wrong. Fortunately, Patton's voice snapped him out of his thoughts.
"I see a bunch of familiar faces tonight; thank you so much for coming back! Your focus this month should be on moving beyond the basics. Focus on your posture, your technique, and your styling." Patton looked at all of his students, giving them all a blinding smile. "New students, thank you for joining us! West Coast Swing is incredibly unique. Unlike most other ballroom dances, what really matters is the energy and elasticity between partners, and each partner is given far more independence than in other styles. But listen to me, getting ahead of myself," Patton giggled. "None of that matters if you don't know how to move your feet! Okay, let's start with the leads." Patton walked them through the basic step, giving Virgil a chance to assess his future partners. The dance snob he used to be scoffed; he was not impressed with anything that he was seeing, but some of them seemed to have potential. Reminding himself that he won't be good at this at first either, he focused on the leads' basic step and constructing the most likely follows' counterpart.
"Fantastic, now ladies, your basic is very similar," Virgil flinched. In the excitement of starting to dance again, he'd forgotten about his wide hips, and he didn't have a binder in the right size to exercise without potentially causing a lot of damage. Just dance, Virgil. Remember how it all fades away. Focus on the steps, so you can build a foundation strong enough that you will be able to leave everything but the music behind. Virgil did just that, quickly picking up the step.
"Awesome! Okay, let's partner up; I'll put on the music and come dance with y'all who don't have partners." Virgil was one of the two follows without a partner, and he stifled a laugh when "Madness" by Muse started playing through the speakers. It probably does seem kind of mad, doing this alone. Patton called out "5, 6, 7, 8!" and they all started moving. Virgil did his best alone, but it wasn't long until Patton took his hand and started leading. Virgil only then realized that his posture had been terrible. He straightened up and looked Patton in the eye, and he thought he saw approval there. They danced for a little bit longer before Patton gave him a thumbs-up and went to turn off the music.
"That looked really great, you guys. That's officially all the time we have, but I'll put some music on for a bit longer if any of you want to hang around and keep dancing!" Virgil wanted to stay for a while longer. It felt so good to be dancing again, to feel that powerful and confident, but he saw himself in the mirror and practically ran to put his hoodie back on and change his shoes so he could leave. When he got to the door, he hesitated and looked back, but he quickly turned back around and went home, deciding to not risk getting misgendered again and ruining his post-dance elation.
--
The next week, Virgil approached Patton after class, heart hammering in his chest.
"Uh, Patton? Can we talk for a minute?"
"Of course! Virgil, right? What's up?"
Virgil looked down, afraid of what he might see in his teacher's eyes. "My pronouns are he/him. I know I don't look it, but…." Virgil hesitated, not sure how to finish the thought, "yeah. He/him."
"Oh, my! Thanks for letting me know! I won't misgender you again." Surprised, Virgil looked up to see a smile on Patton's face. "By the way, what's your dance history, if you don't mind me asking? You clearly have a whole bunch." Virgil hoped his blush wasn't as strong as it felt.
"Um, it was pretty much all in high school. Dance classes for PE credit, danced in all of the musicals, and I took some jazz classes outside of school. Haven't danced since graduating, though." Clearly Patton read between the lines; his face softened, but it was with understanding, not pity, as Virgil had feared.
"Well, whatever happened back then, welcome back. You've got a lot of talent, and I'm excited to see where it takes you, if you choose to stick with it. See you next week, kiddo!" Virgil thanked him and left, head held high.
-
The following class passed without incident. Virgil learned and grew as a dancer immensely, and, when given the opportunity, he signed up for the next cycle, excited to learn more. Nothing could have prepared him for that next class.
--------
The class started completely normally. Virgil arrived, put on his new dance shoes, and waited for Patton to start the class. He was so wrapped up in mentally reviewing the patterns from the previous weeks, he didn't notice that there were new students until Patton had them partner up and someone took his hand.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Virgil Raine is very, very gay. He had had his fair share of Gay Panic moments, but none of them compared to what happened in Virgil's head when he made eye contact with the stranger holding his hand. He was shorter than Virgil, with curly black hair and eyes like brown enstatite that sparkled with confidence.
The stranger gave him a blinding smile. "Pleasure to meet you; I'm Roman."
"V- Virgil." He was amazed that his voice worked, and he thanked every deity he could think of that Patton cut him off, giving the class a pattern and counting them off.
Virgil stood tall, more confident in his abilities to dance than to talk to Roman, and then they started moving. Virgil's biggest struggle in west coast swing was the concept of connection, of creating and maintaining the elasticity that is a fundamental part of the dance. With Roman, however, the connection was instant and perfect. As Roman led him through a left-side pass into a whip, he felt alive in ways he hadn't in years, especially since Patton hadn't said anything about doing a whip. He knew it was cliche as hell, but he could have sworn that the rest of the world stopped existing- for those short minutes, all that existed was him, Roman, and the music.
All too soon, however, the music stopped, and the spell was broken. Virgil stepped back, painfully aware of how much he was blushing.
"Looking good, y'all! Leads, rotate, and let's do it again!"
Roman winked. "Thanks for the dance, stormcloud," he said before turning and walking down the line, not giving Virgil a chance to respond. Stunned, Virgil took his new partner's hand and went through the pattern by rote, too distracted to pay attention to connection or styling.
The rest of the class passed in a similar fashion- Virgil trying to keep his cool and not look at Roman too much. They were partnered once more before class ended. Neither of them said anything, but the connection and energy was even more intense, if anything, and Roman's flamboyant styling left Virgil reeling. As soon as class ended, he put his headphones on, turned his music up, changed his shoes, and left. He felt a pair of eyes on him as he left the studio. He wasn't sure whether or not he wanted that feeling to be correct.
Once he was safely out of the building, he texted his best friend, Declan.
[Emo]: askfkaldjsl there's a really cute guy in my west coast swing class, and he can Dance. By far the best dancer in the class who isn't the teacher. Extra as hell, based on two interactions. I'm literally too gay to function help
[Snek]: Gay panic is so pure
[Snek]: Fuck YEAH dude
[Emo]: Helpful as always, D.
[Snek]: You know I just call it like it is. So are you gonna make a move, or just write another fanfic that basically is just a self-insert about what could have been if you weren't a coward?
[Emo]: Hey, I only did that ONCE, and I didn't even finish it, let alone post it.
[Snek]: *raises an eyebrow* are you sure about that?
[Emo]: Okay, twice, and yeah I posted that second one. But it wasn't even really a fic, just a list of ideas that developed something like a plot.
[Snek]: So….? What are you gonna do about this unnamed hottie?
[Emo]: Play it by ear. Two more weeks of class gives me two more weeks to gather information.
[Snek]: No comment on not knowing his name?
[Emo]: Damn i was hoping that'd slide by. It's Roman.
[Snek]: Good strong name. Maybe I'll show up and take a shot at him
[Emo]: *hiss* Fuck off he's mine. Besides, you have someone. Someone you still refUSE TO TELL ME ABOUT, BITCH
[Snek]: Love you too <3
Virgil closed his phone and drove home, in desperate need of a shower and a good night's sleep.
--
Virgil walked into the studio, head low with his hood up and headphones playing louder than was safe for him or the electronics, but he didn't care. What mattered was quieting the voice in his head that had been saying 'Why would he look twice at you? You're a mediocre dancer at best, and you know he's misgendering you in his head. You know from experience how few people want to date trans guys. Wrong parts for gay guys, wrong gender for straight guys. Putting yourself out there would be a disaster' for the last week. I'm here to dance, he reminded himself, not to flirt.
He quickly got to the Blue Room and changed his shoes, not bothering to take off his hoodie or headphones until the last possible minute- nothing calmed his nerves like Gerard Way not being okay either. When the time came, he reluctantly shed his armor and took his place in the line of follows.
Class began as normal; a brief review of previous lessons and a few warm-up patterns. Virgil kept his attention on Patton or his current partner. While this strategy kept his eyes and mind (mostly) off of Roman, it meant that he was entirely unprepared when it was their turn to dance together.
"Virgil, right?" Roman asked, eyes still infuriatingly bright.
"Yep. What's up, Roman?" Virgil smirked, surprising even himself. Patton counted them off, but that didn't stop Roman from responding as they went through the series.
"Ah, you can speak! I'm doing fabulously. And you?"
"Fine. Just trying to learn, princey." To Virgil's surprise, Roman was silent for the rest of the dance, and didn't say anything before moving to his next partner, either. Shit. Good job, Virgil. Why did you even call him that? Figuring there wasn't really anything he could do about it, Virgil tried to put it out of his mind and keep focusing on Patton's lesson.
As in the previous class, he danced with Roman one more time, right at the end. The pattern was complex, and the music was fast, so there wasn't any opportunity to talk until after the music stopped and Patton dismissed the class.
"Thanks for the dances, Roman. You're a great dancer." He turned to leave, not wanting to stick around for small talk.
"Wait, Virgil!" He turned around to see a look on Roman's face that he couldn't quite figure out. "Why'd you call me 'princey'? How did you know?"
Virgil furrowed his brow, confused. "Know what? Dunno where the nickname came from, you just kinda carry yourself like you think you're royalty or something."
"You really didn't know that my last name is Prince?" Roman looked up at him, incredulous.
"I swear I didn't. While we're on the topic of nicknames, why did you call me 'stormcloud' last week?" Virgil was surprised to see Roman look down and fidget with the hem of his shirt.
"Your hoodie. It has that purple stormcloud on it. And your energy isn't exactly sunshine and rainbows."
Virgil chucked. "I didn't think you were that observant. See you next week, princey." Virgil smirked.
"Looking forward to it," Roman responded. Well, Virgil thought that's what he said. His brain short-circuited when Roman said 'looking' and revealed a silver stud in the middle of his tongue.
Completely unable to speak, Virgil turned and hurried to his stuff, shoving his headphones in his ears and changing his shoes as fast as possible. He didn't even take the time to put his hoodie back on before practically running out of the studio to his car.
[Emo]: 911 HE HAS A FUCKING TONGUE PIERCING I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW I WAS INTO THAT
[Snek]: Who, roman? Oh shit. I distinctly remember you telling me once that you definitely *aren't* into tongue piercings. Damn you are SO WHIPPED. This guy must be a fuckin Adonis
[Emo]: I'm not whipped. He just really is that hot. And sassy. And observant. And funny.
[Snek]: …
[Emo]: ah, fuck. I really am whipped. But I think it might not be one-sided. You know how terrible I am at flirting?
[Snek]: Whatever could you possibly mean? Being a sarcastic ass is peak flirting. *Everyone* knows that.
[Emo]: No need to be a bitch about it. Anyway, I unintentionally did a whole bunch of it, and he gave it right back. Maybe even better than I did?
[Snek]: Boy that's your fuckin soulmate. If you really pulled a You as a first conversation and didn't scare him off, hold the fuck on to him
[Emo]: you know I hate it when you do that. And yeah, I don't plan on letting him go. Next week is the last week of the class. I'll ask him out after. That way, if he rejects me, we never see each other again. No harm, no foul.
[Snek]: Solid plan. I gotta go- date night. Talk later?
[Emo]: You gotta tell me who this mystery person is. It's been *months*, and I still don't know anything about them.
[Snek]: About whomst? Significant other? I don't know her.
Rolling his eyes at his enigmatic friend, Virgil drove home.
----
The next week, unlike previous weeks, he walked into the studio, head held high, not wearing headphones. He had a plan and the confidence of a man with nothing to lose.
Virgil danced through the class better than he ever had before. As usual, he was partnered with Roman a few times, but aside from a brief greeting, neither of them said anything, but Virgil thought he felt a silent conversation between them as they danced- a meeting of two souls consumed by a love of dance.
Before he knew it, class was over. He took a moment to collect his thoughts under the guise of changing his shoes before looking around to find Roman. When he did, his heart stopped. Roman was in the middle of the dance floor, gliding effortlessly through what appeared to be an argentine tango. His partner was about Virgil's height, with sharp, high cheekbones and a flawless jawline. He couldn't see their eyes; they were hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses. What really made Virgil's stomach knot was the fact that their styling was likely in violation of public indecency laws- the two of them clearly knew each other intimately. Blinking away tears, Virgil grabbed his things and ran to his car. He went to text Declan and saw that he already had a message from him.
[Snek]: So how'd it go, loverboy? When's the date?
[Emo]: There won't be a date. He's with someone. A gorgeous someone. I didn't know an argentine tango could look *that* much like sex on the dance floor.
[Snek]: Oh shit, Virge, I'm so sorry. Do you want me to kill that guy for you? Because it sounds like he sucks, and I will totally kill him for you.
[Emo]: thanks, but no. I can't fucking breathe, D. Why the fuck do I always do this? Why can't I feel things a normal amount? Why do I let my heart run away like this?
[Snek]: I could give you a smartass answer about your childhood traumas, but the bottom line is that it's because you are a deeply good and caring person. The fact that you choose to see the best in people despite everything you've been through is incredible, Virgil. Now, get your cute butt home. I'll meet you there with ice cream, and we're gonna watch Nightmare Before Christmas and talk it out, okay?
[Emo]: Give me half an hour to get home and showered. Love you <3
Ten minutes later, Virgil unlocked his front door and turned on the light.
"Well helloooo, Virgil," a familiar voice drawled.
Virgil let out a scream that neither man knew he was capable of. "Declan you sack of shit I'm going to fucking murder you. My internal organs have had enough stress today, thank you very fucking much. I said half an hour."
"I know you did, but I also know you. Right now, you're spiraling into self-loathing, and the easiest outlet for that is dysphoria. I would be a terrible friend if I let you suffer through that alone."
"I thought we agreed that you weren't gonna psychoanalyze me." Virgil cocked an eyebrow, his heart rate returning to almost normal. "Are you offering to shower with me?"
"It's not psychoanalysis. It's just knowing my best friend and his self-destructive tendencies. And no, I'm not. I'm just here for emotional support. We both know that that smart brain of yours likes to tell you all sorts of lies, and-"
"And you're a human polygraph. I got it. Thanks, Dec. I'll be back out as soon as possible. Make yourself at home- you know where everything is." Virgil turned and walked towards the bathroom.
"Easy on the hair product- it your hair is full of goop, it'll fuck my eczema up, so I won't cuddle you!" Declan called out after him. Virgil flipped him off, but they both knew that he would not only eschew hair products but also use the eczema-friendly body wash they both pretended he hadn't bought just so they could cuddle more comfortably for Declan.
Fifteen minutes later, Virgil returned to the living room. He expected Declan to make him talk through the storm that was going on in his head, but instead they watched movies and joked around all night. The only talk of dancing that night was Virgil confirming that he would not give it up for anything, let alone some guy, no matter how cute.
--
Virgil had been so wrapped up in thoughts of Roman, he missed why the following week's class was a one-day workshop instead of a new cycle, but he figured it didn't really matter. He was there to dance, logistical semantics be damned.
His resolution to stick with the classes no matter what was immediately tested when he entered the ballroom and saw Roman on the floor dancing with the same man from the previous week. At least it's west coast swing this time, Virgil mused as he changed his shoes and tried not to stare. Fortunately, it wasn't long before Patton started the class.
Unfortunately, it also wasn't long before Virgil and Roman were partners.
"Hello again, stormcloud!" Roman said as he began leading Virgil through the pattern.
Virgil nodded curtly. "Roman."
"What's with the attitude, Edgar Allen Woe?" Virgil told himself he was imagining the hurt in Roman's voice.
"We're here to dance, not chit-chat." Roman tried to lead Virgil through a turn, but he tripped over his own feet. Because Virgil was in the middle of that turn, he was thrown off balance as well. In an instant, both men were on the floor, Roman on top of Virgil.
"Well hello there," Roman laughed.
"Get. Off. Now." Virgil shoved Roman off of him and scrambled back to his feet, praying that his blush wasn't as scarlet as it felt. The blush was, of course, completely from the embarrassment of falling in front of the class and had nothing to do with being underneath Roman.
Patton, fully aware of the tension between the two dancers as well as Virgil's shyness, quickly grabbed the class' attention and moved on with the lesson. Patton showed mercy on Virgil and prolonged the time between partner rotations to keep him from having to dance with Roman again. I hope those kiddos work out whatever's going on between them, but they can't do it during my class time.
For the rest of the hour, Virgil kept his head down unless absolutely necessary and tried to learn as much as possible, but he just couldn't focus. Remembering how close Roman was with flecks of gold in his eyes and clearly as muscular as Virgil had imagined had him grateful for the first and only time that he wasn't assigned male at birth- the situation would have been far more awkward than it already was if there was even the slightest possibility of a boner to deal with.
Eventually, the class ended, and Virgil hurried out of the studio as per usual. This time, however, he was followed. He was barely out of the studio when Roman called after him.
"Virgil! Wait! Please!"
Virgil turned to face him, anxiety about this conversation manifesting in anger. "What do you want, Roman?"
"A date with you." Roman's shoulders dropped, and he suddenly seemed very interested in his shoes.
"W- what?" Roman stood tall and looked Virgil in the eye.
"Will you go out with me? I know you felt what I did when we danced. Before tonight, I mean. Please, go out with me, let's give that energy a shot off of the dance floor." Virgil's eyes flashed with hope, want, and caution.
"What about your boyfriend?" Virgil spat.
"What are you talking about? What boyfriend?"
"I'm not an idiot, Roman. Tall, sunglasses, dances with you with a chemistry I've never seen before? WHAT?" Virgil snapped, when Roman started laughing.
"That, Virgil, is Remy. My best friend. My best friend who agreed to pick me up last time and come with me today to help me show off for you. We've been dancing together since we were eight; of course we have damn good chemistry. But that connection is nothing to what I felt when we danced that first time. We have something special, Virgil. Please, tell me you felt it too." Virgil stepped forward, closing the gap between them.
"I- I'm not good with words," he whispered, gently tilting Roman's head up and leaning down so that their lips were almost touching. "Yes, I felt it too." Virgil searched his face, looking for discomfort. "Can I kiss you, Roman?"
Instead of responding, Roman lifted onto the balls of his feet and pressed his lips to Virgil's. After a split second of shock, Virgil deepened the kiss, wrapping his arms around Roman's torso and lifted him to his height. He quickly put him down, however, when they heard a wolf-whistle and a "WHOOP!".
Embarrassed, Virgil and Roman looked to see Remy and Declan standing at the door of the studio, smiling and laughing.
"I told you not to sweat it, girl. I couldn't tell you how bad my boy has it for yours, because he made me promise not to tell anyone, but look at that." Remy winked at Declan.
"Yes, and this totally wouldn't have been easier if we just told them how the other felt, like I definitely didn't suggest weeks ago." Declan rolled his eyes.
Virgil looked at the two of them suspiciously. "You two know each other?"
"Obviously, babe. Who do you think D's been seeing all these months?"
Virgil turned to Roman. "Did you know about this?"
"I mean, I knew Remy was seeing Declan, but I had no idea he was your friend. You know what this means though, right?"
"What does it mean?" Virgil asked, apprehensive.
"The most epic double dates of all time!" Roman punctuated his proclamation with a flourish. Virgil, Declan, and Remy all let out a groan.
The four men swapped numbers as needed and parted ways with promises to see each other again soon.
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spiftynifty · 5 years
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TeeVee Podcast’s Voltron s8 review
I’ve been waiting eagerly for TeeVee’s review of s8. If you recall, their s7 review was what gave us the man getting choked up about Shiro’s relationship. 
The link to the podcast is here but if you’d prefer a sort of transcript, here are some of the highlights for me. I didn’t always catch who was speaking but I wrote down initials where I could. S=Shanon, A=Antony, M=Moises, C=Chip D=Dan. The panel is divided on their feelings on the season. 2 of them seem to have hated it, one liked it, one thought it was fine, and one feels mixed about it. Anyway here we go, some great quotes ahead. 
Under the readmore cuz it’s long. 
S: "After 7 seasons of a show that was going to be one of the animated series of the decade, they not only did not stick the landing, they fell on their butts, rolled off the mat, off the lines, into the judge's table and their leotard popped open"
"A lot of the plot was callbacks to things from seasons ago that we really probably didn't need to see again." "I wasn't entirely sure that they weren't gaslighting me."
Man Shannon is calling out some great points. She's calling out the dropped druid plot thread, and wondering what the point was of showing Lotor's past when he's dead, and nothing can change in his present and his redemption can't really happen.
A: "endings are hard. I was disappointed with this season [...] it was let down by poor plotting and that final battle made me throw my hands up in despair most of the time. But I have enormous sympathy for the EPs. Maintaining a longform episodic story is hard. And to pull off an ending that satisfies even MOST of the audience is harder yet. and let's not forget they were always upfront that vt always had 'editorial interference' from up top. Toys, the fact that it's aimed at children, corp resistance to some of the more modern social issues that they've tried to tackle. THAT SAID, we don't know what happened on this production, who had the final say, what they argued over. and I say this cuz a lot of the fandom drama over it assumes a LOT over how media and entertainment like this is made that simple ARE. NOT. TRUE. Some of the stuff I've read has been ABSURDLY offbase, like that there were different writers rather than just 1 the whole way through which ignores how TV is made. And if you think these writers just go off and write a script without talking to anyone first and then they come back with something that must be filmed without any changes, THAT'S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS. [..]we don't know who made these decisions. The studio isn't always the bad guy. Sometimes they rescue things that would otherwise have been a horrible mess. And unless you were IN THE ROOM, you don't know, and neither do any of us. So let's all bear that in mind. [...]You can't lay the blame OR credit on any one person. For any of this." 
They're laughing & making so much fun of the final 3 episodes and how baffling they were. 
"Don't even get me started on Voltron merging with Atlas [and the crew disappearing] that was a bad, bad idea." 
"But that was the ONE time Shiro was back with the team!"
a couple dudes are relatively ok with the Allura death because we've never seen a WOC heroically sacrifice herself for the universe and usually it's the Shiro hero character D: They also point out that technically she wasn't fridged so.. yay?
Antony and Shannon vehemently disagree. 
A: "My problem with that ending was more just that it was... not. good." he makes a comparison to RotJ where Vader still dies and it's his SON, who lives, who 'redeems' him. "This was none of those things. It felt like a terrible lesson. You can be so evil that you kill literally billions of people for 10k yrs but if you say sorry just before you're about to be executed it's alright, dw about it, we'll put the universe back to rights. NO, that's a terrible lesson!!"
S:"They had the LIONS. That's my problem. Throughout this series we've had stakes going up but there has always been a trading of ideas, what can we do, what can we figure out, up to the point where they wind up sacrificing the castle, but they go through steps before that 'is there anything else we can do’. And here, there's not even... she didn't even get to say goodbye to Coran! This is the one character, WOC, and she has sacrificed throughout this entire series. She lost her planet. She lost the last connection she had to her father in the AI. She kept LOSING things over and over to the point where she sacrifices her crown to help Shiro. and the thanks she gets is that she has to turn around and say nope I've got to away and fix all of this and apparently never see you all again. It really, REALLY REALLY bothered me. All of my friends who have CHILDREN who watch this show, universally the kids were upset and angry and tearful and HATED that outcome. This did not feel like a triumph. Having to lose Allura like that robbed any kind of triumph in the success of saving all the universes. And I think that's one of the reasons that this last part of the season sits so poorly with me. I feel like it should have ended in a triumphant way. even if it meant losing a couple of the team members or the lions. Of course that takes away the toy aspect which is why that's not an option. We already had several tragedy arcs in this series. Zarkon, Honerva, and Lotor had tragedy arcs. Why does Allura have to have one too? We've had enough." 
Antony & Shanon KILLIN IT on this podcast y'all.
C: "This series relies so much on 'oh wait, there's a new upgrade', 'oh wait, there's this new thing'" A: "Well that was the entire final battle." C: "So there's this handwavy Allura has to sacrifice herself. The heavy lifting wasn't done to make this an earned moment."
S: "I do think, whether it was at the direction of DW or WEP (Vld IP), without those little epilogue cards, there is the potential opening that Allura might be able to return.[..]It was open to interpretation."
One guy likes the Shiro ending for the surprising progress aspect, even though he's not thrilled about how it was put together. also he isn't convinced the epilogue wasn't planned. He likes a lot of s8 but all the stuff he likes is tied to stuff that he really didn't like.
S:"The shiro card is the other reason that I think those things were shoved in. For me, that turns Shiro's entire character into a token when he wasn't before. When they introduced his sexuality, it was done BEAUTIFULLY. There was this conversation with his significant other a mature relationship that ran into its problems and therefore couldn't happen anymore. Adam could've been Adele, and nothing would have changed about that conversation. It was not the defining characteristic of Shiro. It was just something else about him."
S: "And then s8 happens and Shiro is divided from everybody on the team. There are so few interactions of any kind that aren't just barking orders. or making plans. Keith is the prime example. Their friendship had been a backbone of this series and suddenly they can't even stand more than feet 5ft from each other. 
A: “It’s barely evident, yeah.”
M:”And the same with the rest of the main cast. And if they had set that up at the end of s7, that he’s going to go into the background a bit, it wouldn’t have felt as weird.
S: “And they didn’t! S7 was miraculous in the fact that even though he’s no longer in a lion, he’s still got a vital part to play in the series. And s8 erased that. It pretty much neutered him! And the kind of message is once you've revealed this character to be gay, we've gotta keep him out of the way. And if they had not put those end cards in, again the fact that he's a gay man is just the fact that he's a gay man and it's not any bigger or smaller aspect of his character, but they did not EARN him marrying random bridge crew member #3."
A: "and RETIRING! A man who LEFT adam because he felt he had to go and fight."
A: "He left the guy he loved before because of his devotion to"
S:"To fighting to making things right"
A:”To being a soldier and doing the right thing.”
C:”Isn’t the whole point then that he achieves that?”
M:”The fighting’s over and he can leave that behind and he can actually be happy.”
S: “He wouldn’t’ve. I don’t see it.”
M: “I violently disagree.”
C: “I think it was a nice endcap for his character."
Moises also likes this because it’s not a BYG scenario and he gets retired. Shannon is extremely exasperated by these takes. 
S:”For me, it’s like Tangled. You go through Rapunzel and Flynn, going through their adventures, getting closer, getting to know each other, they save each other, things like that. And then she’s reunited with her parents and then we get and endcap that says ‘for political reasons her parents decided they needed to marry her off to the prince in the next county, sorry’. That would’ve had people RIOTING. Thats not how you do a story with characters that people care about. And to shove shiro off onto this random character that we--his name is never spoken!”
A:”No he had like 3 lines in the entire season.”
S:”He had 3 line sin the season, you don’t know his name unless you watched the subtitles, and in the audio narration for the visually impaired, they called him Adam in the endcap. They called him Adam! They fixed that now. It feels like a hugely clumsy attempt to grab the woke points for a character that didn’t need them.”
Moises then talks a little about Shiro and Keith and how he and Shannon both thought there was something there, and still do, but they can’t know what happened behind the scenes and to theorize on the intent of that relationship is “conspiracy theory land” and trying to decide what the writers were prevented from doing is like “reading tea leaves and chicken bones”. He references people extracting things from his own writing. 
M: “As much as I wanted to see that relationship flower and flourish, the fact that it didn’t, look, it’s one of a million times that’s happened for me, with fiction, where things didnt turn out the way I wanted to see them.”
S:”I’m talking about 2 different things, as far as Shiro’s character, vs shipping  issues. I feel Shiro’s character was done a disservice that if they were going to end him in a relationship with another man, they didn’t earn it by throwing that little endcap on.”
M:”Yeah, they could have brought back one less robeast or something.”
S:”The other thing is, I think there is enough out there as far as interviews with JDS and LM to show that at the very least I think they meant to leave it openended. Again  if you take out that endcap, the last shot includes a shot of just Shiro and Keith, together, same screen, looking up as the lions go away, without saying anything further. I know I pie in the sky hoped that they were gonna kiss this season when we did our s7 recap and yes that was the shipper in me talking. I truly did not expect that they would be able to go that far. What I did not expect was for them to tear it down. And I feel like that’s what they did. Between the complete absence of interactions in s8, and then throwing that epilogue in there.”
Dan doesn’t understand how that could be because he sees no reason for them to do that. Shannon patiently explains about DW’s history with LGBT characters but Dan insists that the creators told the story the way they wanted to and he’s fine with Shiro getting a marriage even if it’s a character they don’t know. 
Overall the panelists love the show still, and in most cases prefer to consider it in the realm of s1-6 with a weak final double season (7&8) or that the show ends after s7. They would all love to know how long the NDAs last, a making of perhaps, to know what the heck happened and what changed along the way. Big mood my dudes. Big mood.
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gaystripstories · 6 years
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All of my flagged posts...
Not many of my posts have photos, but for those that do, I’m deleting them and reposting just the text. So, to cut down on spam, here’s a bunch of my short posts:
About halfway through my solo hike, I realized I had made a mistake. My friend told me that the trail was five miles, and I assumed that that was round trip. But after two and half miles, I realized that it was five miles each way. At about three miles, I was already getting tired. After about 4, my feet were killing me. I saw a large rock up ahead under a tree and headed towards it to rest for a bit. I dropped my pack and pulled up my shirt to wipe the sweat off my face. The breeze felt amazing on my exposed skin, so I pulled the shirt off and stuffed it in my bag. I had seen no one the whole day, so I didn’t really care how exposed I was.
I kept hiking, and the trees started to fade away as I reached a large flat area. Up ahead, I thought I saw water, and I quickened my pace. After a few hundred more feet, I was standing at the edge of a large pond, and the water looked heavenly. I pulled off my shoes and yanked my socks off. I sat on the edge of the grass and slowly dipped my feet into the cool water. I audibly moaned and could not care less what I sounded like.
I stood up and looked around again, but I didn’t see anyone coming down the trail. I turned back around and unbuttoned my shorts when I heard the whistle from nearby.
So, the carpet does match the drapes?
I hastily fastened the button back and whipped back around to see a man’s top half appear from a grove of bushes across the pond.
Didn’t mean to scare you. I just woke up from a nap and was surprised to see anyone else out here. Look’s like we had the same idea.
He fully stood up, and I noticed that he was clad only in a wet pair of boxer briefs. He must have gotten out of the water to dry off and fell asleep in the warm sunlight. I started to reach for my shoes, but he called out again.
Don’t leave buddy, the water is too good to pass up. Drop those shorts and get in.
I, uh, I can’t.
Why not?
I’m not wearing anything under these shorts.
The man’s laughter reached me loud and clear across the pond.
A man who hikes commando shouldn’t be shy about it. But here, I’ll make you feel comfortable. He grabbed the waistband of his shorts and yanked them down to the ground and stepped out of them. Now you’re making me feel underdressed.
I tried to think straight, but I was too preoccupied by one of the biggest dicks I’d ever seen. He was packing a beer can between his legs- of course he’d feel okay being naked. But he was right, I didn’t think I could hike back without taking a small dip. So, I joined him.
I unbuttoned my shorts again, exposing the patch of red hair as I pulled the zipper down. I let my shorts fall to the bank, and the man let out a wolf whistle again and dove into the water to swim towards me. I took a deep breath and jumped in after him.
I had been staring at the man in the red speedos the entire time that I’d been in the beach. He was one of the most beautiful men I’d ever seen, and thanks to tinted sunglasses, I could stare as long as I liked without being noticed. Or so I thought. He stood up to reapply sunscreen, and when he turned around, he stared right at me. Once he was done rubbing himself and taking his time, he started walking over to me.
So, are you gonna stare the whole day or would you rather just take a picture.
I opened my mouth to speak but no words were coming out. He had the sexiest voice to match. Uh crap, I didn’t think you’d notice. You just have such an impressive body- I’d love to know how you work out.
He looked down at himself as if surprised and flexed his pecs at me and winked.
While I’m down at the beach, I’ve really just kept to light cardio and a lot of runs on the beach. I was about to go for a long walk if you want to join me.
I could definitely be down for that. Did you wanna walk down to the pier?
There was that smile again. No, I was actually gonna walk the other way, down to the rocks.
But isn’t that where the nude beach starts?
Exactly. He stuck his hand down into the waistband of his speedos revealing where his tan ended. I’ve really been meaning to even this out. You in?
Chad couldn’t believe how easy it had been to get everyone naked. I mean, people in the fraternity knew that he was gay, but apparently no one put together how stupid his drinking game was- it was clearly just a ploy to see everyone’s bodies.
They were up in the mountains for their semester’s brotherhood bonding retreat, and they’d been snowed into the cabin all weekend. There was a fire going in every fireplace, empty liquor handles were on every countertop, and most everyone was very, very drunk. So when Chad announced that he was ready to play a new drinking game, everyone gathered around.
He made the rules simple enough to follow, but foolproof for him. Two by two, everyone would go around the circle arm wrestling each other. Chad would then walk over holding a deck of cards and ask the winner to guess whether the next card was higher or lower than the last one. If he was right, the arm wrestling loser stripped. If not, he stripped. Everyone cheered at the rules and only focused on beating the person next to them. They didn’t realize that it was really all a game of chance, and that all of them would be stripping.
So it started. Shirts went flying, and the college boys’ chests were a sight to see. Over half of the brothers played sports and frequently worked out, and it showed. Their arms were flexed to the limits every time they stepped up to wrestle, and they all started working up a sweat. Chad was constantly looking in new directions, looking at everyone’s juicy pecs and defined abs. Once everyone had gone, the game continued around again, and pants were slipped off. Boxers in all patterns started to be flaunted. Some of the men preferred tighter underwear, and a couple of them had tiny briefs on that showed off their muscular thighs. Before the game moved on again, Chad walked up to Tiny who was still fully dressed. He had won both of his games and correctly guessed both cards. That would just not fly.
Too chicken to get naked, Tiny? Afraid your nickname extends to your dick?
The boys stared catcalling and making chicken noises, and finally he broke. He ripped off his shirt to expose his muscular, barrel chest. In one tug, he pulled down his sweatpants and boxers to expose his huge, girthy, cock.
Fuck that nickname, Chad. He started helicoptering his dick around, and the game continued around again. Chad changed the rules a bit, but no one noticed that everyone got naked on this round whether they won or not. Maybe the boys still sober enough to figure out simply didn’t care. What happens in the cabin, stays in the cabin.
Even with the fires roaring, everyone soon felt the snow’s chill from outside creeping in. Shrinkage abounded, but no one wanted to be labeled the guy with the smallest dick. That just wasn’t an option. So discreetly at first, some of the guys started giving themselves a quick tug. Just to keep themselves at least semi-hard. But soon, the urge was too much. The alcohol and the fires and the skin to skin contact started to get to everyone.
Chad just smiled as he sat there with a beer in one hand and his dick in the other. He was starting to get tired, and he knew that he couldn’t stay awake much longer. As a senior brother, he’d luckily gotten his own room down the hall, where he would fall into a dead sleep as soon as he closed the door and laid down. Well, he’d only fall asleep if nobody followed him into his room.
Jim stood with his bare feet in the dirt, waiting on that stupid fucking  kid to throw the ball. The college’s pitching coach, an old friend, had  gotten conked in the head at practice last weekend, so they called him  to fill in before the rivalry game against Carter State this Thursday.  He hadn’t coached in years, but he was itching to get out of his house  and back onto the field. He’d been here for just two days, and he was  already questioning if the pay was worth it. This fucking perv on the  pitcher’s mound had suggested a unique game to finish off practice: for  every strike against Jim, he’d strip. For every hit, the pitcher would  strip.
Jim thought he’d quickly embarrass the kid and head to the locker room, but the little fucker had been sandbagging all week.  His first pitch was 30 mph faster than what he’d  been throwing all week.
And that’s how Jim ended up here,  with his cleats and socks neatly sitting beside home plate. The next  pitch headed straight down the line, and Jim knocked it into left field.  
Let me see that scrawny chest, kid.
The  pitcher looked stunned that a hit had even been made, but he pulled off  his shirt anyway. Well, he was skinny, but that tight frame was complete  muscle. Jim could clearly count his eight pack all the way at home  plate. He felt his cock twitch a little, but ignored that to focus on  the next pitch. But it wasn’t gonna happen no matter how focused he was-  the ball sailed right by him. Jim reached for the collar of his shirt,  but the kid was already yelling.
Old man, I get to choose what you strip, remember? You’re losing those pants first.
Jim  couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Now don’t get it twisted- Jim was  damn proud of how good he still looked in his sixties, but he still  would have liked time to prepare for this. Jim unbuckled his baseball pants and pushed them to his ankles. He was now standing with his cock out for that smug little bastard. Jim hadn’t worn a pair of underwear in  decades, and he was actually completely confident in having his cock  out. He had always been a shower, impressive from the get-go. Long and  thick.
The kid was bent over laughing, but inside, a switch had flipped.
Nice dick, geiser. It looks like you haven’t used that thing in decades.
Ask your mother- she’ll prove you wrong. Now pitch, one more strike, and we had back into the locker room.
Jim  got into his batting stance and tried to ignore the breeze currently   blowing across his exposed asshole. He was prepared to miss swinging on the next pitch, doff his shirt, and head to the locker room. But when an  easy pitch came across the mound, he instinctively swung and made   contact. The kid was now unlacing his cleats while laughing. Fuck. This  kid was now just throwing easy shots to keep me almost naked out here,  and he wasn’t going to miss on purpose now to give the brat the   satisfaction.
So, the game pressed on. Jim had sweat running  all over his body, and there was a problem. He was starting to get hard.   As much as he didn’t want to admit it, this confident little prick was   turning him on. He had already lost his shirt and shoes and was wiggling  out of his baseball pants… to reveal a pair of gym shorts. The pitcher  started laughing as soon as he saw Jim’s face. That little shit had conned him.
By  now, the rest of the team had already changed and showered and were   heading back to the parking lot which was right behind the field. As   soon as they got within viewing distance, they started whistling and   catcalling their substitute coach. A couple of them had to shift their   duffel bags in front of their crotches.
Jim hit another easy   pitch, and the pitcher shimmied out of his shorts into a pair of boxers.  As he hiked his leg up to get ready to pitch, the tip of his cock   slipped into view. Jim knew that he was going to knock this pitch out of  the park no matter what. The pitch seemed to come towards the plate in  slow motion, and he heard the audible crack as his bat connected with the ball. The pitcher watched it sail past the fence. When he turned   around, Jim was standing right in front of him holding the cracked bat.
Looks like you owe me another article of clothing, boy. And  with that, Jim yanked the boy’s boxers to the dirt. The boy’s hairless  cock burst into view. He tried to get his underwear back up, but Jim had  his foot on top of them. One of his teammates had snuck up behind him,  grabbed his clothes, and slapped him on the ass. Admitting defeat, he  stepped out of his boxers and started the long run back to the locker  room.
Jim passed off the bat to one of the players and walked  back to collect his stuff. He may not pitch as fast as fast as this  kid, but he had someone waiting for him at home. He walked to his car  with shoes in hand and pants over his shoulders.
You know when you wake up and think you’re still dreaming? Well that happened to me this morning. My girlfriend and I are going on a road trip and for one night, we stopped at her parents’ house to stay the night. This is the first time I had met them, and they were wonderful! My girlfriend knew that I was bisexual and had always been supportive, but I couldn’t tell her about my latest crush: her dad.
He had a sexy confidence about him; I just knew that he had a huge dick. Sometimes you just get that vibe.
The next morning, I woke up early and headed down to get a drink of water, and there he was. He was reading the label on a bottle of protein powder while nonchalantly wearing nothing but a jockstrap. He had the flat chest of a man half his age and a still perky ass. But that package was what I couldn’t take my eyes off of- I had been right.
He looked up with no shame and wished me a good morning. I quickly answered him, grabbed some water, and headed back upstairs. But not before i got another glance at his cock. He knew what he was doing.
You know how a sexy pair of underwear can change your entire persona? A tight pair of briefs that hugs you in the right places can make you feel sexy. A worn-in pair of boxers can help you stay comfortable throughout the day. And a naughty thong can give you the confidence to feel daring. Under the right circumstances, underwear can even help you meet people. I found that out for myself last night.
I had finally started cleaning up my apartment yesterday, which included bringing down three loads of laundry to my basement laundry room. I had just finished vacuuming upstairs when my alarm went off, so I brought my laundry basket downstairs to load up everything. I opened the first dryer and threw everything into the basket and did the same for the second. I opened up the third dryer and tumbled everything into the basket, but a flash of purple fabric caught my eye. I moved a towel and pulled out a lavender pair of briefs. Briefs that I didn’t own.
I kept digging and kept finding underwear that wasn’t mine. There was a pair of boxers that smelled like heaven. A few more briefs that were way too big for me- I could see that the fabric around the crotch was stretched thin. I imagined the penis that filled them out every day. I reached his hand into the basket again and felt leather. I pulled out a jumble of warm, leather straps- once I unfolded them, I could see that it was a jockstrap- just without the basket up front. There was just a cock ring. The fantasies continued forming in my mind, and I zoned out as I felt an erection forming in my sweatpants.
I see you decided to help fold my laundry.
I snapped back to reality and jerked my head up. In front of me was a hulk of a man, leaning against the door holding an empty basket. He was wearing a tight black tank top, stretched to the max limit. He had the most beautifully smooth, brown skin, and there was a bit of curly, black chest hair peeking above the top of his shirt. He was wearing tight jeans tucked into black boots, which bulged in all of the right places. His bald head rested above a stern face, with a jawline that could cut steel and a thick mustache. I panicked and dropped the jockstrap and tried to explain.
I’m so sorry. I got behind on laundry and tried to do it all today and it filled up three washers and then three dryers and I grabbed the first two loads which are definitely mine you can check and then I accidentally grabbed yours and I’ll put it all back I promise.
He just stood there calmly as I stammered. He walked towards the table and sat his basket down. He peered over at me and smiled.
You always get a hard on when you do laundry?
I looked down and saw that I was clearly tenting up my sweatpants.
This is a first for me actually.
Well, I have a question for you. What do you stick your dick in- men or women?
I was shocked. I thought about grabbing my basket and running, but his clothes were still on top.
Um, I’m gay. As if he hadn’t heard me, he began moving his clothes into his basket. He got them all in and picked up the jock that I dropped onto the table.
Well then, it looks like you’re about to have a fun ride. Go close that door buddy.
I could have left right there, but I did what I said. Adrenaline was coursing through my body, but I didn’t feel unsafe. I just felt a little naughty- I didn’t just want to go jerk off in my apartment alone like usual tonight. I walked over and shut the door and clicked the lock.
I like the way you think. Let’s see what you’re packing. Without thinking, I started to strip right there. I pulled off my baggy shirt and sweatpants, and with only a slight hesitation, I pushed my boxers to the ground. I was standing naked in front of a stranger, completely hard. He picked up the leather and walked over to me. He rubbed the warm strap across my chest and down my back. The hot, metal buckle burned a bit, but I liked it.
Do you wanna try it on?
Yes. My answer came quicker than I wanted, but the man just laughed. He knelt down and gently, sensually let me step into it. He pulled it up and began to adjust the straps. He pulled hard, and my ass cheeks were squeezed together, basically there solely for him to admire. My hard cock was through the cock ring, but it was too big for me. I needed to see him naked to see what could really fill this ring.
I stepped forward towards him and leaned up to kiss him. He knelt down for me, and I could feel his tongue filling my mouth. He was a gentle kisser- such a contrast from the demeanor he gave off. He pulled back and lifted his shirt above his head. His beefy pecs spilled out, and my mouth went straight for them. I swirled my tongue around his right nipple, and he let loose a guttural moan. I could feel his body tense. I somehow pulled away and knelt down to get those pants off of him. I unbuttoned his pants and yanked them down. I was now at face level with his crotch, which was clad in a bright pink pair of snug briefs. The fabric was almost see through across his bulge, and I could see my prize. I pulled those down as well and put my mouth to work. He quickly begin to grow in my mouth, and it was a feat not to gag on his size. I heard coins being put into the washer behind him, and it started vibrating. The added motion sent me into a frenzy, but he pulled me off.
Not yet, I’m getting close. Your turn. He picked me up and sat me on the washer as if I weighed nothing. I had a few seconds to take in the sight of one of the most beautiful men I’d ever seen, before his mouth was on me. His mustache rubbed against my dick, which turned me on more that I knew. Between his mouth and the vibration on my ass, I was cumming within minutes. He kept his mouth on me, and right as I came, he shoved two fingers in my ass. I came like I never had before, and he sucked it all down. Before I even had time to process, he had gotten a condom from his jeans, pulled it on, and he had his dick in my ass. He pushed the head in, and once I started moaning in ecstasy, he pushed his way fully in.
He pounded away at me, and I felt things I’d never felt before. The spin cycle began, and he came into my ass, shooting twice as much as I had. I felt him against my prostrate, and I felt my dick shivering again. I came a second time onto my stomach, and he leaned down to lick it off. I was his now, completely. He lifted me to the ground, and my legs almost fell beneath me. He helped me get dressed, and I felt so warm. He began to dress, and I watched his firm ass as he pulled those jeans up, not even pulling on his briefs.
So, how does a man own a leather jockstrap and pastel briefs?
He turned around and laughed. The jock was actually a novelty gift from an old ex. It must have accidentally fallen into my hamper in the closet. But of course, I wanted you to think that I used it all the time. You keep it though. He threw me the pink briefs from the floor as well. And keep these too to remember me.
I didn’t realize anyone was walking towards my room until I saw Melinda and Jason in the doorway. Jason and I were having a housewarming party downstairs, and I had run upstairs to change into swim trunks to christen our new pool. Melinda apparently needed sunscreen.
I quickly tugged my pants back up and hoped that no damage was done. Melinda, Jason’s new dumb girlfriend of the month, was just standing there smiling- I don’t think I’d heard her talk today. I handed off the sunscreen, and she floated back downstairs. I had been avoiding eye contact with Jason, but I looked up at him to see him casually leaning against the door and smiling at me. We had been friends for a while, and I was trying to suppress my crush on him since I knew he was straight. Well, at least I thought he was.
You know, my bedroom is all the way downstairs. Do you think I could just borrow an extra pair of shorts from you?
Uh, yeah man. Let me grab another pair. I ducked into my closet and pulled another pair, one that I had outgrown a while ago, and came back into the room. Jason had already chucked off his shirt and shorts and was standing half naked in front of me. He was always cut, and he had that lanky muscular body that drove me wild. With a smirk, he dropped his boxers and grabbed the shorts from my hand. I’d never seen him naked before, and I tried not to stare, but I couldn’t help. He had the dick that you only seen in porn. It was flopping around as he stepped into the shorts, and he had to push it down to close the fly. The shorts stuck like glue to his thighs, and his bulge was hilariously visible through the yellow fabric.
Well, aren’t you gonna keep changing? You can’t start a show and not finish.
I had assumed that he’d head out after getting changed, but he sat down on my bed and waited. I unzipped my jeans again and slid them off. I quickly stepped into my shorts, but I couldn’t hide my semi-hard cock. I stuffed it inside and hoped that I wasn’t as visible as Jason. He didn’t seem to have any problems with the situation.
He stood up and gave me a slap on the ass and walked into the hallway.
Super excited to be roommates buddy. Also, Melinda is a friend from work that I’m trying to set up with Chad. I’ll actually be free all night.
The way he said that last phrase basically melted me on the spot. I heard him run downstairs and jump into the pool. I wanted to follow him, but after looking down at my crotch, I needed a few minutes to get presentable. I yanked my shorts down and started to jerk off to the fantasy I’d be living out tonight.
A bet’s a bet, Randy- we said you had to strip off everything.
They knocked him to the sand and ripped his tight briefs off, leaving him there, exposed. Randy had drunkenly bet his clothes on a football bet, not really caring if his friends saw him naked in his living room. But they waited to cash in until their next beach retreat, a tradition that they’d had for decades.
Once they got their chairs set up on the beach, Randy was forced to strip. He pulled off his shirt exposing his hairy gut to the beach. Back in college, Randy was a star linebacker, 240 pounds of pure muscle. Over the years, beer took the place of the gym, but he still had the same swagger he did back in his glory days. Without any hesitation, he untied his swim trunks and dropped them, showing off  a tiny pair of blue briefs. He turned around and showed off his fat ass peeking out of the sides- too much for that stretched piece of fabric. He thought he was done, but his friends wanted everything.
Seconds later, they’d grabbed his underwear and took off with them. He followed for a few seconds, but he saw a college co-ed lower her sunglasses and smile over at him. Looks like he still had it. He waved over at her and walked back to sit his naked ass in his chair. He cracked open a beer and started working on his all-over tan with a smile.
It was only the second day of swim team tryouts, and I’d already fucked up. All I had to do was remember to pack my swim trunks, but as I headed into the locker room to change, I realized that I didn’t have them. I walked out to the pool with the other freshman and saw all of the upperclassmen and coach standing at the water’s edge. I was immediately noticed.
Marcus, why the hell are you wearing gym shorts? Those things will slide off and end up in the pool filter before your scrawny ass hits the other side. You’re gonna be cut unless you can get some swim trunks in the next thirty minutes.
All the older boys started laughing as they knew what was coming next. All but one.
Coach, I’m sorry but I just forgot to pack them.
The coach walked forward and got in my face. Well then, I guess you’ll need to learn another one of my rules. If you aren’t dressed properly, you won’t be dressed at all. Drop em, you can swim your laps naked.
I was stunned. Could this be really happening? I knew college was different than high school, but not like this. Luckily, before I could even figure out if I was willing to drop or not, one of the seniors, Skylar, saved me.
Coach, give him a break. He was one of the fastest swimmers yesterday. I’m sure his shorts are tight enough now.
Coach just glared back at him, and as his answer, he pulled my shorts down to my ankles in one motion. I was left standing there in my tighty whities for all the world to see.
Well Skylar, do those look tight enough to you? Again, if you can’t find swim trunks in the next thirty minutes, you’ll be losing those too.
Before I could even think, I was hit in the face by a pair of swim trunks. They fell into my hands, and I looked around for where they came from. In front of me, Skylar was now standing there naked with his hands on his hips and a grin on his face.
Now then, let’s actually start tryouts, and he jumped into the pool with his ass in the air.
This company retreat was not turning out well for Trevor. Yesterday, they had an ice breaker session for all of the new interns to get to know each other. One guy said his favorite movie was Home Alone, and Trevor made fun of him for picking a kid’s movie. And today, when he broke in line at the dining hall, he accidentally knocked a girl down. That got a milkshake dumped on his head. He stormed outside and there was that nerdy kid from before holding a rope for some reason. Trevor, still pissed from the milkshake incident, went to go confront him, but he tripped over something on the way. When he stood up, the kid pulled the rope, and he felt his pants being pulled off of him. Before he could do anything, he heard the laughs of the entire intern class behind him. He looked down and remembered he had worn his last clean pair of underwear today. This couldn’t get any worse…
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ilonacamille · 6 years
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Get to know me tag
Hello everyone! I’m so thankful I was born in the right decade to share my journey online. The fitblr community is a wonderful place filled with wonderful people. I think it’d be pretty cool to get to know each other a bit better so here’s an incredibly long get to know me tag. I tag @healthierhappier-me @justanotheruserjms @elenadoeslife and anyone who wants to do this tag :) 
1. What is your full name? Ilona Camille R. M.  (Already cheating this, but I’m literally the only person in the world with this name and not everyone has to find this blog)
2. What is your nickname? My family calls me Sis (as in sister) but like the Dutch version is Zus
3. What is your zodiac sign? Aquarius (Turned 21 on 02/16!)  
4. What is your favorite book series? I loved the Girls series by Jacqueline Wilson. I’m such an adult.
5. Do you believe in aliens or ghosts? Yes.
6. Who is your favorite author? Can I say John Green? I might sound like a basic B but I guess I am.
7. What is your favorite radio station? MNM (Belgian)
8. What is your favorite flavor of anything? Cheesy? haha
9. What word would you use often to describe something great or wonderful? Magical
10. What is your current favorite song? Moving Parts - Trixie Mattel or Wonderland - Taylor Swift
11. What is your favorite word? Fairylights
12. What was the last song you listened to? Want You Back - 5 Seconds of Summer
13. What TV show would you recommend for everybody to watch? The Good Place
14. What is your favorite movie to watch when you’re feeling down? Any Bridget Jones movie
15. Do you play video games? Does Sims 4 count? 
16. What is your biggest fear? Dying
17. What is your best quality, in your opinion? I am nice to everyone
18. What is your worst quality, in your opinion? I trust too quickly but also lose trust very quickly
19. Do you like cats or dogs better? I have one cat and four dogs. So..
20. What is your favorite season? I always say Fall but since I’ve been craving strawberries and pool parties I’m going with Summer.
21. Are you in a relationship? Nope
22. What is something you miss from your childhood? My grandmothers.
23. Who is your best friend? My dog lol
24. What is your eye color? Grey
25. What is your hair color? Naturally: brown. Right now: dirty blonde 
26. Who is someone you love? Mom
27. Who is someone you trust? My brother
28. Who is someone you think about often? Probably my dog haha
29. Are you currently excited about/for something? I’m seeing Harry Styles live in a few weeks!
30. What is your biggest obsession? Rupaul’s Drag Race for sure!
31. What was your favorite TV show as a child? Hannah Montana
32. Who of the opposite gender can you tell anything to, if anyone? My gay bestie
33. Are you superstitious? Incredibly
34. Do you have any unusual phobias? Is it unusual to be scared of balloons? I’m really scared they will pop. 
35. Do you prefer to be in front of the camera or behind it? Both
36. What is your favorite hobby? Pole dancing
37. What was the last book you read? Valley Of The Dolls (still reading)
38. What was the last movie you watched? Legally Blonde
39. What musical instruments do you play, if any? Guitar and Ukelele
40. What is your favorite animal? Alpaca
41. What are your top 5 favorite Tumblr blogs that you follow? The ones I tagged for sure and honestly if I follow you, it means you have great content. I’m picky.
42. What superpower do you wish you had? Reading minds
43. When and where do you feel most at peace? We have a fairly big yard. In summer I love to go to our poolhouse and have breakfast whilst seeing the sun reflect on the pool, chickens running around and my dogs playing.
44. What makes you smile? My dogs
45. What sports do you play, if any? Zumba, poledancing
46. What is your favorite drink? Virgin Mojito
47. When was the last time you wrote a hand-written letter or note to somebody? Probably in class when we weren’t allowed to use our laptops. My friend and I were probably the only people to have passed a note in college.  
48. Are you afraid of heights? Yes
49. What is your biggest pet peeve? People talking over me or not listening
50. Have you ever been to a concert? Probably over 20 so far
51. Are you vegan/vegetarian? I’m a vegan/vegetarian/pescotarian. Basically I try to aim for vegan BUT! I live in the middle of nowhere and most restaurants don’t even have a vegetarian option. I adapt but I always try to go for vegan. I did not eat meat for the last 11 years and maybe 5x fish? 
52. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? A vet by day, superstar by night. My parents tried very hard to explain it didn’t work like that.
53. What fictional world would you like to live in? Sims 4. It’s so aesthetically pleasing.
54. What is something you worry about? School, weight, love, health,...
55. Are you scared of the dark? Yes
56. Do you like to sing? A lot
57. Have you ever skipped school? Lol yeah
58. What is your favorite place on the planet? I loved London so much the last 4 times 
59. Where would you like to live? Staying right here in Belgium
60. Do you have any pets? 4 dogs, 1 cat and 3 chickens
61. Are you more of an early bird or a night owl? I can be very excited in the morning but staying up late is like a talent.
62. Do you like sunrises or sunsets better? Sunset
63. Do you know how to drive? I do, I still need to get my license though. 
64. Do you prefer earbuds or headphones? Earbuds
65. Have you ever had braces? Those demonic devices that go in your mouth? Yeah.
66. What is your favorite genre of music? Pop
67. Who is your hero? Bruce Springsteen
68. Do you read comic books? When I was a kid I used to read them a lot (Belgian ones)
69. What makes you the most angry? Inequality 
70. Do you prefer to read on an electronic device or with a real book? real book
71. What is your favorite subject in school? Social Media
72. Do you have any siblings? An older brother
73. What was the last thing you bought? A beautiful cocktaildress. It’s just above the knee, mintgreen, has sparkly details on the shoulders. And I think it’s a chiffon fabric? So adorable.
74. How tall are you? 5ft4
75. Can you cook? Yes! I’ve been looking up new recipes the last few weeks
76. What are three things that you love? * Makeup * Velvet clothes * Workout clothes
77. What are three things that you hate? * Racists * Homophobes, transphobes * Injustice
78. Do you have more female friends or more male friends? It’s kind of equal
79. What is your sexual orientation? Who even knows
80. Where do you currently live? Belgium
81. Who was the last person you texted? Mom
82. When was the last time you cried? When I fully breakdown under school stress 
83. Who is your favorite YouTuber? Karuna Satori ASMR or Shane Dawson
84. Do you like to take selfies? Love 
85. What is your favorite app? MyFitnessPal/Fitbit
86. What is your relationship with your parent(s) like? Great
87. What is your favorite foreign accent? The stereotype British one and Australian
88. What is a place that you’ve never been to, but you want to visit? LITERALLY ANY PLACE IN THE US. Preferably LA/NY though haha.
89. What is your favorite number? 162
90. Can you juggle? Nope
91. Are you religious? I’ve been raised as a Catholic but I’m not really practicing any beliefs right now.
92. Do you find outer space of the deep ocean to be more interesting? Outer space
93. Do you consider yourself to be a daredevil? No, I wish I was
94. Are you allergic to anything? Christmas trees. Oh yes. December is such a lovely time for me. 
95. Can you curl your tongue? Yes
96. Can you wiggle your ears? No
97. How often do you admit that you were wrong about something? Not a lot (oops)
98. Do you prefer the forest or the beach? Beach in summer, forest in fall
99. What is your favorite piece of advice that anyone has ever given you? Walk into the room and assume everyone likes you
100. Are you a good liar? Yes
101. What is your Hogwarts House? Hufflepuff
102. Do you talk to yourself? Yeah
103. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Ambivert
104. Do you keep a journal/diary? Does this tumblr count?
105. Do you believe in second chances? Depends
106. If you found a wallet full of money on the ground, what would you do? Look at the ID, try to return it.
107. Do you believe that people are capable of change? I hope so
108. Are you ticklish? Incredibly. I’ve kicked many people who were careless about my warnings.
109. Have you ever been on a plane? Nope, very scared.
110. Do you have any piercings? Just earrings
111. What fictional character do you wish was real? Wonder Woman (let’s pretend she is)
112. Do you have any tattoos? nope
113. What is the best decision that you’ve made in your life so far? Buying my pomeranian and choosing Communication- social media as my degree
114. Do you believe in karma? Yes
115. Do you wear glasses or contacts? Nope
116. Do you want children? Yes
117. Who is the smartest person you know? My brother
118. What is your most embarrassing memory? You just made me have a cringe attack. I participated in a talent show at my school and was singing Jar Of Hearts. But my microphone didn’t work so I spend 3 minutes dramatically singing and everyone saw the weird kid doing a weird lip sync to an instrumental number.
119. Have you ever pulled an all-nighter? Yes
120. What color are most of you clothes? Black, burgundy and blue
121. Do you like adventures? Yes
122. Have you ever been on TV? Yes, I used to be an extra for tv shows
123. How old are you? 21
124. What is your favorite quote? “If you can’t love yourself how the heeeelll are you gonna love somebody else, can I get an Amen?” - Rupaul
125. Do you prefer sweet or savory foods? Savory Oh if you’re tagged, pm me for the link to the questions so you can copy+paste :)
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canadianabroadvery · 4 years
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Canada's Conservatives are “completely clued out” about the unpopularity of hard-right social policies and are essentially “campaigning against themselves,” two leading political commentators argued in an online panel discussion last Monday.
Answering questions from Canada's National Observer editor-in-chief Linda Solomon Wood, columnists Bruce Livesey and Sandy Garossino spent an hour tackling wide-ranging questions about why today's Canadian conservative movement has moved so far to the right, its hopes for retaking power in the face of an increasingly progressive populace, and how evangelical Christians and Big Oil got a stranglehold on the right.
“The social conservative base is enormously powerful,” Livesey told Solomon Wood and the audience of 100 participants on the Zoom webinar, part of Conversations, sponsored by Canada's National Observer. “The reason (leadership rivals) Peter MacKay and Erin O'Toole have taken the positions they're doing — which are ludicrous in terms of ever trying to get elected — is because the base has this enormous social conservative element. In order to win the leadership, you've got to pander to them.”
But that's precisely what has lost them repeated elections, and will only worsen their chances over time, he said.
Livesey — an award-winning investigative journalist with experience on CBC's flagship shows The Fifth Estate and The National, Global News' 16×9, and PBS's Frontline — most recently did an analysis on the state of the Conservatives for the National Observer entitled, How Stephen Harper is destroying the Conservative party.
He said he interviewed between 25 and 30 sources for his story, and other than a couple political scientists as experts, focused almost entirely on hearing from Conservative members past and present.
“I tried to basically interview just Conservatives … people within the party, both from when they used to be called the PC (Progressive Conservative) party all the way up to the current generation,” Livesey said. “There's a lot of people who wouldn't talk to me … It was a big challenge; given that I was going to talk to them about Stephen Harper, there seemed to be a bit of a concern.”
But some did want to talk, and could be broadly lumped into two camps: the long-ousted progressive wing of the party, once nicknamed “Red Tories”; and the more recent alumni and strategists of the Harper era.
“If you talked to the sort of Red Tories — the 'liberal' wing of the party — there was no surprise there that they think the party's stuck in a ditch,” Livesey said. “The more interesting thing was finding the younger generation who were around Harper in some capacity, who are beginning to realize — having lost two back-to-back elections — that something was wrong.”
What exactly is wrong, however, he found divisive amongst loyalists. Some expressed hope to find a better leader than Andrew Scheer to save their flagging fortunes. But others, Livesey said, had started to see problems in the party's offerings to voters altogether.
“That's the contradiction the party's in at the moment,” Livesey, author of the book Thieves of Bay Street, said. “The base just thinks, 'We just need the next Stephen Harper to lead us back into power.'
“Abortion and gay marriage — those are the two issues that get social conservatives all agitated, and they want to have something done about them. Harper was brilliant at keeping that element under a lock and key. Scheer was not … nobody trusted him on those issues. The social conservative base is an enormous problem for that party.”
Whoever wins the leadership of the party, Livesey predicted, must “basically ignore what the base is” if they want to win enough seats outside Alberta, the Prairies and rural Ontario.
Hard Right
Garossino, meanwhile, agreed that infighting over who can be the most hardline on divisive issues such as LGBTQ rights and abortion is only hurting the party more with each utterance and campaign plank.
The popular longtime columnist with Canada's National Observer spent years previously as a Crown prosecutor and trial lawyer and Vancouver community advocate. She is also a keen observer of Canadian and American political trends, admitting Monday she's a big nerd for electoral data and crunching riding numbers. While she and Livesey admitted few Tories are likely paying heed to this publication, they ought to at least pay attention to the dismal electoral data.
When it comes to hard-right social issues, the numbers don't lie.
“They're actually campaigning against themselves the more they play to that,” Garossino said. “It doesn't play in any of the areas that the federal Conservatives need to take power. They have got to get into the 905 — the (Greater Toronto Area) — and they've got to get into Quebec.”
According to the most recent polls, the Conservatives are indeed trailing behind the Liberals — despite Scheer's repeated attempts to portray Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a reckless spendthrift, contemptuous of accountability and the rule of law.
A new poll released June 28 by respected pollster Léger Marketing placed Liberals at 40 per cent support, double-digits ahead of Conservatives in voter intentions compared to the Tories' 28 per cent. (The survey of 1,524 Canadians gave the NDP 17 per cent support, the Bloc Québecois seven per cent, and Greens one point behind; the online poll's margin of error could be considered equivalent to 2.5 per cent.) The results mirrored another opinion survey last week.
But yet another poll by Ekos Research found an even starker divide when it comes to gender last week, with Liberals leading among women with a staggering 24 per cent lead over the Tories, which held a slight lead over the Grits among men.
Multi-poll aggregator 338Canada, meanwhile, ran 250,000 statistical election simulations using recent polls and predicted a 189-seat Liberal seat majority if an election were held now, with the Tories trailing at 94 seats (a party needs a minimum 170 seats to win a majority government).
But both Livesey and Garossino reminded participants in the Zoom event that key to electoral victory in Canada is commanding broad support across the most vote-rich, densely populated urban centres — particularly the Greater Toronto Area suburbs, Montreal, and B.C.'s Lower Mainland. It was a lesson former Prime Minister Stephen Harper understood despite his past social-conservative, Reform Party roots.
That's something Livesey believes the Conservatives have lost sight of completely. He has little hope the once-moderate stalwarts of the party will regain control any time soon because of the need to survive the hard-right base that serves as a gauntlet for would-be leaders.
“They're not taking into consideration the electoral math that plays into this,” he explained. “The Tories' base gets them about 30 per cent of the vote, but to win a minority, you need around 35, a majority around 40.
“That means you've got to convince ... the very seat-rich urban hubs like Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal … that you represent their interests. That is the programmatic problem with the party now. They have completely clued out to the fact that those voters don't want to vote for that particular platform.”
Stuck on Harper
In his June 25 analysis, Livesey argued former prime minister Stephen Harper remains the most powerful force in today's party, but may be, in fact, undermining “the very thing he created” as his successor Scheer steers the party sharply towards the far right on issues such as abortion and LGBTQ rights.
It's something Tory supporters should be extremely wary of, particularly as the far-right administration in the pandemic-gutted United States faces “potential devastation of unbelievable proportions because of the failure of this one man,” Garossino said. But the roots of the crisis go back decades to Reagan-era right-wing neoliberal movements, she and Livesey agreed, as billionaires and corporations were effectively handed the keys to power in the U.S.
Today, with tens of millions of unemployed losing their private health benefits, the chickens are now coming home to roost in that country.
“If you look at the trajectory, this is the sum result of a program that began in the '70s and '80s to, in effect, ensure the state did nothing for the average American citizen,” Livesey said. “(It marked) the end of the so-called welfare state — the New Deal type of government — and the capture of the state by largely the billionaire class.”
But although the Tea Party hasn't taken hold to the same extent north of the 49th parallel, similar hardline right movements have found sympathy in many parts of Canada.
Canadians, and particularly those loyal to the Conservative party, ought to worry about similar political movements here gaining any more foothold than they have. But it was actually Canada's Reagan-era Conservative leader who garnered some positive attention in Monday's online discussion.
Faced with a stark ideological choice today, Tories might look for inspiration — and success — to former PM Brian Mulroney.
“The PCs recognized they had to be a centre party to win power. The person most genius at figuring that out was Mulroney, he won two solid majorities … and destroyed the Liberals in Quebec. They had the 'big tent' approach, that social conservatives, Red Tories, environmentalists, people from all walks of life, fiscal conservatives, could all be under the same umbrella." Livesey said.
“It worked until it didn't work.”
Mulroney was also considered a leader on environmental issues, and even stalwart Conservative architect Tom Flanagan told Livesey he hoped for some critical Tory reflection on their climate change and carbon pricing policies.
“There is increasing awareness they have to be better on that front,” Livesey said, “even if it is in a very cynical way.”
But it's not just the evangelicals trying to steer the Tory ship. Another powerful force in the country has leveraged influence extremely effectively. Livesey and Garossino said other than the Tories' social conservative base, the party also has been held “hostage” by the oil industry lobby and some of Harper's former entourage, such as Jason Kenney, now Alberta premier.
Garossino has frequently commented on the state of Canada's Conservatives, most recently in her May 27 column, Stephen Harper's power dissolves, in which she argued that Harper continues to “control his chastened party” from the sidelines, but as “the right’s energy and narrative has been seized by Trumpian ideologues,” the Canadian electoral as moved on and is no longer interested.
Canada's Conservatives ought to ponder those trends carefully before selecting their next leader, Garossino said, but she's not hopeful.
“To get to be a contender nationally, you have to get past the base, which is far more conservative than the Canadian public,” she said. “They're almost fighting against themselves.”
Could the Red Tories stage a Mulroney-inspired comeback — and retake the reins from today's increasingly unpalatable oil and religious party wings? That remains to be seen.
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bisexualraplines · 4 years
Text
things about the gays from the unt*med that make me go absolutely unhinged: an incomprehensible list by my sleep deprived self (contains spoilers obvs)
1. the fact that they’re ancient china’s spock and jimothy equivalents right down to the chaotic bisexual dumbass and obedient grumpy energies. i am predictable ik but hear me out....
2. when they first meet (after lz’s Dramatic Entrance) they’re literally just standing there staring at each other. for like a whole minute. love at first sight is real I’ve seen it
3. for their second meeting they immediately start swordfighting cause wwx broke school rules
4. all the times wwx tries to get lz’s attention, even in class, and lz being Extremely Flustered But Annoyed About It. or when he straight up ignores wwx’s advancess and wwx is like “he didn’t hear me. he’s just hard of hearing” ajdjsjs
5. when lz’s uncle “punishes” them both by making them sit in the library for the day and wwx annoys lz to death by a) drawing a portrait of him (its really good) b) sneaking porn into his book and c) asking him to give him the honour of “Glimpsing His Way” okay babey...
6. when lz gets Wasted and passes out on wwx’s sofa and wwx laughs so hard but still tucks him in 🙂
7. when lz ties his headband around both of their wrists like its the String Of Fate (it is)
8. lz telling wwx he doesn’t like touching people yet still touches him every chance he gets.... i see you
9. lz’s brother side eyeing and shipping it so hard and being unable to not bring up wwx to him in like every private convo between them “you care him!!” “I Do Not >: (“
10. lz getting drunk and stealing chickens for wwx as a gift because he’s overwhelmed with romantic frusteration and then the both of them carving their names on a tree
11. wwx, jealous: “do u like miammiam” lz: [gay judgement and prolonged silence] wwx, bursting out laughing: i’m kidding imagine heterosexuality!
12. when resurrected wwx sees lz again for the first time and lz’s wearing pure white robes and wwx’s face is so tender and he says “always dressed in white. like he’s at a funeral” with the softest voice and it killed me dead
13. when wwx comes back to life and he plays the song lz wrote about them in their youth and lz recognizes it and therefore recognizing him behind the mask and he approaches him for the first time in 13 years and time stops and he touches his wrist and they stare at each other for like several long moments and it made me have a whole breakdown
14. when wwx is half unconscious in the cave and asks lz to play a song for him to comfort him and lz plays the song he composed for him 🙂
15. wwx giving lz bunnies cause he knows he likes them. and later a bunny painting and lz smiles at him for the first time and wwx points that out and lz gets flustered
16. “what am i to you” “i saw you as my soulmate in life” “i still am” do not look at me i am breaking down
17. when lz got drunk and passed out and wwx (again) tenderly touches his cheek & tucks him in. then the next morning lz is like “did i do anything dumb...” and wwx is like “i recall u saying ‘i like..’” and lz’s horrified Gay Panic
18. wwx being annoyed by lz’s clans endless rules and telling him lz would never find anyone that would want to marry him bc of those rules and being the whole circus when he marries him in the end
19. when wwx adopts an orphaned kid and they become dads (accidental baby acquisition)
20. when wwx dies and lz raises the baby alone. then later when wwx talks to lz about how their son would be a teenager now if he was still alive and lz looks at him like oh yeah raised ur son 😬
21. lz telling wwx his biggest regret was allowing him to die/letting him go and telling him he’s never leaving his side again
22. when wwx tells lz he wants to take him to his home one day and then a decade later they DO and they basically get married there under wwx’s clans customs 🥺
23. every single time one of their siblings or youth drinking buddies third wheel or Knowingly Side eye
24. wwx wearing lz’s undergarments and wwx taking off his overclothes in front of lz’s uncle and brother and lz’s uncle Noticing and his face is literally just [hand to mouth]. power move of the century
25. lz disobeying his own family to protect wwx even when wwx was too far gone and receiving severe punishment by getting hundreds of lashes
26. lz asking wwx to Run Away With Him when everything was getting bad and his location of choice is where they first met lol
27. when lz gives wwx a lotus when they’re (lowkey cuddling) on the boat in lotus pier (paralleling with wwx telling him he wanted to show him lotus pier and how he’d give him a lotus..... bro)
28. every single time wwx attempts to strip in front of him (there has been several times) and lz’s look of Gay Panic
29. Breakup In The Rain and wwx telling lz if he was to die he wanted to die by his hand and its the most beautiful and tragic scene in the whole show
30. when lz gets alarmed wwx reaches for his hand 🥺 every single time!!
31. when wwx takes the shot for lz during a lan clan ceremony (he doesn’t like alcohol) hottest scene of all time
32. this quote: “when everyone admired my power and wanted to flatter me, you’re the only one who scolded me. But right now, when everyone wants me to die and hates me, you’re the only one standing by me.”
33. *wwx is resurrected* lz: ah shit here we go again
34. sometimes when you grow up you become an esteemed scholar. and sometimes your boyfriend becomes a necromancer. its fine
35. the extremely predictable sun/moon dynamic. the contrasting colour schemes. I rest my case
36. the slowburniest slowburn of over 20 years with the best emotional payoff. i deserve to see it
more to be added cause your girl is only 20-something eps in 🤡
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streetkitten · 7 years
Text
Regulation of the Black Woman
The original purpose of this topic was to express my annoyance with how people flock to “pro-black” comments made by non-black persons, but the same people who flock to those individuals have no real intention of supporting them unless they are speaking up for pro-blackness or are black themselves.
After going through the motions of trying to figure out why humans do this, I came across an age-old problem: black women.
Black women are a problem for society. If it’s not the skin color, it’s the hair, if its not the hair it’s the attitude, if it’s not the attitude it’s the body-types. No one is more scrutinized than the black woman. Period. Black women give and give in order to find acceptance in various communities only to be met with disdain when they want to voice opinions, thoughts and fears about themselves as black women.
Before I go any further, I need to explain a few things about the black community that is not always common knowledge to non-black individuals. These issues are not often addressed (outside the black community) nor taken seriously. So based on my original purpose for making this article, let me begin with the source: Interracial dating.
Interracial-dating is not always welcomed in the black community due to various OBVIOUS social issues. Even so, black men have more free-range to date outside of the black community than black women. More-so the same men who fawn over white, Asian and hispanic/Latino women will often times degrade a black woman for doing the same. This issue has become apparent to most in the anime community (Japanese animation), which has transferred into the kpop (South Korean music) community and beyond. We even see jokes about black women dating non-black women and see it promoted in non-black communities (Hollywood), whereas the black woman is rarely seen in interracial relationships.
Regulating “blackness”.  How did it stay strong well into 2017?
1.Black people constantly regulate each other’s “blackness” based on stereotypes- hiphop, having soul, chicken, slang, Beyonce vs, hood-movies, etc. such stereotypes were enforced through the decades by non-black individuals who thought they knew what it meant to be a black person.
2. Black people come up with things like “the black card” to determine if they are “black or not” based on stereotypes imposed on them by the white community, which we have reinforced & re-imaged for centuries.
3. A lot of Black people who are willingly to give up the “black card” to enjoy their hobbies with no regret, do so hoping other black people (and society in general) will stop making fun of them for it.
4.Even after black people accept their passions (by accepting I mean doing it publicly), they are then given “new names” like “weird black girl”,  “white Korean”. Black people are believed to operate under very basic guidelines of what it is to be black. Most guidelines consist of: hiphop, poor, overly sexual beings, dangerous, only support black products and black people, uneducated, etc.  Operating outside of those guidelines result in the above mentioned.
If you didn’t know white people appear to be given free-range to like and do essentially anything b/c they are involved in and have taken over a variety of industries. The black community is involved in other industries, but it is not often promoted or praised. When they are praised, it is solely because the individual a black. Meaning they are praised for doing something that goes against the “guidelines”.
What does this have to do with black women & kpop and some tweets?
1. As stated before, black men have more power to date outside the black community and receive less scrutiny (by both sexes). It has become a societal norm. Possibly related to men being allowed more independence than women? Maybe.
2. Black women dating outside the black community is met with severe scrutiny by men and sometimes by women (who uphold what most black men believe to be true.) If you notice AMBW FB groups and IG pages, it’s not purely out of fetish like many want to believe and enforce on others. These groups and pages are created due to stereotypes, prejudice & racism they receive from their peers and total strangers. This issue of scrutiny applies to all ethnicities of interracial dating, however the black community is criticized the most for doing so.
The Asian community is seen as odd & unattractive. Another ethnicity society says is undesirable. So often times, when you have two ethnicities deemed as undesired are with another the confusion is high. People who don’t know how to process this information, their immediate reaction is generally on the lines of “What? Do you see that? Why?”
So what does any of that have to do with black women and non-black hobbies? EVERYTHING!
1. Black women are known for being the loudest in the black community when it comes to black lives. They support other black women, black men, black babies, black causes, etc. But they rarely see the same support back.
2. Black women are heavily regulated & judged essentially by everyone- black men, white women, non-black men, gay men, etc. Black women  have to uphold standards place upon their heads by even other black women. But lets face it, those women are only mimicking what they’ve been taught by those already mentioned. 
3.You would think black women’s life-long efforts of supporting the black community would transcend as black women navigate away from black-stereotyped hobbies. Black women have “proven loyalty” to the black community time and time again. Often times, black men do not reciprocate that notion, and often times it is seen publicly by non-black communities. Which generally results in a further negative image on black women that easily reinforces the above mentioned stereotypes.
What more do you want from black women??
Their bodies apparently. Black women are one of the highest sexualized groups of individuals (Asian and Hispanic/Latino’s suffer as well, but not to the same degree) so it is no surprise when black women decide to do their own thing the black community gets upset. Protecting the queens? Maybe. Regardless, black women have found their independence and it seems everyone is out to stop it from happening.
The natual-hair trend is no longer a trend. It is becoming normalized in households. Skin-bleaching (colorism in the black community) has reportedly dropped in various countries over the last few years as women of color pursue their natural journey. Which means finding beauty in their natural-born looks and moving away from flat irons, relaxers and weave. Black-african hair is one of the most scrutinized on the planet. Where afro’s mean “black pride”, corn rows are “thugs” and “hiphop”, while dreads are “weed smokers” and “unkempt” beings along with short hair being a symbol for “tribal African” and black females having the inability to grow hair which is the sole-purpose of weave. Black-African hair can’t simply exist as hair like other ethnicities.
When beauty products come out that show black women as the target market, many believe black women are trying to be special and segregate themselves from other ethnicities. This is not the case. What many find offensive, are persons who are wholly responsible for the lack of diversity and representation, have the audacity to complain when a brand emerges with a target market that does not represent them.
Brands like Rihanna’s Fenty, is doing what many black women and other women of color have been asking for for decades- a proper line that represents the diversity of melanated skin. Now that women of color have this brand, beauty corporations well-known for marketing to white and fair-skinned persons are surprised by how popular the darker tones are. How many times must women of color ask “white brands” for representation before they seek out whole new brands for their needs? Coincidentally enough these other brands seem to be releasing darker color palettes as well. It is interesting to see this all play out. It further proves the message many have been preaching for decades: black women really don’t matter. Unless of course it goes against the grain of what society has bestowed- worthless.
So with all that in mind. I would like for people to remove stereotypes and prejudice from themselves and simply allow black women (women in general, but that’s not really the point here) to do and be as they please. Black women are not created by a set of rules. Black women are not here to fit the needs of others. Black women can be educated, love anime, visit a country not in Africa, dance to kpop and more. No one needs approval from anyone, especially black men, to do as they see fit with themselves.
*This post partly unfinished due to what seems to be an unending battle between races, sexes and the uphill battle of being properly heard and respected. If you feel major points are missing that are very crucial for painting a bigger picture feel free to add on to your own post. Eventually this post will be edited. Thank you*
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