#way to peak our interest chris

[astrolynnworld]

soft secrets

pairing: sub!chris x reader

summary: chris gets caught using the readers vibrator when they’re gone

warnings: smut, toy use, sneaky, caught, sex, sub chris, dom reader, language, “mommy” use, riding, reassurance, little bit of romance,

word count: 1,213

chris’s pov:

when y/n said she had to go to the store real quick i knew i had 30 minutes max before she came back

i knew it was wrong but i enjoyed when y/n wasn’t here because i get to do the stuff i would never have the confidence to tell her

such as.. use her hidden vibrators

don’t know how i came about this secret pleasure of mine but i know it started from my curiosity

that’s usually how i tend to spark interests yet this isn’t an interest i wish i necessarily sparked

as the door shuts indicating y/n’s exit, i rise up out of bed and find myself over at the box of toys that she keeps deep in our closet

i grab pink vibrator that peaks out the top of the box and i return back to the bed

i turn on the vibrator and trace it over the fully formed bulge in my boxers

slowly getting into the sensation i slide my dick out my boxers and trail the vibrator up and down my shaft

i throw my head back against the bed frame as i start to circle my tip that is now leaking precum

that is until i hear the door swing open

———————————————————————

y/n’s pov:

i put on my jacket, take my keys and grab my purse as i kiss chris goodbye

i tell him that i won’t be long because im just running to the store real quick to grab a few essentials

i shut the front door and make the trip to our shared car

i get in, buckle up and start the engine before i o realize that my phone didn’t automatically connect to the bluetooth

i get out the car to see if i dropped it anywhere as i make my way back inside the house

i open the door and see that chris is no longer in the kitchen so i quickly look around to see if i had left it in there

no luck.. so i make my wake to the bedroom

i open the door, “chris have you se-“ i stop abruptly at the scene in front of me

chris starts to tussle around with the blankets trying to hide himself

“what are you doing? i thought you left.” chris tries to distract

“yeah.. i think i left my phone in here so i came back.” i reply unamused by his distraction

a silence fills the room

“is this what you do when im not here? touch yourself with my toys?” i say as i step closer to the now shy boy

“i- .. i w-“ he tries to speak before i interrupt him but pulling the covers away

now revealing his throbbing hard dick leaking precum

“awee did my vibrator do that to you?”

he stares silently

i turn the vibrator back on and place it against his tip to which he shivers from the stimulation

“so tell me baby, do you always touch yourself with my things when i’m gone?”

he shyly nods his head

i turn off the vibrator, “i need you to use your words baby. or im going to stop every time”

“yes. i start to touch myself with your toys every time you walk out that front door” he fusses in response to the lack of attention on his hard cock

“and why haven’t you told me that you like to use my toys?” i say as i start the vibrator back up

“aah- be- because i thought you would judge or not like it” he whines out

“aw i would never judge you baby. you don’t need to be afraid to tell me about any of your guilty pleasures” i say softly as i place a kiss on his lips

as i pull back from the kiss he stares at my lips all foggy eyes, chasing in for another one

i continue to circling and drag the vibrator all on his cock as i kiss his needy lips

“fuck y/n- i need to be inside of you so bad” he throws his head back and whines

“beg for it.” i demand

“aah- please y/n. please slide your wet pussy on me. i need it so fucking bad, i’m aching for you-“

“i don’t know. i think im just-“ i interrupt

“please mommy.” he looks up into my eyes

mommy? he’s never called me mommy before. fuck did that turn me on

“i’ll be such a good boy for you mommy.. just please please please fuck me. i need your pussy so bad” he continues

i bend down and start kissing him on his lips, neck, and shoulders as i undress myself naked

i reposition myself to sit on his stomach while he lays flat on the bed

he starts groping at my boobs so i bend down to give him better access

he starts licking and sucking my nipples, knowing how sensitive they get with oral stimulation.

i start moaning at the feeling of his tongue tickling my nipple

“good boy baby. you’re so good for mommy” i say as i slowly start to adjust his cock with my hole from the back

i start to sit upright so i can get a better angle sliding myself on his cock.

as i sink down, he moans and throws his head further back into the bed

“aah- fuck.” he lets out a gasped whimper

“oh my god baby.” i join in with a whimper

i start gliding myself up and down his cock at a comfortable pace but i could tell chris was struggling to maintain his peace

he kept writhing and making cute little sounds under me

“you’re so fucking hot baby. keep feeling good for me” i speak out

“you’re so fucking tight mommy. it feels too good, i don’t know how long i can last.” he whines out with his eyes shut

“im close too baby” i say as i grab the vibrator that was now set to the side and place it on my clit

“ooh fuck” i tilt my head back as i continue the steady pace of my bounces

i bend back down to sloppily kiss chris

i start to go faster as i feel my orgasm starting to pool from my stomach

“fuck- mo- mommy you’re getting so tight. i’m gonna c- cum, can i cum please miss?” chris mutters out

“yes baby. cum with me” i say as my orgasm washes over me

i feel chris start to thrust up chasing his own orgasm.

our thrusts decreasing as we finish the chase for our highs, just heavy passionate breathing while we calm down.

“you’re so fucking amazing baby i really do love you” chris breaks the silence

i smile and bend down to kiss him, “i love you more chris” i say as i pull away and get off top of him

“see what could happen if you tell me about all your fantasies and guilty pleasures?“ i laugh

“im never gonna judge you. cause 9 times out of 10 i’ve probably already either thought it or want it too.”

he smiles and leans in for another kiss

“now actually where’s my phone? i still need to go to the store.” i conclude

———————————————————————

a/n- i love combining requests into one big juicy story! so i hope you guys enjoyed 🫠

#chris sturniolo #christopher sturniolo #christopher sturniolo fanfic #christopher sturniolo fluff #chris sturniolo fluff #chris sturniolo fanfic #chris sturniolo smut #chris sturniolo x you #chris sturniolo x reader #chris girl #sturniolo smut #sturniolo triplets #smut #matt sturniolo #nick sturniolo #sturniolo fanfic #nicolas sturniolo #matt sturniolo smut #matt sturniolo fanfic #writers on tumblr #male sub #sturniolo triplets fanfic #sturniolo fandom #fanfics #sturniolo x reader #x reader #matt sturniolo x reader #matt girl #fanfic

[f10werfae]

Cookie Monster

pairing: Husband!Chris x Pregnant!Reader

Summary: Chris provides a massive wall of support for his cookie stealing wife

- Requests are open!

Likes, Comments and Re-blogs are appreciated♥️

Chris Evans Masterlist✨

Full Masterlist✨

Taglist Form💕

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

(Y/n's P.O.V)

“Chris have you sorted out the birthing bag?” I shouted opening up the pantry looking for my assortment of chocolate chip cookies, my stomach rumbling when I finally caught eye of them on the shelf nearest to me. My ankles had been killing me recently, the weight of my stomach making me want to just take the baby out myself. Thank God it was winter so I wasn’t overloaded with my own sweat, giving me the opportunity to steal Chris' white sweaters he had stolen from his character Ransom.

Opening the packet humming to myself, I popped a cookie halfway into my mouth

“Caught ya red handed, you cookie monster” Chris said from behind me

(Chris' P.O.V)

After my wife had shouted out about the bag, I double checked our list and set it by the front door. Our baby was about to be here any day now and we were not about to take any risks of being unprepared. I heard rustling in the kitchen peaking my interest, walking in to see my beautiful girl venturing away into our stocked up pantry.

“Caught ya red handed, you cookie monster” I said walking up to her, watching her turn around like a deer at headlights, a cookie held in her mouth.

“Come on let me have one hun, you’ve not shared with me at all” I sighed as her fingers clutched the packet of cookies close to her chest as if they were her most prized possession. She shook her head almost instantly, her brows furrowing in annoyance; she is just adorable.

Bending down I bit off a bit of the cookie in her mouth, smiling victoriously at her as I chewed away

(Y/n's P.O.V)

“Christopher” I pouted watching him chew away smugly, stomping my foot slightly I turned back to put away the cookies. When all of a sudden I felt a gush of liquid between my legs,

“babe did you just wet yourself?”

“Chris, my water just broke” I sais blankly in total disbelief, sure my due date was literally in a few days, but I thought I still had some time left. We both stared at each other with our eyes widened, before Chris came out with

“Well uh- okay let me see, the midwife said to call her ASAP but to blow up the birthing pool in the meantime” He said more to himself, his hands coming to cradle my stomach and back as he led me towards the living room to sit me down onto the couch gently.

“C-Chris I’m scared” I said watching him drag out the deflated pool into the centre of the room before turning on the air generator, letting it pump it up.

“Listen honey, I know you are and hell i’m scared too. But I know you’ll be a damn good mom, and i’ll be with you every step of the way” With a small kiss to my lips he stood up and got his phone to call up Marissa our midwife. Doing my breathing exercises I slowly started to feel the contractions start to slip in, my stomach starting to feel so much pain.

“Okay baby she said she’s on the way, let me fill the pool and we can get you in alright?” Chris said running his hand over my hair softly, quickly running to fill the bath up with water with the machine we had prepared.

We opted for a home birth purely because we thought it would be more comfortable for us three, well four of course with Dodger. We wouldn’t have to worry about paparazzi getting into the room, or waiting outside to bombard us with cameras. We were at the comfort of our own home, everything felt familiar which made it all the more less scary if you ask me.

“Okay gorgeous I know we’re movin fast here, but let’s get you settled as soon as possible yeah?” Nodding at his soft words I let him help me up, his hands pulling down my sweats and underwear along with my oversized sweater to leave me in a bra. I sat down onto the comfortable pool floor, Chris crouching on the wooden floors behind me, his hands running over my collarbones and shoulders; his lips whispering words of comfort constantly.

“You’ve never looked so beautiful baby, reminds me of the day I married ya” His lips

planting themselves onto my cheek before the sound of the doorbell interrupted our intimate moment.

“Ah that should be Marissa” He said getting up and staying in my line of sight as he opened the door. The sweetest woman ever, Marissa was the best woman I could have asked for to accompany me during this. With her already having five kids with her husband of 30 years, she definitely is an inspiration for what I want for Chris and I.

“How you doin mama?” She said shrugging off her jacket and going to sanitise herself in the kitchen. Chris coming back to sit behind me outside the pool, Marissa coming to sit at the side, her hands feeling up how dilated I was.

“Ok you’re already about 5?! Which is quite fast I must say but I wouldn’t worry too much about it”

“Okay okay thank you, so do we just wait”

“Yep hun now we play the waiting game” Marissa said pulling her hand up from the water smiling at me, Chris' hands rubbing up and down my arm comfortingly, the water giving me a nice feeling. “You got this, you are so so beautiful” His lips kissing the shell of my ear, my breathing getting more erratic the quicker the contractions set in.

(3 Hours Later)

“Okay hun it’s time, time to get this baby outta ya” Marissa said enthusiastically getting a new pair of gloves out and putting my legs in a wider position, her form sitting close to mine despite being outside the pool. “You ready mama? I know you can do this” Chris said wrapping his arm around my chest, clasping them below my bra.

“Okay Y/n, push”

Taking in a deep breath I tried my best to push out, the pain crawling up my back and cramping it up.

“F-fuck this is so hard, Chris I-I need you” I whispered throwing my head back, Chris nuzzling his bearded face into my neck, a comforting sign.

“You want me closer to ya?” Not being able to form any words, I nodded into his hold, feeling him stand up a bit to take off his shirt and hold me forward. Slipping in carefully behind me, he pulled me flush against his chest, his arms still clasped under my bra to hold me up to him. The water engulfing us both as I relied on him heavily for both physical and emotional support.

For each contract he rubbed his hand soothingly over my stomach, his other hand squeezing me softly up against him. His lips pressed down onto my shoulder peppering small pecks whenever he wasn’t whispering loving things to me.

“Okay baby I gotcha, i’m right here with ya” He whispered, my teeth clenching as I pushed out even more. Marissa keeping eye view on the baby trying its way out of me.

“Okay girl this baby is comin out fast, it is crowning” She said out loud, her eyes smiling as her mouth did also.

“Don’t worry baby it’ll be over-“

“shut up Chris oh my gosh, we are never having sex again” I said through gritted teeth, my nails pushing into his arms as I heard Marissa say she saw the shoulders, saying something about how the baby was slipping out easily.

Chris' words now aggravating me even more, his hold instead tightening on me supportively.

“Fuck fuck is he out” I said feeling a massive mass of weight make its way out, a massive breath leaving me as I felt extra extra sleepy. Despite the labour feeling fast, it had overall taken around 2-3 hours with the boring painful pushing parts in between.

“C-Chris he’s so beautiful” I smiled tearfully, watching Marissa clean him up a bit and wrap him in the blanket Lisa had made for us, his planned name sewed into it. Gabriel.

“I’m so proud of you baby, so so proud. Givin birth to our gorgeous son like this”

(5 Hours Later)

“I’m in love with him” I cooed watching the sleeping babe coo and make tiny sounds as I sat now dried in our bedroom. Marissa was staying in our guest room, saying she’d check in on us through the night and leave tomorrow afternoon.

“And Im even more in love with you, you’ve blessed me with an amazing son, a family honey” Chris whispered beside me, his hand cupping mine that was holding onto Gabriel. His lips staying pressed onto my temple, Gabriel's coos now filling the room

———

Taglist Tags (Form is up there^^): @dumb-fawkin-bitch @vrittivsanghavi @chrisevansdaughter @kimhtoo17 @itsaylayay1213 @evanstanwhore @mrspeacem1nusone @thereisa8ella @seren-a-ity @patzammit @pandaxnienke

#romance #chris evans imagine #chris evans x reader #chris evans fanfiction #chris evans #chris evans oneshot

[pinkishpearls]

beach ❀ date

chris sturniolo x fem!reader

❀ this is part 1 !! part 2: 🔗

❀ fluff 💐 , just asking out and one flustered arse Chris lol.

masterlist 🍧

Chris’s POV :

I fell in love with a girl when I was 17 and it was amazing. It felt so abrupt, this new feeling piling onto me, and it felt like I was engulfed into a warm, comforting embrace. It felt as if life was at it’s peak, I never wanted life to change. I just wanted to stay like that, I felt comfortable and loved. Although we weren’t properly together, we both knew what we felt for each other, well that’s what I thought before she kissed my best friend. She blamed me though, saying I didn’t give her enough when I gave her everything I could. I was heartbroken to say the least, and I felt like I wouldn’t have a chance at love again. That was before I found Y/n, and my life genuinely felt like it flipped upside down.

Y/n was a girl who helped at our and my brand’s photoshoots, she was there for every single one of them, so I guess I grew quite fond of her. The first time I laid eyes on her, I thought she was beautiful, but my heart didn’t flutter like it does now. I just thought she was a cool person, and we became friends. Business friends. I’m not sure if she reciprocates the feelings I have, but I’m hoping she does when I ask her one question…

-

“Bro, you gotta tell her!” Matt exclaims, a big smile plastered across his face as he’s excited for me too. Nick and Matt know about Y/n, and they always tease me about how ‘I like her’ and I always used to deny it, but now I’m feeding into their fantasies. “You can’t tell her to her face, she’ll probably get scared and slap you into the oblivion!” Nick giggles, making my eyes widen with fear. What if she’s scared? What if she doesn’t even like me? What if I scare her away with a simple: “I like you, let’s date.”. Isn’t that too blunt? “You’ve got to tell her slowly, how about-“ Nick cuts himself off, quietly mumbling to himself of what the answer was going to be, before clicking his hands, signalling he knew what to do. “Yes- I’ve got it! Ask her out on a date!” Nick blurts out, his face plastered with pride and joy as he feels like he’d just come up with the most life-changing idea ever. A date wouldn’t be so bad, it would be nice. Thing is though, I haven’t been on a date since I was 17. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve seen that times have changed and things have got different, along with peoples interests. “Like-like what?” I question, my eyes filled with anticipation. I was desperate for this to work, it was the only idea I had left in my what felt like hollow brain.

After minutes of group talking, we’d come up with an idea of a ‘Beach Date’, seeming as Y/n always wore stuff with hawaiian flowers or coconuts. I was joyful with my idea, praying that she would be too. “Go ask her now!” Matt and Nick both say as they shoo me jokingly with their hands. “Alright- alright! Don’t do anything stupid!” I warn, before making my way to her.

Y/n’s POV:

I sit peacefully on my laptop, editing the new photos for Fresh Love’s photoshoot. I take numerous sips of my coffee, before being interrupted with a shy voice. “H-hi.” I glance over to see Chris scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. “Hey, Chris. Do you need anything, want me to change the designs?” you ask, “No- no. That’s actually not why I’m here.” he breathes, and you notice that his cheeks are flushed rosy pink. “I was wondering uhm, if you’d like to- uhm-“ he cuts himself off, cussing under his breath. “Hey, it’s ok, Chris.” you reassure, placing your hand on Chris’s shoulder which makes him jolt slightly at the unexpected contact. “I was wondering if you’d like to uh- go on a time out with me, for like business. But like just you and me- I want y-you all to myself.” he finally stutters out, and you feel your cheeks heat up. He wants you all to himself? “You want me all to yourself, like a date?” you asks and you can hear the smile in your voice. “U-uh, yeah. Basically.” he says shyly, flashing you a smile which is reciprocated awkwardly. You glance over and Chris’s two twin brothers chortle on the sofa across the room. “Sorry.” he mumbles before turning over and shooting a death stare at both of them, they both (attempt to) shut up. “I was- uhm. Wondering if you wanted to go to the beach with me, y-you know because you always were those tropical stuff.” Chris said, and you blush when you hear the acknowledgement of your fond for ‘tropical stuff’, you didn’t know anyone really noticed that stuff. “Sure, tomorrow at 6pm?” you pried and you see the grin that was plastered on Chris’s face. “Sure, like watching the sunset type beat?” he questioned, “Of course!” you conceded. “See you!” I add on before walking up to him and pecking his cheek softly. “B-bye!” Chris heaved as he watches you walk away.

part 2 coming out soon !

#chris sturniolo #beach #sturniolo triplets #chris sturniolo fanfic #sturniolo triplets fanfic

[missmagooglie]

Ok, so here is something I love about the 6.04 Kitchen Scene (aka Chris Gets Caught):

It has been noted that both of our favorite Diazes are Kings Of Sass. Eddie is a petty, snarky bitch (affectionate) and he has passed his love of snark onto his son.

Up until now, we haven't really seen both Eddie and Chris at Peak Sass at the same time. The interesting thing about this kitchen scene is that we're starting to see how some of the patterns Eddie has fallen into as a parent are gonna become strained and need adjustment as Chris gets older.

The banter was still very light-hearted teasing, but you could kinda see how Chris is getting more opinionated and more willing to challenge Eddie's authority. And you can see, too, how Eddie kinda smarts at that. He responds to Chris criticizing the mayo selection by taking a (again, very mild and teasing) dig at Chris by saying "Great, I'm raising a condiment snob" and then tries to pull it back to a place of reassurance and love by saying "you're lucky you're cute". (Spoiler alert - Chris is quickly approaching the age where that's no longer something he wants to be)

And, like, the phrasing is so important here. Chris says, "YOU got the WRONG mayo". He doesn't say "why'd you get this one?" He doesn't say "Ugh, this one is gross." He tells Eddie he did something *wrong*, which activates Eddie's defenses.

Eddie has done a LOT of work over the past few years toward trusting himself as a father and believing that he is a *good* father, but through it all the one person who has never doubted how good a dad Eddie is has been Christopher himself. The relationship has been "this kid loves me and trusts me so much, and I need to prove myself worthy of the trust he has in me".

Even with the skateboard incident, the reason Chris was so upset when he felt like Eddie had lied was *because* he trusted and believed Eddie so implicitly. And because Eddie was able to level with Chris and find a solution, they were able to repair that trust very quickly.

As Christopher hurtles at lightspeed toward his teen years, he is gonna realize that Eddie is not always right by the simple virtue of being his dad, and for the first time it's going to be CHRISTOPHER telling Eddie he's not good enough at being a dad. And as much as that is a normal and healthy thing for Chris to be going through, it is going to dig directly into all of Eddie's deepest insecurities.

The thing about that snarky teasing way Eddie and Chris were talking to each other in the kitchen? Is that it is SO EASY to take it too far when feelings are hurt. So it will be interesting to see how Eddie navigates those types of conversations when that foundation of love and trust starts to get shaken by Christopher's growing pains....

(Also, ugh the parallels of Eddie and Ramon addressing the mistakes Ramon made as a parent decades after the fact and Eddie making mistakes as a parent but being able to recognize them and adjust while Christopher is still a kid? Immaculate. Gorgeous. Inspired.)

#911onfox #eddie diaz #christopher diaz #911 season 6 #911 season six #911 season 6 speculation #911 season 6 spoilers #911 s6 #also not to make everything about buddie #but Buck has historically been a really good balance for Chris and Eddie when they get snarky #he doesn't join in #but he laughs along and keeps the atmosphere friendly #and i can see him being really good at helping eddie and chris see where the line is before they cross it #or knowing how to smoothly change the subject before teasing turns into arguing

[nanowrimo]

NaNo Interview: Graphic Designer Alyssa Alarcón Santo

NaNoWriMo events would be a lot less colorful without our amazing graphic designers. NaNoWriMo's in-house designer Alyssa Alarcón Santo gives us a peak at her experience at NaNo as well as some of her designer thoughts!

Q: Alyssa, you've been partnering with NaNo for several years now! How did you first begin designing for us?

Back in 2018, I had just gone fully freelance and was trying to get a print shop up and running. I had gotten really into painting these meticulously hand-lettered book stacks and at some point, I posted one on that graphic design site, Dribbble. If I remember correctly, that’s where Nano found me. When I got the email asking if I was interested in designing the event merch that year, I was shocked! I honestly wasn’t even sure it was real until I got on a call with Chris and Shelby.

It’s funny in retrospect, I was so overprepared. I had an entire pitch and design treatment worked up before I had even technically interviewed. That was the design we ended up running with, too.

Q: Do you remember the first NaNo design you ever made?

My first project set was the NaNoWriMo event merch for 2018, so it was the usual items: poster, mug, shirts, etc etc. The theme that year was “NaNoWriMo Is…” and I really wanted to highlight how much it could be at once—planning and writing, procrastinating and collaborating, daydreaming, creating. I wanted to visually lean into the chaos, but y’know, in an orderly fashion. I think we managed that!

Q: What are some of your guiding inspirations behind your NaNo designs?

Before I pivoted into illustration and design, I always thought I would be a writer. I studied creative writing and modernist literature in college, then went on to study comics and narrative design in art school. Because of that background, I always try to keep in mind 1) what story is this design telling and 2) how can we make that story a little more fun? 

Q: How has your style changed over time?

I actually think my entire focus has changed over the last five years. When I started designing for NaNoWriMo, I was primarily an illustrator and I spent a lot of time working on hand-lettering-centric projects. I still enjoy lettering and illustration—I still consider myself an artist at the roots—but the bulk of my work is actually in book design and typographic design these days. I’ve been finding it extraordinarily satisfying to assemble and format books of any kind, including comics!

Q: Have you ever attempted an official NaNoWriMo project? If so, how did it go? If not, is that something you see yourself trying in the future?

Oh, absolutely, I have! I started participating in NaNoWriMo when I was 15 years old, way back in 2006. I participated every year up until I was about 23, when work responsibilities started getting in the way. I think the only year I hit the 50k goal was when I was ~18, but I still have the fragments of a dozen novels floating around on various hard drives. I did actually stretch my writing muscles a little during Nano last year and it felt good. I’ll probably join in again this year and see how far I can get.

Q: You've designed graphics for objects, paper, digital, and more. As a designer, what's going on in your head as you design for 2-d versus 3-d projects? Do you have a favorite type of design project?

When you’re designing anything, you always have to keep the end result in mind so there are questions you ask yourself throughout: How will this design be used? What kind of file will it need to be? Am I setting everything up to best satisfy the specs? You think that way for both digital and physical designs, but the questions are different. For digital designs, you think about color spaces, dimensions, resolution.

For physical objects, you think about color conversion, margins and bleeds, composition and how it translates when interacted with. (For example, if you’re designing a mug, you have to keep in mind where the handle is, where the design will land around the cylinder, and what the user sees when they pick it up.)

I personally prefer to design for 3D objects, which is a fun thing I’ve learned from this NaNoWriMo job! It feels so validating to hold the thing you’ve been working on in your hands. I think my favorite of the projects I’ve done for NaNoWriMo so far was the 1k piece puzzle we put out earlier this year. That was a challenge, making sure that there were enough details and gradients and textures to keep it interesting.

Q: If Helvetica and Arial were in a fight, who would win and why?

Helvetica, all the way! It was designed to be highly legible in traditional printing, which I prefer as a dyslexic print designer. Arial is nice on a screen, but I just find Helvetica more versatile. (That said, if we’re really talking about who would win in a type fight, the answer is serifs, like Times New Roman, over sans serifs! Those serifs are pointier. Much better for fighting.) Alyssa Alarcón Santo is a Los Angeles raised, Portland based designer-of-many-hats. Over the years, she has worked as an illustrator, graphic designer, photographer, and now book designer, and she is always looking for fun ways to combine those skills. A throughline running across her work, regardless of medium, is a love of words. She currently serves as In-House Designer for NaNoWriMo and Creative Director of science-fiction magazine Planet Scumm. You can find her work on instagram @alyssasantodesign.

#nanowrimo #camp nanowrimo #graphic design #design #interview #by nano hq #Alyssa Alarcón Santo

[boydepartment]

I’m Sorry, I’m Late- Hwang Hyunjin: Chapter Five(last chapter)

Description: Y/n is a student teacher in a small town in France. Hwang Hyunjin is an idol who decided to run away after trouble started to arise again. He finds himself in the class where she helps, quickly they peaked each other’s interests. Both of them ran from something and it landed them in this small town in the middle of practically nowhere. One thing they both know is that the past always catches up and it is only a matter of time, so they better make the most of it.

Warnings for Chapter 5: nothing

WC- 5k

tags and links at the bottom of the chapter

Song-  (LeeHi) - 'ONLY'

                                                                                                ~+~

Chapter 5: I’m Sorry, I’m Late

“Jinnie-“your voice got caught in your throat. There he was, in front of you. His hair was different, but the curves of his face and his moles were exactly where you remembered him. You tried to draw him many times over the past year; you could never perfect him.

                “I’m sorry, I’m late.” He spoke, his voice was just as you remembered it. God…

In a shock to yourself your face contorted, “late for what Hyunjin.” Your cold voice stunned you.

                “I had a feeling you would be upset with me.” His voice was calm, he looked somewhat different, his hair was blond and long. It was a total 180 from the short choppy dark hair of Jinnie.

                “Can I come in?” he asked softly. You took a deep breath and stepped aside. He walked in, his clothes were different too. More chic, he looked expensive.

You walked over to your phone to see that Namjoon asked to reschedule, what rotten timing.

                “You still have our piece we made together, over the mantel.” He noted. Your heart wanted to be so mad at him. You were livid, he had left for a year, no words, no letters, nothing. Hyunjin just watched you from afar as you did him. It’s not like you had any way to contact him. He could’ve easily contacted you, but he didn’t.

                “Why are you here?” You asked trying to sound stern, it wasn’t real though. When it came to him your heart was on your sleeve. Your cold tortured artist façade now crumbled completely; it always did when your heart missed him.

                “I’m here for your exhibit.” He turned around and looked at you, now leaning on the arm of the couch, “your home is nice.”

                “My exhibit isn’t until a few days.” Your voice once again slightly quivering. You felt your posture stiffen.

                “I know that.” Hyunjin walked toward you, your eyes weren’t on him, but you could hear his shoes. His now expensive, shiny, pointy, stupidly classy shoes.

You finally gained enough courage to look at him, his brown eyes looking straight into you. The rolls were reversed now, your heart was the scared dog.

                “I said I was late because I heard from the grape vine about Namjoon visiting for your exhibit.”

Your eyes widened, how? It was one day…

                “My friend is friends with Namjoon’s friend. He apparently talks nonstop about you and your work. When Chris, my friend, told me, I came here as soon as possible.” He went to grab your hand and you pushed it away.

                “So, you only came here when you found out someone who has an interest in me was now getting to see me?” Obviously, this hurt you. It felt selfish and that wasn’t the Jinnie you knew.

                “Y/n you know I don’t mean it like that…” Hyunjin’s voice was pained. It broke you a little more knowing it was because of your own words. You walked past him, and you heard his footsteps following you. Whipping around you poked his chest.

                “You didn’t even reach out to me! You bought one of my works second hand! You knew exactly where to find me!” Your voice raised, “I waited for you!”

                “I know you did, and I am so sorry, I got caught up in so many schedules. And it was a lot. My parents missed me, and I missed my friends and the next thing I knew- “

                “And then you have the absolute AUDACITY to come to my home when I just started getting over you!” You backed him to the edge of the couch again.

Hyunjin looked at you with wide eyes, then they trailed down to your neck, “are you sure about that?” His voice was just above a whisper. Your brows furrowed and your hand came up to touch what his eyes were glued to.

                It was the necklace he gave you, in your defense you never take it off. It just became apart of you, just like he did.

                “Don’t think I didn’t notice my works wrapped up under the couch either.” He wasn’t walking on eggshells anymore, he was stomping. Your eye twitched.

                “What do you even want to get out of this Hyunjin!?” You didn’t look at him.

You felt his warm hand softly grab yours, he was back on eggshells again, his grip was as if you were blown glass.

                “I want you just as I always have.”

That was it, there was absolutely no getting over him. Any progress you made in the past year was gone. You looked away from him.

                “Please… Look at me…” He was trying not to cry, “say anything please.”

                “Not even a text? Or a letter?” Your voice broke, the floodgates had opened wetting your face.

Hyunjin wiped your tears as quickly as they leaked out of his favorite pair of eyes, “I tried, I didn’t know what to say. I will admit I am being impulsive and stupid. I shouldn’t have dropped everything the second I heard Namjoon was going to be at your meeting.”

Your brows furrowed again, and you looked up at him, “you dropped everything?”

                “Yes, in a heartbeat, the second Chris told me I booked a plane ticket without telling anyone. I was scared and I couldn’t- I couldn’t let you- “

The anger was back, and you pushed his hands off his face, “you couldn’t let me get over you!?” You turned your back to him and hugged yourself.

                “I couldn’t let someone else have you! Y/n, I messed up so badly. I know I did, I hurt you and left you with a stupid note and I didn’t even think about how much it would hurt you in the morning. I was overwhelmed. I should have visited you right when I knew you were here.” Hyunjin was desperately trying to get you to hear him out. Your heart was in a war between loving him and hating him.

Hating him was fueled by how much you were in love with him though.

                “You have until my exhibit, to fix this. To prove to me that you won’t just leave again with a stupid note.” You turned around and his eyes filled with hope. The same hope before yours and his relationship was tainted.

You ended up having to let Hyunjin stay in your guest room, he didn’t book any kind of hotel or anything. He truly just bought a ticket to France, to you. The rest of that day was spent with him walking around your home and taking what you presumed to be mental notes.

Your outing with Namjoon was going to get rescheduled at your exhibit. At this point, your childish heart wanted the entire Earth to stop so you wouldn’t have to be with anyone but Hyunjin. But the adult brain in you told you that Hyunjin needed to prove that he wouldn’t just leave again.

~*~

The next morning you woke up and flipped over, totally forgetting yesterday’s events. When you heard music playing from your living room you got scared. You sprung up and rushed in, no one was in the living room. It was BRIGHT too, usually you have the curtains closed.

When you entered the kitchen, there he was. You weren’t dreaming.

                “Oh, did I wake you?” He turned around, his beautiful face more visible to you now. You mentally thanked the headband he had on.

                “No, I just-“ you didn’t know what to say.

                “I opened your curtains in the living room and in here, you have beautiful views of the city.” Hyunjin smiled at you and set a plate down at your small table, meant for two.

                “You made breakfast?” You asked, eyeing the plate. Your eyes then went up to him, he looked tired, he was still in his pajamas. Hyunjin nodded.

                “I am really jetlagged, so it was hard sleeping. I woke up really early and so I made breakfast.” Even through his drowsiness he smiled for you. You mumbled a thank you and sat down. You saw that he made a really good-looking fruit bowl with oatmeal.

                “I have hard boiled eggs in the fridge too. All picked up this morning. I didn’t want to use your food without permission.” He said and set down spoons and forks for you both.

                “You could have… It’s okay…” Your voice was quiet.

                “Do you have any plans today?” Hyunjin asked you. You took a bite of the fruit in the fruit bowl. He even picked the best fruit for you. You shook your head no.

                “Would you want to take a walk with me today? I was thinking about getting ice cream or a genuine French Crepe.” He took a sip of his tea.

                “Aren’t you worried about being recognized with me? Don’t you have fans?” You took a sip of your tea now.

                “Well, don’t you have fans now?” He slyly smiled at you, “I’ve heard some rumors about you.”

You gave him a look, “what do you mean?”

Hyunjin did one of his eye smiles and giggles, “you know at first, I was a little jealous when I heard that everyone in the art scene wanted to court you.” He sipped his tea and wiggled his eyebrows. You couldn’t help the little laugh that escaped you.

                “Not everyone.” You looked away, “they stopped after a bit.”

Hyunjin set his glass down which got your attention again, “ah of course they did, you gained the reputation of being unobtainable.”

                “Is that what they call me now?” You asked, now taking a spoonful of oatmeal.

                “Maybe, I wouldn’t call you that though.”

                “Confident, are we?” You asked him.

The man in front of you looked at you, a small huff of a laugh coming out of his nose, “maybe.”

~*~

He held the umbrella for you both as you walked down the busy street with him. A scene your heart never thought would come true.

                “Your clothes are darker colors now.” He noted, “they look nice on you.”

You nodded, “thank you, your hair doesn’t look choppy anymore.”

Hyunjin threw his head back and laughed, he almost hit you with the umbrella, “I got scolded and forced to get a haircut, they don’t let me touch it now.”

                “Your work?” You questioned. Hyunjin let out a hum of a yes. You frowned, “doesn’t it bother you…? Being put in a box like that?”

                “Oh, every day, but it’s worth it when I am on stage, dancing, singing, I missed it truly. I got my spark back.” He spoke with stars in his eyes.

                “Well, that’s good then. I am glad your trip helped you appreciate what you have.” You said and pushed your dark sunglasses up again.

                “My return though made me miss dearly what I gained on that trip.” Hyunjin said in a hushed voice, near your ear.

You looked at him, as much as you wanted to fight it, your heart belonged to him. It wasn’t time yet though; your mind was still scared.

                “The café is up there.” Hyunjin broke eye contact with you then led you to the café.

He ended up ordering for you in French, he spoke with confidence. It was a change from the markets in that oh so small town. You both sat outside after he paid.

                “I studied French on my free time when I got back.” Hyunjin spoke and took a bite of his sweet treat.

                “I was wondering how you spoke so confidently.” You sipped your hot coffee; you also picked a strawberry off your plate.

                “It made me think of you.” He spoke and gave you that stupid eye smile. It was almost torture.

You looked away biting back a smile, he was too charming for his own good. The little things he did were too much. It made your heart win the war over your brain.

                “Was the bed warm? In my guest room?” You questioned.

Hyunjin nodded, still smiling at you. He seemed thrilled to just be around you, “mhm!”

                “That’s… That’s actually a relief, I don’t usually have overnight guests.” Your lips curved into a smile. You looked up at him and his head was turned in question.

                “What?” You asked.

                “You don’t have guests?”

You shook your head no, “I don’t have people over like at all. One time my mom visited but that was a few months ago.”

                “You don’t get lonely?”

Your mind filled with memories of you sipping wine by yourself, letting a couple tears slip while the fire was the only thing that warmed your body. Quickly you snapped out of it.

                “No.” Your answer was short, “I did that before didn’t I?” Correction, you did that before you met Hyunjin. Then he opened your world only to leave you on the dark side of the moon.

                “Well, I just thought because your art style changed dramatically. The colors you used were always dark, dark reds, blues, blacks, greys. No more yellow or lavender.” He said simply.

                “Do you study my work?”

Hyunjin smiled again at you, with a knowing look, then he shrugged, “finish your coffee its going to get cold.”

                                                                                                ~*~

The next day he made you breakfast again, this time it was muffins and fruit. He even cut the fruit into little shapes; you know that he specially hand cut each shape due to the fact you didn’t own any kind of food cutters.

                “Good morning!” Hyunjin said cheerfully.

                “Did you rest well?” You asked sitting down, Hyunjin nodded.

                “I slept a lot better than last night; I usually get over jet lag pretty quickly so.” He set your food down and sat down next to you, “I also made peppermint tea this morning.”

                “Thank you…” You felt your face warm and the small butterflies erupted from your chest to your heart.

                “So today, are you busy with anything?” Hyunjin asked, you took a bite of your muffin. It was pumpkin.

                “Did you make these?” You looked at him, it tasted exactly like your pumpkin bread. Hyunjin nodded with a grin.

                “We made it so much that when I had free time, I wrote down the recipe. I used to make it in my dorm whenever I missed you. Let’s just say I gave my friend who actually bakes a run for his money.” He giggled and took a bite of his muffin.

                “That’s… Really sweet of you…” You spoke quietly, you saw Hyunjin smile warmly to himself. Part of you knew he truly does love you as much as you still love him. Your mind was starting to forgive him. Your mind then went to his original question.

                “I only have a small meeting today for the food being served at my exhibit.” You ate some fruit.

                “May I come with you?” Hyunjin asked. Your mind fought it and thought it over. Your heart once again won.

                “I think your insight will help.” Your words came off warm. You saw Hyunjin’s eyes widen a bit at your kind tone, then he smiled.

~*~

Once more he held your umbrella as you two walked, today it was actually raining so you actually needed the covering.

                “I don’t think it will rain the day of your exhibit.” Hyunjin’s feet slapped against the stone streets of Paris.

                “You looked up the weather?” Your eyes looked up at him. Part of him was offended and you can tell.

                “Can you please stop being so surprised that I do the bare minimum?” He looked down at you, he didn’t want to start an argument. As he was a man who preferred to communicate and say his emotions. He could never hold in how he was feeling, and you remembered that. One time you two had a small argument in the small town, he just said how he was feeling.

                “I’m sorry I am just trying to- I don’t even know. You’re right I need to have more faith in you.” You didn’t look at him anymore, “It’s really wrong of me to assume that you are going to do the worse.” You swallowed, you didn’t want to cry. But he was right. Hyunjin sighed and pulled you to the side of the sidewalk, under an awning. The rain was starting to get loud.

                “Y/n you have every right to be cautious of me. I understand what I did and I shouldn’t have just-“

                “Hyunjin…” You looked up at him, “you are right, I need to be more open minded, you were never wrong to me in that small town and you didn’t have a choice to leave. You said so in your note.” You dug through your purse and grabbed your wallet.

                “What’re you…?”

You kept digging until you pulled out his note, the one he left you at your small cottage, “you said yourself you wanted to take me with you, but you were shot down.”

                “You keep it with you…?”

Your eyes looked away from him and to the note that was in your hands, “yes I keep it with me…”

Hyunjin’s hand touched yours and he took a deep breath, “I’m still so sorry.”

                “It’s okay… Again, I know you didn’t have a choice, and I know you were so busy with your life and I started to become busy too and our lives just got so complicated… I need to stop being so cold to you…” Your voice was shaky, and you took a deep breath.”

                “Hey… It’s okay…” Hyunjin’s hand slowly and cautiously went to your cheek. You looked up at him, he smiled at you, “hi.”

Your heart loved the view in front of you and so did your mind, “hi.”

                “Let’s get to the meeting, okay? We don’t want to be late.”

That’s what you two did, you made it in one piece even in the rain. The meeting consisted of different cheese and wine tastings. Hyunjin would giggle at you everytime your face scrunched from the strong wine flavor and you would laugh at him when the cheese he ate tasted bad.

                “You said this one tasted good!” Hyunjin pouted while you were giggling evilly.

                “I thought it tasted great… Maybe your taste buds are broken.” You said smugly.

Hyunjin’s jaw dropped and he looked stunned, “MY taste buds!? You like bad cheese apparently!” He said loudly. You had to quiet him down while laughing. You two got a little tipsy while trying all the wine, you were nowhere near drunk, but you could feel a little buzz. You and Hyunjin were just constantly laughing at everything. In your heart you felt that this was perfect, you could live every day with him if you could. Before you two headed out you both made sure to drink water and have a couple slices of bread. Much to Hyunjin’s excitement.

When you two decided on the little snacks and drinks for your exhibit you two started your walk home, together. The buzz was starting to wear off which was good. Being publicly intoxicated could ruin both your public image, as if being alone together wasn’t enough to stir controversy. That fear wasn’t on either of your minds though, at least not at the moment. You and Hyunjin were both drunk on each other’s company.

                “I cannot believe you made me try that gross cheese!” Hyunjin said as you two walked on the sidewalk. The rain started to clear up, so he didn’t bother opening the umbrella.

                “You tried to get me drunk!” You joked back, Hyunjin dramatically gasped.

                “I would never! You drank the same amount as me!” He placed his hand over his heart. You let out a laugh and through your head back. You missed this so much, you missed him so much. You and Hyunjin exchanged glances at each other as you two walked and talked.

                “You know I wonder how our neighbor is…” You thought to yourself.

                “Gram?” Hyunjin asked and cocked his head to the side.

You nodded and messed with the rings on your fingers, “I still feel guilty for just leaving and selling everything.”

                “I am sure she would understand, maybe we could invite her to your exhibit!” Hyunjin suggested, your eyes lit up.

                “That is such a good idea!” You grinned up at him, Hyunjin gave you a funny but endearing look.

                “I think we should…-“ His voice trailed off and he looked in front of him. Your eyes followed him but before he could figure it out, he pulled you into the alley and started rushing.

                “What is this about?” You felt yourself giggle a little and you let him lead you. You were still in love with him, you couldn’t help it.

                “I think someone recognized one or both of us.” He turned three corners in the small alley and stopped to look around.

                “So, you dragged us into a sketchy ally?” You felt yourself laugh at him, he looked down at you confused and then looked around.

                “I guess I did… I panicked, okay?” You could tell he was a little embarrassed, once again you let a giggle slip out.

                “I just don’t want to have to leave again.” Hyunjin spoke softly, his voice was quiet. Your eyes softened when you looked at him.

                “You think they’d follow you again?” Your curiosity peaked. Hyunjin gave you a look and nodded.

                “Oh yeah, they will follow me to the ends of the Earth. I mean my brothers would, they aren’t actually blood brothers but they are the closest I have to them.” He was rambling, it made you forget you two were in some random alleyway.

                “Will I ever get to meet them?” You looked up at him and leaned against the wall. Hyunjin looked down at you.

                “You want to meet them?”

You nodded, “well of course I would. They’re important to you, are they not?”

                “Yeah… Yeah they are.” Hyunjin’s eyes kept staring into yours. His mind was running a mile a minute. You felt the rain start again, it was only a sprinkle and it felt nice. You looked up still leaning on the wall taking in the nice weather. You could hear Hyunjin breathe through his nose, and you looked up at him again. His brows were furrowed, and he looked frustrated.

                “Are you okay?” You asked, now you were genuinely concerned.

                “Please…” He mumbled, now it was your turn to look confused. The rain started to become heavy again, soaking both of you.

You heard Hyunjin mumble something and then look away.

                “I’m sorry I couldn’t hear you because of the rain.” You spoke.

                “Please let me kiss you again.”

In the middle of the sketchy alleyway, you let him kiss you. The war between your mind and heart was over, they made a truce to love Hyunjin.

And only Hyunjin.

~*~

The next morning you woke up to Hyunjin next to you, he was still sound asleep. Hyunjin looked so peaceful, it was just like when you woke up next to him in that little cottage of yours. Except now you two are older. His face was illuminated by the sun bouncing off your white walls. He was beautiful. You think if you ever spent a year without him again you would be heartbroken forever.

You carefully slipped out of bed, making sure that you wouldn’t wake him. You got up and did your morning routine and called your manager, you had an idea.

                “Hello Miss L/n.” Your manager said cheerfully, “what do I owe the pleasure?” Her voice was always so powerful.

                “Do you remember the first exhibit when my work started to become popular?” You asked as you went through the fridge to make pancakes for you and Hyunjin.

                “Ah yes, the one that was meant for Mr. W’s student Sam. But then Sam couldn’t make it?” Your manager always remembered; it was probably because you paid her to do so but still.

                “Yes, that one, I want to put those pieces out again this next exhibit. I have Hyu- Sam, here with me. I would like him to see his work in an exhibit.” You spoke and started to stir the pancake mix.

                “How kind of you Miss L/n.” You heard her type from the other end, “I will add that to your exhibit and the pamphlet. This afternoon I will send someone over to pick up yours and Mr. Sam’s.”

                “Thank you.”

Your manager started typing again and hummed to herself, “alright, they will be there in the afternoon.”

                “Thank you, Mrs. Jean.”

You said your goodbyes and continued to make breakfast, blueberry pancakes and coffee. Smiling to yourself you started to flip the pancakes. You jumped when you felt arms slowly snake around you.

                “Good morning.” Hyunjin mumbled and buried his head in your shoulder.

                “Morning Jinnie.”

Hyunjin giggled and buried his head more in your shoulder, “I missed that.”

You hummed and he didn’t let go of you while you cooked. You moved to the right, Hyunjin moved to the right. You took a step back, Hyunjin took a step back.

                “Breakfast smells great.” Hyunjin was still very sleepy, you could tell.

                “I am glad, I figured I would make up for you making breakfast the past couple days.” You laughed out of your nose.

                “You don’t have to make anything up for me.” He finally let go of you when the food was done and set.

                “Oh, I have someone coming over today to pick up some artwork for the exhibit. Do you mind running errands?” You asked and sipped your hot coffee. You put creamer in it, Hyunjin didn’t put creamer in his. You took note of that.

He pouted, “why can’t I be here?”

You gave him a look, “Can you please just trust me. Pleaaaase.” You pouted back. Hyunjin groaned and took a bite of his pancake, after he drowned it in syrup, of course.

                “Jinni-“

                “Yes. I can run errands, anything for you.”

Your smile widened and you giggled at how much of a lovesick dork he was. It was hypocritical of you to laugh though, you were the same lovesick dork for him. You always were.

~*~

The day of your exhibit rolled around and you woke Hyunjin up.

                “Get up we have to get ready!” You grinned.

                “My ticket isn’t until 6pm.” Hyunjin rolled over again, his beautiful form facing you. You shook him again.

                “Don’t you want to walk into my exhibit holding hands with me?”

You have never in your life seen someone get ready THAT quickly.

                “Blue or black suit?” Hyunjin asked.

You looked up at him. He had light makeup on and his hair was pulled back in a ponytail, he looked divine already. He could show up in his pajamas and he would look so good.

                “Blue, navy blue.” You said and looked back at your vanity, you were deciding how to do your hair and makeup.

                “Is that because you’re wearing navy blue.” He teased. Your face grew hot.

                “Noooo…” You mumbled, he let out a loud obnoxious laugh that you were in love with.

You finished getting ready and you waited for him by the door, adjusting your hat and sunglasses. As much as wearing sunglasses indoors made you kind of look like an asshole, you became known to do so. You started wearing them at your first exhibit, it was so people couldn’t see you crying over Hyunjin and how you wanted him to be there so badly. You took a deep breath, maybe it was time to ditch the sunglasses.

                “You look beautiful.” Hyunjin said from behind you and looked at you in the mirror, “can we take a photo?”

You nodded and looked up at him, he whipped out his phone and took a mirror selfie with you. He took a few photos, one of him kissing the side of your head, one of him holding you, another one of him actually kissing you. He would have memories and photos of you with him.

                “We are going to be late Jinnie.” You laughed. He nodded and you two headed out to the driver.

~*~

When you two arrived early you talked to your manager and introduced her to Hyunjin. She was very excited to meet this other artist. Just like you, she fell in love with his art too. Mrs. Jean was also clearly scouting for another client. It made you smile with pride. You were always so proud of Hyunjin. They ended up talking about art, thank god your manager kept the surprise. She was clearly trying to sell him on becoming a client, part of you hoped so. That meant he would have to come to Paris more. Which means he could see you more.

Time passed and people started showing up to your shared exhibit. When you walked around and people chatted with you, you saw Hyunjin was chatting with a group of men that you recognized as people from his group. He didn’t look tense around them, and it didn’t seem like he was in too much trouble for running away again.

You sipped on your champagne and grabbed a couple of cheese slices from the table.

                “Good evening.” You looked to your side and saw Namjoon. Uh ohhh. You smiled warmly, trying not to panic. You ended up setting your little cheese plate to the side.

                “Oh! Hi Namjoon!” You were really trying not to panic. I mean you guys didn’t even go out, you had tea with him once.

                “Your exhibit is really beautiful! I am excited to go through the rest of it.” He smiled at you.

                “Thank you, Namjoon that means a lot.” You smiled, he smiled back and before you knew it you felt a hand on your waist.

                “Oh my god I know you.” Hyunjin said and put his hand out, Namjoon shook it.

                “You’re an idol too, right?” Namjoon spoke, “part of that group Stray Kids?”

Hyunjin nodded and shook his hand back, “yes, I am Hyunjin.”

                “Ahhhh yes you are talked about a lot, I have heard your name float around before.” Hyunjin shrugged with a sly smile. You could help but roll your eyes at Hyunjin being childish.

Hyunjin and Namjoon talked a little about work before Namjoon excused himself to look at the rest of the exhibit.

                “I have something to show you.” You grabbed Hyunjin’s hand with your free hand. You set your champagne down. Hyunjin smiled at you and nodded. You led him to the part of your exhibit that was dedicated to him. You saw as his eyes widened and he looked at you then back at his artwork. They were still in pristine condition.

                “You didn’t get to see your work in an exhibit, I wanted to make that up to you.” You said quietly. Hyunjin looked at you like you were the world to him. He was at a loss for words.

                “Do you like it?” You asked, scared you overstepped.

                “Y/n… I love it…” He mumbled, still in shock, “I love you so much. I-“

You watched, heart beating out of your chest as he got down on one knee. Your mouth was agape. He pulled out a small box, the ring shining under the exhibit lights.

                “I was planning to do this after the exhibit but my heart is telling me there is no other perfect time for this. I love you, y/n. I will make up for the time lost for the rest of my life with you. I thought about you every day and I will continue to only think of you every day. I want you to be my future, you already are my everything. My intended. Will you please marry me.”

Maybe you should have worn your sunglasses because you were crying over Jinnie again, but not because of sadness.

                “Yes Jinnie!”

~+~

MASTERLIST

~+~

taglist: @alyszaenen @hwgyunun @forevrgloww

taglist closed bc this is the last chapter

~+~

authors note;

this is the last chapter of my hyunjin serious. i really hoped you liked it. normally i would type something really heartfelt and emotional. but tumblr decided to fuck up my links on everything so im currently pulling my hair out trying to fix it.

i love you tho and thank you for supporting me on this series

#straykids #stray kids #straykids x reader #kpop #stray kids x reader #skz #hyunjin #hwang hyunjin #skzxreader #hwang hyunjin x reader #hyunjin x reader #stray kids hyunjin #hwang hyunjin imagines #hyunjin imagines

[msweebyness]

Class of Villainy AU: Kidnap the Principal!

Why, what a surprise! Weeby’s doing a villain short! Here’s the lowdown: In a trademark move of ignorance, the staff of the DuPont Reform Academy has decided to allow the students from the villainous classes to make…home visits for the holiday season! And some people aren’t too happy about that, particularly Ms. Vivica “Viv” Skellington, the DuPont music teacher. Who knows what’s going to happen with Ivan Oogie back in Halloween Town? That’s where we begin our tale:

(As always, credit to @imsparky2002 and @artzychic27!)

“Has that fool Damocles lost his everloving mind, Penny?!”, ranted Vivica Skellington as she stormed back and forth in the main square of her beloved Halloween Town, her girlfriend nodding as she mended a few torn stitches in her left leg, “Letting these kids out on HOLIDAY BREAK! Does he not remember how dangerous each and every one of them is?!”

“It does seem a bit reckless…”, Penny agreed in a worried tone, twisting a lock of her brilliant violet locks. Who knew what could happen with the Boogie Man back in his hometown!

“It’s completely and utterly irresponsible, is what it is! Why I oughtta scare….the wits out of him…”, the snazzily-dressed skeleton trailed off as she was suddenly hit with an idea, “Why, that’s IT!”

“…What’s it?”, Penny asked cautiously, knowing that look in her girlfriend’s eye sockets! It meant Viv was getting one of her ideas…

“Why, what better way to convince ol’ Damocles not to make this boneheaded mistake again, than to SCARE HIM STRAIGHT?! We’ll bring ‘im to Halloween Town, and give the old boy a good talking to with a little Fright Night Flair to it! Ha HA!”, Vivica explained excitedly, gesturing wildly with her bony hands.

“…If you say so, Viv…”, Penny sighed reluctantly. She wasn’t too sure about this idea, but she knew there was little chance of talking the Pumpkin Queen down when she got on a kick like this!

“And as for getting Damocles here…I know JUST the ones for the job!”, Vivica said with a sly smile.

A short while later…

The dual-faced mayor of Halloween Town cringed as he saw a certain three ghoulish children make their way into the main square, cackling and shoving each other along the way. ‘What are those little imps doing here?’

“Viv!”, he called with a nervous edge to his voice, “It’s Boogie’s Brats!”

“Oh, it’s quite alright, mayor! I asked ‘em here!”, Vivica assured, before she turned to the troublesome trio, “Ah, just the trick-or-treaters I needed to see! I’ve got a real special job for you three!”, she grinned, peaking the children’s interest.

“A special job? Just for us?”, the miscreants that were Chris, Manon and Prince Kiran smiled gleefully, skittering over to the Pumpkin Queen.

“Indeed. This task requires craft, cunning, mischief! I couldn’t think of three better people for the job!”, Vivica enthused, kneeling down before the gang of costumed youngsters. The three cackled with wicked delight.

“And we thought you didn’t like us, Viv!”, Manon giggled madly, throwing her arms around the shoulders of her two cohorts.

Vivica’s demeanor suddenly turned deadly serious.

“Now before I tell you kids, you best understand. No One outside of this square is to know about your mission! Not a single word of it to that gamblin’, buggy-brained Ivan Oogie, y’hear? Not. A. Word.”, the skeletal lass said firmly, looking deeply at each child in turn.

“Oh, yesss.”, Manon gushed, putting in her best innocent face.

“Of course, Viv!”, Chris grinned, his sharpened canines, so much like his older brother’s, gleaming bright.

“We promise!”, Kiran giggled, a hint of poison gleaming in his eyes.

Unseen behind their backs, three sets of fingers were crossed as Vivica leaned down to explain their assignment.

Another short while later…

The trio of Trick-or-Treaters piled through the gates of Halloween Town, trekking out over the hills to their clubhouse, situated in a large dead tree in the midst of a barren forest.

“Kidnap Mr. Damocles?”, the three chorused in wicked glee as they exchanged mischievous looks.

“I wanna do it!”, Manon insisted.

“No, let me!”, Kiran crowed.

“Viv said we should work together!”, Chris reminded his two companions with a roll of his eyes, bonking them both on the head.

“Three of a kind!”, Kiran agreed.

“Birds of a feather!”, Manon cheered.

“Now and forever, wheeeee!”, the three squealed as they rode the rickety old lift up to their treehouse.

(La, la, la)

(La, la, la)

(La, la, la, la, la, la)

The three exited the lift into a dark and shabby room filled with various weapons and hunting traps, all varieties of nasty bugs crawling every which where.

Kidnap the Principal, lock him up real tight

Throw away the key and then turn off all the lights!

Darting over to their wall of cage traps, Chris plucked one out and set it, giggling madly as he did so, Kiran and Manon watching with interest.

“First, we're goin' to set some bait, inside a nasty trap and wait!”, Chris explained as he placed an old lollipop inside the rusted cage, setting it on the ground.

“When he comes a-sniffing we will, snap the trap and close the gate!”, Chris continued, the three children shrieking with laughter as a large, hapless beetle scuttled to the dirty piece of candy and was snared in the trap!

“Wait, I've got a better plan, to catch this silly, stupid man!”, Manon suddenly interjected, sporting a positively batty grin as she scooped up the cage and moved to their small, dilapidated kitchen.

“Let's pop him in a boiling pot, and when he's done we'll butter him up!”, she crowed, throwing the captured bug in a pot of boiling water and then fishing it out when it was cooked just right.

Kidnap the Principal, throw him in a box

Bury him for ninety years, then see if he talks

The three kids pranced over to a chute with sharp metal teeth, beaming maniacally as the dropped the caged bug down it.

“Then Mr. Ivan, the Boogie man!”, Manon cackled, fidgeting as she heard the sounds of skittering bugs and rustling fabric down the rusted steel passage.

“Can take the whole thing over then!”, the trio chorused, excited to see what their boss would do with the pudgy, prissy principal!

He'll be so pleased, I do declare!

That he will cook him rare, whee!

The rickety cage rattled down an old pipe, eventually coming to land in a room lit by blinking casino lights. The terrified creature within trembled as a large and ominous shadow loomed over it…

“I say that we take a cannon, aim it at his door and then-“, Manon suggested eagerly, picking up Kiran and placing him in their cobbled-together catapult, the Poison Prince giggling all the way.

“Knock three times and when he answers…Damocles will be no more!”, the raven-haired boy finished, his silver eyes gleaming with excitement as Manon nodded giddily.

“You're both so stupid, think now! If we blow him up to smithereens, we may lose some pieces!”, Chris snapped, smacking his coworkers upside the heads once more before placing his hands on his hips.

“And then Viv will beat us black and green!”, the other two miscreants agreed, shuddering at the thought of the Pumpkin Queen’s anger. When Kiran attempted to get down, he fell headfirst into an old ash pot, making Manon and Chris smack their foreheads in exasperation.

Kidnap the Principal, tie him in a bag

Throw him in the ocean, then, see if he is sad!

Chris and Manon fished their companion out of the pot, holding upside down by his feet. Kiran’s face was covered in ash as he coughed to clear his lungs. The other two children carried him over and tossed him into the large, haunted bathtub they used as transportation.

“Because Mr. Ivan Oogie is the meanest guy around!”, Chris reminded his pals in a jittery tone, shivering as he thought of the ways of the young Boogie.

“If I were on his boogie list…”, Manon squeaked, shuddering and rubbing her arms at the thought as the old cage came back up the chute, now empty.

“I'd get out of town~!”, Kiran completed the thought as he popped his head over the rim of the bathtub, his silky hair now soaked.

“He'll be so pleased by our success!”, the Poison Prince went on to say, gripping the edges of the tub as he shook with glee.

“That he'll reward us too, I bet!”, Chris enthused, bouncing with anticipation as he hit the button that caused the tubs legs to sprout, bringing it with them as they went to gather supplies.

“Perhaps he'll make his special brew!”, Manon suggested, wringing her hands in an antsy stupor, as they looked around their inventory room.

“Of snake and spider stew (mmm)!”, the three finished together. Say what you would about the boogieman, he knew how to cook!

“We're his little henchkids and we take our job with pride! We do our best to please him and stay on his good side!”, the three kids mused to themselves, looking back on all the fine work they had done for the spookster, until Kiran splashed Manon, which led to another bout of bickering and an eye roll from Chris.

“I wish my cohorts weren't so dumb…”, Chris bemoaned, resting his head on their worktable with a heavy sigh.

“I'm not the dumb one!”, Kiran cried, his pale face turning red with anger.

“You're no fun!”, Manon pouted, crossing her arms over her chest.

“SHUT UP!”, Chris shouted, glaring at the two for interrupting his complaints.

“MAKE ME!”, Manon shrieked, tossing a broken toy at Chris’ forehead.

“I've got something, listen now! This one is real good, you'll see!”, Chris announced to his cohorts, catching their interest as he began to gather supplies.

“We'll send a present to his door! Upon there'll be a note to read!”, Chris continued, bringing a large box over to the other two children, opening it and freeing the scorpions inside.

“Now, in the box we'll wait and hide, until his curiosity, entices him to look inside!”, Chris said giddily as he shut the box and tossed it, along with some other supplies into the tub with Kiran.

“And then we'll have him, one, two, three!”, the three cheered, as Chris and Manon jumped into the walking bathtub, the trio riding it back down the lift and out into the woods!

Kidnap the Principal, beat him with a stick

Lock him up for ninety years, see what makes him tick!

They could hardly wait to see what torment they could wreak on the pompous principal before delivering him as promised.

Kidnap the Principal, chop him into bits

Mr. Ivan Oogie is sure to get his kicks

Their master would surely be proud of them! Just wait until he saw the gift they would bring him this time!

Kidnap the Principal, see what we will see

Lock him in a cage, and then throw away the key!

Ah, ha, ha (he, he, he)

The three cackled maniacally as they rode off into the distance, away from Halloween Town.

Meanwhile….

Down below the mischievous trio’s treehouse, a certain force of nightmares was grinning with malevolent glee.

“So Mr. D’s gonna be droppin’ in to see our fine little town, huh?”, Mr. Ivan Oogie cackled as he rolled his favorite set of dice. Snake Eyes, of course, which always meant some fantastic trouble would be brewing!

“What are you going to do, buggyboo?”, asked a honeylike voice, prompting the young boogieman to give a start and turn and see his beloved scallop grinning at him through the viewing portal she had likely summoned at some point without his noticing. He gave a great laugh at how she’d yet again managed to spook him. Hell’s Bells, did he love that girl!

“I’m gon’ do the best I can, Pun’kin!”, he answered her with a positively evil smile, which she returned as the two wicked sweethearts descended into a fit of terrifyingly villainous laughter.

Their dear ol’ principal was in for a restless night…

And there it was folks! Keep an eye out for the little sequel we’ve got planned! Love and hugs!

#miraculous ladybug #class of villainy #ml au #disney au #Kiran anciel #manon chamack #chris lahiffe #lock shock and barrel #Vivica #penny rolling #jack skellington #sally #the nightmare before christmas #ivan bruel #oogie boogie #mylene haprele #principal Damocles #songfic #kidnap the sandy claws

[matan4il]

I just realized that the mirrored scenes of the camp talk and content ultra dad mode vs the distracted Chris secret conversation both happen with someone from Bucks past coming back. The first being Abby the ladder Connor with a weird request.

It's probably nothing and not meant to mean anything but I find it comical that even when unintended Buddie has a pattern

Also sort of wild that when a perceived love came back, Buck was at peak happiness if you will. That time frame was my favorite for Buddie. He just addressed her with hurt and confused regard IMHO. Even if he was unaware of it at the time he was happy to walk back to his new family.

This time years later, therapy under his belt, and having successfully left a relationship. He is more unhappy then ever and it's because also just IMHO the Buddie relationship never fully righted to their pre Anna model but also didn't continue to the natural dating it would have had Anna not come along. Although without Anna we may never had got an Eddie gay panic attack storyline.

Hi Nonnie! Thank you for this lovely ask! ^u^

I think the interesting thing about unintentional parallels in writing is that they arise from something in the subconscious mind of writers being at work. Meaning that if you have a certain notion about a character/relationship, even if you don't think up a specific parallel intentionally, in order to express the notion, you'll find yourself revisiting similar themes, even similar words and phrases. And that's gonna give rise to parallels that might not be intended, but are still meaningful, precisely because they reveal something about the character/relationship. That's why we all go so mad over parallels, don't we? 'Coz we intuitively feel the repetition points to significance.

Which is to say, yes! There is meaning here as well. Both characters from Buck's past come back to shake him up and make him question where he is in life, what he has and what he wants. In one case, the conversation about Christopher's camp in 318 plays out to demonstrate what Buck has in his life even before he gets to the point of questioning it, but we as viewers can correctly read it 'coz we've seen Abby on the train and we know she's about to run into him. In contrast, in 604 he runs into Connor before Eddie notices his silence in regards to Chris, so Buck being uncharacteristically absent as Christopher's co-parent points to him already questioning some major things about his life.

I personally think that Buddie did go back to how things were before Ana, maybe even closer (see my 601 meta on why I think the kitchen scene there shows that), but I do think the closer they get, the harder it is not to be together. It's like I said in this ask reply, an 'almost' can ache so much more than 'nothing'. The closer they get without acknowledging that their feelings aren't strictly platonic, the harder it's going to get for them. Which I think is a very similar notion to what you were saying? They're caught in the "in between" and there's no harder place to be in, you become more aware of what you miss the closer you are to your destination, being able to sense its proximity, but not being close enough yet to see or touch it. Which is exactly what makes Buck aware enough that he said in 403 already that he's fine, he just wants to be finer. He was on his way, both our boys are on their way, they just took a small detour in the shape of Ana and Taylor (*insert infamous reference to Buddie's talk about construction on Sunset in 408 here*), and sometimes detours are needed when the journey is a complex, challenging one...

I hope you have a great day, lovely! And here is my ask tag! xoxox

#buddie #911meta #buddie meta #911 meta #9-1-1 #evan buckley #eddie diaz #edmundo diaz #evan buck buckley #christopher diaz #connor #anti-buckabby #anti-eddieana #ask #anon ask #911onabc #911 on abc #911abc #911 abc

[christian-is-a-dumb-boy]

Before I start, if you happen to find stumble onto this, this is for a class that I'm in. I choose Tumblr because I realized that it's actually a very good place to do this assignment and it would be very fun and interesting to make a Visual Essay here and with my themes too, which is very Tumblr and Pinterest like (which is where I got many of these photos from). If you are in my class, I'm sorry that I came up with this idea. My Visual Essay - Media Throughout the Years and How it Shaped who I Am. By Christian M.

2010 - 2012 was a unique time for fashion. There was still some 2000's elements in our fashion, and these photos show that. It's really iconic how everybody dressed like a wealthy suburban mother despite being a 16 year old named Amber from Albany, Georgia. Fashion in this era was about looking and dressing older, and we see this in our media too. Pretty Little Liars had girls who were supposed to be 15 but dressed like 23 year old interns from NYC, and Nene Leakes literally wore the second outfit in her "The Ghetto" meme from Real Housewives of Atlanta. I was five in 2010, so obviously I wasn't dressing like this, but I thought every teen just looked old because of how they dress despite having one green streak and braces.

This type of being older mentality also was in our music at the time, but in a different way. I love early 2010's music because everybody just was going down the electro pop pipeline, and all of the songs were good. One of my favorite songs back then was Selena Gomez's 'Love You Like a Love Song", which is really underrated. It's just peak early 2010s wannabe futuristic pop, because the song has some techno in it when Selena sings. I was a huge Selena fan already because of Wizards of Waverly Place, and this song changed my life (being dramatic but you get the idea). She isn't the only one that does this. Kesha was well known for doing this and again, Kesha made some bangers. The music was all about sounding like the future, while the casual fashion was about looking older. https://open.spotify.com/track/0laYHRpNTS6i8FXdupHkJ4?si=209bee3a44664ce9 https://open.spotify.com/track/3pYDZTJM2tVBUhIRifWVzI?si=cc6cacc99b024f27

Oh 2013, how you were just....bad for casual fashion. This is where I remember analyzing what people wore and noticing what was trendy and what we liked. It was bad. Teal tops that said 'Pink' literally held us at gunpoint to wear them. I was never really experimented with clothing as a kid because in my opinion, most of the boys clothing at the time was bad, which is why all of the photos are gonna be women's clothing because they either look good, or iconically bad. That was a pet peeve with me whenever we went shoe shopping. The girl shoes were colorful and had personality while the boy shoes were black and white, or an ugly neon green or orange in some random lines if you took gym too seriously at age 8. This is when I wished I was a teen in 2013 because 2013 tumblr hipster and grunge fashion was something that I wished to lived in.

2013 music was really good or bad. Despite coming out in 2009, Party in the U.S.A I feel like was huge in 2013 which made everybody (including me) to wear American flag shirts, pants, and bathing suits. One amazing song from 2013 was Demi Lovato's Heart Attack. Back in her prime, she made some hits, and one of them was this song (Shout out to Give Your Heart a Break too, another amazing hit). It was bad for me. I only had Episode (that story app) because Demi was in it. Demi and Heart Attack accidently created my first internet phase, and it's something that Demi Lovato that has nothing to do it but still needs to pay the price for.

You saw these images and probably went "Chris, how the hell did Demi Lovato made 9 year old you into a anime fan and why?" in your head, and I'll tell you how and why! So like I said, obsessed with Heart Attack when I was a kid, and while I was on YouTube searching for the song, I found this video of Heart Attack, but in the title, it had the words 'nightcore video' in it, and it had Taiga (short girl in the first photo) in her angel outfit from ToraDora (which I never watched until recently and I recommend it along with the other three). If you don't know what nightcore is, it's just song sped up to make the singer sound anime like (which they didn't but regardless I still ate that shit up). These are top tier shows, honestly. I honestly think mostly everybody in my class would like Yuri on Ice (because it's an creative english class). https://open.spotify.com/track/5w24qGKT4DHCKHKU0jPlcK?si=df10a0191d3441ee

Every queer kid had a musical phase. That's just how it is. I don't make the rules for it. I was also that queer kid. My 5th grade teacher, Mr. DeBell, told my class in 2015 that there was a musical about Alexander Hamilton, and played You'll Be Back. I was hooked. Listened to the soundtrack regularly and found other musicals like Be More Chill, Dear Evan Hansen, Every Starkids musical. I'm a terrible singer, but I'm still gonna try belting First Burn. This was also the year I had my Percy Jackson phase, another queer kid staple. I found Percy so charming and Nico so cute in the books and it's so embarrassing, yet so funny. The Percy Jackson Musical was the first musical I ever saw too because we went on a school field trip for it. https://open.spotify.com/track/1A2gifkaEngunqZAFHUS0j?si=c753e346c04141e7

You just saw these images and are either cringing at me, cringing at younger you, or both. 2016 was where my "edgy" phase started. I wasn't edgy in the way every other guy in 2016 was edgy, if anything, cringe culture would've bullied me, but I just liked those angry "emo" songs and disturbing anime's. This is also when I discovered punk, alt, emo and goth fashion, which is all different thing and I don't care what people say, those types of fashions have always look good. People who dressed like that, especially now because cringe culture has been making a comeback, are being harassed but they are really the sweetest and down to earth people ever. People who dressed alt, or punk, or goth were always nice to me and I will always defend them. I personally don't dress like that because I was called emo for wearing a black jacket and black pants in the winter in New York, so obviously people don't like that type of fashion where I'm from, and also if you know me in real life, you know I'm a 5'6 year old guy who has the face of a twink (Tyler Oakley let's be honest), so I don't think I could pull it off. But if you look at my profile picture, it's what I would dress like if I could pull it off, and I probably would kill a fragile, sickly Victorian child before the black plaque reaches them if they saw this version of me.

These were all from different time periods except for the top picture. For 2015 - 2018 fashion that was considered "emo" or punk or goth, it wasn't but that's what i grew up on. These had a gripe on us back in 2015. I remember seeing so many people on youtube wearing that striped school girl skirt and people in pinterest showing off their cat stocking. other alt or "alt" fashion were band shirts, specifically PATD and TOP, flannels, short hair but very long hair in the front, stockings in general.

A few years later, in 2019, I got into K-pop. I wish I had a unique story but I don't. My exe who's also a close friend of mine now was just playing a K-pop song because he also likes it and it was TWIT by Hwasa and it was catchy to me, so I looked it up, found out that she was in a group, Mamamoo, and that was it. I listened to a few songs before like obviously Gangnam Style and Gentleman by PSY when they blew up and also Like This by Wonder Girls (who are legends) when I was a kid. My top three groups in their debut order are Girl's Generation (2007), Rania (2011) and TWICE (2015). If you ever wanna give the genre a try, Girl's Generation and TWICE are the two groups to listen to, as someone who of course loves and also used those two groups to get other people into K-pop both accidentally or on purpose.

I think it's really funny how 12 year old me was listening to "sad" music and music that is just "so deep and so meaningful" and then 14 - 16 year old me listened to just the most upbeat and happy, catchy music (Rania's is the only one that isn't cheerful, their music is very camp if you know what that means). https://open.spotify.com/track/6qyz1KOlGJsKYJ4ZsRmRSD?si=7cd52297243b4301 https://open.spotify.com/track/2BQIMF7CyLe2xAKzh74A4C?si=ff220ef47b3143f2 https://open.spotify.com/track/1utDFK1ARQcuZSwapf3cfb?si=97492c9682a74e12

I am really excited to see what college me is gonna get into. I still like most of these things, and it'll be interesting to see what similar new stuff are gonna come out in the next few years.

#homework #college #college student #essay #visual essay #english #my writing #writing #hello lgbt community #music #fashion #essay writing #twice #panic! at the disco #patd #mirai nikki #demi lovato #tumblr writers #free! iwatobi swim club #free! #free! anime #toradora #hamilton musical #percy jackson #Spotify

[kylermalloy]

tell me more about derek hale being your barfo 👀

Oh no Naila, you have opened the floodgates 😱

Posting under a cut so no poor unsuspecting soul has to read my unhinged essay. Also, spoilers inherent for Teen Wolf! (as if anyone in the year 2022 is trying to stay unspoiled for that 😂)

So Derek isn’t a character I’d hate on his own; much like my distaste for Cas, this arose out of fandom issues.

Derek in the show is…fine. He’s the stock mentor figure, but with a twist: he does no mentoring and helps very little. Instead of being kind and patient, he’s abrupt, harsh, often wrong, and obstructs our leads more than actually helping them.

On my first watchthrough, I just found him bland. Not my favorite character, not my most hated, just. He’s…there. K.

I know we can partly blame the writing for this—Jeff Davis wasn’t interested in Derek as a character, he just needed to wring as much werewolf lore (and Tyler Hoechlin abs) as possible out of him. But Hoechlin’s performance doesn’t help any. (Listen, I KNOW he’s actually a good actor. He’s doing great things right now. But on Teen Wolf? Absolutely not. I hate his deadpan delivery and monotone voice. I don’t care if it was a character choice, Hoechlin! Put some inflection into it!)

Basically, Derek is about as interesting to me as a stale cracker. (And I LIKE crackers, especially saltines!)

Then I got into fandom. And hoo boy, so many of us watched different shows. To them, Derek was the most interestingest, handsomest, tragicest, sexiest, characteriest character to ever character on Teen Wolf. He had so much personality, so much hidden depth, his performance was unparalleled, the writers did him so dirty, he’s also clearly closeted which gives him extra fandom points, etc etc.

(I call this Cas!syndrome. Elevation of a character/actor to near god-like status—not out of mere adoration of said character, but out of a need to obscure the 2012-white-boy-ship-frenzy by something resembling actual substance.)

I might as well bring up ships while I’m here—part of my dislike for Derek stems from sterek, my notp of Teen Wolf and lots of fans’ only reason for liking Derek at all.

The two of them are…painfully tryhard together. It was always very obvious after season 1 that they were only paired for fanservice scenes (because humor is Stiles saying something funny, and Derek either looking mad or hitting him for it! Or threatening to hit him, epic romance we have here)

(Let me also say I have no problems with anybody shipping pairings like this, go nuts with abuse, etc etc. It’s all fiction, you know the drill. But peak romance on a high school drama it is not)

This leads to another fatal flaw with Derek’s character. He doesn’t have anyone to bounce off of. He’s the loner.

Let’s be very honest here, Scoot McCool Scott McCall is quite a boring protagonist. No one is pretending he’s the greatest character alive. His writing is cliche, his development forced, his acting…well.

But I was still able to engage with him as a character because of his friendship with Stiles—they have genuine chemistry, their camaraderie is natural, and they feel like actual teen best friends. Just hanging out, being dumb. I was rarely bored by Scott, even if he’s not the most interesting character.

Derek doesn’t have anyone like that. The writers try several things out with him over the seasons—his love/hate relationship with Kate in season 1 was great! For all…two scenes of it. They tried putting him with Isaac and the other betas, but that basically consisted of him telling them plot exposition and being mean to them. Great way to endear us to him.

I seriously thought that’s why they brought back Peter—so they could bounce off each other being snarky. It worked great in the season 2 finale! But alas, after that they rarely used it.

They started pairing him with Chris Argent in the later seasons, which worked okay. But they’re both strong, stoic, serious types. And their history is…fraught, to say the least. Anyway, they both smile about five times in the show between them, and they’re not fun to watch together. (Probably because JR Bourne has the creepiest smile known to man)

Stiles has maybe one scene with Derek every three episodes? And while the two do have some chemistry, I find their scenes painful to watch, especially now. Any humor in them is replaced by 15x18-esque cringe. I know exactly why you paralyzed the two of them right on top of each other, Jeff. And it’s not even funny. Get out of here with your winking and nudging. I hate you.

So…yeah. It’s not like I have any real beef with him, I’m not going to make up reasons why his character was the worst, the secret villain of the series, or anything like that. He’s just a guy I didn’t have any interest in—but after hordes of fans shoving him in my face asking isn’t he the most specialest boy? You better clap for him or I’ll kill everyone in this room I’ve decided that he is the worst, actually, and he can choke.

#thank you for coming to my incoherent ted talk #hope this wasn’t too character bash-y #i didn’t realize i had much to say but i started monologuing to my bathroom mirror and realized i DO have a lot to talk about here #asks #thelegendofwinchester #teen wolf #anti derek hale #i ought to just change your tag to your name naila #if this url is staying :P #but who are we kidding i never update my tags #if anyone changes their url…no they didn’t

[princessmuk]

911 S6E1 Reactions!!!

Seeing the previews is just reminding me that we never saw the ghost roommate episode :/ I was so curious to know wtf happened and I’ll never know 😭😭😭

LETS GOOOOOOOO

Oh my god not High Hopes

THE BLIMPPPP

Oh this poor girl

Uh ohhhh the blimps goin downnn

There is no way they could do this quick enough lmao

Stampede!!!

YOU DUMBASS THATS NOT A BOMB

ATHENAS HAIRRRR

Okay why is Maddie so gorgeous tho

EDDIEEEE

*What a Man plays*

BUCKKKKK

The way Buck said Eddie’s name… why did that make me feel smth—

Athena doing the medic role 🥺

HE JUMPED—

I legit thought he was gonna slide down that thing

Lmao the way Buck looked at Hen

Bobby and Athena going strongggg

This Google ad is fake as hell they’ve leaked so many of my passwords lmao

Nooooo I forgot she was gonna be out of the show for a while :(

Buck baby please 🥺

Eddie really diffused the situation well

HELLO????

HES JUSY MAKING DINNER

THEYRE SO DOMESTIC WTF

WAIT THEYRE AT BUCKS I DIDNT EVEN REALIZE

The things they are saying… oh my god… Eddie literally just said Buck could have gotten a new gf for no reason. Had nothing to do with the conversation. EDDIE

And BUCK DIDNT WANNA CHOOSE THE WRONG ONE

HE SAYS LOOKING DIRECTLY INTO EDDIES EUES

MADNEYYYYYYYY OMH YES DONIT

STAY WITH HIM PLEASE

The ball is gonna go in the wood chipper and the dad is gonna try to get it back

Or the son

CALLED IT

Oooo he gay

DO NOT STICK YOUR HAND IN THERE

I CALLED IT THOOO

ong now his ring is in there

NO

IT WENT THEOIGH HIS DADS CHEST?!?!?!?

Okay but back to that Buddie scene. Someone please gif that I NEED to see their facial expressions again

Like that was SO GAY

Also I cannot emphasize enough — CHRIS AND EDDIE BEING DOMESTIC AT BUCKS PLACE AND EATING DINNER?????? PEAK DOMESTICITY HOLY SHIT

Like I DIDNT EVEN REALIZE it was Buck’s place

Buddie is going canon this season I stg

Do you think they already had the hang out planned or did Eddie invite himself over bc he knew Buck was salty

Buck wtf. You can’t just take over while Bobby is still here 😭😭😭

Show initiative don’t literally step on his toes

Eddie and Bobby’s reactions lmfao

Josh ships it hard

Yes girl just tell him!!!

Girl. No offense but you look the same age as them. And I say that as someone who is also near your age.

This is adorable. I hope we actually get to see the honey moon 🥺

Okay this will be overheating or dehydration. Or some weird random thing nobody could predict

SIR????

Buck and Eddie’s expressions behind Bobby are so funny

What a trio lmao

Hennnnnnn

Athena’s cardigan is so cute

End of year two 🥺🥺🥺

Oh so they’re. Gone.

Aw 🥺 He’s planning bc be doesn’t wanna drink

Lmao Maddie

THE FLASJBACKS

KISS PLEASE

OMH

My heart has stopped

KISS

PLEASE

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Okay so what happens when Buddie kisses and they do the same flashback thing

OH????

Did they sleep together. And he just. LEFT???

But she was so happy when she turned around. Like so excited 🥺🥺🥺

Lmao Chimney is getting schooled

Don’t you DARE give her another love interest

LMFAO ICONIC

Face your fears girl

Please just TALK

Awwwwwww

Madney wedding this season IM CALLING IT

“Our ambulance” - insert communism meme

ALSO CLIPBOARD BUCK

Not Bobby not even realizing lmfao

CAPTAIN HEN WILSONNNNNN

YESSSSS

Buck baby your heart is right on your sleeve rn

THE COUCH

The couch is a direct metaphor for a lover. So that conversation earlier…. IM TELLING YA

Hennnnnnnn

Um. Sir. You can’t just lift a chair like it’s nothing.

SHES MOVING BACK IN

Also. Hm. Chris and Eddie at home playing the same game at home without Buck. Right as Buck sets up his chair showing he’s single. Very very interesting.

Why did I know he was gonna get hurt

WAIT THE NEXT EPISODE IS THE CAR??? AH

#my post #911 spoilers  #911 season 6 spoilers #911 fox

[goldenorangedawn]

01 - 98

We go to the kitchen (me, chris, jorge and flaco) where we bought rolls and hits, and dropped them right away to candyflip.

We kinda stood out in our raver clothes. Haven’t been to the kitchen in a while but it’s a great place to score and pregame. Over the next hour nothing much happened except that I found myself talking quite openly and confidently with the others, moving very easily into interesting conversations. This was a little unusual for me as at that time I was normally quite shy and overly self-conscious in social situations and it would take me a while to loosen up.

At one point Chris turned to me and pointed to the other side of the room at 3 girls who were looking our way. “They’re into you” he said. I could hardly believe it but part of me wanted us to ditch flaco and try to talk them up, but I never got up the courage to do anything. Or likely I was distracted.

I was getting into the music and the next thing I experienced was a striking shift in my visual perception. I don’t mean a hallucination or a distortion, but a wonderful step up in the aesthetic quality. For a moment it was like being in one of those nostalgic TV ads where the world looks all warm and golden. And then I also found that my vision was becoming beautifully enhanced. Next to me was a goth guy I didn’t know who looked like he was peaking. I tried to chat him up but he was really in his own world. And then Chris got up and we all left to the next adventure.

Chris drove us to the edge where the party was in full swing, but not many people there. We all danced with one of their friends ernie joining us.

I felt a new kind of energy frothing up inside me, coursing through my body like champagne bubbles. This was wonderful! And it felt so good!

Mmm-mmm.

I also began to move in time to the music. The music! Oh, the music! Wow! It sounded so good, so organic! It demanded movement from my body, and my body yearned to dance. But chris and the others were kind of bored so we got in the car down south to ch*.

It was*slk you know, so the freaks were out. No cover to get in. We sat at the bar and they let us buy a pitcher pf beer. We drank it and ate chicken wings while chris and the guys looked for parties in the newspaper.

Next we headed out to this other party that was really underground on *sb. We danced like crazy, and this girl chanel shotgunned smoke into my mouth. We talked for a bit and she said she had met me before, but i couldn’t remember. I wanted to kiss her, but somehow we got separated. Later i saw her dancing and making out with flaco of all people. He pulled out one of her giant tits and sucked it in front of everyone. But Chris pulled him off of her and we were headed to the next place.

In the car there was a new upward fizz of energy through my body. It spilled into my head, my face, and found its way to the muscles around my jowls and cheeks. And then it made me do something which was, strangely, almost against my will. It was awakening nerve endings that seemed to have lain dormant for ages. It almost hurt as some inactive facial muscles stirred back into life, but here it came…

I smiled.

I smiled the biggest smile of my life.

Looking at myself smiling back at myself, I felt like a little infant just smiling for the sheer joy of being. The more I smiled, the happier I felt. And the happier I felt, the more I wanted to smile. Everyone in the car was having giggle fits from the rolls and acid.

We went back to *ch by accident, and chris was too fucked up, so we went in and drank another pitcher of beer. Everything had a gorgeous glow to it and we were having a great time.

We stayed until closing time, smoking weed in the parking lot. On the drive back home we went through a drunk checkpoint but they let us pass without stopping. I felt invincible, like everything was too easy.

At home i closed my eyes and saw colors and shapes while i lay in bed. I took a tylenol pm and finally drifted to sleep.

Everything feels very easy and bright today.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 18/11/2023 (Jack Harlow, Dua Lipa, Noah Kahan)

Content warning: Some language, brief sex references

Welp, we have two new songs debuting at #1 and #2 respectively on this week’s UK Singles Chart, which is pretty cool. Jack Harlow of all people snabs his first #1 with “Lovin’ on Me” and Dua Lipa trails right behind him at #2 with “Houdini”.

Rundown

Is it the last dying breath of 2023 or is 2024 just coming two months early? Either way, it’s a bit of a busy week to chalk through so let’s start as we always start: our notable dropouts, songs exiting the UK Top 75 - which is what I cover - after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40. This week, we bid adieu to a pretty large batch of songs, those being “ecstacy” by SUICIDAL-IDOL, “get him back!” by Olivia Rodrigo, “Back on 74” by Jungle, “City Boys” by Burna Boy, “Rush” by Troye Sivan, “fukumean” by Gunna, “Good Love” by Hannah Laing and RoRo, “Giving Me” by Jazzy, “Miracle” by Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding, and “Bad Habits” by Ed Sheeran - it’s a mixed bunch quality wise but these are, bar “Bad Habits”, some of the biggest and most interesting hit songs of 2023 all very quickly gone thanks to our invasion of new arrivals companioned with Christmas songs. Oh yeah, we should get to those, shouldn’t we?

Well, none are in the top 10 yet - “Last Christmas” is the highest at #26 - but entering the top 75 for the first time this year round are “Santa Tell Me” by Ariana Grande at #71, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” by Michael Bublé at #68 and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” by Brenda Lee at #65 - I could see that one having a particularly good year. As for the rest of our notable gains and returns, well, there’s not many, but we do see Lana Del Rey’s “Say Yes to Heaven” back at #64 and Chris Brown’s album help “Sensational” featuring Davido and Lojay peak at #45 - more on him later - and outside of the new songs, that’s pretty much it. Thankfully, we have a particularly interesting top five to sift through.

This week, our top five starts off pretty standard though there is a great deal of movement over here already, with “Stick Season” by Noah Kahan up at #5. Then we have the expected - “greedy” by Tate McRae at #4 and “Prada” by casso, RAYE and D-Block Europe at #3 - and then of course the two new leaders at the very front. Before we get to Dua Lipa and Mr. More than a Feature, however, we have a LOT to get through - like a whole damn back catalogue, really - so let’s run through all 11 of them.

NEW ARRIVALS

#73 - “Nightmares” - Chris Brown featuring Byron Messia

Produced by Chopstix and Chris Brown

It is pretty telling that a lot of the traction for this new Chris Brown album comes from collaborations with other artists, many of whom are lesser known than he is, but I don’t like to waste much breath on this guy and his album that debuted at #11 this week - fitting for an album named 11:11 - so I’ll try and be brief. Chris Brown’s Auto-Tuned false Patois does not fit this more minimal, arguably chalky dancehall vibe at all, even if this is closer to Afrobeats to anything. He just sounds so desperate and false here, which may not have anything to do with genre choice and more just over-selling content that is pretty murky and violent, deserving more of the Byron Messia treatment, though even he is over-doing it a bit, though he of course much more easily catches a rhythm here. The content isn’t bad at least, and the beat, whilst there’s not much to it, is well-produced enough, and also partly self-produced so there’s some merit there.

#60 - “Evergreen” - Ritchy Mitch & the Coal Miners

Produced by Nicolas Haughn

Ritchy Mitch & the Coal Miners are an American indie folk group and this song’s from 2017. Also, TikTok is a social media application used to post short video clips with accompanying sounds or music. Now that we’ve established what it is and why it’s charting, is the viral sleeper hit any good this time around? Well, it’s barely a song, standing as a pretty abstract one-and-a-half-minutes, but there is a lot to like in those low harmonies, the slightly muddy cackling of acoustics where the percussion sounds terrible and that just helps the campfire song aesthetic of it all, and especially the confused set of lyrics, with the guy just being lost and that’s pretty much all that’s sure: he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place, he’s anxious about it, but anything more is speculation because there’s not much to the song lyrically, or at all, and that’s honestly completely fine with me. For the one minute it sits in, it’s pretty compelling and that first time the drums come in is a pretty great wham moment so can’t really complain. Sure, I’d prefer… maybe something to keep it going, but it’s not like it can overstay its welcome. Welcome to the charts, coal miners. I’m pretty sure that’s what J. Cole’s fanbase are called.

#51 - “When We Were Young (The Logical Song)” - David Guetta and Kim Petras

Produced by David Guetta and T.I Jakke

The story of this song starts all the way back in 1979, with progressive pop band Supertramp’s “The Logical Song”. One of their most highly-acclaimed songs, it peaked at #7 - Art Garfunkel’s “Bright Eyes” was #1 - and has enjoyed a lot of retrospective acclaim, even if not being that recognised in its original version, oddly enough like Supertramp’s other hit from that album, “Breakfast in America”, which you may know better as Gym Class Heroes’ “Cupid’s Chokehold”. Anyway, “The Logical Song” is a brilliantly composed track with a lot of pop and some fantastic lyrics about conforming, a song that shows a man desperate for an identity. Also, it has a saxophone solo so it’s immediately a great song. Roger Hodgson based the lyrics off of his experience in boarding school, and for a pop track with such zest, it also conveys a lot of frustration and bursts of energy. So naturally, it needs a happy hardcore remix from German trance outfit Scooter… and I may even like it more. For whatever reason, this German version of a London band’s song became an anthem in Glasgow, and deserves to, because even if the sample may be cheap and obvious, they evolve this song into some bizarre night out at a rave club, with H.P. Baxxter yelling complete nonsense in the interim between the randomly-placed Supertramp hook. Oh, and putting the Amen break behind the original hook is kind of genius. The song peaked at #2 in 2002, kept off the top by yet another remix, that being “A Little Less Conversation” by Elvis and JXL. Whilst very different, both of these versions of the song I would describe as being incredibly human and nuanced. So you know who needs to get their grubby mits on it? David Guetta and Kim Petras, of course. I feel like I don’t need to tell you what they do with this one, it’s got the Eurodance pianos and the typical trance kicks but nothing over-the-top enough to justify the chill-out pianos that sound ripped straight off of Robert Miles or the pitch-shifted hook. I’m sure for some people the lyrics mean more or gain another layer of resonance coming from a trans woman; I could fully see that interpretation. Musically, though, it’s uninspired, and missing the vast majority of the character that both versions had. Bring Baxxter back on the charts, man.

#44 - “LALALALA” - Stray Kids

Produced by Bang Chan (3RACHA), VERSACHOI and Cubeatz

So… this is Stray Kids, a K-pop boy band, and this is from their new album… and this is the kind of K-pop I remember from the 2010s. We have the blending of unrelated genres mashed together into barely-sequenced, chaotic songs with a lot of try-hard rapping and Auto-Tune, stopped in their tracks by random, English-infused melodic pivots, and an overall sound that’ll be dated within five years. I don’t know what to make of this though because, well, it’s done kind of gracefully. The boys can flow pretty well over this mix of Jersey club rhythm, drift-phonk cowbells and drill-esque flowing sub-bass, and the pre-drop leading into the drop is so cinematic it kind of works for me, especially considering the sheer level of… sound quantity in that drop, all of which just blends into a muddy pile of monogenre “cool pop music sounds”. The trap breakdown from Cubeatz is surprisingly smooth too, and the fake-out bridge leading into the final chorus is… actually kind of hype. I didn’t think I’d be into this, and I’m not entirely sure that I fully am, but this has me… compelled. There’s also a “rock version” which goes way harder than it should, that pre-chorus is perfect for that kind of sound and the phonk elements translate surprisingly well into electric guitar. So yeah, shout-out these guys, I suppose. Whoda thunk?

#41 - “Angel Numbers / Ten Toes” - Chris Brown

Produced by Hitmaka, Haze, DSTRK, RoccStar, Troy Taylor, LNKmusic, Slim Pharaoh, Zuus, Ebby and JuanRa

So this is the opening track to that Chris Brown album and is essentially two songs put together, hence why it has 10 Goddamn producers. The first half, “Angel Numbers”, is a glorified intro with a cheap acoustic guitar loop and your typically Auto-Tune-drenched performance from Breezy here, including inappropriately upbeat ad-libs as he tries to heal himself, but a whole lot of that self-improvement and “healing” comes mostly from this girl because of course it does. I will admit that the panning static and synth blend that transitions the two tracks is pretty smooth, which I’d argue it has to be when you have the budget of 10 producers, even if the end goal beat of “Ten Toes” isn’t all that different, just with a murkier mix and Rod Wave-esque basic trap percussion. You know you’re UK chart-brained when you can start hearing D-Block Europe in songs, but come on, this beat isn’t that far off, right? As for Breezy on here, the content isn’t awful, even if it’s drowned in clichés, but it’s also not special and I am not really interested in hearing bragging from Chris Brown. That “anxiety” refrain is very catchy, however, and his slightly raspy, powerful delivery on it does resonate pretty well, even if some of the ad-libbed harmonies are over-the-top, but that’s as to be expected with him. It’s really not terrible, but the standard - especially for a song professing to have as many layers as this one appears to - should be higher.

#27 - “Selecta” - Chase & Status featuring Stefflon Don

Produced by Chase & Status

So Chase & Status released an album, 2 RUFF, Vol. 1, and perhaps expectedly due to their surprisingly big run recently, it debuted at #4 on this week’s albums chart. I haven’t heard it yet but have had mostly mixed opinions on the singles, and whilst Stefflon Don isn’t exactly someone who’d convince me on a track, I was slightly interested to see what was going on here and it’s… functional, barely. I like the focus on atmosphere that Chase & Status typically use as their main approach, but the electric guitars - and Stefflon Don’s badly-mixed vocal take - are very compressed, overly so, and it prevents the atmospheric intro from really translating into the verses. I know the guitar is sampled from Ashanti’s “Only U” - as is much of the rhythm and percussion - but it doesn’t particularly work in that ugly slog of a song either. Sure, it peaked at #2 in 2005 - behind, again for a bizarre 2000s moment, Elvis Presley - but it’s one of those 2000s R&B tracks that always came off as more creepy than sexy as intended, which I guess is not the worst fit for this kind of intensity in the Chase & Status version. I do think the chorus goes relatively hard, and the switch into double-time breakbeats is fun! I just wish there was more of a song here, I guess. I’m usually really easy to win over with drum and bass, especially with this which is semi-ragga jungle influenced and should be a slam dunk for me, but a lot of distorted energy from Stefflon Don isn’t enough to make this feel a bit malformed of a track. Hell, maybe it would have gone harder without being drum and bass at all.

#20 - “Nice to meet you” - PinkPantheress featuring Central Cee

Produced by Cash Cobain, PinkPantheress and Count Baldor

I really did love that new PinkPantheress album, Heaven knows, and it’s a shame we only get one song from the record debuting, especially since 1.) the album only debuted at #28 on the albums chart, which is a real shame, and 2.) this is probably my least favourite song on the entire album, and not actually because of Central Cee. In fact, quite the opposite. Now for the record, I still like the song, it’s got the bouncy drum and bass groove you’d expect and the detailed synthscape of a production that feels miniature in sound but ultimately massive in scope. I did say my thoughts on the album on RateYourMusic so won’t elaborate much here, but she really did expand her songwriting abilities here on this record. This song is the worst example, where much of the chorus relies on a drop into a frankly kind of unpleasant and dull extended syllable, and her one verse is pretty generic for her standards, as well as having a quite staccato delivery that’s somewhat disappointing. Then midway through, Cench comes in and just kind of takes the song for his own. We get some cute strings before he comes in and they serve as the foundation for the beat in his part, with Cench delivering a lot of detail, some cute little flows, much of what you’d expect from him, and whilst he’s not mixed well, he rides it fine, and the transition into a drill rhythm is well done… but after Cench’s verse ends, the song just kind of gives up, with some minimal backing vocals echoing off of a coating of synths and the remainer of the drums but that really is all it is by the end, and I don’t exactly know why that decision was made, it just renders the song incomplete for me. It is still a good song - it’s catchy, the production is intricate and ultimately there’s a lot of fun to be had here, with even some cute moments of chemistry between the two - but it’s far from great… like you know, the rest of that album.

#18 - “Murdaside” - Mazza_l20 and Pistol Po

Produced by JxmieMusic and TylianMTB

I feel like these guys wouldn’t be offended by me saying they are complete and utter nobodies who probably shouldn’t be charting this high, because it is just the truth,  but they have the streams to back it up, and I can tell why. Sure, the vocal mixing is clearly amateur, the two don’t have great delivery, and the Merseyside accent is kind of funny, but the flow is solid and they go for an intense, very bass-heavy horrorcore kind of feel mixing elements of that 2000s 50 Cent-esque sound people like Digga D have tried to revive with more subtle trap skitters and drill percs, and it’s quite interesting. I don’t like Pistol Po here, mostly because I can’t 100% tell if he’s joking or not with his downbeat delivery and repetition of the “29” line, which seems almost like he’s setting up a sketch, but otherwise, it’s a decent little homemade song. And for the actual reason it’s charting, Aitch and Potter Payper have verses on the remix, which is pretty good. Sure, I could do without Aitch trying his best to be menacing, when he can’t ever pull that off, and it would be cool if Mazza had re-recorded his vocals to fit better with the more high-budget guest features, but Potter Payper - even when censored - sounds excellent on this production, mostly because he actually has some natural violence and venom to him. He also replaces the mediocre Pistol Po so I can’t complain. There are also four other remixes, the “ScouseMix” with Aystar, who’s pretty boring, a “BrumMix” with Birmingham rapper RM, who barely has enough time to make an impression, and then other remixes with Loski, whose recording is worse quality than Mazza, and SJ, who goes pretty effortlessly hard. In fact, since that version also gets rid of Pistol Po, it’s probably my favourite because it’s the coldest of them all, even if there’s only just one verse of difference across most versions. Either version you listen to, it’s oddly hypnotic, and really, listening to all these versions has kind of convinced me that the foundation of it is actually brilliant. I don’t know if this is more than a novelty, but I wonder how much staying power it’ll have.

#16 - “Northern Attitude” - Noah Kahan

Produced by Gabe Simon and Noah Kahan

Okay, he’s convinced me. Mostly because of the lyrics. I like the picked bluegrass rumble in that acoustic flitter, and Kahan is far from as nasal as he has been on past tracks I’ve heard from him, in fact giving a quite frail falsetto delivery at times that’s pretty heart-breaking, and that sudden development into a stomp-rock belter is pulled off surprisingly well. The lyrics though are what I like the most - in functions in a similar vein to “The Logical Song” in that it’s about the struggles of finding identity in adulthood, but instead of that coming from a more naive perspective, Kahan’s kind of talking down here, perhaps condescendingly, to someone who had all that and lost it, not through wrong-doing but through pure complacency and just lack of change, has led to a depressing, routine life that Kahan’s going to blame on the fact he was brought up in “cold” New England. It’s a middle-life crisis song, essentially, but with a bitter, pissy perspective that is pretty much only there because of the chosen second-person tense of the song. It’s fascinating, it reminds me almost of Toby Keith’s “How Do You Like Me Now?!”, except withb the history of Kahan’s relationship with this person being much less clear. The change of tense to Kahan speaking as if this person was himself I think doesn’t show this magical twist that the person is him after all, what it makes me speculate is that our narrator knows this eventually WILL be him, and that’s why that “Northern Attitude” is so relevant. He’s seeing this happen to the people who raised him, and that’s why he’s so bitter about it: he’s eventually going to be just as cold and broken as them. This is a fantastic song, it’s not charting purely because of that as there is a duet version with Hozier that doesn’t really change the song in any substantial way other than have Hozier sing parts of it solo and in harmony with Kahan. It’s not a better mix or anything, it’s just the song with Hozier now, there are no substantial lyric additions or changes, and Hozier adds little more perspective since there are already two characters in the song, and Hozier’s delivery is honestly kind of awkward. I like Hozier fine, but I much prefer the solo version in this case. Still, can’t really do much wrong with this good of a composition and set of lyrics.

#2 - “Houdini” - Dua Lipa

Produced by Kevin Parker and Danny L Harle

I don’t even need to say much here to introduce this, right? Danny L Harle, Tame Impala, Dua Lipa - I’m on board, let’s go. It’s got a solidly atmospheric intro in that it cuts to the chase immediately into an undeniable rumble of a synth-funk groove, especially with those “Billie Jean”-esque lead synths. The kind of static, acid-y synths feel oddly dry, in that they’ve dried for too long and Dua and co. are struggling to pick everything back up from the fence it dried on. Meanwhile, Dua “comes and goes” - the double meaning isn’t hard - and just wants some in-the-moment love, having gained a reputation for being a bit of a “Houdini”. The character is careless, not desperate for this guy but almost menacing, like she’s on his mind at all times. There’s a hot-and-heavy intensity to this, especially with how the bass In the left channel kind of clashes with the tighter synths, it’s actually a really odd-feeling mix sometimes. I wish there was more to the bridge than just Tame Impala playing with some keys, maybe a really bass-heavy moment, but I understand why they don’t do that - the song needs to be ephemeral to an extent and the bridge slides very well into the final chorus. This is pretty obviously great, maybe not excellent, but it does have me very excited for what’s coming next, even if it doesn’t fully exceed what expectations I had for this.

#1 - “Lovin’ on Me” - Jack Harlow

Produced by OZ, Nik D and Sean Momberger

Now what expectations did I have for this? None, and it still sucks ass. Jack Harlow “proving he can rap” after a lot of fans jumped ship due to the lazy pop pivot of Come Home the Kids Miss You by dropping a fleeting, not-nearly-as-interesting-as-he-thinks-it-is conscious tape and then returning back to what got him the #1 when he realised that chasing credibility matters much less to him than bank statements - it is just the natural progression, but the fact that it worked, and so extraordinarily well, is what surprises me, Hell, even saddens me. At least in the hook of “First Class” there was some fun wordplay and a call-and-response to be had, though to be fair, he’s not charting a hit song, instead the groovy obscurity “Whatever” by Cadillac Dale, which is honestly a bit of a bizarre find for his producers, I commend them on finding such a catchy hook that feels like it’s straight from, I don’t know, Ginuwine, in a random new jack swing song that I couldn’t find on most streaming services. With that said, it’s just a loop. A catchy loop, but a loop, a mindless, hypnotic loop that gets real tired really damn fast. It plays under factorial hyphy beats, and Harlow doesn’t learn the lesson from “First Class” as he gives up trying to write an actual chorus in the second half and just does a deadpan harmony of the sample. He’s saying so little in the verses, and what he does say is about as charming as the Shrek character he references with his staccato flow. This is mind-numbing, why is he spelling words all the time? Why is he whispering? Wake up, Jackman! I know this is supposed to be dumb fun, but hey, you can’t use that defence when it’s clear that no-one on this song is having that. At least I got one laugh out of him starting the hook of the song just stating unabashedly that he is white and boring to have sex with. I don’t think he needed to say it, exactly, the song already gave that impression and then some.

Conclusion

Yes, of course, Jack Harlow easily snabs Worst of the Week for “Lovin’ on Me” and bizarrely enough, Chris Brown dodges the Dishonourable Mention. That’s going to “When We Were Young (The Logical Song)” by David Guetta and Kim Petras. As for the best, it’s much trickier because for a busy week, it was also quite a positive one and Noah Kahan probably has the Best of the Week locked with “Northern Attitude”, though Dua Lipa, much like she is on the actual chart, trails close behind with “Houdini” as the Honourable Mention. As for what’s on the horizon, I don’t know, Santa Claus and Drake. Thank you for reading and I’ll see you next week!

#pop music #song review #uk singles chart #jack harlow #dua lipa #noah kahan #hozier #mazza l20 #pistol po #aitch #potter payper #pinkpantheress #central cee #chase & status #stefflon don #chris brown #byron messia #stray kids #david guetta #kim petras #ritchy mitch & the coal miners

[kammartinez]

By Cal Newport

In early July, Meta introduced Threads, a text-posting social-media application that was clearly designed to steal market share from Twitter, which continues to struggle under the leadership of Elon Musk. Adam Mosseri, the executive in charge of Threads, recently explained that the goal of the service is “to create a public square for communities on Instagram that never really embraced Twitter and for communities on Twitter (and other platforms) that are interested in a less angry place for conversations.” Chris Cox, Meta’s chief product officer, was more blunt: “We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run.”

The more than a hundred million users who signed up to try Threads demonstrate the continued desire for something like Twitter at its best: a global conversation platform on which everyone can gather to make sense of ideas and events, or, failing that, at least identify some strangely entertaining memes. If Meta can succeed in capturing some of this peak-Twitter magic, while avoiding late-stage Twitter’s struggles, the company will perhaps even reclaim some of the cultural gravity that it squandered a decade ago when Facebook took its turn toward crazy-uncle irrelevance. But can Meta possibly succeed in building a saner, nicer Twitter?

To answer this question, it helps to better understand the business that Meta is getting into. Critical to the Twitter experience is the sense of shared conversation. Whereas Instagram or TikTok produce a custom feed for each user, optimized to their particular interests, Twitter’s power is its ability to show many people the same small number of interesting things. You check Twitter not just for distraction but also to figure out what the Internet hive mind is obsessed about on any given day. Achieving this sense of communal dialogue presents a daunting technical challenge. Twitter users reportedly produce over five hundred million tweets per day, which the platform must somehow sift through to isolate and spread the interactions that might be most attention-worthy and entertaining to the group as a whole. The strategy that Twitter developed to accomplish this goal was to rely less on machines and more on people. The individual decision to retweet or quote a message, when scaled up to millions of active users, turns out to produce an eerily effective distributed selection process. A quip or observation that hits the Internet just right can quickly spark an information cascade, where retweets spawn more retweets—the original message branching exponentially outward until it reaches, seemingly all at once, an extensive readership. To be sure, Twitter also uses algorithms to fine-tune its selection process, but these algorithms are largely subservient to the human-driven group dynamics; the service reorders the messages in your timeline, for example, to prioritize those which are most widely shared.

The reality of how Twitter succeeds in cultivating a sense of shared conversation at a substantial scale presents a problem for Threads’ goal of making its platform “less angry.” The small number of digital interactions that survive Twitter’s style of cybernetic curation tend toward negative and emotionally charged topics. This is a classic example of selection bias: the more aggressive messages are more likely to succeed in catching the attention of a sufficient number of retweeters to drive viral expansion. This doesn’t mean, of course, that every popular tweet is mean. Breaking news can spread quickly, as can clips that are funny in an original or strange way—but these innocuous trends feel serendipitous, like a rainbow spanning storm clouds. To reach the Twitter masses, conspiracy, demagoguery, and cancellation are much more likely to succeed. The result is a Faustian bargain for our networked era: trusting the wisdom of crowds to identify what’s interesting can create an intensely compelling stream of shared content, but this content is likely to arrive drenched in rancor.

The obvious way Meta can attempt to escape this bargain is by moving Threads away from retransmission-based curation and toward algorithmic ranking. This will give the company more control over which discussions are amplified, but, in doing so, they will also lose the human-powered selectivity that makes Twitter so engaging. Algorithms are good at finding content that matches the carefully established interests of individual users but have proved incapable of predicting in advance the Zeitgeisty conversations most likely to capture the attention of the Internet masses at the moment. A more purely algorithmic conversation platform will behave like a shared Instagram feed without the pictures—a steady stream of earnest text about vaguely interesting topics. Is there a demand for this experience? Recent reports of a significant drop in user engagement on Threads after its launch indicate that the answer to this question might be “not really.” In developing Threads, Meta will likely succeed with its goal of offering advertisers a more sanely run platform, but the price will be a more boring experience.

If we look past this narrow discussion of Threads’ challenges, however, a broader question arises: Why is it so important to create a better version of Twitter in the first place? Ignored amid the hand-wringing about the toxic turn taken by large-scale conversation platforms are the many smaller, less flashy sites and services that have long been supporting a more civilized form of digital interaction. As a Washington Nationals baseball fan, for example, I enjoy lurking on the game-day discussion threads hosted by a modest but lively Web site called TalkNats.com. During each regular-season Nats game, several dozen regulars, identified by vintage Web 2.0 usernames such as scnatsfan and Warning Track Power, gather online at TalkNats.com to discuss the game in real time. They highlight certain plays and vent frustrations. The more intense participants will share statistics or obscure news from around the league. (A recent discussion that I monitored included a report from a user named NaturdayNightFever who had witnessed encouraging signs about the swing of Brady House, one of the Nationals’ top minor-league prospects.) Some of the users have met one another in real life, while others are known only by their digital personas. The over-all atmosphere is notably collegial, like a local sports bar where the regulars gather to root for the home team.

In these two extremes of digital interaction, large platforms such as Twitter and Threads on one side and a boutique fan site such as TalkNats.com on the other, we find two competing visions for how best to converse online. The existence of small but energetic sites such as TalkNats.com supports the claim that the power of the Internet is the potential for connection that it provides. Because any user of this vast network can connect to any other, the possibilities for discovering unique or meaningful interactions become seemingly endless. Early Internet boosters emphasized how this potential connectivity enabled an exciting variety of TalkNats-style microcommunities, each dedicated to its own wonderfully esoteric, shared identities or interests. “The Internet has become the ultimate narrowcasting vehicle: everyone from UFO buffs to New York Yankee fans has a Website (or dozen) to call his own,” the journalist Richard Zoglin wrote in 1996. “A dot-com in every pot.”

Major conversation platforms like Twitter and Threads, by contrast, emphasize a different goal for realizing the Internet’s potential: aggregating as many of its potential connections as possible into a single service. Whereas the potential-connection mind-set fosters small groups that gather in their own bespoke corners of cyberspace, the supporters of aggregation aim to link as many people as possible into the same widespread digital conversations. We’ve gone from Zoglin’s dot-com in every pot to the social-media age’s vision of every pot being filled with slop from the same platforms.

#internet #twitter

[kamreadsandrecs]

By Cal Newport

In early July, Meta introduced Threads, a text-posting social-media application that was clearly designed to steal market share from Twitter, which continues to struggle under the leadership of Elon Musk. Adam Mosseri, the executive in charge of Threads, recently explained that the goal of the service is “to create a public square for communities on Instagram that never really embraced Twitter and for communities on Twitter (and other platforms) that are interested in a less angry place for conversations.” Chris Cox, Meta’s chief product officer, was more blunt: “We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run.”

The more than a hundred million users who signed up to try Threads demonstrate the continued desire for something like Twitter at its best: a global conversation platform on which everyone can gather to make sense of ideas and events, or, failing that, at least identify some strangely entertaining memes. If Meta can succeed in capturing some of this peak-Twitter magic, while avoiding late-stage Twitter’s struggles, the company will perhaps even reclaim some of the cultural gravity that it squandered a decade ago when Facebook took its turn toward crazy-uncle irrelevance. But can Meta possibly succeed in building a saner, nicer Twitter?

To answer this question, it helps to better understand the business that Meta is getting into. Critical to the Twitter experience is the sense of shared conversation. Whereas Instagram or TikTok produce a custom feed for each user, optimized to their particular interests, Twitter’s power is its ability to show many people the same small number of interesting things. You check Twitter not just for distraction but also to figure out what the Internet hive mind is obsessed about on any given day. Achieving this sense of communal dialogue presents a daunting technical challenge. Twitter users reportedly produce over five hundred million tweets per day, which the platform must somehow sift through to isolate and spread the interactions that might be most attention-worthy and entertaining to the group as a whole. The strategy that Twitter developed to accomplish this goal was to rely less on machines and more on people. The individual decision to retweet or quote a message, when scaled up to millions of active users, turns out to produce an eerily effective distributed selection process. A quip or observation that hits the Internet just right can quickly spark an information cascade, where retweets spawn more retweets—the original message branching exponentially outward until it reaches, seemingly all at once, an extensive readership. To be sure, Twitter also uses algorithms to fine-tune its selection process, but these algorithms are largely subservient to the human-driven group dynamics; the service reorders the messages in your timeline, for example, to prioritize those which are most widely shared.

The reality of how Twitter succeeds in cultivating a sense of shared conversation at a substantial scale presents a problem for Threads’ goal of making its platform “less angry.” The small number of digital interactions that survive Twitter’s style of cybernetic curation tend toward negative and emotionally charged topics. This is a classic example of selection bias: the more aggressive messages are more likely to succeed in catching the attention of a sufficient number of retweeters to drive viral expansion. This doesn’t mean, of course, that every popular tweet is mean. Breaking news can spread quickly, as can clips that are funny in an original or strange way—but these innocuous trends feel serendipitous, like a rainbow spanning storm clouds. To reach the Twitter masses, conspiracy, demagoguery, and cancellation are much more likely to succeed. The result is a Faustian bargain for our networked era: trusting the wisdom of crowds to identify what’s interesting can create an intensely compelling stream of shared content, but this content is likely to arrive drenched in rancor.

The obvious way Meta can attempt to escape this bargain is by moving Threads away from retransmission-based curation and toward algorithmic ranking. This will give the company more control over which discussions are amplified, but, in doing so, they will also lose the human-powered selectivity that makes Twitter so engaging. Algorithms are good at finding content that matches the carefully established interests of individual users but have proved incapable of predicting in advance the Zeitgeisty conversations most likely to capture the attention of the Internet masses at the moment. A more purely algorithmic conversation platform will behave like a shared Instagram feed without the pictures—a steady stream of earnest text about vaguely interesting topics. Is there a demand for this experience? Recent reports of a significant drop in user engagement on Threads after its launch indicate that the answer to this question might be “not really.” In developing Threads, Meta will likely succeed with its goal of offering advertisers a more sanely run platform, but the price will be a more boring experience.

If we look past this narrow discussion of Threads’ challenges, however, a broader question arises: Why is it so important to create a better version of Twitter in the first place? Ignored amid the hand-wringing about the toxic turn taken by large-scale conversation platforms are the many smaller, less flashy sites and services that have long been supporting a more civilized form of digital interaction. As a Washington Nationals baseball fan, for example, I enjoy lurking on the game-day discussion threads hosted by a modest but lively Web site called TalkNats.com. During each regular-season Nats game, several dozen regulars, identified by vintage Web 2.0 usernames such as scnatsfan and Warning Track Power, gather online at TalkNats.com to discuss the game in real time. They highlight certain plays and vent frustrations. The more intense participants will share statistics or obscure news from around the league. (A recent discussion that I monitored included a report from a user named NaturdayNightFever who had witnessed encouraging signs about the swing of Brady House, one of the Nationals’ top minor-league prospects.) Some of the users have met one another in real life, while others are known only by their digital personas. The over-all atmosphere is notably collegial, like a local sports bar where the regulars gather to root for the home team.

In these two extremes of digital interaction, large platforms such as Twitter and Threads on one side and a boutique fan site such as TalkNats.com on the other, we find two competing visions for how best to converse online. The existence of small but energetic sites such as TalkNats.com supports the claim that the power of the Internet is the potential for connection that it provides. Because any user of this vast network can connect to any other, the possibilities for discovering unique or meaningful interactions become seemingly endless. Early Internet boosters emphasized how this potential connectivity enabled an exciting variety of TalkNats-style microcommunities, each dedicated to its own wonderfully esoteric, shared identities or interests. “The Internet has become the ultimate narrowcasting vehicle: everyone from UFO buffs to New York Yankee fans has a Website (or dozen) to call his own,” the journalist Richard Zoglin wrote in 1996. “A dot-com in every pot.”

Major conversation platforms like Twitter and Threads, by contrast, emphasize a different goal for realizing the Internet’s potential: aggregating as many of its potential connections as possible into a single service. Whereas the potential-connection mind-set fosters small groups that gather in their own bespoke corners of cyberspace, the supporters of aggregation aim to link as many people as possible into the same widespread digital conversations. We’ve gone from Zoglin’s dot-com in every pot to the social-media age’s vision of every pot being filled with slop from the same platforms.



#internet #twitter

[zealoptics]

Taking Off with Zeal: Flying High and Stylish in the Colorado Backcountry ⛰️

Chris Morgan - August 2023

When: This Summer Where: Somewhere in the mountains of the western US

Laurie and I couldn’t see the landing strip as we committed to flying up the canyon leading towards the distant wilderness peaks. The forested hills gradually squeezed in on us as a wild river tumbled through the forest below our small airplane. We knew where the grass strip should be located, but the dense fir trees obscured any chance of a view. We were both a bit anxious since this was our first short field landing at a real backcountry airstrip.

A few minutes later we overflew the grassy meadow with the ends of the airstrip protruding outwards between gaps in the trees. The approach end nearly touched the winding river. We knew the airstrip was short, but it looked even shorter than we had imagined it to be. After confirming the wind direction I banked the airplane as close as I could to the mountainside and flew away from the meadow to set up for a turn to my final approach. Laurie, nervous about the trees just fifty feet off her wing, distracted herself by trying to shoot a video with her iPhone. The screen of the iPhone lent a distance to the reality that she was flying in the mountains in an underpowered airplane built when she was in elementary school. Another tight turn and we made our way back upriver. Our dog Zoe yawned and sat up from her nap in the backseat. She leisurely peered out the side window.

I did the final landing checks: Flaps - 40 degrees. Propeller - Full Forward. Mixture - Full Rich. We crossed the river one more time and gently descended through the gap in the towering trees. A slight turn to the right and we were lined up for landing. Seconds later the large tundra tires absorbed the soft impact. The tailwheel settled onto the grass and we quickly came to stop between another parked airplane and an ancient barn. We were both happy to be on the ground at a place that is only accessible by airplane or by a long hike up and into the valley.

I turned to Laurie and we smiled at one another. I gave my standard post-landing assessment, “It looks like we cheated death yet again.” She smiled at me knowing the truth is that I try to be as safe as possible. While flying in the mountains is inherently not the safest option, there are many ways to minimize the dangers and ensure we make it back home with wonderful memories.

Aviation had been a big part of my life, but when my career as a military pilot ended, so did my desire to fly. Having to pay to fly for fun didn’t appeal to me, so I turned the page and moved on to other pursuits. Strangely, it ended up being my wife who convinced me to get an airplane.

Fast forward one decade after my retirement from the Air Force. We had finished a wonderful weeklong fishing adventure in the Alaskan bush. As we flew towards Anchorage in the back of a vintage bush plane, Laurie turned to me and told me we should get an airplane. Not just any airplane, but one we can fly into the backcountry. She thought that sounded like a grand adventure for this phase of our lives.

First, I was shocked. Over the years she had shown no real interest in aviation other than wanting me to always return home safe. It was a quality I loved about her — she loved me despite me being a fighter pilot, not because of it. Second, I told her all the reasons that owning an airplane wasn’t a good idea; time, cost, maintenance, etc. From an empirical viewpoint it just didn’t make sense. She smiled and told me I’d come around.

It took me a whole year of pondering, but eventually I did come around. I did already have my commercial license, so all I really needed was to get my currency back - not really thinking that it had been thirty years since I had last flown anything that didn’t have an afterburner, carried missiles, and flew supersonic.

Eventually, we became the owners of a 1974 taildragger airplane with big tires, a strong engine, and room for our dog and plenty of adventure gear. The learning curve was steep and there was a lot to learn, but it didn’t take long before I was safely (but maybe not beautifully) landing on short gravel strips.

Summer is the time to get out and explore in the airplane. It’s a wonderful way to get to remote areas of this beautiful country, but the best part has been all the amazing, outgoing people we have met along the way. The flying is fun, but it really is the flying community that makes the trips so special.

Our Zeal Optics aviator sunglasses fit perfectly under our noise cancelling headsets, and the progressive prescriptions work flawlessly so we can spot other aircraft a few miles away and quickly glance inside and accurately read the cockpit instruments.

The copper Ellume Polarized lens has been our favorite for years, and it is our favorite in our aviator style sunglasses, too. Laurie’s choice is the Skyway and mine is the Hawker.

Here in the United States, we are blessed with a supportive aviation community, a vast network of airports, and a plethora of backcountry airstrips. We look forward to continuing our explorations, as well as supporting the organizations and nonprofits that are so critical in keeping civil aviation and backcountry flying alive and well.

We hope to see you out there recreating in the mountains whether it’s on the trail, at the climbing crag, on the snow, or on a grass airstrip in the middle of nowhere. Explore More!

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A huge thank you to Chris and Laurie for the adventure packed story! Learn more about our Metals Collection and the meaning behind them via the link below.

#zealoptics #BackcountryAdventures #exploremore #aviationexploreation #aviation #coloradoskies #adventure sunglasses #pilotlife #zealambassadors #ambassadorjourneys #aviator sunglasses