#this is why i love that ace still does a fair amount of covers because you can see them absolutely BODY tracks

[sanstropfremir]

this is random and idk if you've already talked about it, but what do you think of stray kids' cover of my house by 2pm? i come back to it every once in a while because i like it as a song but i always thought the performance was so... emotionless. and impersonal. and i think part of that is because of the fact that they're lipsyncing. ik it's not their song and 4th gen already lip syncs as it is, and the chances for that are even higher when you're covering a song and don't want to mess it up out of respect i suppose (and even more so if it's actually your company senior.)

BUT!! even aside from that, i've noticed that like half of them look down at some point, like they're so concentrated on not messing up the moves or something, so aware that they're on stage, that it's a bit uncomfortable. i know it was during last year's award season which had no audience, but still. i much like it when an artist keeps it nice even when they're not center. i'm also aware that they might not have had the longest time to prepare for this, they performed for every award show i think so it's only natural that they were a bit worried.

surprisingly for me, my favorites in that stage are lee know and changbin, and lee know especially is not a member i pay too much attention to. but they're giving off at least some attitude. lee know's seems much too fabricated, so to speak, but changbin, especially in the beginning of his rap, seems very natural.

i have not talked about this stage actually! i don't remember watching it during the end of year shows but i was pretty laser focused on the wild shit that taemin was doing so that's not surprising. i think rookie groups of the big three have it rough when it comes to covering their seniors songs, because usually they have really fucking big shoes to fill. i can imagine that yea, skz were probably nervous as all hell to cover my house because hello, it's my house. i agree with most of your points here, i do think they probably didn't have the most amount of time to learn it, but other than nerves and unfamiliarity, i think the two biggest factors in this stage looking unnatural for them is 1) they're young and 2) it's pretty far outside of their wheelhouse. i've mentioned this a a couple of times before, both in relation to skz and to 4th gen groups as a whole, but they haven't really learned how to put on a stage persona in the same way that 2nd gen groups have. this makes it especially difficult for them to cover 2nd gen songs because the premise of 2nd gen songs is that the ridiculousness is geniune, not ironic. not that my house is that particularly ridiculous for a 2nd gen song since it came out in 2015, but the performances are still motivated from that place. the reason why lee know and changbin manage to look the most comfortable is lee know is the main (i think? one of at least) dancer and has a lot of dance training, so he's probably the most familiar with stage personas, and changbin is covering ok 'famous-for-not-giving-a-shit' taecyeon's part, which is the least stage-y and most naturalistic part in the song. and even if that were not an issue, skz is like five years too young for the vibe of this song. 2pm were already SEVEN years into their career when my house was released; the youngest members were 25 and jun.k was 27, vs bang chan who was barely scraping 23 at time of recording. for further elabouration on this point, see my previously posted response about men post-25 and how they are always hotter.

my second point of my house being outside of skz's usual repertoire is not really that deep, but i think it bears mentioning because it's connected to the other two points that i brought up, and also some things i've mentioned before. there isn't a whole lot of nuance within skz's title tracks. and i mean performance/choreographic nuance, not emotional nuance. their style tips more towards loud and brassy, with a lot of big, complex, and fast movements. my house is not that. in fact it's probably close to the polar opposite of that, which requires a diffferent set of skills that they just don't have the experience in right now. i think if skz came back in five years and did a cover again we'd be saying different things, but they were definitely punching above their pay grade here lol.

#stray kids w #i watched the regular cut stage version and then the dance practice and the wideshot fancam #and it's not that it's a bad performance it's just so very far outside their normal that it doesn't look right #its not really that weird of a trend because it kind of makes sense but also doesnt #but the propensity for making rookie groups cover senior's songs #without acknowledging the amount of experience the senior group had at time of release is a bit weird #and sets the rookies up for failure most of the time #like yea the choreo for my house isnt technically hard but also a 19yro does NOT have the vibes for that song #this is also very common with tvxq covers #i think i said it a while ago but any rookie group that tries to cover kyhd would be instantly annihilated by the vibes #this isnt really that big an issue with shinee because shinee's vibes have been relatively youthful #rookies just have to go up against the fact that its shinee lmao #and we start to see less and less full covers as groups get more mature so we dont really have an opportunity to see a proper match #which is fair and valid and i understand it is the way it is #this is why i love that ace still does a fair amount of covers because you can see them absolutely BODY tracks #the feel special its live.............head empty donghun only #kpop questions #stray kids #group analysis #text #answers

[snailor-bee]

One Piece Headcanons: Whitebeard Pirates Edition!

Okay so after seeing Foz's amazing art of Whitebeard in pearls that they drew for me, my friend Angel was like "I'm starting to feel like pearls are your style." Which got me wheezing because pearls are definitely a Foz art staple but also pearls just happen to be my favorite so I'm always like "oh yes bring on the pearls" so I guess we're both pearl enthusiasts. ANYWAYS what this all means is I had a cute and fun conversation with @aifozu and @itsthefandommash about the Whitebeard Pirates and pearls and I wanted to share!

Situation: A look at how pearls relate to the Whitebeard Pirates. Characters: Pops, Marco, Ace, Deuce, Thatch, Izou, Vista, Rakuyo, Namur, Haruta, Jozu

The Whitebeard Pirates have a monopoly on pearls. No one quite understands why but they buy them up like crazy. They pushed very hard to get an island that was technically under Marine protection to become a Whitebeard Territory, which was unusual in of itself. Most of the time islands begged them for protection. It wasn't until after it joined the long list of Whitebeard Islands, that people understood. The island was known for its pearls.

When a new member of the crew joins, they are bought to a large chest and told to pick at least two. When it's opened, most are not overly shocked to see it stuffed to the brim with pearls, every color and size imaginable. Whitebeard Pirates are known for it, afterall although no one really knows the significance. New members see how many Whitebeard Pirates walk around with pearls, clearly it means something to the crew.

No one says anything when a newly minted member selects two, digging carefully for a very long time to pick their perfect pearls. Nor does anyone breathe a word when someone else swipes the first two from the very top without a glance. Or when someone grabs a handful, or two, or even more. At least two is vague, but Whitebeard remembers what it was like to have nothing. Even if treasure never amounted to much for him personally, if someone takes more than their fair share of pearls, no one says a word. They understand what it's like to want.

After the newest nakama chose their pearls, they are told that one is to be given to Pops. They are led to his room, and when they step inside most gasp with surprise. It's a huge room, obviously, to house such a large man. But it's also covered in strings and strings of pearls. There are tiny hooks in the ceiling that the pearls are draped over, others dangle down the walls. His room is covered, one pearl for every child. More than a thousand pearls, all in one room. It is always a sight to behold.

"Why pearls?" People wonder. And only nakama are ever told. We are all children of the sea and pearls are made by the sea. Pops never wanted for treasure, but pearls always held a special place in his heart. So, the Whitebeard Pirates have pearls.

When a new nakama drink a sake cup and become family, many are proud to have their very own pearl shining on a necklace, or a bracelet, or an earring. Others might have it sewn into their clothes and still others have it hidden away in a room. Everyone shows their love differently and every type of love is accepted. They are family and they are loved.

Whitebeard Pirates and their Pearls

Marco

Blue pearl necklace, on a gold chain. His belt also has a few small pearl accents.

Ace

It was hard for him to pick at first, but he finally settled on a black pearl. He didn't wear the pearl at first until someone made him a thin jute rope bracelet, the black pearl woven in. Now he wears it with pride.

Thatch

Has a large brown pearl set in a gold ring. It goes on his middle finger but he rarely wears it, usually preferring to have it on a chain under his shirt. But when they go on shore leave he makes sure to put it on.

Izou

His "first" pearls were a lovely purple that he made into earrings. However nowadays he has every color of pearl with every accessory. He has to match whatever he's wearing, afterall.

Vista

Wears a silver-white pearl on a hat pin in his top hat. Sometimes people try to poke fun at him until he pokes back with his sword and they shut up. He likes his hat pin very much, thank you.

Rakuyo

Wears a gold pearl that dangles from one of his hoop earrings.

Namur

At first Namur didn't wear his. He felt too awkward about it, too out of place maybe. Even if the Whitebeard Pirates accepted him, accepted fish people in general, he still felt apart for the first few years. After becoming 8th Division Commander and seeing the love the crew had for him, he felt comfortable enough to showcase his pearl. It's a shiny grey and as his webbed fingers prevented a normal ring, he had it embedded in his middle finger. (A little bit to match Thatch, but don't tell him, it would go to his head.) It's subtle and not many people notice. But Namur does and that's all that matters.

Haruta

Powder green and he wears it on a fancy brooch. It matches his outfit perfectly.

Jozu

Still keeps his in his room. He had chosen a large, lumpy off-white pearl for himself. Sometimes he takes it out to hold it and rub a thumb across its textured surface. It calms him.

Deuce

A light blue, he wears it on a leather bracelet.

Pops

Would laugh at the question. He has over a thousand pearls, why does he need one of his own? The classic white pearl, set in silver on a ring on his finger says otherwise.

#whitebeard pirates #whitebeard pirates headcanon #one piece #one piece headcanon #one piece headcanons #bee writes #bee writing #marco the phoneix #thatch #portugas d ace #namur #haruta #duece

[nejibaby]

Touch

Pairing: Portgas D. Ace x Shy Reader

Description: Maybe it isn’t so bad and scary initiating touches after all.

Word Count: 1.3k

A/N: I came here to offer this fluff based on the shy x emotional dork ship dynamic. Fair warning though, I’m not good at writing fluff. I personally believe I write angst the best. Anyway, please let me know your thoughts 🥺✌🏼

Ace is a shameless man. It’s kind of a known fact. He likes showing off. But ever since he started dating you, he has to hold back his tendencies for your sake. Mainly because you get easily shy, flustered, and fidgety — especially when he brags about you to other people — that you just… walk out sometimes from feeling too overwhelmed.

And Ace doesn’t like that, he doesn’t really want you apart from him even if the distance is just a few meters away. Not because he thinks you need protecting, no; he knows you’re capable of doing that yourself. But because he just generally likes being close to you. When you’re by his side, he feels a lot at ease, almost like he’s floating on cloud nine. And being with you makes his rough edges soft.

He wouldn’t admit it, but he thinks that despite the fact that he literally has the power of fire, you’re far more powerful than him. Because you’re the one who’s actually capable of melting him.

To put it quite simply, Ace is whipped for you, and only you.

If there’s another (lesser) known fact about Ace, it’s that he’s actually touch starved. He finds it a bit hard to keep his hands off you, but he’s very mindful about it, learning from the first time he nonchalantly slung his arm on your shoulders while you were conversing with someone. You froze on the spot and lost your train of thoughts as you felt Ace’s familiar warmth and smelled his unique scent. You had to excuse yourself from him and the person you were talking with so you could calm your wildly beating heart. Ace got really worried about you and thought he unintentionally and unconsciously burned you or something, but when you explained that you just got very flustered, his worries faded away instantly.

Since then Ace keeps the skinship to a minimum. In time, he learns that there are “safe zones” where he could touch you freely and you wouldn’t mind.

One, the lower part of your back. Two, your cheeks. Occasionally, your wrist and elbow.

He also learns that you like it when he joins his pinky finger with yours.

And those small, subtle touches keep him satisfied all throughout the day.

Eventually, you start getting comfortable with his touches to the point where you sometimes craved it.

A testament to that is the amount of times when you’d laugh at Ace for withdrawing his hand away from you too quickly when he absentmindedly lets it land on your non-safe zones, instead of heating up or tensing like you usually did. Despite finding yourself enjoying his touch, you never really had the guts to place his hand back to whatever part of your body that it landed on. But that’s fine too because when this happens, he usually counters his embarrassment by tickling you until you tap out.

It’s cute, really, to have him be so gentle and mindful of your preferences. And from all the times he has shown these, today you particularly feel a need to reciprocate his affection.

In your mind, it’s simple. After all, there are so many ways you can show your love physically — holding hands, hugging, kissing his cheek or even his lips. And then there are more subtle touches — like running your fingers through his hair, patting his head, leaning your head on his shoulder. But when you’ve gathered enough courage to finally execute it, you feel like the timing isn’t always right. So it doesn’t happen, at least not until nighttime.

Ace has already dropped you off in your cabin and has bid you goodnight. It’s past an hour after that and yet instead of falling asleep, you find yourself staring at the ceiling and thinking about Ace.

Thankfully it’s his turn for the nightwatch so you don’t really worry about disrupting his sleep. You padded down the deck in hopes of finding him there. The ship is so large that it takes you quite some time before you actually find Ace. And when you do, he’s already looking at you, grinning.

“Can’t sleep, baby?” He asks once you’re within earshot.

You let out a hum as you pout, dragging your feet until you reach your boyfriend.

“My poor baby…” he coos. “Why don’t we talk about whatever until you feel sleepy? I’ll walk you back to your room then. Would you like that?”

“Very much,” you mumble as you settle beside him.

He chuckles; he couldn’t help it. He could feel the bubbling joy inside of him because of the fact that you seeked him after not being able to sleep. He likes the idea that it’s him you’d always go to no matter what the situation is.

A cold breeze then blows the moment Ace’s chuckle comes to a stop and you automatically move closer to him for warmth.

And then the idea of snuggling up with Ace pops into your mind. The thought alone is enough to make you burn up. It hits you though, that this would be the perfect timing to initiate skinship.

So you gather up your courage to do just that. You hesitantly lean your head on Ace’s shoulder. It never occurred to you before just how much warmth you could feel from Ace just by being this close, and quite frankly, it’s relaxing, especially on a chilly night like this.

Sensing no movement from your partner aside from his breathing, you use your final bout of courage to interlace your fingers with his. You find yourself with a small, genuine smile, thinking maybe it isn’t so bad and scary initiating touches after all.

A few minutes later you feel Ace turning his head away. Naturally, you think nothing of it. But when you suddenly feel him vigorously moving his other hand to his face, and hear him sniffling, you get worried.

You raise your head up from his shoulders to look at him. The vigorous movement of his hands was actually Ace wiping something from his eyes.

“Hey, Ace, are you alright? Is there something wrong?” You worriedly ask.

He doesn’t answer.

You use your hand that’s clasped with his to tug him so that he’ll face you. He shows little to no resistance with this, but he does avert his eyes from you.

And yet you’re still able to see his watery eyes. You’re just about to pull your hand from his but he holds on to you tighter. You question, “Are you… crying?”

He only shakes his head.

You use your free hand to cup his cheek and tilt his face so to get a good look at him. “Why are you crying?” You ask.

“I’m not!” He tries to deny it. “It’s just… it’s the first time I… you…” he trails off, unable to form a coherent sentence as he looks at your intertwined hands.

When you notice where he’s looking, you understand what he’s trying to say right away. That explains why he doesn’t have a sad look on his face even with his teary eyes. “You dork! I was so worried!” You retract your hand from his cheek to pound on his chest.

Ace cracks a smile which then turns to a chuckle. “Sorry,” he halfheartedly says. In a swift motion, he raises your linked hands and places a feather-like kiss at the back of your hand.

The small, intimate act partnered with Ace’s loving gaze flusters you right away and you’re tempted to run and hide once again. But with Ace holding your hand tightly, there’s only one place you can take cover.

You bury your face into his chest as an attempt to hide. “I hate you.”

You could practically hear the amusement in Ace’s voice when he says, “I love you too.”

#one piece imagines #one piece scenario #one piece x reader #ace x reader #portgas d ace x reader #portgas d. ace x reader #one piece fluff #one piece x you #one piece x y/n #portgas d ace x you #portgas d ace x y/n #portgas d. ace x you #portgas d. ace x y/n #portgas d ace #portgas d. ace #one piece imagine #one piece fanfic #one piece scenarios #one piece #ace imagine

[avnkin]

THE BET ( jj maybank. )

Chapter 8 - Intoxicating

word count: 2k

warnings: mentions of sex, foul language, alcohol & the usual dash of angst

author’s note: it’s been a while but i’m getting my inspo back finally lmao hope you enjoy this chapter gif is by @heapass also veins oml

series masterlist

You and JJ hadn’t spoken a word to each other after what had happened. You’d just laid silently in his bed, listening to each other’s heavy breaths as you got your heartbeat to slow down from your previous endeavours.

“So what does this mean?” JJ was the first to break the silence as he rolled over to look up at you.

“Uh- i’m not sure, do you want this to mean something?” you hesitantly asked moving down a little so you were at eye level with each other.

“Yeah I do, but I think I may need some time to get over you and Rafe- I just can’t get the image of you two together out of my head”

That sentence made your blood boil, even if you wanted to get back together you weren’t about to let him blame you for everything that went wrong in your relationship.

“JJ are you being serious right now? It’s not like I cheated on you, we were broken up when I kissed Rafe!” you chided getting out of the bed, covering your naked body with his bed sheets.

“I don’t care and I wouldn’t have minded it as much if it had been anyone but Rafe! He’s made all of our lives living hells for the last year- I mean he nearly cost Pope his job! So it’s not because you made out with someone it’s who it was with!” JJ snapped back getting out of bed after you, quickly pulling on his boxers.

“You’re such an asshole! I don’t even know how I thought of getting back together with you!” you retorted hastily walking around the room in an attempt to find your clothes.

Once you finally managed to get fully dressed you went to unlock the door but JJ pulled you back before you could leave.

You quickly snatched your hand out of his grasp not giving him a chance to talk “give me a call once you’ve decided to stop being a self absorbed asshole” you grumbled slamming his bedroom door shut in his face.

You stormed out of the chateau still adjusting your clothes, when Kiara pulled into the driveway with Pope and John B, perfect timing.

“Hey-“ Pope started but was cut off by you crashing into his shoulder as you stormed past your three clueless friends.

“What was that about” Pope questioned turning to Kiara and John B who stood there, bewildered at your sudden outburst.

“Fuck” Kiara mumbled once she remembered the reason you’d been here in the first place, practically running into the chateau to find JJ.

“What the hell happened!?” Kiara shrieked as she pushed open the door into JJ’s room who just shook his head and let himself fall down onto his mattress.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about” he shrugged her off not bothering to look up at her.

“Don’t give me that bullshit JJ, I drove Y/N here earlier so you two could make up and then I see her practically crying running out of here so what happened!”

“It didn’t work out alright! We’re not getting back together and we’re not gonna be friends again, okay!?”

“was that your decision or hers?” Kiara countered.

“Hers! or- I mean I just told her that it would take time to get over the thing with Rafe and she just lost it!”

“JJ are you kidding me? You dated her for a bet and she was able to forgive you for that and you’ve got the audacity to be mad at her for something she did when you were broken up! Come on JJ you’re better than that”

“But its Rafe-“ Kiara quickly cut him off.

“I know! Do you think I like the fact she chose him of all guys to be with? But she was hurting because she thought that the guy she really wanted was only with her for money, you both need to sort your shit out because this is getting really tiring for all of us” she spoke gesturing towards her, Pope and John B who stood in silence behind her clearly taken aback by her words.

JJ scoffed not bothering to respond simply pulling a shirt over his head and walking past the three pogues towards the front door.

“You’re just gonna leave?” Kiara chided following after him “yeah I am” he replied coldly before slamming the door shut in her face.

Tears were furiously running down your cheeks as you walked the road down the cut that lead to figure 8.

Deciding to walk home maybe hadn’t been the brightest idea you had, it was so hot you thought you were going to pass out but you refused to spend another minute with JJ.

A sudden honk from behind you made you jerk around, only picking up your pace when you saw Wards all to familiar jet black Range Rover, not needing to guess twice as to who was sat in the drivers seat.

“Y/N?” Rafe leaned out the window as he pressed on the break just enough so he was able to drive alongside you.

“Go away” you replied curtly beginning to walk even faster although you knew your chances of outrunning a car were not in your favor.

“Come on Y/N let me drive you home you’re gonna melt out here in this heat” he sounded sincere his eyebrows contorting, silently begging for you to get into the car.

You came to an abrupt halt as you turned to face him arm crossed over your chest. You had two options one walk home in the burning heat which would probably take you around two hours or get into the car with Rafe and have to endure his company for 10 minutes.

You went with the latter huffing before pulling the door handle and getting into the car without a word, although you couldn’t contain the moan that slipped past your lips once the cool air from the AC met your flaming skin.

“Y/N I just wanted to-“ he began but you cut him off raising your index finger towards his face “stop I don’t wanna hear it just drive me home” he nodded obviously disappointed but kept on driving either way.

Once you pulled into your driveway he gave you one last pleading look but you didn’t give him a chance to talk muttering a small thanks before slipping out of the passenger seat and slamming the car door shut in his face.

You were in desparate need of a shower your sweaty skin beginning to stick to the shirt that loosely hung over your body.

You decided to push all thoughts of JJ into the back of your mind as you turned the shower on wanting nothing more than to take back the fact that you’d gone and slept with him.

“Idiot” you mumbled shaking your head the warm water travelling down your body the only comfort you felt you needed right now.

Just as you began to feel the corner of your eyes brim with tears you were startled to hear the bathroom door open.

“What the hell!” you shrieked once you saw Kiara walk in with a large purple backpack slung over her shoulder.

“That door was locked!” you yelled hurriedly grabbing a towel and wrapping it around yourself.

“I know that’s why I have a knife” she deadpanned before placing the silver object she’d obviously stolen from your kitchen on the bathroom counter.

“What do you want Kie?” you huffed finally stepping fully out of the shower and onto the white tiled floor.

“You, me” she lifted up the backpack she’d been holding “and our dear friend vodka”

“I love you” you gushed grabbing the bag out of her hands and walking into your bedroom gently placing it on your bed.

“What’s the occasion?” you turned to face her “the occasion is a party down at the cut” she smiled sitting down on your bed unzipping the bag revealing the numerous amount of white claws and the huge bottle of vodka.

“God are you trying to kill me? you know i’m a lightweight” you gaped at the numerous beverages but still grabbed a white claw quickly opening it and taking a large sip.

“Who said any of this was for you” she raised an eyebrow an amused smile playing at her lips “shut up” you laughed.

“You owe me this whole thing is your fault” you took another sip out of the can before it was harshly ripped away from you the liquid spilling all over your arm.

“Oh so it’s my fault you hooked up with Rafe” Kiara placed a hand on her hip as she held the white claw up with her other hand.

“No” you snatched the drink back before continuing “it’s your fault that I went to JJ’s which ultimately led to the decision of me sleeping with him and making a complete fool of myself in the progress”

“Fair enough” she surrendered “get ready we need to be down at the beach in half an hour”

Once you’d made it down to the beach you’d already downed four white claws and three shots the alcohol running through your veins making you feel dizzy as you walked alongside Kie towards the crowd of teenagers all packed together around the keg watching as a girl you didn’t recognised stood in a handstand downing the beer without a struggle.

“I could do that” you slurred Kiara’s head turning in the direction you were looking “no you couldn’t” she chuckled dragging you towards John B and Pope who looked beyond shocked to see you.

“Y/N?” John B looked almost panicked as he abruptly stood up his eyes frantically beginning to dart all over the beach before stopping and widening as he looked at something behind you.

You turned to where his eyes were directed and you were horrified at the sight before you. There he was none other than JJ Maybank himself with his tongue shoved down some girls throat.

“That asshole!” you practically growled throwing the white claw you held down onto the sand as you made a bee line towards him, Kiara frantically picking up the can before following after you.

“Real classy J” you sneered a scowl resting on your face as you gave him the most disgusted look you could muster.

“Y/N” was all he said as he turned to face you, he didn’t even look sorry.

“So this is your way of trying to repair our relationship” you shot at him and the girl quickly stood up practically running away from the scene unfolding before her.

“Hey i’m just doing what you’ve been doing all along” he replied curtly standing up to face you.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean JJ” you were surprised at your ability to form a whole sentence since you didn’t exactly see straight, but this whole exchange seemed to be sobering you up.

“I saw you earlier getting into that car with Rafe!”

“What? you were following me?”

“Yes! Because I wanted to come and apologise for how I acted but clearly I was right all along!”

“JJ I didn’t ask him for a ride or call him he offered and I accepted because because I didn’t really feel like walking all the way from the cut back home in the burning heat!” a hint of regret washed over his face at your words but you continued “It doesn’t even matter I don’t have to explain myself to you”

He was about to open his mouth and say something but you didn’t give him the chance. “We’re over and this time I mean it”

You suddenly became more aware of the crowd that had begun to gather around you and you quickly turned around pushing your way past the teenagers that were huddled behind you.

“Are you okay?” a frantic voice belonging to Kiara sounded from beside you.

You swallowed the lump that was beginning to form in your throat and turned to face her pasting on a fake smile as you did.

“I’m fine” you knew she didn’t buy it but she could tell from the look in your eyes that you were silently begging her not to press on it any further, you wanted to have fun tonight and you were not going to let JJ get in the way of that.

“Come on let’s get drunk”

#outer banks #jj maybank #john b imagine #jj maybank x reader #jj #jj obx #jj outer banks #jj maybank imagine #rudy pankow #outer banks netflix #obx netflix #obx fanfiction #kiara carrera #pope heyward imagine #pope heyward #rafe cameron imagine

[agentaletha]

Raybearer

Tarisai has always longed for the warmth of a family. She was raised in isolation by a mysterious, often absent mother known only as The Lady. The Lady sends her to the capital of the global empire of Aritsar to compete with other children to be chosen as one of the Crown Prince’s Council of 11. If she’s picked, she’ll be joined with the other Council members through the Ray, a bond deeper than blood. That closeness is irresistible to Tarisai, who has always wanted to belong somewhere. But The Lady has other ideas, including a magical wish that Tarisai is compelled to obey: Kill the Crown Prince once she gains his trust. Tarisai won’t stand by and become someone’s pawn—but is she strong enough to choose a different path for herself? - Goodreads

Raybearer by Jordan Ifeuko, 2020 Amulet Books

Raybearer is a lovely young adult fantasy novel, the first in a two book series. I read a fair amount of YA, and a good amount of speculative fiction and still Raybearer felt new and exciting. In fact I’d say it’s probably my favorite YA I’ve read so far this year. The world building is unique with a wide variety of cultures (obviously influenced by certain real world countries but with enough departure to not feel just relabeled with fantasy names), interesting magic abilities, a sense of history, and an unusual system of government.

While stories of youths rebelling against oppressive regimes are YA’s bread and butter, this takes a deeper look at justice and inequality. I love that Tarisai’s goal for most of this first book is just to protect her friends and chosen family. There are so many that we don't really get to know all of them, but the ones we do know are perfect. While Tarisai has a strong sense of right and wrong (literally, she gets physical symptoms from injustice) the entire time, the book covers her journey from ignoring it, then trying to save individuals, to trying to affect the whole empire. But even when her purpose is to protect, she still sees systemic injustices and comes up with systemic solutions, wanting to fulfill her role as more than keeper of the status quo. This is a story that questions why things are the way they are and how the status quo is maintained, but also looks seriously at what can be done better in the future. The problem isn’t one bad person abusing their power, the problem is the system that supports and maintains inequalities. I appreciated that there are no scenery chewing villains here - everyone has understandable motives, from lashing out to hurt because they were hurt, to fear, and to how easy it is to dismiss injustices that happen to other people, in other places and justify that that’s just how it is, no point in trying to make a difference. Everyone is treated with compassion, even when they make bad decisions or react from their emotions, which they sometimes do.

I’m really looking forward to the second book! In the words of George Washington from Hamilton,”Winning is easy young man, governing’s harder.” I love seeing what happens next and I’m going to leave it there to not give any more away.

Spoilers ahead as I talk about representation

As for LGBTQIA representation, it’s there but fairly background. Same sex relationships aren’t stigmatized and it seems there’s a bit of an “everyone is bi” default, although all the main on-page romantic relationships are male/female. Gender roles vary by culture but don’t seem to be strictly delineated in the palace although gender does seem to be considered strictly binary. One of the 11 is gay and fairly flamboyant about it - he’s described as a “bleeding-heart poet” dreaming of handsome swains, but that’s about it. However, there is an asexual character and while he’s not the protagonist, he is one of the key players. A little less than halfway through the book, when she is an anointed member of his council, Tarisai asks the Prince to meet her privately at a known lovers’ meeting spot. He’s afraid she has the wrong idea and this is what he tells her:

 “There’s something I should tell you. I don’t...I don’t think I want sex. Ever. And I don’t mean with you, I mean - with anyone. Girls, boys. Anyone.” He stared at the leaves on the ground, smooth brow furrowing. “I mean, I’ve had crushes before. On you, on Jeet, and some of the others. I’ve just … never been interested in the sex part. Sometimes I wonder if I’m broken.”

You aren’t broken, protested the voice inside me. You’re the kindest, most loving person I know. Run. Live.

“But I’m crown prince,” he continued, grimacing, “and I have to have heirs someday, so… I guess - if I could choose anyone-”

The conversation ends there because Tarisai stabs him.

Ekundayo, or Dayo for short, is described as happy, naive, trusting, and having a “big fragile heart”. He is the Crown Prince, but he believes in the best of everyone. He’s well meaning but doesn’t always get it. They don’t have a word for asexual, but the author makes it clear by indicating that it’s all genders he’s not interested in and that he’s not aromantic as well. And the author includes the classic, “I wonder if I’m broken.” On the one hand, broken would go on my ace characters bingo sheet, but on the other, it’s a classic for a reason. Asexuality is already so much more visible than when I finally encountered it over ten years ago that maybe in another ten private wonderings about our brokenness will no longer resonate with the younger generations. I hope so. In the meantime, I already liked him as the soft-hearted prince and this made my heart go out to him. I love that Tarisai’s immediate reaction is “you’re not broken” although she doesn’t get the chance to say that out loud or even finish the conversation. I assume it will come up again in the next and final book. I really don’t know what’s going to happen next and I love that.

In summary, I loved Raybearer and I think it’s a good representation of an ace character that doesn’t fall prey to stereotypes (although I am keeping an eye on how often naive tends to show up) and I highly recommend it as a diverse thoughtful YA fantasy.

#acereads #asexual #asexuality #asexual character #asexual literature #ace #aroace #aspec #aro characters #ace character #book review

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Fault”

Hello, everyone! We’re not even bothering with an introduction today, let’s just get straight to the only thing that matters.

HERE HE IS, THE MVP OF THIS EPISODE, OF THE WHOLE VOLUME, THE SERIES, THE ONLY ONE I CARE ABOUT RIGHT NOW

I’m joking… but only a little. In all seriousness we will get to Ren, but you all want to hear a funny story first? I somehow got it into my head that there was no RWBY episode this week—the holiday and all—so I poured all my meta time and energy into a ridiculous Ironwood analysis as a placeholder, only to wake up this morning and find the strongest (and most complicated!) episode this year waiting for a recap. Like some sort of grimm nosing into my inbox. 

Okay, so it’s not a funny story, but if RT would just do a better job with their website my life would be a whole lot easier.

So here we are, taking a look at the episode “Fault.” Quick question, is every episode this volume going to have a one-word title? It’s not a criticism, I’ve got nothing against a punchy name, I’m just curious since RWBY has never done that before. If anything, they’ve gone more for symbolically significant phrases like “A Brawl in the Family,” “Players and Pieces,” and “The Lady in the Shoe.” I wonder what sparked the change.

Anyway, we open on Robyn laughing about some story she’s told, something about Joanna losing a fair fight for the first time, presumably to her. This is what we’ve learned about Robyn since this volume started: she refuses to acknowledge that she had a hand in Clover’s death; she was asked by Blake and Yang to keep the Amity secret but, according to May, couldn’t keep her mouth shut about it; and she tries to cheer Qrow up by bragging about her own skill.

Alrighty then.

Obviously, this little story fails to land. “Tough crowd tonight.” Robyn looks to Jacques as well as Qrow when she says this and since she clearly doesn’t care about cheering him up, she must want to get a rise out of him. Create something, as she says at the end of the scene, that’s exciting. Robyn just really loves to start fights. Against Ironwood, Clover, bickering matches with Jacques—stories told about winning them! If she’s not fighting someone she’s not interested.

Qrow does eventually give the smallest smile though and Robyn cheers. “Did I win?” They both quickly grow serious again though and Robyn says she’s “sorry for what happened. It wasn’t your fault.” Her apology would mean more if she was apologizing for her actions, not providing a generic ‘Sorry for your loss’ like she had no hand in this.

Qrow then insists it was his fault… but, of course, not for the reasons why he’s actually responsible (also, didn’t we do this two weeks ago?). For starters, Qrow blames his semblance for everything that went down, despite the fact that his semblance is not responsible for him breaking Clover’s aura, or Tyrian stabbing him. The most we’ve seen his semblance do is cause minor mischief, which in and of itself is absurd considering we’re meant to believe that it has kept him from his family most of his life, and informs choices like whether he’ll travel with the group in Volume 4. Still, it’s not unexpected that he would blame his semblance and think that having friends is a “childish dream”—depression is one hell of a liar—but rather, it’s frustrating that no one is helping Qrow see the truth of the situation, both the good and the bad. He certainly doesn’t need Robyn providing generic platitudes that absolve them both of their choices.

You know what the worst part is? The two kind, level-headed adults with enough distance to help Qrow acknowledge his mistakes while also correcting him about his misconceptions… are Ozpin and Clover. The former is still ignored by the cast, the latter barely got to be a character before he was killed.  

Qrow goes on to say that he “made a deal with the darkness and [Clover] paid the price.” I’m sorry, what does that mean?? Outside of referencing his team-up with Tyrian, that’s the most dramatic, nonsensical thing he could have said. Qrow doesn’t admit to the team-up though, rather he starts blaming Clover for his own death.

Precisely like a good chunk of the fandom has done 🙃

He says that Clover just “wouldn’t let up” (translation: he wouldn’t agree to let me go when I was under arrest) and that they could have “worked together against Tyrian if Clover had just—”

There’s a lot to cover this episode, so I’m not going to dive into another explanation of all the justified reasons why Clover didn’t trust Qrow in that moment and why Qrow was the one who “wouldn’t let up.” If you’re interested in that rundown, head here.

Side note: can RWBY please stop with the weird mouth closeups? I’m begging the animators. Especially when so much else in this episode is gorgeous.

Yes: 

No: 

Robyn’s response is to make it all about her. I say, as a hypocrite, because my instinctual response in comforting someone is to also bring up a way that I might, sort of, know what they’re going through. It’s something to work on and, as always, I’d be more receptive to Robyn’s attempts if she weren’t failing so spectacularly in every other aspect of her characterization. Case in point: she says that having a truth semblance tends to make people push her away, but we’ve never once seen that. We’re introduced to Robyn as she’s adored by Fiona. The people celebrate her. Yang and Blake trust her immediately, for no reason, and comment on how useful her semblance is—they’re not concerned with it. Ironwood likewise works with her and allows her to use her semblance on him in public, at least for a time. May spoke fondly of Robyn last episode. She just finished a story about Joanna… where is this pushing away you speak of, Robyn? I really wish RWBY would consider things ahead of time and actually show them to us, rather than just having characters announce that they’re (supposedly) there.

Nice symbolism though with Robyn touching the electric bars and pulling her hand back. You reach out, you get hurt, curl in on yourself, blah, blah, blah. Too bad it’s not a moment attached to an actual struggle of hers.

Qrow buys it though, saying he’s never thought about it that way before. 

You know, I get why a lot of people in the fandom hate Clover. I can’t even claim I’m much interested in him as an individual. I’m sick of straight, white, able-bodied men getting the spotlight, which is one of the things that drew me to RWBY in the first place… so theoretically Robyn should be the better choice for Qrow’s BFF, right? Especially in a world where FairGame only existed in RT’s social media queerbaiting. Give us the badass gender-bent Robin Hood instead of the boring military man!

On paper it sounds great… which is why it’s astounding that RT bungled that so badly.  

Qrow never finishes his thought about Clover because the Ace Ops come in to return Watts to his cell. Interesting. The writing has definitely made Ironwood stupid, but perhaps not as stupid as he could have been? If he got Watts to hack Penny (we don’t yet know what’s going on with her during all this) and then promptly shut him away again, that’s just about the best way you can follow up on your worst decision.

Harriet spots Clover’s pin and tells Qrow “You don’t get to keep that,” but then doesn’t take it from him. See, that right there is a better motivation for potentially opening the cell. Qrow says he didn’t kill Clover, Harriet shoots back that his blood was on Qrow’s blade (again, focusing on the wrong way that he’s guilty), Robyn challenges her to get the truth via her semblance… and Harriet considers it? Why? She’s not the one struggling with her loyalty here, that’s Marrow, yet he’s the one who has to pull Harriet back with “What are you doing?” when she looks at the keypad. Have Marrow almost be swayed by Robyn’s taunting, or have Harriet almost open the door because she’s furious and desperate to get Clover’s pin back. Either one of those would make more sense than this.

Also, no one checked Qrow during his arrest/before he was thrown into his cell?

Also, note that Marrow uses a nickname here—“Hare”—so I’m continually unpersuaded by the ‘They’re not friends’ claim. Yes, Harriet hits his shoulder on her way out… and Ren will later scream at Jaune about cheating. Harriet being in a bad mood because their leader was just murdered isn’t evidence that they’re not close, no more than Ren responding to Everything Traumatic Ever is evidence that he doesn’t care for his friends.

Also (x3), Robyn calls Harriet “mohawk”?? Can’t this woman come up with a single good insult?

As the Ace Ops leave Robyn lays back down on her bunk, exactly as she was before, and says, “Well, that was almost exciting.” Kind of like this scene! Luckily, the episode is about to get a whole lot better.

The music immediately picks up as we segue to Ren, Jaune, and Yang chasing after Oscar. On the whole I really enjoyed this scene, largely because it shows the group doing their best—in a way that feels persuasive. I’ll admit that others have a point about them just standing around while the Hound changes form—yet still failing because, you know, our villain is actually powerful! However, there are, as always, some nitpicks.

One of the first bits of dialogue we get is Ren noticing that the bikes can’t stand being in the cold for very long. It bugs me that bikes suffer more from the cold than the civilians do. To say nothing of the fact that it once again doesn’t amount to anything. Their bikes carry them through the whole battle and Jaune looses his because of a grimm. Then Yang manages to fix the totaled bike with a single part, despite the continued cold. Why bother introducing this as a problem when it’s meaningless each and every time?

The three do demonstrate some great teamwork though. When Yang yells that she wishes one of them could fly, Jaune uses his shield to launch Ren at the Hound… so that he can get dragged through the air, hitting rocks. This poor guy. I like that though because no, these teens shouldn’t be perfect, strategic masterminds and yes, they’re in the kind of situation where they just have to try something and see if it works. Jaune can’t think ahead to what Ren will do once he grabs the Hound, they just have to get him to that point and go from there. Which they do. Ren snags a boulder to slow them down further (that’s smart) and Yang goes higher to fire at the Hound’s face (don’t hit Oscar he doesn’t have aura!!). They’re at a crazy disadvantage here and still trying their best to get our boy back.

The overall tone is… fine? Again, love supportive Yang—that high five with Jaune was wholesome—but it continually feels weird to get that when Oscar is in the literal jaws of death here. On the whole though the scene keeps to the action and seriousness of the situation, which I appreciate. We’ll talk more about tone during the outpost scene.

It's looking like they might be making some sort of headway when the Hound lets out a roar that, as Yang puts it, calls for backup. 1. Yay giving this grimm even more power to mess with the cast, 2. Holy shit there are so many grimm around. See, scenes like this is why I’m side-eyeing the anti-army rhetoric in the show (a stance I’d otherwise agree with 100%). Because do you see how many there are? That’s not Salem’s army, that’s just the normal grimm hanging out around Atlas. The cast is screwed if anyone were to, say, order them to attack the kingdom…

Kudos to RT for bringing back the centipede grimm though. I honestly thought they’d just be a one-off action sequence in Volume 7.

While everything is falling apart Ren catches a glimpse of Oscar, complete with rosy cheeks to make him look super young, and the sight fills him with 

He starts climbing towards the Hound and we cut away. 

Meanwhile, Jaune’s bike is hit with some of the centinel’s acid (again, not the cold causing problems) and he takes a tumble, managing to keep his feet before Yang snags him. Moments like that really do show how far he’s come and I’m glad we got to see such a moment in an episode where his cheating was brought up. Jaune then uses his shield to fly over one of the dragon-y grim, but... wait. The shield is flexible?

Literally what is the point of that? As a shield, I mean (it clearly works fine as  a ramp). If you can just tip it over like that then so can the grimm or another fighter. Forget how tiny the shield is, all a monster would have to do is boop it and it would fall over. In fact, it probably should have with the grimm scratching at it before. Seems rather useless, unless you’ve got writers crafting convenient situations. Also, does Jaune have multiples of this thing? He picked it up before, but there’s no way he found that one again. Idk, I’m really not feeling this addition to Jaune’s arsenal. Better to give him a range option so he’s more versatile.

Still, they fly over the grimm and the two let out a sigh in synch. Whatever else we might have to say about this volume, RT is definitely giving us different interactions and team-ups. Well done there. Why, Jaune and Yang have managed to survive all that together!

Oh wait, never mind. They’ve gone off a cliff.

Honestly, I’m shocked they actually went over. I thought Yang would stop in time, or we’d have a classic moment of them tumbling off the bike and ending an inch from the edge, maybe going off slow with time for one to hang on. But nope, they plummet and it was done with such confidence by the camera that for a split second (the illogic of killing them both off aside) I thought that was it. They’re done for. Lucky for them, Ren catches them at the last second, managing to snag Jaune’s sword and them and immediately use his semblance so the grimm doesn’t eat them. That’s skill, baby!!

But you can see why he’s pissed, beyond just the fact that his semblance is holding this group together. It’s not Jaune and Yang’s fault that there was suddenly a cliff, but last we saw Ren he was heading towards Oscar. He had a plan. Granted, not one that was likely to lead anywhere given the Hound’s power (and the plot needing Oscar to reach Salem), but that’s not the point. He was pulling himself towards their kidnapped friend and then at the last second had to cut himself loose to save two others. This moment wasn’t anyone’s fault, but it would take someone with no emotions at all not to be frustrated by it. 

So we leave the trio literally hanging out and return to Ruby’s group who is threatening kids! 

Seriously though WTF, Weiss? Look, I haven’t always been kind to Whitley. In fact, I think there’s a Volume 7 recap where I really laid into him for his attitude and for supporting Jacques. But then—with the help of some friends and other anon perspectives—I thought about it for a hot second and considered how little power this child has. I was wrong to blame him for so much given the various circumstances here. It took, like… five minutes of thinking, and that’s for a fictional character, not a real life brother. Weiss clearly hasn’t given her brother five seconds of thought. He’s in the same abusive household that she was. He wasn’t blessed with combat abilities and a semblance to easily escape. He didn’t have Weiss there to guide him like Winter guided her. He had to watch BOTH his sisters abandon him to Jacques… so when exactly was he supposed to learn to be better? Why would he be inclined to? Weiss was an entitled racist when she got to school and needed new friends to show her a new path. She admitted as much last volume! Yet the fact that Whitley is completely alone in this house while their mom locks herself in her room to drink doesn’t register at all? This woman, an adult out to save the world as we’re frequently told, never once considered what it took to get her here and realize that Whitley has had none of the resources she did? 

I want to emphasize that Weiss threatens him with her weapon. It’s not just that she’s dismissive of him and his plight, she’s also happy to use violence if Whitley doesn’t do exactly as he’s told. Violence… against her brother… who is a child… without any training. Again: WTF, Weiss? You know how I was praising RWBY last episode for not having the group beat up the Atlas personnel? Yeah, we get this instead.

Then she tells him to go to his room??

Speculation is that Whitley is about 2-3 years younger than Weiss. Or, to put it another way, roughly the same age as Weiss’ leader, Ruby. She’ll follow Ruby unquestioningly into world-changing decisions, but sends her brother to his room like a toddler? Which is it, RWBY? Are 17 year-olds leaders you should listen to, or babies who must leave the room while the grownups talk? He certainly can’t be any younger than Oscar, so again, she’ll fight beside him, but treat Whitley like this? Whitley isn’t exactly going to offer help in a respectful, eager manner, but that “Fine. What do you expect me to do?” was incredibly open given his situation. He was willing to help and that was the perfect opportunity to have him, you know, do something. Something small and innocuous that wouldn’t threaten the team if he betrayed them, but kept him around so he could talk to someone. But nope. Weiss just sends him to his room after criticizing him for not understanding that they’re “busy trying to save Atlas.” Weiss, what does Whitley know about all that? He’s locked up in this manor after your father was arrested and the one news clip we’ve seen said that no one knows why Ironwood recalled his forces, or what’s up with those grimm overhead. She’s acting like he should have any idea what’s happening right now.

Also, all of this is coming on the heels of Willow begging Weiss not to forget her brother, so that’s just great. RWBY has the rest of their time in the manor to fix this, because if Weiss comes out of that scene having only been handed the means of arresting Jacques… that’s just bad all around.

Finally, should we talk about how strange this choice is? Last episode we saw the group flying away and I assumed it was them leaving Atlas to go back to Mantle. It certainly looked that way, but now they’ve decided to stay until Nora is awake. Why? Isn’t it more dangerous here? I mean, they didn’t know the staff was gone and there are still arrest warrants out. Was Weiss just going to threaten anyone who dared report her? Where are these shields Ironwood spoke of? Have they gotten through them somehow, or are they currently trapped in Atlas?

This is “Oscar is in the slums, leaves the slums, learns they’re going to the crater, but the slums are actually the crater, so we’re heading back now” all over again. 

The one good thing about this scene is that Blake and Ruby talk! …for about two seconds lol. Eh, better than nothing. Blake says that if Ruby is worried about Yang she could try calling her. Ruby has, and Yang isn’t picking up.

Does Ruby think she’s in danger or ignoring her? Unclear. We, however, know that Yang is now lost in the middle of nowhere with no reception and no transportation back to Mantle. The three of them start trudging towards an outpost Ren spotted, needing to find shelter “before this weather drops our aura levels completely.” So what about everyone without aura?? I wish that I could check off the bingo space again because this is ridiculous.

Ren, once again, isn’t in the mood to talk, but unlike Jaune, Yang can’t leave something alone. So she coaxes him to tell him what’s wrong and you know what? She does a real good job at first. She’s encouraging, but her voice is level and she doesn’t come across as accusing. Well done, Yang.

Things quickly fall apart though as Ren says EVERYTHING I’VE EVER WANTED TO SAY TO THIS GROUP. Holy shit, everyone, let’s count ‘em up:

Nothing is going smoothly so let’s stop pretending it’s all fine

Oscar has been horrifically kidnapped that’s #bad

This is not a normal part of being a huntsmen

We don’t know the first thing about being huntsmen!

Every time we’ve had to make real decisions we got them all wrong, yay us

We’re trapping a city here for Salem to destroy whenever she feels like it, yay us x2

Our leader is barely more than a kid and one of us cheated our way here

People are going to die because of us

“I’m just saying what nobody else wants to”

Yang’s response? Incredibly weak imo. Just as weak as the fandom’s has been since this conflict started in Volume 7. Her argument against letting Atlas go is that Salem won’t just let it fly away with her whale… but no one knows that. She’s certainly just letting it sit right now! Assuming that something won’t work because you expect the worst is not a compelling reason not to try.

Her argument against their ineptitude? They saved Haven, took down a leviathan, and got the lamp to Atlas. Let’s break that down a little more.

Did they fight well at Haven? Yes… overlooking that Weiss would have died if not for a timely semblance reveal. But the real point here is that they “saved” the school by getting the Relic. Problem is, they never won the relic, it was handed to them. Literally. They retrieved it not because they were capable of overpowering Salem’s forces and a Maiden, but because Raven decided she’d rather her daughter be a target than her. That doesn’t tell us anything about the group’s skill, only about Raven’s flaws.

They took down a leviathan… after drawing it to Argus in the first place. That’s kind of an important detail when Ren is trying to make the point that their decisions suck. Also, how did they take it down? Using Ruby’s silver eyes, which only worked because Jinn randomly decided to let her stop time. Oh, and also using the rest of Cordovin’s mech that they hadn’t yet destroyed. Again, nothing about that fight demonstrates their skill, only others’ abilities, resources, and the strange favoritism they benefit from.

Getting the lamp to Atlas. Well, you drove Ozpin away who was your ticket across the border. Then Maria told Ruby how to save you all from the Apathy (and Ruby herself was the only one able to resist long enough to demand you get the Relic back in the first place). You started that leviathan fight and ended it surrounded by Cordovin’s fleet. So how did you get to Atlas? Because she let you cross. How did you reach Ironwood? Because he dropped your arrest. Yang stopped Adam, yes, but that was its own, separate fight. Regarding the “getting to Atlas” point they botched that up completely. 

Basically, this resume of victories is unpersuasive, to say the least. Yang highlights the end goal rather than acknowledging Ren’s point: have we, as individuals, actually made things better lately?

They absolutely have not. 

Note how, in contrast, Ren includes himself in this criticism. He doesn’t just lay responsibility at Ruby and Jaune’s feet, he’s second on the list for being underprepared. For messing up. He’s just an “orphan from nowhere” and this tells us that, unlike Qrow, Ren is actually concerned with this problem and his own place in it. He’s not just blowing off steam and running from his responsibility. Rather, he’s making important points here yet, as he says, no one else wants to listen.

And that’s why the scene ultimately sucks. “But, Clyde! It’s a speech straight out of your metas!” Yes it was and it was beautiful to witness, but the problem is that Ren’s supposed to be wrong. Jaune glares at him before leaving. Yang clenches her fists and asks if he just wants to push everyone away. He’s left hanging his head. Then later they talk about how “broody” he is and provide advice about how to stop doing that. The takeaway here is not, ‘Holy shit, Ren is right and we should rethink our choices,’ but rather that Ren is wrong and needs to come over to their ‘correct’ perspective.

I love that this was laid out. I love that the group is actually fighting for once (way better than Ruby and Yang’s ‘fight’). I also love that we finally see what’s bothering Ren… but we all know this isn’t leading anywhere. The scene ends with Jaune dismissing everything by stating that if Ren doesn’t want to be a huntsmen, fine, but he has a job to do. Ren is supposed to feel guilty here for… telling the truth? Jaune is supposed to look like the hero for soldiering on with his responsibility while moody Ren drags behind. The scene is great, but the purpose of the scene sucks.

Actually, I’d like to talk about a portion of the outpost scene real quick. Skipping ahead, because we really see here how little RT believes the words that they’ve put in Ren’s mouth. Jaune admits that he’s right about cheating into Beacon… but nothing else. Indeed, that “mistake” is swept away because he’s earned his right to be here now. You shouldn’t care about that anymore! Ignoring the point Ren was making about how much they’re in over their heads. Yang apologizes to Jaune on Ren’s behalf, making it clear that she cares more about his potentially hurt feelings than any of the points Ren made. Remind you of anything? Like oh, say, that time Yang cared more about Jaune’s feelings than whether he’d hurt Oscar after slamming him against a wall? All of this despite the fact that Yang JUST accused Ruby of the horrible situation they’re in. Now Ren acknowledges that they’re in a horrible situation and Yang… doesn’t care?? Again, RT is good at giving us the pieces we want, the surface level stuff, but is rarely able to combine it into something fulfilling. If anyone actually takes Ren’s stance seriously, changing their ways rather than talking him out of it, I’ll be shocked.

Especially since the real nail in the coffin of this scene is Jaune telling him that “The more you hide from what you’re feeling, the more alone you’re going to feel.”

Jaune………..buddy……….pal…………were you asleep during that scene? Ren DID tell you what he was feeling. For the first time he did come clean about everything he was experiencing and you both rejected him for it! He’s not pulling away because he’s hiding from what he’s feeling, he’s pulling away because he did show it and both his friends reduced it to “pushing [them] away.” Which is it, Jaune? Should Ren be more open, or should he stop saying things you don’t want to hear? It’s a more complicated version of telling your parents about your interests, them mocking those interests, and then they’re surprised when you don’t share things with them again. I mean, the gall of Jaune to reject everything Ren said in the moment, ignore it after he’s calmed down, and then lecture him about being hiding his emotions.

Jaune and Yang (and the story) don’t want Ren to say what he really thinks, they want him to say what they think. Ren should speak up, but only if he’s going to agree with them.

So Ren sits out in the snow because potentially dying from cold is better than staying in a room with Yang and Jaune. I can’t really blame him lol.

One last thing about the fight scene. Remember how May was put in her place last episode for not using Penny’s name? Well, Yang doesn’t either. Granted, “the Maiden” isn’t as overtly insulting as “tin can” (or whatever it is May said), but it amounts to the same thing: both are replacing Penny’s individual identity with her status as a tool they can use. May sees Penny as the cool tech girl who can get them into the military base. Yang sees Penny as the cool magic girl who is the answer to all their ‘How do we win this?’ problems. Everyone is using Penny. Ruby to launch Amity, Ironwood to open the vault, but you know RWBY will never have a scene where Penny corrects Yang about her name and Ruby looks on, smug. Because the group can continually make the same mistakes as the adults/antagonists around them, but aren’t called out on it in the same way. Ren calls them out and he’s told he’s wrong. 

Anyway, the tl;dr of this scene is that Ren is the best. Too bad the story doesn’t realize that.

We then move to my poor Oscar who wakes up looking at his own feet, Ozpin’s voice is as reassuring as it can be under the circumstances. “Oscar? Don’t panic. We’re going to be okay.” I mentioned two weeks back that I hoped the show would explain why we didn’t see Ozpin try to take control during the Hound fight and we still don’t have an explanation, so that’s disappointing. This line is all we get from Ozpin because that’s the norm now. We moved from him being written out of the story entirely to having one or two lines an episode (excluding a speech meant more for the audience than the characters). So, improvement? But a lackluster one, I think. Especially given that he is the focal point of this entire situation with Salem. 

I’m avoiding the elephant in the room though. Oscar’s torture is horrifying. In the sense that it should be horrifying. Salem might still inexplicably not be attacking Atlas—and what she’s after at any given time might be getting more and more muddled—but she’s absolutely terrifying here, which is what we needed. The mix of assault with that nurturing tone is just skin crawling. “My long lost Ozma. Found at last” while she (I think?) shows images of their daughters. Honestly, I only heard that from friends, didn’t catch it myself, but then my eyes are shit to begin with. I couldn’t see a thing in this shadowed shot.

(It’s like watching Game of Thrones all over again.)

Oscar tries to pretend to be Ozpin and he does a damn good job with “I’m sorry the reunion isn’t living up to your expectations.” It’s not enough to fool Salem though. She says he’s “not him” yet and I’m again reminded that the show continually references this merge without showing us any change. They’re apparently closer to one person now, but they still speak as individuals. Oscar has Ozpin’s magic, but hasn’t used it, even when his life was on the line. The closest we get to evidence that the merge is underway is that Oscar attempts to lie about knowing Jinn’s name… but what the hell else is he supposed to do here? I suppose he could go the action hero route and shout that she’ll never get the answer out of him, but trying to lie is by far the safer option. That doesn’t tell us that he’s becoming like Ozpin, or even that they’re truly “like-minded souls” as Salem claims. It just tells us that Oscar has two braincells to rub together and can say a short sentence without totally giving himself away. Maybe the kid played a few rounds of Remnant’s Among Us.

This moment highlights another justification for Ozpin’s secrets though. He lives an existence where he is not in control of his own (“own”) body. At any point the host he’s with could falter, fail, turn on him, and in doing so give crucial, world ending information to the enemy. It’s already happened on a small scale, with Oscar successfully taking control, stealing the Jinn information, and giving it to the group. Now here he’s being tortured. How long can he last? Will Oscar give up Jinn’s name? If Ozpin didn’t have the location of the Relic locked up tight in his own consciousness, would that information be lost too? I’m not looking to blame Oscar for anything here—I don’t want to imply that this situation is karma for him taking Jinn’s name, or some such nonsense—I just want to acknowledge that this is the sort of stuff Ozpin has to worry about. If he shares these secrets then that’s more fallible people who are capable of giving that information to Salem. If he keeps them…well, he’s the only one who has to keep his mouth shut during a torture session. His host might want information about the Relics, there’s an argument to be made that they’re entitled to them, but if I were Ozpin I wouldn’t want to take that risk either. The question has essentially become, “Would I trust a 14 year old to keep quiet while tortured by a witch?” Maybe Oscar will! He’s enough of a BAMF to manage it… but that’s still not something I’d want to bet on. Better that Oscar simply doesn’t have that information to give Salem, period. 

So obviously this “working relationship” that Salem wants isn’t going well. When Oscar lies she jumps straight to torturing him.

This was legitimately hard to watch and I’m torn about that. On the one hand it’s what I wanted: a scary, powerful Salem who uses the tools at her disposal to get what she’s after. That’s great! Yet I’m still reminded of how far this show has gone to literally beat up the child of the group. Oscar is the one punched into a tree, attacked by a friend, shot by an ally, the star of the show’s most horrifying kidnapping, now the first to be outright tortured by Salem. I don’t really have a point here, I’m not looking to level any specific accusations at RT, I’m just commenting on the pattern and acknowledging that it makes me uncomfortable. There are parts of a story where you’re supposed to be uncomfortable—like the villain torturing a hero—and then there are parts where you’re uncomfortable because the writers seem overly focused on showing images of a specific kid suffering and that’s… weird.

I’m not sure what to make of that just yet. 

Anyway, Salem’s magic here is surprisingly pretty. Pretty and painful, but I expected more red and blacks, perhaps some spikey imagery, so the rainbow was an interesting surprise. Given the amount of pain Oscar is in, I suspect too much of that would kill him, so Salem calls in Hazel to continue the interrogation. The first few hits he deals are for Haven, the others for his sister.

See, this is why RWBY needs to actually embrace its “life isn’t a fairy tale” theme. You cannot show me child torture in one week and then move to Ruby “We’ll win because we’re the good guys ^_^” Rose the next. The whole reason why Ironwood (and Ren now) was right is because this is the shit reality they’re dealing with. You didn’t run when you had the chance and now Oscar (and Ozpin) is being tortured. You keep talking about saving Mantle, but the only reason why they’re not already dead is because the writing randomly turns the cold danger on and off. This mix of horrific, real world danger and unjustified confidence doesn’t work.

…also, I officially don’t want any redemption arc for Hazel. This guy is beating on a child because he’s convinced that he’s Ozpin, blaming Ozpin for his sister’s decision, all while forwarding a genocidal maniac’s plans. Hazel and his ridiculous shirts can just get on out of here, thanks.

Finally, I just want to say... this is the woman a lot of the fandom defended. This is the woman you wanted raising those girls and blamed Ozpin for trying to escape with them.

This is how Salem treats children.

Oh, and all of this is without his aura because it just broke. So Oscar is in serious, non-fantasy trouble here. 

Someone please rescue him soon 😭

We finish up with some frankly boring stuff with the rest of the villain cast. We learn that the Hound is an “experiment” and a new one given that Cinder has never seen it before. Salem’s dialogue is admittedly great—“Do you hear that, my pet? She thinks. She wants.”—but Cinder just rehashes everything we’ve heard from her before. She wants the Winter Maiden power. She has trouble remembering that she’s playing at Salem’s slave. She even rehashes the exact same line, “Without you, I am nothing.” Why are we wasting time on this when we had that tantalizing backstory before? 

Bleh. 

Salem tells her in no uncertain terms to stay put.

So Cinder immediately leaves LOL.

She just wants to “check on” Amity tower because she “knows those kids” in ways Salem doesn’t. I’m admittedly slightly confused as to how Cinder knows to go there? Did she believe Ironwood’s lie that it was finished even though it apparently IS finished now? Has she overheard something? I’m not sure. Frankly, keeping track of that stuff in RWBY is headache inducing, so let’s just roll with it.

Neo, the only one with a brain around here, makes it clear she thinks Cinder is an idiot for going. Emerald, always the Cinder fan, offers to go in her stead. She’s been working on her semblance, so I expect we’ll see something cool with that soon. They head off, apparently not worried about what Salem will do to them when they get back.

Which is when we move to the outpost for our final scene, most of which I’ve covered. I only have two more things I want to bring up here.

The first is the tone. As said earlier, the tone of the Hound chase wasn’t horrible, but I find myself disappointed in the overall attitude of Jaune and Yang. Yang is making jokes about how they can’t fly, high-fiving Jaune, and they’re both shrugging off Ren’s concerns. Jaune says he won’t be able to sleep due to worrying about Oscar, but neither of them act particularly worried. Which isn’t to say they need to be sobbing the whole time or whatever, just that Ren is the only one who feels real here. They may not agree with his stance about everything else, but they’ve all experienced the same event: watching a grimm that can morph, talk, and think horrifically kidnap a teammate. Shouldn’t there be more emotion attached to that? Things have gotten better with Oscar than they’ve been in the past, largely due to details like Nora’s hug at the beginning of the volume, but let’s be real, they’re still not perfect. Do we think Jaune and Yang would be this nonchalant if Ruby were kidnapped that way? Say all you want about Ruby being her sister, or others being teammates for longer, but the fact remains that Oscar has been taken to Salem herself and the only one reacting to that in any meaningful way is Ren. 

Who they say will “brood himself to death.” That right there. The one guy freaking out about your kidnapped friend should not be described as “brooding.”

All of which segues into my second point, namely that Yang doesn’t seem to care about Ruby anymore either! She asks Jaune, “Do you think she thinks less of me?” for not going to Amity and when Jaune reassures her that Ruby will always love her, Yang’s response is, “Yeah… Ruby.”

She was thinking about Blake.

The kicker? I thought she was talking about Ruby too. Because Ruby is her sister. Because she and Ruby had the fight (“fight”). Because Ruby was trying to call her to check in. Because Blake and Yang didn’t even acknowledge that they went on different missions here. I thought Blake was like Jaune, not really taking a side and just heading with Ruby because the team is splitting down the middle. Where did this worry come from?

And I want to praise RT here (I really do) because I can see the effort. I said Blake and Yang needed to spend time apart, they have. I said they needed to work through their co-dependent identities, now Blake is reminding Nora (and theoretically herself too) that someone you love is just a part of you. I said that the group couldn’t be a hive-mind, now there’s disagreement. I said the show needs to make Blake/Yang canon at some point and you can’t do that if they don’t talk about and to each other. So I fully admit that this is everything I asked for… so why does it feel so badly done? No matter how many boxes it checks off, it’s still a moment where we thought Yang was finally worrying about her sister again—like she used—and then it’s ‘Sike! It was really just about Blake! Again. Yang is worried about a problem that was never even introduced.’

I suppose that’s why it doesn’t work for me. Yang and Ruby had the falling out, but Yang and Blake, somehow, become the focus. Is it really so hard to write Yang as a sister and a potential love interest? Yang apparently can’t care for Ruby and Blake, Weiss can’t care for her team and her brother, Ruby can’t care for Mantle and Ironwood… it’s like each character gets one (1) thing to put their emotional energy towards at any given time and that’s it. That’s all they get.

On the flip side, this is why Ren feels like a person this episode. He cares about Mantle, and the future fight, and their past mistakes, and his place here, and the problems within the team, and Nora… He feels like a well-rounded person! vs. Yang and Jaune who don’t even consider his perspective, vs. Yang having a fight with her sister but only cares about Blake. They’re one-dimensional in comparison.

It is, as always, disappointing. 

As the group “broods” then the camera shows us a piece of the ice nearby, slowly cracking as Jaune says that “Things always seem to get worse before they get better.” Well, that’s unexpected. I didn’t think our opening would be literal. I’ve been worried about Atlas falling on everyone, not everyone falling… to whatever is underneath the kingdom as a whole. Is the kingdom falling apart? Or is something waking up and moving towards the surface? If RWBY can reproduce the characterization we got with the Hound, I wouldn’t be opposed to another leviathan grimm rising from the snowy deep to assist Salem…

Though how the fuck group will survive everything and that, who knows lol.

And that’s our episode! Issues aside—most of which have been ongoing issues. We knew they were there—I think this was our strongest episode so far this volume. Well done! There are still problems, no doubt, but at least I was only bored for a small portion of that 20 minutes. Let’s just keep heading in that direction.  

Exciting Saturday, huh?

Regarding bingo updates:

RWBY actually re-used a grimm I thought they’d abandoned, so well done there.

No civilians around for the giant grimm army to attack, so that was fine. Kind of strange though that they completely disappeared after the Hound left.

The timeline is starting to get wonky. For example, what kind of stakes am I supposed to expect when Cinder decides to head to Amity? Is it currently empty? Is Pietro there? Has Penny made it yet? I said weeks ago that RWBY would need to follow multiple groups to fill out fourteen episodes in just two days—and they’re definitely doing that—but that means we don’t have a clear sense of what events are happening simultaneously and what are meant to be linear.

No Winter or Ironwood this episode.

Watts is back with Jacques! Potential for team-up 2.0? That will admittedly be hard with Qrow and Robyn there, unless those two escape.

(Oh yeah, I thought Qrow and the others would be held in the military base and Ruby would find him during her heist… but she doesn’t even care that Qrow is in jail.)

Maria is still a ghost. If we hit the halfway mark with her not doing anything I’m calling the space.

I definitely wouldn’t call this cliffhanger needless. That’s actually a cool way to end things, even if Jaune’s line was pretty on the nose.

Neo may be getting closer to backstabbing Cinder if those expressions are anything to go by. 

Still waiting to see if Amity works.

And finally, drumroll please! …

“More obvious Blake/Yang implications without confirming a relationship.” Yup, I’m marking that this week. After Blake’s ‘just a part of you’ comment and now Yang only being worried about her reaction? Definitely calling it. If RWBY confirms a relationship this volume I’ll eat my words—and some celebratory cake — but until then salt prevails. Especially after the fiasco that was Supernatural.

Still no bingo. Ah well, maybe next week lol.

Until then! 💜

[Ko-fi]

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #rwby fault #rwby recaps #mymetas

[oumiyuki]

Spicing Things Up

Summary: Shuka attempts to spice up her relationship with Anju due to reasons, and…when those attempts go as planned or don’t go as planned; she ends up a blushing mess regardless.  

 Pairing: AnShuka

Genre: Fluff, Romance

Words: 1743

Author Notes

I haven’t AnShuka-ed in the longest time. OwO in a sense. XD

May you enjoy~

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Okay. Okay. I’m doing this. I’m totally going to do this…

Shuka pep talks herself for the umpteenth time now as she checked that she had everything in order. The usually energetic girl now channelling nervous energy as she paced the hotel suite she rented for the day…and night.

“Candles, check. Homemade Hamburg, check. Red wine we won’t drink, check.” Shuka counts off her fingers as she made sure her preparations didn’t run away while she was checking the time again; as the hour drew closer to when her girlfriend was coming over.

 Shuka: Meet me at xx hotel at 6pm, Anju!

Anju: Why?

Shuka: er…

Shuka: I got a surprise for you! ;D

A wink added so the surprise won’t be too much a surprise and showed that Shuka IS flirting with her favourite girl in the whole wide world.

Anju: Okay.

Anju: Do I need to bring anything?

Shuka: Just you and your beautiful ass ;D

Anju took a moment to answer. Shuka could guess that she made her girlfriend laugh blushingly but shakes her head disapprovingly at her. Because-

Anju: Don’t use that crude language.

Shuka: BUTT

Anju: -laughing emojis-

Shuka grins at her phone. Grins at her text messages with Anju; she just loves how they can flirt so openly. And she simply adores making Anju smile or laugh. The small girl takes pride in doing so; especially after her fellow Aqours members point out that Anju laughs a whole lot more when she’s around.

Shuka glances to the clock again. 5.50pm.

“Oh gosh…” Shuka bites her bottom lip as she wrings her hands together. “I’m sweating so much already! Is the AC not working??”

Shuka takes a few deep breathes as she paces the floor near the door. She shouldn’t be sweating so much…not with how little dressed she is. Or so the dancer tries to reason for all her nervous sweating.

The bell rings and Shuka lets out a shriek. “Anju! 5.53pm! She’s early.”

Shuka blinks about and had her hand stuck on the knob for at least a minute. Repeatedly mumbling a mantra, “I can do this. I can do this. Just a night of loving Anju. How hard could that be?”

Shuka swallows one big gulp of nerves before she opens the door with a wide smile. “Anj— ”

The shorter girl was cut off immediately as Anju pushed her way in and slammed the door shut, wide eyes looking Shuka up and down accusatorily and almost hungrily.

“Anju-”

“What. Are you even wearing, Shuka?” Anju shakes her head when Shuka opens her mouth to answer. “If you weren’t dressed yet, you didn’t have to open the door. I can wait. What if it wasn’t me at the door?”

Anju shot off concern after another. Shuka blinks and then lowers her head with a smile that could not help but bloom.

Ahh, Anju cares so much for my well-being…

“Anju. Hear me out.” Shuka claps two hands in front of her, expression apologetic.

The taller girl sighs. “Explain.”

“This is all part of the plan.” Shuka spreads her arms wide causing Anju to blush and grab those arms to pull it down and in front of Shuka’s front.

“Where is your shame! And what plan?” Anju pouts, trying her best to not stare at Shuka’s fair skin, Shuka’s muscular arms, Shuka’s abs, Shuka’s cute and simple underwear…

“My whole date plan, Anju. Pleaseeeee just go along with it?” Shuka gives Anju the world’s best puppy dog eyes and pretty-please pout, with the perfect height difference and Shuka’s natural cuteness, Anju just couldn’t win this.

“…Fine. You stop whenever I call it.”

Shuka beams, does a twirl as she takes Anju’s hand, pulling her girlfriend to the dining table. “You say it like it’s gonna get worst.”

“Call it a gut feeling.” Anju shakes her head, eyes could not help but stray to the small of Shuka’s back, and to the petite butt that Anju would love to touch but no. Just no. She got to practice self-control when around Shuka!

 Dinner started normal. As normal as it can be when Shuka was donned in her lingerie and bringing out plates of her delicious Hamburg. And only after three bites in did the shorter girl remember a part of her plan.

“Ah!! Candlelit dinner.” Shuka jumps out of her seat and hurried for a lighter.

Anju continued eating as she sweat-dropped; she was wondering if those huge candles were supposed to be lit up but not say anything after all.

“Alright.” Shuka went to dim the overall lights too. “Romantic right?”

If anything…the lighting is making my heart race as it makes Anju’s profile more distinct and she’s so pretty…

Anju smiles, licking her lips subconsciously to clear whatever sauce that may be there. “I suppose.”

Shuka beams and they ended dinner rather peacefully. Anju, however, could guess it wasn’t the end.

Candlelit dinner went well… Now I just gotta spice things up in bed!

Shuka covers her face with both hands and shook her head from side to side at the way she phrased that.

It’s not me…!! Aahhhh.

Shuka was 100% in a maiden in love mode and she can’t help it as she led the way to their bedroom. Remembering halfway that Anju needs to wait outside. “Come in when I tell you to.”

Anju cocks an eyebrow up and nods. “Alright.” 

 Shuka enters the room, shuts the door and hurries to grab some items off the table before lying in bed first.

“Okay…Here…Like this… Mm….” Shuka balances a nicely peeled mikan on her smooth tummy. Blindly grabbing for the whipped cream bottle and then squeezing out quite an amount over the mikans and her body.

“Yosh! This should do it~” Shuka checks out her handiwork, nods at the creamy mikan a few times before taking a short breath. She was starting to get used to being in just her underwear but it doesn’t make it any less nerve-wracking to be doing something like this for the first time.

I just got to say ‘Would you like a bite?’ when Anju walks in. Okay.

Shuka opens her mouth to give her girlfriend the signal to enter but pauses.

Or should I go with ‘Enjoy your dessert~’… hmm…

Shuka’s fingers absentmindedly go over the whipped cream and lick it off; something sweet for stimulating her brain so she can think of the best pickup line.

‘Eat me, An.’

The brunette feels her cheek flush red.

Aahhhh, anything would be embarrassing. It’s supposed to be! Mmm……

“Are you done yet, Shuka?” Anju’s voice jolts Shuka out of her thoughts.

“Ah! Um! I, I guess so?” Shuka stammers as she gives her body a one-over once more.

“You guess? I could wait a little longer if you’re not done-”

“I’m done. I’m done! I…Come on in, Anju!!” Shuka slaps her face twice to get in the groove.

I can do this!

Anju creaks the door open, not sure what to expect. And sure enough, she freezes at the sight.

Shuka grins crookedly; shrugging her shoulders. “Well…Desserts on me?”

Anju groans thinking Shuka was punning at a time like this. “Why are you doing this?”

“…” Shuka chews her gum.

I’m supposed to get through tonight romantically-

Anju gives Shuka a pointed look; wanting answers. Sure, Anju likes what she’s getting this evening. But it was so out of the blue, and she certainly does not want Shuka to be forcing herself.

…Anju won’t stop giving me that ‘tell me’ look. Ugh…

Shuka relents at long last, sitting up and letting the mikan fall into her hands. “It’s not because I want to…”

Anju strides over and seats beside Shuka.

“AiAi and Kyan were playing with this OTP generator and I have to do what it says!” Shuka explains what events led to all of this bizarre date.

Anju furrows her eyebrows. “It said feed me whipped cream on mikan and a candlelit dinner while you’re just in your underwear?”

Shuka turns away, blushing. “Um…no? Maybe? I mean!”

The prompt had all of that. But they didn’t exactly say do it all at once. But-

Anju’s chuckle captures Shuka’s attention. “Just come here.”

Shuka looks over as Anju takes her hand, pulling Shuka onto her lap and into a hug. “And let me see that prompt.”

Anju…

Shuka relaxes in Anju’s hold; this felt right. Not extra nerves and worry and panicky from trying to be romantic. Instead, she was held safe and warm and reassured in her girlfriend’s arms.

You’re so ikemen!

Shuka’s cheeks were a hot red as she attempts to pull out her phone from her non-existent pocket. “Ah, I’m still in my underwear.”

Anju nods matter of factly. “You are.”

“Should I go get-”

Shuka makes to get up but Anju tightens her embrace. “Nah, that can wait.”

Shuka looks up at Anju and when their eyes meet, all the ridiculousness of Shuka’s “failed” romantic acts faded into the background. All they could see was each other. And all they could feel was how right it felt in each other’s arms.

“An…” Shuka breathes.

“Shuka…” Anju murmurs.

Their gaze in one another’s eyes slowly shifted downwards to each other’s lips. And a simple glance once more was enough of an answer to know what the other wanted.

Anju leans down and Shuka herself raises her head for their lips to meet in a much desired and magnetic kiss.

“Mm…” Shuka moans at the sensation.

Anju is a really good kisser.

Anju pulls and nibbles at Shuka’s bottom lip a couple of times before pressing their lips fully together again. And at the end of it, she licks Shuka’s lips and then hers. “Shuka…I could kiss you forever.”

Shuka bites her bottom lip, smiley-blushy. “I could be kissed by you forever and not mind.”

Anju barks a chuckle; face redder than red as she arched her neck away. “Mm..mm...”

Ah, Anju is so cute!

Shuka snakes her hand around her girlfriend’s neck, pulling Anju in for a hug. “Let’s cuddle~?”

Anju smiles at Shuka’s display of affection. Then her eyes strayed towards her girlfriend’s lovely stomach. “After a shower.”

Shuka laughs. “After a shower!”

They both got in the showers, stayed inside for an hour chatting about anything and everything before they got out and under the covers. Chatting even more, before they fell asleep huddled close – warm and snug in each other’s arms.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author Notes

I probably mentioned this before…but ending an AnShuka story is always sooooo hard! I want to continue and continue and could just go on and on and on. From going in-depth on the showers, or the cuddles and morning to come after. Gosh. XD They are so lovely!

*cough cough * either way! I hope y’all all enjoyed this~ :D

Leave a comment if you like~ :”D (It’ll make my day to see some when I wake hehehe)

Yousoro~~!! o7

#anshuka #anshk #saitou shuka #inami anju #anchan #shukashuu #love live #love live sunshine #seiyuu rpf #fanfiction #fanfic #fluff #romance #kissing #hugging #let's all thank kyan and aiai for this #XD #chikayou #youchika #writing

[magewriter]

Enough to go Around

For katieisagoddess who asked for Kalex to AgentSuperCorp. Kara and Alex are together, but no one knows except Eliza and J’onn. They go on a date one night, and Lena sees them (she’s not mad that Kara didn’t tell her about being Supergirl) doesn’t quite catch that they’re leaving a date, asks Kara out on a date. Kara and Alex share a look, tell her that they’re actually dating, then offer to have her join them.

I own nothing. Another prompt fill!

Words: 3626

Alex stared down the women across from her.

Why did the stupid alien have to be so damn attractive?

More importantly, why did their resident billionaire philanthropist also have to be so attractive as well? Lena was looking between them as if she were watching a tennis match.

Between the two of them, Alex was glad she had her training to fall back on. She would lament to Kara over the situation later. The billionaire in question was her best friend after all.

Actually, Kara might just try to set the two of them up. Her sister was like that, despite her fairly obvious crush on the CEO.

“Just admit defeat Agent Danvers,” Supergirl spoke, her attempts to keep a straight face not fairing very well. “Ms. Luthor is correct in this case.”

Lena made absolutely no attempt to hide her smirk. She set down her cards. A royal flush stared back at Alex mockingly.

Why, between the three of them, had they only had a deck of lead-backed playing cards for entertainment? Alex made a mental note to outfit the lockdown rooms with something else just in case (when) something like this happened again.

What had happened was some idiot hadn’t followed proper lab procedures, releasing a chemical agent that resulted in the entire building going into a quarantine lockdown until the air scrubbers could do the basic and DEO agents from the desert base could get into the city to clear the building.

Since neither Supergirl nor Lena Luthor was meant to be in the DEO, Alex had dragged them into the room attached to her lab. She was the only one with direct access, so she would be able to scrub the footage later. Brainy would have already done so to anything showing the two women being present at all.

And so here they were, several hours into lockdown and the only way to apparently keep Supergirl from having a claustrophobic meltdown was cuddles and games. Hence the worn deck of playing cards and many rounds of poker.

Alex shelved the thought that Supergirl was a lot like Kara in that respect. Her little sister hated small spaces. Cuddles and mental distractions (and sometimes food, but that was in short supply right now) were really the only ways to help her calm down and stay that way.

Supergirl was tucked up against Lena’s side at the moment, but her bare feet were settled beneath Alex’s crossed legs. The agent had to give her some credit, her toes weren’t cold.

“Fine,” Alex tossed down her cards. A trio of Kings and a pair of Aces was a good hand, against anything else. “New game please, anything but poker.”

“Blackjack or Texas Hold’em?” Lena gathered the cards up and began to shuffle them.

Alex would remember that day clearly for some time after her memories were returned. It had made her think of several things she never would have otherwise.

Like the fact that her crush on Kara was nowhere near as gone as she thought it was. She had apparently just needed to take the sister-conditioning out of the equation to act on it. Admitting to these feelings had brought them to now, entangled together on Kara’s couch.

“Oh…wow,” she breathed once they stopped kissing.

“I have wanted to do that for so long,” Kara whispered. She wasn’t nearly as breathless as Alex, but she was vibrating in her excitement.

This was practically everything she had wanted since she understood that relationships did not work the same on Earth as they had on Krypton.

She may have taken slight advantage of Alex not knowing she was Supergirl but flirting with her while in uniform, but Alex had chosen to respond to said flirting. That they had continued said flirting after Alex had her memories back, well, that had been Alex’s choice as well.

“Why didn’t you just do it?” Alex asked in a moment of curiosity.

Kara scowled at her. “Because I didn’t want to hear the ‘that’s not how it works on Earth Kara’ lecture again.” She finally noticed she was vibrating and focused on calming down enough to stop. “Besides, at least I had you even if we weren’t together. I want you to be happy Alex, even if it wasn’t with me.”

Alex winched, thinking of Maggie, Sam, Sara, and a few others that she had been with since figuring out she was a lesbian and not just weird for having a crush on her alien foster sister. Being in love with, she silently amended the thought.

“What about your crush on Lena?” She teased, tugging her alien back into her lap.

Kara blushed, but returned the statement. “What about yours?”

“Later,” Alex decreed, kissing Kara again. “I want to go out on an actual date with you where we both know it’s a date and we don’t call it anything else.”

Kara’s face brightened. “When? Where? Locally or I can fly us somewhere?”

Alex chuckled. “Calm down. We’ll save the superpowers for another night.”

Their first date went well. Alex took them to a movie she knew they would both enjoy while Kara took them to a probably not legal lookout spot for a picnic and stargazing.

Six weeks in and the only ones really aware of the change in their relationship were J’onn and Eliza. Kara really didn’t understand how that was possible, since neither were outright hiding it.

Huh, she supposed they really had been like that forever. They certainly hadn’t changed much in how they acted around each other. They had added kissing to their greetings, but as neither had any interest in PDA they were kept private. Kara didn’t want to even think about the chaos that would eschew if word got out that Supergirl had a lover.

She perked up when she heard Alex enter the apartment. They really should talk about moving to a singular abode. They were together more often than not.

“So, date night?” Alex wrapped her arms around her girlfriend. That was nice, being able to claim Kara as such.

Kara leaned back into the hold. “We can try that new place on the south side?” She suggested. “Lena mentioned that they have an eating challenge, which means you can take bets from those who underestimate me.”

Alex hummed at the thought, thinking it over. “How is our resident CEO? I haven’t seen her lately.”

“Busy, and she’s going through PAs almost as fast as Ms. Grant right now.” Kara shook her head. “They just can’t keep up with her, or they try and have a break-down which makes Lena feel bad.”

“And so you,” Alex pecked her on the cheek, “have been taking her lunch to give them a break and make certain she eats?”

“Yes,” Kara poked her side, making Alex shift away to avoid being tickled. “Jess told me point blank to my face that she doesn’t understand how I deal with two of you.”

Alex reddened. It was one of the many things she and Lena had in common. It was also one of the things that drew Alex to the other woman. Who better for a workaholic than another workaholic?

“She also knows, and so does Jess.” Kara said absently, turning so she was holding Alex. She floated them above the floor, making her girlfriend squeak at the sudden shift.

“Knows what exactly, and how many NDAs am I going to need to ask for from HR?”

“Supergirl and none, because neither of them are going to say anything. Lena isn’t mad anymore and we talked about it, although I think Jess and Sam may have talked her down from her original response.” Kara frowned, brow furrowed. “I hate that I hurt her Alex, that we hurt her. She trusts us and she’s hurt because she feels like we don’t trust her.”

“Hey,” Alex got Kara to look at her. “You owe no one your secret, no matter what the relationship. We do trust Lena, but this past year has been crazy even for us.” She shifted so she was comfortable sitting on Kara’s crossed legs. She grinned, pushing Kara so they were lying horizontal in the air. Like a cat, she stretched out on the other woman.

Kara giggled, adjusting so that Alex wouldn’t roll off. They would do this often as teenagers and even more now that they were together. They settled that way, basking in the warm glow from the sunlight filtering in thru the windows.

“Come on,” Alex finally said, shifting to roll off onto her own feet. “I still want to go out tonight.”

“Okay,” Kara allowed gravity to affect her again, settling lightly onto her feet. “Are you on-call tonight?”

“Nope,” Alex had a Cheshire-esque smile on her face. “Unless the world is ending, we’re both covered. So no suite tonight and I’ll leave my guns at home.”

Kara eyed her with suspicion. Alex had said guns not weapons. She had emptied Alex’s pockets on several occasions. Her girlfriend was capable of hiding a wide variety of objects on her person, many seemingly innocent until an attacker was bleeding or otherwise incapacitated.

The agent rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’ll leave all of my nice weapons at home where they’ll be lonely and neglected.”

“They’ll get over it,” Kara retorted.

Grumbling, Alex began pulling out a truly astonishing amount of items. She wasn’t dressed for work, having already changed before coming over to Kara’s. Would it be too strange to start talking about moving in together? Kara didn’t have what Alex would deem appropriate weapons storage, plus it wasn’t as if Alex didn’t already have a large number of her things here to begin with or Kara at hers.

“Ready?” Kara ignored the pile of gadgets and weaponry Alex had placed on the table.

“Yeah, let’s lock up and go.” Alex looked at the pile of things. Maybe just one? Kara had her powers always, surly she could bring just one…

“Come on,” Kara tugged her towards the door. She swung back and picked up a pocket knife that probably wasn’t one, handing it to her lover. “Stop pouting. That’s my line.”

Laughing, Alex took the offered weapon and attached to her belt. “Come on dork. Show me this restaurant.”

The ‘new place on the south side’ turned out to be a strange amalgamation of Chinese and American cuisine. The eating challenge was one hundred potstickers in an hour. The platter was a mix of every flavor of potsticker (Alex would later argue that some of the combinations should not count as a potsticker) offered, equating to ten sets of ten.

Kara’s eyes were wide at such a thing and ordered two. Alex had managed to keep a blank face, but inside she was cackling madly. Within ten minutes of placing their order, Alex had placed a dozen bets with other patrons and two servers. She had gotten herself the trial platter of the potstickers, a dish a tenth of the size of what was served to Kara.

Alex sat back to enjoy the show as the timer started. She knew some people found it disgusting, watching someone shovel food into their mouths the way Kara could. She was immune to it by this point. Other people’s reactions were far more entertaining.

“Alex, these are so good! Did you try yours?” Kara finished off the ones described as a pizza in a potsticker (pepperoni, sausage, and cheese in a tomato sauce shoved in the dumpling wrapper).

“Huh…that’s a really weird texture.” Alex glanced at the plate to see the label, agreeing that the beans did give it a strange but not entirely unpleasant texture. She did make a note to try the chili on its own, to which Kara agreed.

“Bleh, never ordering these on their own but Lena will like them.” This was about the vegetarian ones which contained kale. Alex took a picture as proof to show Lena that Kara had willingly eaten the vegetable.

The traditional ones barely lasted a blink. Alex had eaten that one first off her plate, just to save it from disappearing into Kara’s stomach.

“Oh, spicy!” Kara said with delight as she demolished the buffalo chicken filled dumplings. The habanero ranch ones followed, chased down by the small glass of milk that came with it.

More than half done, Alex checked the clock. They still had thirty minutes.

“Oh my…Alex we have to learn how to make these!” Kara stuffed the rest of the cheeseburger potstickers in mouth almost as fast as she had the traditional and pizza versions.

Alex scoffed. “Not unless you want a hazmat team in the apartment.”

“We’re not that bad!” Kara defended. They always managed Thanksgiving and simple dishes easily enough. Potstickers couldn’t be that difficult to make! Then she could have them every day!

“Finish your food,” Alex prodded her. She was keeping an even tally (as she always did) on what Kara did and did not like.

“Hmm…this taste more like crab ragoon than a potsticker,” Kara commented, inhaling them. That was one of Alex’s and Lena’s preferred side dishes when they ordered Chinese take-out. Kara didn’t mind it; that always meant more potstickers for her.

“ohh…Philly cheese steak!” Alex was tempted to snag some of those, but refrained. She could always get her own order.

The final one was sweet, more desert than appetizer. It was styled after a traditional apple pie and was encrusted with cinnamon sugar (Alex argued that it was closer to an empanada than a potsticker).

Grinning, Alex hit the button to stop the clock with ten minutes to spare. Her girlfriend had just eaten two hundred potstickers in fifty minutes and earned Alex nearly double that plus her own meal was covered.

As Alex collected her winnings, Kara got her picture taken to be placed on the wall with the others who had defeated the challenge. There weren’t many and Kara’s picture got pride of place.

“Still hungry?” Alex asked her softly.

“I’m good for now. Want to take a walk on the pier?” Kara held out her hand.

“Sure,” Alex took the offered hand, lacing their fingers together.

“Oh…hello.”

They both looked up, a bit surprised to see the woman who had been the topic of their earlier conversation.

“Lena! Hi!” Kara released Alex’s hand so she could hug their friend.

“Hey Lena,” Alex greeted, taking the other woman in.

The CEO was dressed down (for her) in tight jeans and a loose MIT hoodie (not, Alex noted, the faded one she favored on movie nights). She also wasn’t wearing heels, so she was now shorter than the both of them. Alex approved of the sturdy look to the boots. Kara caught her looking and smiled.

Lena, for her part, hugged Kara tightly. She hadn’t meant to interrupt what was clearly a Sister’s Night, and they had done something if the shit-eating grin on Alex’s face was any indication. She breathed in Kara’s scent, it’s familiarity comforting and giving her the courage to be spontaneous.

“Can I ask you something?” Lena asked softly.

Kara’s smile was soft. “Sure.”

“Kara Danvers, would you go on a date with me?”

Kara blinked. Alex blinked. Lena fidgeted, wondering if she had misread the signals she often got from both women. She liked both of them, but she had met and fallen for Kara first. If Kara said no, Lena was determined to remain friends with both of them (after a bit of time to build back up certain walls).

“Oh…um…” Kara exchanged a look with Alex. “We already on a date.” She said in answer. “We’ve been dating for weeks.”

“Oh…oh…” well…that was heartbreaking. Not entirely unexpected, but still heartbreaking. “I see...I’ll just leave you to it then.”

The pair exchanged another look. Kara didn’t mind in the least bit. Trios and Quads, while not prolific were not uncommon on Krypton. The Matrix matched those who would suit the needs of Krypton both current and future; sometimes that meant more than a simple pair. Two of her classmates had had parents in sets of three; another had had a set of four.

“Join us,” Alex offered. She wasn’t entirely certain how this was going to work out, but she was willing to try. She liked Lena. Given the chance, she was certain she would love her just as much as Kara already did.

“I don’t wish to intrude,” Lena made to step back but Kara tightened her hold on Lena’s hand.

“Humans,” she huffed in Kryptonian. She had more than enough love for the both of them and she had no doubt they were the same, in their own ways. “You wouldn’t be intruding Lena, we want you to join us and be part of our date.” She took a step closer to Alex, holding out her other hand. “If you wanted to.”

“We want you to,” Alex offered her free hand. “We’re going for a walk along the pier, possibly for ice cream if they’re still open.”

“You’re both serious,” Lena said, looking at them with surprise. They really were, she was coming to accept as they looked at her and waited for her response.

“Of course we are.” Kara asserted. Alex nodded in agreement.

She hesitated for a moment longer before taking Alex’s offered hand. In an instant that screamed of Kara using her speed, Lena found herself tucked between them and being led towards the dimly lit pier and the setting sun.

“So what were you doing out here?” Alex asked, tucking a hand into Kara’s back pocket. Her arm was just long enough to fit comfortable around both her companions.

Lena blushed. “I was coming to pick up dinner before going to Kara’s, to ask her out.” Or a movie night if she chickened out. Either way, she would get to spend time with the blonde.

“Wait, does that mean you haven’t eaten yet? Lena, lunch was hours ago!”

Both of them laughed at the blonde’s incredulous look.

“Alex, we have to fix this! I’ll be right back.” Kara disappeared, leaving them alone.

“Kara,” Alex held up her wallet. Kara came back, snatched it, and disappeared again. “Stay local!” Alex called out, knowing Kara would hear her.

“Just how often doesn’t she listen to that bit?” Lena asked, daring to lean further into Alex’s embrace. The other woman was warm and felt safe, something that Lena normally only associated with Kara.

“Often enough, has she ever brought you these fluffy stuffed bread rolls?”

“Yes, several times,” Lena answered warily.

Alex nodded. “She tell you they’re from a tiny little shop around the corner of somewhere really vague?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, they’re from this tiny little place in an equally tiny French town.” Alex told her. “Has she ever brought you borsht?”

“Once or twice…and she brought it from somewhere in Russia.” Lena tallied up the various things Kara had ever brought her.

“No,” Alex snickered, “she gets that from NYC. She did get Lucy vodka from Russia once, last year for the holidays. She picked mom up some tea from there as well.” She found a picnic table they could sit at. “Kara loves food, which I know you know, but feeding people is also a way for her to show how much she cares for someone. The exchange of food is also part of Kryptonian courting practices.”

Lena blinked at her. “Just how long as Kara, either on accident or purposefully, been courting us?”

“Me since high school, you…” Alex paused for thought. “I think she started doing it on purpose after frat-boy left." That was probably some of the worst advice she’d ever given Kara. “Honestly, it’s not something I think she’s even aware she does. Human mating rituals confuse her a lot more than I ever thought they did.”

“I see,” it certainly made a lot of sense. “Are you just doing this for her?”

“Yes and no,” Alex admitted after a moment of silence. “Yes, because I will do absolutely anything for Kara. No, because I have a crush on you and would like to see how well we click romantically.” She huffed in exasperation. “Not knowing Kara was Supergirl was the most frustrating eight months of my life.”

“Wait, what?”

Alex explained much of what had been going on the past year, including the crushes she had developed for two people on top of her long suppressed feelings for her foster sister.

“The press is going to have a field day with this,” Lena decided she didn’t care at the moment.

Alex chuckled darkly. “Let them try.”

“I’m back!” Kara smiled widely at them, handing over two boxes.

“These are potstickers,” Lena said in surprise. Kara never shared potstickers. Even Alex had to fight for them. She looked over to see what Alex had been given. It appeared to be some kind of donut. Whatever it was, Alex was happily tearing into it.

“Kale potstickers,” Kara answered, happy to babble about the eating challenge. “Alex took a picture as proof I ate them.”

Lena tried them, surprised to find she liked the taste and texture. It wasn’t entirely well-balanced as far as meals went, but she had become accustomed to that when eating with Kara. She did enjoy the little berry tarts Kara had brought as well.

“Ice cream now?”

Alex laughed, ruffling Kara’s hair. “Come on. Jerry’s should still be open.”

Lena found herself placed back in the center as they continued their walk around the pier. She settled in.

She had a feeling this was the start of something wonderful. She didn’t see the shared look of her companions as they agreed with her unspoken thought.

The start of something wonderful indeed.

#kalex #agentsupercorp #supergirl #prompt fill #please send asks #please send more prompts #katieisagoddess

[misha-moose-dean-burger-lover]

Movie Night (ft. Cas's t-shirt)

THANK YOU for the ask, Dear Anon! I'm very flattered that you enjoyed the last one, and hope this meets your expectations! I WISH I could tag you in this, but you're on anon so.. Anyways, I went for Tuesday movie night idea, and clubbed it with a 'cute t-shirt prompt' I received and it got long AF but please leave a comment if you read and like!

*

"Ahh," Dean let out a perfect sound of exhaustion meeting the plush comfort of his couch. "It's finally Tuesday."

Sam snorted from the side, because his relationship with tuesdays had been kind of a love-hate. Not that Dean ever took him seriously - he doesn't blame his brother, really, because he wouldn't believe Dean either if he told him 'a piano crushed you to death' or any of those other ridiculous ways in which he'd died.

"If you like movie nights that much," Jack added, from the side - he was settled in one of the big chairs, looking more like a kid than he usually did. "Why don't we watch movies on other nights, too?"

Sam leaped to answer, ever ready to squeeze in a lesson for the nephilim. Good values needed to be a part of the upbringing. Children need to be taught by example. "There's an analogy we can use for this, Jack. Say, uh, Dean loves his birthday very much." Dean frowned at his brother. "Because of the pie, and the gifts, and all the beer." Dean shrugged. "So, he wishes on his birthday candles that everyday be his birthday!" Sam paused, and Dean wondered why he spoke as if he was talking to a kid, and not the strongest 2-year-old ever. "But, what happens then, is that he keeps growing a year older on each birthday - that is, everyday!"

Jack looked alarmed. "That's - bad."

"Yeah, because then I'd grow to be 60 in like a month and die." Dean added, in a deadpan.

"It won't take you thirty years to get to sixty." Sam reminded him.

"Shut up, Sam." Dean scowled and turned back to Jack. "Listen, kid, this isn't about all the good movies in the world getting finished too soon, if we watch 'em everyday. It's more about the attitude."

Jack nodded.

"Like, uh," Dean swallowed. "Like our dad always taught me and Sammy, hunters need to live a disciplined life. Can't just start watching a movie whenever, because that'll make your head feel like you're giving it permission to do crap, just like that, without a routine. That's never good for a hunter - even less so, he'd say, for the sons of an ex-Marine. Messes your head up, and takes away your ability to fixate on your decisions." Dean paused. "It's not like I've not watched movies on a Saturday because I wanted to, but the old man made sense - it's just, a routine is better to stick to."

"That sounds like a horrible amount of behavioral psychology to associate to an activity as trivial as watching a movie." Came a new voice, as Cas stood in the doorframe, his head just slightly tilted as his eyes looked straight at Dean.

Dean's exhale was caught in his lungs, and he blinked, staring at Cas with a chest full of air, and still feeling like he'd sink instead of buoyant. Cas was no longer in the trenchcoat and pants - he wore grey pyjamas which fit snug over his thighs, and a t-shirt which had to be new, because holy fucking shit.

He'd have noticed the angel walking around their bunker, wearing a black AC/DC shirt like that - simple, to someone else, perhaps - yet the way it fit over his biceps, widened his shoulders a bit more, and gave an elevated look to his chest because of the smooth descent to a toned abdomen - rendered Dean incapable of looking away. Complete with his hair sticking up at odd angles, hints of a stubble and inspecting eyes focussed on Dean, he looked like the stuff of Dean's (guilty, oh so guilty) dreams.

"H-hey, Cas." Dean cleared his throat, shifting on the larger couch to make space for him. He waved his hand dismissively to disregard all that he'd just said. "Forget about that, it was crap - come sit down." He suggested, breathlessly.

"Look who finally joined us," Sam addressed, in a normal voice and not even bothering to look up again - making Dean wonder why he didn't get all caught up in Cas's t-shirt, like Dean just had. He was unfairly attractive - but not just to Dean, right?

"I'm sorry," Cas replied, as he sat down next to Dean. Not a single part of them touched, since they were on opposite edges of a large couch Dean originally got for Sam and him - but there was still a tingling under Dean's skin, which had to be Cas's fault. "I couldn't find any socks." He turned to Dean, suddenly smiled, and tugged his pyjama up a little to show him the socks he wore. A pair of fucking novelty socks, they were - but Dean found himself grinning mindlessly, as Cas crossed his legs under him, and the visual was taken away from him.

"Of course, you couldn't." Sam inputted. "Dean hasn't been doing the laundry lately."

"Why am I the only one supposed to do it?" Dean threw back, and Sam didn't say anything to it.

"Nevermind." Cas declared. "I found socks, unwashed though they may be. Let us start." He referred to the movie.

Jack had fell silent for a moment, and he spoke up again. "Yeah! What are we watching today?"

At the same time that Sam opened his mouth - probably to drag Dean on how they better not watch something they'd just watched - Dean spoke up. "We're watching The Fellowship of The Ring, today."

"We just watched that on literally the third Tuesday of March -" Sam complained.

"Listen." Dean threw back. "Don't shove your crazy awesome memory with movies and dates, in my face - 'cause my brain forgot the movie already."

"Forgot? You probably can quote it line by line, Dean." Sam frowned. "But I guess you're not satisfied until you flawlessly recite it in your sleep, like Lost Boys."

Dean flashed his best shit-eating grin, and if that's what he was gonna do, he wasn't gonna agree with Sam. "Well, it's what we're watching, Sammy. Deal with it."

Sam narrowed his eyes. "What about Jack? Or Cas? Why don't you ask them if they want to watch Lord of the Rings again?"

"I do." Jack announced, brightly. "I like Frodo and Samwise Gamgee." Sam rolled his eyes. "But, I could also watch something else. I trust Sam's recommendations, after Harry Potter." He added, faithfully.

"Careful, buddy, Sammy's raising your son to be a nerd." Dean muttered to Cas, and he nodded, as if it was a line that needed to be answered with a nod.

Sam grinned like it was victory handed to him on a platter. "He said he could watch something else, Dean."

"What about Cas?" Dean turned to him, rotating in his seat. "Whadd'ya wanna watch, buddy?"

Cas pursed his lips, as if in deep thought. The deciding element. The one who'd tip the scales in the favor of one of the Winchesters.

"It's not Sophie's Choice," Sam grumbled sourly, as if he already knew what Cas would choose.

"Let him think!" Dean shushed his brother.

"I have reached a decision." Cas informed everyone, looking solemnly at the TV, instead of their faces. "We shall watch The Fellowship Of The Ring, tonight." He turned to Sam. "And if there's no hunts and we're at the bunker tomorrow too, Sam's choice shall prevail - that is, if Dean agrees to go against John's sayings and watch a movie on a Wednesday."

"That's fair." Jack grinned.

Dean beamed at Cas, with his little smile and his goddamn t-shirt, which was gonna drive Dean crazy in due time, he was sure. "See, Sam?" He ignored the comment on his father, because it was rare stilted humor, and in a perfect deadpan.

Sam muttered something under his breath which sounded a little bit like 'profound bond' for some reason, and rolled his eyes in defeated agreement, as Dean began to look for the movie.

"Whatever," Sam substituted, not looking up from his phone as the opening credits began to play. "The three of you can rewatch the entire LOTR series if you want, I'll just leave you to it." He shrugged.

"Hey!" Dean was annoyed. This was family movie night. Sam was supposed to be a part of it too. "Lord of the Rings is right up your alley, nerd. Why're you bitch-facing so hard tonight?"

"Well," Sam chewed on his lip. "It's very long, and I wanted to get to bed for an early night."

Dean narrowed his eyes, and hit pause on the remote just as the elves began to narrate. "Why?"

"No reason." Sam stalled. There was an almost familiar edge to his voice and -

Suddenly, it all made sense to Dean. The dots connected in his head, and Sam's reluctance to watch a three hours long movie was suddenly reasoned.

"Why, Sam?" Cas repeated, intrigued. "Are you alright? Do you not feel well?"

"He feels fine. I know," Dean cut in. "He's got a date." Sam's eyes widened before he vigorously shook his head in denial. "Some virtual crap, I bet, because you don't like to get laid, and an actual date may've involved that - but whatever is your idea of a fun time, hey, I'm not judging."

"It's not a date!" He declared.

"Then it's something like it." Dean shrugged, getting surer, with Sam's panicked expression. He knew his brother well enough to read through this cover. "Tell me Sammy, is this a video call with some chick you met online on those awful sites?"

"Dude, no." Sam balked. "I'm on no such awful site to meet chicks."

"Sure, you're not." Dean narrowed his eyes. "Then, who? Because clearly I'm right about the rest of it."

"It's," Sam looked like he didn't wanna continue, would like nothing better than to not finish the sentence. But with Cas joining in on the stare, he let out a subdued, "Uh, Rowena."

There was a stillness in the room. Dean and Cas slowly exchanged a look, and Sam flushed. "Who?"

"We know her, Dean!" Jack corrected, promptly.

"Not like Sam does," Dean shot at his brother, who looked flustered as crap, and it was all Dean had ever wanted from this conversation.

"Dean!" Sam looked grossed out, while it should've been them. He was the one dating a three hundred years old witch. "We're gonna discuss -"

"- if you're about to tell me you'll discuss a case, I swear to call you on your bullshit by calling Rowena right away." Dean challenged, definitely.

"I -" Sam pursed his lips. "I don't need to have this conversation with you, jerk."

"What about the rest of us?" Cas asked, and there was a smirk playing on his lips, which made him all the more attractive.

"None of you." Sam declared, standing up, looking offended. "You are literally infants! Don't breathe a word of this to anyone, Dean, or I'll - whatever, just watch your frigging movie, I'm out of here."

"If you're gonna do stuff, use headphones!" Dean waited until Sam was far enough to not hit Dean for it and yelled after him, as the latter marched out of the room, embarrassed. It was his duty as the older brother to make that happen, so no issues there. He turned back to Cas, grinning at him - and Jack, of course.

"The rest of us are here without the intention of leaving halfway to call a chick, right?" Dean asked, though it was a pretty stupid question for Jack - and if the answer were yes for Cas, he'd have a major-ass freak out right there.

"Right." Cas confirmed, for some reason; his voice rich and gravelly, and Dean's attention was once again taken by Cas's t-shirt - now that his kid brother was sufficiently out of the picture. True, Jack was still there, but that's a different issue. Dean had to hold a reputation in front of Sam, that he could control his senses in the presence of Cas, and that he could rein it in, and that he could do a lot of things which he was very far from, in reality.

"Me too." Jack announced, brightly, and Dean rolled his eyes.

"Jack, you're two." Cas informed him, and Dean had to stifle a snort at the very notion. Nevertheless, he toned down the weird, made himself comfortable in the couch - maybe shifting a little towards the middle, and let out a small, content sigh, for the second time this evening.

He hit play.

*

“Why do we keep making the same mistake?” Dean groaned, his head falling back on the sofa. Once again, like every tuesday ever - they’d forgotten to get food before they sat to watch the movie. Now, around half an hour in, it was all Dean could think about. But getting up seemed like an awful chore.

Cas nodded his head in agreement, grave and earnest. “It’s because we don’t learn our lesson.”

“Dean, do you want to learn said lesson tonight, by not eating?” Jack asked.

“No.” Dean glared at him. “I may be around Mr. No-Food, and Little-to-no-food, but it isn’t wearing off on me.” They’d not paused the movie to have this discussion, so he kept his eyes on the screen as he spoke. “As a human, I have a few simple needs. Such as beer and something like popcorn to chew as I watch a classic with my - I mean, with you guys.”

“Okay." Cas shuffled in his seat, beginning to stand up. Dean frowned instantly, and pulled him down, gripping his wrist. Cas easily succumbed, and was back on the couch with a surprised little bounce - looking at Dean, confused. "What? I'll get you the beer and popcorn, so that you don't have to get up. I can obviously see you don't want to."

Aww, Dean's brain melted.

"Nope." He said, out loud, popping the 'p'. "You don't need to do that. I'll go."

"I volunteer, Dean. It's not about need," Cas protested. "And you enjoy this movie more than I do."

"Sure, but I've watched it a helluva lot more too." Dean raised his eyebrows, and Cas smiled a little, one of those smiles that he reserved for Dean, and made his insides flutter.

"We could just pause it." Jack suggested, not looking away from the TV yet, for the entirety of the conversation.

"No, you keep watching, there's no need," Dean excused, standing up himself, smiling in spite of himself. Cas looked at him, and not at the screen.

"Dean," And that wonderful voice of his swept over Dean's brain and made the puddle vaporize or some shit.

"Yeah, Cas?"

"I could keep telling you what's happening, while you're in the kitchen." Cas proposed, breaking into a wider smile, all crinkly and toothy.

"Aww, Cas," Dean couldn't stop himself in time, staring blindly at Cas's face and short-circuiting in his head. And instantly cleared his throat, and added in a more composed tone. "Okay, you do that. Thanks, I guess."

Dean wondered, as he walked into the kitchen and went looking for the bacon he'd made earlier, what was up with him tonight. He was usually able to hold his tongue in front of Cas - he was usually able to look away from him, even though it took some persuasion. But there was something today, that had taken away his brain-to-mouth-and-eyes filter.

Must be the new shirt.

Dean knocked, obnoxiously loud, at Sam's door before barging in with a plate of bacon and a beer. He saw Sam fast asleep, on his front, and did not know where to go with that, so he left the table at his bedside in case he was going to wake up and resume his midnight call or something.

Then he took the rest of the food and two beers and went back to the movie room.

All through his venture, Cas had kept yelling updates through the door. "Merry and Pippin just hugged Frodo!", "And now, Frodo just met Bilbo again!", "Arwen is speaking with Frodo now!" This had made Dean grin so hard, that he almost dropped the dishes. Damn, Cas was awesome.

As Dean handed him a beer, and put the plate of bacon between them on the couch, Cas whispered to him. "And Arwen just kissed Aragorn, son of Arathorn."

And Dean stared at Cas, his blue, blue eyes and his eyebrows pinched together in concentration, and his crinkled nose - and his goddamn voice, and his way of speaking, and how he just said the words 'Aragorn, son of Arathorn' like an entire fucking dork, and how adorable it was that he'd been doing a live-commentary for Dean, and just - he was almost overpowered by a desire to kiss the perfect little smile tugging at his lips, and palm the stubble-covered cheeks, and maybe, if Jack weren't here, pull that gorgeous fucking t-shirt over his head, because it was distracting.

Dean was instantly taken aback by his own stream of thoughts. He was clearly going crazy.

He could bet it was the fault of the shirt.

*

Okay, but at this moment, Dean needs the remote.

And it's not just because the remote is on the other side, next to Cas, and Dean's brain instantly launches into a scene in his head, when Dean asks for the remote and Cas is too comfortable (he's already holding onto a large cushion like it's a blanket) to move, and he tells Dean to take it himself - and then Dean will have to lean over Cas to get it, and there'll be a moment where he's almost on top of him, and they'll happen to look at each other, and Cas's eyes will flit down to Dean's lips as Dean adjusts himself to reach the remote, on Cas's lap, and maybe Cas says something like -

That's enough.

Dean doesn't need the remote so that something like that plays out in reality. He only needs the remote to lower the volume, because Jack is asleep and he'll wake up otherwise in the war scene and noise that'll follow.

But this way or that, he can see the said scene happening.

Maybe there's a part of him which wants it to happen exactly how it happened in his head.

Maybe it will.

So, with more energy than the sentence needed, he says, "Cas! I need the remote!"

And Cas turns his head to look at Dean, an incomprehensible expression.

But instead of saying a variation of, 'take it yourself' like he was really, really supposed to -

He picks up the remote with his left hand and hands it to Dean simply.

Dean stares at it for a moment, everything forgotten, especially the reason why he needed the remote in the first place. And then he kicks himself for being a goddamn teenage girl about this, and plays off the disappointment with a 'thank you' in the manliest voice he can conjure, and he's pretty sure it makes up for the kind-of-but-not-really pornography he'd been dreaming up. Sam's irritating voice nags in his head, you're confusing reality with porn again.

Of course, Dean is too lost thinking and staring at Cas sideways when he's sure Cas can't see him - to remember to lower the volume, and Jack wakes up with a jolt at the Uruk-Hai screeching at Gimli the dwarf.

*

Jack's going off to his room. The movie isn't finished yet, but he's been dosing off throughout and Dean can't tolerate the insult to the Classic, so he tells him to just go off to sleep. It's been a long day.

"Will you both watch it whole?" Jack asks groggily, before leaving and Dean looks enquiringly at Cas. He only has to turn his head a little, because Cas is much closer to him now. They've both gravitated towards the middle.

"Of course." Cas answers. "Unless Dean needs to sleep." Dean shakes his head confidently, and Jack nods.

"Okay, goodnight dads." He mutters, at least it sounds like it, and Dean would've lost it if Cas's slight weight leaning on his arm weren't grounding him to his current location instead of somewhere panicky in his head.

"Goodnight, Jack." Dean lets out, and he's aware it doesn't sound as constipated as he thought it would, and he's proud of it.

"Dean." Cas speaks up, a moment later. "I think we should turn off the lights."

"What?" Dean blinks, mildly.

"I know neither of us will want to get up later." Cas justifies. "So we might as well do it now."

"Can't you," Dean grumbles. "Can't you use your mojo to push the switch, or..?"

Cas sighs. Then blinks, and the entire room goes dark. Cas's eyes open, and they're gleaming like blue halos of light in the suddenly dark room - and Dean can still make out his face, in the light of it. It's all hard lines and small smiles, from the little he sees. "I need to remember I can do these things, don't I?" He mumbles.

"Yeah, our human incapabilities are wearing off on ya." Dean tells him and they start looking at the screen again.

"You're not incapable if you have to stand up to turn off the lights." Cas replies, and Dean just hums in response.

A little later, Cas speaks again, and he sounds happier almost. "Dean."

"Uh-huh?" Dean looks away from Gandalf on the screen, to look at the angel.

"Did you notice Jack kept falling asleep?"

Dean pauses. "Oh." He smiles too, it coming over him all of a sudden. "Yeah."

"That means," Cas's tone is bright, and Dean can hear his smile. "He's enough human to fall asleep in the middle of a movie, again."

"Human incapabilities strike again," Dean teases, and Cas chuckles audibly and it's a really, really good moment. Although yeah, it's a bit too domestic for Dean to be perfectly at calm - Cas and he are sitting in the dark, watching a movie they've watched so many times before, discussing the progress of the nephilim they've been raising (with Sam, of course) and Dean has his hand around Cas's seat - in what he now feels guilty on realizing is the oldest trick in every guy's playbook. They're both more in the middle of the couch than not, and the beers have been drained to the last drop. One of them doesn't sleep, the other won't - and then there's Cas's perfect t-shirt, which shall drive Dean to madness each time he sees it, and beyond.

*

Slowly, the arm which is on the couch, falls on Cas's shoulder - and it's a rather rapid course from there to it being slung around Cas, with Cas tucked under it and leaning into Dean so that it's comfortable.

It's not that Cas's head is on Dean's chest, or not even that his fingers are playing with the fabric of Cas's shirt - its just that they're so close to doing that, and somehow Dean can't pull back this time.

Like, he suddenly realizes, he's been doing forever.

It's again, a good thing that he pretty much knows LOTR scene by scene, and in spite of almost completely being distracted by everything Cas, he answers all trivial questions Cas mumbles at him in that deep, deep baritone - and there's a heat pooling in Dean's insides, and he can't quite place if its the spot behind his ribs, or further south.

Both sounds most appropriate.

*

Dean is not proud of this, but he fell asleep.

It's not that he didn't finish the movie, because he did - he remembers the last scene (or it could be from a previous watching that he recalls it) but it's just that he fell asleep right there. Next to Cas.

No, not even next to him. Pretty much wrapped around him. And somehow that's - not so wild, after all. It kinda feels awesome. Its not even morning yet, so he has more hours.

He wakes up with his hair tickling his breath and coughs mildly when he realizes that he'd buried his nose in Cas's hair - and his lips on his head, apparently. He straightens, but is sure to not make much movement - because Cas doesn't sleep like they do, he rather drifts off to a sorta-catatonic state but stays very much awake and alert. He doesn't want to wake Cas up, because the angel looks so comfortable, nestled on Dean's chest - that it somehow invokes a feeling of pride in him.

And love.

And that's that. The not-freaking-out segment of this story abruptly comes to an end, and Dean clenches his fist to stop himself from beginning to tremble.

He ends up with a fistful of that goddamn shirt which Dean blames for everything in that night, and Cas stirring awake, and straightening. The weight rested on Dean's abdomen is lost, and it feels weird and colder.

"It's seven minutes to four. Ante Meridiem." Cas announces, in a voice which is roughened by lack of use.

"You should go back to sleep." Dean begs, because Cas doesn't need to see Dean get anxious about the whole pile of feelings he's beginning to feel crushed under.

"Dean." Cas says, in that voice, and straightens some more. He's at Dean's height again, and their noses are inches apart, and Cas looks worried about him. "Dean?" He repeats, and he's concerned, and he's perfect, and his voice is something else, and the way he looks at him is something else like Dean is worthy of all his attention somehow - and the emotions are brimming and he doesn't know what to do with them until he -

He jerks himself ahead, and grabs Cas's shirt for good measures, pressing his lips against Cas's.

It's a moment of bravery, it's a moment of impulse, and it's a moment of utter stupidity because Cas doesn't react -

Until he does, and he kisses back, and he's excited and into it and Dean's taken aback by his vigor and in awe of his own hands which are grappling at Cas's t-shirt for friction as he moans into Cas's mouth.

"I blame the t-shirt," He whines, when they pull away, to look at each other better. And he does.

Of course, he's not an idiot (except for the many times that he is). But what he definitely isn't, is dense enough to not realize that this had been over ten years in the making.

These urges were familiar, and suppressed each time - the sudden feelings were overpowering, except he'd learn to deal with them tactfully, by crushing them with every means possible.

But what had changed today and he'd actually acted on it instead of swallowing it, had to be the tee. It fit like magic, and it perfectly showcased his lean, muscled chest - and gave a peak of his collarbones, and if he stretched, his obliques - and it was as black as his hair in the dark, and ah, it had to be the shirt.

Because otherwise, he didn't know what it could be, that had made tonight - today - this.

Cas still had his hand on Dean's bicep. "This one?" He looks down at himself. "I got it from your closet months ago."

"What -"

"And, you blame it?" He repeats.

"No," Dean shakes his head, anxiously, truthfully as he captures his lips in a kiss again. Slotting in place against each other, and as loving as they were passionate - he had had no idea that kissing Cas would be this amazing. "I love it. I'm gonna need you to keep wearing it. On Thanksgiving, I'm gonna be thankful for it."

Cas laughs against Dean's lips, and says something which is lost in the bliss of the moment.

Nevermind. He has all the moments after this, to listen to him. But he only has this one, at the end of a Tuesday movie night, to enjoy their first kiss (he's pretty sure all the short, little kisses just make up one major kiss). So he does.

*

Edit: Thank you for reading! Would like to tag @iamcharliebradburylevelperfect @awkward-penguin-in-a-trenchcoat @all-or-nothing-baby @styggtroll @notyoursweetbaboo @moderatelypanickedbisexual @but-for-the-gods-three-days and @emmii4 ! If you don't wanna be tagged, I'll remove you from the list, just ask! Have an awesome day!

#supernatural #season 14 #spn #destiel #ac/dc #supernatural season 14 #not spoilers #sam winchester #dean winchester #castiel #jack kline #the end #casdean #destiel fluff #lord of the rings #destiel kiss #destiel crack #samwena #implied destiel #angel cas #domestic destiel #mutual pining #sheya shall deliver #i wrote a thing #writing prompts #john winchester #john winchester's a+ parenting #deancas #dean and sam

[meat-husband]

Bubba Sawyer - Alphabet Ask Meme

I’m hoping to start doing requests on this blog, so I thought I would start up with the alphabet ask memes as a sort of intro! I figure all the letters get asked eventually, so I’m just doing all of them in one go. There will be one of these posted for each character I’m writing.

I have a page with what and who I write for here.

Both the NSFW and fluff alphabet asks are under the cut!

NSFW Alphabet

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

Cuddles are mandatory – Bubba will pout and whine if you try to get out of it (why would you though, hug that boy). He can get clingy though, and won’t want to get up once you’re both settled.

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Obviously, Bubba loves his masks (yes they count as a bodypart, let him live!). He puts a lot of effort into them and would love for you to help style them.

When it comes to you, he’s in for the whole package. There’s not one thing he could pick above another (but he’s totally a leg man, fyi).

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person)

Let’s be honest, Bubba’s pull out game weak. He doesn’t care where he cums most of the time, but there’s a lot of it so even if he only meant to get it one place, it ends up everywhere.

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

He would never admit to it or ask for it, but he’s put a lot of thought into hanging you from the meat hook in the kitchen and just keeping you there to use whenever he wants through the day. Obviously he wouldn’t hurt you, and it makes him feel guilty to even think of hanging you up like meat but he can’t stop thinking about it.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

Bubba is a sheltered baby, he’s got no idea what you’re talking about but he’s eager to go along with whatever you want. You’ll have to have a lot of patience if you want to cum with him though, it will take him a few tries to understand what to do.

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

He likes when he can grab handfuls of you and just hold on. Lay on your side, one leg under him and one over his hip, and let him go to town. He can be as handsy as he wants this way, plus easy access to kisses, and it will keep him from hitting too deep in his enthusiasm.

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

Bubba is here to have fun. He’s going to laugh and smile and make silly faces to amuse you, he doesn’t get very serious unless he’s upset.

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

You can shower all you want, that house has no AC and he’s doing manual labor all day so he’s pretty much always sweaty. He’ll clean up when he gets too bloody, but otherwise you’ve just gotta put up with it until the next shower.

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

Bubba is romantic in his own way. He’s already geared towards taking care of everyone else, so making you food, giving gifts and doing special things for you is just part of his personality. He doesn’t have much of an idea what romance is exactly, so if you want anything traditional, like a private dinner or date night, show him how it’s done by surprising him and he’ll pick up on it and return the favor.

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

Before he had a partner, it’s not something he would do often. Between Drayton’s anger and Nubbin’s teasing, he felt too guilty doing something so selfish. The thought doesn’t cross his mind once he’s got someone of his own though. Why do it alone when it’s so much more fun with you?

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

I think it's pretty common to headcanon Bubba with a breeding kink and I am all about that shit. But have you considered size kink Bubba, because I sure have! He’s a big boy and usually sort of self conscious about it, but seeing the comparison between the two of you makes him excited. It’s so easy to pick you up or to cover your body with his completely. The way you have to climb up him to sit in his lap, or how careful he has to be not to squish you under him. And he loves being the little spoon, with you trying and failing to wrap him up in your arms as well as he does to you.

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

If his brothers are gone, anywhere is fair game. Most often it’s outside in the dirt or in the barn where the generator can cover up some of his noise. Otherwise it’s strictly in your room, door locked to keep wandering siblings out.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

You’re not sure there’s anything that doesn’t turn him on, really. Something as small as eye contact or a smile has set him off before, so it’s safe to assume anything you do or say is motivation enough to send him your way with grabby hands and a tent in his pants.

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

He wouldn’t say no to anything you ask him for, so you’ll have to figure out what he likes best and what he doesn’t want to do again. He’ll make it known right away if he’s uncomfortable with anything, squawking and waving his hands nervously.

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

Absolutely loves it either way. Surprisingly, he picks up on using his mouth very quickly and it’s probably what he’s best at. Don’t expect him to sit still when you return the favor though, you can try and hold his hips down all you want but he can’t stop himself from thrusting up to meet your mouth.

P = Pace (Are they fats and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

Bubba’s got no sense of the word ‘slow’ and even less of ‘gentle’. He’s not being rough or hurting you, but he’s fast and eager and the sooner he gets his cock in you, the happier he is.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

He doesn’t think of them too differently, sex is sex. Most of the time he won’t be able to spend as much time with you as he’d like, since there’s so much work to do around the farm, but it’s rather easy to distract him from his chores if you really want to - just make sure to help him catch up with them afterwards.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

He’ll gladly try whatever you want to, so long as you show him what to do. He’s too nervous to do anything too risky though, especially if there’s a chance of being caught by his brothers.

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

Theoretically, he has to stop eventually. You have yet to find that point and you will definitely wear out before he does, but you’ll keep trying.

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

That kind of shit would get sniffed out in a second and you’re not sure whether Nubbins or Drayton finding it would be worse.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He’s got no threshold for teasing, he gives in right away. Like yeah, he wants you to get all squirmy and beg for him, but he doesn’t have the willpower to not put his cock in you when you ask for it.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

Drayton keeps a broom in the hallway to bang on the ceiling - it doesn’t work, but it makes him feel like he’s doing something.

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

He is an expert at arts and crafts. He will constantly make you things, which is flattering until you realize he’s throwing out tooth and wire friendship bracelets left and right (Nubbins has 14 of them and will only wear them all at once, like a scrawny maraca). He’s already covered the living room in hot glued bones and tacky, handmade throw pillows. His crafting knows no bounds and he cannot be stopped.

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

You’ve created a monster. There is no universe in which he is not ready to fuck you at a moments notice. He’s still trying to grasp the idea that maybe you need to rest sometimes.

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Almost immediately. You’ve barely got time for some snuggles before he’s out. Good thing is he’s a deep sleeper, so it’s easy to get out of bed without waking him, but he’s extra grumpy if you do. Despite the body heat he puts off, you aren’t getting a sliver of blanket either, he’s already tangled in it and no amount of force can pull it away from him.

Fluff Alphabet

A = Attractive (What do they find attractive about the other?)

He wouldn’t be able to pick one thing. He feels amazingly lucky to have someone at all, let alone someone so perfect in every way.

B = Baby (Do they want a family? Why/Why not?)

It’s not the first thing on his mind, but he’s definitely aware that a baby is coming along sooner or later. He’s more worried than excited at the thought, since he’s the baby of the family and hasn’t experienced anything like it before. He’ll go into overdrive making things for the future baby once it’s a sure thing - pillows, blankets, footie pajamas. They might be a little macabre with all the human teeth and hair used in their production, but it’s the thought that counts.

C = Cuddle (How do they cuddle?)

Bubba is the champion of Extreme Cuddling™. Doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing, he’ll find some way to wrap himself around you. You’ve gotten used to doing the dishes with his arms around your waist and your feet dangling off the ground.

D = Dates (What are dates with them like?)

The most common are quick picnic dates, sitting in the shade behind the house and watching the sunflowers. Bubba won’t want to go too far from the house, but you might convince him to go down to the creek with you once he realizes you’re not going to be swimming in your clothing.

E = Everything (You are my ____ (e.g. my life, my world…)

Family. He was raised with the thought that there was family and there was food, and only those two groups. They’re the only things that matter and you take care of your family by providing food. Once he decides he wants you around, even if it’s not romantic yet, he automatically puts you in the first group.

F = Feelings (When did they know they were in love?)

Bubba falls fast - in the matter of a few weeks or less. His face is always red and he can’t stop knocking things over when you’re around and you caught him staring at you four times just during breakfast. Drayton tries to put a stop to it before anything can happen, but you’ve already figured it out and even if you’re not quite as far along as Bubba, it’s still adorable.

G = Gentle (Are they gentle? If so, how?)

He’s more clumsy than rough, so he might be a little awkward but still gentle. His fingers will get caught while petting your hair or he’ll throw you over his shoulder instead of picking you up in his arms.

H = Hands (How do they like to hold hands?)

He would much rather be holding on to another part of your anatomy tbh, but hands will do. Hand holding is fine if there’s no time for cuddling, but he likes being closer so he’ll still probably drape himself over you.

I = Impression (What was their first impression?)

He didn’t have much of an impression at first, he isn’t trying to make friends with the meat, you know. Once it’s clear you’re not for eating, though, he’s fairly happy about having someone new around, especially when you turn out to be so nice! He quickly develops a crush, and I mean quick - pretty girl said good morning to him? Heart eyes, motherfucker.

J = Jealous

He doesn’t really have anyone to be jealous of since you live with his family, and he likely wouldn’t think of such a thing as cheating on a partner. If a situation did occur where someone else was paying you special attention he’d probably get a little jealous and then you’d have a tantrum on your hands. He’d be extra protective afterwards, realizing that someone could try and steal you away.

K = Kiss (How do they kiss? Who initiated the first kiss?)

Bubba starts the first kiss, but you’ve got to stop him and show him what to do. It takes a few tries before he realizes that eating and kissing require two different techniques. He’s always going to be a messy kisser but it’s more out of enthusiasm than anything, he’s just so excited every time it happens.

L = Love (Who says ‘I love you’ first?)

Definitely Bubba. Maybe it’s not those exact words, you can’t really tell, but he’s pretty obvious about his affections from the beginning.

M = Memory (What’s their favourite memory together?)

Bubba does love when you surprise him with gifts, small things taken from victims or found in the crowded attic, or handmade love letters with big lipstick kisses. He keeps them all and likes to look at them sometimes, especially when you’re out in town with his brother, and remember how sweet it was to be given something special.

N = Nickel (Do they spoil? Do they buy the person they love everything?)

If he ever finds out that there is something you want or need, he’s gonna do his best to provide it. It might be a handmade version, possibly containing some human material, but he tried his best so you can’t turn it away. He does like to dress you both up for dinner sometimes, keeping dresses and skirts for you to wear and sharing his make up and jewelry.

O = Orange (What colour reminds them of their other half?)

Purple. It’s his favorite color and he loves to dress you in it. That blouse is the ugliest thing you’ve seen in your life and it does not match those pants in any way, but it makes Bubba happy so you will gladly suffer these crimes against fashion.

P = Pet names (What pet names do they use?)

Bubba loves pet names! He definitely has some for you, although you can’t exactly understand them. You tend to call him sweet things like honeybun or sweetie pie and he loves it. You may not be doing it on purpose, but it sort of amuses him that the names are all food based.

Q = Quaint (What is their favorite non-modern thing?)

The most up to date thing they own is probably the old, beaten up truck Drayton drives (which Bubba is strictly forbidden from messing with). The rest of the house is pieced together with messy repairs from years of family life and everything in it is about as new as the house itself. The Sawyers are old fashioned and tend to use and recycle everything the family has ever owned, whether that be clothes or furniture.

R = Rainy Day (What do they like to do on a rainy day?)

There’s still work to be done no matter the weather, but if he can get away with it then he’s sleeping in for once. He hates getting out of bed in the mornings, having to slide you off his chest and untangle himself from the blankets is hard to do when you’re so warm and comfy.

S = Sad (How do they cheer themselves/others up?)

He’s like a worried mother hen anyways, so when anyone is feeling bad he’s extra jittery, flapping his hands and muttering and offering food or small gifts to try and make them feel better. Drayton tends to wave him off with a snarl and you can’t say that you’ve ever seen Nubbins acting like anything other than manically excited. You let him tend to you however he wants, more to soothe him than yourself, but watching him run around trying to cheer you up tends to get you smiling anyways.

When he’s upset himself he’s actually really easy to take care of, as any amount of positivity will draw him out of a bad mood quickly. Cuddling and soft praise or even just taking a short nap together will turn his day around.

T = Talking (What do they like to talk about?)

You cannot understand a word of his babbling but he will go on for hours regardless. Sometimes it’s easy enough to understand what he’s trying to get across, but you don’t know how his brothers seem to know exactly what that gurgle means in detail. He’s patient with you though and doesn’t get upset when you’ve got to resort to charades.

U = Unencumbered (What helps them relax?)

Snuggling up on the couch and listening to the old radio (if you can keep the other two from messing with it). Really, any kind of snuggles are fine, but the tinny white noise in the background is extra relaxing.

V = Vaunt (What do they like to show off? What are they proud of?)

Bubba is very proud of the work he does for the family. He isn’t a great cook by any means, he can’t exactly bring in the meat himself and he’s not very diligent about cleaning but no one else can do the butchering or the heavy lifting. Anything he can do to contribute, even just helping you with the dishes, makes him happy.

W = Wedding (When, how?)

You’re probably not going to go down to the courthouse, but there will be a wedding of sorts. Drayton isn’t the most traditional person when it comes to things like this, but he’ll be the one pushing for some sort of celebration. After all, you’re part of the family now so they might as well make it as official as they can.

X = Xylophone (What’s their song?)

He’s not picky with music, he’ll listen to whatever is on the radio. His brothers fight over the station, changing the channel the moment the other one leaves the room, but he always likes whatever it gets left on so he doesn’t touch it.

Y = Yes (Do they ever think of getting married/proposing?)

He doesn’t really understand marriage, since it’s not like he’s out of the house much and grandma has been dead for years. He moves pretty quick in how seriously he takes your relationship though, going from ‘puppy love’ to ‘absolutely devoted’ in a short amount of time. Once you get to anything more serious than shy glances he’s pretty much hooked for life tbh.

Z = Zebra (If they wanted a pet, what would they get?)

Bubba has never met an animal he didn’t like, so he’d take anything Drayton would let him get away with. The chickens in the yard are his favorites, but he’s strangely okay with killing them when the time comes.

#Bubba Sawyer #Slashers #TCM #Headcanon #Slasher x reader #one softTM boi #i thought bubba would be the easiest to do but NOPE

[royal-duality]

You Can’t Spell Romance Without Roman (But You Can Spell Roman Without Romance)

A/N: I haven’t found many aro/ace Roman fics and I wanted to write some more of our favorite prince.

Warnings: Lots of angst 

Word Count: 2672

Pairing(s): Completely platonic LAMP and Analogical

Summary:  Roman doesn't understand why he's unable to feel romantically attracted to anyone despite being the core of Thomas' romantic feelings.

~~~

It had been a long time coming, really. He had been planning on bringing it up sometime around the time of the Valentine’s video, preferably before so as to avoid any discomfort, but then he just couldn’t. Because it was wrong. He was wrong.

Roman sighed as he somehow flopped down on his bed gracefully. He was literally the embodiment of romance and all things lovely and yet...

He felt tears well in his eyes at the thought. Who was he if he couldn’t even love? Sure there was nothing wrong with being aromantic, but when you’re supposed to be the core of someone’s love, affection and primal desires. It was just different.

Thomas was a gay man who was clearly able to feel romantic and sexual attraction to other men. And yet…

He groaned, his hands balled into fists as he rubbed at his eyes which had begun to leak tears. It wasn’t fair because it didn’t make sense!

A knock on his door startled him from his thoughts as he sat up, pasting a bright smile on his face as he opened the door to find Logan standing on the other side. “Good evening poindexter, how may I help you on this delightful evening?” He grinned as Logan’s face blanched at his extra greeting. 

“I sincerely hope that you do possess the ability to not be so extravagant and that this is just a phase or a way of annoying me that you will eventually tire of.” A pout formed on his face as he listened to the nerdy side insult him using his textbook brain that somehow made it seem so casual despite the excessive amount of vocabulary.

“Must you be so dull and boring?” He whined, leaning against his doorway. The logical facet rolled his eyes muttering something under his breath before he straightened his tie and looked Roman in the eye once more. 

“Patton would like to call a meeting so that we may all address any concerns we might have for Thomas or anything pertaining to our host or ourselves. This may include but is not limited to, an es-” Roman slapped a hand over the other traits mouth, effectively stopping the torrent of words that would most likely never stop if nobody told him to stop. 

Roman’s way of telling him to shut up was just slightly more hands on.

He laughed sheepishly as Logan glared at him before grasping his wrist and removing it from his mouth before letting go, allowing the fantastical trait’s hand arm to drop to his side.

“Careful, someone might mistake you for Deceit if you keep covering our mouths. Next thing you know you’ll tell us you’ve been lying to us. That would be a very unfortunate discovery.” Roman failed to suppress a flinch at the thought of lying to the other sides. Not because it was an accusation, because knowing Logan, it was his way of attempting to make a joke. No, he flinched because it was true. He had been lying to all of them since he discovered he didn’t love people the way he was supposed to. He had been lying to himself even longer still. Denying the truth of his existence. Denying that he was wrong.

He forced a laugh as he waved Logan off, “How dare you accuse me of such dastardly things! Off you go peasant, leave me to my peace and I shall venture to the commons in due time!” He boasted before turning into his room, shutting the door behind him.

As soon as he heard the footsteps fade away from his section of the hall he collapsed, leaning his back against his door as he struggled to contain the sobs that wanted to burst from his chest.

He ran a hand through his hair leaving it slightly frizzy and messed up. They were holding a family meeting. This would be his chance to come clean to them, his family. The ones who had opened up to him, trusting him to accept him for who they are. 

Like Virgil. The anxious emo man who had tried so hard to be something he wasn’t and would rather be hated than risk being useless. Who always tried to do what was best for Thomas even at the expense of him or the other sides. Virgil who struggled to keep his past in the past in an attempt to be better and do better even as he was stuck in a grey area with no one there to support him.

Or Patton who shoved his feelings so far down inside himself that even he forgot he had them. Who tried his hardest to keep Thomas happy and give him the support nobody had given him. Patton who always put Thomas and his family first, even when they were all more than happy and healthy and didn't care how many times he was ignored or insulted, he just kept on giving.

And Logan. The nerdy textbook of everything who tried so hard to keep everyone on the straight and narrow so as to avoid chaos and unneeded harm to anyone and everyone. Who wanted so hard to be who he thought he was supposed to be, ignoring who he wanted to be. Logan who made mistakes and broke down in the face of is own wrongdoings and tried so hard to fix what was never broken to keep them all going, even when everyone was against him.

They had all bore their scars for everyone to see and judge as they wished. Taking a leap of faith even when they saw nowhere to land, trusting that someone would be there on the other side to catch them and keep them from falling into the darkness. 

"ROMAN!" Patton's voice rang through the mind palace as Roman jumped to his feet. It was time to face the music and own up to his mistakes.

He sunk put of his room only to rise up in the commons a moment later. "Good evening, calculator watch, father dearest and Gayday Parade!" Patton giggled, while Logan and Virgil both scowled at him, though there was definitely a hint of amusement in Virgil's eyes. 

"Already used that one Prince of Petulant, might wanna up your game." The anxious trait smirked at him with confidence even as his hands fidgeted nervously in his lap, only to be stilled as Logan reach over and laid a hand on top of them. Had Roman not seen this, he may have chalked the flush of Virgil's face up to him being nervous. His eyes widened as he glanced between the two of them with shock, because Logan and Virgil? Logic and Anxiety? Who would have guessed!

Virgil seemed to notice his stare causing his eyes to widen with panic as he tugged his hands away from his lap, stuffing them into his hoodie pockets as he once again began to fidget. Roman saw Logan flinch out of the corner of his eye at the action and winced because it must have hurt to care for someone so much and not be able to help them in their time of need for fear of making them uncomfortable. Sometimes he's glad he can't love someone so much that it hurts to be away. But even he gets upset when he is unable to care for his family.

Patton stood up, drawing three sets of eyes to him as he began to speak, "So, I know that it's been a while since all of us sat down and just took a moment to talk things out without the intention to fix something or starting an argument. Which is why I pat-itioned to have a meeting!" The fatherly side giggled at his own joke, smile growing wider upon seeing Roman laugh and Virgil's lips twitch into what could be considered a smile for him.

"Does anyone have anything they'd like to discuss?" He asked as he sat back down, looking at the other three traits hopefully. There was complete silence. "Anyone at all." He provided a metaphorical nudge. "About anything." His smile began to grow slightly strained as they all waited in silence for someone to speak up.

Suddenly his shoulders slumped in defeat before he scanned the room, his eyes lighting up as they landed on Logan. "LOGAN!" He yelled, causing the logical facet to startle and almost fall off the couch. Virgil's hand left his hoodie to latch onto the other's sleeve in an attempt to keep him from falling. “What’s been on your brain, or should I say Thomas’ brain?” He grinned.

Logan stared at him with disbelief as he straightened his tie and flattened the wrinkles in his clothes. Other than the thought that it might be in my best interest to go deaf to save me from hearing such ridiculous humor, a lot. Thomas has been multitasking on everything and it has resulted in many migraines as he over-tasks himself.” He cleared his throat at the end of his, rant? Speech? 

Patton stared at him in concern for a moment before tentatively speaking once again, “Kiddo-” “Once again, Patton, we are the same person-” “I know you care about Thomas, but the reason I called this meeting was so that we could talk about how we are. Not Thomas.” As he finished, Roman could practically hear the windows error noises coming from Logan as he struggled to comprehend what the emotional facet had just said. 

“But, we’re part of Thomas, therefore by taking care of Thomas’ needs, we are taking care of our own needs.” Roman winced as he said that, his thoughts spiraling as he thought of how he was so different from Thomas. That he should have the same needs and wants, but he didn’t.

“Lo, he wants to know how you’re feeling. Why don’t you tell him about the thing?” Suddenly, Logan’s face was flushed bright red as he began to stammer and stutter. Virgil reached over and grabbed his hand effectively calming the other.

Logan sighed before turning slightly to address all of them. ‘Them’ being Patton and himself. “I have recently discovered and come to terms with a certain-” he paused for a moment as though struggling to think of what he wanted to say, “-want of mine that I addressed.” He cast a glance at the anxious side before turning back to the others. “Virgil and I, have decided to take things a step further.” He opened his mouth to continue but was cut off by a squeal coming from Patton.

“YOU GUYS ARE DATING!?” Roman winced at the sheer volume and pitch of the question.

The two traits in question both stared wide-eyed at the other man before Logan began chuckling as Virgil turned redder than a blooming rose. Logan quickly cleared his throat before correcting him, “No, however we both have agreed to be queer platonic partners. Seeing as neither of us harbor romantic or sexual attraction to each other, but still feel closer than ‘just friends’, we both agreed to begin a relationship replicated by the closeness and fondness we have for each other.” By the end of his speech, Logan’s face was close to matching Virgil’s in shade as Patton just blinked at them. 

Roman tensed as he waited for the questions or accusations. “You guys are squishes?! OH THAT’S EVEN CUTER! TWO OF MY KIDDOS ARE HARDCORE SQUISHES! ROMAN, LOOK AT HOW CUTE THEY ARE!” Roman felt his jaw drop as he stared at Patton with disbelief. 

He was okay with it? Well of course he was, it’s Patton! Does that mean he would be okay with me being… But it’s different with me, because I’m romance incarnated. “Princey?” The quiet voice of his emo friend snapped him out of his thoughts to see the other trait staring at him with worry and, was that fear?

Oh. OH! He thought Roman was going to reject him! “Sorry my dark and stormy knight, I’m afraid I was merely caught off guard by such a passionate declaration!” Tension seemed to flee the room as he assured the two men that he was more than okay with their new relationship

“However, I do believe I may have to step on your moment just a bit, so as to make a declaration of my own.” Here goes everything. “I… I am- um I-” His voice cut off as he choked on a whimper, tears pooling in his eyes as his heart beat rapidly in fear. 

“I… I”m sorry.”

The three facets stared at him with worry. Patton stood up, walking over to where he was sitting and crouching in front of him, gripping his hands in his own soft and warm ones. “What are you sorry for, kiddo?”

Roman gripped Patton’s hands as though they were the only thing able to keep him from fleeing the scene. “I am afraid I have failed you all as well as Thomas.” 

A snort from across from him had his head shooting up to stare wide-eyed at the anxious trait in shock.  “That’s hard to believe. Prince perfect failing something so bad that even I’m disappointed? That’s a high bar you’ve set for yourself there Princey.” Virgil smirked at him cockily, but Roman could see the concern shine through. Virgil was trying to distract him so that he could calm down.

“Well I do pride myself in being the best at everything, even if it’s at being the worst.” He let out a choked laugh as he took a moment to breathe and think of what he wanted to say.  “I don’t believe I am capable of loving someone or anyone.” 

Patton brows furrowed at his words before he opened his mouth, most likely to offer some form of consolation, but Roman cut him off before he could. He had to do this now, before he could back out. “I… I’m aromantic. I do not feel romantic attraction to men or women or anyone of any gender or lack of gender. I believe I am also asexual.” Silence. His frame began to tremble as sobs built up in his chest.

“I’m sorry, I know it’s stupid. I’m Thomas’ creativity which means I am his romantic side and yet I can’t even fall in love-”

“Falsehood.” He froze, looking at Logan. “I apologize for interrupting but I can only stand for so much idiocy.” He flinched, looking down at his lap. “How could you be so stupid as to think-” Here it comes “-that you could not fall in love just because you do not feel romantic attraction. I mean obviously phrase fall in love is often referred to in a romantic sense, but when Patton falls in love with a tiny version of something, it is not because he wishes to begin a romantic relationship with it. Furthermore, I believe it has been proven many times that we often adopt traits of our own that show no sign of being a part of Thomas as a whole. “

Looking up he noticed everyone looking at him with kind smiles. “Besides kiddo, I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to say that the heart has enough love of it’s own to give, romantic or not. You don’t need to blame yourself for who you are. Especially when who you are is an amazing person with so much love and care for others, even if it’s strictly platonic and/or familial.”

As Patton spoke, Virgil rose from his spot next to Logan, advancing towards Roman with steady, confident steps. Upon reaching him, Virgil wrapped his arm around his shoulders, effectively enveloping him in a hug. 

Tears began to once more stream down his face, this time joined by a shaky smile. 

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah, shut up and let us hug you so we can all go eat the cookies Patton stress-baked earlier today.” A squeak sounded from behind him causing Roman to giggle. 

Things would be okay. He would be okay.

#sanders sides #roman sanders #logan sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #aromantic roman #asexual roman #qpr positivity #Platonic love #have a thing #its short #and i didnt really edit #but #yeah i got nothing

[honeypiehotchner]

the envoy -- takeshi kovacs fic part one

Okay, so. I told myself I wasn’t going to write another fic because I don’t have the time. But here we are. 

I watched episode 3 earlier today (“In A Lonely Place”) and this fic just decided to pour out of me. Yes, there will be multiple parts. It’s following a similar storyline, but a few details will be altered (no pun intended).

That being said, welcome to yet another fic of mine. Altered Carbon style.

Don’t forget to let me know what you think! I love feedback especially on a world as new as AC <3

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Words: 1,599

Summary: Set in episode 3. Replace the dealer with Nym and there you go. She has a lot of secrets to be found out later.

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Nym Rolark is a longtime friend to Vernon Elliot. She’s who he goes to when he needs any…well, “hardware” as Kovacs put it.

           But what Elliot fails to mention to Kovacs is just how feisty this Nym is.

           “What the fuck are you doing here, Elliot?” Is the first thing that comes out of her mouth. Kovacs’s smirk doesn’t go unnoticed, but she doesn’t verbally acknowledge him just yet. “I told you to call before you come over.”

           “I know,” Elliot admits, a hint of apology in his tone. “But this is kind of last minute.”

           “My least favorite phrase,” Nym comments, turning around to cross her arms over her chest. “And I don’t do favors for anyone, so who the hell is this guy?”

           “Takeshi Kovacs,” the man in question answers, still smirking. It’s annoying. It makes Nym want to slap it right off his face.

           “The Envoy?” She replies with disinterest, then looking to Elliot. “Why did you bring him here?”

           “I need some hardware,” Kovacs answers for himself. “Lethal kind.”

           “I don’t own anything that’s not lethal,” she deadpans, turning back to Elliot. “Who’s paying?”

           “I am,” Kovacs answers again, getting a little irritated himself that she won’t speak directly to him.

           “Of course you are,” Nym rolls her eyes. “What’s your price?”

           He shrugs his shoulders, but not in the nonchalant way. In the arrogant way. “Whatever it takes.”

           Christ, she thinks, the quicker we get this over with, the better. “Fine. Right this way.”

           She leads the two men – one friend, one…enemy, or what she isn’t sure just yet – down the hallway to her basement door. She knocks twice, mostly out of habit, before shoving the door open, flicking the light on. She doesn’t bother looking back to see if they’re following, trusting that Elliot is either leading the way or Kovacs is fast enough to keep up with her.

           She hears two sets of footsteps, though, so the former must be true.

           When she reaches the hardware room, she bends down to lift the garage door up, flicking these lights on as well.

           “These are the classics,” she announces, a little annoyed that she has to, but since the Envoy is new, she does. She moves over to a locked vault, scanning her hand before saying, “These are the new additions – they’re expensive.”

           “I’ll take your best.”

           “That’s subjective,” Nym fires back, gesturing to the classics. “Those are my favorite, therefore my best.”

           Kovacs smirks. “What’ll do the most damage?”

           “That depends on the person.”

           Elliot glances between them tiredly. “Listen, you said you need this stuff now. Can you stop picking a fight for five goddamn seconds so we can get your shit?”

           Kovacs gives the man a look, wondering where in the hell that came from – and why Elliot thinks he can speak to Kovacs like that all of the sudden – but all it takes is one look at Nym to see.

           The Elliot family have been more of a family to Nym than her own family has. And that’s all Kovacs can tell. But that alone, in combination with Nym’s attitude, is enough to make him back off.

           “Ingram 40 flechette,” Nym holds up what, despite her previous comments, is arguably her favorite of the more advanced weapons.

           “There we go.”

           “Prototype?” Kovacs asks.

           Nym doesn’t hear any malicious intent behind his words, but her comment comes before she can register that. “Who do you think I am?”

           And Kovacs’s reply is just as quick. “Someone who really has an issue with people like me.”

           “With strangers,” she corrects him, then nodding and muttering, “You’re one to talk.”

           “Seriously?” Elliot nearly groans.

           “CTAC R and D,” Nym continues, picking back up on the real conversation at hand. “Uses flanged armor-piercing rounds. Ten-round clip. Homing tech onboard.” She watches as Kovacs – the dumbass, she thinks – places his hand at the bottom, causing her to offer a warning. “Don’t put your hand there.”

           He almost looks offended. “Why?” And when she reaches to grab the gun, he pulls it back.

           She sighs. “Do you want me to show you or would you rather me let you learn the hard way?”

           That arrogant smirk crosses his lips again before he gives in, handing the gun over. Nym doesn’t miss a single beat before saying, “Watch your head,” to which Elliot ducks as she fires the gun at the wall. Kovacs raises his eyebrows at the bullet lodged a few inches into the solid concrete. “Stay down,” she instructs when she sees Elliot beginning to stand. She presses the second button, the bullet flinging itself back to the gun.

           “That’s why,” Nym explains, wanting to add dumbass at the end, but deciding against it. “Reverse the field generator, the flechette homes through a plasma chamber, autoloads right into the mag.”

           “Is that new?” Elliot asks, his fingers grazing the bullet hole in a daze.

           “New to me,” Nym smirks. “Got a pair of them last week.”

           “I’ll take one,” Kovacs speaks up, bringing the attention back to him – he has a habit of that, she thinks.

           “Alright,” she nods, handing him the gun while eyeing what he already has in his hand. “Is that custom?”

           Kovacs glances at the weapon in his hand before shrugging, this time in the I don’t know way.

           “You mind?”

           He hands it over without a fight, or a sarcastic comment, surprisingly. “Modified second series Nemex?” Nym asks in shock. “Where did you get this?” She doesn’t even have one here.

           “From a guy who doesn’t need it anymore.”

           “Fair enough,” she nods, handing it back. “That’s where half my inventory comes from.”

           “And the other half?”

           “You don’t need to know.”

           Kovacs smirks again. “You got any blades?”

           “Do I got any blades?” She replies, rolling her eyes. “Come this way.”

           She tips the box lid, revealing her vast array of knives. She’s collected these the longest, so she has a larger selection.

“Tebbit knife. Tantalum steel alloy blade. Flint in the pommel for weighting.”

Nym smiles proudly at Elliot.

“Bioweapon coating?” Is Kovacs’s only question.

“Runnel’s coated with Reaper,” Nym answers easily, handing him the knife. It’s her favorite of the blades. Her personal choice in combat. “Betathanatine.”

“Shit scientists cooked up to study near-death experience,” Elliot adds.

“Deeper you stab, the more dose you get.”

“Ring it up. Plus whatever he wants,” Kovacs nods toward Elliot.

“I already know what he wants,” Nym rolls her eyes, heading back to the main room. “Sunjet 2320?”

           “You already know,” Elliot calls after her. “Classics never go out of style.”

           “You know it,” Nym agrees, placing the Sunjet on the counter. “Is that all?”

           Kovacs nods. “I think so.”

           She holds out the DNA scanner with a tired look. And when Kovacs makes no move to walk over, she sighs. “Either you pay or I keep the stuff. Your choice.”

           He smirks again, the arrogant kind as he practically waltzes over, taking his sweet ass time before placing his thumb on the scanner. The screen goes from orange to green, bringing a smile to Nym’s face.

           “Pleasure doing business with you.”

           That smirk stays on his face as he gathers the weapons and stuffs them inside a…pink Hello Unicorn back pack.

           “Seriously?”

           “What?” Kovacs raises his eyebrows, teasing before bringing the bag up and kissing it.

           “Nothing,” Nym shakes her head, accepting Elliot’s side hug. “Can I ask why you need all this shit?”

           Elliot furrows his eyebrows. “You never do.”

           “Well, you’re not normally bringing strangers in here,” she reminds him, shooting Kovacs a glance. “Let alone an Envoy looking into Bancroft’s death.”

           “Well, Bancroft’s only been murdered once.”

           The glance Nym sends Kovacs turns heated. “You don’t believe he killed himself, huh?” Everyone seems to think the ass was murdered. Everyone except Nym. And the police, apparently, because they couldn’t find any evidence of a murder. Just of a suicide.

           He shrugs. And doesn’t say another word.

           “Seriously, Elliot, why are you friends with him?”

           “Not friends,” Elliot clarifies quickly, sensing Kovacs is almost on the way to commenting about it, too. He looks to Nym, squeezing her in the hug a little tighter. “He’s helping Lizzie.”

           Immediately, Nym’s expression changes. “How?”

           Elliot explains everything, and explains his original reluctance to let any of it happen, but Nym understands. She knows he’ll do anything for Lizzie. Because Nym would too.

           “How much is it costing? I can help, you know I—”

           “Actually, Kovacs is covering it.”

           “Oh,” Nym nods, giving Kovacs a more respectful nod this time. “Well thank you.”

           “Technically, Bancroft is covering it,” Kovacs clarifies. “It’s just on the tab.”

           Nym nearly rolls her eyes. He’s got Meth money and suddenly he doesn’t know how to handle himself. That’s what normally happens when you get your hands on that amount of money. Nym saw it firsthand in her own family.

           “Well,” she sighs, patting Elliot’s back. “I’ve got somewhere to be, so, not to be rude—” She pauses to glare at the Envoy when she hears him snicker. “—but get the hell outta here.”

           “Us too,” Elliot chuckles. “You have fun.”

           “And you be careful,” she punches Elliot’s shoulder. “I mean it.”

           “I will.”

           “What about me?” Kovacs speaks up, completely ruining the moment.

           “Don’t take this personally,” Nym smirks, “but I think you can handle yourself, Envoy.”

           He smirks in return, and Nym swears she hears a chuckle come from his chest, but she isn’t sure.

           She’s only spent half an hour with him, but Nym can’t figure out Takeshi Kovacs.

#takeshi kovacs #altered carbon #altered carbon netflix #vernon elliot #takeshi kovacs x original female character #her name is nym #she has secrets #kovacs x ofc #takeshi x ofc #lizzie elliot

[acehotel]

In Conversation: Matt Starr and Simon Herzog

Matt Starr is an artist we first met through his collaborative work with Ellie Sachs, back when the duo presented The Museum of Banned Objects in The Gallery at Ace Hotel New York. Last fall, we asked Matt to find an interesting friend to chat with for our blog, and he returned with Simon Herzog — a world-traveling artist with an affinity for the procedural who’s just launched a new app, Peregrine Journey [Apple App Store], with collaborator Jeffrey Russo. 

Matt Starr: You've been traveling a lot recently. Where are you going and why are you traveling so much?

Simon Herzog: I figured out at some point that I could just turn my life into almost [any] direction I wanted to if I was creative about it. I figured out that I could actually travel all the time, so now I'm traveling literally all the time. I'm in Copenhagen now. Just came back from Munich. Before that, Krakow. Before that, Athens and then New York. That's in the last two weeks.

MS: That's crazy.

SH: It makes me a better traveler. I get a lot of practice.

MS: Did you grow up traveling?

SH: Yeah, absolutely. I was really lucky to have two parents who are amazing travelers, both of them, who know how to deal with any situation anywhere, who have different styles but are both just excellent at it, so growing up with them to learn from helped a lot.

MS: Let's talk about your upbringing and how it plays into the stuff you're making now. You got to spend a lot of time in jungles and deserts and on film sets. As a kid, it must've been pretty surreal.

SH: Yeah, but [everything] is normal when that's the way you grow up, right? I really can't say that any one upbringing is much more extraordinary than the other, but I just got really lucky to have grown up with parents who are doing interesting stuff all the time and I got to do that as well.

MS: Do you feel like that experience helped shape the app you're working on now?

SH: Completely, yeah. The app, called Peregrine Journey, lets you walk a journey of your choice, like any point A to point B in the world, with your actual steps that you're walking in real life wherever you happen to be. Everyday we show you a picture from the place you virtually reached, so eventually you see the landscape and the people changing over time. You never know what you're going to get. You actually get to walk those distances with your real footsteps even if you’re not physically there.

SH: My dad in particular is a big walker and he's done these huge walks, like most of the way around the German border, for example, or from Munich to Paris and in the Pyrenees and so on. That was inspiring because it's just a way to see the world that isn't really replicable or replaceable with any other means of transportation.

MS: Where do the photos come from?

SH: The photos are coming from Flickr. There's a huge database of images that are publicly available; we're just pulling a geotagged photo from a small radius of a couple kilometers of the point you've virtually reached and showing that to you and crediting the photographer. It's hugely diverse what you get.

MS: How did the idea originate?

SH: It started when I read a Wikipedia article years ago about a prisoner who was in jail for about 20 years and every day he'd get to be in the yard for only an hour, but during that hour, he'd just walk in a circle over and over and over again and he calculated the circumference of the circle and the distance he walked every day. And back in his cell, he'd plot that distance on a map of the world. Week by week, he was covering more of this journey in his mind, and then he'd go to the prison library and borrow books, travel books or cookbooks or whatever he could find from those places, and I thought it was the most beautiful thing, so I just wanted to have that for myself.

MS: That's incredible. It's like a poem. This app, more than most, feels really experiential.You get to see the world in a different way which can help reshape the way one interprets both space and distance.

SH: Yeah, and I'm hoping that it shows people that you can accomplish these things. You can walk these massive, unimaginable distances. For example, I've been walking for two months on this journey from Uzbekistan to Ukraine. I'm 212 kilometers into it, which is pretty far. I walk a fair amount in daily life, but that's like 7% of this journey. It's going to take me over a year probably. We'll see, but eventually I'll get there. Eventually I'll get to Kiev and have walked all the way across Uzbekistan and Ukraine and everything in between.

MS: You’ve described what you do as “procedural art.” Can you explain what that means?

SH: I don't know. I'm sure somebody's used it before, but I came up with it just as I started to describe the kind of work I was creating because all of it in a sense is like a byproduct of some kind of a process. Many times, it's not the end in itself to create this thing. There's an emergent property to a process and through that, something appears that takes on its own shape or is bigger than the sum of its parts.

MS: The second project I saw of yours was the huge journal piece — the journal  [To Do, 2013] for a thousand days — how did that begin?

SH: It wasn’t something I intended to be a piece of art or anything like that. I'm big into self-improvement and so I read that it's just generally a universally accepted good habit to keep a journal. It's good for self-reflection. It improves your memory and so on, so I just started. I figured it's easier to do it every day than to do it some days and it's easier to write everything down than to write some things down, and so I ended up writing about 500 words a day. That's a good page and a half. I did that for over 1,000 days — for 1,064 days actually. It ended up being almost half a million words, which is roughly eight average novels in length if you put them all back to back.

MS: On your most boring days, how are you writing a page and a half?

SH: First of all, I never really feel bored, so every day contains a lot of events and experiences and things I saw or heard or felt and there's just plenty to write every day. It was hard to write less. You know the saying about spending more time to make it shorter, right? I didn't have enough time to only write a paragraph a day, so I wrote 500 words, roughly.

SH: The first project I created with it was after I stopped, because after 1,000 days, it felt enough and I had accomplished what I set out to do, I put this all on a giant poster one by two meters and alphabetized the entire text, so now there's no more semantic meaning to it really, but it's kind of a rudimentary data visualization of all the words that I used. It's more about the language in a way. You see these huge chunks of just thousands and thousands of words repeating over and over again. You can see how much space they take up, how often I use them or how important that word is in my life over those almost three years.

MS: I'm seeing naked and narcissistic quite a lot right now.

SH: Well, in three years, you run into a lot of situations where somebody might be naked.

MS: And narcissistic.

SH: You never know.

MS: It's true. What about the solargraphy?

SH: That's another attempt to document.

MS: Were you attracted to [solargraphy] because of the process?

SH: Yeah, absolutely. That's a photography technique where you take a single continuous exposure on analog film of the sky and you capture the sun over the course of months. Normally on a camera, you'd have the shutter speed of like one-hundredth of a second or so, but here it's actually three to six months that you leave the shutter open. It's this tiny pinhole camera.

SH: Essentially what it does is it captures the light of the sun as it travels across the sky in a parabola, and so you see the path of the sun as these individual lines of light and you can even tell where it was cloudy maybe for a few hours or for the entire day, and all of this gets codified in a single frame. I did quite a few of these in different countries, mostly in Denmark and in Austria, but again, it's a way to document something that you just don't see otherwise unless you go and read every weather report for six months from solstice to solstice.

MS: What about your airplane safety cards  [Safety, 1997-Present] project? It's a lot of one thing again.

SH: There's this joy in finding patterns that I think every human has to some extent. That's part of the reason we're successful as a species, and in certain individuals it's particular pronounced. I really like patterns, both visually and in everything. I've been collecting airplane safety cards since I was seven — the cards in the seat pocket in front of me that you're not really supposed to take, but I considered it a victimless crime — hopefully everybody knows the procedures by now. I think they're really beautiful. I've always been really fascinated with civil aviation as a child, and I'm still really into it now. I listen to so many air traffic control recordings and since I was 7 I've taken the safety card from every plane I’ve been on. I'm at 496 safety cards. I fly a lot.

MS: So what are you working on now?

SH: A bunch of things. We've launched Peregrine Journey just this week. I'm working on making a tent from scratch right now; an ultra light tent out of this incredible fabric called Dyneema Composite Fabric — basically the lightest tent I can get my hands on with my own design.

MS: That’s amazing. You have such a diverse range of interests, I love it.

SH: Every few years or so, I reevaluate what I'm most interested in. This year is one of those years, and I realized how much I'm into Medieval travelers. These people were almost like astronauts; first to contact aliens. People like Ibn Fadlan who walked from Baghdad to north of Kiev. You kind of see a theme perhaps? All great walkers.

MS: What inspires you? It seems like it's almost an impulse for you to be able to just react to an interest of yours and turn it into a long-term project.

SH: It's probably about depth and passion. For example, when I meet somebody else and they're really interested in something, I will automatically want to know everything about it, even if they're really into something like nail art. I want to know everything you know! Please tell me all about nail art. I feel like every piece of knowledge I gain from somebody who's really interested in something is just so valuable. Not only does it help me connect with other people, it feels like adding a building block to myself and being a better person in some way through this knowledge I have, especially from conversations like that.

SH: I had this hour and a half long conversation about wood with a cabinet maker a little while back. I know a bit about wood — just an incredible material — but he's such an expert, and he showed me this Japanese wood carver; I showed him my favorite burl inlays and we had this super nerdy conversation that I learned so much from.

MS: I don’t know anyone else who can romantically talk about Medieval travelers and wood within 60 seconds of each other in a conversation.

SH: Every person has so much depth to them and for some, it's much more at the surface than others. I think with people like you, it's very much at the surface. It's easy to tell. I think I'm like this, as well, if I may say. I want to talk about the things that I'm really, really into and that I care about.

SH: Almost everybody has these things somewhere hidden that many people don't feel comfortable sharing. I always want to dig these things out and talk to people about what they really care about. Those are my favorite kind of talks I get to have.

#matt starr #simon herzog #walking #art #travel #Peregrine #conversation #nyc #yes

[thesinglesjukebox]

THE NATIONAL - YOU HAD YOUR SOUL WITH YOU

[5.20]

Ooh, you had your soul with you...

Joshua Copperman: I Am Easy To Find is the most challenging The National have been to date, for both intentional reasons and some less intentional ones. All the hallmarks of a great National song are here: production loaded with ear candy (like that guitar line or the third time they've abruptly entered a string interlude), Bryan Devendorf's torrential downpour of snares. But Gail Ann Dorsey merely fills in for Matt Berninger on the bridge rather than complementing him, and the lyrics, written by Matt's wife Carin Besser with Thomas Bartlett, sound increasingly like self-parody -- "I had only one last feather left/I wore it on the island of my head" is like someone threw Boxer into a neuralnet. High Violet has aged well because its songs were whittled down into their best possible forms, the band's internal tension giving way to external effortlessness. I Am Easy To Find has elements of that effortlessness, but this first single is one of a few moments where high-budget gimmicks just barely elevate mid-tier National songs. Yet, they do. [8]

Alfred Soto: The National record music for men who order Pink Rabbits on weekends and smoke too many cigarettes when their wives "let" them go to concerts. No National single lacks for odd hooks: here, the distorted guitar figure ping-ponging between speakers, an ace string section interlude, and the usual Bryan Devendorf kinetics behind the drum kit. Momentum and an attractively meaningless title -- ho hum, another National single. [6]

Tim de Reuse: So, what is this -- rather, what was this supposed to be? Dry, cluttered electronics under heavily-compressed drums under a soppy string arrangement under a nursery-rhyme melody: none of these pieces fit together. The more you listen, the more incomprehensible details float groggily to the surface. Why does it feel like they forgot to unmute the bass track before exporting? Why are the hi-hats exiled to the edges of human perception? Why feature a guest vocalist if you're not going to let her do anything? Perhaps the most confusing part is that The National could've easily continued selling out stadiums for decades to come by just writing High Violet over and over again, which shouldn't be hard given that from 2005 to 2013 they basically released one really good album four times with increasing amounts of reverb. That's not the outcome I dream about for a band I have this much emotional investment in, but I'd rather daydream about that than listen to this awkward pileup. [2]

Thomas Inskeep: This doesn't sound like anything I've heard recently; it sounds original, the sound of a band in the studio doing lots of things they've never tried before because they've realized they can. And on this song at least, the National can -- this is dynamite, especially drum-wise. And that's before the unexpected vocal appearance of Gail Ann Dorsey, whose rich, full voice initially sounds as if dropped in from another song. And her harmonizing with Matt Berninger is gorgeous. [7]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Matt Berninger's rich baritone was always one of The National's big draws, or at least one of the only things that made them stand out. The other: Bryan Devendorf's ability to make his drums sound simultaneously austere and elastic. Removing one of these elements isn't a complete dealbreaker, but the skittering electronics here are shallow ornamentations that show how the band is running out of ideas. [3]

Vikram Joseph: Bryan Devendorf's percussion has always been the National's secret weapon, giving their songs a skittish, propulsive anxiety that tessellates perfectly with Matt Berninger's strange metaphors and sad non-sequiturs. But despite its kineticism, it feels effortless, an integral part of the song. On "You Had Your Soul With You", the percussion becomes a jarring, distracting sideshow, as if it and the jittery synths are pursing each other around the back of a stage while a key expository scene unfolds in the foreground. It's no coincidence that the strongest part by far is the lush, string-soaked middle eight, where guest vocalist Gail Ann Dorsey delivers the best line in the song: "You have no idea how hard I died when you left." Her vocals fold beautifully into Berninger's, and the many female guest slots on the forthcoming album bode well (who can forget the shatteringly beautiful duet between Berninger and Annie Clark on their cover of "Sleep All Summer"?). The band's clumsy, scattershot use of electronics, however, does not. [5]

Josh Love: I feel like a hypocrite pushing back against this brighter, more dynamic iteration of The National after I'd gotten so ground down by their miserablist shades of gray that I didn't even bother giving their last album a fair shake (and I counted myself a big fan even up to and including Trouble Will Find Me). Still, "You Had Your Soul With You" just sounds like Vampire Weekend's or St. Vincent's nervy, busy aesthetics lazily grafted onto Matt Berninger's solemn vocal burr. [5]

Katherine St Asaph: A genuinely striking intro -- those 15 seconds of jerky guitar panning are both arresting and a great test of whether one of your earbuds has crapped out -- built on the watery foundation of a song by Coldplay, or for that matter The National. The former sinks into the mush; the latter twitches with the fripperies too much to swoon. [5]

Iris Xie: "You Had Your Soul With You" just reminds me of the discomfort of trying to listen through some of my brother's early '00s alt rock as a 10-year-old, and trying to understand what was so good and "adult" about it, and was I missing something? (The answer is no.) This sounds like someone trying to make a drum and bass track, but with... actual instruments? The sensation of listening to this song is like watching a Windows Media Player equalizer move and shudder around, and you pay more attention to the little spiky discrepancies than the song. I do like the post-chorus instrumental where the discordant drum work suddenly opens up, like the sun after the rain has ended, but then the muddiness resumes. Combine this with a smooth but slightly suffocated delivery, and I feel messier and scattered than before I started listening to the song. I guess that suits the lyrics, but the song sounds unclear, even to itself. [5]

Iain Mew: For all the superficial electronic additions, it sounds vital in a classic, immediately familiar way that The National haven't in a while. Matt Berninger is once again a man suspended in crisis, picking his way between collapsing velvet walls in total calm while the drums tell of secret adrenaline surges. Well, the first half does anyway. The second half is new in a different way, with its open expanses, Gail Ann Dorsey guest vocals and accelerating string arrangement that had me searching "You Had Your Soul With You" + "Owen Pallett." They each work, but the resulting feeling is a bit awkward: two contrasting styles of "return to form," squashed into one track. [6]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#The National #indie rock #music #music review #writing

[happymetalgirl]

10 MORE albums I missed in 2017

Okay, so I’m feeling like a real numskull for this one here, not for missing out on talking about these albums in the first place last year, but because I already did a piece about albums I missed last year, and somehow completely forgot to include some of the albums I’m going to talk about here. Some of these I found out about this year and am giving my belated thoughts on because I think they deserve it. But some of these... I was just sterpid, and forgot to talk about them in the post I ALREADY DID about albums I forgot to talk about.

Anyway! Here we go, ten more albums I missed in 2017.

Arckanum - Den Förstfödde

This was one of the albums that made me originally want to make the first installment of posts on albums I missed last year, but in my infinite idiocy, I somehow left it out. And since Arckanum's mastermind, Johan Lahger, has now retired the project this year to focus on his writing career, I definitely wanted to talk about his last album under the Arckanum name. The occult mystique that has overlaid Arckanum's intimidating black metal aura from the start is here on Den Förstfödde as well. And this album ends Arckanum's artistic journey with such ritualistic and meditative tranquility amid the expansive spiritual darkness it conveys, and it does so quite powerfully, with a great, well-versed blend of slow-burning grooves and dark atmospherics to wrap everything great about Arckanum up in one final dark atmosphereic swell of slightly experimental, minimal, black metal. Another addition, a final addition, to the Arckanum legacy, Den Förstfödde is a grand and fitting conclusion to the catalog of one of black metal’s truly unique contributors.

Loss - Horizonless

I had heard a fair amount of hype surrounding this debut album, but I never really got around to checking it out somehow until earlier this year. A bit more of a slow drone-y sort of doom release, Horizonless is an example of something that usually isn't my cup of tea, but ended up being pretty potent and immersive. The band do focus on the more morose and mournful side of the genre, and they show themselves to be quite adept for the most part when it comes to capturing that doom somber. It's a sufficiently long project, but one that doesn't overstay its welcome, a good starting point for the band, but I think they are going to have to do some work on their compositional approach if they're to make a more noticeable mark on doom metal in the coming years. They have the sound narrowed down, and they do show some pretty impressive writing chops on certain tracks on here. I would just love to see this band take this sound to its highest heights with compositions that lend themselves more fully to the tone the band works best with.

Vader - Dark Age

This album came out at the tail end of 2017, and even though I was desperately looking for something better to end my year's worth of discussions on than Asking Alexandria's self-titled disaster, Vader's Dark Age didn't seem like the right kind of release (a compilation album of rerecordings of songs from the band's debut album) to end the year with. Also, it came out four days before the new year, while I was working on my year-in-review lists, hardly enough time to digest the thing and present my thoughts on it. However, as I've come back to this thing a few more times throughout this year, I've found the band's modern approach to their old songs an interesting alternative album experience at least. The steadfast death metal traditionalists make predictably little effort to shake up their sound stylistically, but this album, a rarity of its type, serves as a fascinating exhibit of a close comparison of old and new, showcasing how different they sound on the production fronts, where they differ compositionally, but also how the style of old would fare in today's studios.

Venom Inc. - Avé

I don’t exactly know what kind of Queensrÿche-esque split Venom is undergone, but I can say that this Venom Inc. offshoot has brought a more ambitious and refreshingly modern set of songs to the table than what Venom have been bringing for the past however-many years now. I have seriously not paid Venom much attention since hearing some of the goofy tracks off their previous few albums and giving up most hope of Cronos trying to seriously update his band’s prototypic sound. As vibrant and gruff as Avé is, however, it’s still incredibly drawn out and mostly just a surface-level modernization of the band’s evil thrash metal sound. Still, I appreciate the effort to bring a little bit of the kind of epic bombast akin to the likes of Behemoth to this album, and if this new appendage of Venom really puts its creative head down and focuses on trimming the fat and playing to the strengths of Tony Dolan’s gruff snarls and Jeff Dunn’s knack for groovy rhythms, they can make themselves a name to continue to keep an eye out for.

Godflesh - Post Self

I'm still not sure how exactly I missed a new Godflesh album last year, but it was pretty crazy last year; I remember only hearing of a new Morbid Angel album coming down the pipes about a week or so before it's release, so I guess I'm not super surprised. But either way, it was a pretty unexpected release, somehow. Anyway, Godflesh followed up 2014's fantastic A World Lit Only by Fire with Post Self, an album that leans a little bit more on its portion of atmosheric experimental industrial pieces than its predecessor, but one that is not without its infectious, beat-driven cuts as well. Post Self is mostly the expected continuation of Godflesh’s extraordinarily flawless industrial metal legacy. The ingredients haven’t really changed all that much, but they never really have, and yet something about Godflesh’s consistency remains admirable in a way that hasn’t staled the way the singular motives and predictability of bands like Slayer, Megadeth, or AC/DC have all transformed from selling points to fans’ clamor for something different. Godflesh don’t really deviate, and it’s perhaps because they have such a dominant reign over their musical territory, and Post Self is as solid of a reinforcement of their stronghold as any. All in all though, it's as solid as any album by the mighty and reliable Godflesh, and one I wish I had gotten to sooner before it started distracting me from 2018's metal.

Artificial Brain - Infrared Horizon

The potential for a future, technologically induced apocalypse at the hands of AI seems like the perfect subject matter at the perfect time for a technical death metal project like this, and the sci-fi-minded Artificial Brain seem like just the group to make a statement on the subject. I enjoyed their Labyrinth Constellation album from 2014 for its merits as a solid, virtuosic death metal album, but I was looking for the band to expand their sound a bit more on Infrared Horizon. I don't base my critiques off what I was hoping for from a particular album, and I won't do this album that unusual unfairness here. But man did it feel like a missed opportunity, one the band luckily still has. They could have done so much more than simply spit out more instrumental prowess, which is fine and dandy by its own merits once again. But I was really hoping their expression of the celestial would involve more than the usual sustained dissonant guitar chords and their embodiment of the technological would involve more than robotic technicality. Complex drumming, dissonant guitar atmospherics, tasty slaps of unsubmissive bass, nasty snarls, deep and entirely unintelligible growls: this album has all the ingredients to make your usual techdeath chicken noodle soup. And that's kind of all the album amounts to, a slush of technical wankery. The few times the album ascends beyond techdeath's basic standards, it reveals the band's excellent writing chops and creativity, like the dynamic and bass-heavy "Static Shattering", that I wish popped up more frequently on this album. It's not bad by any techdeath standards, but it seems like this group are punching a bit below their weight, I hope. Definitely still worth the time to digest and appreciate.

Replacire - Do Not Deviate

I heard the hype around Replacire’s Do Not Deviate a little bit late (as in earlier this year), but I have not really connected with that hype. It’s an animated and dynamic progressive death metal release, but the sophomore project still has its kinks to work out, and I didn’t completely see what all the fuss was about. It’s definitely a cut above most of the techdeath crop, but I think there is definitely growth to be done upon the ground laid by this record in the small areas. The band clearly know what they’re doing when it comes to the basics of techdeath (as much of an oxymoron as that might seem to be), it’s just those few quirks to figure out and mold into an identifiably unique sound for the band. The quality playing and presentation of what Replacire are technically and imaginatively capable of does, of course, make a great case for the potential this band has, so I will be looking out for the mastery of the madness strewn about this album on their future releases.

Scour - Red

I didn't really pay Scour much attention when their first EP, Grey, dropped in 2016, mostly because the thought of Phil Anselmo trying his hand at black metal seemed kind of goofy and like something that wouldn't end well. I thought this project would fizzle away not long after this second EP, but that was entirely me judging the book by its cover. One day earlier this year I figured that since they were just EPs I'd check 'em out, why the hell not? And I was pleasantly surprised with both. It's not the most groundbreaking black metal around, but it's hardly the amateurish embarrassment I thought it would be. Even though the black metal vocal style Phil employs on here isn't nearly as technical as his usual melodic gruffness or even other black metal vocal styles, his continued exploration of different techniques at his age continues to impress me. And he still manages to maintain his unique tone and tambre while implementing these new styles. As for how it compares to their first EP, Red is rather stylistically similar and similarly compositionally consistent, but it finds them seemingly more confident on all fronts: Phil with his improved black metal screams, his integration of his lower register growls, and the well-versed band (comprised of members of Pig Destroyer and former Cattle Decapitation bassist, Derek Engeman, who brings that band's guitar style all across the two records as a highlight feature) with their more confident writing and bolder instrumental performances. This EP and the last both possibly benefit from the potential hiding of any major compositional incompetence in the consistently short run times of the twelve tracks between them, but Scour's channeling of the sardonic, nihilistic side of black metal with compelling conviction across these tracks is respectable at the very least. Scour is no novelty side project and far more than just a curious experiment for Phil. The group has the chops to justify their entrance into the readily scornful territory of black metal. Perhaps these short, small releases mark the extent of their creativity, but perhaps not. I'm very curious now as to where this project will go from here and what they might put forth on a full-length.

Amenra - Mass VI

I have stated don't like when bands name albums based on how many albums they have, but I should probably clarify that it doesn't bug me as much when it plays a clear role in their artistic intention as opposed to a lazy showboat of "look how many albums we've made". I don't mind Amenra's numbering of their albums as "masses" because they clearly put effort into embodying a metallic version of that traditional Catholic ritual (even if it's not as true to an integration of those traditional musical elements as Batushka are). Mass VI is perhaps the culmination of the band's work up until this point, with a steady improvement on their sludgy post-metal sound showing signs of crystalizing here on this record. It's not a particularly long album, but it does what it needs to in the time it has, and that is to set and maintain an atmosphere. Amenra do well to capture a sense of liturgical ambiance amid the clashes of sounds they play with across Mass VI, and they do well to expand on them beyond the simple fundamentals of post-metal mood-setting with some truly dynamic shifts between somber, sweetly sung ambiance and soulful crescendos of guitar distortion.

Heresiarch - Death Ordinance

This album is one I found out about this year, completely randomly. I was in a record store and I stumbled upon the band's EP, Hammer of Intransigence. I had never heard it and it was relatively cheap so I just went for it. I then went to find the rest of the band's catalog and found that they had released their first LP last year, Death Ordinance. The lesson from this I suppose is that I'm sure as long as I'm around, I will never find or cover everything I like from a certain year in that year. There will always be stuff I go back and find that I wish I would have known about earlier. As thorough as I am being this year, I'm sure I'll look back and find something I missed, possibly a favorite new artist I didn't even hear of this year. And that to me is wonderful, I'm so glad there is so much metal out there to find and enjoy through this constantly exciting musical journey. Death Ordinance is a meager, but solid enough gruff death metal project that focuses on drawn out sections of low-register guitar groove and bellowing growls to carry its dismal moods. I think the band will need to work on the arrangement of those grooves into more intentional structures on long-form projects like this going forward, but it's a decent enough start.

And that's it for albums I missed in 2017. I'm sure there's still plenty out there that I just have not heard that I am missing that I would love to not be missing, but for now, this is it.

#arkanum #den förstfödde #loss #horizonless #vader #dark age #godflesh #post self #Replacire #Do Not Deviate #Venom Inc. #Ave #artificial brain #infrared horizon #scour #red #amenra #mass vi #heresiarch #death ordinance #black metal #ambient black metal #industrial metal #technical death metal #post-metal #death metal #thrash metal #speed metal #progressive death metal #techdeath

[agentaletha]

Ace Review: Seven Ways We Lie by Riley Redgate

Seven Ways We Lie by Riley Redgate

Published 2016 by Amulet Books

(The cover shows seven "Hello my name is ___" name tags, each with the name of one of the seven deadly sins.)

"Seven students. Seven (deadly) sins. One secret. Paloma High School is ordinary by anyone’s standards. It’s got the same cliques, the same prejudices, the same suspect cafeteria food. And like every high school, every student has something to hide—from Kat, the thespian who conceals her trust issues onstage, to Valentine, the neurotic genius who’s planted the seed of a school scandal. When that scandal bubbles over, and rumors of a teacher-student affair surface, everyone starts hunting for someone to blame. For the seven unlikely allies at the heart of it all, the collision of their seven ordinary-seeming lives results in extraordinary change."

Non-spoilery TL:DR I quite enjoyed this book - there's a lot going on and having seven main characters is a little confusing at first but the changing perspectives on the same events provides some depth. There is a character who sounds asexual and aromantic and autistic but none of these are ever explicitly named. He seems like a stereotype at first but has his own storyline that's both important plot wise and gives him his own character arc.

I have mixed feelings about this book. It gave a more complex portrayal of the seven sins than I expected, avoiding the obvious choices, and did a pretty good job of creating unique voices for 7 different POV characters. But there are some choices I didn't like, both with the book as a whole and the portrayal of the asexual character. There is so much going on that there is something for everyone. There are romantic stories, requited and unrequited and star crossed, stories of friendship old and new, a coming out story, and a story about a family trying to come back together.

Each of the seven main characters had their own style and as the story progressed it became clear which of the seven deadly sins each was struggling with. For example, Olivia's sin is gluttony, but it's a gluttony of boys. The story doesn't shame her for it; instead it shows the horrible unfair things other people say to her for having multiple sexual partners of her own choosing. It becomes clear that her real gluttony is for affection, trying to fill her need to be wanted after her mother left and the rest of her family has pulled away. Even the story of the student having an affair with a teacher (which is deeply squicky to me) was done in a nuanced way (and was not explicit at all).

As for the asexual character, it's never made explicit but it's heavily implied that Valentine is asexual and aromantic. He sounds like such a stereotype - he's socially awkward, skinny, called a freak at school, likes numbers and counts objects, has no friends, and speaks formally and literally. He appears to be on the autism spectrum but it's never specified either. He's aromantic and asexual and his sin is pride, feeling superior to all his so-called peers, which hits uncomfortably close the superior aro/ace "above it all" trope.

Here's Valentine:

"Part of me wonders what it would feel like, a kiss. I've never felt compelled to try putting my mount on somebody else's mouth. I refuse to believe is feels like a symphony of violins, or a ferociously panning camera, or an eruption of emotion in the center of my chest, or anything else it's supposed to be."

Kat's POV:

"I lean against the wall. "What, you have crush on one of them or something?" "I don't do those."

"Do what? Crushes?"

"Yes, those." he says. "And no I don't."

"What are you, one of those love-is-a-social-construct people?"

"I don't know about that. I just don't get crushes."

However his character arc goes beyond that and we get to see him as a more of a whole person. He has an encounter with one of the other main characters, Lucas, who is constantly worried about his public image and pleasing everyone. Lucas finds Valentine's honest (blunt) attitude intriguing and they start becoming friends. My initial skepticism faded as we are treated to Valentine as seen through Lucas's eyes. In fact Lucas, who is pansexual (which is explained and talked about a fair amount), develops a crush on Valentine and kisses him.

"It feels like I thought it would. Skin on lips, lips on skin. [...] I frown as the kiss deepens, his tongue sliding against mine. Odd feeling. I wait for something new to happen in my head, something different. Eventually, he pulls back, and his hand falls from my fair. "You're not into it," he says as I inhale slowly. The taste of him is cold on my lips, tingling mint. Not unpleasant. Not life changing. Just another experience." [...] "I'm not into anyone." I say desperately. "I don't know if it's because I've hardly had a friend of what but conceptualizing crushes has always been a problem and I just - I don't." The words stick in my throat. I say them again, a broken record spitting broken words: "I don't."

One of my favorite things about Valentine's storyline is that Lucas accepts this. Lucas doesn't question him or pressure him or make Valentine responsible for his feelings or for making him feel better. Lucas just says it may take him a little bit to get over it but they can continue to be friends. He does not make it Valentine's problem, thank goodness. However this also brings up one of my biggest points of annoyance: these are two people who both know what pansexuality is (and not because Lucas explained it to Valentine, Valentine already knew) and neither one can say the word asexuality? It's more believable that at least one of them would have heard of asexuality than not. Did the editor specify only one lesser known sexual orientation per book? This is set in today’s world, why not just say it? And especially why make Valentine worry about it? That description valentine gives is someone who doesn’t know that asexuality is a thing and that he is not alone. He doesn’t otherwise dwell on it and he is pretty accepting of who he is, but still, why?

Anyway, it's revelations and growth if not outright happy endings for everyone - an overall enjoyable read.

#actually asexual #asexual literature #asexual fiction #asexual character #ace reads review