#I figure people would vibe with this clip for no particular reason

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

medialog june 2k24

watched

wordplay - rewatched this documentary about crosswords and particularly about the annual crossword tournament put on by will shortz while waiting for the anesthesia from my wisdom tooth extraction to wear off and found it about as charming as i remembered... i love a doc about a subculture made up of endearing nerds. i first saw it when it came out and on revisit it also has some intensely 2004 vibes - in particular jon stewart shows up as one of their crossword-fans talking heads and it really brought home for me how influential he was on the development of internet tone (like to this day the reason so many people on reddit sound Like That is because they're trying to be jon stewart and failing...)

the bourne ultimatum - movie go zoom zoom! still not convinced matt damon can act

artists and models - i had never seen a dean martin/jerry lewis film before and i don't really want to again but i'm glad i saw this one (this is how i feel about the two (2) wes anderson movies i've seen, and also pulp fiction & tarantino). some great colors & costumes, a plot that goes surprisingly bonkers in a final third turn that reminds you it was the cold war (between that and all the stuff about comics & violence this one also functions as a real time capsule), and (my main reason for watching) shirley maclaine the love of my life is so adorable and funny as a daffy sweetheart in a role that really lets her (a former dancer) show off her gift for physical comedy.

the secret garden - the cast in this movie is so good, including the children in the starring roles, and while it doesn't even attempt to do anything with the book's deranged relationship with things like the british empire and the concept of disability, watching it really did bring me back to why the book has been so beloved - the fantasy at its heart is ultimately about hard humble work paying off and about friends teaching each other to be nicer, which are i think deeply appealing narratives for children in a way that people sometimes forget. it's so funny that part of what cures mary and colin of their bad personalities is meeting another unhappy rich child for the very first time!

humanist vampire seeking consenting suicidal person - this was slight but sweet, a darkly funny romcom with some style and heart. also i had never seen a french-canadian movie before i don't think and it was a fun surprise to hear them talking like "frenchfrenchfrenchfrenchRRRRfrenchfrenchRRRR." not an accent with which i have much familiarity!

jurassic park - my somewhat inexplicable, even to me, aversion to raiders of the lost ark had me avoiding action spielberg for basically my whole life but i gave this a shot thinking maybe i would appreciate it if not enjoy it and was absolutely GLUED to the screen from about five minutes in. i understand why other directors are like that about spielberg now, and also what jj abrams is trying to do all the time and failing because he doesn't understand how it actually works. this is like the most famous movie in the world basically and i've seen so many clips from it over the years and yet even waiting for them and expecting them to come i was ON THE EDGE OF MY SEAT! like WOW! truly a movie that feels like a theme park ride more than any other i've seen except maybe fury road. anyway as you statistically speaking probably already know this movie absolutely rocks, and not just for (1) laura dern and (2) jeff goldblum with his tits out.

citizen kane - spent the last weekend in june at two different marches & closed it out sunday night with a screening of the movie that made me bisexual <3 one day i'll figure out a way to articulate how this movie did what it did to me but for now i will just say that it is great and its reputation is deserved and orson welles is one of the most entertaining screen presences of all time and it looks so cool and beautiful all the way through and it is so so so so gay

interview with a vampire season 2 - my opinion on this is at this point well established lol finally some good fucking food!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

read

megan abbott, the turnout - this & the zadie smith book are further steps in me catching up with authors i lost track of during some bad reading years! when i heard that megan abbott was coming out with a book about sisters who run a ballet school i was like LOL because that's like the peak ultimate megan abbott premise (girls and the nastiness of both feelings and bodies and ambition and hunger and an atmosphere of nightmares and filth and the insane dynamics of a tightly knit but deeply dysfunctional world, all to the nth power), and guess what as a megan abbott fan i loved it :) all the bad reviews on goodreads for this are like "why is this book so gross? why is she sexualizing the nutracker? there were scenes in this book that made me feel dirty reading them. way too much focus on the wet leotard crotches of little girls" and i was sickos dot jpg the whole time. but actually i think the reason that this wound up being my favorite abbott since dare me is that at its core it's a book about a woman with an unbelievably fucked up childhood due to her incredibly fucked up dead parents and the suspense that gives the book its tension and its form is less about what's going to happen with the plot and more about whether she is at any point going to put it together that the things that happened to her when she was young were actually bad; the further the book goes, the more deeply you understand the walls of denial and distortion around her entire life. it rules.

david j. skaal, something in the blood: the untold story of bram stoker, the man who wrote dracula - as previously mentioned, i have some real qualms with some of his dracula readings, but overall i found this an addictively pleasurable tome - 600 pages and he kept them turning the whole time. i love a biography that starts off with some background on medieval ireland, you know? skaal is a good writer with an engaging but learned style, and the book is clearly both exhaustively researched and intended for popular audiences (albeit popular audiences who have definitely read dracula, but, i mean, who else is reading 600 pages about this guy?); reading it often feels something like having a drink with a professor who knows his stuff and is NOT afraid to gossip. dracula qualms aside i may investigate some of his other books, particularly his book on dracula screen adaptations, since i'm curious about those but don't necessarily want to, like, watch most of them, lol

bonnie jo campbell, the waters - book club book that was objectively certainly not terrible and which had some things i did like or appreciate, like an 11 year old girl obsessed with math (representation matters...) but which i found just about the most boring thing i have read in my life. like i would definitely say campbell is a better writer than, say, taylor jenkins reid (to name another book club book) or whatsherface who wrote the book of fried green tomatoes which we also read las year... but i found those books much more aggravating but also easier to get through than this book, which really requires you to have some level investment in, like, the natural world of rural michigan, but mostly made me feel so glad i don't live in a small town where all the men have guns.

zadie smith, swing time - it's funny because when i started this i was spending a lot of time thinking about how maybe plot and structure have become underrated, but then this was like a very long book written in the style of someone just kind of talking at you about their life, with plot events technically happening but never feeling like the driving force of the book, and i was totally riveted, which was a good reminder that you can get away with anything if you're a genius! smith is just such a keen observer of people and how they operate, and so allergic to relying on any kind of obvious assumptions about the relationships between demographics & personality or beliefs, even as demographic realities are such a key part of the fabric of the book... i was a little worried i would be disappointed by the fact that she abandoned the modernist-leaning experimentation of NW for a more straightforward, even chatty, style, but "you can get away with it if you're a genius" applies to that too. this book is also an absolute masterclass in the universal through the specific - i cannot emphasize how much literally not one thing the protagonist experiences has ever happened to me, how much our lives and backgrounds and personalities overlap not at all, and yet constantly i found myself aching with resonance over things like "it's so true that's what it's like when you have a mom" or "that really is what it feels like when you are young and sort of smart but also sort of stupid" (which if i were to define it briefly is i think more or less what the book is about).

listened

charli xcx, brat - i remain after all these years a true romance truther and continue unfairly to measure all her subsequent work, much of which is frankly too sophisticated and experimental for my listening taste even if i recognize she's Doing Something, but this album sounds great and has some bops. as a straight-through listen it was too rich for my blood, but i find myself enjoying the songs on shuffle mixed in with whatever else i've been into more than i would have expected from that first exposure, and also 360 has been stuck in my head more waking hours than not for like a month and a half now and i'm still not sick of it (although i think my favorite song on the album is 365, and not just because i think it's really funny that she ended the album with "the opening track coming out of the bathroom after doing cocaine"). plus as someone who HAS been listening to charli since whenever the video for "you're the one" dropped it is nice to see The Culture finally rally around her even if i remain a little puzzled over why now, the all-star remixes getting rolled out have been pretty delightful (LORDE!!!!!!!!), and it's nice to have the zeitgeist coalesce for a moment over something i too think is fun (especially since the other thing gay people love this summer is chappell roan on whom i have yet to be converted sorry to everyone i'm sincerely glad you're having a good time)

[straightbaittournament]

only the option with the lowest percentage will be eliminated! propaganda under the cut (and more always welcome!):

ava silva and michael salvius:

They have some amusingly straightbaity scenes where Michael initially appears to be interested in Ava (meeting her in a bar, asking questions about her, pursuing her to get her to do things with him and inviting her to kick ass with him) but almost all of these scenes are explicitly for plot reasons or end up displaying the closeness of Ava and Beatrice (and Beatrice’s jealousy over Ava seemingly being interested in a man) instead. Michael and Ava develop a strong close relationship that feels more sibling-esque by the end of season 2 and also Michael straight up dies at the end of season 2 as well.

neo, mew, and shin:

Before the show aired there was all this speculation over who Neo (a boy) was going to choose, Mew (a girl) or Shin (a boy). A lot of people suspected that Neo and Mew would get together and even though the trailers seemed to imply that there was something between Neo and Shin, that it wouldn't end well for them. Turns out the show went a completely different direction and ended up with polyamory with all three dating each other. This song from the show released before the show came out and there's a lot of comments from people before the show came out trying to figure out who's going to end up together (with some people saying that they hope it'll be poly but are sure that it probably won't be) https://youtu.be/5w-nDbr2fxY And here's the famous kiss scene (there's no subs in this clip but the general vibe is that they're telling Shin (the shorter guy) that even the two of them have feelings for each other, they care about him too) https://youtu.be/Gr4fTrXqL8k https://64.media.tumblr.com/80a1b4441645c65825f221a42d2e88ed/36e07bb804d7de75-59/s540x810/bd1bb49d299d904c8ffe9a26b970caf9567eaae3.pnj

edward elric and winry rockbell:

literally in different dimensions by the end! they still have a lot of the hallmarks of "ohh endgame childhood best friends" or whatever but fma 2003 just said. naah. winry got the shortest end of the stick and i feel so bad for her!!! continuity specific straightbait. in every other universe they get married and have kids but screw you two specifically 🙏

hikaru hitachiin and haruhi fujioka:

Haruhi x Hikaru from ouran high school host club. Yes i know she technically gets together with another boy in the end, but there is something so Queer about this ship in particular. Their whole date episode is just screaming Not Straight. For both of them.

rowena macleod and sam winchester:

Their relationship was clearly going in that direction before the writers killed Rowena.

galo and aina (submitted as lio and galo):

Iirc, the whole time the audience was set up to believe that Galo will get together with a teammate named Aina (i might be completely wrong but i think she showed romantic interest in him). That's what usually happens, anyways. However, studio trigger turned that premise on its head with Galo's budding relationship with Lio. In order to save Lio, Galo kissed him. They kissed.

mako, korra, and asami:

it's that one meme where the guy ignores his girlfriend to check out another girl, only the two girls get to know each other and get together. S1/2 has love triangle drama between who Mako will be with (Korra or Asami). S3 no one is together but Korra and Asami become really close friends. S4 Korra and Asami are together. Mako is single. Like the only example of exes being good friends and Not getting back together, as well as giving the middle finger to heteronormative assumptions when after the love triangle is over, the two girls get together Shipping the two girls in a love triangle together but it actually happens

pat and ink:

Pat has a crush on Ink early on, and it seems possible at first that she may feel the same way. However, it is later revealed that she actually has a crush on his sister and is a lesbian. It's okay though because then Pat realizes he's in love with his childhood rival and they become wlw mlm solidarity! Everyone wins!

buffy driscoll and tj kippen:

in the show there's this thing were if a character looks back to someone while they're leaving it means they have a crush on them. so they had a scene were tj looked back towards were buffy was, but then it was revealed he was gay and in love with buffy's best friend who was standing right next to her in that scene enemies to friends were tj is redeem through the power of gay love towards buffy's best friend

alexa, liana, ian, and jeremy:

the Only barbie animated movie where the girl(s) do not end up with a guy. alexa & liana live together and enact a ton of romantic tropes together, the twin guys do flirt with them but then the girls are separated from them by... a magic rainbow. they do dance together at the end of the movie... before the girls leave to go live together again. wearing dresses that are literally the bi and lesbian pride flags. no joke. cottagecore wlw separated from potential male love interests by literal magic rainbow the gayest barbie movie

good luck everyone! now go vote!

[northwest-cryptid]

You know, I don't think anyone understands how much I love this post for all the wrong reasons.

This is a gif from a game that, as shit as it may have actually been; had some fantastic aesthetics. The music is on point, the environment design is really cool; there's a ton to enjoy about this game outside of the gameplay but admittedly for the time, it wasn't so bad.

The game offered a lot of standard FPS or in this case TPS mechanics that we just didn't have back during the N64 era, or at least not in this sort of a genre. So it was really cool to see.

Anyways this post says fuck all of that, and shows you a short clip of someone walking directly into an alien firing squad and just standing there; just absolutely eating shit and dying. No shooting back until the last second of the gif, no dodging or rolling out of the way, no agency at all.

This gif is an eyesore, and I do mean that it's straining on the eyes with the flashing red screen. This gives off "I just walked into my 12 hour shift at retail customer service and there's a line of Karens waiting for me" vibes. This dude just walks in here and eats shit.

Not to mention that the location doesn't really show off anything of the game's unique aesthetics, the enemies are even fairly bland compared to others we see throughout the game.

And yet it's given the same respect as any other post, with the name and the devs and the system/year all being laid out nicely; it's still a showcase of the game.

But like... why? This feels considerably lower effort than any other post we can see on this blog, it's not like OP is actually bad at showcasing games or anything. This post in particular is just an absolute disaster among fairly polished gems of posts.

So it made me wonder if maybe this was the only gif they had, perhaps this game is just so niche that this was the best they could find.

But no! That's not the case! A quick google search shows me multiple gifs all of which are much better at actually showcasing the game, aesthetics; and features that made so many people love it in their youth.

For example:

Here we see a player showcasing movement, aiming, general environments, you know; general gameplay stuff.

There's also a gif of the character select screen:

This does a fine job of showing the general aesthetic of the game's sci fi themes without the eye strain of the flashing red screen.

There's also one that shows off one of the most iconic aspects of the game, which was that you could accidentally (or purposefully) kill the innocent people you were trying to protect and you could collect the heads of anything you killed so long as you didn't blow up it's head in the process of killing it:

This even shows off some more of the environment giving us an entirely different aesthetic with the rain and such; no annoying screen flashing and general character design.

There are tons more, ranging from gifs of the spaceships and more sci fi related things, to gifs of the combat and bosses; to even gifs of some of the easter eggs and comedic moments.

I figured maybe they didn't want to bother getting a gif from google or something, because maybe they didn't want to take someone else's gif. That would make sense except that we've seen this blog casually credit other people for gifs in the past.

Not to mention there are gifs of the opening cinematic, and it wouldn't be hard to simply make a gif from someone's youtube video showing a cutscene.

So this post remains a mystery to me, I stay baffled by the absolute display of apathy. This gif presents us with a lad who walks directly into the most bland scenery, gets gunned down by a firing squad; and just doesn't even care. It showcases possibly the worst gameplay of this game I've ever seen.

10/10 this is quality content, change nothing. I need no explanation. It's perfect.

Jet Force Gemini Rare Nintendo 64 1999

[artbyblastweave]

Was actually thinking that an interesting hook for an Ensemble Ryuki-or-Gaim-style Kamen Rider series would be a series where every one of the riders was defined by their adherence to a specific moral ideology by the standards of which they were a paragon- I.E. an aggressively deontologist rider, an aggressively consequentialist Rider, a rider who adheres to the mercenary failure state of virtue ethics, a rider with aggressive in-group out-group behavior, a social darwinist rider, a theocratic/traditionalist rider, an authoritarian rider, an epicurean-ethical-hedonist rider. For an antagonist you’d have someone who’s an adherent of a batshit paper-clip-maximizing stick-everyone-in-a-lotus-pod utilitarianism, or a negative utilitarian who thinks the only ethical act is to kill everyone as quickly as possible to minimize the total amount of suffering. Then you’d have a Shinji-Kido-style protagonist whose whole shtick is that he hasn’t put that much thought into a coherent moral code, basically going off vibes and a nebulous desire to “do good,” and as a consequence of this he’s the only one in the bunch who’s remotely capable of behaving like a reasonable human.

Anyway, I feel pretty vindicated because it looks like this is (really really) broadly the premise of Geats, in that the synopsis is that the riders are all fighting over the right to impose by fiat their visions of an ideal world; the contest between them is framed as a way of gauging how good they are at protecting people (and thus to what degree they can be trusted to act in everyone’s best interests in creating their ideal world.) It also dovetails really well with the battle royale premise, because of course otherwise well-intentioned and heroic figures would come to earnest blows in order to stop someone else’s idea of utopia from being imposed if they find that particular utopia morally abhorrent by their own standards.

[defdaily]

JAY B Interview [HYPEBEAST]

From GOT7 to H1GHR MUSIC’s JAY B

On the 11th of May, it was announced that GOT7’s leader JAY B had joined H1GHR MUSIC. Ever since his time in JYPE, Jay B has been taking on the responsibility of writing lyrics and composing songs for albums, even participating as a producer. On Soundcloud, he has released 5 mixtapes under the name Def., showing his ambition as a solo musician in various instances. That’s why the fact that he did not join a KPOP entertainment company but instead joined H1GHR MUSIC is not a particularly surprising thing. However, it’s no lie that this will bring a huge change to his career as an artist. <HYPEBEAST> met with JAY B and had a talk about the reason he decided to move (to H1GHR MUSIC), his new single ‘Switch It Up’, his future activities as well as his ambition.

HYPEBEAST: You’re known for being on “team mint chocolate”. You even left comments about it on <HYPEBEAST>’s instagram page.

JAY B: I like the way the flavour is pungent yet wrapped up in chocolate. I don’t really like plain chocolate. I like it when something is added to it, such as chocolate milk or white chocolate, but when I had mint chocolate for the first time, it was really revolutionary. After that, I’ve been enjoying eating it.

HB: It’s still something that sparks a lot of debate. There are also a lot of products released aimed to spark controversy.

JAY B: There’s something I always say. If I am eating it well and I like it, I just hope that you won’t say things like “why would you eat that?” to me. If you’re enjoying your food and then someone next to you says that sort of thing, you’d lose your appetite, right? Just don’t say that kind of thing to someone who’s eating. Let’s love one another!

HB: Your group, GOT7, left JYP Entertainment after 7 years. How did you feel promoting without a company for the past few months?

JAY B: I feel the same now. It’s more fun. Personally, one of the reasons why I decided to leave JYP was because I wanted to take on more challenges. Maybe it’s because of that but the time I spent as a kind of freelancer felt really new. Even though I won’t be able to know everything about what kind of system I’ll be working in, I got to learn about it roughly and gained a more serious attitude regarding work. I also felt a sense of pride and that it was precious.

HB: Out of the ‘challenges’ you mentioned, your photo exhibition was one of them, right? We heard that you like taking pictures.

JAY B: Even this morning, I saw a pigeon spread only one side of its wings. I’ve never seen that before, so I wanted to take a picture of it, but in a short moment it sensed that I was there and flew away. I’m the kind of person who takes a lot of pictures of those little moments. In that way, I got to hold a photo exhibition too. Honestly, I was embarrassed to do the exhibition. I was just going to try to do it personally as a small thing with the pictures I took myself, but JYPE said “let’s do it even better”, and as we exchanged ideas, the scale got a bit larger.

HB: Is there a particular theme that you like when taking pictures?

JAY B: I’m the kind of person who comes up with (themes) as I take the pictures. As I am taking pictures of something, thoughts like “ah, it would be fun to hold exhibitions with this kind of pictures” come to mind. For my first exhibition, I took pictures revolving around the theme of ‘loneliness’, ‘living alone’, and ‘even if you are living alone, you need someone by your side’. It was mainly involving people/figures, but I actually prefer taking pictures of landscapes or larger compositions.

HB: In the past, you’ve said “I think my next album will be a product that includes the loneliness felt in life”. Is it related to your first photo exhibition <ALONE>?

JAY B: There’s no relation between the two. I wanted to work out all the feelings I had after being under a lot of pressure as I lived my life. Putting aside whether the album is good or not, I think it will be an album where I honestly share what I felt when I felt pressured. I don’t know whether or not it will be released, and if it does, I don’t know in what form it will be released in, but for now I’ve just made the album with this theme. It might sound boring, but it contains a lot of my honest thoughts.

HB: We don’t know when or how, but it will probably be released through H1GHR MUSIC now right? After your contract ended with JYP, you probably received offers from various places, why did you choose H1GHR MUSIC?

JAY B: I’m well aware of the fact that I was protected by the fence called JYP. But as I mentioned previously, I left JYP because I wanted to try and experience something on my own. I also had doubts regarding whether I was an artist who could bring in as much profit as the company wanted. I think that changing my image in order to earn a profit is something that I’ve done a lot in the past. After leaving the company, I received offers from multiple places, and some were really good companies too. However, the most important thing was that it had to be a company that I could exchange opinions and create with. I think H1GHR MUSIC matched up with that the best.

HB: As the field of your promotions change, it will probably come with some concerns as well.

JAY B: I’m the kind of person who worries a lot and is cautious. My own concerns aside, I was really worried about whether H1GHR MUSIC’s image would be damaged because I joined. I thought people might say that an idol joining would muddy the waters* (*ruin the label’s image). No matter if there’s a good or bad reaction, H1GHR MUSIC has already accomplished things, and I would be a new addition. On top of that, I’m not someone who is just starting to make music. I’m making a new image based on the one I already had. Even so, just this once, I wanted to make a decision that was for myself. That’s why I was even more cautious with each and every step.

HB: Is the title of your new single ’Switch It Up’ referring to the changes you are going through?

JAY B: When I came up with the title, I did think that it was possible to give it that sort of meaning. I wanted to express a basic love story while also including the meaning of switching up my life. However, Jay Park hyung gave me some advice, saying that rather than doing that, it might be better for me to naturally blend in what I’ve already been doing. Following that advice, even though the title itself carries the meaning of change, the lyrics are just about love.

HB: How was your first production at H1GHR MUSIC?

JAY B: I had a lot of concerns and was worried. After I made the decision to join H1GHR MUSIC, I told Jay hyung that I wanted to release a song or an album quickly. It just so happened Cha Cha Malone was back in Korea, so we aligned our schedules and produced songs together. Everything happened naturally. Jay hyung said that I shouldn’t go all out from the beginning, and that it’s more important to keep going steadily. I agree with that. I’m satisfied with the result too. I worry a lot so I’m the type to ask around for opinions, but everyone said it was good. But honestly, I’m not sure how the public will react to it. (laughs)

HB: Sokodomo’s feature was really impressive, how did he end up participating in the song?

JAY B: The funny thing is, it really came about naturally too. When I went to the studio, sokodomo was there and he asked if he could stay while we were working on our songs, so we said it was okay. As we worked on songs like that, after I finished up my recording, sokodomo suddenly went into the recording studio. I was wondering “what’s going on?”, but what sokodomo showed us was really good. Turns out, while I was recording, he came up with some ideas and asked if it was okay if he tried it out which I didn’t hear. But what sokodomo came up with was a style that I couldn’t express well. And so right there and then, I cautiously asked if he would be willing to feature in the song, and he agreed without hesitation. That part was so good that I even thought “I can’t be eaten by (overshadowed) sokodomo”. Haha.

HB: In the past, you were a B-boy, and even in GOT7 you received a lot of attention for your dancing. So we were wondering if we would get to see you dance to ’Switch It Up’.

JAY B: You’ll be able to see it through the live clip that will be released at the same time as the single. There are various elements in the live clip. First of all, I tried really hard to make it look cool. I sang live with sokodomo too. I think there’s a lot to see. The dance comes on at the very end. I thought that since I’m a performer, I should dance too. Honestly, at first when I listened to ‘Switch It Up’, I thought it would be kind of hard to dance to it. But even so, I have to dance. Other artists are cool too, but I think Chris Brown is really cool. He dances and sings at the same time really well. Because dance was my beginning, and I gained interest in singing later on and ended up working hard at it, I can’t let go of dance.

HB: Do you have any plans or ideas for the next album you’ll release through H1GHR MUSIC?

JAY B: I think that I have to move quickly. I’ll have to wait and see what I’ll end up with, but for now, I think it’s closer to a chill vibe. ‘Switch It Up’ was chill, but it still had a kind of energy to it. Rather than that, I think it will probably be the kind of music that is suitable to listen to while going for a drive. I want to show music that’s groovier and more sensual as much as possible. But I still don’t know. It’s possible that the company might say “let’s go for pop.” I want to create things together with the company, so I’m open to accommodating their opinions for a couple songs.

HB: You’re also promoting with the name Def. and not Jay B. Why did you come up with the name Def.?

JAY B: Actually, even in the early days of GOT7, I didn’t feel any attachment to the name JB. I felt really strongly that it was a name that someone else came up with. I’m more comfortable with people calling me by my birth name, Jaebeom, too. Of course, I like it now. I wanted to separate Jay B and Def., that’s why they are separated. When I was in JYP, I got permission to release my music on Soundcloud, but I couldn’t release albums separately. So I released all the music that I couldn’t release as JB through Def. For now, I decided I would make music that people could approach more comfortably under the name Jay B, and I would release things that are more to what I want to do through Def. I’m not sure how it will end up in the future though.

HB: Listening to the music under these two names, there is quite a difference. The music you release under the name Def. has more characteristics of the neo soul genre.

JAY B: When I made <1/? Vol. 1>, I liked trap soul, so it contains a lot of that kind of music. After that as well, it mostly is filled with songs that were the style that I liked at the time. If you listen to my mixtape, excluding the intro and outro, there are about 5 songs. While I prepared those songs, I also worked on 15 songs that would be for GOT7 albums at the same time, making about 20 songs at a time. I’d work on GOT7 songs from morning till late night and if I had time, I would then work on my mixtape. That’s why they are songs that I really cherish. People might wonder why I would work so hard, but I thought that as an idol, I have to do my job well so that I can gain autonomy within the company. That’s why I worked hard and pushed myself to my limits.

HB: When will we be able to hear your music as Def.?

JAY B: Firstly, I want to get my name as Jay B out there, and later on I want to use the name Def. again when I can do what I want. Things that are more unusual, alternative, and experimental.

HB: Hearing you talk, we can really feel the love you have for music. You also seem like a realistic person.

JAY B: It’s because I feel that if I stubbornly insist on doing what I want to do and it doesn’t turn out well, I’d get a rough reality check. I’m a cautious person, so if I persist only on what I want and then fail, I’d end up thinking that I just have no aptitude for music, and I thought that is more dangerous. If that happens, I’d feel sorry for the music that I like and I might even think that there was something wrong with the music or genres that I like. People might say that that’s “not real”, but it’s “real” to me. It’s just my way of living.

HB: You’re currently also in the crew ‘ØFFSHORE.’ What kind of crew is it?

JAY B: It’s a place where people who sell songs commercially and people who make their own music gather. It started with the purpose of people with the same interests making fun music together and releasing it. Offshore has the meaning of “shore/coast”. On the shore, there are lots of living things. There are times when the waves crash but also times when it’s calm. Just like my Def. character, I think it’s a place where I can freely include things I’ve never done before. It will carry on in the future too, but we won’t have any eye-catching activities. We’ll just go on calmly.

HB: As you share your stories, we’re getting curious about Jay B as a producer too. Will we be able to hear songs that you produce for other artists someday?

JAY B: When I was in JYP, I’ve sent out songs that the publisher said would not work for GOT7. There were also songs that were selected by other people but could not be used because of my name. Now, I don’t think there will be those sorts of limitations, so I want to try producing for other people too. I don’t have confidence in being responsible for someone or nurturing trainees, though. I’m still busy trying to feed myself. But even so, I’d like to try to produce just one song for someone else. I would have a sort of image about someone, right? An image that they themselves wouldn’t even know. I think the process of trying to bring that out would be fun. Of course, I’m focused on my music now, but it would be nice if I got the chance someday.

HB: Another GOT7 member, Yugyeom, joined AOMG. Fans can’t help but look forward to the reunion of your unit ‘Jus2’.

JAY B: Since Yugyeom is in AOMG, I think that if we talk to Jay hyung, it’s possible that we will release something as Jus2. Jus2 and JJ Project both include Jay B, but they are also units that are part of GOT7. I think that if we work hard at promoting them too, fans would feel a sense of security. I think that from now on is the time when both I, as well as GOT7, have to really do well.

HB: You mentioned that you wanted to release 1 GOT7 album a year.

JAY B: I don’t know whether it will work out, but we have to try and plan for it. I’ve mentioned multiple times that GOT7 has not disbanded. I believe that I should keep my word. Right now, everyone is actually busy working on their own things. Even so, we want to try and make one song for GOT7 a month, so that we can promote about once a year.

HB: You have a strong image as a great leader and hyung in GOT7. What would you like to show as JAY B in H1GHR MUSIC?

JAY B: I would like to hear people say “ah, I guess they did a good job bringing him in”. I hope that when people listen to ’Switch It Up’, they won’t think that “Jay Park made the wrong choice this time”. I think it would be nice if people thought that I was worth anticipating. Not that they brought in some strange kid. I don’t want to get cursed at. Haha.

HB: Do you have a final goal you want to achieve as an artist?

JAY B: I don’t. I just want to keep on steadily and quietly making music. To me, saying that you want to receive some sort of reward or that you want to become something is quite vague. I just hope that I can gain the drive to keep going on steadily and continue that cycle of creation. That’s all.

Translation by @mindellay x @defdaily

May contain slight inaccuracies.

[ifuckinglovestvincent]

St Vincent: “Pour a Drink, Smoke a Joint... That’s the Vibe”

Ding dong! Daddy's Home

By Johnny Davis

19/03/2021

Annie Clark, known professionally as St Vincent, picked up a guitar aged 12 after being inspired by Jimi Hendrix. During her teens she worked as a roadie and later tour manager for her aunt and uncle, the jazz duo Tuck & Patti. Originally from Oklahoma, she moved to Dallas, Texas when she was seven and later attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts for three years, before dropping out.

Clark worked as a touring musician with the Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens, before releasing Marry Me, her first album as St Vincent, in 2007. By her fifth album, 2017’s Masseduction, she had become one of the most celebrated artists in music, the first solo female artist to win a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album in 20 years.

She became unlikely Daily Mail-fodder around the same time, thanks to an 18-month relationship with Cara Delevingne, and later Kristen Stewart. Her ever-changing music, dressing up-box image and head-spinning well of ideas have seen her compared to David Bowie, Kate Bush and Prince. To complete the notion of her being the "artist's artist", in 2012 she collaborated with David Byrne on the album Love This Giant.

Indeed, she is surely one of few performers today who could stand in for Kurt Cobain with what’s-left-of-Nirvana, performing “Lithium” at their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, as well as cover “Controversy” at a Prince tribute concert in 2020, with such guitar-playing fireworks its author would surely have approved.

Following the glam-influenced pop of Masseduction, St Vincent has performed another stylistic handbrake turn. Complete with a new image – part-Warhol Superstar, part-Cassavetes heroine – she has mined the textures of the music she loved most as a kid: the virtuoso rock of Steely Dan, the clipped funk of Stevie Wonder and blue-eyed soul of mid-Seventies' David Bowie, on her upcoming album, Daddy’s Home.

The title refers to Clark's own father, locked up in Texas for 12 years in 2010, for money laundering in a stock manipulation scheme, one in which he and his co-conspirators cheated 17,000 investors out of £35m. It is also, in typical Clark style, a bit of saucy slang.

Back on the promotional trail, Clark Zoomed in from Los Angeles one morning recently – fully caffeinated and raring to go. “My vices?” she pondered. “Too much coffee, man…”

What question are you already bored of being asked?

There’s not one that’s popping out. There’s no question where I’m like “Oh God, if I ever hear that again, I’ll jump off a building.” I’m chill.

I mention it because prior to releasing your last record you put out a pre-recorded “press conference”, seemingly to pre-empt every inane question the media would throw at you.

It’s so funny. It didn’t really occur like that. Originally that was supposed to be a legit green screen conference. Like, “I’ll just answer these questions ‘cos when they need to have me on ‘The Morning Show’ in Belarus they can have this and put their own graphics behind it”. But then when my friend Carrie Brownstein [collaborator and Sleater-Kinney vocalist-guitarist] and I started writing it and it became very snarky. For some reason it didn’t occur to me that “Oh, that might be off-putting or intimidating to journalists” I just thought "This is silly”. So anyway… I understand.

We're curious about your dad and the American legal system.

I have had a lot of questions about that. For some reason it didn’t occur to me how much I would be answering questions about… my hilarious father!

How do you view his time in prison?

Just that life is long and people are complicated. And that, luckily, there’s a chance for redemption or reconciliation, even after a really crazy traumatic time. And also anybody that has any experience with the American justice system will know this... nobody comes out unscathed.

You recently presented an online MasterClass: "St. Vincent Teaches Creativity & Songwriting". One of the takeaways: “All you need are ears and ideas, and you can make anything happen”. Who’s had the best ideas in music?

Well, you’ve got to give credit to people who were genuinely creating a new style – like if you think of Charlie Parker, arguably he created a new style. This hard bop that was just absolutely impossible to play. It was, like, “Check me out – try to copy me!” So, that’s interesting. I think Brian Eno, for sure, has some great ideas about music – and obviously has made some of the best music. Joni Mitchell – completely singular. I mean: think about that. There are some people who are actually inimitable – like, you couldn’t possibly even try to imitate them.

It’s a brave soul who covers a Joni Mitchell song. Although, apologies if you actually have.

No, I have not. And there’s a reason why not. Come on – Bowie. Bowie never repeated himself. David Byrne also didn’t repeat himself. He took all of his influences of classic songs and the disco that was happening at the time, and the potpourri of downtown New York music from the mid- to late Seventies… and synthesised it into this completely new, other thing. I mean, that’s impressive. Those are the ones we remember.

How hard is it not to repeat yourself?

It’s whether people have the Narcissus thing or not. Like, it’s always got to be a balance where you’re, like, “Well, I need to believe in myself to make something and be liberated. But I can’t look at that pond of my previous work and go ‘Oh you! You’re gorgeous!’” So I don’t go back and listen to things I’ve done. I finished Daddy’s Home in the fall and it was, like, “This is done” and it felt great. I loved the record and it was so fun to make. But what I did immediately afterwards was to write something completely different. But then I don’t know, ‘cos there are people who do the thing that they do just great. And you just want to hear more songs, in the style of the thing that they do great.

Right. No one wants an experimental Ramones album.

Exactly. Or, like, or a Tom Petty record. I don’t want a tone poem from Tom Petty! I want a perfectly constructed, perfectly written completely singalongable three-chord song.

The new album has a very “live” Seventies feel. I’d read that some of the tracks are first takes. Can that be right? It all sounds very complicated.

That’s not right. I should say [rock voice] "Yeah, that’s right, we just jammed…" But, you know, I’ll be honest. There are some vocal takes in there that are first takes. But it really is just the sound of people playing. We get good drum takes. And good bass takes. And I play a bunch of guitar and sitar-guitar. And it’s the sound of a moment in time, certainly. And way more about looseness and groove and feel and vibe than anything else [I’ve done before].

Amazing live albums, virtuoso playing, jamming – those were staples of Seventies music. Have we lost some of that?

I mean, I can wax poetic on that idea for a minute. In the Seventies you had this tremendous sophistication in popular music. Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan and funk and soul and jazz and rock…. and all of the things rolled into one. That was tremendously sophisticated. It just was. There was harmony, there were chord progressions.

What else from that decade appealed to you for Daddy’s Home?

It reminds me of where we are now, I think. So, 1971-1976 in downtown New York, you’ve got the Summer of Love thing and flower children and all the hippy stuff and it’s, like, “Oh yeah, that didn’t work out that well. We’re still in Vietnam. There’s a crazy economic crisis, all kinds of social unrest”. People stood in the proverbial burned-out building. And it reminds me a lot of where we are today, in terms of social unrest, economic uncertainty. A groundswell wanting change... but where that’s headed is yet to be seen. We haven’t fully figured that out. We’re all picking up pieces of the rubble and going “Okay, what do we do with this one? Where do we go with that one?” Being a student of history, that was one of the reasons why I was drawn to that period in history.

Also: that’s the music I’ve listened to more than anything in my entire life. I mean, I was probably the youngest Steely Dan fan. It didn’t make me that popular at sleepovers. People were, like, “I want to listen to C+C Music Factory” and I was, like, “Yeah, but have you heard this solo on [Steely Dan’s] ‘Kid Charlemagne’”? That music is so in me. It’s so in my ears and I feel like I never really went there [making music before]. And I didn’t want to be a tourist about it. It’s just that particular style had a whole lot to teach me. So I wanted to just dig in and find out. Just play with it.

Is there a style of music you don’t like?

That I don’t like?

You're a jazz fan...

I love jazz. Are you kidding me? I was that annoying 14-year-old who was, like, “Yeah, but have you listened to Oliver Nelson’s The Blues and the Abstract Truth?”

I love jazz. Are you kidding me? I was that annoying 14-year-old who was, like, “Yeah, but have you listened to Oliver Nelson’s The Blues and the Abstract Truth?”

That does sound quite precocious for a 14-year-old.

It’s annoying. Just insufferable. [Thinking aloud] What music don’t I like….? Here’s what can happen. And I feel like it’s similar to when an actor has some lines in a script and they’re not very good – not very well-written – so they overcompensate by making it very dramatic and really overplaying it. I would say that is a style of music that I don’t really like. Where somebody has to really oversell it and it all feels… athletic. Instead of musical or touching.

Did you put your lockdown time to constructive use?

If you need any mediocre home renovations done, I’m your girl. It was fun. I did – let’s see now – plumbing, electrical, painting. Luckily there’s YouTube, so you can more or less figure it all out. I did a lot of that stuff and I have to say it was such a nice contrast to working on music all day. Because when you’re working on music you have to create the construct of everything. You’re, like, “I need to make this song. But what is this song?” Everything is this kind of elusive castle in the sky thing. But then, if you go and sand a deck, you’ve done something. It feels really good. And it’s not, like, “What is a deck? And who am I?” You’re just, like, “This is a task and I get to do it and I can see how the mechanism works I understand it it’s not esoteric – it’s simply mechanical". I can do something mechanical. I loved it.

Which bit of DIY are you most pleased with?

Painting the kitchen cabinets. That’s a real job. We’re talking sanding. We’re talking taking things off hinges. We’re talking multiple coats. The whole lacquer-y thing at the end. That. I’m, like, “That looks pretty pro”.

What colour did you go for?

Oh, you know, it’s just a sort of… teal. But classy teal.

Of course.

Yeah. The wallpapering wasn’t as successful. But, you know, that’s fine. So that was really fun. And then I also went down a history rabbit hole. I realised I had some gaps in my knowledge about the Russian Revolution and life under the Iron Curtain and the gulags and Stalin and Lenin. So, I went down that hole. And then I was like “Oh I forgot – I haven’t read any Dostoevsky”. So I have been working on his short stories – which are great. And then Solzhenitsyn I really liked – I mean liked is a strange word to use for The Gulag Archipelago. I read Cancer Ward… All of them. I recommend all of it. And then, before that, it was a big Stasi kick. I can’t remember the last time I had time to brush up on the Russian Revolution.

There’s a lyric on “The Laughing Man”, “If life’s a joke… then I’m dying laughing”. It’s also on your new merchandise. What do you think happens when we die?

Nothing.

This is it?

Yeah. I mean, I understand that it would be comforting to think otherwise. That there might be a special place. It would be nice! The thought’s never really been able to stick for me. I would say that we are made of carbon and then we get subsumed back into the Earth and then eventually we become life again – in the carbon part of our makeup.

Well, that sounds better than an endless void.

I don’t think it would be an endless void.

In what ways are you like your mum and dad?

Let’s see. Well, my mother is a precious angel who has unwavering optimism. She is incredibly intelligent and also very nonjudgmental and able and happy to explore all kinds of possibilities. Saying that, though… it’s sounding not like me at all. I’m like my father in that I think we have very similar tastes in books, films, music and a very similar sense of humour. My mother’s so kind that it’s hard for me to… Her level of kindness and decency is aspirational to me.

How famous are you, on a scale of one to 10?

God, I mean, like, “TikTok Famous” probably a one, right? I’m gonna say – I don’t know about the number system – but I’m going to say I-occasionally-get-a-free-appetiser-sent-over famous. Which is a great place to be.

What do you look for in a date?

It’s been so long since I’ve been on a date. You know, I once read something, it might have been something cheesy on a card, but [it was]: if you don’t like someone, then the way they hold their fork will bother you. But, if you like someone – or love someone – they could spill an entire plate of spaghetti on your lap and you wouldn’t mind.

You play a zillion instruments. What’s the hardest instrument to play?

Well, I can’t play horns or anything like that. The French horn is supposed to be really hard. I don’t like to blag… but I’m an incredible whistler. Like, I can whistle Bach.

Is Bach a particularly tough whistle?

I think… yeah. It’s fast. And noodly.

What’s the first thing you’re going to do when we're out of lockdown?

I’m gonna get a manicure and a pedicure and a massage. Massage from a stranger. Any stranger.

What about a night on the tiles?

I will probably attend a dinner party.

That sounds quite restrained.

It sounds hella boring. Sorry.

Clubbing?

No, I don’t really go to clubs. I think in order to go to clubs you have to be a person who likes to publicly dance. And I don’t publicly dance. I mean I would feel too shy to dance at a wedding. But for some reason I will dance on stage in front of 10,000 people.

That’s why alcohol was invented.

Exactly! But I swear I would reach the point of alcohol sickness before I would be drunk enough to dance.

The effects of drugs on creativity: discuss.

Unreliable. Really unreliable. Sometimes after a day’s work in the studio you’re like, "I’m gonna have shot of tequila and then sing this a few more times, and then play". It’s okay but you peak sort-of quickly. You can’t sustain the level without getting tired. And then I would say that weed just makes me paranoid and useless. Every once in a while some combo of psychedelics can get you someplace. But, for the most part, you either come back to [the work] the next day and you’re, like, “This is garbage” or you get sleepy or hungry or distracted and you’re not really doing anything. I’ve never had opiates. Or coke or whatever. So I don’t know. I can’t speak to that. But with the slightly more G-Rated [American movie classification: All Ages Permitted] thing, it doesn’t really help.

What do you have too many of in your wardrobe?

I’m not a hoarder. I tend to have one thing that I get really obsessed with and then I wear it every day. Some people, having a whole lot of things gives them a sense of safety and security. It gives me anxiety. I can’t think if there’s too much visual noise. If there was a uniform that I could wear every day I would absolutely do that. And at certain times I have.

Like Steve Jobs?

Or, oh God, what’s her name? The Theranos lady… Elizabeth Holmes!

The blood-test-scam lady?

Well, I guess it was unclear how much of it was self-delusion and how much of it was, you know, actual fraud.

Another black turtleneck fan.

And – again, this is unconfirmed – she also adopted a very low voice like this in order to be taken seriously as a CEO.

Like Margaret Thatcher.

Did she have a low voice?

She made hers “less shrill”.

Oh yes. Yes!

What movie makes you cry?

The Lives of Others

That’s a good one.

Right. I rewatched that during my Stasi kick.

I’ll be honest, your lockdown sounds even less fun than everyone else’s.

I mean… Look, I had to educate myself. I went to a music college [Berklee College of Music] where I tried to take the philosophy class and the way that they would talk about it… it was taught by this professor who was from one of the neighbouring colleges in Boston. And it was very clear that he really disliked having to talk Kierkegaard to a bunch of music school kids. He was just so bummed by it. I’m trying to learn, “What’s the deal with Kant?” and he felt he had to explain everything only in musical terms [because he assumed it would be the only thing music students could relate to]. Like, “Well, you know, it’s like when Bob Marley…" I’m, like, “No, no, no! I don’t want that!” So I had to educate myself. This is where its led me.

Where should we ideally listen to Daddy’s Home?

Put it on a turntable. Pour yourself a glass of tequila or bourbon – whatever your favourite hooch is – and smoke a joint and listen to it. I think that’s the vibe.

Daddy’s Home is released on May 14

[misserikacourt]

The Patch in the Drawer

Note: I’ve been absent from posting fics here for a very long time, but I figured I would post my newest one in the spirit of spooky season! Yeah, that’s a pun, woops. I’ll post the first few paragraphs here. You can find the full fic here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34432354

It had been months since the expedition, and still, the eerie feeling of death hung over him. Levi knew it was par for the course of losing people close to him. He always felt their presence, in one way or another, lingering in his mind after their deaths. This, though, was different. He felt the heavy guilt of the 57th expedition, of course, but he also felt something else. Any time he was in his office, he couldn’t help but feel like someone else was there with him, despite the fact that he was always alone.

He knew it was in his head, though. He hadn’t been able to sleep for most of his life, but lately, it had worsened significantly. Normally, he could at least get a few hours of sleep a night, but now he wasn’t sleeping at all and that meant that his mind was playing tricks on him. That had to be the case because this feeling couldn’t be anything tangible. That was the only logical explanation for the way he was feeling, and he did tend to feel worse about losses like this when he was deprived of sleep. Still, something felt different about this. It felt darker. More sinister. He felt angry when he was in his office for no particular reason, and it was worse when he sat behind his desk. It was beginning to take such a toll that he wanted to ask Hanji about the strange mood in his office, and so he found himself on his way to their office one morning before he went into his.

Even walking down the hallway and passing by the door to his office, he felt the strange vibe radiating from behind the closed oak wood. It was enough to send a shiver down his spine, and Levi was not one that could be easily spooked.

When he made it to Hanji’s office the strange feeling he’d gotten walking past his door had dissipated, but he still knew he needed answers. He wasn’t sure Hanji would have them, but maybe they could help him come up with something .

“Levi! You’re here early! I thought you said that seeing me first thing in the morning made you wanna jump off the roof?” Hanji asked in that same eccentric tone that they always seemed to have. He knew that he should be easier on them, but sometimes they could be...a lot.

“Couldn’t sleep, I wanted to ask you about something,” he answered, his tone clipped as he tried to get straight to the point.

“Ask away! I’m always happy to offer my expertise.”

“Have you felt...strange, since we got back? From the 57th, I mean,” he asked, feeling somewhat strange even asking the question. They had to think he was going crazy, but he needed some kind of answer.

“Well...I think we’ve all kind of felt the impact of what happened,” Hanji answered, clearly trying to be delicate. They knew how much Levi had lost, compared to most others. He’d lost his whole squad, and Hanji knew how things like that affected him.

“That’s not what I mean, four-eyes!” He snapped, feeling his lack of sleep in the form of irritability. “I mean...it feels like something is different. Do you ever feel strange when you’re in your office?”

“In my office? Hmm, no, I don’t think so. Have you been feeling strange?” Hanji asked, their interest piqued.

“It feels like someone is there with me, even when I’m completely alone,” Levi admitted and Hanji got a sad kind of smile on their face.

“You just miss your squad, it happens to the best of us,” They answered, but Levi rolled his eyes.

“Not like that, Hanji. It feels...angry like someone is there with me and they’re angry at me. I feel so enraged every time I step foot inside my office, but especially when I sit behind my desk.”

“Well, it’s not exactly strange for you to be irritable, Levi,” Hanji said with a chuckle.

“This is different . It’s like...like I can’t control it. It feels like something outside of me is making me feel that way.”

“Hmm, well, your office could always be haunted,” Hanji said with a shrug.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Levi said, deadpan.

“Well, that’s what it sounds like! I’d have to go into your office to see if I can feel it too, but usually vengeful spirits can do that sort of thing, so I’ve been told! I’ve never encountered one myself! Oooh, also, I’ve heard that your room will be really cold if there’s a spirit inside!”

“You think there’s a vengeful spirit haunting my office?” Levi asked.

“It sounds like that could be the case!”

“Thanks for nothing, shitty glasses,” Levi answered, turning on his heel to make his way out the door.

“Levi! What else do you think it could be? Clearly, you don’t have any other explanation for it, or you wouldn’t have come to talk to me!” Hanji shouted after him, but he just ignored them and slammed the door to their office closed as he left.

Vengeful spirits? Come on . Levi might believe in a lot of shit that normal people probably wouldn’t, but ghosts weren’t fucking one of them.

[hacash]

So, I'm trying to learn something about myself, and since you're in the Ted Lasso fandom, I figured you might be able to help. Jason recently hosted SNL, as I assume you know, and he did that sketch where he played the role of a dom teacher. And predictably, the fandom went nuts.

I just wanted to know, considering you're on the ace spectrum, if you feel the same as others seem to about this. I mean, ik internet reactions are more exaggerated than real, but a significant amount of people seem to be having strong feelings about this.

I just don't get it, and I was wondering if you had an opinion about it all.

P.S. If this is a stupid or intrusive question, by all means, please delete it.

Hi nonnie - sorry, I half-responded to this and saved it in my drafts, and then completely forgot it until today! I hope this is helpful but feel free to ignore me entirely if it isn’t.

So I'll preface this by saying that although I've seen the gifsets, I haven't actually watched Jason Sudeikis in that clip, as I don't often watch a whole amount of SNL. (And I do respect the hell out of Ego Nwodim for writing that sketch for herself. Chase your dreams and make them happen, madam.) My overall reaction was along the lines of 'huh, look at the funky man go'; I don’t think I went particularly nuts for it.

However I wouldn't be able to tell you if that's because I'm aspec, or because my tastes tend to lie more in the region of pretty boys and terrifying women rather than the delightful Mr Sudeikis - and tbh, I don't think it matters all that much. It's something I just don't particular react to, and so we move on to the next thing. So it feels like you’re wondering if because you’re not going crazy over Sexy Teacher Sudeikis, you might be on the ace spectrum? It’s very possible. You may be aspec, or you may just not be turned by dom/sub stuff, or by Jason Sudeikis, or by sexy teacher vibes, or by SNL sketches, or by actors playing up the 'sexytimes' thing, or by something else - or by a mixture of all of these things! Only you can ultimately decide that, and my reactions to that same clip shouldn’t be a huge deciding factor in that.

You mentioned trying to learn something about yourself, and that’s really good because labels help us navigate the world and provide a useful shorthand when you’re relating to other people...but I’d also add the addendum that labels should be serving you rather than the other way around. So it's always worthwhile examining how sexual attraction works (or doesn't work) for you - however please don't drive yourself crazy trying to figure out whether finding one little ‘steamy’ clip as arousing/not arousing is the be all and end all, and you have to cling to a certain label based just on your reaction to it. 

Sexuality and attraction is weird as hell and way more fluid and nuanced than a lot of people credit - it’s a reason I love using the term ‘queer’ rather than analysing where in the LGBTQIA+ binary I can slot myself into each morning. And no-one (at least, no-one worth knowing) is going to be standing over you going ‘so you felt these things when watching a Jason Sudeikis clip? but you reacted in this way when you watched this other thing? hmm, sorry, you can’t use this label or identify in this way anymore: once you commit to this certain label it’s a lifelong pledge, didn’t you know?’  

Maybe just file this under ‘things to be aware of’ for the time being?

(There’s a really good post here which I would love to send to each and every person worrying about labels and how to use them. Work out how to use labels to make your life easier, and then go on from there.)

[phoenixyfriend]

The “Momma Sturmvoraus was Literally Satan” AU

As requested by @spazzbot​. This AU was initially brainstormed on the GG fanworks server almost a year ago. Specifically, on the first day of 2020.

[ID: a truncated discord message by “Miss Nixy, Gay for RoboLadies” posted 01/01/2020. The message reads “I need to sleep but please for the moment consider:” and ends there.]

So. Let’s get to it.

Satan took a human form because why not see what's going on topside, live like a human, and “Oh shit is this pregnancy? This is pregnancy. Fuck, that's a tiny human. Which is now half demon. Am I supposed to take care it? Wonder if retconing this form into that Valois family was a bad idea. They do have SO much money though, I get to live like a queen. I suppose another child shouldn't hurt, it wasn't that bad. Oh, he's cute, this is actually making sense, why humans do all the sinning. Not counting dear Aaronev's murders, of course, those are just evil, but I did search out the worst of the humans to pair myself to...”

This is literally just "Tarvek and Anevka's mom was low-key Satan on a bored “let's be human for a decade or two to see what happens” jaunt, consequences happen because these kids are LITERALLY half-demon and arguably anti-Christs."

Also it's just Very Funny for Tarvek, ineffectual sexy lamp fashion twunk extraordinaire, to be an antichrist

Jeff thinks he’s pretty. Jeff keeps describing features that don’t entirely make sense. (Jeff’s canon name is Karl Thotep but they spent so long unnamed that the server collectively named them Jeff.)

This is not a crossover with anything, btw. Ambiguously Pop Culture Satan just got bored and went to have babies with a serial killer.

They’re just kids! That are vaguely demonic. So. Moreso than the rest of the Valois.

Sometimes "mom" comes back from the dead and visits Anevka and Tarvek to impart Wisdom and possibly magic lessons The rooms always smell faintly of sulfur after that...

They try to put Anevka in the machine but SHE isn't hurt and the MACHINE just melts

So that's the end of that.

It's very awkward for everyone, but the paperwork isn't too bad. It's very easy to write "incidental fire began during late-fugue experimentation, resulted in fire spreading through six rooms and several casualties, including Prince Aaronev Wilhelm Sturmvoraus."

As per @atagotiak​, “I feel like if we’re going in any way dimensional weirdness with thing, Tarvek got so good at exploring bc he could just clip through walls.”

With image provided by @thisarenotarealblog​:

Tarvek in Paris: My dead mother keeps showing up in my dreams to tell me I need to seduce my way out of my problems and also she looks like Satan. Tarvek's Voltaire-Appointed Therapist: I still don't know what that means. Just like the last five times. Tarvek: I keep telling her that I can’t seduce Colette, if seduction is that important she should get Anevka to do it.

Like he probably wouldn’t say most of that in front of any Voltaire-approved individual, but still.

Tarvek is still very good at self control but there's a Special Edge to his rants.

(Derailed in the moment to me thinking about Anevka in a sfw-but-concerningly-deadly succubus getup, because... yeah.)

Aaronev dies and goes to hell and his dead wife is just there like "hi! Time to be tortured for eternity!" He wasn't a good husband so. He can't exactly sentimentalize his way out.

“In the sexy way?” “... not for you, no.”

Mostly I just want the BULLSHIT that is "Storm Mom was actually just Satan getting bored and going on vacation as a retconned Valois girl, the kids are half-demons and sometimes it Shows."

To clarify: the Satan bit isn't the retcon. Grandma used to have one daughter. Now there are two. (Seffie and Martellus's mother doesn't remember being an only child, but sometimes...)

Satan retconned a new daughter in, which included a Valid Valois Venusian Vestment, so the blood tests play out.

The subtle signs of wrongness would be fun too. Anevka tends to smile a bit too wide and sharp for a human face. Inexplicable uneasiness, here you can’t point at any specific thing that’s wrong but it’s uncomfortable. Uncanny valley prettiness, almost like the porcelain she became in other timelines. Skin isn’t supposed to be that smooth.

My brain's pre-nap contribution at that point was "Satan's pronouns when not pretending to Human are sin/sinself" which is! Certainly a thing.

Tarvek, at some nebulous future point: I mean, your ancestors were monsters, but my dad was a serial killer and my mom was literally Satan, instead of just figuratively like Lucrezia, so. I mean. I kind of get what you're going through.

Per @firebirdeternal: Tarvek and Anevka growing up with "you're allergic to holy water" and not questioning it until a little later because What.

And then they test it and it's like "yeah, no, there's a rash now. That stung. What the fuck."

It INFURIATES Gil in Paris when Tarvek tells him that's a thing, because there's nothing chemically different about Holy water and regular water. But no, this is somehow happening.

It gets logged in medical journals as a Valois genetic thing because, well, Mom was like that too, right?

One time they both go into a church for an Adventure and Gil is very annoyed to find that Tarvek is like. Faintly smoking. It smells like burnt hair in here.

Gil: What smells like burnt hairgel? Tarvek: [glares]

Gil decides that it must be something particular to the church, like a fungus or something in the stone, contaminating the air and water so it only LOOKS like the holiness is what's setting off reactions.

It is not.

Tarvek once got into an argument with someone and ate a slab of raw, completely uncooked meat as a power move.

SVV seems to work perfectly. Everyone is fine. We get the ‘you fight like ducks’ moment.

And then Tarvek bursts into flames, and everyone panics because no they fixed this what the fuck is he still infected with Hogfarb’s oh my god... and then everything settles down and he's perfectly fine. Not a scratch on him, no longer turning funny colors. Completely unharmed. He's in a nicely tailored suit and looks faintly stunned

"I just met my dead mom, who's apparently Satan. She told me that after I died the first time just now, I should be harder to kill later, especially with fire, because now there's more demon and less mortal and guys I think I'm going crazy." "Is that a martini?" Tarvek looks down. "Apparently."

Tarvek starts just. Randomly setting things on fire by glaring too hard and has to tone it down. Meanwhile, Agatha and Gil are having crises about how he's somehow getting PRETTIER.

Is he faintly glowing? Maybe!

Gil handles it by angrily sniping at Tarvek about how of COURSE he's an evil little rat with a background like that.

Tarvek just wants a nap and to forget this ever happened. Many people are sworn to secrecy. It's very awkward.

Still, SVV did something, for handwave-y reasons, and so they're linked now. Gil and Agatha both getting tiny flashes of the same shenanigans.

They get none of the powers. They just keep getting Weird Shit.

Other characters with divine influence are like "Did you.... did you make a pact with a demon?" "What no that's our boyfriend."

Tho tbh I wouldn’t be surprised if a Heterodyne did sign a contract with a demon at some point in exchange for like. Materials. A hundred souls sacrificed in exchange for some succubus blood. Thanks!

Tarvek and Othar: Falling out of CW as in canon. Tarvek: WHAT THE HELL SINCE WHEN DO I HAVE WINGS HIDE THIS BEFORE I GET BOOTED FROM THE LINE FOR THE THRONE

IDK where Anevka is during all this. I think she might have decided to go sleep her way through the courts of the Ice Tsars. Vacation, y'know?

Othar after he's decided to make Tarvek his new Heroic Apprentice: AH, my poor afflicted young friend, it's noble of you to go against the dark nature of your tragic heritage like this. Tarvek: I hate you. I wish I could hate you to death. But you have a point. I shouldn't let my father's blood limit what I strive for in life. Othar: I... I thought your mother was... Tarvek: I know what I said.

Tarvek: Also you can't tell ANYONE about that, I can't have them thinking I'm not actually in line for the Storm King's throne.

He does admittedly have to like. Explain things to Grandma.

Terabithia is Tarvek’s maternal grandmother so this is supremely awkward. That said...

Grandma fondly remembers her pregnancy cravings; bone marrow and sulfur.

"Yeah so, my mother, your daughter, was... maybe actually Satan? But retconned into your life?" "Tarvek, darling, please. I figured that out half a century ago."

TARVEK ACCIDENTALLY FINDS HIM HIMSELF WEIRDLY INTENSE AT CONTRACTS

I mean that honestly just Tracks about Tarvek anyways? But like moreso.

He just. Writes something up and there's things getting signed or shook on and then the person tries to break the contract and either suddenly catch fire or are deeply unlucky for a set amount of time.

And Tarvek's just standing there like "how in the FUCK did I do that?"

Severity of infernal punishment depends on the severity of the breach of contract.

Tarvek finds out that Anevka's been convincing rich people to sign their souls over to her. It's a fun challenge. She keeps them in jars.

They can still remotely pilot their bodies but like. They can't TELL anyone what happened.

Satan: I'm going to go make babies and now everyone else has to deal with the consequences.

Anevka's living up to that whole "princess of hell" vibe. Tarvek's just like "nope nope nope I want the storm throne, not the hell throne, BYE MOM."

Satan's just feeling sinself down in hell like "awwww look at my babies go, aren't they adorable?"

Tarvek: Anevka, what... first off, how did you figure it out? Anevka: Well, I temporarily died when father put me in the machine, and... I can't say that hell kicked me out because they were afraid I'd take over, but mother DID say she'd rather I play about with human governments instead of Hell's. Tarvek: Okay, cool cool cool. What after you planning to DO with all these souls? Anevka: They make for some lovely reading lamps, don't they?

(Anevka absolutely sets herself the goal of acquiring new titles that rival her old ones, or even surpass them. She just black widows her way through Europa.)

I just want someone (probably Snackleford) to ascend, take one look at Tarvek, and run SCREAMING.

Tarvek still needed to be anchored to Higgs, because Tarvek is Baby.

Gil is eventually in a relationship with an Eternal God Queen and the Literal Son of Satan.

Family dinners can include ALL the in-laws if you duck down to hell! - You borrow Bill from... probably heaven, maybe purgatory. - You have Lu and Aaronev and Satan already there, though the first two... well. Aaronev and Lu get invited to dinner but they have to eat by themselves at the kiddy table and nobody talks to them or acknowledges their presence. After all, this is hell, and what better punishment for Lu than to be completely ignored, and for Aaronev to see Lu at her worst and be reminded that he gave everything for this horrible, horrible person who isn't even pretending to care about him anymore. - Zanta and Klaus get invited via portal. - Anevka saunters in with a blood-soaked dress and a complaint about militant demon-hunters refusing to let her go shopping for a new pair of shoes. - Zeetha tagged along with the OT3. (She can't wait to see this situation explode.)

Oh God, Satan is actually second place as far as good parenting goes.

Well, actually, fourth. Because Adam and Lilith. But second as far as bio parents go. 1. Zanta 2. Satan 3. Klaus 4/5. Lu and Aaronev N/A. Bill

Someone (Anevka) decides to stir the pot and invites Von Pinn, Terabithia, Bang.

Bang is basically Gil’s older sister, right? Right.

This is Zanta meeting Bang for the first time! Zanta is just: "It's so nice to meet my husband's adopted daughter." Klaus freezes. Bang freezes. Gil is the only one who is just. "Yeah." Meanwhile Zeetha is crying with laughter off to the side because both of them deserve this. (Zanta would legit love Bang though.)

Agatha: Tarvek, I think DuPree is-- Tarvek: Hitting on my sister? I know. Agatha: On your mom, actually. Tarvek: NO!

Also I do love the idea of like. Nobody tells Bang they're inviting her. She just wakes up in Hell like. "Ah. Yes. Fair enough."

Satan: Oh no no no my dear, you're here as a guest. Besides as well as you'd fit you're not one of mine, you've got other things waiting for you. Bang: Okay, but I love the decor. And is that Cheesecake?

Bang’s family has their own evil god in the novels, but! Bang DID pick on Tarvek a lot in Paris. Satan cares more than Anevka does. Bang might get the sexy punishment.

I feel like the fact that no permanent damage was done and it taught Tarvek a lot of things means Satan isn't gonna be all that upset about it.

And let's be real, if there's a character in GG who could look the literal Christian devil in the eye and be like "Yeah I tortured your kid, what're you going to do about it?" it's Bang.

Even Satan doesn't know what to do or think about Othar.

He sure is here! As Anevka’s arm candy! Nobody knows what to do except Anevka herself, who just wants to be Smug.

(What's that scene from Phineas and Ferb that's the mad scientist trapping the platypus within the rules of polite dining at a fine restaurant? Like he can't make a scene because that would be rude?) (That. Othar would dearly love to start a fight, but it's a Family Dinner. You're only allowed to fight verbally at those.)

(Othar isn't even fighting Satan, he just wants to argue with Klaus.) (And maybe fanboy in Bill's direction a bit).

[thetorturerwrites]

Sleep: A Sackler One-Shot

Summary:  You’re not sleeping.  Adam wants to help. The only way he knows how.

A/N:  18+ only.  It’s Adam Sackler – that’s the warning. Ha! (Smut. I’m saying its smut.)

Word Count: 4500+

Days. It had been days since you had slept. Everything was starting to blur together because your mind just wouldn’t shut off.

It started, of course, with the slightly manic, sugar-coated Saturday that was your group of friends. None of you were the clubbing kind. So, you would routinely be found in someone’s living room, basement, bedroom drinking together, eating together, creating together. When you all came together like that, it was magic.  And Saturday night had been magic.  The gathering had been at your place this time.  It was you, all of your friends, and Adam.  Tall, dark, sex on a stick Adam.

Adam had moved in about three months ago. The place he lived in before was bought out and all the residents purged so the building could be torn down. He said that he’d used it as an excuse to get a bit away from the heart of the city, and he’d moved in with you after Ray mentioned he knew you and you were looking for a roommate. When asked about why he was looking for a new place, you’d gotten the watered-down gist. Something something Hannah. Something something Jessa. Something something drama. You’d damn near said no because of the something something drama, but he looked earnest when he said he was done with it and wanted to find a calm space. You had calm space to offer; and so, in he moved.

You caught him watching you a lot that night as you flitted from friend to friend in your shared home.  He brought you a drink once or twice when you’d been carrying around an empty glass without noticing, but you were too high on the vibe, the magic, to notice the way his honey-brown eyes always followed you wherever you went or the way he made sure he knew where you were.

Once, he caught you in a quiet moment in the kitchen and moved to stand opposite you, filling your glass with water this time just to take a break from the booze.  You smiled your thanks at him, happy for the moment of silence and stillness, but pushed off the counter when you heard your name again.  But he wasn’t going to let the moment go by and moved to cage you there, arms on either side of you, large body bent slightly to look you in the eye.  His eyes dipped to your lips where he could smell the whiskey and then up to your colored cheeks.

“You’re a pretty drunk, you know that?”

You were about to say something, you were certain of it.  You were willing your brain to fire up and get ready to hit him with something witty and sexy and adult.  But your name was shouted again, and the bubble burst.  That was Saturday.

And so, it wasn’t surprising to you that Sunday was an up day, a productive day, a great, shining day because you were still flying so fucking high. But you fully expected to crash Sunday night after the house was clean, the laundry done, lunch with your best girl, dinner with your parents, two dog walks, and a flurry of this, that, and the other in between. Your body should have been done. And yet, Monday came with maybe an hour of sleep under your belt.

It was now Friday.

The first day, you’d been annoyed, but this wasn’t your first rodeo, and you knew it was only a matter of time. The second day, annoyance turned to irritation; and the third day, you were fucking angry. What the fuck was happening. Thursday was a blur of exhaustion and emotion because you always got emotional when you were tired and it had been DAYS at this point. Never more than two hours of sleep at a time and just fucking awake for no reason. So, you’d begun going through your insomnia arsenal.  

Friday found you called off from work, wrapped in too many blankets on the couch, and the heels of your hands pressed as far into your eye sockets as they could go to stop the tears that were forming. You sat going over the list of things you’d tried to get to sleep AGAIN to try to figure out the right configuration that would work. You’d tried (in no particular order)…

-Hot shower -Tea -Tylenol PM -Masturbation -Hot shower + tea -Tea + Tylenol PM x 4 (nobody fucking takes only one) -Hot shower + masturbation -All of the above in one night

None of it had worked, and here you were practically weeping on your couch because you were so utterly exhausted when Adam crashed through the door, loud and cursing like he usually was. You curled in on yourself just a little bit more hoping he wouldn’t notice you and would just go away.

“What’s up, kid?” He greeted while dumping himself onto the couch by you. When you didn’t reply immediately, he reached over and nudged you. “Hey… ” he said, nudging you again. Two more pokes to your shoulder had you snarling and unbundling your head from the mini fort.

“WHAT ADAM. WHAT DO YOU WANT.”

Your outburst didn’t seem to rattle him, and he gave your shoulder one more nudge with an up tilt of his mouth.

“Y'ok there? You look like death.”

Heaving what probably liked like a dramatic sigh, but was actually just Herculean effort to not burst into tears again, you dropped your head in your hands once more and muttered…

“I haven’t slept all week, I’m exhausted, and I can’t banter with you today, ok?” Because normally, the banter was fun. He made you think with his quips and humor. And you loved making him laugh because it seemed like he didn’t do it enough. But today was a leave-me-the-fuck-alone day. Adam, however, did not get the memo.

“Have you tried…”

“NO,” you nearly shouted, “DO NOT ASK ME if I tried tea or a shower or what the fuck ever. Because I did. More than once and I sincerely doubt that you’ve got any new ideas to cure insomnia.”

He smirked at you but didn’t say anything else. You watched as he leaned forward to unlace his boots.  Canting your head slightly, you let your gaze trail to the strong arms, biceps working, and the black t-shirt that sat tight across his chest.  But for you, it was two things in particular - his height and his hands.  You always had a thing for hands because a good-sized hand could do so many things – Lift, hold, squeeze, choke.  All yummy and delectable things.  You also had a thing for tall people because on one hand, it made you feel safe; and on the other, being able to reach literally anything in the world was attractive.  You weren’t extremely short, but tall came with bonus points in your book.  So, there you were daydreaming about Adam and his tallness and hands when he finally spoke and shook you from your reverie.

“You know…they say sex is good for insomnia.”  He was the one watching you now having shucked shoes and socks and leant back into the couch.  His gaze roamed you over, and you shrank further into your fort because, though you did shower and brush your teeth, you were certain that you did not paint a pretty picture.

“I’m not having sex with you, Adam. Besides…” You could not have helped the snort that came from your face for all the money in the world, and it came with a side of snarky eye roll, too. “I’ve already tried it.”

His brow quirked, but he didn’t look away.  Rather, he let his gaze rove down the bare shoulder, the only bit of you he could see, for a moment before speaking again.

“You haven’t had anybody here in weeks. And you’ve been wearing that same sweater since Tuesday.”  Fuck. It was true, but you didn’t think he paid much attention to your comings and goings.  AND ALSO, you definitely didn’t think he paid attention to what you wore.  Apparently, he did.

“No, but I did try to get off, and it’s the same thing.  And it didn’t work and so here I am being badgered by you about the state of my sex life.”  With the grumpiest face you could muster, you flopped against the side of the couch and pulled the blanket over your head.  

“Just go away, Adam. Leave me to my insomnia and insanity in peace.  I promise I will bequeath the apartment to you when I expire.”  And the Oscar for best actress goes to…. 

But your dramatics were cut short when you felt your entire fort being lifted from the couch, and the squeak that broke from your throat was decidedly less than composed, and you bristled at the noise.  Who the fuck squeaks.  

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”  Just as quickly, you were deposited on the end of your bed and shot to your feet with a glower.

“Come on, kid.  I don’t like seeing you like this because its literally fucking pathetic.  So, let me help you.  I swear I will keep all of my clothes on, and I will not fuck you.  Well…" he paused and let his gaze trail from your head to your toes and back again before finishing, “mostly.”

“You…,” granted, your brain was sleep deprived and fuzzy, but this was something out of a porn movie, wasn’t it? “You…want to help me sleep…by sort of fucking me?”  What. What was even happening.  Was this real life?  And then, he laughed. He fucking laughed. Hand on the stomach, head tilted back laughed. That was it. Murdering him was your only option now.

“I want to help you sleep by helping you get off.  Orgasms you have to give yourself are still work. Just let me give this to you.”  

Apparently, you’d already begun this bizarre experiment because he reached up to pull the clip from your hair and toss it over his shoulder to be lost somewhere in the room.  Your mouth opened to chastise him, but he plowed forward before you could formulate the words.

“I told you. I’m gonna stay just like this, and you’re gonna feel better.”  You were still contemplating - because sleepless brain = slow as fuck - when he pulled the heavy white sweater over your head and off your arms.

“I’m going to burn this sweater, by the way.”

He balled it into a rumpled mess and threw it clean out of the door and into the hallway. He was serious about that sweater.  Again, you opened your mouth to object, but he was now working on your leggings.  He nudged your feet to get you to lift one and then the other, and they, too, were tossed over his shoulder. In the span of minutes, you had been rooted from your fort, undressed, and were now standing in front of your dangerously handsome roommate in nothing but your favorite blue tank top and black boy-short panties.

“I’ve been wondering what you kept under those ugly, baggy sweaters,” he murmured while not being shy at all about the way his gaze traveled you over.

“Look. Adam.”  Reaching up again, you pressed your fingers into your eyes and just took a breath because this was stupid, right? Adam was manipulating you by weaponizing your exhaustion, and you weren’t going to stand for it.  You were hardly going to stand for standing.

“This is a bad idea, ok?  This isn’t going to work, and I think you sh–”  Christ on a cracker what was that?  He had cut off your objections by sliding all ten digits into your hair and against your scalp.  The large fingers attached to those very large, very strong hands splayed out all around your head. And THEN, he started to rub and scratch at your scalp.

“Fuuuuuuuck,”  The curse-groan that came from you was definitely unladylike but sweet Jesus did that feel good.  Your head dropped forward against his chest, and you felt the reverberation of his soft chuckle against your forehead. Instinctively, both of your hands came up to rest on his hips because he was messing with your equilibrium but god did you hope he wasn’t going to stop.

“Better?“, he asked with his voice a bit softer than before, and you nodded against his chest again without saying anything just in case your voice would break the spell.  Your pity party began to puddle away – no, that was YOU turning into a puddle under that heavenly scalp massage.  He was looking down at you now, where you rested your head against him, and he cleared his throat as quietly as he could.

You tried to lift your head to retort, but he shushed you and just kept right on going with those magic fingers.  Each drag of his nails against your scalp elicited a happy groan or moan that made his fingers tighten or flex momentarily, every noise provoking a physical response.  His hands moved down from your scalp to wrap around your shoulders and start kneading, and you moaned.  Loud. No fucks given.

“Jesus Christ, Adam, please do not stop doing that.”

Adam’s large, wonderful, dexterous hands massaged your shoulders first, then deltoids, then upper back, then rib cage, and you wobbled and teetered depending on where his hands were. You were pliant under his ministrations, and you swore you could hear him muttering something under his breath. Finally, you tipped your head back from his chest and unscrewed one shut eye to look at him.

“Hi,” you said.  That was it. That was the best your brain could do.  He smirked down at you, tilting his head back in amusement.

“Hey, kid. Get up on the bed before you fall over.”  He laughed. He was laughing at you. Again.

You contemplated it for a moment while staring up at him and his long eyelashes. Was he always this attractive, you wondered.  Yes, yes he was.  But now what? So far, he’d been true to his word, but you couldn’t be sure that he would in the long run.  Maybe you were relaxed enough now.  Maybe the massage was enough. Maybe you didn’t have to potentially wreck your roommate relationship by whatever it was he was planning to do.  But he could, apparently, read it on your face that your brain had started whirring again because he lifted you once more and unceremoniously threw you on the bed. You hadn’t even finished yelping from the surprise of it when he was crawling up in the bed beside you and arranging you on your back. He slid your now very-relaxed arms upwards so they crooked on either side of your head.

“Trust me, ok? Try.”  

You didn’t trust him. It hadn’t been long enough, but you were so, so tired.  Your brow furrowed again, and you bit into the plump of your bottom lip.  He nudged the side of your chin with his nose, and you knew the anxiety crossing your face was clear, you just knew it. Your brain was kicking up again. Fast, fast, too fast.  Sliding up beside you, Adam nudged one of his knees in between your legs, and you jumped.

“Adam, I…”

He hushed you yet again, but still gently, and dropped a hand on your stomach, fingers sliding to the side and down until it curled over your hip. His face found the space between ear and shoulder, and those full lips found purchase there. He murmured something against your flushing skin, but you had no clue what it was because that spot, right there, was fantastic. His lips trailed up to the lobe of your ear and then back down again, raising goose flesh in their wake. You sighed against him, a satisfied, almost eager sigh.  You tilted your head slightly to the side to give him more room to explore that valley, and he took the invitation raining kisses on the skin that soon gave way to his tongue and finally teeth. You hiccuped at the feel of teeth on skin. You knew he was a fan of marking and bruising - his calling card to the world. “Adam was here.” It almost made you laugh.

Finally, Jesus Christ, finally, you began to relax against him.  The stiffness from your aching arms and legs began to recede, and tears sprang to your eyes at how fucking amazing it felt to not have that tightness in your shoulders, your back. Both hands dropped down from where he’d set them to fall on Adam’s shoulders, hips shifted against him and tilted - a decidedly languid undulation matched with a contented sound through parted lips. He glanced up at you then, eyes raking over your flushing skin, watching your lashes flutter open at his pause. The slight dig of your nails into his shoulders drew a thrust from his stuttering hips before he could reign it in.  He could not, however, stop the things coming out of his mouth.

“You’re doing so fucking good, kid. Doesn’t that feel better?  Told you I was going to take care of you.”  All you could do was nod.  Yes, it does feel better.  Yes, he was taking care of you. But your brow furrowed again because the ache was shifting from arms and legs into your center.  The core of you began to throb in time with your heartbeat, and that ache was torturous.  

“Adam…” You breathed it out, something of a plea, and he lifted his head to look at you, groaning softly at the look of wanting found there.

“I know. Just let me…” His voice trailed off, and he began to scoot around you – propping himself up on this side, coming up to his knees for balance, both legs caging one of yours to keep it apart from the other. When he had you just the way he wanted, he leaned forward - the bulk of his weight up on the arm so he could look down at you, your face, the length of your body. And look he did. You watched him, through your lashes, as he stared down at you. Canting his head to one side so he could look all the way to your toes.

“So fucking pretty,” he murmured - more to himself but loud enough for you to hear.  And then, he began to move again, heaving a satisfied hum that you could feel vibrate through his chest.

“Ah sshhhit!”  The surprised cry broke from you as two large fingers slid up and down against your labia, the friction from your panties just enough to drag. Instinctively, your uncaged knee drew up slightly, the ball of your foot finding ground in the blanket to give you a bit of leverage to lift your hip - granting more access to the lower parts of you and eliciting an appreciative sound from the looming figure above you. A few passes in, that enticingly long middle finger slipped between the two labia to rub from the tight bundle of nerves hidden there to the slick entrance of your core. When you began to lift your hips to meet his strokes, he cursed.

“These need to go right fucking now,” he muttered and sat up on his knees to peel away the offending panties and toss them away. He turned back to you and just stared. In another life, you’d have shied away from his gaze because there you were naked under him, your breasts swollen high and tight from arousal with pebbled nipples straining the fabric of your shirt, bare legs parted, swelling cunt all on display, and all of you heaving with breath coming in short bursts. In this life, however, you were too lust-rattled and tired to think about how you might look.  With no shame whatsoever, he reached into his pants to adjust himself, and you held your breath. He smirked that asshole smirk of his holding your gaze steady as he did it.  Adam Sackler was a devious beast, you decided, but you couldn’t help yourself from licking your lips at the thought of it.

In a second, Adam dropped back down over you and buried his face into the crook of your neck again hiding whatever tortured faces he might be making.  You didn’t have time to dwell on that notion, however, when you felt the pads of his fingers find the fount of your slick again. Your own self control wavered.  With a gasp, your hips jolted forward against him again, and you began to rock upwards and down with each press and pass of his fingers. The sounds spilling out of you were uncontrolled, frenzied - particularly when he abandoned the long passes for short, tight circles on your clitoris.  Your fingers curled into fists in his shirt, clutching the fabric as though it would help. When your hips began to buck and your head pressed back into the pillow, he lifted his head from the valley of your throat to watch you.

“Come on, kid. Quick and dirty this time. Cum for me.”

You nodded your head blindly, agreeing with him that fucking yes, you wanted to. It was right there and he was charging towards it for you. Bless this dirty, dirty man. Every part of you was clenched tightly, terribly tightly - eyes, fingers, toes, knees, hips, core. And then fucking yes, there it was. As the tightness in you exploded outwards, you came with a series of shouts that had him planting his free hand on your chest so he could feel them. He started to talk to you again, punctuated with his own arousal now, riding you through the orgasm the only way he could in this arrangement - with that filthy mouth.

“Look how fucking good you look.” He huffed, heaving a breath against you. “Bet you taste like candy.” You felt the vibration of his low, hungry groan. “Shit, you’re gonna fucking kill me.” He pressed his hand down into your chest just a bit more until your eyes opened and looked up at him. “Time for take two, yeah? Wanna make sure you sleep. Let me taste you.”

The delirium in your head made you question if he was saying those things out loud, and you certainly weren’t sure if that was you nodding your head, but his weight was gone from you so fast there was little doubt that it was definitely you who had agreed, and it was definitely him pushing your thighs apart wider.  

Laying himself along the end of your bed, he traced the outline of your labia again with his finger.  You looked down to see him gazing into your pussy, pearlescent from your arousal and orgasm. He treated himself first to the taste of your thighs, licking away the sweat and slick that was spotting the flesh and applying a trail of hungry bites to your center.  When he finally - FUCKING FINALLY - lowered his mouth to your taste, he groaned loud.  The reverberation of it against your already sensitive sex sent a shudder up your spine. Hungrily, he tasted all of you - labia, clit, slit outside and in - and you were never so grateful for a debauched man.  His tongue circled and he sucked on your clit until you squirmed. He scooped up all of the slick collecting at your entrance and sucked it down like ice cream with a lascivious moan.

But then you moved, and that drew his eyes open and up along all of the curves of your body. He watched you as you shifted a bit, scooting your hips down closer to him.  Both of your hands came down to thread into his hair, and you began to move his mouth against you, and Adam lost his fucking mind. He growled and moaned, digging fingertips into the flesh of your thigh as you brazenly showed him what you liked. You moved him, then, up and down, side to side, and he hummed hungrily with each thrust of your hips as you worked yourself on his mouth.

You were almost there. It was right fucking there, but your brow knit with frustration because you were chasing something that seemed elusive. A pained whimper broke loose from your chest, and you threw your head back against the pillow. Watching Adam devour your pussy should have been enough because, good god, he was beautiful between your thighs. And the hungry look he gave you when you began to manipulate him made your insides pool that much hotter. But still you chased, frustrated, until finally, one of those large hands came to push one leg higher up.  On the heels of that came two long fingers sliding into your heat, and your chest shot up off of the bed like you had been electrocuted.  A shouted curse broke loose from you as those fingers began to move, pumping in and out, curling to drag against the spongy spot inside. Your trembling fingers curled harder into his hair, and your hips began to dance against him again. Rocking, rocking, rocking…

“Fuck, Adam!”  Your chest arched upwards until the only parts of you touching the bed were head, shoulders, and hips – your pelvis punched down low and open for his thrusting fingers. That coil began to tighten again, and you trembled right at the edge of it. Teetering. Keening. Still chasing.

“Goddammit! Say something!”  

And oh, thankfuckinggod, he moaned into your cunt, and the vibration of it ricocheted through you and shot you like a slingshot.  The force of your orgasm shook your legs, your hips rolled and bucked, and you cried out hoarsely.  The new surge of hot and wet that met his lips had Adam reeling a series of hungry, sloppy moans alongside yours. He chased every drop, every taste of it until you’d rode him through the high and had begun to collapse against the bed.  

Happy, contented sounds rumbled through your body and you patted his head affectionately - that was the only thing you were capable of currently.

With a chuckle, he crawled up the bed beside you and settled himself gingerly by your side.  You watched him move, and your brow furrowed slightly.  Did he hurt himself? Was it that bad? What the fuck, man! But before you could think of too many more scenarios, he captured your chin in his fingers and kissed you once, light but enough to impart his enjoyment of you. The tang of you now on your lips had you smacking them blissfully. Man wasn’t wrong. Tasted like candy.

“Don’t think. You’ve got me hard, painfully. Sleep.”  

As he talked, he wrapped an arm around your middle and pulled you close, settling your back against his chest so that he could bury his face in your hair. Pulling up the blanket around you both, he wrapped himself all around you and whispered into the back of your neck.

“Sweet dreams, kid.”

Because it had worked. And here you were – sweaty, sticky, sated.  And fast, fast asleep.

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Best of 2020

Better late, than never. I enjoy seeing other people’s top-10 lists and I said I’d do one for 2020, so here we go. I haven’t had the chance to watch EVERYTHING I wanted to, but you’ve got to pull the trigger at some point. When the Academy Awards took place on Sunday, I felt like I hadn’t seen ANYTHING nominated but I could remember dozens of times where I felt like I wasted my precious minutes with cinematic detritus. I assumed putting this list together would be easy. It wasn’t. I’ve got a lot of runner ups but for now, here are my Top 10 “Best” (by which I kind of mean my favorite) movies of 2020:

10. Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Never Rarely Sometimes Always gave me a lot to think about. On the surface, it's about a teenager who has to travel outside of her hometown to get an abortion, but it could've been any kind of procedure she's uncomfortable (or unable) asking her parents for. It's about the lengths she has to go to when her main source of support is cut off. You feel uneasy throughout, wondering what lengths the girls will have to resort through and whether something horrible is just around the corner. For this reason, I think many parents would find the film enriching.

9. Mank

I haven’t posted my review of Mank yet - just haven't had the time so consider my star rating for it "spoiled". If you don't know, it's about Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) and the time he wrote Citizen Kane for Orson Welles. I can’t call Citizen Kane one of my favorite films, but I do often think of it. The story, the characters, specific shots, the overall look, etc. Every time I revisit it in my memory, my appreciation for it grows and in a way, Mank helps complete my relationship with the film. For that reason, I foresee myself revisiting Mank in the future - probably as part of a double-bill. I’d love to see it enough times to memorize some of Gary Oldman’s best lines.

8. One Night in Miami

One Night in Miami addresses the present while being set in the past but something about it clicked with me more than Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. It's essentially a series of long conversations, the kinds that force you to really examine tough questions and see these legendary figures as normal people. Unlike Mank, it isn't so much the individual lines that stand out, it's more the vibes you get from the exchanges. Out of all the movies on this list, it's probably got the best ensemble cast.

7. Sound of Metal

I'm sure you've seen that clip from Un Chien Andalou where an eye gets sliced with a razor? It gives me the willies just thinking about it because if I were blind I wouldn't be able to watch movies or draw. In Sound of Metal, we're dealing with a career cut short because of deafness but the dots are easy to connect.  I immediately connected with this movie, which made its ending feel like a punch in the gut.

6. Tenet

I keep telling myself that I won’t love a movie Christopher Nolan directs just because his name is attached to it. Hopefully, this doesn't make me a fanboy, despite my falling for pretty much everything he's released. I love how ambitious Tenet is. The plot is so complicated but then again it isn't because once you're able to grok the mechanics of its reverse-entropy technology, you'll probably figure out most of the plot's mysteries. For me, that was the fun part. It felt good to see my understanding of the story and theories confirmed. I'll be watching it again once groups can gather so my friends and I can discuss everything in detail.

5. Trial of the Chicago Seven

I know The Trial of the Chicago Seven fudges history in ways certain people would say is irredeemable but I never go into a film “based on true events” assuming liberties won’t be taken. At the end of the day, I care about being entertained. My enjoyment was also amplified by the fact that I didn't know what the verdicts would be - my American history is spotty, at best. It's got laughs, outrage, drama, and inspirational moments. Aside from romance, you've got pretty much all the bases covered.

4. Palm Springs

Out of all the pleasant surprises of 2020, Palm Springs was the biggest. I thought the Groundhog Day thing was played out and the 0-star-worthy Love Wedding Repeat did nothing to convince me otherwise. Then, this movie comes along and does everything you want in one of those movies, and then some. Not only did Palm Springs give me the romantic comedy I'd been craving for (feels like we haven't gotten a good one since "Crazy Rich Asians" it also examines what love and relationships mean through smartly written metaphors.

3. Possessor

No, I didn’t put this movie on the list just because it’s Canadian; Possessor is on this list because it’s the most unsettling movie of 2020. I mean that in a good way. I've already talked about how unsettling the premise is but it's also the execution. Those bizarre “dream” scenes with the different identities merging in unnatural ways is unforgettable. That mask of Tasya's face, half-melted is already creepy enough, when worn by Christopher Abbott as he re-enacts her memories is just so weird it makes you wonder if you’re actually seeing what you’re seeing, or if you’re going mad. Then, there's that shot with the fingers at the end! Makes me wince just thinking about it.

2. Soul

During the Oscars, I get a little mad at Pixar. They effortlessly churn out these masterpieces that mean no other studio has a chance of winning an Academy Award for the Best Animated Film category. It makes me wonder if the voters even bother to watch the competition but I don't think anyone could argue against Soul. It's among their best films. It’s gorgeous, profound, and modern without showcasing any issues that might flush your day down the toilet.

Runner-Ups:

Enola Holmes

I never believed Enola Holmes would end up on my "Best of the Year" list but this movie is a lot of fun. If you haven't seen it yet, you should. Just wanted to remind you.

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) I was disappointed when audiences didn’t seem interested in Birds of Prey. Seeing Margot Robbie go all-out and given a script that actually makes good use of her character was lots of fun. I also found it refreshing to see a superhero movie (not really, but kind of) that didn’t involve a plot to destroy the world, upheaval all of civilization, or shoot a giant beam into the sky. I think this is one people will discover down the line and go “why didn’t I go see this in theaters when it was playing?”

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm I’m not 100% in love with Borat 2 but boy am I looking forward to showing it to people who have no idea what’s coming. That scene with Rudy Guliani might not have the same impact down the line as it did when I first saw this sequel, but that’s ok. It’ll still have you picking your jaw off the floor.

Nomadland It’s a great movie and I might’ve put it on my list of the best… but I just don’t see myself watching this one again anytime soon. Great movie though. It deserves every accolade you see directed towards it. Chloé Zhao is shaping up to be a major talent. While before I might’ve said “Eternals who?” Now, I’m excited.

The Vast of Night Until I saw Possessor, this was my favorite horror film of 2020. I love the way this movie does so much without showing anything. It’s all about letting your imagination do the work.

Hamilton I’m still unsure how I feel about the casting in Hamilton. Everyone does a terrific job. I understand why actors of color were chosen to portray the historical figures we meet during this story. It still doesn't sit 100% comfortable with me. Then again, who can argue with those results? I’ve seen the movie twice and the songs are still playing in my head.

1. Promising Young Woman

I only had so much before this post went up. Enough for one more movie. It was a tossup between The Father, Judas and the Black Messiah, and Promising Young Woman. As you can imagine, I’m pretty satisfied with the choice I made. Writer/director Emerald Fennell takes the rape-revenge genre and reshapes it into something that feels completely new. Like many of the other films on this list, it also feels relevant to what’s going on today. There are many reasons why I could’ve given it this slot. The writing, the performances, the way it puts your stomach in knots as you wonder what’s going to happen next, the pitch-perfect ending… but I’m going to pick a more personal reason. I try to look at films as snapshots of when they were made. There’s a part of me that winces when I look at Gone with the Wind but I’m also able to take a step back and say “but other than that…” and then just enjoy the movie. In Promising Young Woman, the past is confronted in a way that made me pause and think about two movies on my shelf: Wedding Crashers and American Pie. The Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson comedy, in particular, has a lot of questionable bits of comedy, bits made even more eyebrow-raising by the fact that it isn't an "old" movie whose entire cast is now dead. Let’s just say that when a movie makes me go “This movie is replacing X”, makes me think this hard about things, and does everything else you want in a thriller… it’ll stick in your head for a long time. That's why I'm calling it the best/my favorite movie of the year.

[nicetomeetmew]

If LU was an anime (VA headcanons)

Okay so! A while back I uploaded a video (which you can find here) giving the LU boys voice actors. And in the description of said video, I promised that I was going to post a list of explanations for my voices and link it. Which I am only doing now.

These choices, bar a few, are my own personal opinion, so I'd love to hear your thoughts about them! I spent far to long working and watching anime for this but I am pretty happy with the end result, bar one (glares at Four). So I hope you enjoy! And prepare yourself. Cause this is LONG.

Legend - Vic Mignoga (Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood)

So fun fact. Back when I first discovered LU, I almost immediately imaged Leg with this voice. He had strong Ed vibes for me and when I started making this list, he was the only one I immediately knew was perfect. At least to me. It just has that quality; the snark with the capability of being genuine and emotional (I do apologise if the voice clips I included in the video made you sad. That's a hazard of FMA). I didn't consider anyone else for Legend, even though I did briefly consider Vic Mignoga for Warriors (more on that later).

Sky - Aleks Le (Zenitsu Agatsuma from Demon Slayer)

Man, I considered a fair few KnY voices for this list, including the voice of Tanjiro for Wild and the voice of Giyu for Twilight. But this is the one that stuck. I was struck between Sky having a youthful, soft voice or an older, soft voice (I knew his voice had to be soft. I mean. It's Sky.)

I watched the dub of Demon Slayer solely for this and it never would've occurred to me to consider Zenitsu's voice for Sky. But as the show progressed and I heard it when he wasn't... you know... begging some poor lass to marry him, I realised he actually has quite a soft voice. And when I heard it get all serious I thought "Yep. That works." And thus I placed Aleks Le as the Chosen Hero. You could argue that his voice is a bit too youthful for him but I still think it works.

Wind - Amanda Miller (Boruto from Boruto: Naruto Next Generations)

Ugh. Ugh. *increasing sounds of disgust*. I hate this.

But let's start from the beginning. Right off the bat, I was 99.9% sure Wind would be voiced by a woman. Okay so he's not 10 (that will make more sense in a second), but he's still pretty young and I imagine him with quite a youthful voice. For him, I considered Sarah Natochenny, the current voice of Ash Ketchum in Pokémon, and also Colleen Clickenbeard's voice for Monkey D. Luffy in One Piece. But these two voices shared the same problem. They were too raspy. I just cannot see Wind with a raspy voice. I guess if you really, really, really focus on it it could work but I just could get it to work for me hfff.

And then... ugh. I spoke to a mate about. He doesn't know about LU so I just told him I was making voice headcanons and couldn't think of a good one for a 14 year old boy. And he said "have you heard Boruto's English voice?" And I think my response was something along the lines of, "Ben, I have standards." But he insisted it would probably work so I watched a clip of Boruto on YouTube and much to my horror, it did seem to work. But there was problem. None of the clips had lines I could picture Wind saying. And because of that I was struggling to actually give Wind the voice. But something told me that it was the right one so... I... *shudders*... watched Boruto. I watched I think 5 full episodes before I had no more braincells and skipped thorough a bunch more and sure enough, I could finally see Wind with that voice. I think it fits him great and it honestly might be my favourite choice just because I had to watch that nightmare.

Hyrule - Justin Briner (Izuku Midoriya from My Hero Academia)

Ah. This one is much more pleasant. First of all, I never realised this at first but Midoriya and Hyrule are kind of similar. For one thing, they do kinda look alike. And for another they have the same "I will never give up" kinda thing going on.

Roolie is another one I knew would have a soft voice. I think Justin Briner was always down as a choice for him, except for when I briefly considered him for Four (more on that later *big sigh*). This is another anime I watched the dub for solely for this and there were a ton of lines right from the get go I could instantly imagine Roolie saying. So yeah. Aside from the tiny moment I almost assigned Justin Briner to Four, this was a pretty easy one. Midoriya has a soft voice that I could easily imagine Hyrule having. And when he got angry and his voice got harsher, I could also easily see Roolie like that too. Fun fact: there's another BNHA voice on this list... heh.

Wild - Michael Sinternklaas (Dagger from Black Butler)

AW YEAH. YOU HAVE BEEN DIAGNOSED WITH BRITISH BOI.

Ahem. Anyway. Yes Wild is British. Everyone rejoice. I was unsure of how people would react to this but I think this is the only voice on the list everyone agreed on. Which I'm happy about.

As I mentioned, I considered the English voice of Tanjiro (Zach Aguilar) for Wild. There were issues with this; mainly that it was too soft, too young, and made him sound too similar to Sky. Now here's the thing. I WANTED to give Wild a English accent. I am almost certain he would have one, like most people. However the only anime I could think of with decent English accents was Black Butler (and yes I know his final voice is from it, bear with me) and there was a problem with that. Most of the voices from Black Butler are ridiculously posh. Now you may be thinking "But Kai, Zelda has a posh English accent" and to that I would say "Ah yes but she's a princess and Wild is not". And now you might be thinking "But Kai, he's a knight an probably spent a lot of time in a place with posh English accents". To which I would say "But he wasn't always". Two words. Hateno Village.

Let me explain.

I feel like a lot of people hear the words 'English accent' and immediately think of an accent like Zelda's (and no, I am not saying everyone does and I'm also not implying that there aren't people out there who aren't British and know that there are multiple accents). Anyway, English accents are different depending on the place. And, since one can assume Wild is from Hateno Village, I would imagine their accent is different to that of those born in Castle Town. So that's why I was reluctant to give Wild a voice from Black Butler. Because all the voices that weren't insanely fancy were either far too old or did not have the right vibe.

Then one day, taking a break from this, I was watching season 3 of Black Butler (one of the only anime I watch dubbed) and I heard two voices that I suddenly thought, hang on just a second. One of those was the voice of Ronald Knox, who's a grim reaper. And the other, of course, was Dagger. I was leaning towards Dagger and what sold me was one scene in particular, which I chose as the final voice clip for Wild (you cannot tell me that is not exactly something he would say). And that was it. But Wild's was easily one of the most frustrating (not the most *glares at Four again*).

Time - David Matranga (The Father from Wolf Children)

Another tough one and also one I heavily considered for Twilight (for obvious reasons). Time's was kind of tricky because I knew I wanted it to be deep but there's such of variety of deep voices. At one point I even considered dumping the deep voice idea because it was so hard. It was a this time I thought of the voice of space cowboy extraordinaire, Spike Spiegel. But my brain said "hell no". There were other voices I considered for him, loads of which I cannot find the notes for and another one which will likely appear in part two as another character (no spoilers), but when I was picking a voice for Twi, some of the lines the father said just kept ringing big old Time vibes with me. So in the end, I decided to for it. Like I said, I imagine time with a deep voice and while to father's might be a bit more... gravelly (?) than I imagined, I think it fits him pretty well. It's serious and mature but still a certain kindness I'd imagine Time's voice to have.

Warriors - Johnny Yong Bosch (Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach)

Don't lie. You knew Johnny Yong Bosch was gonna be on here and not just because I put his name (albeit spelled incorrectly) in the thumbnail. When I started making this, I knew I wanted to fit JYB into it. In my mind, LU would be an amazing anime and almost all amazing anime have Johnny Yong Bosch in it.

Now, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out whether he would be better for Wars or Twi. At one point I was convinced he would be best for Twi and that's when I briefly thought about Vic Mignoga for Warriors (his voice for Tamaki Suoh from Ouran High School Host Club. Don't tell me Tamaki and Wars aren't at least a tiny bit similar). But I could bear to part with Vic for Legend so I decided heck it, Johnny is Warriors and I'll find someone else for Twi later. As for the voice in particular, the two voices I considered for Twi definitely did not fit Wars. And then I remembered Bleach and immediately I thought "Yep. That's the one". I imagine Warriors having an authoritative voice, not too deep and very... uh... I don't know the right word. Clean sounding? Anyway, Ichigo just seemed to fit nicely and thus it was so.

Four - Micah Solusod (Yukine from Noragamai)

Ugh. UGH. Okay. This is my least favourite. Four was, excuse my French, A FUCKING NIGHTMARES. There was not ONE SINGLE VOICE that seemed to work for him at all. I watched a bit of the Noragmai dub because I was thinking about Yato's voice for someone (I can't remember who. It might have been Wild) and I heard Yukine's and decided to put it into reserve. As in, my last resort. And I had to use it. Oh my god Four. I love you but your voice is literally a nightmare. Is it high? Is it low? Is it young sounding? Surprisingly grown up sounding? I DON'T FREAKING KNOW.

I mentioned earlier that I considered Justin Briner for him. I was thinking about his voice for Luck from Black Clover, which may have honestly worked a bit better, but I was pretty attached to Justin as Roolie by this point. So I had to whip out Micah.

Let me be clear. No, I do not think this works well at all. I appreciate the people who tried to see that good in it, but I honestly just don't think it works. The only reason I went for it is because Yukine's voice switches between older sounding and younger sounding throughout the show and since I could decide what Four's would sound like I said to myself "Fine. Four can be the same", found some clips, slapped it together and never looked back.

I am still looking for another voice for Four and if I find a decent one, I will include it in part two.

And last but not least...

Twilight - Aaron Mitchell Dismuke (Tamaki Amajiki - My Hero Academia)

Told ya there was another BHNA voice.

So Twi was another tricky one. As I mentioned, I was seriously considering Johnny Yong Bosch for him. More specifically, his voices for Giyu Tomioka from Demon Slayer and Kiba from Wolf's Rain (for obvious reasons). I did almost go for Kiba but something was stopping me. I'm honestly not sure what.

So I was talking to a mate (and by that I mean I rambled. A lot) about VA's and at one point he suggested Aaron Mitchell Dismuke but not for Twilight. I can't actually remember who he suggested it for but anyway, that didn't work out. But when I was looking through his work, I saw that we played Amajiki and I was curious. I listened to him and I liked it.

Okay to be fair I wanted a country accent for Twi. Of course I did. But I could not a find a decent one. They few I found were absolutely terrible. So I gave up on that and decided that was Amajiki. And that was that.

And that concludes the Links VA headcanons! I am happy with most of them and once more these are my opinion but I would love to hear your own ideas!

As I have said many times, I am working on a part two and as a sneak peak (sort of) I'll tell you two of the characters that will be featured (excluding Four, if I find him another voice).

Dink (even though he hasn't, technically shown up yet) and Malon (which is proving to be a lot tricker than I thought). There a couple more but my lips are sealed heh.

Oh and speaking of Dink, the voice I considered for Time and then thought it would be better for someone else? Yeah that's the voice that's currently in the lead to be Dink's :)

I hope enjoyed my long winded explanations! And thank you for reading/watching!

[straightbaittournament]

only the option with the least votes will be eliminated! everyone else moves on the round 3. propaganda under the cut (and more always welcome!):

ava silva and michael salvius:

They have some amusingly straightbaity scenes where Michael initially appears to be interested in Ava (meeting her in a bar, asking questions about her, pursuing her to get her to do things with him and inviting her to kick ass with him) but almost all of these scenes are explicitly for plot reasons or end up displaying the closeness of Ava and Beatrice (and Beatrice’s jealousy over Ava seemingly being interested in a man) instead. Michael and Ava develop a strong close relationship that feels more sibling-esque by the end of season 2 and also Michael straight up dies at the end of season 2 as well.

neo, mew, and shin:

Before the show aired there was all this speculation over who Neo (a boy) was going to choose, Mew (a girl) or Shin (a boy). A lot of people suspected that Neo and Mew would get together and even though the trailers seemed to imply that there was something between Neo and Shin, that it wouldn't end well for them. Turns out the show went a completely different direction and ended up with polyamory with all three dating each other. This song from the show released before the show came out and there's a lot of comments trying to figure out who's going to end up together (with some people saying that they hope it'll be poly but are sure that it probably won't be) https://youtu.be/5w-nDbr2fxY And here's the famous kiss scene (there's no subs in this clip but the general vibe is that they're telling Shin (the shorter guy) that even the two of them have feelings for each other, they care about him too) https://youtu.be/Gr4fTrXqL8k https://64.media.tumblr.com/80a1b4441645c65825f221a42d2e88ed/36e07bb804d7de75-59/s540x810/bd1bb49d299d904c8ffe9a26b970caf9567eaae3.pnj

edward elric and winry rockbell:

literally in different dimensions by the end! they still have a lot of the hallmarks of "ohh endgame childhood best friends" or whatever but fma 2003 just said. naah. winry got the shortest end of the stick and i feel so bad for her!!! continuity specific straightbait. in every other universe they get married and have kids but screw you two specifically 🙏

hikaru hitachiin and haruhi fujioka:

Haruhi x Hikaru from ouran high school host club. Yes i know she technically gets together with another boy in the end, but there is something so Queer about this ship in particular. Their whole date episode is just screaming Not Straight. For both of them.

rowena macleod and sam winchester:

Their relationship was clearly going in that direction before the writers killed Rowena.

galo and aina (submitted as lio and galo):

Iirc, the whole time the audience was set up to believe that Galo will get together with a teammate named Aina (i might be completely wrong but i think she showed romantic interest in him). That's what usually happens, anyways. However, studio trigger turned that premise on its head with Galo's budding relationship with Lio. In order to save Lio, Galo kissed him. They kissed.

mako, korra, and asami:

it's that one meme where the guy ignores his girlfriend to check out another girl, only the two girls get to know each other and get together. S1/2 has love triangle drama between who Mako will be with (Korra or Asami). S3 no one is together but Korra and Asami become really close friends. S4 Korra and Asami are together. Mako is single. Like the only example of exes being good friends and Not getting back together, as well as giving the middle finger to heteronormative assumptions when after the love triangle is over, the two girls get together Shipping the two girls in a love triangle together but it actually happens

pat and ink:

Pat has a crush on Ink early on, and it seems possible at first that she may feel the same way. However, it is later revealed that she actually has a crush on his sister and is a lesbian. It's okay though because then Pat realizes he's in love with his childhood rival and they become wlw mlm solidarity! Everyone wins!

alexa, liana, ian, and jeremy:

the Only barbie animated movie where the girl(s) do not end up with a guy. alexa & liana live together and enact a ton of romantic tropes together, the twin guys do flirt with them but then the girls are separated from them by... a magic rainbow. they do dance together at the end of the movie... before the girls leave to go live together again. wearing dresses that are literally the bi and lesbian pride flags. no joke. cottagecore wlw separated from potential male love interests by literal magic rainbow the gayest barbie movie

good luck everyone! now go vote!

[weirdthinkingdragon]

Birds of a feather, yandere together

Yandere Hizashi x Winged reader x yandere Keigo (Hawks)

I got the idea from reading the yandere purge ideas from Yanderemommabean. It really struck me with inspiration.

Finale- I am SO. GLAD. To finally have this done, and don’t think I should be as happy as I am for how it turned out. Enjoy 4,000+ words

warnings- some swearing and quick scene of death

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It’s only two days before the Purge happens again. It was a disaster for the first time last year. Many of the people couldn’t handle it and there were way too many deaths on both sides. I was hidden away in my home since there was for sure no one that would be a yandere for me. All I had to do was stay out of the other yandere’s ways and everything would be fine. Just to be more on the safe side though, I’ve been building a small treehouse in the middle of the woods without telling anyone about it. The only way to get to the entrance was by flight.

I didn’t even tell my two best friends, Hizashi and Hawks. Still don’t know his real name, but that’s fine. It’s just much easier to make fun of him by calling him different types of bird nicknames. Hizashi is a part of it, and it’s a running joke between the three of us to call each other bird names.  

With the two of them being so busy, it’s pretty easy to never get on the topic. It feels wrong to lie, but no one can be trusted in the Purge, especially if my life is on the line. The only one I could really trust was good old ‘jean boy’ as I liked to call him. He recently went missing though. Can’t decide whether to hope he died, or he’s stuck somewhere with an overbearing yandere.

I shake the thought out of my head while walking to the destination to hang out with my two friends again. My enhanced hearing was problematic with all the chatter in the cafe. Some are talking about the two heroes hanging out, some saying how they hate one for one reason or another, and some just saying they hate heroes for some personal reason. There was an interesting conversation though. Two women who seemed to be in their mid-twenties gushing about the two men secretly being in a relationship. A smirk appeared on my face at the thought. The third at the other side of the table looking at the two like they’ve lost their minds.

“I swear they’re not normal. Their vibes feel yandere to me.” The two rolled their eyes at her. “Vibe? Seriously? That could TOTALLY be wrong though. You have been wrong about someone once or twice before.”

“But I’m sure about these two! They just don’t feel right!” The shorter of the duo rolled their eyes again. “You’re just jealous since you like Hawks.” She hid her face in her hands. “No, I got rid of that months ago when I first felt his vibe was off!” Both of them were doubtful. I decided to continue on before they realized I was creepily watching and eavesdropping.

… Why do they always insist to be in the hidden back part of the cafe? It’s always quieter at least. I stopped in my tracks before turning around the corner. “We can’t just clip their wings! I’d feel too bad doing it!” shrieked the familiar voice of Hizashi. Fear trickled in my stomach until I remembered Hizashi recently bought an unruly Cockatoo. He complains it keeps getting out of the cage and nearly being eaten by one of Shouta’s cats. He must be talking about that to keep the bird safe. Funny he bought a Cockatoo when Hawks and I like to call him the same thing.

“Calm down before we’re heard. Yeah, I have to agree though. Having fewer feathers feels so light.” Came the familiar voice of Hawks. I continued walking towards them. Hizashi’s eyes shined in happiness as they locked with mine. “Yo! You’re finally here!” Hawks is unamused as he looks at the clock on the wall next to him. “Big deal. They’re rather early.” He remarked. He looks at me and pats the empty seat between the two of them.

“Hey, little Chickadee. Come on over, we kept it nice and safe for you.” Hizashi gave him a “really dude?” look.

“That doesn’t even make any sense!” Hawks just replied with a lazy shrug. Hizashi gave him a stare-down and Hawks once again just replied by lazily staring back at him. For one odd reason or another, the sight made me laugh. Probably since they leaned close “glaring” at each other. Their faces weren’t even three inches apart. They both looked back at me with cheerful smiles.

After a bit of time to collect myself, I went over to the seat and sat between the two of them. Hawks wrapped an arm around my waist while Hizashi wrapped one around my shoulders. They then pulled themselves closer to me so our thighs were touching.

Sometimes I forget just how touchy they like to be. Well, Hizashi is predictable since Shouta warned me about it when we first became friends. He’s thankful I’m able to stop Hizashi from bothering him quite as often, but he still ends up making time to bother Shouta at the school. Hawks is a bit more unpredictable with his... I’m just going to say unique personality.

Hawks leaned back in the seat without changing his grip. It then struck me with a question as to how he wasn’t squishing his wing- I look over to see most of the feathers on a pile next to him. There were holes in the booth behind him. How have I never noticed that before? Moving my wings, there were two similar holes behind me.

He noticed what I was looking at. “Heh, it was done the last time we were here and you left. It was surprisingly cheap what they wanted for it to be done,” He looked over to Hizashi with a smirk on his face. “Guess it pays to be the number 2 hero.” He rolled his eyes at Hawks.

“Listen up, what ya dig is your business. For me? Doing what I do is much more fun than what you could ever do.” He then leans over me and pokes Hawks on the nose. He replied by having one of his feathers go to Hizashi and brush against his mustache. “Eh, whatever you say Cockatoo. I get paid more than you do with your three jobs combined,”

He then pressed his feather against the side of Hizashi’s mustache. “You’d probably do better without that ridiculous thing on your face. Why don’t I help you?” It was easy to tell Hawks was teasing and wouldn’t really do it. The smirk that grew on Hizashi’s face makes it known he knows it too. “Aw! Is a certain someone jealous of my beautiful face?”

“Beautiful isn’t exactly the word I’d use for it.” Hizashi let out a huff. “Well, it’s a good thing I never cared for your opinion, little Finch!” Shock went over Hawks’ face. “Wow, you finally came up with another one? Is it to mock my height? I may be smaller, but I can bet you it’s bigger than yours where it counts.” To say I choked on air is an understatement. I’m pretty sure I nearly suffocated myself with it in surprise at his bluntness.

They both started patting my back where my wings weren’t at.. “Easy there Chickadee/Mockingbird.” They said simultaneously. I remained coughing for a second. “Great, you broke them Hawks!”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have made fun of my height. I’m not even that short in the first place.”

Hizashi glared at him. “Well, I didn’t think you’d take it that way! Jeez, you’re really crampin’ the style of both of us!” Hawks blinked in confusion at him. “Sometimes I really don’t know what you’re trying to say. Right now is one of them.”

I was able to stop coughing, and just in time since the waitress came around the corner to us. She has the basic love-struck look at the two heroes. Honestly can’t blame her, they’re both incredibly attractive. Not going to lie, I did like them like two months ago, but it quickly went into the best friend feeling instead the more the three of us got to hang out.

She didn’t seem too happy to see me between the two. It’s clear she doesn’t know who I am since I prefer to stay more on the hidden side like Shouta. Only a few crazy fans have recognized me.

The guys’ grips tightened around me as she approached closer. She kept staring at Hawks in particular. She pulled out her notepad and pen. “Hello, I’ll be your waitress for today. Have you three figured out what you all want?” She asked, still not breaking eye contact with Hawks. Hizashi and I kept trying to hold in our snickers. Hawks removed his arm from around me to lightly elbow my side.

“Oh, we sure have!” We really didn’t, the three of us just always get the exact same thing we did before. I smirked at Hawks while Hizashi said what he wanted. “You’re obviously getting the chicken again, aren’t you? How in the world do you stay in such good shape?”

“You’re asking the wrong person, Chickadee. I have no idea myself, but I know I’m never giving it up.” I rolled my eyes. “Don’t doubt it for a second.”

“Did I hear that right sir? You’d like the chicken special I presume?” She questioned. Okay, that’s a little unprofessional. Even Hawks, the rather unprofessional man himself, seemed surprised at her act. “Yeah, that would be correct. I’ll take water with it.” I smirked at him. “So THAT’S how you balance it out, huh?”

He smirked back at me. “Aw, hush it Chickadee.” Hizashi seemed unimpressed with Hawks not changing his nickname. “Really, Seagull? Ya can’t just stick with the same nickname so often. Ya said the same nickname the last whole meeting!.” The feathers still on his back puffed up. “I am NOT near such a low kind of bird species!” The mischievous smirk formed on Hizashi’s face made it known what he might do. “Oooh! One that yanks your feathers! I might just have to keep it!”

Just hearing the name of that annoying bird reminds me of the time one ended up flying over me and taking a dump that landed on my wings. It took way too long to get it out. “Uh... I have to agree with Hawks on this one. I’d rather never hear that type of bird again. Remember that one time?”

It took them a second, but then their faces turned into sharp frowns. “Right! Sorry, I forgot about that, Mockingbird!” I deadpanned at him. The rapidly changing nicknames were getting confusing and annoying. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard at least half of the birds in the world by now.  “Can you two please just decide on a single nickname or something already? I’m getting tired of it.”

They both chuckled. “As you command, Chickadee.” Hizashi went into thought for a second with his right hand holding his chin. “You know what? I quite dig the Mockingbird one,” He snapped his fingers and pointed at me. Mockingbird it is!”

The woman cleared her throat in clear jealousy. I brushed it off and pretended it was just because she wanted to get our orders quickly. “Right! I’ll take the dark chocolate cheesecake with coffee, no cream or sugar.” The two of them still recoil at the thought of drinking coffee with nothing in it. I personally like the balance of the two. She nodded and walked off. I stayed quiet until she rounded the corner.

I then elbowed Hawks in his side rather roughly and looked at Hizashi. “He should have flirted with her! She seemed REALLY interested, didn’t she, Cockatoo?” He smirked as a reply.

“Yeah, yeah. Anyways, what are your guys’ opinions on the Purge tomorrow night? Hopefully it won’t be as bad as last year. Picking up all those bodies was a nightmare.” I cringed at just the thought of it. Hizashi reached behind me and smacked Hawks on the back of his head.

“C’mon, now ya just ruined the mood! It shouldn’t be too much of a concern!” He then tried to comfort me by patting my back. It did little to help. “Nah, all I’m saying is I’m curious what little Chickadee is going to do.”

There was a dangerous glint he sent towards Hizashi that greatly unsettled me. Betrayal and hurt swarmed through my head for a second. Have they found darlings? Are they going to kill me to spend more time with them?  No! They must just be curious right? They wouldn’t hurt their best friend! I forced the thoughts down before they noticed my panicked state.

“Oh, just going to stay home and hide. Not like I have anyone after me, and it’s easier to stay out of other’s ways.” The two looked like they bought the lie. I felt too nervous to relax my wings. The two seemed to notice and share a look. “Why hide at your home? Since that will be going on, all heroes are off their duties. You could stay safe with us!” Hizashi joyfully implied. An edge in his tone made it not very believable though.

I pretended to bashfully rub the back of my neck. “That’s okay! I don’t want to be a bother for the both of you. Besides, it might be dangerous for me if people are after you two.” Hawks leaned back farther and looked up to the ceiling. “Wouldn’t doubt it. Wish them luck trying though.”

“Same here! Not every person can keep up with me! And they’re especially going to have a hard time if they’re,” He shivered. “A user of bugs.” I pat his shoulder reassuringly. That sounds like a nightmare. Probably is, especially for him. Hawks replied with a snicker. I glared at him and elbowed his side almost as hard as possible. That shut him up immediately, but it made Hizashi snicker instead.

“Ouch little Chickadee. You didn’t have to hit so hard.” He mocked.

“Well don’t laugh at that, or next time I’ll hit you harder!” I threatened. He rolled his eyes.

“Whatever you say, Chickadee.”

It didn’t take long after that for our foods and drinks to arrive. We caught up on other things before leaving. I stopped at my house and made preparations for tonight and tomorrow night.  I’m going to hide a day early just in case anyone has any ideas. Pretty sure that woman is going to come after me with how she kept glaring at me when Hawks and Hizashi bantered with each other. Of course, I have the upper hand, but I’m really not for hurting people unless it’s absolutely necessary.

It didn’t take too long to fill my needed bag for hiding. Okay, just to make sure...  Snacks? Yep. Drinks? Obviously. A flashlight? Yep. And also a few things to stay entertained for the nights. Can it really be night if it’s three in the morning? Last but not least, my phone is staying here. It could pretty easily be tracked.

I kept glancing around while walking to make sure no one was watching me. There was a familiar black-clothed male running up on the rooftops. Relief flooded through me, it was just Shouta. Wait… Hizashi usually isn’t-

“Hey, Mockingbird! Surprised to see you out at this time! Couldn’t sleep, huh?” I shoved my bag out of sight behind me. “Yeah, it’s also really nice weather. Thought I’d go for a quick walk.” Shouta stopped, and it was easy to tell he was glaring at Hizashi from here. He could easily tell too. “Well, gotta go before the grump gets worse! See ya later!’ He ran off to catch up below Shouta. Shouta and I locked eyes. He… nodded at me? He must know. Can’t thank him enough.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long to get to the hidden place. It’s just big enough for me and a little wiggle room. Blankets are already laid on the floor for better cushioning. One thing I stupidly didn’t think about was room for my wings. They’re just going to be really stiff later on. I reached for my pocket radio just to listen to Hizashi tomorrow. He’s able to broadcast at his home.

… Wait… Where is- SHIT! How could I have forgotten the radio!? Ugh, I have to go get it. Staying in silence will drive me insane. A thorough debate went through my head if it was worth the risk. I decided to just go for it and run as fast as possible back to my home. It was a quick trip and thankfully I didn’t run into either Shouta or Hizashi on my way home or back. As the adrenaline started to fade, sadness and fear enveloped my mind. Did… Was everything between the three of us fake? Did I know anyone they may be interested in? But they seemed genuine every visit we did together. Before it got too far, I decided to plug in my headphones and just listen to the radio until tonight.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Time flew by faster than I thought since it was already only a few hours before the Purge begins. I made sure to quickly run and use the nearest bathroom before coming back, and put new batteries in my radio. I’m really tired, but keep trying to fight it for fear of being found. Not likely, but possible. Listening to the same songs is maddening to the point I don’t know if silence would be worse or better. My wings are already getting sore, and it probably would have been better to layer the floor with one more blanket. Rather envious of Hawks with his wings right now. . . . . “Welcome dear listeners to the CRAZY time of year again!” I was jolted awake by the familiar loud voice of Hizashi through my headphones. Yikes, somehow fell asleep. “Now, there have been a few changes of rules from the disaster of last year. Nothing much! But one of the biggest changes will be the handling of your darlings! No harm can be done to them. Nor can any quirks be used for your advantage. If that is found to be broken, your darling WILL be able to be set free.

Another rule is they must be able to leave the house at least once a week. There will be occasional checks to make sure that is being followed,” My eyes widened in surprise. Man, they’re really cracking in new laws this year.

“And a final rule added, no more than two people can be killed per person. You can thank a specific person that killed fifteen people last year for that,” Well, that’s sure reassuring in a way. Looking at the clock on the radio, it was going to start in two minutes.

“I can’t deny, this is rather fun to think about finally having my darling as well! It’s so cut they think they can hide!” Heh, they sure got the right idea. I know he’d never treat them badly, on the contrary, the exact opposite. They’d be smothered. Being smothered definitely isn’t for everyone though. Thoughts swarmed in my head how it wouldn’t be that bad- no, he doesn’t see me like that.

Due to the volume not being very high, I was able to hear the sound of rustling leaves of the trees nearby. It sounded too big to be just a squirrel or raccoon, so my guard was up.

“Ready everyone!?  

In THREE. . .

TWO. . .

ONE. . .”

The sirens started blaring.

“GOOOOOO!!!” He then went quiet for a second while my anxiety started steadily rising, Him not talking for even a few seconds feels abnormally unsettling.

“See ya soon… Darling…” His voice was uncharacteristically calm and eerie. I don’t like it…

Almost instantly, there was a noise right outside the entrance. Looking over, sure enough, it was the waitress from that night. Next to her was someone else. A male with some type of clear wings.Some kind of insect. Welp, might as well know them before I fight in self defense. “I get why you’re here, but who are you?”

The man crossed his arms. “Her and I don’t like how close you’ve come with our heroes.” Fuck. Guess there really was a target on my back huh? “It sounds pretty impossible for Hizashi to like you because of your insect wings. You know how much he hates them.”

“I’ll make him love them and me! I’ll show him the beauty of bugs! But first, you have to go.” They both can’t get in here at the same time. He stood in front while the woman tried to enter to kill me. Before she can even try to enter, a giant red… Familiar… feather plunged through her chest. He must want to kill me himself huh? What a cruel world.

“Heh, he wouldn’t be too thrilled with that,” He raised a few feathers around him. “And honestly? Neither would I.” In the blink of an eye, multiple feathers went through the male.

Wait, he can’t kill me now since he already did the limit! He tossed the two dead bodies to the ground that left a sickening “thump” as they hit the hard ground below. He was still so nonchalant that it’s like he’s done it plenty of times before. He leisurely stretched. “You’re lucky Cockatoo told me to keep an eye on you this morning. Who knows what could have happened to you if I wasn’t here.”

I glared at him. “I can take care of myself.”

“Can you now? Did you know that villain’s quirk was to make you unable to move? If you could take care of yourself, why did you hide?” His tone had a hint of scolding in it. I wasn’t able to speak before he started again.

“Gotta admit, you’ve got a pretty good hiding place. Would be hard to spot for most. Your wings look really cramped though, so why don’t you come out of there before I make you?”

The warning in his voice activated my fight or flight reflex. I lunged towards him and passed before he could grab me, and took off in the sky. There’s no way to beat him physically, but believe it or not, I can fly faster than him. Never have I been so thankful for that. Guess being a Hummingbird has its advantages. I’m now regretting not using it to get home and back. None of them would have been able to follow me.

Hawks let out a grunt of annoyance. “Come on Chickadee, you’re just making this longer than it has to be.” He’s close. Too close… I kept flying and went towards the buildings. Hopefully the chaos around will end up hitting Hawks.

My breath was already starting to become uneven . I may be faster, but he has a lot more stamina. “Now!” Hawks suddenly yelled.

Something- someone jumped onto my back from the roof of a building which made me fall towards the ground. My wings are smaller than Hawks, so I can’t carry anyone while flying.

Panic hit me hard as I noticed one particular thing about who it is. Black leather. I brace myself for the pain to hit the ground. It never came though. Hawks caught up and used his feathers to slow down the fall. Hizashi refused to let go, and is hugging me in an almost bone crushing way.

As soon as my feet hit the ground, Hawks caught me in a bone crushing hug in the front. I could barely breathe while trying to get better from the flight. “So this is how you guys are going to kill me?” I asked between breaths.

They both froze. “What?” They asked simultaneously. Hawks lightened his grip and wrapped his wings all the way behind Hizashi and nuzzled into the right side of my neck.

“No, no, no, dear Mockingbird! Ya got it all wrong. You ARE the one we love!”

“And now that we have you?” Hawks started, whispering lowly into my ear.

“We’re not letting you go, little Mockingbird.” Hizashi finished, kissing my lips. Hawks then kissed my neck at the same time.

I should be a lot more concerned than I am about this, but I’m not. “By the way, call me Keigo.” Hizashi smirked. “So the mystery bird does have a name!”

“Yeah, just don’t go waving it around. I’d rather keep my mystery.” He replied, slightly loosening his grip. “Your secret is safe with me! Anyways, let’s go, this is no place to cuddle!”

“Can do Cockatoo. Just hang on.” He unwrapped his wings around us and used some of his feathers to get us in the air. This probably counts as using his quirk, but they’re people I care about and trust, so I won’t tell.

[tmntxreader-fics]

TMNT Leo x Reader: Warming Up To You

Summary: You had long dismissed the idea of becoming friends with the icy leader in blue as it seemed to be an impossible mission. Finally, both of your frustrations lead to an explosive encounter; providing you both the opportunity to warm up to each other.

Find Raph’s Version HERE!

A/N: I HAVEN’T WRITTEN IN A WHILE I’M SUPER RUSTY.  Yeehaw we got a LEO version of this fic!!! We stan a tsundere king. He’s almost got a predatory vibe to him and I’m not exactly sure where it came from but I think it’s kinda hot so here we go. 

WARNINGS: Cursing, Leo scaring the reader half to death during a sparring match, AND TYPOS!

You’d think that Raphael would be the unapproachable one. 

In fact, even Donatello had the potential to be unreachable when any one of his projects were involved. 

But the leader of the group? You’d have figured that at least he would be someone who had qualities relating to friendliness. The success of his role depends on being communicative; surely he would carry that trait off the battlefield?

You were so wrong. 

When you had first arrived you’d assumed his indifference to you was simply because of your unfamiliarity. You were, of course, a stranger. He had a duty to protect his family and you were obviously a threat to that; there was no way he’d give you the opportunity to ruin the life they had set up for themselves. 

However, as the months rolled by, he never came around. 

Each attempt to conversate was blown off with a polite exit or an awkwardly executed excuse to avoid talking. You were literally only asking about the weather, not attempting to uncover his family secrets. 

You watched the way he interacted with April and Casey, maybe he was simply a quiet person. Lo and behold, he had absolutely no issue speaking to them. He spoke, he joked, asked them to join him when eating and hung around them fairly often when not attending to his duties or training. 

Something in your chest stung with each rejection and you couldn’t help but become slightly bitter with the attitude he held towards you- simply because you knew it was you that he was avoiding. After a few days of digesting this new revelation, you decided that if you genuinely made him uncomfortable with your attempts of friendliness then you would step back completely and remain professional. 

Each time he asked you a question when mapping out a mission, you’d begun to clip your tone just as he had been. Each word was stiff and your sentences were minimal. While the others were a little confused by the change, Leo refused to pay you any attention. He probably appreciated the intangible distance you had put between you and him. 

The third time you’d done this, it was clear that he, in fact, was not appreciative. At the strange silence that stretched across the table, you looked up from the sheet beneath you to catch eye contact with Leo. His gaze was narrowed, the piercing blue was almost suffocating. Your heart leaped into your throat and you stood frozen in place when his bottom lip curled a little; a clear implication of frustration. He leaned back and opened his mouth as if he were preparing to say something or question you. 

Then he closed it. 

There was absolutely no logical reason for him to be irritated with you. You weren’t withholding information from him and you were effectively communicating your points. 

Raising an eyebrow, you rested a hand on your hips; daring him to make a comment. Instead, the leader grit his teeth, exhaling slowly before returning his gaze to the strategy splayed across the table. There’s a long silence before he continued to talk- but at that point, your heart was beating too loud for you to focus on his words. 

Raphael glanced between his brother and yourself, a picture of bewilderment. You ignored him. 

Just as you had ignored Leo for the entirety of the following week. 

Well, perhaps ignore is the incorrect term; rather, you were indifferent to his presence. 

Each time you were alone in the kitchen together, you made no effort to spark a conversation with him. Instead, you’d nod your acknowledgment before making a swift exit- just as he had done to you countless times. 

What had piqued your curiosity was the fact that all of a sudden, the number of times you’d been caught in a situation alone with Leo has risen significantly. He had begun to appear in places that you’d otherwise never see him, at times that were completely off from his usual schedule. 

The most drastic example would be today’s training session. You had swaggered into the room, ready to provoke Raph until he snapped and kicked your ass. It had become a sort of unorthodox tradition, one that left you sore but you’d look forward to it nonetheless. It was the only time for you to really test your skills without him worrying too much about being careful with you. 

However, this particular session made you halt your steps, suspended in motion within the doorway. 

Leonardo was there. 

You blinked. 

He’s still there. Brandishing his katanas with lethal grace and performing his kata’s flawlessly. Raphael was nowhere to be seen and you’re just about to turn tail and escape before you make eye contact with the turtle in the center of the room. His gaze was intense and the air felt different, as if it were alight with a thick tension. 

Leonardo didn’t avert his stare like he usually did; instead, he lowered his arms to his side and straightened his stance. You gulped and your brain worked to churn out an excuse to leave, the last thing you wanted was to have the leader judge your training routine. 

“I’ll just come back later then,” you blurted, shattering the silence with a small wince. To your surprise, he had shaken his head almost immediately. 

“No,” he began, eyeing you carefully. “I’ll stay to my side of the room while you train.” 

Your breath hitched and it felt as though someone had stuffed cotton into your mouth. “Uh,” you desperately searched for another excuse, “I usually spar with Raph. I’ll just come back another time.” 

You thought you had him, there’s no way he could come up with a rebuttal unless he planned to bring in Raphael. However, when his reply was almost instantaneous, your heart thrashed in your chest. 

“Spar with me.” 

You blinked at him. “What?”

He spun a sword in his hand before moving to rest his weapons against the wall. Leonardo turned back to you with a raised eyebrow ridge. “Spar. With. Me.” 

“I can’t,” you heard yourself say, your voice almost a whisper as you took an involuntary step back. Your heart pounded beneath your rib cage at the mere thought of training with the blue-clad turtle. 

“Sure you can,” he said with a slight shrug, slowly advancing towards you. Each step he took made you want to flinch away. 

Raphael was an intensely brutish opponent but his techniques were very straight forward. Everything about him was bared for you to see, unashamed in his temperamental disposition and foul language. Leonardo was a completely different story, the idea of being put against him in a sparring session genuinely terrified you. 

Especially with the new demeanor he had obtained, one that was almost predatory in nature. He was frustrated and you could clearly sense it. 

“It’s fine I’ll just wait for Raph,” your voice was a breathy whisper as he came to a stop only a couple feet before you. That was the closest he had ever been to you voluntarily, usually opting to steer clear of you as if you were the plague. 

His eyes flashed an electric blue, crackling with an energy that you had never seen from him previously. He reached for the bag in your hand, maintaining eye contact as he gripped it tightly, skin brushing against yours. “I insist.” 

You swallowed heavily when you realized he was no longer asking you.

After nodding quickly, you're finally able to catch your breath when he leaned back with your gym bag in his hold. 

Following him further into the room, he placed down your things and met you in the center. He didn’t say anything for a long moment, simply taking to observing you. 

“How do you want to do this?” You questioned, nervousness rattling around your stomach as he rolls his shoulders lightly. 

“Win by submission.”

The simple statement had you grimacing.  

"I really don't think this is a good idea," you muttered, casting your gaze to the floor.

"Then stop thinking," he said, supplying a solution you would never enact. You rolled your eyes, glancing at him with a bemused expression.

"For someone who's meant to be wise, you're not exactly adept at giving good advice," you snarked, fuelled by the growing stress and pressure of your current situation. You were in uncharted waters with your new opponent; someone you had spent so long playing against with an unrecognized advantage on your side. Now that he had finally given you what you wanted, you realized that maybe gaining his attention wasn't as satisfying as you'd originally thought. More like terrifying.

His eyes hardened at your words and you immediately knew you had made a mistake by jabbing at his position. "Get into your stance," he ordered with a narrowed gaze, "now."

"I really don't-" you began, heart thrashing with panic when he cut you off.

"Now," he repeated.

Hesitantly, you shifted your feet into the correct position, raising your shaking hands to guard your face. You felt as though you were going to be sick when he bowed, a sign that the sparring session had begun.

He returned his gaze to meet yours as he straightened up and you could hear the blood rushing through your ears. Yes, you thought, puking could definitely be an option here. Your bottom lip quivered on par with your trembling hands guarding your face.

This was not right. 

You had sparred with Raphael, of all people, multiple times. You never feared an ass whooping from the temperamental turtle; so, why are you afraid of the leader? Someone who has constantly exercised restraint where his brothers would usually indulge? Out of all of them, he would be the least likely to hurt you. Hell, Raphael had fractured bones every now and then.  

The leader launched forward, breaking you from your chain of thought as you sloppily dodged a reaching fist. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. 

You stumbled backward, forced to be on the defense. There was no time to even attempt an offense with the speed that Leonardo was operating at. He was a flurry of kicks and well-placed punches and you knew that you were immediately being overwhelmed. 

“Leonardo,” you rasped desperately, squeaking when he answered only with a sweeping leg in which you barely escaped. The intensity of this fight was way too high for a spar that had only begun 20 seconds ago. 

“Just hold on!” You cried out after a failed attempt to throw your own punch. Another right jab on your behalf had only resulted in you almost being snatched up by the blue-clad whirlwind. 

Each attack that he executed had built in the force behind it, forcing you back with each blow. You were quickly realizing that physically blocking his moves was not going to work out well for you and you opted to jump out of the way instead. 

All of a sudden you felt like this was less of a sparring match and more of a slaughter-to-be. 

“Press pause!” Your screech was reinforced by sheer panic when he feigned right and you fell right into his trap as you twisted your body away from him. Leo moved with you and you squeaked when he finally caught a tight grip on your arm. 

In that split-moment, your eyes met his, an electric blue that made your wildly racing heart just stop. His hooded gaze was steely and the pent up frustration was thinly veiled, boiling beneath his skin and communicated through his movements. 

You suddenly realized that this fight was about to end very, very quickly. 

With a flash of his teeth, Leonardo wrenched you towards him. 

You can’t breathe as your splayed palms connect with his chest, your body pressed against his. His hands moved down to your waist and you want to puke when you instantly realize he’s about to launch a very painful maneuver on you. 

It felt as though everything was suddenly in slow motion as his fingers tightened above your hips, bringing you off the ground. You had no idea how to stop him, how to save yourself from what was about to occur. Racking your brain, you screamed the only words that came to mind and prayed that they would work. 

“I submit!” 

Leo’s entire body froze as if someone had pressed the pause button on his remote controller. You could hear the blood rushing through your ears, mingled with his unusually labored breathing. 

“I’m sorry, okay?” Your words were nothing but a breathless whimper and you squeezed your eyes shut in an attempt to stop your body from trembling. “I submit.” 

There’s a pregnant pause, in which neither of you moved. You were vaguely aware of your face buried in his chest, latching onto his shell as if that would’ve stopped the further attacks. The feel of his body rhythmically rising and falling beneath you with each breath felt strange, you would have almost described it as intimate if it weren’t for the current situation. You only noticed that you were suspended a few inches off the ground when Leo, ever so gently, lowered you back down. 

“I’m sorry,” you repeated quietly, heart pounding in your chest. “I don’t know what you want from me.” 

And it was out. 

Leo’s fingers tightened fractionally on your waist and you heard him take a sharp breath. 

Then he sighed. 

“I’m the one who should be apologizing,” he murmured, his voice rumbling in his chest against your ear. 

You don’t know why but for some reason you weren’t actually expecting a response from him. You’d almost expected him to disappear in a puff of smoke, something he had done many times in your presence when you confronted him with conversations. 

“I tried to keep a respectful distance,” Leo began, faltering slightly in his words. You held your breath. “I didn’t mean for it to become like this.” 

You assumed that “this” meant growing bitter and resentful towards each other for absolutely no logical reason with no visible end. 

“Respectful?” You couldn’t help but scoff softly, pulling your face away from his shell. You turned your gaze upwards to meet his, startled by the close proximity. “You gave me the complete cold shoulder. Ostracized me.” 

Leo’s gaze narrowed slightly, electric blue gaze searching your own for an answer to a question only he knew. “You certainly weren’t innocent, either.” 

You felt the heat rush to your face, indignation building in your chest as you hissed, “don’t make me say “you started it”. Don’t make me do it.” 

He sighed through his nose and glanced away for a brief moment before turning back to you, “I know, I’m sorry. I was avoiding distraction by avoiding you and it was the wrong choice to make.” 

You frowned lightly, “distraction?” You scoffed as you glared up at him with guarded eyes, “You’re fine with April O’Neil but I’m the distraction?” 

You watched as his jaw moved while he grit his teeth. That electric gaze flickered away from you, suddenly seeming insecure. “You’re different,” he muttered finally, voice softer than you had ever heard it. 

Suddenly you’re very aware of his gentle but firm grip on your waist, his thumb subconsciously rubbing lightly against your skin. His hands were hot, setting alight every place that they touched. 

It seemed you were not the only one suddenly aware of your compromising position. 

Leo was observing you intently, lips parting when his gaze traveled to where your hands rested against his shell. You couldn’t bring yourself to correct your position even when under his study. 

“Let’s start over,” you whispered, watching him snap his attention back to you at the words. 

There’s silence between you both until Leo swallowed thickly, exhaling a shaky breath. Extending an olive branch would be your final attempt, your last hurrah. The air was charged with energy you couldn’t decipher as you leaned into him, meeting his bewildered stare imploringly. He doesn’t budge other than the grip on your body tightening a fraction. 

You’re almost prepared for rejection until you catch the corner of his mouth shifting upward ever so slightly. 

“I’m Leonardo,” he said, and your hearth thrashed in your chest as a charming smile stretched against his full lips. “It’s really nice to meet you.”