#those of u who were there for The Poll might remember

[mumblesplash]

ok but it was a LITTLE funny of me to draw mean gills making out underwater exactly one (1) time and then nothing ever since. like you need to understand that was my first time drawing a kiss Ever. not first time posting, first time *drawing*

#mumbling #first ever attempt at drawing two people kissing and i make one of them martyn and post it on the martyn lives here website #does it make it better or worse that he had previously reblogged my art of him and scott About to kiss? who can say #those of u who were there for The Poll might remember #that all only happened because i was drawing limlife teams as if they had been told to pose for a photo #and the ONLY thing my brain would accept as an in character response for them was #‘obviously they would start making out in front of the camera as a bit’ #and only at the last moment did i realize the only thing that would be even more in character #would be to act like they were *about* to kiss without actually doing it #you know to be little shits. #but then you know. i was given a Decent Amount of Money and i was like weelllll

[r0ttkins]

Didn't you have an Estranged au about Usopp and Kaku? There was an art stuff about it too. I can't remember exactly what it looked like but there was a star in the middle and Usopp and kaku were looking angrily (?) At each other

Hmmmmmmmm..... I think u mixed two things I drew or this time my memory is making me stupid and I drew it, idk. Or something I reblogged dunno.

But... Yeah I have an AU called Odd Eyes where Usopp's family from Father's side have stars in their eyes due to which they can kinda regulate it like cats in the dark, but make it a zoom to the objects far away and so, depending on the star in the eyes. That miiiiight be it, but I'm not sure.

They have two mods to be fair: can help with long distance vision (but because of that anything close to the eye owner is blurred) or they can help with illusions and fooling the opponent, like Persons thought that rubber bugs were crawling all over her. As much is opponent scared and confused, better illusions works. Fuse those two together and we have lies coming true as they are after effect of unconscious looking into the future and saying what's there. And by so making future events more tricky as some might not be sure is someone really is there or is it just an illusion.

In this AU Kaku is the first son of Yasopp and Banchina, but WG agents found out about the stars and that they have a kid so using their evil tricks used once opportunity, and some drugs, to steal him from them so they could use him as another agent to that Cipher Poll project, not realising that there is another kid on the way.

Usopp, after realising it is his brother his father is looking for, tries to get to him but u know. It's not easy to get to a guy who was thought for years anything what Cipher Pol thought him. And ofc to make him change his mind.

But tho speaking of, I never showed my unlocked star eyes usopp doodles, cuz it was at that time thing I just started to make lol.

Here are very first ones

And here is one of the fresher ones.

OH AND UH- I mixed fables, Pinocchio and Schrödinger's cat concept into it too, since Usopp is based on Aesop quite much. And ofc Tengu and Pinocchio as well.

*nod nod* aye

#one piece #doodle #god usopp #usopp #art #odd eyes au #monkey d luffy

[cuddlesslut]

Part Seven: Regrets

Atsumu x fem reader, Suna x rem reader, Hinata x fem reader

A/N: guess who’s fridge went out and won’t be able to get a new one till the 15th 🙋🏻‍♀️😩. Sorry this chapter is shorter than usual it’s kind of a filler But next chapter should be pretty long. I know a couple of people were wonder what happened with him so here we are with the return of a character. I might set up a poll for who should YN end up with so look out for that. I’m going to start writing my next story soon it’s going to be another angst!

Warning: Angst that’s about it. Maybe a lil lewd language.

Part Six: Promises

Part Eight: Hope

He laid in his empty bed staring up at his ceiling the only sound filtering through the room was the echo of the tv in the livingroom. He didn’t have the energy to go shut it off, plus he found comfort the noise it brought he found the silence unbearable. He sighed as he looked at the open space next to him. He never took much stock in how empty it felt without you next to him. The smell of your shampoo had long since vanished from the pillows. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine you were here next to him your head resting on his chest your hands interwoven talking about your plans for the day but while the memory played in his head clear as day his body had forgotten your warmth. It wasn’t too hard to picture , you had spent several morning just like that wrapped in each other’s embrace. He thinks to the mornings he’d walk out of his early showers to find you leaning against the kitchen counter drinking your morning coffee. He can still remember how you enjoyed your first cup of coffee to start your day. You liked your coffee sweet , but to were you could still taste the rich coffee flavor, always pairing it with an array of creamers. He remembers when you first started staying over at his place and he realized your affinity for flavored coffee he went out to the store and stocked up on as many flavors he could find in hopes you’d stay for more coffee before heading off to school. He loved that sight in the morning walking out and seeing you clad in just his shirt your hair a mess from last nights activities. But you weren’t here to have coffee in the morning, all of the creamers starting to expire, and he had no one to blame but himself.

Atsumu has spent the last seven month alone. There were a few nights he’d tried to pick up girls just to try and fill the gigantic hole left in his life by your absence but those all ended in disaster. One night he tried to have a careless hook up it didn’t get past the front door when he accidentally moaned your name when the random girl had cupped his manhood. She wasn’t very happy about that. He received a knee to the groin as she fleed the house. Another time he tried he was able to keep his mouth shut from making any mistakes after choosing a girl who was nothing like you but then he had another problem. He couldn’t get it up. You plagued his thoughts. You were the only woman his body wanted. It was quite embarrassing.

After Suna rocked his shit he finally started to snap out of his self pity. Why the hell was he crying? Because he was lonely? He can only imagine how lonely you felt every night he didn’t come home. He sighs running his hands down his face he really was a piece of shit he thinks. He didn’t treat you the way you deserved and he knows that. He knows he was selfish and inconsiderate. He knows he’s way to late but he regrets everything he did. Every single mistake eats away at him. None of it was worth it. Every flirt, every compliment that boosted his ego, the rush of excitement of being with someone else it was all worthless compared to being with you. He thinks back to everynight he stayed out late or he canceled dates, about the pain that hid behind your eyes. Now that his head wasn’t stuck up his ass he could finally see all of the misery he put you through. And he hated himself for it.

The setter wanted nothing more that to fix all of his mistakes, but he knew he was too late. Atsumu didn’t expect you to ever in a thousand years forgive him or even in a million years want him back, but he knows he can’t just do nothing. He’d spend the rest of his days trying to make amends. After Suna had pointed out how horrible he was for not looking for you he did everything to find you. He started by calling the University to see if you had been attending class but even with the title of fiancé , which he understood was false by not adding former to the title, they refused him any information to protect your privacy. He had long noticed the empty bank account but he wasn’t worried about that the money it was the least you deserved. Plus the fantasy of making you his wife and calling you YN Miya was nothing but a pipe dream now. So he’s sure the money would do you better. He tried to follow any money trail you left. He found the hotel that you must have run to that night. But even that was a bust leading to a dead end. He only knew one more course of action. He called your parents. They refused to answer his calls. Eventually he drove down to Hyogo by himself. The setter stood there on the front steps he’d stand on every morning when he’d walk you to school. It felt so familiar to knock on the cedar door, but everything felt so distant from his memories. Still he wasn’t quite sure what he expected, maybe for you to answer the door with a bright smile like you had all those years ago yet what he received was your mother standing there with a look of disgust present. He didn’t get a word in before she slammed the door in his face. He begged for her come back to please talk to him he just needed answers but he only received silence. He stayed there for close to an hour trying to get just a morsel of information. It was useless they refused to speak to him. That was his last idea he could come up with for finding you. Full of dread he made his way to his car ready to make the long drive home. The next day he received a phone call from his brother.

“Hey Samu what’s u-” the blonde started before his grey haired twin interrupted his greeting going straight to the point.

“She’s alive and fine,” Atsumus heart stuttered before he breathed a sigh of relief. He opened his mouth to ask his next question but Osamu cut him off yet again already knowing what his twin was going to ask.

“No we don’t know where she is. Kita-Senpai went to her parents and all they’d state was she was alive and out of harm, not that I’d tell you where she is if I knew,” Osamu’s tone was sharp. Atsumu knew he deserved that. His brother had made him well aware of his dissatisfaction in the blondes actions. He had to thank the his brother though, as upset he was with him he still looked out for him. Always checking up on him making sure he was eating and keeping up with his hygiene, throwing away all the liquor he could find because as disappointed he was with Atsumu he couldn’t let him tear himself apart.

“I know Samu, thank you for telling me.” He spoke softly before clicking the end call button.

He accepted that it was best he stayed out of your life. He wanted to make everything up to you and if staying out of your life was wanted then he’d respect your wishes. He spent the next months bettering himself. He cut all alcohol out of his life. Only going out when it was with his teammates although that was a rare occurrence they were also quite disappointed with how he had treated you, especially his wing spiker Sakusa. Omi-Omi had always had a soft spot for you. But still they didn’t let it affect their game play. He focused all of his energy on volleyball. He even started going to a few therapy sessions for his self distructive behaviors and impulses. He really wanted to do and be better if not for you then for himself. Although he still had trouble being home alone without you, never feeling quite whole. With out you this house would never truly be his home again. He was starting to get better and not drown in agony every morning he woke up alone although he knew he deserved it. One step that had made the process easier was boxing up the remainder of your belongings that you had left. For so long he had kept everything just as you left it hopeful for your return thinking maybe everything could go back to normal and life could be picked up where it was left off although this time he’d swear to never hurt you again. It was unrealistic to think that though. His therapist had told his several times it was a step he needed to take and while it took several months he was finally able to remove any trace from the house. That night he cried him self to sleep from the finality that came from not seeing a piece of you around as though you had never been there in the first place.

He regretted not cherishing you for the amazing woman you are. He’ll never forgive himself for losing the best thing to everything to happen to him. At Seven months since that night he was finally able to breath when he went home, not suffocating from regret every moment present in those walls. The Jackals were on a winning streak and even more exciting they had just got a new member. And after all these years he was able to hold up at least one promise he had made after breaking so many at least he could fulfill one promise by finally getting to set for Shoyo Hinata.

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[batarangsoundsdumb]

hae interrogationes multae respondeant quia demens .

if you read this entire ask post you deserve a gold star and financial recompensation

Um, Obviously because when you’re adopted by a white guy you automatically become white duhhh

this is about this post lmao and yeah youre absolutely right, you have to hand your poc card in when you get adopted by a white guy.

Do you think Cass would listen to Yanni, the YouTube channel epic symphonic rock, or some other stuff? There's some cool mashups but idk if that's up your alley, I kinda feel like I'm pushing it with my weird taste of music by recommending an orchestra cover of metal, but i just love that sort of thing and mashups :P @harvestyourcherries 

i haven’t heard of that? but in my personal (correct) opinion steph listens to classical music, and then both modern and older, and then also stuff like black sabbath, iron maiden, but also hardrock and hardcore. i like the idea of cass just liking the most extreme screaming songs full of noise and then also listen to pachelbel’s 370th sonata yanno? THANK YOU for the rec tho

speaking of ur cass playlist hc...reminds of the time (yesterday) i found 2 playlists randomly on spotify from the same user. one was abt 3 hours of instrumental/classical "dark" & "nostalgic" music. the other almost 11 hours of nothing but hardcore bass/synth/electronic music. just an incredible tightrope act to put on in public. the synth one was also called like "psalms for synth sluts" which is Also incredible

tbh i LOVE synth SO MUCH like for no reason at all but then also cannot handle a poppy electronic beat lmao. but this seems like the kinda thing i’d do but just in one (1) playlist bc i just sort songs by vibe instead of genre? that’s how i end up with britney spears and billy ray cyrus in the same playlist. 

Oh, I want Kate Kane playlist next! It would be amazing if you could do one when you have time and will 🙏

how rude would it be of me to just say no? like sorry kate but idk you and also you seem way too keen on the us military for an institution that homophobically targeted you? (and also commits war crimes) but let’s unpack the fact that the institution that caused the death of your mom and sister and also got you blacklisted for being gay is still one you align with???

'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' --- when i tell you i fucking screamed LOL!!!!!!! i can imagine the cameraman not knowing if he should cut to commercial or keep it on these two weirdos fighting on stage (bruce definitely ruffled dick's hair/noogied him right?? 

about this post but yeah lmao. this cameraman just turns to like the audience to get a reaction and it’s just multiple moments of CLEAR shock.

you are the only funny person on this hellsite

how egotistical is it for me to say that i get this ask multiple times a month? bc it literally happens so often it’s hilarious to me.

Wish there was more john/Bruce content 😔😔😔 was so hungry I actually looked at canon media 😔😔😔 (Justice League Dark babeeeyyyyyy)

check out batman: damned for some mediocre content but at least it’s john/bruce (also very interesting story and stuff, just got very >:( over this weird part where harley quinn tried to r*pe bruce or something? it’s not for everyone)

dick grayson but he's nicki minaj

his anaconda don’t want none,,, unless...... 

Dick Grayson was never a cop, he played Marshall on Paw Patrol

you are SO right. also paw patrol is a fucking good show idc. that shit could’ve been the new steven universe on this hellsite.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CS1lI0bLI7-/?utm_medium=copy_link

...

why do people keep reposting my CONTENT. if you are not funny yourself don’t just grab shit off of tumblr and post it on insta,,, get a life. sidenote: should i start an insta and get all these ppl to take my content down that would be funny as hell.

Might I suggest for a Gotham City Meme: something about the true crime fandom thirsting for the rogues gallery

ok can i just say something slightly controversial?? no? i don’t find true crime ppl who are into criminals funny, that shits disturbing irl im not gonna bring that into my very chill universe.

i may have never seen a 'jason cleaning guns in sink' fic but i do know he WOULD

THANK YOU

bestie im sorry to say this to you but while you can, and people do wash their guns in the sink, that is a lot of lead in a very vital part of the kitchen.

people tend to do it in the bathtub.

WHY???? like damn why do you even have guns

i dont think i read many gun sink fics exactly but i have read lots of fics where jason cleanes his guns in the living room. usualy dissembles them and cleans them with a rag i think

lmao fair enough, like i think that’s a large part of what i remember as well.

if you say you've seen/read gun sink fics I believe you. I think those of us who didn't see them are lucky or maybe didn't search for fics by tags or something idk

i mean ive never sought them out but i HAVE seen them,, like definitely i know almost for certain.

saw your tags and I'm interested in Steph/Kara now. They would be the most chaotic couple <3

literally thoooo, i have a wip where they get together in a zombie apocalypse and like UGGGHhhh i am so in love with them.

I am the Breece anon. Thanks for the recommendation; am reading now. I’ve always been a hardcore Superman fan because I love my pure himbo farm boy. My logic is, if one Bruce is a Broose, then multiple Broose are a herd of Breece. And this is a hill upon which I will perish.

fair enough,,,, like moose, meese, goose, geese, bruce, breece. i get your logic and i stand by it as well. (glad you enjoyed the comic recs!!!!)

It's a beautiful day in Gotham, and you are a group of horrible Breece

OH my god dude lmao

there only being 42 fics on ao3 for tim and bernard is honestly so sad i need more

it’s like twice that now!!! we did it lads. (tho very sad that my fic isnt number one but like number 4 :((((  )

i'm too late you already did the poll lol but may i suggest bethy (bernard + timothy)

shit dude that wouldve been so fucking funnyyyyy. think ppl have just stuck to timber tho, tim/bernard kinda died down recently and i think it’s too bad, they’re a great couple and i love them.

Wait, hear me out

Bernothy @redlightofdawn

great recommendation (lmao this ask is from like a month ago) but very sorry to announce that NARDTH is the superior shipname

Wait, we know that bernard likes milfs (Tim's step-mom) but what about dilfs? gilfs?

Wait no, I regret sending that ask

these were two seperate asks and they’re HILARIOUS. in my personal opinion tho,,, milfs, gilfs, dilfs are just about vibes and bernard is just attracted to sexy ppl who may sometimes be milfs, dilfs, or EVEN gilfs.

crime in bludhaven would drop to half if nightwing had a boob window. in this essay i will-

WHERE’S THE ESSAY ANON, WHERE’S THE FUCKING ESSAY

Wait if Barbra and Tim r at opposite ends at all times what happened to Barbra once everyone’s Tim’s ever love before started dying lol

she won a lottery ticket and spent 2 weeks on a resort in the bahamas before returning home and finding out that the joker was arrested for tax evasion and then spent a month staying at her big tiddie goth girlfriend’s house before conner came back to life and she broke her pinkie playing table hockey.

Why is the opposite end thing so funny and compelling to me. Tim comes back from his depression quest for Bruce and Babs is now a literal god

lmao when tim loses his spleen barbara reaches nirvana.

Are you still taking music recs because I have three songs that remind me of Jason that I think you'd like

send to me or lose a toe

🌸 ⭐ put this star into the inbox of your favorite blogs. it’s time to spread positivity! ⭐🌸😋

thanks, i wont tho on account of i wont.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMduBy3Sr/

⬆️

This is the whole of Blüdhaven and everyone anywhere.

Nightwings ass alone saves more people in a calendar year and does more for so society than most heroes do their whole career.Also u are one of the funniest tumblr pages out there. The vibes are unmatched and the memes and tags ✨send me✨.Thank u and goodnight @julia-flow 

fanksss also lmao.

That's going to be a little bit difficult to explain, but

There's some music that you listen to and you think, "oh my gosh, I can perfectly imagine Dick Grayson singing this song, with the same voice as the singer because that voice matches with Dick Grayson"?

oh yeah totally lmao. i have a lot of songs that i think are just entirely dick grayson yanno? kind of all of my playlists have that vibe, but i really find bleachers to fit with dick? idk.

"Lois lane/Superman" fics this, "Lois lane/Clark Kent" fics that, (/lh) let's get into the real good stuff. Some people ship Lois, Clark, and Superman as a throuple. Most popular fic tag for sure

yes totally, i think they’d be absolutely killer on ao3 and clark gets so fucking embarassed about it.

I miss your post, hope you’re doing okay!!

haha this was like 2 months ago, but i was doing fine then too! just didn’t have a lot of inspiration in terms of content.

Doot doot!

noot noot

I’m confused. What did DC do now? Like with nightwing? And another sibling? Please spoil everything for me

lmao they gave him a secret sister plotline where they had his dad cheat on his mom with tony zucco’s wife, bc dick’s life wasn’t traumatic enough yet.

sorry but it's so funny that batman is called "the dark knight" when the gotham city baseball team is called the gotham knights. it'd be like if a vigilante was running around new york called like "the scary yankee"

lmaooo no. but like yankee comes from dutch names or something so wouldnt it be HILARIOUS if gotham knights came from like german names and bruce would be running around called the dark KLAUS UND NIEK @graysonnightwing 

(not a batcest shipper) it’s so funny to me that the responses are “i’m a batcest shipper because i can differentiate fiction from reality and and it doesn’t bother me personally, but i understand why you oils think it’s weird” to “i wish all batcest shippers a very fucking die”

yeah lmaoo. i personally basically flipped my entire stance around to ‘i dont care please leave me and everybody else alone’ bc i think there’s really no point in starting a moral dillema over some fucking fandom bullshit. Please just,,, go home,,, log off, find a nice forest to have a little walk in and remember that somewhere in history, somebody probably died in the place you’re standing. and you will also die someday, and somebody will have to look at your internet usage and see you fighting multiple people anonymously while being named ‘nightwingsbuttchin200186′ like... calm down, we’re all gonna die this is not the thing to worry about.

so since like "wards" don't really exist in modern society almost all the batkids are foster kids, right? i used to work in the system and imagine: monthly visits from social workers and guardian ad litems, bruce having to get permission to take the boys anywhere out of state, calling their social worker at like 8 a.m. like "yeah dick broke his arm again... a gymnastics accident this time...." their poor social worker. bruce send her a huge bouquet and box of chocolates every month to stay on her good side

i imagine the social worker just getting into the case like ‘yeah let’s get this kid a good guardian’ and then ending up having to work with 22 y/o bruce wayne and his 50 y/o dad. and so this social worker is like ‘okay we can work with this, this is the best home i can find’ and then like it ends up landing on its feet and then the kid gets adopted and then they get a call a year later like ‘uhm so hi, this kid tried to steal my tyres can i adopt him?’ and like 3 years later. ‘okay so basically, my neighbours’ kid imprinted on me and now they’re dead, can i keep him?’ two years later it’s like ‘okay so this assassin child-’

ever since I saw that one post of yours, the meme that's something like "I know that abba's backup dancer got me" with a picture of discowing, I've been haunted. Every once in a while I'll be minding my own business then the image of abba's backup dancer dick grayson aka nightwing aka discowing will flash in my mind and I'll be frozen in place. Today at work I was in the middle of folding clothes and suddenly once again discowing entered my mind and I suddenly lost the ability to see anything except He. Thank you.

wow. the IMPACT.

Braver than any US marine man props to you🤝

this shit is about the time i wrote an article on batcest, like man,,, the fact that i didn’t get cancelled is MIRACULOUS. also like,,, uh if anybody on here did gossip on me,, send screenshots i’d love to see it.

Hello, just wanted to say your article was great. Thank you for taking the time to provide an unbaised answer. It should provide people with nuances they couldn't possibly conjure on their own.

May I ask where your username originates from?

yes you may (also thanks!!!) i thought it up when i was trying to find an original username bc i didnt want to be called like ‘timdrakes something something’ or ‘jason todd something smoething’ or ‘dick grayson something something’ yanno? so i thought batarangs, they sound so dumb and that’s my username story... now it’s my whole entire brand lmao.

yno that bit in kick ass where red mist asks kick ass if he wants a hit of his blunt, was that the inspo for stoner tim

no? it’s bc i think stoners are hilarious and drugs are great. (dont do drugs tho) 

How would u feel if someone actually wore one of those bruce or ollie pride shirts u edited

fenomenal next question.

Dick as lil huddy and Jason as James gave me radiation poisoning and now I’m screaming crying throwing up so thx for that

(Rico suave as Tim is perfect tho literally no changes needed)

i was so funny for that shit wasn’t i??? lmao i loved those weird ass fancasts

You're doing the Lord's work by providing us with all these Gotham/Metropolis citizens memes, thank you for being so relentlessly funny @nellethiel-aranel

you’re welcome!! i really enjoy making memes, but getting validation for my content and my memes is REALLY nice.

Bruce is such a slut in your memes and honestly i love that for him @rhodey-rhudert-rhodes-main 

he’s that much of a slut irl too dw.

Bruce and Alfred have an emergency pride flag for the batkids. Oliver Queen printed an emergency "I love my gay son" t-shirt and as soon as Roy told him he was dating Jason, Oliver started wearing that shirt everyday and Roy always cringes when he sees it. Oliver also has an emergency "I love my lesbian daughter" shirt just in case for Cissie.

lmao YES i had a post like this bc like all of their kids/family members are so gayy

stop bringing back batfam fancasts it is not real it is not real it is not- 😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀

oh yes it is my darling.

did discowing burn down the notredam because he hates the bees? @allulily

no he did it bc fuck the french.

im gonna beg for 1 thing and 1 thing only. please please please put physical by olivia newton john on dick's playlist

okay then beg. bc i wont. physical reminds me too much of glee and that hurts me mentally.

your playlist is sorely missing some Madonna. Specifically Into the Groove, Like a Prayer, and Vogue

i’m scared of madonna that’s why she’s not on there. she haunts me in my dreams.

suggestion: son of batman by aaron dews for dick’s playlist🤩

sorry, i listened to it and the vibe didn’t agree with me.

Hear me out, metropolis citizens sending rare pair fics of Clark Kent x Superman fics to Lois to edit

yes, absolutely hilarious. even more funny if they send like physical copies, no address attached and lois sends it back marked with red ink, SOMEHOW

Imagine all the smut Clark must of read editing the fics

clark reads smut confirmeeed

NOT LOIS READING SUPERBAT PORN AND EDITING IT A 2AM 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

hc that alfred is a meta that boosts healing factor of the people around him. if the bats are injured as much as they seem to be they would be doing bat stuff MAYBE half the year. no one including alfred knows about this. whenever the kids move out they inexplicably dont recover from injuries as fast and feel better whenever they visit the manor they just chalk it up to homesickness. bruce just thinks he heals really fast. alfred thinks everyone doesnt take care of themselves properly @finchcollector

that’s actually such a great idea, but i think that alfred would find out and learn how to concentrate it better so he can help more people, bc he’s great and i love him.

One of your dickfast posts reminded me of that tweet that goes: 'so you've had sex how many times? Yeah technically that's not a bromance' lol that's dickwally or dickroy

literally tho. like that’s all of dick’s friendships. once it gets past a certain time dick is like ‘wow i wonder what it would be like to make out with wally, wally come make out with me’ and wally’s like ‘we’ve done this like 40 times, dick, you know what it’s like’ and dick is like ‘sorry are you complaining?’ and they just make out.

superfam and batfam associations??

-batman and superman

-dick/barabara and supergirl?

-conner and tim

-jon and damian

pls enlighten me I am confused

nope,,, uhm batman and superman, but dick and superman as well, and then conner and tim, jon and damian and steph + babs with supergirl

I came across a fic in which Wonder Woman calls Batman "Stella" (like Stellaluna, the children's book) and I can imagine the batkids hop on the trend and maybe copies of the book appear at random places (aka, everywhere Bruce frequents)

sorry can’t reciprocate that was the name of my high school chemistry teacher and it gives me nightmares to think about.

good human what are your pronouns?

wouldn’t you like to know?

I need me some gothamites preferring harley over joker memes

everyone prefers harley over joker youre just very fucked up if you dont

don't understand why people try to add like veteran policy to the batfamily

dick pulling out his veteran batfam member card so he can eat first: step aside, peasants

Do you know the song Simmer by Haley Williams? It (the first verse anyways) reminds me of Jason? It's about rage.

damn yeah i LOVE HAYLEY!!!! youre right thoo

Okay so I like listen to your stoner Tim Drake playlist 24/7 but would he listen to skegss? Also I keep adding songs mentally it’s killing me 😩✋🏼 Anyways,, I literally love and worship your playlist 😃🤞🏼 And uh yeah have a good day ✨

stoner tim drake playlist is lyfeeee. also dont know who skeggs is? i’m stupid? have a good day!!

All the Robins (and Batgirl) decide to trade costumes for one night just to fuck with Batman and all the villains in Gotham. @subspacecadet 

batman knows it’s them youknow but like,,, what does he call them? he’s like ‘red hood?’ and 3 people answer and he’s not about to compromise some identities so he’s just Pissed.

I aspire to treat cops the way my dad treats them. This man is a 45 year old Asian immigrant to the US and the treats them like his pets. He talks about them like unruly children. Sometimes he pays off local cops to shut up and stop acting racist. And usually it works. I don’t know why but I can see Oliver Queen doing this

vibes... and also yes? oliver queen handing a local cop a donut to shut the fuck up lmao. but yanno i commit enough crimes to not really want to ever see a cop ever, so they kinda scare the everloving fuck out of me.

seeing as tim hasn't aged in years, that means he was 17 at peak emo tumblr era. im back on my emo tim bullshit and im not letting it go

emo tim had a wattpad account send tweet

People seem to think that batman is so dark and serious when the rainbow batsuit is right there. He wore it with no shame.

dude the 60s were a DIFFERENT TIME

dick grew up in a circus, jason grew up on the streets, and tim was probably raised by the internet

all of them cuss every other word and you cannot tell me otherwise

bitch i KNOW but dc has to change to an 18+ rating if they want to sell comix with swear words in them so we gotta deal with imagining the swear words in ourselves

thoughts on teen titans and young justice

haven’t seen teen titans on account of havent seen it and young justice was LITERALLY my favourite thing ever, tho i do gotta admit it’s not at all similar to the young justice comics unfortunately. i really wouldve liked to see timmy bart kon cassie and cissie animated on tv!!

ew ew ew how to delete batcest shippers I genuinely digust them

log off tumblr?

Okay as poc who was called racist for calling an Italian pastabrain: in the batfam are Italians bit Damian just yells various insults about the others being Italian. Just him yelling “What are you doing you moronic spaghettihead!” At steph etc

huh? i meant real italians. homeboy is telling steph he hopes she chokes on her fucking garlic.

I think it's dumb as hell to pull the batman is the best fighter in the batfam argument because like it's just irresponsible of Bruce to let his kids fight when they couldn't possibly be on his league or something

fair enough, but also like who cares they could all kill you just sit down and take a beating.

lady shiva, thalia al ghul and Selina Kyle are all milfs @notanothertimburtonenthusiastugh 

unfortunately, i have to admit,,, you’re right

why tf didn't someone give joker a death sentence already? like he's a mass murderer...give him the electric chair treatment wtf

idk i think plenty of people would have tried to murder him already (boring answer is: he is a popular character so they can’t kill him off bc he brings in lots of money)

There’s no such thing as “ copaganda”.

all american media is propaganda. happy to clear this up for you

is it bad that I find lady shiva owa owa

no. find her as owa owa as you want.

aight I'm guessing the order of your favs in batfam:

1. tim

2. Steph

3. dick

4. Duke

5. the rest

you’re wrong but it’s cute that you tried, i generally don’t have favourites, but i have a special place in my heart for steph, tim, dick and cass. bc they were like my introduction to batfam. but damian, jason, duke, bruce, babs and alfred are NOT FORGOTTEN OR UNLOVED

oh my god i was literally just readily willing to believe that italians werent white ty for clarifying it was a joke im so dumb sdkvjskdfs

i mean some italians aren’t white? italian is a nationality as well as an ethnicity, so like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

since I saw so many people doing headcanons about the nationalities of batboys, I see Dick as an Italian.

dont know if youre serious or not, but sure.

super random but

jason 🤝 damian

old english

lmao fair enough.

tim absolutely has 1 gay uncle and his parents shit talk said uncle all the time so after bruce adopts him he specifically reaches out to this uncle to be like "heyyyy just so you know you majorly influenced my life yes i know i havent seen you since i was 5 and at the family reunion yes i know you dont remember my name idc thank you im gay too" and then they never talk again.

yuppp lmao that’s definitely something that could happen. i can also consider tim having no family members, like none. until he does like a dna test and he realises he has like an aunt living barely 2 miles away from him who’s like some illegitimate child of his grandpa.

I dare you one of them sends clark superman/clark fic and clark corrects the shit out of it and then goes like ps his dick is not that big, just telling as someone who has seen it. internet either explodes or goes who tf did he not fuck at this point.

i think everybody would call clark a buzzkill and try to cancel him over that.

so you're telling me Tim Drake wouldn't buy Starbucks?

no. dunkin donuts all the way

One of my favorite things is imagining people finding out jason came back from the dead and being like "oh no does he have magic powers now?!?!?" and he just pulls out a gun and tries to shoot joker

now he doesn’t even have the gun :) lmao

my favorite batfamily fanfictions are the ones where they use their shitty codenames, unironically, in any context

bruce gets codename ‘ugh’ everytime. he hates it.

crazy that tim being a 17 y/o ceo and a stoner who does brand deals are all actual canon things written in detective comics comics and not made up for shits and giggles by you, tumblr user batarangsoundsdumb @rowdeyclown

SO CRAZY HUH?

batman au where everything is the same but his utility belt is bright pink

absolutely, but i raise you, his boots light up like sketchers when he kicks people.

unbeknownst to the superhero fandom writers in the dcuniverse, clark and BRUCE are one of the most prolific fanfic writers in the superhero rpf tag on ao3. clark writes the best lois x superman angst, full of unhappy endings and scenes that are a so detailed you'd think you were in the middle of a superhero beatdown. bruce made an ao3 account to fuel "the do the butts match" thing, and makes batman/bruce fics from time to time. he wrote a superbat fic as a joke but ended up making it REAL porny. @concrastinator

dude they’re WAY too busy for that. Oliver Queen and Hal Jordan on the other hand are the most prolific fanfic writers in the superhero rpf tag writing what is Mostly porn.

When the dining table topic gets to politics, Steph says "eat the rich" as the solution

bruce just silently takes away her fork and knife while she’s talking.

#literally if you got through this i just respect you #this is mainly just for the people who sent me an ask in the past few mask #i hope your ask is in here :) #sorry for everybody else #ask #bataranswers #this took me 4 hours to do so i hope youre happy #also sidenote #does anybody know the latin translation for 'to become' #bc i just used future of 'esse' but it could be a different verb #who cares tho latin is a dead language #big congratulations to everyone who translates my sentence #here's a bonus sentence: tuam matrem futueram

[yukipri]

On the Baratie, Prologue - a One Piece Mermaid AU Text Story

Thanks to everyone who sent in their opinion on the East Blue stories poll! I think Sanji’s had the most, so we’re starting off with more Baratie!

While there’ll be a continuation, here’s a bit of prelude, because they need a different reason to go to the Baratie. The ASL Pirates already have a cook after all!

Like a prologue to On the Baratie, Part 1

~~

When Thatch makes up his mind to accompany Ace back to East Blue, he knows that there's one place he wants to visit no matter what.

He's only been to East Blue once, and it was honestly ages ago, and he doubts there'll be another chance in the near future. Not many opportunities to visit the weakest Blue as a commander in an Emperor's crew, after all.

And while Thatch doubts he'd travel halfway around the world for the sole purpose of visiting this spot, he's lucky. Because on this particular trip, it's practically along the way. They're passing right by the area on their way back to re-entering the Grand Line, so there's no way in hell he's letting this slip by.

It's the only request Thatch has made on this journey, and Ace and Luffy, who are the Captains and therefore technically get to decide where they go, have no objections. Luffy's already bobbing up and down in excitement, despite their guides estimating that they still have a ways to go.

"The Baratie, huh," Ace grins. "Never heard of it, we didn't pass by our first time through, did we Deuce?"

"You've never heard of it because you lived in the middle of nowhere, in a jungle with barely any contact with human civilization," Deuce says pointedly. "Most people in East Blue at least know of it, it's kinda famous."

Ace just shrugs, and Luffy whoops as the movement of his shoulders momentarily boosts her higher. Ace indulges her and repeats the movement more aggressively until she's bouncing, and Deuce sighs. The two captains' attentions have shifted, and now they're preoccupied by the most important topic of all: food.

"Food~!" Luffy sings, hopping from one arm to the other as Ace switches to spinning her around, and Deuce has to duck to avoid her tail. "Yummy yummy food at a restaurant! It's gonna be amazing!"

"It really will be amazing, if Zeff hasn't lost his touch," Thatch agrees, and Luffy and Ace cheer. "I've never eaten at this restaurant of his, but I was a fan of the Cook Pirates when I was a kid." 

His expression darkens, and Ace stills, recalling that Thatch mentioned they all died or something.

"Sucks what happened to them," Ace offers.

But Thatch just shrugs. It was around a decade ago, and shit happens out at sea. "I'm just glad Zeff survived. He'll have trained the new cooks well, and it'll be funny to see the old man actually settled down as a civilian."

Thatch was still a teen the last time he saw Zeff, who was Captain of the infamous Cook Pirates back in the day. They were always picking fights, and picked the wrong one with Pops, and predictably lost. Pops let them live, and they had a grand party, and Thatch remembers being captivated by their culinary expertise.

Thatch chuckles to himself, and the two brothers look at him curiously, blinking with adorably similar expressions.

"I just remembered, Zeff tried to scout me. Pops wasn't thrilled."

Ace barks a laugh, hefting Luffy into a more comfortable position before she suddenly squirms out of his arms. Luffy makes a grabby motion towards Thatch, and Ace obligingly if reluctantly moves closer to let her swing up onto the taller man's shoulders.

Thatch perks up at the sudden attention, because it's not every day that the little mermaid chooses to climb someone other than her brother. Thatch knows she doesn't need it, but offers her a hand to get settled more comfortably, which she takes with a pleased little purring sound that makes his heart skip a beat. Thatch pointedly doesn't look at Ace, but he can still feel his burning gaze.

He's not sure what prompted the sudden transport transfer, but suddenly Luffy's leaning forward over his shoulder to peer directly into his face, and she's close. Thatch tries very hard not to blush.

"But if the Zeff-dude cooks are that good, are they better than you, Thatch?" Luffy asks, eyes wide. "That can't be right, because Thatch's food is the best in the world! Better than even Makino's!"

Those words do make Thatch flush crimson, and Ace snorts. Thatch ignores him, too busy trying to control the warmth bubbling up inside his chest.

Thatch doesn't think he's arrogant, but he also isn't unused to his food being praised. As ungrateful as most of his brothers back aboard the Moby usually are, he's still the head chef who leads the culinary division of their entire fleet, and it's a position he's earned. He's personally trained and assigned all of the cooks on every Whitebeard ship. He knows he cooks well.

But there's something special about Luffy's unique brand of painfully genuine praise. Even though they've been traveling together for a few weeks now, she never gets bored of singing her appreciation at every mealtime with, if anything, increasing enthusiasm. It's like every time is her first time trying his food. Thatch in no way needs her compliments to adore her, he was besotted far before she even knew he was a cook, but boy does he appreciate them, and he doubts he'll ever really get used to them.

Thatch has been called the "Best Cook in the World" by many, and he'd accepted their words politely. But to hear them from Luffy feels like the highest honor he can ever attain.

Thatch feels unbearably fond as he reaches up to fluff Luffy's hair, and she leans into his hand, eyes curving up into slits like a happy kitten, her tail curling back and forth at his back.

Ace cheerfully ruins their moment.

"We'll just have to see, Lu, and maybe if you like their cooking better, we can ditch Thatch and kidnap one of their cooks." Ace leers like the evil little shit he is, and Thatch gasps with exaggerated indignation.

"No, no!" Luffy boos her brother, clinging to Thatch like he's the embodiment of all the meals Ace had threatened she'd lose, before she swings her tail around to smack at Ace none too gently until he grudgingly raises his arms in surrender.

"If we like their cooking, then we can keep Thatch AND kidnap one of their cooks!"

"Lil Seastar, you're not satisfied with just me, even if my food is the best in the world?" Thatch teases, and sticks his tongue out at Ace when he scowls. The young Captain isn't so thrilled with Thatch's new nickname for his baby brother, and Thatch thinks it's fair revenge for him being mean. 

"Thatch's food is the best!" Luffy cries again, and Thatch glows. "But if we steal a Zeff, then we have two cooks, which means more food!" She nods, pleased with her conclusion. "More food is always good!"

Well, she's a little confused, but her point is made. They hopefully won't steal Zeff himself, as Thatch doubts he'll be happy to part with his beloved restaurant, but perhaps nabbing one of his assistants isn't a terrible idea.

While handling even Ace and Luffy's appetites is no problem for Thatch, who's used to feeding the entire Moby Dick, some company in the kitchen might not be bad.

(And, a voice whispers in his head, that they'll need a cook that Thatch approves of when he inevitably has to leave to return to Pops. It's a voice Thatch ignores, so that he can enjoy this moment, for now.)

~~

~~

I don't think it's actually ever officially stated whether Thatch's Division is actually in charge of dining, but there are other divisions that are specified, so I thought it would be interesting, so I made it that way ^ ^;

(Edit: Actually it IS explicitly stated that the 4th Division is in charge of dining, this is canon and not just a headcanon whee~!)

And if Thatch as the head of the cooking division, then to me it makes sense that he'd be insanely good at it, not just your average chef. Because I mean, they're the Whitebeard pirates. And sure, they're not as food-centric as the Big Mom Pirates, but the WBs always have quality. Cooking, I feel, is a lot more subjective than say, "Strongest Swordsman in the World" but I don't think it'd be a stretch to say that Thatch is Up There.

This isn't at all to shit on canon!Sanji or his cooking which is probably also insanely good, but Sanji's a lot younger, and the places he's been, the people he's learned from, and the people he's cooked for are far more limited. He, like everyone else, is learning rapidly by stepping out into a far larger world.

Thatch, in comparison, has been on the Grand Line for a loooooong time, traveling with the most infamous crew currently in existence, and probably has picked up a LOT of things from a lot of people. While he doesn't have an official canon age, given the ages of the other Commanders (Marco 45; Jozu 42; Vista 47), I'm putting him at 41 here. That's decades of difference in experience.

It's one of the reasons why I think exploring Thatch and Sanji's mentor-rival relationship in this AU could be so much fun, because think of how much Sanji could grow with someone like Thatch in the crew.

Luckily, Sanji's dream is to find All Blue, not to defeat the cooking equivalent of Mihawk in Iron Chef Grand Line, so outside of fighting for the heart of the love of their lives, I think they can get along quite well ^ ^;

(also do u like his nickname for Lu. I had to consult a friend. But I think it's beginning to stick for me ^ ^;)

As always, any thoughts or comments make my day! Thanks for reading <3

❀ ❀ Send YukiPri an Ask! ❀ ❀

Read the next part: 👒🐟On the Baratie, Part 1

~This ask has been added to the Mermaid AU Text Headcanons Compilation post~

#OnePieceMermaidAU #One Piece Mermaid Au #Thatch #ThatchLu #AceLu #Portgas D. Ace #Monkey D. Luffy #One Piece #text headcanons #longpost #long post #YukiPri replies

[all-hail-the-witcher]

so now that its been over a year since ive graduated high school id like to tell you all a story that ive been thinking about a lot recently. its a bit long, but i promise its worth it. 

this post gets political, fair warning

for context: i went to high school in a very upper middle class, very white town. everyone i talk about in this story is white. 

trigger warning: mentions of the german political administration during ww2, their tactics, and extreme right politics 

junior year i took ap us history. the class itself was absolutely fantastic, definitely one of the best i took in high school. but we had Quite the assortment of kids...

my high school had this dumb thing called the university program. essentially you applied in 8th grade and it was advertised as this Special Accelerated Learning Program. spoiler alert: it was pretty stupid, all we did was take a certain number of ap classes per year and do x amount of community service. everyone hated it but we all stuck it out cause you got a chord at graduation. so if you were in the university program, you started only being in class with like a variation of the same 75 people. ap us history was one of those classes. 

in our class we had quite the mix: 98% of us were members of national honor society but in addition we had the girl who would go on to be the salutatorian, this one guy who knew more about bitcoin than anyone should, two football players who were actually not assholes, and this really passionately german kid. 

now this german kid, were going to call him s. he was...interesting. he was very very smart (everyone thought he was going to be valedictorian but he wasn't) but he took his ethnicity very seriously. and when i say ethnicity im referring to that period of german history from 1939-1945. s knew far too much about german politics, esp ww2 german politics (if youre picking up what im putting down there) and he often went as far as to “correct” our various teachers whenever germany came up and talk about very radical right ideas. but our apush teacher was a no-nonsense kinda lady and had no problem telling him “s youre wrong” which all of us absolutely Loved.

the other person in our story is one of the not asshole football players. we’ll call him d. he was what you Wished football players were like, nice, funny, almost like a class clown, would no doubt stand up for anyone getting shit talked, talked to everyone in class no matter what their “group” was and he was really smart, but not in an in your face kinda way like s was. 

so anyway. in apush we would periodically have these Round Table Debates, where there were 4 groups: 1 group of jurors who would ask questions and then three teams that were defending their own stance on whatever historical argument we were having. our teacher would sit in the back corner and take shorthand notes on what we were saying, essentially leaving the entire discussion up to us except to tell us when it was time to move on to the next group. we all Loved round table debates because we were all an intelligent group and ended up having really deep and insightful debates and also whichever team won got 5 points of extra credit as did the juror who asked the best questions. about halfway through the year, we had a debate on what to do with the philippines after world war 2 (because they were technically a us colony at that time)

i dont remember what the three different stances were that we were arguing, but i do remember that d was one of the jurors and had asked one of the teams a question. s happened to be on this team and he answered the question. they went back and forth for awhile and things started to get Pretty Heated. we were all watching them intently, not really understanding a good half of what was being said because s had a way of talking in complicated circles that took at least 5 braincells minimum to understand, and all of us being crazy ap students, only had about 2 brain cells each. 

but then, s said something in his usual backwards fashion, and d paused dramatically, staring at s intently and all of us were collectively like o shit. i have never heard a classroom that quiet, you could hear a literal pin drop. we were all waiting for 1. d to decipher what s had just said and 2. see what he was going to say in return. 

several long moments passed. d leaned forwards in his seat, so far that it looked like he was going to tip the desk over, and, looking completely and utterly baffled, opened his mouth and said:

“are you defending e t h n i c   c l e a n s i n g?”

the entire classroom e r u p t e d. cause holy shit, we all knew that s had some, to put it very simply, problematic conservative viewpoints that linked back to ww2 administration germany, but no one had ever called him out on it before (aside from our teacher telling him to be quiet during her lectures). and also this was supposed to be a history role play debate of sorts, the whole point of it was to take on a viewpoint that might not be your own and argue it to the best of your ability. but d knew and everyone else in the class knew that ethnic cleansing was not something that s was pretending to defend for the sake of the debate (public school might be wild but we never touched that topic in a debate setting because our teacher knew that it would make people uncomfortable to argue in favor of), it wasn't even in the prompt sheet, it was something that he had come up with entirely on his own.

so when s started spewing random nonsense as an attempt to backtrack and take back what he had just said, d started shouting back at him about how it was wrong and was halfway out of his seat, fists clenched, ready to literally fight s (if you recall, d was a football/baseball/wrestling guy, at least 6 feet tall, and as far as high school guys go, pretty jacked. he was Scary when he was mad) 

it was at this exact moment that our teacher spoke up (which she n e v e r did during debates). she looked pretty shocked at the whole turn of events (as in, s defending ethnic cleansing, not d almost decking him) (and nothing ever phased her) and said, as calmly as she could muster, “alright. lets move on to the next question.” 

we were all 16/17 year olds. we couldn't vote yet, but we still had very strong opinions. and d knew the implications of s’s opinions, knew that they were hurtful to other people, promoted the hurting of other people, and called him out on it. publicly. in front of our history class, filled with his friends and peers, our teacher, and some of the smartest kids in our grade. 

after that day, s never suggested radical right ideas in class again, and if anyone else had similar ideas, they kept them to themselves. and from that point on d had my complete and utter respect. 

now, im not telling you to almost beat up your classmate in class in front of your teacher and risk suspension, but if someone you know has a viewpoint (especially a young person) that is hurtful or promotes hate/harm to a group of people, dont be afraid to try and educate them. we might be young and the older generations might brush us off, but in a few years its going to be this generation pulling most of the weight in polls. educate your ignorant friends, family members, classmates etc. every little bit helps. and education is the only way that we will be able to promote change. this is not a battle that we are going to win overnight, but that doesnt mean we should ignore it if it doesnt affect us. 

(oh and yes, d totally got 5 extra credit points from that debate)

((if this post offends anyone or is wrong in any way let me know and ill take it down or edit it))

#black lives matter #dont you even think about stopping the fight #blm #tw nazis #tw ethnic cleansing #educate people!!

[wordsworthjohnston]

Married former air hostess turned high school teacher.

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And he began polling out of the side-pocket of his coat various papers, and throwing them on the table one after another, hunting impatiently amongst them for the one he wanted to show me; but, as luck would have it, the one he sought was not forthcoming. For once, he did not stink. Only sign relief pitching at bargain basement prices and otherwise look to the farm system. Griff will flay me. APPLAUSE PLEASE For Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles benefactors Kathy and Walter Rose of San Marino, who are being honored today as outstanding philanthropists by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Greater Los Angeles Chapter. The cost of putting on the show is over $150,000 which was raised by the Atlantic City Regional Chamber of Commerce's members and staff, under the guidance and direction of their president Joe Kelly. Not everyone has a perfect childhood. See how pale you are. And early next week, Sony will start airing two new serials Dhadkan and Hubahu in the primetime band.. When he finished, the association enthusiastically endorsed his proposals and calça kickboxing hired him as a consultant to promote the plan publicly and before city and county government. Saying: 'You don't get what everybody else gets. Since a partnership is typically much easier to get into than to get out, you'll want to achieve absolute clarity at its onset. Logan Carabello, Chrissy Gikas and Meehan each had a hit.

[justamusicpodcast]

Episode 6 out today!

We’re talking about Blues music

Transcript under the cut

Sup, I’m Laura Cousineau and welcome to Just A Music Podcast, where I, Laura Cousineau, tell you about some music history, how it relates to the world around us, and hopefully, introduce you to some new tunes. This show is theoretically for everyone but I will swear and when it comes down to it and sometimes we may need to talk about some sensitive topics so ur weeuns might wanna sit this one out.

And boi unless you’ve had that talk with ur kids about systemic racism you might wanna let them sit this one out because we’re gonna be touching on a bunch of terrible racist shit this week Because we’re gonna be talking about the Blues and various different type of blues musics. I’m actually really excited to talk about it too because blues, as you guys will find out in the future is kinda the basis for a lot of other, what one might consider more modern, genres of American popular musics. So this one’s gonna be important for ur earholes and ur brainholes. Just like last time I will be airing a sensitive content warning for some graphic descriptions of violence and I will put the time stamps in the description for y’all for when that starts and ends. 

First though, I wanna issue an apology for being away so long, I tend to work on this podcast in my free time, and currently I’ve had none of that what so ever. It just so happened that October worked out this year that it was thanksgiving and my birthday and then a bunch of big projects due then Halloween and now I’m working on my fucking thesis proposal, I’m actually recording this episode at 1:35 am on a Saturday night/Sunday morning, so needless to say all this in combination with trying to deal with my depression hasn’t been a cake walk but we’re making it work. I will likely run up against a similar time issue during the first couple weeks of December because that’s when all my final papers are due. After that thought I should have smooth sailing for about a month. I wanted to make sure I had an episode out this week because as I think… well everyone… is aware the American election took place this week and understandably people were stressed as shit about that. So I think we could all use a little music right now. 

Ok so Like all fuckin things we need to know where blues came from. Now blues is actually a lot older than a lot of people are gonna be expecting, like really damn old. Like pretty much everything in academia (and I mean EVERYTHING, at least in the humanities), the dates are contested, but it seems that the blues, or at least what began as the blues, started in and around the 1860s. For those who didn’t listen to last week’s episode on slave songs, spirituals, and gospel, or just those who don’t know their American history too too well, the 1860s marks a very important time for black people, many of which at that time had been enslaved, because in 1865 the thirteenth amendment was amended into the American constitution. For those who aren’t aware, the thirteenth amendment as stated by the national archives of the United States of America reads as such: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

Now this of course was fantastic news of course! And for some people, this might be where you think oppression in the Americas ends for Black people but you would be incredibly wrong! Because this is the period where we see the start of a phenomenon referred to as sharecropping. Sharecropping or crop sharing as it’s known otherwise is considered part of what we historians sometimes refer to as the Jim Crow economy of the American South after the civil war. But what is Jim crow economy, what did it come from, why is it bad, why is sharecropping bad, how does any of this relate to the blues? Well lucky for u lil turnips imma tell ya.

  Jim Crow culture is something that I imagine most North Americans will have even the most basic knowledge of but for those that don’t the name Jim Crow as applied to economy, laws, and any other part of American culture during these time periods refers to sets of crazy fucking racist laws written and unwritten that kept black people subjugated under the whims of the government as well as their fellow white countrymen. The term Jim crow itself is reference to a song often featured in the supremely racist minstrel shows of the mid to late 1800s and early 1900s referred to as “Jump Jim Crow” in which a white man in black-face sings in a parody centric dialect about the life of a charicaturishly uneducated back-woodsy Black man named, you fuckin guessed it, Jim Crow. The significance of the Crow being that it was a pejorative term for black individuals which can actually dated back to the early mid 1700s. Now I wanna preface the excerpt of it with the fact that I’m uncomfortable listening to this, I understand if others are too. The thing is that acknowledging these uncomfortable things and knowing about them is necessary in order to understand the type of historical impact that they had. “So laura, you must obviously support statues being raised to commemorate things like slavery and secessionism!” Absolutely not. Where statues and monuments exist to praise the efforts of individuals, the listening to and learning about songs in a teaching context like this very podcast are meant to educate. Statues commemorating culture surrounding one of the worst atrocities to have taken place on American soil should never have been erected in the first place let alone celebrated. One is meant to celebrate while the other is to educate because one is a historical primary source that lets us think critically about the history, the other is a tertiary celebration. The purpose of listening to a clip like this is then to educate and understand a piece of actually history, not to replicate and enjoy. The version of the song that I have is sung without the charicaturish accent but uses the original words but with all that in mind here’s a bit of Jump Jim Crow:

In terms of laws I’m sure just about everyone knows separate drinking fountains and schools but this really permeated pretty much every sphere of life for Black peoples especially those in the south. I say especially those in the south but not exclusively those in the south because racial segregation, although not as supported by law but more socially, also existed in the Northern States as well as in Canada. Anecdotally, my mother grew up in a suburb of Cleveland Ohio, she remembers going into Cleveland when she was a kid when Cleveland was still a very racially segregated city, Black peoples lived in, shopped in, and attended schools in certain areas of the city and white people in other’s. My grandmother who was also raised in the area even remembers Black people having separate lunch counters if any at all in some of the larger department stores in the area.

It might also be handy when I mention the south to actually talk about what the south and particularly the deep south is for y’all outside of America. So when we talk about the south we are talking about a geographically bounded area just not the area that one might think of by looking at a map because where you might be thinking like ah just take the country and cut it in half, and the bottom half is the south that wouldn’t be correct. So, from the United States Census Bureau itself the south we’re talking about is Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. Now some who live in the surrounding areas such as Kansas might also consider themselves as being from the “south” somewhat culturally but those states previously listed as the official ones. When we talk about the DEEP SOUTH however, that range closes a little more, and that would mainly just include Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, and sometimes Texas and Florida due to their involvement as part of the confederate states of America, meaning states that were on the south side of the civil war. 

Also briefly just so we’re clear, again this is for those people who didn’t receive the best education on Slavery and the Civil War in general but to be clear, the civil war was fought over primarily states rights to use and perpetuate slavery. The common narrative you hear a lot in protests by those on the right, who would like to uphold the institutions set out by their forefathers in the creation of the abominable act, is that the civil war was primarily fought over states rights. What they then so often forget to elaborate is that those rights were perceived as the right to govern themselves independently so that they may still be able to employ slave labour in the operation of their economies and also to expand further westward to continue and be able to use slavery out in those areas as well. 

The reason that we hear about these Jim Crow laws particularly in the South is because where the Northern states and Canada did have (and still continues to have) some violent racist issues, the Jim Crow south was specifically really bad. And I mean fucking abominable. Though Black people were free from being directly owned, society at large and all it’s trappings found new ways to oppress them. This started with Black Codes which were individual state law codes that dictated where Black peoples could move, for how long they could stay, restricted their rights to vote (or made it extremely difficult to vote via poll taxes, literacy tests, etc), as well as where they could work, and in some cases even if their children could be taken away from them on the basis labour needs. So I really can’t drive home the point enough of how much life sucked for Black peoples under Jim Crow laws and economy in the southern states, to call it any less than abominable would seem to understate it in a major way. In the 1880s Jim Crow laws hadn’t started to be rolled into large southern cities yet so many Black peoples were inclined to move into them because life was actually slightly easier for a short while. White people being offended and upset at this, because “how dare a black person just try to live their lives in my good white pure Christian neighborhood,” then fully supported Jim crow laws being rolled out to remove them from areas where white people would normally interact with them. This included but was not limited to, barring them from public parks entirely, having entirely different theaters at one point and then segregated theaters after a while with separate entrances based on your race, restaurants, bus and train stations, water fountains, restrooms, most building entrances in general, elevators, amusement park ticket windows, public schools, phone booths, hospitals, asylums, jails, elderly care homes and even fucking cemeteries. Of course being treated as diseased subhuman parasites is never enough for the racism machine that is the public conscious at this time so there was also a lot of violence both systematic and grassroots that accompanied this era. 

And here’s where I’m going to have to issue a sensitive content warning because I’m about to describe some truly heinous shit in a whole second. So by violence, I mean very public and very culturally accepted violence, similar to what we’re seeing more and more of in the states again. As many will know now in the light of the many many many police shootings of unarmed, unthreatening black people in the states, the police traditionally haven’t been on the side of black citizens. This is due to a number of reasons, for one, on the most basic of levels the police serve to protect the interests of those in power, in our case that means the property and lives of middle to upper class (mostly) white Americans. The natural extension of this is that many police forces in the states, especially in Southern states started out as slave catching forces bringing back runaway enslaved people to their owners. So as time progressed and Black peoples became a “free” population this still meant protecting mainly middle to upper class white people from the “threat” of black people. This was enforced in a number of ways, such as arresting black individuals found breaking these rules, framing black people for crimes committed by others and arresting them for population suppression, and turning a blind eye to the grassroots violence perpetrated by non-black citizens, which very often were white citizens. An example of just straight up police brutality can be found in the case of Isaac Woodard JR. who was viciously beaten by police only hours after being honorably discharged from the fucking military on February 12 1946. The bus driver driving Woodard and some of his fellow soldiers called the police after Woodard asked the bus driver if there might be time for him to use the restroom as they approached a rest stop. When the police arrived, the bus driver accused Woodard of drinking in the back of the bus and he was hauled off, dragged into an alley and beaten with nighsticks. That night he was thrown in the town jail, by morning he had been beaten so severely he was left permanently blind in both eyes. 

And that grassroots violence is just as nasty, really fucking nasty. The violence could be perpetrated for things as small as being in the wrong place at the wrong time, entering a white neighbourhood, “talking back to” the wrong person. Since black men have always been are still to some degree subject to the stereotype that they are all sex incensed monsters, being left alone in a room with a white woman could be enough to incite violence against them. In the Mississippi delta during the season where share cropping debts were settled up, there was a sharp uptick in violence against and killings of black people. If you were white, because let’s be real here some white people definitely were on the side of their oppressed countrymen, you could be hung on the basis of being an N-word lover, which could range from being found to being in a romantic/sexual relationship with a person of colour, to just being fucking friends with them. The violence was often varied too, where kidnapping and hanging someone either with or without brutalizing them first (also known as a lynching) is the form most commonly associated with Jim Crow era violence less extreme but still horrible harassment could perpetuate in any form. Mississippi had the highest amount of lynchings from 1882-1968 with 581. You might think that is a low number but first, similarily to when we were talking about slavery in the last episode, 1 lynching is too fucking many, and secondly these are only the ones that were officially recorded. Since lynchings didn’t always happen in broad daylight and since law enforcement really didn’t care about Black individuals, there were almost certainly more that happened that just never were recorded. Georgia was second with 531, and Texas was third with 493. 79% of lynching happened in the South. So as I said before though, lynching was not the only form though, beatings were also entirely all too common forms of violence perpetrated against blackf people to make them scared and thus more compliant. A good example of this is the case of Emmet Till a 14 year old boy who made the mistake of playfully flirting with a white woman, who was beaten nearly to death, had one of his eyes gouged out, was then shot in the head, and tied to some cotton mill equipment before his body was thrown in a river. This wasn’t even that long ago, the beating happened on the 28th of August 1955. 

THE next parts are also gonna be not great but there wont be anymore descriptions of graphic violence, so I’m calling an end to the sensitive content warning. So the then how does sharecropping play into all this and what does it have to do with the blues (we’re getting there babes I promise.) So as I explained previously, sharecropping was a part of the Jim Crow economic era. It was part of the era of reconstruction meaning the period of rebuilding after the civil war. How it worked was that let’s say for a second, come with me into the theater of the mind for a second, take a seat, close your eyes, take a deep breath, Ok so lets imagine for a second you’re a farmer in the south, the civil war has kinda left you in a spot, if you’re black, you’re starting off without an awful lot, you don’t have any generational wealth you don’t have property likely aside from maybe a relatively small plot of land (but this was uncommon,) you probably didn’t have much if any equipment because that would have been way too expensive, and the land you may have had may have been of shitty quality. So what could you do to earn yourself a living?! Well you would go to a landowner, and ask him rather kindly if you might be able to work the land they lived on in exchange for some of the profits of the crops that you would produce. The landowner would provide you with the tools, seed, housing, land, store credits at local shops in order to subsist offa for food and other supplies and sometimes a mule in order to help you work the land seeing as motorized machinery was still few and far between in the united states at this point. The issue of this system is that how much you receive for you labour, the cut that you actually get from selling crops, that you grew with ur own backbreaking labour, is more or less decided by your landowner. And as I mentioned last episode, those who’ve ever had to rely on the benevolence of a boss for any period of time knows that this shit ain’t gonna cut it. So often you would end up underpaid, underfed, and in a debt hole that lasted as long as you did. If it sounds like legal slavery that’s kinda because it was. You would basically remain in indentured servitude to the landowner for as long as you were a part of this system. Like don’t get me wrong there were people who managed to not be a part of it but it was an incredibly largescale problem. 

It’s important to note that this wasn’t just a black phenomenon either, white tenants of sharecroppers existed and in incredibly large numbers as well. By 1900, 36 percent of all white farmers in Mississippi were either tenant farmers or sharecroppers (by comparison, 85 percent of all black farmers in 1900 did not own the land they farmed). This all sucks for various reasons but like partially because there was this whole other plan proposed that after the war, all the land that had been seized from slave owners would have been divvied up to the newly freed slave populations. It was colloquially known as the 40 acres and a mule plan but yeah unfortunately never happened cause fuckin president Andrew Johnson was like ”WELL AKSHULLY SWEATY I THINK THE LAND SHOULD GO BACK TO SLAVE OWNERS BECAUSE UHHHHHH” AND THEN IT DID AND THEN WE ENDED UP WITH SHARE CROPPING. But anyway that’s sharecropping. And of course I could go onto describe how all of this still affects black people in the united states and how the effects of systematic racism are still being felt generations later but… we’re gonna save that for a different episode. FOR NOW THOUGH, WHY IS THIS ALL IMPORTANT, WHY DID I TAKE ROUGHLY 3000 WORDS TO TELL YOU GUYS ABOUT THE HORRORS OF RECONSTRUCTION ERA SOUTH!? Well because we’re talking about the blues, and what does it mean when you have the blues, it means that you’re sad as hell, given all that I’ve just described to you is it no wonder that the blues emerged as the soundtrack to the lives these people lived?

So then what is blues? Well as I mentioned last time, blues sort of develops out of the field holler/spiritual tradition. A fair amount of field hollers, a type of work song that enslaved peoples would sing in fields while they were doing their work, were about regular ass things for regular ass peoples; this dude stole my girl, im gonna find me a girl to love, life sucks and im gonna sing about it, life doesn’t suck so much but I’m still gonna sing about it. Blues then tended to explore more themes related to the sadder points of those stories but in similar ways and styles. So where did blues come from specifically, what makes it a different genre than a field holler or a spiritual, and that’s a great question so let’s get in it.

Let’s say for a second you went through a real shitty period in your life, you significant other named steve dumped you, your pet armadillo, also named steve, died, ur mom (also coincidentally named steve) has taken away your showering privileges, you’ve forgotten how to speak ur native language and to top it all off you just burnt your gotdamn mac and cheese. You spiral into a deep situational depression that lasts quite a little while. During this time you listen to one album on repeat just over and over again, you know it all inside out and backwards and diagonal, you know every instrumental part by heart, you’ve got the lyrics tattooed on your ass, the whole 9 yards. And then you start working your way out of it, slowly but steadily the days start getting brighter, you move out of your abusive mother’s house, you find a new partner or get comfortable being single, you appropriately morn the loss of ur pet armadillo, hell you even learn to make a better mac and cheese, things aren’t all fixed, and life isn’t breezes and cakes but it is ever so slightly easier than it was before, at least you have ur freedom right? BUT NOW, everytime you listen to one of those songs from that album it mentally brings you back to the way things used to be and it’s not great. Well that’s kinda what happened with blues music but, ya know, infinitely worse. Essentially, black people wanted a new sound to accompany this new life and so they fuckin made it and it’s great.

The similarities of blues to field hollers and spirituals are relatively easy enough to hear if you know where to look which isn’t really surprising given that blues is the evolution of it. For example the basic structure stayed pretty similar, simple rhyming schemes, simple harmonies, melismatic vocal structures in places, and many times the lyrics were often very similar to those forms before them.  But it goes even further than that! Most of the early blues melodies were directly derived from their spiritual predecessors. So for some comparison here’s some songs, first one is gonna be a field holler, next one is gonna be a spiritual, and then the last one is gonna be a blues song mmk? And here we go:

AND ACTUALLY YOU KNOW WHAT WAIT, JUST CAUSE IM FUCKIN, OOO BABE, OK, SO WHEN I WAS RESARCHING THIS FUCKING EPISODE I WAS TRYING TO FIND GOOD AUDIO CLIPS TO USE, AND LEMME TELL YA MAN YOU WOULDN’T THINK SPIRITUALS WOULD FUCKIN EXIST OUTSIDE THE LIBRARY OF FUCKING CONGRESS CAUSE APPARENTLY THEY HAVE A GODDAMN STRANGLEHOLD ON ALL BLACK SPIRITUALS EVER RECORDED BY THE LOMAX’S. The thing is is that fuckin copyright at least in the states is supposed to run out 75 years after the death of the recorder or fucking owner of the rights, which it certainly has been for Alan Fucking Lomax BUT NOOOOOOO, I HAVE TO NEARLY PURCHASE A GODDAMN CD IN ORDER TO GET YOU GUYS A FUCKING ACCURATE REPRESENTATION OF MUSIC THAT CAME OUT LIKE 100 YEARS AGO. To be clear I refuse to buy anything for this podcast other than my recording equipment, but man researching this podcast is big joab hours, god just keeps fuckin testing me. Just slap my ass and call me a pickle, ok, rage is over, time for songs:

These freed populations wanted a new music, a music that fit their current situation better, that didn’t rely on the imagery of the past in order to get across the situation they were in. And so that’s what blues did, it was a new sound for a new era and even more importantly it was a sound entirely their own. Whereas field hollers and various other types of music sung by enslaved peoples were by definition their invention, many of them still borrowed heavily from the dominant cultures of their oppressors, and so in creating blues what they had was something they could 100% call their own. Even if they didn’t own the land they worked/lived on, and had few rights to the crops they sewed and reaped, they did have blues, and that’s something beautiful. 

But when does it become a thing, like when does blues start becoming a thing? And that’s a hard part. Like any cultural phenomenon it’s hard to fuckin say, there’s some accounts that say 1865 like the fuckin second the civil war ended, then there’s some that attribute it to the 1920s. Most of the sources I’ve looked at put it around 1890-1910. It originates unsurprisingly in and around the Mississippi Delta Region and East Texas where you have a lot of farmland and thus a lot of poor folks just trying to scratch out a living for themselves. AND SO THE BLUES BECOMES A THING AND IT’S COOL AS HELL AND IT DEVELOPS IN SO MANY DIFFERENT WAYS! And I’m sorry that I’m not gonna get enough time to do every subgenre of blues, but we’re gonna look at 3 of the big regions or subgenres of blues. 

So blues first of all have all those things that I mentioned before simple rhyming schemes, like ABAB or ABCC, simple harmonies, Call and response is definitely a thing that still happens in this specific style, but then they also have blues notes, for those who missed the last episode, blues notes are notes within a standard scale that are “bent” (or at least that’s how they were initially described.) These notes are lowered by a semitone making the overall colour of the sound a bit darker and more… emotional, sad? Like we ascribe emotions to the way things sound and that might be western centric, I’m actually gonna have to look into it later, but for western listeners we’re gonna read the emotion in these tones as sad. So the notes specifically are lowered the 3rd  5th and 7th degrees of a regular scale. I’m going to play you guys an example of blues scale in just a second but the guy playing the example is using the pentatonic version of the scale meaning only 5 notes of it.

In terms of instruments the most standard you’re going to find in any blues band is at it’s most basic one guitar and a person singing. You could even make an argument that just singing could be blues if you’re using a blues scale but usually there will at least a guitar and one dude singing. The rest of the intstruments are gonna depend on the region you’re playing from. So remember the moaning thing I mentioned last time? The moaning style vocals? Not pioneered by but made popular by a man that went by Blind Lemon Jefferson? This one:

Well he falls under the Mississippi/Texas type of blues which we’re gonna call texasippi. It differs from other types of blues in the united states for a couple reasons but one of them is that moaning style of vocals, in other parts of the country the style where the blues vocals function similarly to other styles of singing, clean and clear, no moaning. Another cool thing that texasippi blues also does is they incorporate a lot of metal into the way they play their guitars. Not like the heavy screamy kind that’s come to be MY fave, but like actual metal objects! How they incorporate this is through the strings of the guitar specifically causing a little extra twangy buzzing when the strings resonate but also a sort of pleasing screech when they’re shifted up and down the strings like this:

but what did they use to make this sound? Well just about anything small enough and metal you could thread between the strings or held against them while playing, this coulda been bottle caps, pocket knives, silverware. Remember, we’re still talking about a type of music that was very much being played by people without very much or no money, so you’re using what you can to make it. Nowadays you can purchase wee cylanders made of glass or metal that go over ur fingers that you press up against the strings to create the desired effect. In addition to this, something that’s pretty regional to the blues in this area is the harmonica. I’m assuming most of you know about the harmonica and have heard it but for those who don’t, the harmonica is a squanky reed instrument that you play with your mouth. I would tell you the physics of how it works but fuck if I ever studied physics. Basically when you blow in it, it vibrates the reed and makes a note depending on the holes you blow into, and when you suck air in it, it makes other sounds! They can be very very large or very very small thus changing how low or high the sound is respectively. They were invented somewhere in the early 1800s in Germany we think and they sound something like this:

How were harmonicas introduced into blues music? Well turns out, much like some of the other instruments we’ll see in a hot minute, harmonicas were often carried by soldiers during the American civil war, even President Abraham Lincoln himself was reported to have carried a harmonica with him in his coat pocket and would play it as he “found it comforting.” Thing about the harmonica was that it was relatively easy to make and it was extremely cheap to buy in comparison to other instruments at the time, even better was that you really didn’t need lessons to figure out how to make it sound good. So during the reconstruction period, as industrialization rapidized in America, and harmonicas became more available, and previous soldiers reminisced about the songs they heard played in their camps during the civil war, more and more people started picking up the harmonica. And so poor southern americans were able to incorporate the instrument into this new music they were developing like this:

Also I would big time recommend just watching the video for that song, dudes just sittin there legit just suckin on his harmonica at some point, that’s what I fucking call dedication bud. The cool part about blues from the texasippi way is then during the great migration, the phenomenon that I mentioned last episode, where black southerners just start heading northwards, is that the blues travels with them too. Just briefly on the great migration, remember all the shitty stuff I discussed earlier, the lack of work, sharecropping, lynching and what have you? That’s why the great migration takes place. Basically black people all around the south are going jesus fucking christ shit sucks let’s get out of here and find somewhere better to be, and so they do, and about 6 MILLION Black Americans head north to where it’s… better. I mean there’s definitely still racism and all sorts of jim crow era laws and practices up north but it is still some degree better than the south. So this great migration is how texasippi blues music then comes to be transplanted into Chicago, and turns into Chicago blues. 

“BUT LAURA” YOU SAY, UR HANDS CLENCHED INTO FISTS AT UR SIDES, “IF TEXASIPPI BLUES IS THE SAME AS THE ONES IN CHICAGO THEN HOW’RE THEY DIFFERENT!?” YOU CRY WITH TEARS FORMING AT THE SIDES OF YOUR EYES. And you’re right b, they are the same so why are they different? Well ya gotta remember that time does funny stuff to music similarly as it does with language and just abut anything else, things change over time, AND, things get invented over time. And time as we’re moving into now is like 30s and 40s era. So in the case of Chicago blues we get the additives of the piano, which has been around for some time but people are now just being able to put into their blues music due to becoming more financially stable, BUT WE ALSO GET THE COOL NEW INVENTION OF THE ELECTRIC GUITAR. Now there is some speculation over the invention of most things throughout history, for example, y’all might be familiar of Thomas Edison not actually inventing the lightbulb and being a bit of a dick about things, so when I talk about inventors of things, unless otherwise stated, please take it with some amount of a grain of salt. So Paul H Tutmarc may have been the first person to invent the first electric guitar when he managed, by some feat of science, which I will not explain because science is for wizards and freeks and while I am both of those I am not at all qualified or able to explain it, but essentially he managed to electrify a Hawaiian guitar! He supposedly invented this sometime in the 1930s. Here’s an example of what that sounds like:

Very Spongebobby… spongeboblike…spongebobesque… so EITHERWAY the electric guitar, as well as the electric bass is invented and so those are then infused into Chicago blues. In some cases you will also get the addition of drums and saxophone, but it is the electrified elements as well as the piano that really characterize the biggest difference between Chicago blues and texasippi blues. Overall, it sounds like this:

Something you also probably heard in there was just the level of intensity, the volume or what I’m gonna call the perceived volume, is louder. Whereas the songs of the texasippi blues is a little softer, quieter, very much just dude and his guitar volume, Chicago blues is gonna sound a little louder and a little more intense at most times. This is due to blues clubs becoming a big thing during this time period. And why shouldn’t they? In diaspora communities, that is communities consisting of people from a similar ethnic or national background, you often get patterns of similar settlement. So in our case, when Black Americans started moving northward, they would often settle in similar communities or move into similar communities based off of their ethnicity. Afterall you wanna be able to live in places where people understand your experience. There’s also the element of racism of course, homeowners associations making it hard for Black folk to move into white neighbourhoods and of course school segregation which didn’t end until the 1954. So while in some cases there was def an element of wanting to feel safe in a community of people who understand you, there’s also a big ol element of racism as there pretty much always is when we talk about anything. Seriously ur gonna be surprised at how far reaching and fucking just convoluted and stupid racism is, especially when we get into like Europeans being racist against other Europeans. So since we have all these people moving up north they need to be entertained, we all need entertainment after-all, but lo and behold! They can’t go to white clubs in a lot of cases because fucking racism (unless you are a performer in which case sometimes you can go to white clubs but only to perform, I’m gonna get more into that when we have our jazz episode.) So we start having blues clubs and because they’re a club and there’s drinking and talking and what not, often these songs tend to be a little louder or more rowdy to compensate. 

On the other end of the country we also have my favorite flavour of blues which is the New Orleans blues. I’m definitely 100 percent biased when I say this but why does everything in New Orleans just sound better? If I had to guess it’s the multiculturalism and thus people bringing in tonnes of different ideas, but it’s hard to quantify awesome so we’re just gonna leave it there. BUT YEAH so we have texasippi blues that travels down the river (cause things rarely travel up a river) and hits New Orleans. But again, if we’re talking about the same style of blues then what makes it different? A lot hunny, a lot. So as we talked about in our last episode there’s a lot of different cultural elements at play in Louisianna culminating in some cool ass musical styles and changes. It’s also absolutely something we’re gonna talk about when we go back and do the Jazz episode cause lord knows New Orleans jazz is just as fuckin hot and dangerous (like serious lemme just go fuckin hangout with you guys down there, that’s all I want, musical tour of louisianna) I will say though that the line between jazz and blues does tend to get a little blurry though when we’re talking about New Orleans Blues so just hold onto ur femurs there yall and strap in. 

So New orleans blues is different from other types of blues again by incorporating horns and piano into the music, most notably this will be the trumpet cause trumpets after the civil war just kinda leached out into the general public and since people got used to them in that capacity they became sorta naturally engrained into the soundscape of the music of the area. “but laura doesn’t Chicago also have horns?!” and ur right man they absolutely do, but there’s even more. So where texasippi blues relies on a rather standard rhythms in most cases, the New Orleans Blues scene takes from some of that different heritage and combines Caribbean inspired or based rhythms. We can find a good example of the inspiration for those rhythms in another genre of music that was popular at the same time, Calypso. Calypso is a genre of music which we will look more in depth in the future but just really generally for now it is popular in the Caribbean as well as certain parts, South America (particularly Venezuela), Mexico, and of course New Orleans during this time. It is usually up-beat and relies a lot on emphasizing the offbeat, and these are all things that we hear being incorporated into New Orleans blues during the time. So when we hear blues from New Orleans, one of the things we can usually use to tell the difference is merely just the upbeat tempo of things and slightly more rhythmically complex manner in which it existed. In fact Blues in New Orleans was so fuckin different it actually started what we know of as R&B or rhythm and blues which sounds like this:

Just a quick detour, I fuckin love like, blues and jazz names. The Man I played just there was Roy Brown but man the names really take off on occasion my personal favorite being Guitar Slim Jr., but we also got Fats domino (sometimes just known as fats, or the fat man), we god fuckin Professor Longhair, we got a dude who just goes by the name sugar boy, like… guys…. What happened to nicknames like that, I wanna walk around and when people see me comin at a distance they just point and go oh lord here comes swamp papa, like, that’s livin man, I dunno what to tell you but that’s absolutely livin. 

Anyhow, what ur gonna notice, or maybe you didn’t notice but I’m gonna tell you and you can go back and notice is that blues, (along with jazz but we’re gonna get to that) as it goes on and evolves starts sounding a lot like early rock and roll music, and that doesn’t happen by coincidence. Also you’re probably noticing that blues at least as far as it goes for the Chicago variety and the New Orleans variety we talked about, sound a hell of a lot like Jazz and again we’ll get more into the specifics later. The thing is when we talk about invention, whether it be music, or physical things, or even sometimes schools of thought and ideas is that things get borrowed and changed and moulded into something else by other people. Hell the phenomenon of something being invented in multiple different places at the same time is so common enough that it even has a name, it’s called multiple discovery. Generally people in North America prefer a more black and white “this thing was developed at this time and this place by this person because definitive reason definitive reason definitive reason.” Because we have this weird sense of individuality and crediting individuals with discovery as opposed to a group or the society itself as maybe it should more rightly be. This means that in our endless want to categorize and systematize and ize all these things, particularly things like music, it gets sorta difficult to discern what is what and why and how. Of course we’ve already seen this with spirituals and gospel, and now we’ve seen it with blues/jazz/and early rock.

I just wanted to bring it up sooner than later because, especially as we move into more modern north American Genres, and honestly genres from various other places throughout the world. I wanted to bring this up now before we go any further in this podcast because as we get into more modern genres and hell maybe even with this episode I imagine I might get some rather angry mail from elitests who will smash their foreheads on the keyboard in absolute blind fuckin dismay and rage accusing me of putting the wrong genre lables on the wrong songs. The thing is though, like most art, or definitions in life, things are salient. Just because music fits one genre doesn’t mean it only fits within that genre, in the case of the Rhythm and Blues song by Roy brown that I played earlier, while it is definitely Rhythm and Blues there’s also gonna be other people who strongly consider that Rock and Roll. And that’s alright! Music doesn’t have to rigidly fit into one genre, we give things genre titles or group things into genres to help more easily understand their histories and identify other things that sound like it! All music is going to have variation, and in the case of rhythm and blues, a style of blues that very much informs early rock, you’re going to have cross roads like that. So instead of getting defensive, maybe take some time to think about how cool it is that music exists on an ever evolving spectrum.

So with that, that’s all for just a music podcast this week, I hope you’ve heard something new, and I hope you’ve heard something that you like. If you haven’t there’s always next time where we’re actually gonna do something a little different. Next time we’re gonna look at the Minstrel show which I’m subtitling right now, “why we don’t wear black face.” In the meantime, though if one of y’all would like to suggest a topic I would love nothing more than to answer your musical questions or talk about topics that interest you guys in music. Feel free to drop me a line at [email protected]

List of Music: Jump Jim Crow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjIXWRG09Qk

Belton Sutherland's field holler (1978) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CPJwt14d5E&list=PLAyuUbD3Cdhxx__cTlFDrkxxKiYllrYwJ&index=2

Wash Dennis & Charlie Sims - Lead Me To The Rock - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmPqmLovNms&list=PLAyuUbD3Cdhxx__cTlFDrkxxKiYllrYwJ&index=4

Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell - How Long Has That Evening Train Been Gone - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEw0ek2BhJE

Blind Lemon Jefferson – Black Snake Moan - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3yd-c91ww8

Mississippi Fred McDowell - You gotta move - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtlVSedpIRU&feature=emb_logo

Red River Valley -Traditional - Harmonica solo by Kyong H. Lee - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKM4bn4kS-0

Sonny Boy Williamson - Keep it to Yourself - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtRxJDb3vlw

Paul Tutmarc performs - My Tane - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUOms5y6cmI

Buddy Guy - First Time I Met The Blues - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1jruvTBleY

Roy Brown - Mighty Mighty Man - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhp8jMykAVg

Technical Clip I used: PianoPig (on youtube) - Minor Pentatonic vs Blues Scale https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwz0b-At1ys

#music #music podcast #podcast #just a music podcast #music history

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 5, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

Last night, in a speech to honor Independence Day, President Joe Biden used his administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic to defend democracy.

Biden urged people to remember where we were just a year ago, and to “think about how far we’ve come.” “From… silent streets to crowded parade routes lined with people waving American flags; from empty stadiums and arenas to fans back to their seats cheering together again; from families pressing hands against a window to grandparents hugging their grandchildren once again. We’re back traveling again. We’re back seeing one another again. Businesses are opening and hiring again. We’re seeing record job creation and record economic growth—the best in four decades and, I might add, the best in the world.”

The president was referring, in part, to the jobs report that came out on Friday, showing that the nation added a robust 850,000 non-farm jobs in June.

But he was also talking about how the United States of America took on the problem of the pandemic. Coming after two generations of lawmakers who refused to use federal power to help ordinary Americans, Biden used the pandemic to prove to Americans that the federal government could, indeed, work for everyone.

The former president downplayed the pandemic and flip-flopped on basic public health measures like masking and distancing. Unlike most European and Asian countries, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, the Trump Administration sidelined the country's public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, considered to be the top national public health agency in the world. Trump downplayed the seriousness of the coronavirus out of fear of hurting the stock market, and turned over to states the process of dealing with this unprecedented crisis. The U.S. led the world in COVID-19 deaths. More than 603,000 Americans have died so far.

When he took office, Biden had already begun to use the government response to coronavirus as a way to show that democracy could rise to the occasion of protecting its people. The day before his inauguration, President Biden held a memorial for the 400,000 who had, to that date, died of COVID-19. He put Dr. Rochelle Walensky, a renowned infectious disease expert, at the head of the CDC and reinstated the CDC at the head of the public health response to the pandemic. And he made vaccines accessible to all Americans. Fifty-eight percent of American adults have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus; 67% have had at least one shot. The U.S. has one of the highest vaccine rates in the world and is helping to vaccinate those in other countries, as well.

Biden recalled that the United States of America was based not on religion or hereditary monarchy, but on an idea: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights—among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

We have never lived up to that ideal, of course, but we have never abandoned it, either. Those principles, he said, “continue to animate us, and they remind us what, at our best, we as Americans believe: We, Americans—we believe in honesty and decency, in treating everyone with dignity and respect, giving everyone a fair shot, demonizing no one, giving hate no safe harbor, and leaving no one behind.”

But, he said, democracy isn’t top down. “Each day, we’re reminded there’s nothing guaranteed about our democracy, nothing guaranteed about our way of life,” he said. “We have to fight for it, defend it, earn it…. It’s up to all of us to protect the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; the right to equal justice under the law; the right to vote and have that vote counted; the right.... to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and know that our children and grandchildren will be safe on this planet for generations to come… the right to rise in the world as far as your God-given [talent] can take you, unlimited by barriers of privilege or power.”

Biden’s speech recalled that of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on June 5, 1944, upon the fall of Rome during World War II. It was Italian leader Benito Mussolini who articulated the ideals of fascism after World War I, envisioning a hierarchical world in which economic and political leaders worked together to lead the masses forward by welding them into a nationalistic, militaristic force.

In his 1944 speech, FDR was careful to explain to Americans how they were different from the Italian fascists. He talked about “Nazi overlords” and “fascist puppets.” Then, in contrast to the fascists’ racial hierarchies, FDR made a point of calling Americans’ attention to the fact that the men who defeated the Italian fascists were Americans from every walk of life.

And then he turned to how fascism treated its people. “In Italy, the people have lived so long under the corrupt rule of Mussolini that in spite of the tinsel at the top—you have seen the pictures of it—their economic conditions have grown steadily worse. Our troops have found starvation, malnutrition, disease, a deteriorating education, a lower public health, all byproducts of the fascist misrule.”

To rebuild Italy, FDR said, the troops had to start from the bottom. “[W]e have had to give them bread to replace that which was stolen out of their mouths,” he said. “We have had to make it possible for the Italians to raise and use their local crops. We have had to help them cleanse their schools of fascist trappings….”

He outlined how Americans had anticipated the need to relieve the people starved by the fascists, and had made plans to ship food grown by the “magnificent ability and energy of the American people,” in ships they had constructed, over thousands of miles of water. Some of us may let our thoughts run to the financial cost of it,” he said, but “we hope that this relief will be an investment for the future, an investment that will pay dividends by eliminating fascism, by ending any Italian desires to start another war of aggression in the future….”

FDR was emphasizing the power of the people, of democracy, to combat fascism not only abroad but also at home, where it had attracted Americans frustrated by the seeming inability of democracy to counter the Depression. They longed for a single strong leader to fix everything. Other Americans, horrified by FDR’s use of the government to regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, and promote infrastructure, wanted to take the nation back to the 1920s and in so doing had begun to flirt with fascism as well.

As he celebrated the triumph over democracy in Italy, he was also urging Americans to value and protect it at home.

Biden, too, is focusing on how efficient his administration has been in combating the coronavirus to combat authoritarianism both abroad and at home. With its support for the Big Lie; congress members like Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who openly associates with white nationalists; and its attack on voting rights, the modern-day Republican Party is moving rapidly toward authoritarianism. But the former president botched the most fundamental task of government: protecting its people from death. In contrast, more than 60% of Americans approve of how Biden has managed the coronavirus pandemic, with 95% of Democrats approving but only 33% of Republicans in favor.

Biden’s approach appears to be helping to solidify support for democracy. A recent PBS Newshour/NPR/Marist poll showed that two thirds of Americans believe democracy is under threat, but 47%— the highest number in 12 years—believe the country is moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, that number, too, reflects a difference by party. While 87 percent of Democrats say the country is improving, 87 percent of Republicans say the opposite.

Biden conjured up our success over the coronavirus to celebrate democracy: “[H]istory tells us that when we stand together, when we unite in common cause, when we see ourselves not as Republicans or Democrats, but as Americans, then there’s simply no limit to what we can achieve.”

—-

Notes:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/07/05/remarks-by-president-biden-celebrating-independence-day-and-independence-from-covid-19/

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/07/02/june-jobs-unemployment-shortage/

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/561513-67-percent-of-adults-have-received-at-least-one-shot-of-covid-19-vaccine

https://docs.google.com/document/d/162VvK8TyM_3xNJbZtd0vLcNiLuK1bzpV0zqcD8o0TuM/edit

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/2-out-of-3-americans-believe-u-s-democracy-is-under-threat

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From an American #Heather Cox Richardson #history #fascism #democracy #WWII #1920 #COVID-19 #global pandemic #vaccination

[yakocchi]

so as you might remember a long time ago (like march-ish) there was a sort of election between premade pairs of the active voltage series. the top 5(?) were to be given special stories where you* get to help decide what the story will be about.  *ok not everybody, u had to have voted for that pairing in that prior election but i mean thats a low entry point unless u threw ur free vote away somehow

the surveys are in 3 stages, where the first stage is all about the general setting of the story and the second about the story’s specific “situation”. The third stage, going on now, is to finally choose the specific situation. i’d like to complain discuss the first 2 survey results of the kbtbb story bc i voted on it hahee

sorry that the graphs are ugly... but my excuse is that the pie graphs are from Voltage themselves and im too lazy to set up a less ugly one on excel

further translations and rambling behind the cut

the pie graphs encompass the first stage of surveys. they came with small comments:

with the first question (what is your ideal theme), they mention that there’s a lot of interest about getting to see the jealous side of eisuke and soryu when it comes to being jealous towards each other for once. it’s an interesting point bc yea there has been plenty of stories about them being jealous of other charas, but never really jealous towards each other. hm

.......but also, remember those love triangle substories... the real question is why they didn’t just team up eisuke and soryu there hmm??? weh??? thats been the most obv pairing since the stegosaurus roamed the earth, no? maybe they knew if they did that the interest for the other resulting pairings in those stories wouldve plummeted

eisuke may have won in the general polling in terms of relationship status,  but the following comment mentions that there is interest in having the choice of getting to choose between the two (which was what i was leaning towards) or the idea of being in a relationship with one of them already and then the other guy harbors this illicit love for u regardless.... which...

lol i kid. admittedly ive never been big on bc i just feel bad for the other guy. esp if his competition is to be eisuke or soryu man that cant be pretty. like, an average dude can probably take down ota in a fight. wats that guy gonna do, throw some tubes of daniel smith at u? but with someone like soryu u might as well save urself the time and throw ur own self off the cliff, let the wildebeest tramble u

intrigued by what the ppl who voted for “the mc doesn’t show up” were going for. eisuke x soryu story? i mean... (✿╹◡╹) if they ever provided the choice...

so with much thinking, the resulting story theme is to be: A story where, in the same setting as the typical kbtbb universe, you fall into a love triangle with Eisuke and Soryu.

 the results of the second stage is all text bc you were just supposed to type out your ideal scenario etc. the answers they chose to share are:

“The both of them invite you to a party as their partner”, where you would see the sparks fly between them as they’d compete for the right to be your partner for the party. mmm classic. but a good one

“The two of them work together to save the MC from being abducted by a hostile organization and married against her will” bc it would be very cool to see them come together to save her. i mean, i get it bc the best part of kbtbb main routes is when eisuke and soryu pop out of nowhere from their helicopter, boat, unicycle, etc. and save mc and her admittedly-not-as-cool man

.........”The three of you get trapped in a locked room together” and naturally if they ever wrote this the room would be very small to force close contact..... 

the second part of this stage is a specific scene you’d like to see in your ideal situation:

one person wants a sort of scene where the MC is cleaning as usual when the both of them say “Hey, come here” and then the fight begins. mmm

another is one where they say phrases they usually would never say, but finally come out... out of jealousy. a sort of situation where eisuke and soryu finally lose their composure

anyway the last stage is to finally vote on what prompt you want.  bc it’s a “secret meeting” right now, i don’t really want to get super specific on what the choices were but they’re... not anything groundbreaking or too scandalous, lol.  the one i voted for wasn’t even mentioned beforehand on those results........ the voltage writers’ table really didn’t want to do anything too crazy, i suppose. the way they wrote the prompts (save one) are all pretty vague sounding too, probably to give them leeway. 

hmmm not super satisfied about how it turned out but i mean........ 1 eisuke and soryu story is better than none

thanks for reading my rambling!! the survey closes at around the 10th so let’s hope the actual story comes out before uh... october i would hope lol

#kissed by the baddest bidder #kbtbb

[billehrman]

A New Economic Cycle Has Begun

Recent economic statistics, especially the employment data, support our thesis that a new economic cycle has begun. It does not matter whether it is an elongated U,U or V  as long as the economy continues to move forward.

While a number of states (11) have paused opening further due to coronavirus outbreaks, the vast majority of states continue to move forward. All of this does not change our view that it will take until the end of 2022 for the economy to fully recover even if we have therapeutics in the fall and vaccines before the end of this year as we still expect. Therefore, we expect the Fed and the government to continue to supply huge amounts of monetary and fiscal stimulus which will support the economy and financial markets pushing investors further out on the risk curve. As the economy improves and capacity utilization rates rise, we would expect inflation to pick up from an abnormally low 0.5% annual rate to over 1.5% and the yield curve to steepen as the Fed holds short term rates near zero through 2022 as they have indicated. Clearly stocks are our asset class of choice but as you know, not all stocks will perform equally.

The employment numbers reported over the last two months were nothing short of phenomenal, well above anyone’s expectations. Non-farm employment rose by 4.8 million in June as employment in leisure and hospitality increased by 2.1 million; retail by 740,000; 568,000 in education and health services and even by 356,000 in manufacturing. Truly a reflection of a very broad-based improvement in the economy over the last month. Average hourly earnings and hours worked fell in the month. Employment gains have clearly buttressed the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index which rose to a surprisingly strong 98.1 in June from 85.9 in May. Both the present situation and short-term outlook indices improved meaningfully too. It is easy to understand now why retail sales and housing are rebounding so strongly.  The June manufacturing ISM report on business was strong too increasing to 52.6, indicating an expansion, from 43.1 in May. New orders were particularly strong as the index hit 56.4 up from 31.8 in May.  All in all, it is clear that the economy has bottomed, and a new economic cycle has begun.

While the news of coronavirus outbreaks got worse last week, it did not have much impact on the financial markets as the incidence of deaths are declining; physicians have learned to better treat the virus; and news on therapeutics and vaccines are getting more positive. States where outbreaks have increased meaningfully have finally slowed or paused opening further and are mandating masks and social distancing. Cases in those states should peak within a couple of weeks. That will be welcome news. Last week we heard from Gilead that they will have over 500,000 doses of Remdesivir available by September and many millions by year end. We also know that Regeneron is making great progress in this area too. And the big news of the week came from Pfizer who unveiled promising and detailed data on a trial of one of its experimental COVID-19 vaccines. The company expects to conclude its Phase 3 efficacy data in September and will have hundreds of millions vials available by next year. We expect to hear more and more positive news on therapeutics and vaccines in the weeks ahead. Our economic outlook for 2021 will get stronger once therapeutics are broadly available in the fall and vaccines early next which is our current expectation although not fully reflected in our 2021 forecasts.   Fed Chairman Powell and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin appeared before the House Financial Services Committee last week. Everyone is on the same page about the need for continued monetary stimulus and additional government support programs. Powell mentioned that he was surprised that the economy had begun rebounding so soon and with such strength. We fully expect Trump and Congress to agree on a substantial package to replace the Cares act before it expires on July 31.  Both the Fed and the government will remain ‘all in” well into 2022 no matter who is elected President in November. While most pundits have counted Trump out and Biden in, we are confident that the polls will narrow if the economy and information on the coronavirus improve as we move through the fall. While we favor Trump’s economic plan over Biden’s, we favor Biden’s social agenda and executive presence over Trump’s. Regardless of who wins in November, we cannot see much change in the direction of fiscal and monetary programs until the economy has fully recovered which most likely will not occur until the end of 2022. In addition, we expect unemployment to stay stubbornly high in the new normal economy which might preclude hiking corporate taxes in 2021 like Biden wants to do. No matter who wins in November, we expect the government to pass an infrastructure bill next year to stimulate growth and fill a major need.

Investment Wrap up

The financial markets continue to defy the pundits who have been looking for a top or at least a correction for months. While the markets have been supported by an inordinate amount of liquidity provided by the Fed and aggressive fiscal stimulus by the government, it now appears that the economy is finally kicking in too. While this is anything but an ordinary economic cycle, it is acting in many ways just like it: the economy weakens(now due to a pandemic); the Fed eases aggressively and the government cuts taxes or adds stimulus; then the economy slowly bottoms and resumes growth once again. Clearly there are major differences here beside the sheer magnitude of the Fed and government actions.  Remember that the Fed will remain all in for another two years suppressing rates and providing liquidity even as the economy recovers, and the government is still likely to pass several additional stimulus programs broadening out to include programs to stimulate demand such as an infrastructure program. Wow, could we overheat, or at least see inflation meaningfully increase?  It is possible but not likely as the new normal on the other side will be quite different from where we started. The CBO is projecting a 5.9% decline in GNP in 2020 rebounding 4.8% in 2021 and unemployment at 10.5% at year-end improving to a still high 7.6% by the end of next year. Why? Corporations will keep a lid on S, G and A expenses as well as hiring as they have seen that they can do the same, and even more, with less without any loss in productivity even as employees work at home during the pandemic. Why? It all comes down to technology such as video conferencing for internal and external meetings. Just imagine the cost savings from less space needs, less travel and entertainment, and fewer redundancies. Yes, we expect corporate operating margins to improve in the new normal which is very good for stocks historically.

The bottom line is that we expect the environment to remain favorable for risk assets, most notably stocks, industrial commodities and gold. We clearly would not own bonds with any duration over three years as we see inflation picking up as the economy recovers and the yield curve steepening despite actions of the Fed to suppress it. Our portfolios continue to emphasize great technology companies who have saved us during the pandemic, will assist us bigtime as we move through to the other side and beyond. In addition, we own companies whose demand has benefitted from more time spent outdoors and in one’s home due to the pandemic. Some defensive growth companies with above average, ever increasing dividend yields can be owned as well.  We continue to avoid those companies who demand will remain weak due to the pandemic as the risk owning them simply just does not justify the reward.

Our weekly webinar will be held on Monday July 6th at 8:30 am EST. You can join the webinar by entering https://zoom.us/j/9179217852 into your browser or dialing [phone] and entering the password ID 9179217852.

Remember to review all the facts; pause, reflect and consider mindset shifts; look at your asset mix with risk controls; turn off your cable business news; do independent research and…

Invest Accordingly!

Bill Ehrman

Paix et Prospérité LLC

917-941-4139

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

The question on many Democrats’ minds is: Will young people turn out to vote in 2018? Recent survey data has liberals worried. In particular, a recent Gallup poll found that only 26 percent of American adults age 18 to 291 said they were “absolutely certain to vote.” Meanwhile, the Public Religion Research Institute found that 35 percent of young people said they were certain to vote, but it was still fewer than the 38 percent who said they would vote in the last midterm election in 2014. On the face of it, this sounds like pretty low voter turnout. But you have to remember in a midterm, turnout is already depressed — usually around 40 percent of all voters compared to the roughly 60 percent who generally vote in a presidential election. The midterm electorate is also generally older and whiter than it is in presidential years, which has sparked Democratic concern that young voters, who predominantly identify as Democrats and who backed Hillary Clinton by around 20 percentage points in 2016, won’t show up to vote. But other data I looked at suggests that this fear might be misguided and that turnout among the 18-to-29 group could be way up in 2018. Before we jump into this other data, let’s first look at young voter turnout in midterms from 1998 to 2014 to provide context for what we might see in 2018.

To get a sense of the rate at which younger voters have historically turned out in midterm elections, I looked at data from the Current Population Survey2 over the past two decades. In that period, the high mark for midterm turnout among 18- to 29-year-olds was 2006, when 25.5 percent of citizens in that age group voted.3 That was also the last time Democrats had a successful midterm cycle. Coincidence? Maybe not. The chart below plots midterm turnout rates for four age groups commonly used in exit polls and as you can see, young people turn out at sharply lower rates than older Americans.4

While turnout in 2014 was down across the board — the lowest overall rate since the 1942 midterm — turnout among 18- to 29-year-olds was particularly measly at 20 percent. It was the lowest turnout for that group in the past 20 years.

Looking at the historical trends, there’s no question that youth voter turnout is consistently low in midterms, but exit poll data from competitive statewide elections in 2017 suggests that 2018 could set a record high for young voter participation.5 Let’s look at some of that evidence. The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, which researches the political engagement of young Americans, estimated that 23 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds turned out in Alabama’s special election for U.S. Senate, well above the 11 percent of that age group that CIRCLE had previously estimated turned out for the 2014 midterm. CIRCLE also estimated that 34 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds turned out to vote in Virginia’s gubernatorial election last year, again far exceeding the group’s 2014 turnout rate of 13 percent, according to CIRCLE’s estimate. What’s more, in early October, CIRCLE released its own large-sample survey from the pollster GfK that found that 34 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds said they were “extremely likely” to vote this November. CIRCLE described this figure as “close to the levels of engagement seen in the 2016 presidential election.”

Polling from the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics also gives us reason to believe we may see high turnout from young voters. The institute conducts a long-running, large-sample poll of young Americans, and it has specifically surveyed 18- to 29-year-olds since 2009. Previously, 34 percent was the high mark for those who said they “definitely” would be voting in a midterm election, which the institute found in its fall 2013 survey. But in the IOP’s spring 2018 poll, 37 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds answered they would “definitely” vote, which was a new record high. While IOP’s fall 2018 poll won’t come out until the end of October, John Della Volpe, director of polling at IOP, told me that a new poll conducted by his company, Social Sphere,6 found that 34 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds said they would “definitely” vote, which is similar to the 37 percent finding in this spring’s IOP poll. This is substantially higher than what Gallup reported, and higher than what the IOP found in its fall polls conducted immediately before the 2010 and 2014 midterms — 27 percent and 26 percent, respectively — which suggests young voters could turn out at a relatively high rate this November. IOP’s polling of 18- to 29-year-olds only covers three midterm cycles including this one, so we should not exaggerate this evidence. But taken with the data from CIRCLE, another organization that closely monitors the political intentions of young people, these poll numbers are notable.

It’s not certain that young voters will turn out at a higher-than-usual rate in 2018, but data does suggest it’s possible. And if young people do turn out at an unusually high rate, it will be hard not to give President Trump much of the credit. After all, IOP’s spring 2018 poll found that 72 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds disapproved of the president and 58 percent preferred that the Democrats take control Congress in November. So combining the Democratic lean of younger voters with the perceived enthusiasm advantage of Democrats over Republicans in this year’s midterm, it makes sense that we might see greater participation by young voters in a Democratic-leaning electoral environment.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Geoffrey Skelley

[alipiee]

Ali, I am looking for new fanfictions, can you suggest some of your favourites? Victuuri And Otayuri I love them both! Thank you! ❤️

Oh gosh strap in, I have read far too many so this list might end up being kinda long! I don’t read Otayuri but I have a lot of Victuuri to throw your way buddy

(Under the cut)

Kintsugi by @witchsbane 114k (wip)

Yuuri Katsuki is a hitman burdened with a debt he can never repay. His target: Viktor Nikiforov, next Pakhan to one of the most dangerous families in the Russian mafia.

When the two are drawn into a treacherous alliance after a mission gone wrong, the bonds of love and loyalty to family and duty begin to unravel—even as they get more tangled up in each other.

ok but this is honestly my favourite yoi fic of all time!! The writing is so amazing and you get immersed straight away bc its so vivid and descriptive!! The plot is i n c r e d i b l e, I always seem to come back and reread it because its just as amazing the second (and third) time around. I literally can’t recommend it enough!!

empty spaces between stars by @victuuriplease 124k (wip)

Victor gets just as drunk as Yuuri at the Sochi Banquet, and they disappear together after the dance-offs. They wake up the morning after with rings on their fingers, and pictures of them kissing after getting married the night before are all over the tabloids… but neither of them remembers a thing. They decide to stay married for a while for the sake of Victor’s sponsorships, and in exchange, Victor coaches Yuuri through nationals…

!!!!! This is fantastic !!!! I’m such a sucker for fake dating marriage fics, and this might be the best one I’ve ever read! The fluff is wonderful and balances out the angst and pining and just!! I love it a lot!! 

The Boyfriend Experience by @victorsporosya 240k (wip)

Katsuki Yuuri is an accomplished escort at 23, operating under the pseudonym Eros, in Detroit. When one of his favourite clients sets him up with none other than world-renowned figure skater Victor Nikiforov, the delicate balance between Yuuri’s personal and professional life teeters ever closer towards ruin.

Ok but this fic also owns my life, Adele’s writing is so beautiful and even when you’re crying from the angst, you still feel blessed to be reading it! You can tell how much thought has been put into every sentence and it deserves all of the love and appreciation

Kings in Couture by @forovnix 15k (wip)

a devil wears prada au in which victor is the editor-in-chief of a fashion magazine, yuuri’s his new secretary, and instead of talking about his feelings, victor just sends him on a bunch of errands—“Okay, okay. Ready.” Yuuri starts scribbling as the voice on the other end, someone from the Style and Trends department, relays instructions. “Sorry, can you please spell ‘Gabbana’?”

The person on the line promptly hangs up on him.

Awkwardly, he sets the phone back on the receiver. “Guess not.”

This fic is a blessing tbh, it’s so witty and fun to read and two chapters of pure gold

hey stranger (don’t i look familiar to you) by @forovnix 4k 

It’s not that Yuuri is a nosy person. To be fair, he thinks anyone would wonder about the person they’ve been sharing a space with for the better part of a year.

Or, Yuuri is a part-time professor who shares an office with someone who writes themselves too many post-it notes. There are a lot of facts to process, and Yuuri’s got a lot of assumptions.

This is so heckin cute!! Had me smiling all the way through!! Once again Justine has blessed us with her lovely writing

not gold like in your dreams by @ebenroot 87k (complete)

“Victor, you could have let some psychopath into your apartment.”

“Oh come on, he’s not a psychopath,” Victor chides. Christophe makes a gesture with his hand that says ‘are you seriously this naïve or are you drunk at work again?’.

“Victor, you don’t know that. You don’t know anything about him. Whose name am I going to give to the police or face I’m going to describe to the sketch artist when they find your body chopped up like Hannibal Lecter’s side dish?”

–

in which Victor and Yuuri are roommates and Yuuri has a secret

A penelope au was definitely needed and this was amazing! Honestly I prefer this fic to the film its just so soft and cute!! I’m weak for it and the last chapter made me cry so much idk how many times I’ve reread it at this point but I kinda wanna read it again now 

never tasted rubies by @ebenroot 16k

Phichit puts up a poll on the radio website. It reads ‘What Do U Think About Yuuri K. from Hasetsu Nights and the Mysterious Caller Victor?’

Seventy-five percent of listeners said ‘lol they should just f*ck already tbh’.

–

in which Yuuri is an unwilling radio host and Victor won’t stop calling in to chat with him

My heart was so full while reading this, it was so funny and cute and perfect!

seek those who fan your flames by @ebenroot 48k (wip)

Yuuri gets hand-delivered a black-print T-shirt by one of his bodyguards on Friday. There’s a small sticky note attached to the collar in Victor’s handwriting that reads: ‘Our new band shirt! Logo is still a work in progress. Name too. But it’s a start! Let me know what you think after school. - Victor’

There’s a heart next to his name that is hastily scribbled out. Then another heart next to that one, like Victor decided to put it in anyways.

Yuuri thinks he’s in love.

–

in which Yuuri is a teenager that’s actually a prince, and Victor is a teenager with a band that just wants to listen to rock music with him

I had a mighty need for a princess diaries au and this is wonderful!! Victor is such a sweetheart in this and its all just so wonderful and warm! 

turn it, leave it, stop, format it by @ebenroot 19k

“If you want, I can recommend you some security programs that you can download for free and protect your computer. That way, you won’t be at risk of losing these cute photos of your dog even when you browse websites like ‘Luscious Lonely Wives’.”

Victor gives one long ‘haa’. “I don’t browse those websites,” he says through his straining smile.

–

the ‘i will break any and all electronic devices that get into my hands if it means I get to talk to the cute tech support guy’ fic

This fic had me l i v i n g, it was so funny and cute and fluffy!!

The Rules For Lovers by @adreamingsongbird​ 323k (complete)

Prince Yuuri Katsuki has a duty to his country, above all else (his desires, his dreams, and his happiness included), and he knows this alliance will help to ensure the safety of his people. That’s the only reason he accepts Prince Nikiforov’s hand in marriage. The pleasant surprise, of course, is the part where they fall in love along the way. The unpleasant one, well…

That’s a long story.

This is so i n t e n s e! The fluff and humour is so perfect and Yuuri and Victor’s relationship is so perfect (and although the angst is painful as heck), its perfect! The plot is amazinggg and every update had me shook! It belongs in a bookstore to be honest, its so so so incredible!

to sweep me off my feet by @adreamingsongbird​ 33k

Yuuri went to school in America to get a good, stable job—no, really, Mom, he meant to, he swears! And journalism was promising! It was really good! Until supervillains started appearing and then a (rather attractive) superhero showed up too, and, well…

This is his life, these are his choices, and it’s absolutely unfair that he has to have the office across from someone as hot as Viktor Nikiforov.

The cutest superhero au, with the cutest art, and cutest plot!!

But Monsters Are Always Hungry, Darling by @orchids-and-fictional-cities​ and art by @iruutciv​ 61k (wip)

Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Rape/Non-con 

“You do this, you do. You take the things you love and tear them apart or you pin them down with your body and pretend they’re yours. So, you kiss him, and he doesn’t move, he doesn’t pull away, and you keep on kissing him. And he hasn’t moved, he’s frozen, and you’ve kissed him, and he’ll never forgive you, and maybe now he’ll leave you alone.”

A brutal murder on Christmas Eve abruptly pulls one Detective Nikiforov out of a holiday he was just starting to tolerate, and forces him to come to terms with demons he’s been pretending not to see. On that same night, a man walks into a bar and waltzes into his life, lighting a spark that grows into a monster of its own.

Wow. This fic is so incredibly well-written and the plot thickens with each chapter, I’m so excited every time it updates honestly!! As if the writing wasn’t descriptive enough, there’s also equally beautiful art for every chapter and together its just amazing!

Confidential Information by @iwritebetterthanispeak​ 77k (wip)

Yuuri never imagined that being able to figure skate would be useful for his job at Interpol. He was very, very wrong.

Viktor Nikiforov, as a famous athlete popular in the public eye, has received threats before. There are very few he takes seriously. However, as more secrets are uncovered and nothing is as it appears, the stakes rise until it becomes clear that there may not be a way to save him this time.

I’m finally getting around to reading this and!! Addy is back with her amazing writing and I can’t wait to catch up!

If Perfect’s What You’re Searching For, Then Just Stay the Same by @iwritebetterthanispeak​ 6k

Yuuri took a deep breath, and faced the starstruck barista. “I am sorry, my Russian is very bad,” he said tentatively, shoulders hunching slightly. “Do you want me to repeat?”

“N-no, sorry, sir,” the barista said. She blushed and brushed her hair behind one ear. “I’ll get that for you right away!” She stepped away from the counter and called in fast-paced Russian, “Dmitri, come here! The most beautiful man in the world is back!”

Viktor’s smile grew. The employees of the coffee shop weren’t being cruel or making fun of Yuuri’s accent, they were enchanted with him. Viktor could sympathize, his fiancé was very enchanting.

And then he noticed that Yuuri was curled in on himself, eyes lowered and arms wrapped around his chest.

[In which Viktor realizes that Yuuri is a somewhat unreliable narrator]

Well this was just so cute, thank u addy for blessing my life once again

Love Letters by @shslshortie   44k (wip)

Ever since he was young, Yuuri Katsuki had always admired Victor Nikiforov. He was the one who had inspired him to start skating. He had pictures and posters of him all over his room — and Victor was his idol.

Like any fan of an idol, Yuuri loved to send Victor fanmail. Of course, he could never bring himself to sign it as anything other than “Your Secret Fan”, but it still made his heart come alive to write about his love for the silver-haired skater

This is one of those fics that you just can’t put down, I was reading it during all my free periods at college and its the cutest! Also all of the letters are drawn and in the body of text, so it adds so much more to it, its so wonderful!

starstruck by @haikuyus​ 167k (complete)

“Hold my son for a moment,” says the Viktor Nikiforov, live in the flesh, sweaty and panting.

“Wha—” Yuuri can’t even begin to comprehend what’s going on before Viktor is gone, and there’s a child in his arms.

(in which yuuri is a barista-turned-babysitter, viktor is a famous movie star, and yuri is an 8 year old kid stuck in the middle of it.)

so i developed a love for kid fics, and this was the first one I read, its sooooo good! Yuri is so precious and Yuuri is so precious and Viktor is so precious and just,,, theyre all so precious!

Lessons in Love by @fangirlandiknowit101​ 113k (wip)

All Viktor wants is for his son to be happy - and if that means spending countless hours at the ice rink, a million more in the ballet studio, and devotedly cheering for Katsuki Yuuri at every competition he enters, then that is precisely what he’ll do.

He just didn’t expect to become a fan, too.

(He didn’t expect to fall in love.)

This fic has me so weak, its the softest thing ever! Yuri is the cutest, and Viktor is the best dad and Yuuri is just the best tbh, I have a lot of love for this!!

on growing; by @crossroadswrite​ 125k (wip)

Yuri Plisetsky glares at him with all the righteousness five year olds possess, and says in heavily accented and clumsy English. “Be more gooder, stupid!”

And then he storms out in a sweep of blond hair and blue and red lights from his Sketchers.

(Or: in which everything is the same but Yuri Plisetsky is Victor’s bratty five-year-old child.)

This fic cleared my skin and watered my crops, its so fluffy and each chapter is a blessing

sweet like love (soft like pain) by @postingpebbles​ 10k (wip)

Loving Yuuri was a choice that Viktor never regretted making. His smile, his laughter, the way his lips felt against his own—nothing could make him happier than having Yuuri in his arms.

But when the entire world has no idea that rivals Yuuri Katsuki and Viktor Nikiforov are in a relationship, Viktor can’t do anything at all when Yuuri gets in an accident and is rushed to the hospital the day after he proposes in a hotel room in Nagano.

I love ollie and she loves hurting my heart apparently, this is such a wonderful fic and I can’t wait for her to bless us even more with her writing

The Selection by @gallopingmonroe-blog​ 262k (wip)

Returning home on the tail end of an injury that ends his dancing career, Yuri Katsuki is trying to find his future again. As a Five, he knows his options are limited, but when he finds an invitation to Crown Prince Victor Nikiforov’s Selection, he is convinced by a friend to apply.

He never thought he’d be Selected.

When he is, he finds that his world is changed forever, and that the Crown Prince is not exactly what he’d expected.

!!! This fic is so beautiful !!! Yuuri and Viktor’s relationship is so cute, and Yuuri’s friendship with Yuri and Phichit and all of the others is so cute, and the entirety of the fic is so cute!!

a black heart of gold by @katzuyas​ and beautiful art by @lamenart​ and @iruutciv​ 67k (complete)

Victor Nikiforov, aka Grand Prix, knows that he’s Yakov’s most skilled hitman. That’s just a fact and he isn’t in the habit of arguing with facts.He also knows that he’s the only one Yakov trusts, period. In this case though, he’s the only one Yakov can rely on to take care of the elusive sniper Eros, who kills Yakov’s henchmen left and right.What Victor doesn’t know, however, is that Eros’ little vendetta is not a matter of coincidence, but pure premeditation, and thus… he falls into a trap that a rookie like Little Fairy could see from a mile away.He falls in lust.And then in love.The fool.

This fic is so intense and so descriptive and playful and just! Amazing honestly!!

November’s Secret by @lanaberryrawr​ 233k (complete)

Overwhelmed with anxiety and his fear of failing, Yuuri faces the issue of if he should continue skating. His best friend, Yuko, proposes a solution - if no one knows it’s you, then it’s less embarrassing, right? Yuuri begins to create a completely new disguise and persona.

But it works a little too well.

Before he knows it, Yuuri has become the biggest mystery of the skating world and everyone wants to know who he is. Especially Viktor Nikiforov, the idol he’s been loosely basing his new persona on for years.

This was such a cool and original concept for a fic and oh my godddd it was incredible!! Definitely one of the best I’ve read!! 

Gunned Down Butterflies by @lanaberryrawr​ 207k (wip)

Everyone’s lives revolve around two names - the name of an enemy, and the name of a soulmate, both tattooed on their wrists.

But for Yuuri, his fated soulmate and enemy are the same person. One name tattoed on his skin.

After years of believing it meant only unhappiness and pain, he begins to bandage them up and hide them from the world. He even begins to forget about them - until he meets a new client in need of a guard against the Russian mafia.

Nothing can hide him from fate - not bandaging the names, not forgetting about them, not even moving on without them. The owner of the name on his skin will find him eventually.

Okay but the amount of cliffhangers in this fic is amazing, it’s so good and I love it!! It’s such a cool take on a soulmate au!! I can’t wait for the next few chapters :D

Behind these Locked Doors by @axlaida​ 79k (wip)

“I will find a way out of here,” Yuuri stated firmly and Victor’s expression never faltered. His face was stone cold – frozen like ice. “I know it may take a while… but I have to try.”Victor let out a breath, shaking his head as he smiled. “I said the exact same thing when I arrived.”

They were trapped with no way out. And all that stood between them and their escape was a door - locked and impossible to escape from. But Yuuri had hope. He would escape this, whether the man wanted them to or not.

This is such an amazing mystery fic! I literally sit and think about it someimes at night, trying to work it all out lol, its so good!!

learn to love the skies I’m under by @linneakou 37k

The day after the Sochi GPF banquet, Katsuki Yuuri disappears without a trace.

The day after the Sochi GPF banquet, Viktor Nikiforov finds a stray poodle and takes it home with him.

These two events are, oddly enough, connected.

I never knew I needed a fic where Yuuri turned into a dog and lived with Viktor a while, but this fic changed my life tbh, its so good!

Call you by name by @linneakou 13k

Drunk, depressed, and lonely, Viktor Nikiforov makes a wish that has unforeseen consequences for himself and many people around him.

(an alternate take on the premise of learn to love the skies I’m under)

This version is also incredible!! I love them both a lot!!

Puppy Love by @phyona​ 10k

When Yuuri gets turned into a dog, the last place he expects to end up is Victor Nikiforov’s apartment. He learns quickly that the only thing worse than being his idol’s pet, is watching him pine for someone else.

Oh man,,,,this fic you guys, I love it so much! The angst oh my gosh, its such an amazing story! 

Green Light by @gia-comeatme​ 21k (complete)

Chris knows what Viktor looks like when he has a crush, and he is 100% sure that Viktor Nikiforov has a crush on his pole dancing classmate, Yuuri Katsuki.

What he doesn’t know is why Viktor hasn’t gotten off his ass and gone for him already.

As a good friend, Chris is obligated to help Viktor out a little bit.

(And that’s where everything goes to shit.)

Red Light by @gia-comeatme​ 30k (wip)

Chris has had many lovers in the years that Viktor has known him. However, none of them can even compare to Chris’ newest boyfriend.

Viktor knows it’s wrong, but he falls in love with Yuuri Katsuki anyway.

Both of these fics were sooo good oh my god! I have a weakness for misunderstandings and angst with a happy ending, so like these were right up my street and they were amazingggg

Dr. Shiny and the Case of the Beautiful Man by @etherealalchemist​ 6k

There are about five things that Victor, in this very moment, is absolutely sure of.

1. The spawns of satan are here2. they are not accompanied by their angel of a mother3. they are with the most beautiful man he’s ever seen4. his scrubs are wet from where he’d dropped water on himself5. and Victor is very, very gay.

Emphasis on point five, with a side of cupid’s arrow and “ba-dum ba-dum” on a plate.

Because he is Very Gay, and not only is he Very Gay but he is also Hopelessly Attracted to a man who is undoubtedly Very Straight and very Unavailable and is perhaps the Most Beautiful Man Victor has ever seen.

—

in which Victor is a doctor, Yuuri is a godfather, and Yuri just wants some peace and quiet and a larger stash of lollipops.

This was so sweet and funny! I had to take a second while I was reading it from laughing so much honestly!

We Two Boys 11k (wip)

Yuuri talks about his crush on Victor Nikiforov while recording an episode of his and Phichit’s podcast We Two Boys. It’s not a big deal until it Becomes A Big Deal.

An ocean away, Victor falls in luv.

this is so funny omg, I love Phichit and Yuuri’s friendship so much

turntables by @vitavitali​ 4k

It happens approximately one week after Yuuri’s disastrous performance in Sochi.

Viktor Nikiforov @v-nikiforovI wish I could date pretty black haired boys who dance well.

“Ooh, the candidates are already flooding in!” Phichit says with an amused grin.

“Candidates?” Yuuri asks and Phichit helps Yuuri scroll down to read the replies. Most of them are variants of “date me!” with pictures attached. It’s all very interesting.

“You should send one too!” Phichit says and Yuuri doesn’t even bother answering him. “Look, I’ll send one if you send one. It’ll be fun!”

Oh my gosh I remember reading this so long ago, and I found it again a few days ago and I still love it so much

posterboy by @vitavitali​ 1.5k

“I’m going to kill whoever who did this,” Yuuri assured the poster. “I’m going to kill them for you. Don’t worry, baby, I’m going to murder anyone who thought it was a good idea to harm you. They’ll die screaming.”

“What?” came the poster’s startled reply.

“What?” Yuuri parroted back, because posters weren’t supposed to talk, especially not in Viktor Nikiforov’s melodious Russian accented voice.

This is iconique honestly, theyre both so cute!

Rainy Days by  @vitavitali​ 5k

Director’s List Viktor Nikiforov falls in love with bad boy transfer student Katsuki Yuuri. What happens next will warm your heart.

So I kind of binged this authors fics and this one is also amazing!!

There’s still so many fics I want to recommend but I’ve spent like 2 hours on this list and I don’t want it to get too long, so these are the ones that sprang to mind,  happy reading!

#weirdlisettola #yoi #fic rec #yikes this got long #i started this at like eight o clock #and now its half ten #oops #i should have been doing my biology but i wanna spread the love! #everyone is so talented and amazing #<3

[snkpolls]

SnK S3E03 Results (Manga Reader Version)

The poll closed with 563 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated! 

Please note that this is the results of the manga reader poll. Anime only watchers are suggested not to read if you do not wish to be spoiled about certain events! Anime only viewers, click here to view your poll results!

Rate the episode

84% of users rated the episode a 4 or 5 this week, compared to 64% last week. This episode had less action, but was full of key character moments that manga readers were excited to see animated.

So far it's my favourite since it follows the most the manga but with some bearable adjustemements. If the episodes will be like this from now on, I'll be completely satisfied and could get over all the changes in the first two episodes.

The adaptation is doing well, but of course manga readers(me included) about some bits being changed and rearranged. But on the other hand they might come me up with something unexpectedly good. I won't forgive them if they don't give shit machine tho.

It’s starting to feel more like the arc I love

It was great, I'm having trouble deciding which episode is the best of this season yet. I thought the second one was the best, but then I remember the premiere and now, once again, I am thinking about the 3rd one being the greatest. The quality this season is off the charts.

Compared to episode 2, episode 3 was quite uninteresting

I think it must have been boring and confusing for Anime-only's

This episode was appropriately paced for an episode full of flashbacks, and honestly I think it paid off to get the backstories of Erwin and Historia in one showing to avoid conflicting with the future action episodes.  I don't have much else to say- I can't really be critical because it was a pretty good episode, adaptation-wise.

Which of the following moments were your favorite?

Hange taking their anger out on the table and Levi walking in on it is the winner here! The closest runner ups were seeing Levi’s wanted poster and getting Erwin and Historia’s backstories. We all agree it was nice to see many of these things in color animation finally!

Hange's scene where she blames her table destruction on a cockroach? Totally relatable. And I loved that Levi kinda teased her for it.

I have been waiting for Erwin's back story for AGES and was not disappointed! Kidwin was as heartbreakingly adorable as expected (that nose!! The sad bby at the funeral!!)

I liked all the topics they addressed that had been previously skipped (Historia and Erwin’s pasts). Also, while the sequence of events have been changed, I’m looking forward to how they are going to pan this out.

Erwin has great ass.

Hange's tableflip scene was amazeballs, man I love her!!

Pixis in a suit. Pixis in a suit. Pixis in a suit. Pixis in a suit. Pixis in a suit. Pixis in a suit. Pixis in a suit. Pixis in a suit. Pixis in a suit. Pixis in a suit. Pixis in a suit.

The conversation between Erwin and Pixis gave me thrills. I thought it was going to be boring, but it was very well shown.

My girl Hange's time to shine in this episode! I want her "BAAAKAAAA" as a ringtone asap

Who drew it better: WIT or Isayama?

51% of respondents thought the OG drew it best. Isayama can finally sleep at night. Funnily enough, the anime only respondents preferred WIT’s version!

Who has the best reaction to Historia’s backstory?

Sasha took the lead as she paused licking at her soup bowl to listen to Historia’s story. Connie was easily the next runner up with his dumbfounded expression. We weren’t surprised to see Springles win this one!

How cute was baby Historia?

The vast majority of respondents just wanna pinch those cute little cheeks (and probably take her home, treat her to some hot cocoa and love her properly).

And baby Historia was the cutest omg! That lil nose and her lil blush! I'm crying bittersweet tears here.

How could anyone possibly look down on and abuse such a precious little bean like baby Historia?? Alma's so pathetic…

Baby Historia is the cutest thing I have seen in anime. She is so adorable and sweet! I would love to hug her so much! She is just too cute! <3

Child Hisu is ADORKABLE

How cute was little Erwin?

While this is a tiny bit more spread out than Historia, the majority of respondents were also enamored with adorable kidwin and are ready to adopt him at any time (and probably give lots of hugs too!).

BABYWIN!!!!!!!!!

Young Erwin was def my fav bighead-bigbrows!

I love Erwin so muchhhh my precious baby is so cute and handsome at the same timeeeee I just want to hug him and never let anything bad happen to him againnnnn

The episode was dialogue heavy with a lot of character backstories and plot exposition. What type of episodes do you tend to prefer watching?

In general, respondents don’t mind if an episode has a lot of action or if it’s a bit slower with some good plot developments. What matters is that we keep moving forward and that it’s entertaining, right?

About episode type: Tense conversation ready to break into action at any second, like when Kenny and Levi were talking in the bar.

It was a nice change of pace after all the fights in the first 2 episodes but I'm looking forward to the action  coming back next episode

Did Flegel really stay in that alleyway the entire night?

We asked this mostly for fun and respondents didn’t disappoint. The majority believe that he did stay in the alleyway the entire night, but plenty of you had some fun commentary (and sass) to provide us all with some laughs:

Based on how the events at Erwin's went, I'd guess that Reeves was killed nearing dawn and it hasn't been that long.

During the night, he went to slay all of marley and came back in the morning, Flegel for president!

Oh crap, I didn't even notice that. Part of me wants to say maybe he left and came back, but that really doesn't make much sense if he's trying to not get caught. No doubt the Interior Squad would have surveyed the area a little before getting the body ready for a public reveal to frame Erwin.

He took one long leak

He went to get sour cream and came back

Slept in a trash-can then went for a morning stroll

insert Schroedinger's cat analogy

No clearly Annie came and rescued him

Somehow he knew Commander Handsome will be there, so yeah, he stayed. I would stay too <3

no, he crawled up the wall like a spider and slept on the rooftops dont worry

On a scale of 1-5, how distressed are you about Eren being tied, gagged and drugged?

Most respondents seemed unconcerned or indifferent to Eren’s current situation, but those who are distressed were pretty vocal about it:

PLEASE MAKE SURE THE POOR BOY GETS SOME WATER???  The little scene with his in-and-out of consciousness is very distressing to see!

I pray that Eren gets a happy ending; I feel SO stressed for him

Who has the best hat?

Connie’s sunhat took the lead! But we agree that all hats are good and that everyone was looking fab.

HAT HAT HAT I'm really hoping that from this point on, they will follow the manga more closely again, as I am not super impressed by the current shake-up in event order but most importantly HAT HAT HAT JEAN GOT HIS HAT.

The hats!!! The hats are so good!

Love his top hat but lost half his lines for it

JEAANNN'S HAAAT

How many flashbacks within flashbacks is too many?

Half of respondents appreciated the Inception reference and just want to be flashbacked into oblivion. Okay but seriously, there were some who got a bit confused by WIT’s use of flashbacks for some of these scenes. We hope you’re holding up okay during current manga chapters!

bit weird to slow it down this much when the first 2 episodes were so action packed, 2 flashbacks in one episode is a bit much if you ask me. the episode didnt give you any break or a few seconds to let the information sink in.

I was confused by flashbacks in flashbacks. I don't lke that type of stuff and I got feeling that they were traveling in time :/

How do you feel about the rearrangement of events after this episode?

45% are still tentative and not ready to judge the situation just yet. However, a good 37% combined are either content or are already finding they like the changes better. It seems the optimism is starting to improve overall!

Dont remember much of the order of events in this arc, as long as it all makes sense its fine. I trust Isayamas judgment

I prefer the manga’s order, but I am content, BUT I’m still waiting for more episodes to make a final judgement, BUT  I’m still very confused with where they are going with this.

I want to slap the whole WIT Studios and Yams but u know im okay for now.

Same story, different medium. Pretty neutral, happy I don’t know word for word what’s going to happen.

So I was very very nervous about the changes and pacing, but them taking the time to slow down and let the emotional weight of Historia and Erwin's backstories sink in is just what I needed to calm down a bit. I still have some preferences with the manga, but I'm sated to the point of watching and waiting without making too much of a fuss.

Some changes do make the action flow smoother, but im not happy that the studio decided to cut out Reeves-Levi wall bonding and L's squad 2.0's doubts on killing people

Rearrangement? Who cares? Erwin on graveyard was pure sex how was I supposed to thino about rearrangments???

I think the anime is doing a good job restructuring the arc, and is preserving its internal consistency quite well. But I am upset about some of the things that got removed, so I don't quite like the anime's retelling.

The rearrangement was understandable, however until I can look over the whole arc, I wouldn't be able to give a fair opinion on the execution of this season.

How do you feel about Historia’s absence when the Survey Corps proposed she needs to be queen?

As with the previous question, nearly half of voters are not yet ready to judge how the changes will affect the arc overall. 35% of you guys think it was a bad choice on WIT’s part. It’s probably safe to say we’re all on our toes wondering how WIT is going to handle this plot development as they move forward!

I hope we can still see the Levi smiling moment at the end of this arc despite the absence of these scenes.

I prefer Rod being the one to push the idea of her royalty into her, and I still think we'll get a moment regarding Levi's will to accept a different kind of hell and pushing Historia to make a choice in some other way later.

It didn't have a huge significance to the plot but it gave both Historia and Levi some good characterisation.

I feel a mixture of "I need more episodes" and "It was a poor choice".

Had to be done for an action packed start the season but I'm disappointed as it is an important scene for Levi's development

It was a poor choice that broke an important chain of events, it was Levi who had to force Historia.

Ralph called Hange a devil after they were locked up. Was this good foreshadowing to current manga events?

71% of respondents believed that this was good foreshadowing! We suppose one nice part of the anime being as behind from the manga as it is, is that we can recall these older moments that manage to have thematic relevance to current events.

I think Hange being called a devil was amazing foreshadowing, but also in a sense that, by overthrowing the current system, they are unwittingly putting themselves in the exact same position as the old government and its cronies were in with almost exactly the same problems and solutions available to them, the poor things just don't see it yet.

After this week, do you believe future episodes are now going to be more faithful to the original chapters?

50% of voters are confident that WIT is mostly headed back toward the linear timeline of the manga, with maybe small bits and pieces shuffled or omitted. 28% aren’t feeling as optimistic about it, however. But 18% are confident we’re back onto the strict manga timeline.

I'll have to wait and see all the episodes. No point trying to guess, only to be disappointed. Isayama authorised the changes, let's see what his new vision of these chapters!

I believe they will be faithful more than just "a little bit."  It seems the PV is a good indicator of that.  The Historia rising up to be queen is definitely going to be handled differently and there is no way around that.  But I'm ready, Wit!

im still trying to grasp what they trying to do of the pacing and the moments and i still hope the upcoming eps will make sense of all that cuts and flashbacks.

They'll have to do something different with Levi and Historia's 'discussion' about her becoming queen. I wonder if it will happen later, and someone else will do Reeve's line about him being a scary but good man? It would be interesting if someone like Mikasa does it.

Leaked episode titles PROVE they are gonna butcher up the cave scene

Maybe yes, maybe not. It all depends on Isayama and WIT, so let us wait for episode 41, shall we?

Which scene from the PV are you most looking forward to this week?

The largest group are most looking forward to Jean testing whether or not they can trust Marlowe and Hitch (please give us the stick WIT!). The close runner up is Levi interrogating the MP with the nice mustache and a case of foot-in-mouth. Literally.

I'm totally excited to see Marlowe and Hitch!

Central MP HQ next week?!?! Hoping for some new action scenes.

GIVE ME HITCH AND MARLO RIGHT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW

everyone in the PV is hot (yes pulverized erwin is still included)

Which group of characters are you favorite?

“All of them” wins as the good neutral vote.

I never know how to answer the which group is your favorite question because my fav is 104th + Annie (sans RB). So I'm always answering sans RBA which is unfair to Annie.

Where you do primarily discuss the series?

Additional thoughts on the episode?

A little bit better, but not enough. But overall I'm satisfied and I enjoyed it.

All in all, a very nicely done episode. I like how the story is coming together, all the different elements in the manga are there, just in a different order. I had high hopes for this season and so far I am not disappointed!

At this point I have absolutely NO clue where they are, or what's going on. The manga was less confusing for me.

Damn cockroaches, always ruining Hange's day.

Earlier I was really salty about Levi having to hold Mikasa back everytime it was mentioned that Eren was kidnapped, but later I noticed that instead of Mikasa being cool with it immediately like she was in her manga, in the anime they are slowing her development down to make it more realistic and believable(Levi had to physically restrain her the first time around, while the second time he just had to talk her down) so I still have faith it wit. I am still a little angry that the "That wasn't how I raised him." scene was cut though. It was an important Mikasa-Armin moment. But oh well! At least we got to see Jean in his glorious fedora!

Felt well-paced, I do like that they are tweeking things to make the anime feel more smooth.

Hanji looked like a snack throughout this episode shes so hot oh my god I’m so gay

Baby Erwin and Historia are wonderful, and I really like that they put two very different parent/child relationships on display here. Erwin's devotion to his father's theories, and the closeness to their relationship paralleled the neglegence Alma showed towards Historia - and in the end, the parents meet the same fate, offed by the Interior Squad."

Both Historia and Erwin's backstories needed stronger direction. Also, just a nitpick, but the soundtrack they used when Sannes told Hange "good luck" was an extremely weird choice. It was a very grim and ominous scene yet the music in the background didn't reflect that.

Pixis' lack of opposition was annoying. It seemed like he was just there so that Erwin had someone to talk about his backstory to. In the manga his red-line of no blood being spilled and his willingness to stay with the nobility if they had unknown but good reasons for their behaviour increased the stakes a lot.

I love the consistent tension buildup and the music choices that just compliment it. Sawano has been on a roll with the new tunes, and the way old ones have been used has been fantastic. Attack on D for Erwin's flashback is a choice I didn't consider, but I'll be damned if that wasn't a great call.

I just want to protect smol Historia and precious little Kidwin

Loving the development for Erwin. People need to realize that he isn't some cold hearted badass. He has feelings too ya know!

Thank you to everyone who participated! We’ll see you back on Monday! 

#snk polls #snk poll #snk spoilers #snk s3 #poll results

[maximilliandelirium]

somebody out there hates you

a/n: hhhh i wrote this in a pre-nanowrimo mania. wanted to post to ao3 but it’s acting weird so i thought i’d throw it up on the blog for now. notice me senpai fills me with joy, so i was inspired to make *~art~* the setting is anime japan so nothing is accurate and the points don’t matter (pssst! support me on ko-fi!)

Summary: Suzuki joins an anti-cafe out of curiosity and begins to re-evaluate his relationship with Yamato. Suzuki/Yamato (Idol Senpai/Rocker Senpai)

              Suzuki didn’t go online that evening intending to join an anti-Suzuki fan café. He usually didn’t dwell on his haters at all. But tonight, curiosity got the better of him. He’d been trawling the net after a long practice when he stumbled across a link to the anti-site. (Suzuki liked to Google himself; so what?) When he followed it, he realized he couldn’t read any of the message boards without an account.

               That’s a good thing, I guess, he thought. He didn’t really want to see what people were saying about him. He decided to forget about it and do his homework instead.

               At least, that was what he tried to do. He kept thinking about it as he struggled over his assigned reading. What did they talk about? Did they make fun of his hair? His personality? Maybe they picked apart his lyrics. The longer he thought about it, the more he wanted to know.

               Suzuki tossed his book aside and re-opened his laptop. He hadn’t closed the browser window. The link was still there. Yamato was always telling him to consider his weaknesses so he could improve. This could be beneficial. If Suzuki tried understanding where these people were coming from, he might be able to win them over, or at least get better at what he did.

               It didn’t take much to make an account. He had to create a new email—he didn’t want his regular one linked to the site. After that, he spent half an hour trying to come up with a screen name. It was imperative that no one know who he really was. His usual handle—“SuzuStar”—would give him away like a shot. Suzuki was also disappointed to discover that “YamatoFan#1” was taken. Eventually, he settled on “notafan1234.”

               Never having been on an anti-site before, Suzuki wasn’t sure what to expect. He was surprised by how plain it was. The header image was just the name of the page in bright red letters, along with a picture of his face with a “no” sign superimposed on it. He scrolled through the list of threads.

               Break Suzuki’s new MV!

               New Anti-Suzuki Memes

               Worst Lyrics Poll (CLOSED)

               Suzuki kept scrolling, horrified and fascinated. He found a thread titled “Important question for Yamato fans—should he be friends w/ Suzuki?” He clicked on it. He jumped when he saw the selfie he and Yamato had taken at the school festival. The original poster had written a caption beneath it.

               Ugh. I don’t get why Yamato wastes his time with this guy. They don’t have anything in common.

               A user named MerryPip added, Lol same. Yamato actually has talent.

               Suzuki frowned.

               They probably just hang out because they go to the same school, someone else said. Yamato doesn’t want to be mean.

               Tbh, SuzuYama shippers make me sick.

               Yamato shouldn’t keep feeding them by hanging out with him.

               They only do it for fanservice. I bet it’s in their contracts.

               Suzuki hadn’t been planning on responding to anyone, but the last comment had sent him over the edge. They had no right to question his friendship with Yamato. They didn’t know anything about him. He typed, Maybe Yamato and Suzuki are friends because they get along and like to hang out.

               A response appeared in no time. As if, Lonelygrrl said. Suzuki is too much of a ditz to get along with Yamato. He totally cramps his style. Yamato is just humoring him because the fans like it.

               Blood rushed to Yamato’s face. His fingers flew to the keys. That’s not true! How do you know Yamato is just pretending? You don’t have any proof. You’re just making stuff up!

               The backlash was swift and immediate. A gallery of photos flooded the thread with red outlines drawn around Yamato’s eyes and mouth, along with whole paragraphs explaining why his smile was faked, or how he couldn’t stand to actually touch Suzuki.

               His hand is just hovering here, Lonelygrrl wrote. All their selfies are faked. Their managers get together and tell them where to go. Like playdates.

               Suzuki slammed the laptop closed. He sat back, fuming. When his head cooled, Suzuki reached for his phone. He wanted to ask Yamato about this. (Yamato was saved in his contacts as “Yama heart eyes emoji, guitar emoji.”)

               Did u know there’s a whole website that hates me? Suzuki texted.

               Yamato answered quickly: No, but I’m not surprised. There’s always haters. You find one?

               Yeah. I made an account.

               WTF why?

               I wanted to see what they were saying.

               Delete it. That’s a waste of time.

               A waste of time. That’s what the anti-fans had said Yamato was doing by being Suzuki’s friend. He wanted to tell Yamato about it. But it had made him nervous. What if they were right? What if Yamato was only pretending to be friends with him? They’d become closer through school performances. Was that the only reason Yamato continued to hang out with him?

               Suzuki texted back: Ur right. They’re just mean.

               Don’t let it get to you. Some people have to be negative for no reason.

               Suzuki put the phone aside. He wouldn’t go back on the site. He’d just forget about it. Yamato was his friend and that was that. It wouldn’t do him any good to second guess it. Suzuki opened the laptop one last time to close the browser. There were a few more replies.

               Jesus, when will trolls learn not to come in here? MerryPip complained. Do. Not. Feed. The. Trolls.

               I’m not a troll, Suzuki thought, closing the window. He would delete the account tomorrow. Right now, he needed to get back to work.

               The next morning was rough. Suzuki hadn’t realized how much time had passed last night while he’d been reading the message boards, and by the time he completed his homework, it was 2AM. He shuffled into class, yawning.

               “Late night?” Reiji asked as Suzuki walked past.

               “It took me two hours to finish the reading.”

               “Me, too!” Takeru said. “And when I finished, it felt like I didn’t understand it at all.” He looked over at Ren. “What did you think?”

               Ren lifted his head slightly. “Huh? I didn’t finish. I fell asleep halfway through.”

               “You’re kidding. We have a quiz on it today.”

               “I can probably get a good enough grade with what I know.”

               Suzuki spotted Yamato sitting on the windowsill. He had his guitar balanced in his lap and he was strumming it idly. The things Suzuki had read last night started to seep into his mind. He pushed them away. I’m not going to think about it.

               “Yama-kun!” Suzuki called.

               Yamato glanced up and smiled. It looked real. Relief washed over Suzuki as he walked over. Yamato continued plucking on the strings.

               “Hey,” he said. “You look beat. What’s up?”

               “I got distracted by the internet last night and did all my homework late.” Suzuki blushed. Yamato liked to tease him for being irresponsible sometimes. “But I did get it done!”

               “Oh yeah. That site you texted me about. I hope you didn’t talk to anyone.”

               Suzuki laughed nervously. “No. Why would I?”

               “They’re trying to get a rise out of people. Starting an argument is just what they want.”

               He laughed again, this time more forced.

               Yamato tilted his head to the side. “You okay?”

               “Yeah. It’s all good.” Suzuki waved a hand. “Let’s stop talking about it. Do you still want to go shopping today after class?”

               “Sure. Just remember to change before we go out. I don’t want to get chased by your crazy fans again.”

               “I wouldn’t forget,” Suzuki said. He winked and stuck his tongue out. “Are you sure you don’t like the exercise?”

               “I’m sure.”

               Yamato met him in front of the school after classes let out. No matter how many times they went out in public together, Yamato never stopped staring at Suzuki’s outfit. Suzuki didn’t understand why he rolled his eyes every time he saw it.

               “What’s the matter? This is what I always wear,” he said.

               “I know. That’s the problem. We’re getting you some new civilian clothes today.” Yamato grabbed the hem of Suzuki’s t-shirt and gave it a tug. “How many of these do you own?”

               “A few.”

               “You’re supposed to be in disguise. Why would you wear a shirt with your own face on it?”

               “Because,” Suzuki said, lifting his index finger, “no one would ever suspect I’d wear my own merchandise. This face distracts them from looking at mine.”

               “If you say so.” Yamato let go.

               They walked into town, then took the train to the best shopping district. Though Yamato and Suzuki bought their clothes at different stores, they agreed that this part of the city had the best shops. The only problem was that it was crowded. Just getting off the train was a nightmare. Suzuki almost lost his hat.

               “Is it just me or are there more people here today than usual?” he asked, squashing it back on his head.

               “I think you’re right. There must be a promotion going on.” Yamato stretched to see over the crowd. “That one you like isn’t as busy. Let’s go to that one first.”

               They pressed through the crowd. Suzuki bumped into a woman carrying a dozen bags and made her drop all of them. He spent a few minutes helping her pick them up while bowing and apologizing. She gave him a dirty look. He wondered if she would’ve been as mad if she knew who he was.

               Or could she be one of the anti-fans?

               Suzuki hadn’t thought about it before, but those names online had real people behind them. They could’ve been from his own school. It was scary to think about. There might be some in this crowd. Suzuki readjusted his mask and sunglasses, making sure his face was completely hidden.

               “Suzu—!” Yamato cut himself off as he came jogging over. They’d gotten separated. “I turned around and you weren’t behind me.”

               “Sorry. It’s hard to stick together in all this.”

               Yamato sighed and looked around. Then he grabbed Suzuki’s hand. “Come on,” he said. “We need to get you a new shirt.”

               The changing room was cold. Suzuki quickly pulled on one of the shirts he’d brought in. It was a purple galaxy print. There were three mirrors placed in the corner of the stall, giving him a rounded view. He was pretty satisfied with his appearance. Suzuki had often been told he had a good face. And his rigorous dance practices kept him in good shape. Yet…

               Earlier, while Yamato was going through leather jackets, Suzuki had pulled up the anti-café on his phone. He needed to know if they knew where he was. His fans tended to track his movements. His haters might do the same thing.

               Though there wasn’t anything about where he physically was, but there was a new thread: “Is Suzuki actually handsome? Yes/No?” He knew he shouldn’t read it. It didn’t matter what a handful of bitter people on the internet thought. But the urge was too strong.

               It’s supposed to be his major selling point, but I’m a girl and I think he’s kind of lame.

               His hair color looks so fake and not in a good way.

               Didn’t he gain weight recently? No one’s gonna stick around if he keeps putting on the pounds XD

               Imo he’s kind of short.

               I’m 178 centimeters! That’s above average! Suzuki was shorter than Yamato, but that didn’t mean he was tiny. He remembered what Yamato had said about not engaging them. He wanted to set them straight.

               The school festival selfie had reappeared. Suzuki had been proud of it at the time. His and Yamato’s costumes were perfectly coordinated, they’d posed in front of the best decorations in the classroom, and they’d gotten a perfect angle. This site didn’t seem to agree.

               Look at this lame-ass Star Sailor costume.

               I stg Suzuki drags Yamato into his weird interests all the time.

               is it supposed to be funny? Who are they trying to appeal to?

               It had taken every ounce of Suzuki’s self-control not to go off on them. Star Sailor was one of his great loves. It was one of Yamato’s as well. That was the whole reason they had coordinated their cosplays.

               Unable to stomach any more, he had turned off the screen, gathered a few shirts and gone into the dressing room. He examined himself in the mirror. He still looked fine. Suzuki plucked a strand of hair. Was it too yellow?

               He took off the galaxy shirt and pinched his stomach. Suzuki wasn’t as muscular as boys like Makoto or Katsuo, but he had a lithe figure. Nothing seemed to have changed. Sometimes Suzuki’s manager warned him not to indulge his sweet tooth too much. Maybe he should start taking that message more to heart. He felt a pang of loss just considering skipping the cakes at the school’s café.

               Suzuki shook his head. He was letting the anti-site get to him.

               When he emerged from the dressing room, he spotted Yamato coming over, his arms weighed down with jackets and black jeans. He eyed Suzuki’s pile.

               “Did you find anything good?” he asked.

               “I like this one.” Suzuki pointed at the galaxy shirt. “What do you think?”

               Yamato shrugged. “You look good in everything.”

               “Aw, Yama-kun, you’re so sweet!” Suzuki said in an over-the-top cutesy voice. He shimmied his shoulders for extra effect.

               Yamato rolled his eyes and gave Suzuki a light smack on the arm. He disappeared behind the curtain. Suzuki put away the clothes he didn’t want while he waited. He wondered if Yamato had hate sites, too. It didn’t seem possible. Yamato was so handsome and talented; it was hard to imagine a bunch of people getting together just to make fun of him.

               Suzuki pulled out his phone again. He went through his pictures until he found another selfie he’d taken with Yamato. It was from the last time Yamato had hung out at his house. Suzuki hadn’t made it public. He didn’t know why. It was a good picture. There wasn’t anything scandalous or illegal in it.

               He supposed he hadn’t wanted to share it because it felt more personal than the others. They were both in sweatshirts and pajama pants, their faces lit up by the blue light from Suzuki’s TV. Suzuki was leaning heavily on Yamato, who was grinning at the camera. Suzuki was smiling fondly up at Yamato.

               If those jerks online could see this picture, they’d realize Yamato wasn’t faking his feelings of friendship. Suzuki couldn’t post it, though. This picture was just for him and Yamato, no one else. He sighed and closed the photo gallery.

               Yamato came out of the dressing room. “I’m ready if you are,” he said.

               “Are you buying anything?” Suzuki asked as he headed for the counter.

               Yamato shook his head. “I’m going to shop around a bit more. Do you want to get some bubble tea after the next stop?”

               “Only if we go to that one place next to the arcade.”

               “Okay, but you’re not dragging me into another DDR competition.”

               Suzuki put his arm around Yamato’s shoulders. “Come on, you’re not that bad. You almost beat me last time.”

               Yamato shook his head. He copied Suzuki’s gesture, linking them closer together. He gave Suzuki’s back a pat. “I’ll leave the dancing to the trained idol. Some other time. Now go, it’s your turn.” He nudged Suzuki forward.

               Suzuki reluctantly let go of Yamato. He brought his shirts to the girl working the cash register. She smiled at him.

               “You and your friend are cute,” she said as she rung him up.

               “Thanks! I try.”

               She giggled. “Have a nice day.”

               “Did you flirt your way to a discount?” Yamato asked.

               Suzuki’s eyes widened behind his sunglasses. “You can do that?”

               “No, idiot.” Yamato took Suzuki’s hand again. “Maybe you could, but I wouldn’t. I hope she didn’t recognize you.”

               “She didn’t. If she had, she would’ve asked for an autograph.”

               They could never get a seat by the windows, otherwise their combined fans would fill the restaurant. Suzuki was half thankful for the privacy it afforded them, but they had to sit in a dim corner where there wasn’t much space. One of Yamato’s legs rested against one of his own.

               “What kind did you get?” Suzuki asked.

               Yamato glanced up from his phone. “Honeydew. You wanna try it?”

               “Sure.” Suzuki took a sip from Yamato’s bubble tea. They had never worried about germs. The tea was perfectly sweet and mellow. He passed it back, a smile on his lips.

               “You know, that’s the first time you smiled this afternoon,” Yamato said. “It feels like you’ve been gloomy ever since we left school.”

               “Really?” He hadn’t noticed. “I guess I’m just tired. We’re already talking about the next comeback.”

               “They should let you have a break. I’ve been talking to my agency about a vacation.” Yamato lowered his phone and met Suzuki’s eyes. “We could go somewhere. Hawai’i maybe. I’ve always wanted to do a shark tour.”

               Suzuki shuddered. “That’s scary!”

               “They put you in a cage. It’s not dangerous.”

               “You can do that. I want to get a tan.”

               Yamato knocked his leg against Suzuki’s. “But you’d want to go? With me?”

               “Of course.”

               Yamato’s eyes lit up. He smiled. “Awesome. We can get it cleared with your manager. There’s a little while before our next break. We could go then if your team says it’s okay.”

               Hawai’I with Yamato. Suzuki imagined what it might be like. Sun, sand, and the ocean. Swimsuits. Sleeping in. Hawai’ian food. He sighed wistfully. Ever since he had first seen travel programs for it on TV, he’d always wanted to go. The best part might be going with Yamato. They could run around together as much as they wanted. They’d have their own hotel room.

               “Will you ask your manager about it?” Yamato said, pressing Suzuki’s leg again. He was chewing on the corner of his lip.

               “I will. I’ll text her now.” Suzuki fished his phone from his jacket pocket. He braced his leg against Yamato’s. He took comfort in the pressure. Yamato was strong. It felt good to lean on him.

               Some of the other guys invited them to karaoke after school that weekend. It was Hajime’s idea apparently, which meant he’d roped in Soujiro, who was bringing the twins, and so on and so on. Things usually turned out this way. If someone mentioned a party, everyone ended up unofficially invited. Ikemen wasn’t a small school, but word spread quickly, and the upperclassmen were all connected by a web of association.

               Suzuki didn’t remember who specifically asked him and Yamato if they wanted to tag along. It might’ve been Ai. Anyway, they showed up at the karaoke place after everyone else had already arrived thanks to an unexpected fangirl sighting.

               “You guys are late,” Tokiya said.

               “We just got chased halfway across the city,” Yamato said, tossing his jacket onto one of the couches. “Give us a break.”

               Suzuki removed his mask, sunglasses, and hat. He took stock of the group. Ai had brought Tokiya and Ryuu, but Kurou was nowhere to be seen, meaning there’d be a fight later. (Ryuu and Tokiya always fought.) Soujiro and the twins were there, wearing casual clothes for once. Yuu and Baa had shown up as well. Suzuki would never get over the goat head. Takeru was there, probably having heard about the outing through word of mouth.

               “Sorry, we ordered food without you,” he said.

               “It’s fine. We can get something later.”

               Suzuki settled in beside Yamato. He had asked his manager about the vacation. She hadn’t gotten back to him yet. He was starting to get nervous. Running from their fans earlier had only made Suzuki want it more. After this comeback. If the single does well, then I earned it. She can’t say no.

               The other third-years had already lined up a decent list of songs. They must have been feeling nostalgic, since most of the music was from the 80s and 90s. Takeru, being Takeru, shared some of his food with Yamato and Suzuki while Hajime launched into a heart-felt ballad at the top of his lungs.

               It was times like these that made Suzuki wish he wasn’t an idol. Being a senior in high school wasn’t easy, but there was so much more freedom. You definitely didn’t get hate comments. You could hang out with whoever you wanted. You didn’t get chased when you went outside. He could never just quit though. He loved music. He loved performing. But it was nice to just be with friends and not on a stage.

               Yamato nudged him with his elbow. “Are you going to sing?”

               “Obviously!” Suzuki hopped up. “I wonder if they have one of your songs on the machine.”

               “Ooh, do it!” Ai said.

               Yamato looked embarrassed. “Come on…”

               “What?” Suzuki scrolled through the song list. “Are you scared I’m gonna ruin it? I’ll let you cover one of mine?”

               “You should do a duet,” Hajime said. “Give us the collab everyone’s been waiting for!”

               Takeru nodded in agreement and Ai applauded. “Yeah!” he said. “Do that!”

               Yamato got up and walked over to the screen, picking up a microphone for himself. “Pick something we both know. One that’s in my range.”

               Suzuki kept scrolling. They had a couple of his songs, as well as a few of Yama’s, but none of them were duets. Then he spotted something. He let out a cry of excitement.

               “Yama! The Star Sailor duet! From the musical.” He grabbed Yamato’s upper arm and squeezed it insistently. “Remember? The part where Selena hears Damian join her from offstage, and then he comes down from the ceiling?” He shook Yamato’s arm for emphasis. “Let’s do this one. Please?”

               “Wait, you’ve seen the Star Sailor musical?” Ryuu asked with a smirk.

               Yamato blushed. “It’s good,” he muttered. To Suzuki, he said, “You really want to do this one? It’s kind of…”

               “I know all the words,” Suzuki said proudly. “I could sing it without looking at the screen.”

               Yamato still looked hesitant. An upsetting thought reared its ugly head. Suzuki remembered the discussion in the anti-café, about their Star Sailor cosplay. I stg Suzuki drags Yamato into his weird interests all the time. Suzuki’s heart sank. What if Yama really was only going along with it to humor him? Liking a sparkly and romantic mahou shojo wasn’t Yamato’s style. And he probably hadn’t wanted to broadcast any interest in it.

               “Um, we don’t have to,” Suzuki said. He reached out to scroll down the list again. “There’s probably another song we can both sing in here.”

               “No,” Yamato blurted, color still high in his cheeks. “I want to do this one.”

               “Are you sure?”

               Yamato nodded. “You can have Selena’s part. The notes are too high for me.”

               Relief washed over Suzuki. He might be humoring you again, a mean voice whispered in the back of his head. He tried to ignore it. As long as he got to sing with Yamato, he didn’t really care. He pressed play.

               They might have been in a random karaoke room, surrounded by classmates, but Suzuki poured his heart into the performance. He loved the Star Sailor musical. He thought it was hopelessly romantic. Especially the part where Damian appeared. Suzuki started the duet and Yamato jumped in after a few bars. His voice was perfect for the song. It was like he really was Damian.

               If Yamato had seemed uncomfortable before, he had shaken it off. He sang with confidence, turning to face Suzuki and holding out his hand. A thrill went through Suzuki as he took it. Yamato even twirled him under his arm. They could have been onstage. Suzuki had no trouble imagining Yamato in the top hat and mask (seeing as he’d worn the costume before). He also had no trouble seeing why Yamato’s fans left strings of hearts in the comments on his selfie posts.

               Suzuki was starting to feel lightheaded. It might’ve been because the room was hot, or all his breath was going into the duet, but at the same time, he knew that wasn’t the real reason. Yamato drew him in a step closer. They were reaching the end of the song.

               In the musical, Selena and Damian ended their duet by putting their foreheads together, eyes closed. Then, just before the stage lights dimmed, they would kiss. It was cheated, covered by strategic hand placement, but Suzuki squealed every time. Now, as his head came to rest against Yamato’s, he had a crazy idea.

               What if Yamato kissed him?

               Suzuki’s heart started to pound. Yamato’s face was so close to his. It would take just a tiny movement for their lips to touch. Even though the actors usually closed their eyes, Yamato was looking straight at him, and Suzuki couldn’t tear his gaze away. He’d forgotten everyone in the room. They might as well have been alone.

               Then, the last note of the song faded. Yamato stepped back. Suzuki released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Yamato’s hand was still in his. Suzuki was shaking. All around them, the other third-years applauded. Someone whistled.

               Suzuki came back to himself just in time. He raised his and Yama’s hands between them and swept into a low bow. “Thank you, thank you,” he said. “We’ll be here all week.”

               “You guys were great!” Tokiya said. “It was just like seeing the actual musical. Right, Ryuu?”

               Ryuu shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I’ve never watched Star Sailor live.”

               “Oh really? Then what was that about telling Kurou how much you liked the actress that played Queen Pyrite?”

               Ryuu’s mouth opened and shut indignantly. He turned away to hide the blush that had spread across his face. “Shut up, Tokiya.”

               Yamato insisted on walking Suzuki home. None of their fans appeared, so it was an uneventful journey, but Suzuki’s heart hadn’t stopped racing. Yamato was at his side, keeping pace and chatting about his plans for a new song. Suzuki only half-registered the words he was saying. The rest of his mind was occupied with the ups and downs of his voice, his smile, the way the streetlights made his hair glow.

               Suzuki remembered how Yamato had held his hand earlier and while they were shopping and wished Yamato would do it again. It had felt nice. He was tempted to bridge the distance between them, to reach out and mesh their fingers. Suzuki put his hands in his pockets instead.

               Could friends hold hands whenever? He didn’t think there was anything weird about it, but most of the people he saw holding hands were couples. He could ask Yamato, but that seemed awkward. Why was he even getting the urge to hold hands in the first place?

               “Suzuki?” Yamato had somehow ended up behind him. His brow was furrowed in concern. “Isn’t this your place?”

               Suzuki looked back. He’d kept walking past his house. “Oh,” he said, grinning sheepishly. “Sorry, I was distracted. Thinking about stuff.” He jogged back.

               “You’re such an airhead,” Yamato said warmly. He ground his knuckles against the sides of Suzuki’s head, not hard enough to hurt. “What would you do without me?”

               Suzuki laughed, swatting Yamato’s hands away. “Mean! That’s it, we’re rivals now.”

               Yamato smirked. “I couldn’t be your rival. I’d crush you, and I don’t have the heart to do that. It’d be like kicking a puppy.”

               “Woof!” Suzuki’s chest grew arm as Yamato burst into a fit of giggles.

               Yamato took off his cap and mussed his hair. “Go on, your mom’s probably worried you got kidnapped by a crazy fan.”

               “Text me when you get home,” Suzuki said.

               “Will do. See you at school.”

               Suzuki watched Yamato go until he vanished around a street corner.

               Yamato texted him about twenty minutes later to let him know he’d arrived home safely. Suzuki tried to do his homework, but his thoughts were a jumble. He couldn’t concentrate. After an hour of struggling, he took a bath and changed for bed. If he couldn’t do his homework, he’d go to sleep now and wake up early to finish. And yet…

               Suzuki lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. What had happened tonight was different from how things usually went between him and Yamato. He remembered the light, fluttery feeling in his chest when Yamato had held his hand, and how it had doubled when their foreheads were together. He remembered looking into Yamato’s eyes as they’d sung the Star Sailor duet at the karaoke place.

               Friends didn’t react that way. Suzuki knew that. A friend didn’t set your heart racing just by touching you. They didn’t spawn butterflies in your stomach. Suzuki was starting to tremble just thinking about it. Heat burned up his neck to his ears.

               If he was being honest with himself, he had imagined kissing Yamato before. It was impossible not to. There was a whole legion of fans who thought they should be a couple. Suzuki had never missed an opportunity to please them. He thought it was actually rather sweet. Yamato had laughed at first, but in general had approached the whole thing with good humor. With that sort of thing going on, it was hard not to imagine what it might be like if they actually were together.

               Yamato seemed like he’d be a good kisser. He’d probably kissed lots of girls. Had he ever kissed another boy before? Probably not. Suzuki touched his lips. He had faked kisses with girls for MVs, but had never done it seriously. Yamato might laugh at his inexperience.

               But he might also smile as he kissed him. He might hold Suzuki to him in a firm embrace, stroking his hair. He might also push Suzuki against a wall and kiss him fiercely, channeling the energy of his music into Suzuki until they were both breathless.

               Suzuki opened his eyes. He hadn’t realized he’d closed them. He took a deep breath in, then let it out. His imagination usually didn’t go that far. Suzuki felt a little uncomfortable. It was probably wrong for him to think of Yamato like that, but now that he’d started he couldn’t stop.

               He pictured being able to hold hands with Yamato all the time, not just in a crowd, kisses before class, cuddling with each other while they watched movies… His heart surged. The thought of being with Yamato as more than a friend had made him so happy he couldn’t want anything else.

               Suzuki wasn’t stupid. Maybe somewhat naive at times, but not stupid. He knew what he was experiencing. He loved Yamato. He had been loving Yamato for a long time now. Why shouldn’t he? Yamato was so artistic and brilliant and kind. It was just now occurring to him that his feelings ran over the edges of platonic affection into something else.

               At the same time, Suzuki knew he couldn’t tell him. Yamato couldn’t possibly return his feelings. Even if he did, they couldn’t date without it being plastered over every magazine cover and celebrity news website. He thought of the message boards on the anti-Suzuki site. Those people would riot if Suzuki even hinted at the idea of loving Yamato. They might even go so far as to threaten him. And, worst of all, what if they were right? What if Yamato was only his friend because he had to be?

               Suzuki didn’t want to believe it. He refused to. But the seeds of doubt had been sown. If he confessed to Yamato, and what those people online said was true, then he’d just humiliate himself. They’d never be able to hang out again. Suzuki feared that the most. He’d rather hold these feelings inside rather than run the risk of losing Yamato’s friendship.

               He rolled over and buried his face in his pillow. If he stayed like this long enough, maybe he would smother himself and never have to think of it again. He lifted his head eventually. It got too uncomfortable.

               “I’ll just keep going like everything’s the same,” Suzuki said out loud. “He’ll never find out and we’ll keep being friends. I won’t have to give him up.”

               Still, the resolution filled him with pain. He would never have that relationship with Yamato. It wasn’t going to be easy. Yamato would only have to touch him to send ripples of longing through Suzuki. He would have to train himself not to react, not to reciprocate where it wasn’t wanted.

               He got up and found his MP3 player in his backpack. He put his earbuds in. Suzuki had every single album Yamato had released. He started with the first one, for nostalgia’s sake. As he listened, he imagined Yamato was singing just for him.

               Pretending everything was normal was a lot harder than Suzuki realized. Yamato was everywhere. They were in class together all day, ate together during lunch, and even hung out after school. Suzuki didn’t want to stop hanging out with him; that would just make Yamato suspicious. But it was getting more and more difficult to focus on history and science when they studied together.

               They were at Yamato’s apartment that afternoon. Yamato lived alone, which Suzuki used to think was a good thing, since there was no one to bother them if they decided to stay up all night watching anime. Now, he desperately wished there was someone to ward away his thoughts of kissing Yamato.

               Yamato ran his fingers through his hair. He looked frustrated. “I’m not getting it,” he said. “What about you?”

               Suzuki shook his head. He hadn’t even been trying. The whole study session was turning out to be counterproductive. How do people with crushes survive?

               “Do you want to take a break and play Mario Kart?”

               Suzuki shoved his notebook aside. “Absolutely.”

               Hopefully, a game would keep his mind off of contemplating the feel of Yamato’s lips against his. He settled into Yamato’s couch, controller in hand. They weren’t competitive with each other in any area except Mario Kart. Soon, he’d want to strangle Yamato instead of make-out with him.

               The plan worked, for a little while. Suzuki got swept up in the races, he and Yamato resorting to cheating by bumping into each other in real life and trying to wrestle the controllers out of each other’s hands. It was just like how things had been before. Suzuki relaxed.

               However, things took a turn when Yamato hit him with a shell, right before Suzuki was about to win Rainbow Road. Bowser dashed across the finish line while Princess Peach was still spinning out. Suzuki threw down his controller and started pummeling Yamato lightly with his fists.

               “I hate you! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”

               “I’m just playing the game,” Yamato laughed.

               “That was my win, you cheater!”

               “Shells are a part of the game. You hit me with a blue shell a couple tracks ago. How is this any different?” Yamato grabbed Suzuki’s wrists. “You still got second place.”

               “I should’ve been first,” Suzuki said. “I did the shortcut and everything.” He struggled against Yamato’s hold. “Let me go. I’m not done beating you up.”

               Yamato pushed him backwards, pinning him to the couch. He hovered over Suzuki. “Oh yeah? I’d like to see you try. When you were hitting me, it felt like being stung by a mosquito.”

               Suzuki went red. He tried to break free, but Yamato was strong. He went redder as he became more aware of their position. What was this, a scene out of a shojo manga?

               “Okay, okay,” he said hastily. “You win. Fair and square. Can you get off me?”

               Yamato let go. He leaned back. Suzuki lay there for a second longer, trying to catch his breath. Had he actually been wanting Yamato to kiss him like that? To just lean down and…

               Suzuki shook his head. He had to get out of here before he did something stupid. He sat up. “Um, I should probably head home. I promised Mom I’d eat dinner with her tonight. She says she barely gets to see me.”

               “Oh.” Yamato sounded disappointed. “It’s still early.”

               Suzuki coughed. “Yeah. I said I’d help her cook, too.”

               “Alright. I’ll walk you.” Yamato started to get up.

               “Ah, no thanks!” Suzuki squeaked. He winced at the sound of his own voice. What was wrong with him? “I can make it on my own. I have my disguise and everything.”

               “Are you sure?”

               Suzuki nodded. He gathered his notebook and school things as quickly as possible. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow! Good luck on the physics homework.”

               Yamato followed him to the door. “Text me when you get home?”

               “Sure!” Suzuki chirped (too brightly, he realized). Then, before he could embarrass himself any further, he rushed out the door.

               Suzuki made good on his word to help his mother make dinner. She’d been surprised to see him home so early, but glad to spend time with him as well. Suzuki’s schedule was so hectic that they rarely ate dinner together, let alone cooked together. He wasn’t as good as Souma in the kitchen, but he managed.

               A part of him wanted to tell her about Yamato. He had a good opportunity to when she asked how he was doing. In the end, he said Yamato was doing fine and left it at that. He didn’t want to bother his mom with that kind of thing. (Truth be told, he was embarrassed to mention having a crush in the first place.)

               After dinner, he holed himself up in his room. Suzuki knew it was the last thing he needed right now, but he logged back onto the anti-café. No one had banned him yet. Suzuki hadn’t commented since that first time, so they’d probably forgotten he was there.

               It was full of the usual hatred and vitriol. Suzuki picked a thread railing against his and Yamato’s relationship. He scrolled through it for a while, his heart sinking lower and lower until it reached the Earth’s core. They despised the idea of him and Yamato together, whether they were friends or dating.

               It can never happen, Suzuki thought. His fans might turn on him.

               Suzuki finally closed the thread. Then, because he had no one else to turn to, he texted Jae. Jae was currently in South Korea, visiting family and the other members of his group. Suzuki hoped he wasn’t too busy.

               Hey sunbae, Suzuki wrote, do you ever get hate comments?

               It didn’t take long for Jae to text back. oh totally. happens all the time.

               How do you deal with them?

               i try to ignore it. block out the haters

               It was good advice. A no-brainer, honestly, if only Suzuki could follow it. have you ever found a whole site that hates you? an anti café?

               man don’t tell me you have one of those. you’re a ray of sunshine! how could anyone make a whole anti-café devoted to you?

               Idk either. It’s really been getting me down. What should I do?

               Jae spent a long time typing. Suzuki watched the little ellipses dance while he waited. Eventually, Jae wrote back, you can always block the site or their comments. it’s nothing to be ashamed of. you don’t owe them anything tbh. if they’re not actually sending you constructive criticism, if all they’re doing is trying to tear you down, then kick ‘em to the curb ㅋㅋㅋ seriously tho, don’t read that stuff. it breaks my heart that anyone could be so mean to my hoobae

               T^T you’re the best jae-sunbae, Suzuki replied.

               i try 😉 is there anything else i can help with?

               Suzuki hesitated. He could trust Jae with anything. But could he trust him with this? Maybe if he was vague, Jae wouldn’t realize who Suzuki was talking about. He took a deep breath and wrote, yeah. Have you ever had a crush on someone who’s like, your friend?

               are we talking about yama?

               Suzuki nearly dropped his phone. He typed a response with trembling fingers. Haha nooooooo where did you get that idea? I’m talking hypothetically.

               sure, ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), Jae replied. so in this hypothetical situation, is the crusher a j-idol and the crushee a rockstar?

               (^◇^；) no…

               suzuki literally everyone on the planet thinks you guys are dating. even my mom thinks so.

               Suzuki huffed. That doesn’t make it true! he typed. Answer my question: did you ever have a crush on a friend, yes/no?

               Again, it took a while for Jae to reply. yep! didn’t work out but hey! it was someone else in the music scene. you know how it is. not that you should get discouraged! you and yamato would be super cute together.

               Suzuki blushed. He thought for a while about what he should say. He typed out, do you really think so? what if a lot of people got mad?

               you shouldn’t care about what other people think. it’s your personal life.

               What if, hypothetically, it’s just one-sided and I ruin our whole friendship?

               i doubt it would ruin your friendship, Jae wrote. i’m 99.9% sure yama likes you. have you seen how he looks in your selfies? heart eyes <3

               Suzuki’s blush deepened. No way. Jae was just trying to make him feel better. Then again, the duet in the karaoke room gave him a sliver of hope. But that was a performance. They were acting like Damian and Selena.

               What about the other 1%? Suzuki wrote.

               you doubt my judgment?? look, even if he doesn’t feel that way about you, your friendship won’t tank just because of a little crush. not if it’s real and i think it is.

               Okay. Thanks again, sunbae <3 I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing.

               anytime! it’s good to be home, but i miss everyone over there TT take care of yourself!

               Suzuki locked his phone screen and lay down. Talking to Jae had helped, but he still couldn’t bring himself to confess to Yamato. He didn’t understand how Jae could be so confident when his own crush hadn’t worked out. He knew just as well as Suzuki how hard it was for idols to date normally.

               Even if Yamato liked me back, I’d get flayed alive. Probably by my manager, too. His manager still hadn’t given him the green light on the vacation. Suzuki was starting to think that was her way of saying no. It might be better if he didn’t go. Hawai’i was a romantic place, right? What if Suzuki got carried away and blurted his feelings? It would defeat the purpose of a relaxing getaway.

               I should tell Yamato I can’t come with. Suzuki would do it tomorrow, at school. He’d rip the band-aid off, so to speak, and get it over with. Hopefully Yamato wouldn’t be too disappointed.

               Suzuki didn’t get a chance to tell Yamato the next day, because Yamato was suddenly super busy. He was on the phone with someone before class started, and he spent every break scribbling in his notebook. He disappeared during lunch before Suzuki could even ask if they were going to eat together. It wasn’t that strange, really. 3-A was full of students with irregular schedules. For example, Takahiro had taken off for some part-time job earlier.

               However, Yamato wasn’t there the next day either, so Suzuki couldn’t tell him then, either. And then Suzuki had to skip a day to spend it in a recording studio. He considered texting Yamato about it, but he would rather tell him in person. It seemed a bit too important not to discuss face-to-face.

               Suzuki finally got a chance when he and Yamato both arrived late in the school day. He guessed Yamato must have been recording something as well. He was dressed down from his usual leather jacket and had left out a few piercings. He only did that when he had an early morning session.

               “Are you free to walk home today, Yama?” Suzuki asked as they jogged up the stairs to 3-A. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

               “Today’s no good.”

               “What about tomorrow morning?”

               Yamato shook his head. “Busy. Sorry.”

               Suzuki paused. “What’s going on? Are you prepping a new release?”

               Yamato didn’t answer. He just kept going. Suzuki stared at his retreating back. What was the big secret? Yamato usually shared any and all details about his projects. He’d been talking about a new song after karaoke. Were the two related, or was this another thing altogether?

               What if I made him uncomfortable? Suzuki thought, gripped by terror. Or what if Jae was trying to be helpful and told him I have a crush on him? He knew he was jumping to conclusions. Yamato was busy; that was all. Even so, he felt nervous. Why hadn’t Yamato answered him?

               Suzuki investigated Yamato’s fansites. He wasn’t making special appearances anywhere. There were no concert announcements. Not even a rumor of an album release. So what was he doing? He hadn’t walked home with Suzuki or asked him over for a while. They didn’t even have lunch together anymore.

               A sick, heavy dread settled in Suzuki’s stomach as he logged onto the anti-café. It got worse. The café was overjoyed.

               No suzuyama sightings lately! He finally dropped him!

               Heard rumors from school that they’re split up.

               Maybe S*zuki will take a hint and stop clinging to Yamato like a puppy

               It’d be like kicking a puppy. Suzuki’s mouth went dry. He tossed his phone into his backpack. Did Yamato really see him as a dog, stupidly following him everywhere? He’d played along with the joke that time, but now it stung.

               “Romantic troubles?”

               Suzuki jumped a foot. Ai was standing right behind him, his quiver slung across his back. He didn’t wait for an invitation to take the empty seat next to Suzuki. Suzuki had thought he’d been alone in this courtyard, but Ai must have had a tracking device implanted in every boy in school.

               “I’m not having romantic troubles,” Suzuki lied.

               Ai smiled skeptically. “It’s about Yamato, isn’t it?”

               Am I really that obvious? Suzuki’s shoulders sagged. “Not you, too.”

               “What, is it a secret? Even that nice girl at the café knows.”

               Suzuki put his face in his hands. If everyone knew then how could Yamato not? He’s avoiding me, since he realized I’m bad for his image.

               Ai patted his knee. “Cheer up! You could do a lot worse than Yamato.”

               “Not if he hates me!”

               “Why do you think he hates you?”

               “He’s been avoiding me,” Suzuki said. “At first, I thought he was working on something, but he wouldn’t tell me anything about it. And don’t say he’s throwing me a surprise party. My birthday isn’t coming up.”

               “Hmm, that’s tricky.” Ai rubbed his chin. “He usually shares all his projects with you, right? Maybe he’s seeing someone else?”

               Suzuki went cold. He hadn’t considered that possibility. Had Yamato started dating and not told him? No, that couldn’t be. Someone would’ve snapped a picture or started a rumor by now, and the fansites were quiet.

               “No.” He shook his head. “He would’ve told me for sure.”

               Ai shrugged. “Then he’s probably busy. You shouldn’t get too worked up, Suzuki. Guys like him sometimes have trouble communicating their feelings. He might be focusing so hard that he hasn’t had time to tell you about it. Kurou does the same thing. He gets tunnel-vision when he’s working on a play.”

               It made Suzuki feel a little better, but it didn’t inspire confidence. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Yamato was purposefully ducking him.

               “Anyway, I’m meeting Sousuke for an archery showdown,” Ai said, standing up. “He’s going to regret challenging me. Are you going to be okay?”

               Suzuki nodded. “Thanks for the advice, Ai. Good luck.”

               Ai shot him a thumbs-up before he left. Suzuki remained where he was. He didn’t know how long he sat in the courtyard, staring at the flowerbeds. His phone buzzed, snapping him out of it.

               It was Yamato. Suzuki had been expecting his manager. His heart thumped rapidly. He opened the message. Hey Suzuki, can you come to the music room?

               He was torn. Should he go? Yamato had asked him, but what if it was just to say that they shouldn’t hang out anymore. Or worse, that he didn’t return Suzuki’s feelings, which were apparently so obvious that they could be seen from space? Eventually, Suzuki gathered his courage and went to the music room.

               School had finished for the day, so the music room was deserted, except for Yamato and Suzuki. It was quiet. All the clubs were meeting on the other side of Ikemen. Yamato was leaning against the piano, fiddling something. When Suzuki got closer, he realized it was his MP3 player.

               “Hey,” Yamato said. He sounded nervous. “Sorry for ghosting you. I was working on an important project.”

               A bit of relief crept into Suzuki’s veins. “Really? Why didn’t you just say so?”

               Yamato blushed. “Well, uh, it was kind of a surprise. I didn’t know whether it would work out. I, um… here.” He held out the MP3 player. “Listen.”

               Suzuki took it. He put an earbud in. There was only one track on the device, untitled. He hit play. A second later, the sound of Yamato’s voice filled his ears. Yamato’s singing voice was wonderful and familiar, but the backing track didn’t sound like his style at all. It sounded more like Suzuki’s music than his, though there was a hint of Yamato there, too. The more Suzuki listened, the more it grew on him. The lyrics were about stars burning bright for centuries, their light stretching across galaxies long after their death, and gazing at the same sky as someone you loved. A lump formed in his throat.

               “What do you think?” Yamato asked when Suzuki finished.

               “Amazing, like always,” Suzuki said. “Is this going to be on your next album?”

               “Actually…” Yamato scuffed the floor. “I was thinking it could be on yours. I wrote it for you to sing, if you want it. I figured it was the least I could do, after you made me that mixtape for my birthday.”

               Suzuki couldn’t believe it. Yamato had written him a song. Not just one to listen to, but one to sing. The lump in his throat got bigger. “W-what’s the occasion?” he asked, his voice trembling.

               “No reason. I just wanted to do something special, I guess. Do you like it?”

               Suzuki nodded vigorously. He couldn’t speak. Before he could stop himself, tears began to flow down his cheeks. I’m so dumb. I thought he was ditching me this whole time, and he was working on a song. For me. He covered his face, but it didn’t stop the noise from escaping. It was like a dam had burst; all of Suzuki’s feelings rushed out in one go.

               “What are you crying for?” Yamato asked, gently removing Suzuki’s hands from his face.

               Suzuki hiccupped. He was so embarrassed. He hadn’t meant to cry. “I…” he tried to say. “I was afraid you were tired of me.”

               Yamato sighed. “I’m not tired of you, Suzu. Have you been paying attention to what those losers online are saying? I told you they’re full of it. Come here.”

               He folded Suzuki into his arms. Suzuki let out another involuntary sob. He buried his face in Yamato’s shoulder. It was sturdy and strong. His t-shirt was soft. Yamato alternated between patting his back and rubbing circles.

               Eventually, Suzuki cried himself out. He stepped back. Yamato let him go, but he kept his hands on Suzuki’s arms. He was looking at him with concern.

               “Are you okay?”

               Suzuki nodded and sniffed. “I’ll be fine. I didn’t want it to get to me, but I guess…”

               “They’re just bitter and pathetic people who have nothing better to do with their time.” Yamato gathered Suzuki’s hands and held them against his chest. “They’re not real. This is. And any fan of mine who talks that way about you isn’t a real fan. If they can’t love you as much as I do, then that’s their problem.”

               Suzuki blinked. He wanted to wipe away a few stray tears, but he didn’t want Yamato to let go of him. “You love me?” he asked, half-stunned.

               The realization seemed to come over Yamato at the exact same moment. A blush covered his cheeks. “Did I say that?”

               “You did.”

               “Well… I mean, of course I do. You’re my best friend.” To Suzuki’s dismay, Yamato dropped his hands. He ran his fingers through his hair, disturbing the spikes. “I thought you already knew that.”

               “I do now.” Suzuki smiled, trying to mask his disappointment. I shouldn’t be disappointed at all. Yamato’s friendship is super important to me, too. “I love you, too.”

               Yamato blushed deeper. “Alright, alright. Let’s not get carried away.”

               Suzuki laughed. This was good. He knew now that Yamato wasn’t going to abandon him. They were still friends. They could continue performing together at school. It would be fun. At least I had a chance to say it to him out loud, even if he doesn’t know how much I really mean it.

               Suzuki blocked the anti-café. He had to stop using it to punish himself. Besides, he couldn’t forgive them for leading him to believe Yamato didn’t care about him. He made sure to delete his account too, just in case the urge overpowered him, and he lifted the block.

               It’s been fun, he thought. He instantly felt better. Things returned to normal. Suzuki approached his manager with Yamato’s song. He leaned heavily on the idea of marketing it as a collaboration and watched as the yen signs appeared in her eyes. After that, she shocked him by giving him permission to go to Hawai’i.

               “If the song does well, we’ll find time for a vacation,” she promised. “I couldn’t answer you before, since there was a lot up in the air, but you deserve some time off.”

               “And I can go with Yamato?”

               “If your schedules line up, I don’t see why not.”

               The next morning, he told Yamato by throwing himself into his arms and shouting, “We’re going to Hawai’i!”

               “Your manager said yes?” Yamato said, brightening.

               Suzuki nodded. “She said that if the collab works out, then I can go with you. As long as we’re free at the same time. Hawai’i, Yama! Hawai’i!”

               Yamato actually swung him around the classroom but stopped short when their homeroom teacher gave them a death-glare. Suzuki let go and jumped back.

               “Oops. Sorry, sensei.”

               “You’d better concentrate on passing your exams before talking about Hawai’i,” the teacher warned. “And don’t do that again. You could’ve knocked over the desks.”

               It didn’t bring Suzuki’s mood down at all. He was walking on air. Later, when his and Yama’s managers called about some kind of music industry party, he agreed to go without hesitation. Yamato was a little more reluctant, but he caved when Suzuki said they could go together.

               All in all, life was good. Suzuki still wanted to kiss Yamato. He still wanted to hug him as tightly as possible and tell him how he felt, but he couldn’t bear to mess everything up. Why sabotage a good thing? Yamato clearly only thought of him as a friend.

               And that was fine. Everything was fine.

               Suzuki enjoyed getting dressed up for public appearances. Yamato didn’t. He always looked uncomfortable in suits. Uncomfortable, yet handsome. Suzuki’s heart felt like it was going to leap out of his chest.

               “I hate ties,” Yamato muttered, playing with the end of his.

               “Then don’t wear one,” Suzuki said. He stepped forward and undid the knot. “It’s a formal party, but no one will care. See, I think you look just fine without it. Undo a couple buttons, and voila! Rock superstar Yamato is red carpet ready!”

               Suzuki might have been mistaken, but Yamato appeared flustered. He turned towards the limousine their managers had arranged to drive them to the event and held open the door for Suzuki.

               “After you,” he said.

               It was after sunset and traffic was bad. Suzuki checked the time. Unless they learned how to teleport, they were going to be late. Oh well, in that case they’d make an even more striking entrance. Suzuki stretched out, putting his feet up on the seat. They were barely moving.

               Yamato, meanwhile, was reading something on his phone. Suzuki didn’t know what it was, but it appeared to be irritating him. He kept frowning. Finally,          Yamato tossed the phone into the corner and folded his arms. He huffed, a deep furrow forming between his eyebrows. Suzuki was torn between laughing at his grumpiness and wanting to comfort him.

               “What’s up, Yama-kun?” Suzuki asked.

               “Oh, it’s…” He stopped, turning pink. “It’s stupid.”

               “You did something stupid?” Suzuki knew he sounded a bit too eager, but he couldn’t help it. He was dying to know.

               Yamato rolled his eyes. “Yes, actually.”

               “Are you going to tell me about it or am I going to have to tickle you for information?” Suzuki wiggled his fingers to demonstrate.

               “Don’t!” Yamato pulled his legs up onto the seat, as if to shield himself from Suzuki’s attack. “Jesus, Suzuki we’re in public.”

               “No, we’re not. The windows are tinted and the partition’s up. Now tell me what made you so mad.”

               Yamato relaxed. He retrieved his phone—which was undamaged—and passed it to Suzuki. Suzuki’s eyes widened. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing: an anti-Yamato fansite. For a few seconds, he just stared at it. Then he began to actually process the words he was looking at.

               Yamato’s style totally clashes with Suzuki’s. Don’t know why they’re friends.

               Do u remember when he was talking about how “””fake””” Zuzu is? He said in a press conference that ur not a real artist if u don’t write and produce ur own songs. What a snob. Did he ever apologize for that?

               Suzuki laughed out loud. He glanced at Yamato. “They have a point. Did you ever apologize to me?”

               “It’s not funny.”

               “It is!” Suzuki kept scrolling. “This whole time you were telling me not to pay attention to the haters and you didn’t even follow your own advice. Aww, Yama, don’t feel bad. Wait a minute.”

               There was a new reply to one of the comments by a user named, “st4rpower826.”

               Do you guys ever get tired of talking trash behind the safety of your computer screens? Why don’t you say this stuff to Suzuki’s face and see how he takes it. Last I heard, he and Yamato were still really close. He doesn’t get mad until you insult his friends. If you actually cared about him, you wouldn’t do this.

               It had a bunch of negative replies. Suzuki looked at Yamato again. Yamato was chewing on his lip.

               “Is this you?” Suzuki asked, pointing at the screen.

               “That could be anyone.”

               “It’s you! You made an account!” Suzuki grabbed Yamato’s shoulder and shook it. He was laughing uncontrollably now. “You made an account so you could fight with them! Oh my God. That’s my birthday in your username!”

               Yamato’s ears were growing steadily redder. “You have to make an account to read the message boards,” he muttered. “You know that. Someone was going to come along and tell them off eventually. Might as well be me.”

               “How did you get that username? That’s, like, a prime fandom username. When I went on the anti-Suzuki boards, YamaFan#1 was taken.”

               “No one else spelled with a four for the A.”

               Suzuki was still giggling. He continued scrolling. “How long did you have this?”

               “I went searching for one about me the same night you went on yours. I was curious.” Yamato smiled sheepishly. “I could take all the garbage they spewed about me but when they started throwing you into the mix, I got really upset. So I fought back. Didn’t do much good though.”

               “These people say we’re so different, but we actually have lots in common, huh?”

               “Yeah…”

               “Oh, here’s a familiar one: ‘Suzuki is friends with Yamato for fanservice. Yamato wouldn’t be as popular if people didn’t think he was gay for Suzuki.’ People were saying the same stuff on my anti-site.”

               Yamato’s blush had spread down his neck. “They’re crazy.”

               “I know.” Suzuki turned the screen off. “You shouldn’t get into fights with people online, even if they are being jerks. We know the truth.”

               Yamato nodded. He rubbed the back of his neck. “You know, it was really stupid, but I started to get scared that they might be right. Just for a second. Seeing all that old stuff I said made me wonder if you were still angry with me, and you were pretending not to hate me for the sake of getting along.”

               “I don’t hate you, Yama.” Suzuki kneaded Yamato’s shoulder. “I’ve always thought you were cool, even when you were criticizing me. I could never hate you. Do you wanna know why?”

               “Sure,” Yamato said, his lips quirking into a smile.

               Suzuki kissed him. His heart was pounding a mile a minute, but he had never felt more sure of anything in his life before. The hand on Yamato’s shoulder was steady. When he pulled away, Yamato was staring at him, his eyes huge.

               “It’s because I love you,” Suzuki said. And because he couldn’t help it, he winked.

               The words were barely out of his mouth before Yamato returned the kiss. It took Suzuki by surprise, almost knocking him backward. He managed to hold himself up by catching hold of Yamato’s other shoulder. The realization that Yamato was kissing him sank in about two seconds later. Suzuki’s imagination had been lacking. Actually kissing Yamato was better than anything he could’ve dreamed up.

               Yamato was holding him, one hand braced against the small of Suzuki’s back, the other cupping his chin. His mouth was soft and smooth and warm. Suzuki tasted a hint of lip balm. He leaned into the kiss, following Yamato’s movements. Then, Yamato pulled Suzuki onto his lap. Both hands slid to Suzuki’s hips.

               “Suzuki,” Yamato breathed.

               “What?”

               “I don’t want to go to this party. Do you?”

               Suzuki didn’t have to think about it. “No.”

               He gave Yamato another lingering kiss as he got off his lap, then went to knock on the partition. It rolled down about halfway. Suzuki held up a hand in apology.

               “Sorry,” he said, “but could you take us back to Yamato’s place?”

               The next morning was strange. After they’d been dropped off at Yamato’s house, he and Suzuki had spent the rest of the night watching movies and making out. When they were too tired to keep their eyes open a second longer, Yamato let Suzuki borrow a t-shirt and pair of pajama pants, and they had fallen asleep in his room.

               Suzuki woke up thinking last night had been a dream. He wasn’t surprised by coming to in Yamato’s room. (They had sleepovers all the time.) What reminded him that it was real was feeling the weight of Yamato’s arm around him. Suzuki bit back a fresh fit of giggles. He couldn’t believe it. He had kissed Yamato last night. Yamato had kissed him back.

               Yamato stirred and lifted his head. It seemed to take him a minute as well. Then he smiled. He kissed Suzuki’s cheek. “Good morning,” he said softly.

               “Good morning,” Suzuki repeated. He wondered if they could get away with staying in bed all day. Their phones had been blowing up all night, to the point where they’d set them to silent and left them in the living room.

               Yamato groped for his alarm clock. “It’s almost noon.”

               “My manager is probably going crazy right now because I didn’t show up.” He laughed at that. She was going to kill him later, but there were other things on his mind right now. “Is there anything important going on today?”

               “No. There’s just you.” Yamato nestled himself against Suzuki again.

               “We can stay in today,” Suzuki suggested. “We’ll play video games and make pancakes.”

               “And make out,” Yamato added. He stuck his tongue out and wiggled it around.

               Suzuki slapped his hand over Yamato’s mouth, laughing helplessly. “Gross! Don’t do that. You’re not a member of KISS.”

               Yamato laughed as well. He let go of Suzuki and rolled out of bed. “Come on. I’ll make you pancakes. I bought blueberries.”

The apartment complex was quiet. Everyone was either sleeping in or out. Suzuki helped Yamato get out the mixing bowl and the skillet. There were, in fact, blueberries in the fridge. (Suzuki may have helped himself to a few before putting some in the batter.) Yamato started a pot of coffee, promising Suzuki that he still had the French vanilla creamer he liked.

               While they were waiting to flip the first pancake, Suzuki decided to bring up the question that had been on his mind since he’d gotten out of bed. “So… are we boyfriends now?”

               To his credit, Yamato wasn’t caught off-guard, though he did hesitate. “I don’t know. I want to be,” he said. “Things are different for us.”

               “I’d be fine dating you in secret. Plenty of celebrities do it.”

               “Me too, but I don’t know how long we could keep it up. There’s a lot of stress involved.” Yamato did the flip. It was clean. He passed the spatula to Suzuki. “It would definitely make some of our fans happy.”

               Suzuki grinned. “Maybe that’s how we should justify it to our managers.”

               “Yikes,” Yamato said. “Honestly, I don’t want to think about it right now. I just want to eat and destroy you at Mario Kart again. We can talk about the serious stuff later.”

               “Can’t you go easy on me?” Suzuki whined. “I’m your boyfriend.”

               “What makes you think I’d go easy on you just because we’re dating now? I never let you win when we were friends and that’s not going to change now.”

               “You’re so mean.” Suzuki pulled his eyelid and stuck out his tongue. “Yama-kun’s a bad boyfriend. I’m gonna tell the whole world, so no one will steal you from me.”

               Yamato laughed. He put an arm around Suzuki’s waist and brought him in for a kiss. “No one could steal me from you,” he said when they separated. “I love you.”

               Suzuki put his head on Yamato’s shoulder. Life was good. The world might as well be limited to this small kitchen. To him and Yamato, and no one else. “Love you, too.”

#notice me senpai #skillshot labs #fanfic #oneshot #fluff #light angst

[newstfionline]

‘We Are All Accumulating Mountains of Things’

By Alana Semuels, The Atlantic, Aug. 21, 2018

It’s easier than ever to buy things online. It’s so easy that Ryan Cassata sometimes does it in his sleep. Cassata, a 24-year-old singer/songwriter and actor from Los Angeles, recently got a notification from Amazon that a package had been shipped to his apartment, but he didn’t remember buying anything. When he logged onto his account and saw that a fanny pack and some socks were on the way, he remembered: A few nights back, he had woken up in the middle of the night to browse--and apparently shop on--Amazon.

He shops when he’s awake, too, buying little gadgets like an onion chopper, discounted staples like a 240-pack of gum, and decorations like a Himalayan salt lamp. The other day, he almost bought a pizza pool float, until he remembered that he doesn’t have a pool. “I don’t really need most of the stuff,” he tells me.

Thanks to a perfect storm of factors, Americans are amassing a lot of stuff. Before the advent of the internet, we had to set aside time to go browse the aisles of a physical store, which was only open a certain number of hours a day. Now, we can shop from anywhere, anytime--while we’re at work, or exercising, or even sleeping. We can tell Alexa we need new underwear, and in a few days, it will arrive on our doorstep. And because of the globalization of manufacturing, that underwear is cheaper than ever before--so cheap that we add it to our online shopping carts without a second thought. “There’s no reason not to shop--because clothing is so cheap, you feel like, ‘why not?’ There’s nothing lost in terms of the hit on your bank account,” Elizabeth Cline, the author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, told me.

Shopping online also feels good. Humans get a dopamine hit from buying stuff, according to research by Ann-Christine Duhaime, a professor of neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School. “As a general rule, your brain tweaks you to want more, more, more--indeed, more than those around you--both of ‘stuff’ and of stimulation and novelty,” Duhaime wrote in a Harvard Business Review essay last year. Online shopping allows us to get that dopamine hit, and then also experience delayed gratification when the order arrives a few days later, which may make it more physiologically rewarding than shopping in stores.

Sites like Amazon have made it especially easy to shop. In 1999, the Seattle retailer patented a one-click buying process, which allows customers to purchase something without entering their shipping address or credit card info. It launched its Prime program in 2005, and now more than 100 million people have signed on to pay $119 a year for “free” two-day shipping. As a result, most other major retailers offer free shipping too. Returning stuff is a little more difficult--shoppers usually have to print a label and then go to the post office or a UPS or FedEx site to return packages. Many wait too long, or decide the hassle isn’t worth it because the stuff was cheap anyway. A recent NPR/Marist poll found that nine in 10 consumers rarely or never return stuff they’ve bought online.

Justine Montoya, a caregiver in Los Angeles, buys all sorts of stuff online--baby formula, clothes, household goods. She estimates that she shops online twice a week. “It’s just so easy--you click a button, and it’s on its way,” she told me.

In the last few months alone, I bought an $18 smart watch from Wish.com that I will probably never use, a second Kindle because it was on sale and I am worried my first Kindle is going to die soon, an electric space heater I no longer need, and a pair of wireless earbuds that I had hoped would allow me to charge my iPhone and listen to music at the same time, but that instead just fall out of my ears whenever I put them on. I also bought, on Amazon, a (used) book about hiking in the Sierras for $1.99, only to find the exact same book in a box of my stuff in my parents’ basement. I didn’t return any of it.

In 2017, Americans spent $240 billion--twice as much as they’d spent in 2002--on goods like jewelry, watches, books, luggage, and telephones and related communication equipment, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which adjusted those numbers for inflation. Over that time, the population grew just 13 percent. Spending on personal care products also doubled over that time period. Americans spent, on average, $971.87 on clothes last year, buying nearly 66 garments, according to the American Apparel and Footwear Association. That’s 20 percent more money than they spent in 2000. The average American bought 7.4 pairs of shoes last year, up from 6.6 pairs in 2000.

All told, “we are all accumulating mountains of things,” said Mark A. Cohen, the director of retail studies at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business. He sometimes asks his students to count the number of things they have on them in class, and once they start counting up gadgets and cords and accessories, they end up near 50. “Americans have become a society of hoarders,” Cohen said. Montoya said she has more stuff now that she has started shopping online: “It’s easier to accumulate more, and it’s easier to spend more.”

At the same time we are amassing all this stuff, Americans are taking up more space. Last year, the average size of a single-family house in America was 2,426 square feet, a 23 percent increase in size from two decades ago, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. The number of self-storage units is rapidly increasing too: There are around 52,000 such facilities nationally; two decades ago, there were half that number.

Of course, not everyone is a part of this hoarding revolution. There are people who can’t or don’t shop online, because they don’t have credit cards or because they are barely making ends meet. Only about 29 percent of households with incomes under $25,000 are members of Amazon Prime, according to Kantar Consulting. Some people are embracing the zero waste movement, or have followed the example of the author Ann Patchett, who published a widely-circulated op-ed in The New York Times about how she resolved to stop shopping for a year. When she ceased buying things like lip gloss and lotion and hair products, she started finding half-used versions of them under the sink, and realized she hadn’t needed new things after all. “The things we buy and buy and buy are like a thick coat of Vaseline smeared on glass,” she wrote. “We can see some shapes out there, light and dark, but in our constant craving for what we may still want, we miss life’s details.”

But most Americans are not curtailing their shopping habits. And as consumers demand cheaper clothing, electronics, and other goods, manufacturers are spending less to make them, which sometimes means they fall apart more quickly. The share of large household appliances that had to be replaced within five years grew to 13 percent in 2013, up from seven percent in 2004. Cheap clothes might lose their shape after a wash or two, or get holes after a few tumbles in the dryer; electronics become obsolete quickly and need to be replaced. While some of this stuff can be recycled or resold, often, it ends up in landfills. In 2015, the most recent year for which data is available, Americans put 16 million tons of textiles in the municipal waste stream, a 68 percent increased from 2000. We tossed 34.5 million tons of plastics, a 35 percent increase from 2000, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency. Over that same time period, the population grew just 14 percent.

“Sometimes, people sit down and cry when they see the amount of garbage we produce in a day,” said Robert Reed, a spokesman for Recology, which handles recycling for West Coast cities like San Francisco. Centered in America’s tech capital, Recology has seen an increase in discarded electronics, including products with lithium batteries, Reed told me. In 2016, a lithium battery fire burnt down a waste management facility in San Mateo.

The 16,000 students who live in dorms at Michigan State University left behind 147,946 pounds of goods like clothing, towels, and appliances when they moved out this year, a 40 percent increase from 2016, according to Kat Cooper, a spokeswoman. The university packs up these goods and donates to them to its surplus store, so that incoming students can buy used, rather than new, stuff. In recent years, dorm cleaners have been finding so many packages of unopened food and toiletries that the university started a program to get students to donate leftover food and toiletries to local organizations like food banks when they move out. This year, it collected 900 pounds of personal care items and 4,000 pounds of nonperishable food items to donate. Pomona College has seen the volume of packages delivered grow by 325 percent in the last 12 years, according to Patricia Vest, a spokeswoman; it, too, asks students to donate unused goods to a resale program. This year, it diverted 42 tons of clothes, furniture, and office supplies.

The Internet has also made it easier to recycle some of the stuff Americans buy and no longer want. Online consignment shops like thredUP and Poshmark help people buy and sell clothes from their closets. Secondhand stores like Goodwill have moved online, too, selling the growing pile of goods they get on the Internet.

But the ability to easily get rid of stuff may be making people feel a little better about buying things they don’t need, and motivating them to buy even more. On a recent weekday, I stopped by the massive warehouse where workers from Goodwill of San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin sort donations to Bay Area stores. Some of the stuff that’s been donated has never been used. Near the front of the warehouse stands a rack of clothes with their original tags on--a $245 blue Nicole Miller cocktail dress, $88 Kit and Ace pants, a pale green J. Jill blouse. “We are seeing items that have been barely used or not used, because when people shop online, it’s a lot of work to return it,” William Rogers, the president of the Goodwill, told me. Rogers himself is guilty--when we met at the warehouse, he dropped off four wall sconces he’d bought a year ago on Amazon. He had tried to put them up, decided they didn’t look good, and brought them to donate.

Secondhand shops can’t resell all of the donations they get. Cline estimates that 85 percent of the clothing that is donated to secondhand stores ends up in landfills every year. Just nine percent of plastic that ends up in the municipal waste stream gets recycled, according to the EPA, and only 15 percent of textiles get recycled. It can be difficult to take apart clothes and re-use the fabrics, Cline said, so lots of clothing in the waste stream gets sent to the developing world, used for rags, or sent to a landfill.

Fifty years ago, the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick coined a phrase for these “useless objects” that accumulate in a house: “kipple.” In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which served as the basis for the movie Blade Runner, he theorized that “the entire universe is moving toward a state of total, absolute kippleization.” Kipple reproduced, Dick wrote, when nobody was around. The ubiquity of mobile devices and the ease of online shopping have made Dick’s prediction come true, with one small tweak: Our kipple does not just multiply on its own, every time we turn away. We grow it ourselves, buying more and more of it, because we can.

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