#I have more Barbie History if you want it

[anxiouslittlecarrot]

I want everybody who’s calling Ken a Trophy Husband to know that he’s actually a Trophy Boyfriend, because when Ruth Handler invented Ken in the 1960s, she was adamant that he would never marry her and instead be her “handsome steady”, so that Barbie remained a figure of independence for the little girls and was never put in the position of housewife.

Her house is hers. She bought it and furnished it with money she made in her own job. In STEM, in politics, in healthcare, in fashion, in academy, in customer service. Her credit card is in her name (women in the US couldn’t have their own regardless of marital status until 1974). And it’s all pink and fashionable because femininity and badassness aren’t mutually exclusive. No matter who you are, you can be anything.

That’s why Barbie’s slogan is “you can be anything”. Teaching these ideals to little girls is why Barbie was created. Empowering women and empowering femininity is the original meaning of the Barbie doll. It’s not that you have to be all this to be a woman, but if you are all or some of this, you too are awesome.

And somehow pop culture deliberately changed that narrative. Sexualised, bimbofied, and villainised her, when she actually isn’t responsible for the impossible beauty standards — people are, she’s just a stylised, not-to-scale toy like most others.

Men are frothing because he’s just Ken and I guess they were expecting her to be just Barbie, but that’s exactly what Ken is. Canonically. A badass woman’s himbo boyfriend.

This movie has the potential to radically change the way we collectively see Barbie into what Ruth Handler originally intended, I’m so very excited

[essektheylyss]

Wait, are people like... under the impression that Oppenheimer is somehow... a glorification of nuclear warfare? About the man who was so horrified by his involvement in the Manhattan Project and its results that he spent his life afterward lobbying against nuclear weapons development, the nuclear arms race and competition with the Soviets, and the development of the hydrogen bomb in particular, that he got blacklisted as a communist during the McCarthy years and was essentially erased from the scientific community because of it?

That Robert Oppenheimer?

[regallibellbright]

[ID: The three images are screenshots of Barbie.com in the 2000s-early 2010s, showing a variety of Barbie-themed Flash games and activities to print out and play for free, with site maps to navigate and graphics of Barbie and her friends hanging out. End ID]

The concepts of NSFW is being cleared of the Internet under the false pretense of children’s safety when it’s really about the people in power sanitising for advertisers and pushing evangelical narratives AND that not enough is done to keep legitimately harmful content off of spaces that minors have access to are ideas that can coexist

[machveil]

CoD Headcanon: Parallel Play

self indulgent? oh yes lol today I bring you my parallel play headcanons with: Simon “Ghost” Riley, John “Soap” MacTavish, and König!

tw: innuendos with John

context: parallel play is often seen with kids - where they ‘play’ without interacting (I’m sitting with my blocks, you’re sitting with your Barbie - we’re playing near each other, but not directly with each other). it can carry over into adults though, of course, since it is just a form of interaction

Simon “Ghost” Riley:

Simon doesn’t really know about the term parallel play, but he does do it. if he’s just gotten back from deployment, or he just needs some him time, he’ll do his own thing. that said, he does like to be able to see you so he’ll stay in the same room as you

he’s perfectly content watching a game on the couch while you scroll on your phone. he’s a big fan of comfortable silence between the two of you. he’ll check in sometimes with a, “How’re ya doin��, lovie?”, or asking what you’re looking at

he doesn’t specifically seek it out otherwise. if you need some time to yourself he understands. if you want him to leave the room he will… but he’ll be just outside the room. if he wants to be near you but you’re not in the mood he’ll drag a chair towards the room you’re in. he’ll grab his phone and sit outside the door while he waits for you to come out

if you bring it up later he pretends he doesn’t know what you’re talking about, “Hm? I was just relaxing, nothin’ more.”

John “Soap” MacTavish:

you like your personal space, so does John! you can do whatever you want, just know he’s going to come up behind you. you’re reading a book on an armchair? he’ll sit on the floor between your legs and poke around his phone - he wouldn’t mind poking around elsewhere though. you’re watching tv in bed? no problem, John will just take a nap next to you… he’ll just drape an arm and leg over you. course, he wouldn’t mind delaying the nap if you want to pay attention to him

he just likes touching you and being close. he’d rather be in your personal bubble while you’re doing something. granted, he knows when to back off. if you actually need a moment to yourself he’ll sulk, but he leaves the room. he tries his best to leave you alone but he’ll come back every five minutes asking questions, “Need a water? I can grab you a— nah? Okay.”, “Where’d you wan’ to eat tonight? I can make a reservation.”, or, “Hey, cannae find the remote, seen it?”

if you really, desperately need alone time your best bet is sending him off on errands or locking the door to the room you’re in. he’s a sweetheart, but he feels he’s doing his absolute best when giving you attention. I mean, when you give him attention it makes his problems go away for a while, he just wants to do that for you

he means well, but he wants to do stuff around you. besides, he’d have more fun partaking in a different type of parallel play…

König:

a man that knows what parallel play is, no doubt. he looked it up as an adult because he felt weird about not wanting to interact with people… but wanting to be near them? absolutely relieved to find out it’s a thing other people feel

not that he doesn’t like doing things with you, he absolutely does, but his go-to way of interacting with people in parallel play. he can read his little history book while you do your own hobbies. he likes a comfortable distance, you can sit on your bed, he’ll sit on a chair in the corner of your room

is so happy if you enjoy parallel play because it’s always comforted him. he used to do it a lot throughout his childhood and teen years, more often than not simply being in the same room as his mother. when it came to other kids? he was too awkward to approach them, and he felt comfortable just being near them (before problems surrounding his height and appearance came up)

of course, he wouldn’t mind if you sat with each other too, “Hm? Ja, come here, liebling. You can sit with me.”

[athenamikaelson]

Complaints and Harriet Styles Pt. 2

Klaus Mikaelson x reader

Warnings- strong language, innuendos, mentions of blood and death.

Word count- 2.5k 

 “Would it make me a bad person if I said he was hot?’ I asked Caroline as I sat in front of her vanity mirror as she curled my hair.  

“Y/n,” Caroline frowned at me as she looked at me through the mirror, “he either killed or is trying to kill our friends. He’s a bad guy, so don’t even think about it.” 

“I’m not saying I want to bang the guy or anything,” As I say that the the thought crosses my mind and it’s clear Caroline knows that as well as her frown deepens, “Care don’t get your Barbie hair in a twist. Even though his accent is dreamy and his blue eyes make my knees shake. I’m not going to try anything, obviously.” I say mockingly as Caroline watches me as if she’s somehow aged 100 years since our conversation began. Which you know isn’t possible because she’s literally immortal. 

“Sometimes I don’t know what to do with you. You’re either arguing with someone or hitting on them. Or even both!” She says as she throws her hands up in emphasis, the curler unplugging itself during her action. 

We both sit there in silence for a moment looking at the curler’s wire. I look up at her with a sly smile, “Does this mean we’re finally done? My ass hurts from sitting here and being your personal doll.” Caroline puts her hand on her hip with a displeased look on her face. 

“I haven’t finished curling the other half of your head, so turn around and shut it. And didn’t you just say I was the Barbie doll?” She says matter-of-factly as she replugs in the curler and waits for it to heat back up. 

“Ok well you are a Barbie doll, I’m more like that doll that Angelica had in Rugrats, y’know the one with fucked up hair and looks like she just got thrown into a blender.” I laugh at my own joke as Caroline rolls her eyes, a smile trying to make its way onto her face. 

I glance at my dark eyeshadow that makes my y/e/c eyes bright. 

“Why do I even have to go to this stupid dance, our school has like 14 a year. How does our town even have the budget for that? And why do we have to do weird decade dances?” 

“Y/N you’re going to homecoming, end of story. It’s our senior year. This past year has been so crazy that we deserve a little normalcy.” She says as she finishes my last section of hair. 

“Normalcy? You do realize that every dance we’ve had since last year has ended with someone dead or impaled right? It isn’t a Mystic Falls high school dance if it doesn’t end in blood!” Caroline just watches me in annoyance as she sprays my hair with hairspray, “accidentally” spraying some into my face.

“Bitch!” I cough out.

“Go get dressed!” She uses her strength to lift me up and push me over to her closet where my y/f/c dress is hanging.

I look over my shoulder, “I hate you.” 

Caroline smiles, “Love you too brat.”

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

I listen to the live band as I sip on the disgusting drink in my hand. Caroline who was supposed to chaperone tonight left me to go yell at Tyler for his wolfy crush or whatever on Klaus. I’m seriously debating on just walking myself home, since Caroline was my ride, as I watch on in disgust as teenagers grind against each other to the fast song the band is playing in the backyard of Tyler’s house. Somehow Tyler was able to put together a huge party since the gym was flooded last minute. Caroline didn’t seem suspicious but I on the other hand always think the worst is going to happen at any time, and with my friend group's history with dances I wouldn’t be surprised if something was going to go down tonight. I'm about to grab my bag and leave before shit goes down when I hear a British accent come from behind me. 

“Welcome everyone tonight,” I turn around, and low and behold that British fuck from Senior prank night is standing up on the stage in front of all of us, yapping about something. 

“This is a long time coming,” He says as he watches someone from the crowd with a smirk on his face. I follow his eye line to see Stefan staring back at him. Yikes. I look back to the Brit but find his eyes staring in my direction. I don’t think he’s looking at me until I send a look of disgust at him which makes the smirk on his face deepen. Fuck me. Wait. No. I quickly turn around and start to make my way to the edge of the party hoping to make my escape before I get sucked into whatever bullshit the Scooby gang is going to try to drag me into. I smile to myself as I’m about to be successful in my escape as my vision is blocked by something. Said something bumps me backwards throwing me off balance and I wait to hit the ground as I start falling, but nothing comes. I look up to see Klaus grabbing ahold of the top of my arm, keeping me from falling down.  

“What a fucking cliche,” I say to myself angrily. Klaus looks at me inquisitively. 

“What’s a cliche?” He asks me with that stupidly hot accent as I rip my arm away from his hold and put another foot's distance between us.

“You catching me,” I tell him but he only looks confused, “Y’know in romcoms when the girl trips and falls but doesn’t actually fall because the random hot main guy catches her. It’s a big fucking cliche.” I say huffing as Klaus watches me with that stupid fucking smirk on his face.

“And I’m the main hot guy?” He asks, clearly trying to get me to go along with his current ego trip.

“No, you’re not. Ryan Gosling is the hot main guy or Paul Rudd,” I let out a satisfactory sigh at Paul Rudd, “You’re more of the evil boos villain in video games.” 

“And what’s so wrong with being the villain?” He asks me as he takes a step towards me. 

I look at him with what I can only guess looks like a “are you fucking kidding me” look. 

“Literally everything. That’s literally the whole point of being the villain.” I put my hand out stopping him from stepping closer. Klaus watches me closely for a second too long. His gaze makes me quite uncomfortable because I can’t tell if he wants to kill me for speaking to him like I just did or applaud me for having the balls to. God, sometimes I just need to learn to shut the fuck up. 

“Dance with me.” He states as he puts his hand out waiting for me to give him my hand in return. My gaze goes from his face to his hand multiple times before I shake my head in annoyance. 

“No way dude,” I say as I start to book it back towards the house away from him. I don’t get far though because he’s in front of me again with a determined look on his stupidly hot face. God why does it always have to be the bad guys that are hot? 

“Either you dance with me, or I start killing your friends off one by one. I wonder where that blond friend of yours is, Tyler’s little girlfriend.” He says with a dark glint in his eyes. 

“Why?” I try to hold my ground even though I’m pretty sure I’m about to start pissing myself any second now. 

“Why what?” he asks me as he watches me.

“Why do you want to dance with me? Theirs like 200 other girls here that I’m sure would just jump at the chance to dance with some British guy.”

Klaus just shrugs his shoulder as if he himself doesn’t even have an answer to the question. 

“Because none of them have had the displeasure of catching my eye.” 

“And let me guess, I have?” I ask him. He doesn’t give me an answer though, only reaches out his hand once again waiting for me to take it. Annoyed I slap my hand in his and drag him to the dance floor. Once I push us into the middle of a big group, I turn to him.

“Don’t be pissy if I step on your toes.” Klaus just lets out a huff of a laugh as he drags my body closer to him so my chest is touching his. A shudder goes through my body at the contact and I mentally curse myself for the reaction. Fuck he smells good. Jesus Y/N get a grip, he’s just a guy. A thousand-year-old hot guy, but still just a guy. I look up to find Klaus already staring at me, with a knowing smirk on his face. I just roll my eyes as I try to play it off cool as he sways me to the now slow song.

“So tell me, how did you become friends with my doppelganger and her little group of followers?” A weird feeling of sadness flows through me at his question as I realize he only asked me to dance for information on my friends. 

“We grew up together. Small town like this everyone knows each other, sadly.” I say looking off to the distance and watching the other couples converse lovingly with one another. 

“Why sadly?” He asks me, and for a second I could’ve sworn I heard actual curiosity. I glance back at him and shrug. 

“I just hate this town. I never liked people knowing my business, and everyone here is so complacent with their normal lives. They never question anything or want to know more about anything other than what happens in our weird ass town.” I blush as I realize I just rambled on to a complete psycho about my feelings. But, the look on Klaus’s face isn’t one of annoyance or humor like the other people I’ve vented to usually have on their faces. His face turns from contemplation to understanding. 

“I know what you mean,” He says as he expertly twirls me around, “when I was a boy I grew up in a small village where the wasn’t much chance for prospering. I loved the arts and knew I would never be able to do anything with it. It made me angry. So I can understand your resentment.” He tells me and for a second I forget that he’s the blood-thirsty monster ruining my friend’s lives. 

“You like art?” He looks down at me with a soft smile as if the subject brings out a different side of him. 

“I’ve loved it for over a thousand years. The way emotions can be shown through a canvas and bring out emotion so foreign is unlike anything else I found over a millennium of living,” His eyes trail down to mine, “What do you think?” 

I nod softly in agreement, “I love art. Not really painting because I’m kind of shit at it, but sketching and just looking at art. Although I’m not a fan of this new-age art where someone can splash a canvas with a line of color and sell it for a million dollars. I like art that means something to someone. Art that when you look at it you can feel the emotions that the artist was feeling, every move of the brush stroke made with heart and emotion.” Klaus nods along to my rambling again with a soft look on his face. A look that I can’t quite decipher since it’s on the face of one of the scariest men in the world. 

As the song comes to an end I reluctantly let go of Klaus’s hands. He stares at me for a moment and I think he’s just going to turn around and walk off realizing he didn’t get the information he wanted but then a small laugh escapes his lips and he shakes his head. I watch on in slight confusion wondering if he’s having some kind of stroke or something. 

“You’re not like them you know,” he must notice my confusion because he continues, “like your friends. You’re nothing like them.” I pang of hurt pierces my chest as I turn away and start to walk off, “Well screw you too.” 

“I didn’t mean that as an insult,” He says hastily as he grabs my arm turning me back towards him, “You’re friends they’re small-minded. They think of only themselves and not the world around them, or how amazing it can be.” I go to interrupt him and tell him not to insult my friends but he cuts me off. 

“You need something bigger than this little town. Something that brings you life. When I originally saw you that night in the gym I thought you were just going to be like the rest of them. But you surprised me Y/n, and not many people can say that.” 

I just stare at him in amazement for what seems like forever as I try to piece together everything he just told me. In my stupor though a woman approaches Klaus and whispers something to him which makes his originally light demeanor change to something dark. The woman walks away as Klaus looks at me once more.

“Whenever you decide you want to be a part of something bigger, see something other than this little town I’d be happy to show you. All you need to do is ask.” He tells me as he grabs my hand and places a chaste kiss upon it. I still can't get the balls to say anything as he gives me one last glance before he follows behind the woman. 

What the actual fuck.

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

I walked up to my front porch after getting dropped off by Matt because I guess Tyler drugged Caroline with vervain to save her from a pack of mind-controlled hybrids so that’s why she couldn’t bring me home. Sometimes I really hate my friend group. Why can’t for once we deal with normal people's problems like pop quizzes or acne? Like why does not one person in that entire group have a pimple on their skin? That’s the most supernatural thing going on here.

I’m about to open my front door when a small envelope catches my eye at the bottom of my feet. I look over my shoulder and only see Matt as he waits for me to enter my house. I wave to him with the envelope in hand and walk inside my house. I hastily open the envelope and pull out a piece of thick canvas paper. The paper is covered with a beautiful sketch of what appears to be an open field covered in flowers with grazing horses in the distance. Being so engrossed in the sketch I didn't notice the small note on the back. 

“There’s a whole world out there just waiting for you to experience, love. When you’re ready to experience it, I’ll be waiting.” – Klaus

Taglist-

@grac3aph3lion @megmcc2003 @kollover24 @nameunknownsthings

[gowns]

if you liked the barbie movie but felt there was something... missing, i can recommend these movies

the brady bunch movie (1995) (what happens when characters from an artificial world end up in the modern day "real world"?)

the muppets (2011) (same question! and a playful advertisement for a media institution which re-invigorated interest in the brand. "am i a man, or am i a muppet? or a muppet of a man?")

the wiz (1978) (what does it mean to be "real"? what are you willing to risk to be real? also: real sets, real props, real song & dance numbers!)

gold diggers of 1933 (1933) (busby berkeley musical; you haven't seen true mind-blowing opulence in sets, costumes, and hundreds of people dancing at the same time til you see this)

but i'm a cheerleader! (1999) camp queer classic, lots & lots of pink & natasha lyonne)

watermelon woman (1996) (what does it take to succeed as a creative woman in a world that denies your humanity? what archetypes define you in film history? and can you acknowledge that and subvert that at the same time?)

desert hearts (1985) (a woman breaks out of the status quo and falls into a lesbian love affair in the desert <3)

gas food lodging (1992) (mother-daughter relationship stuff!! girls becoming teens and feeling disconnected from who they were as children -- but who are they now? and how can they find new common ground with their mom?)

enchanted (2007) (honestly super similar beats to the barbie movie except with more clear stakes!)

the tales of hoffmann (1951) (weird musical w/ a few stories, including man who falls in love with a human-sized doll! and great gowns, beautiful gowns)

pee wee's big adventure (1985) (you ever just want to have some fun and ride around on a cute little bike in a cute little outfit but everyone is against you for some reason?)

[ramblingthoughtsofayoungadult]

Unpredictable-Limoreau x black!fem!reader fic

A/N: I was inspired a lot by the Bama Rush documentary and couldn't get the idea of a sorority girl in GOD U out of my head. Let me know if you want a part 2.

Warnings: some swearing

Words: 5.2k

Series Masterlist

Future probability cognition, the ability to see potential future outcomes, was usually a nice power to have. At 7, I knew my parents were going to get divorced before either of them considered filing. At 9, I knew my mother would focus all her energy on the agency. At 12, I knew that my older brother would take a head of surgery job in Buenos Aires, escaping the chaos at home. Despite this history, nothing could have prepared me for my second year at Godolkin.

The first day back on campus was uneventful: I survived a grueling early morning Pilates class that I envisioned would put me in Sydney’s, the Si Chi president, good graces and, later in the afternoon, I settled an argument between two Si Chi juniors by predicting that brunch would be the most successful rush event.

Being (one of) the first black high-ranking members of Si Chi could be a full-time job.

As I was re-reading the chapters for Brink’s class, my V-Phone buzzed with a text from Leah, one of the seniors in the sorority.

L: Do you know Emma?

I quickly typed back: Which one? Wallace or the girl who got the botched nj in SK?

L: Neither. Short girl with curly blonde hair. She’s here 4 u.

The yelp that left my mouth would have been embarrassing if anyone else was in the house study room. Quickly, I tucked my book under my arm and ran into the ivory and wood-paneled foyer complete with Tiffany crystal chandelier and faint instrumental piano music playing through the Bluetooth speakers. At the door, Leah’s arms were crossed over her lavender babydoll dress as she smiled fakely at Emma, who looked more apprehensive than usual.

“Emma, hi, I thought I told you to text me when you got here!” I greeted as I approached the two.

Emma’s expression relaxed when her blue eyes landed on me. “Sorry, I got distracted and then I got lost trying to find you.”

I glanced at Leah, who shot me a questioning look. “Thanks, Leah, I can take it from here.”

Leah shrugged, turned, and teleported into thin air. Emma’s eyes widened again as she stepped further into the house and I closed the door behind her.

“Sorry about Leah; she’s cagier than usual because she couldn’t get a refill on her favorites,” I explained.

“It’s fine, I’m just glad you aren’t like that,” Emma admitted.

I paused to finally hug her and she nearly crushed me as she wound her arms around my middle. It felt like forever since I had seen Emma, even though it was at my dad’s annual 4th of July barbecue. When I pulled away, Emma eyed the book in my hand.

“You’re reading before school starts. Nerd,” she teased.

   I playfully pushed her shoulder. “We’re in college, we have to take school way more seriously now. Besides, a requirement for Si Chi is at least a 3.8.”

   Emma tapped her chin. “Let me guess, you have a 4.0.”

  I smiled and tugged her further into the house. Of course, I had to give her a tour of the house and introduce her to the girls we passed. When we finally got to my room, Emma collapsed on top of my pastel blue comforter, dropping her bag on the matching rug.

  “I know Si Chi is a top house, but you basically live in Barbie’s Dream House,” Emma beamed. “How do I get in? What do I have to do? I will do literally anything or anyone.”

   I rolled my eyes and set my book on my desk. “I’m glad you like the place but, you haven’t even met your roommate yet. What’s her name again?”

  Emma pushed herself up on her elbows with a huff. “Marie Moreau. I tried to find her on social media, but she doesn’t have any: No X, no TikTok, not even an obligatory Facebook.”

  Social media presence was basically a requirement at GOD U these days so it was a bold move for someone to show up without any. It could mean Marie was hardcore about her studies or…

  “She might have strict parents,” I pointed out, sitting next to Emma.

  Emma raised an eyebrow. “They better not be weird, cult-y parents. I guess that would be my luck too: have a psycho roommate my freshman year.”

   “Hey, no one could have had it worse than me: a slob who always had boys over and threatened to gut me in my sleep,” I argued.

   “But, you saw all of that coming,” Emma argued.

   I shook my head. “Only the part where she stood over my bed with a knife in hand.” I sighed and pressed my hands into the covers. “I’m so glad I don’t have to deal with that ever again.”

   “Really, because some of these girls are giving unhinged,” Emma replied.

   “The nice thing is I either pick up on the signs or ‘see’ their breaking point,” I explained.

   Emma nodded and pushed herself off my bed to start exploring my room. As she started messing with my checkered Moschino teddy bear figurine, my phone buzzed on my desk. When I grabbed it, I saw it was a video call from Cate.

   “Hi, what’s up?” I greeted, holding the phone at the most flattering angle.

   “I’m trying to entertain myself while Luke preps for training,” Cate admitted.

   “What, you’re not totally entertained by your star boyfriend?” I teased.

   Cate rolled her eyes. “No, I can’t wait for this to be over. You’re coming, right?”

   I shook my head. “Sorry, we have a rush event at the same time, including a choreographed dance.”

  “Ooh, did you choreograph it?” Cate asked.

  “I might have helped a little.”

  “Well, I’m pissed I’ll miss it but make sure to have someone send me all the cute videos and pictures,” Cate requested.

  “Sure.”

  There was some yelling in the background and Cate rolled her eyes.

  “I have to go but we’ll talk later.”

  “Bye!”

  When I hung up, Emma was staring at me with her mouth gaping, the teddy figurine dangerously close to slipping from her grasp and onto the hardwood floor. I crossed the room as quickly as I could and carefully placed the figurine back on my dresser.

  “Emma, I love you but if you break anything, I will lose it,” I warned.

  “You know Cate Dunlap?” Emma asked slowly.

  “Oh, yeah, she’s my peer mentor. Dean Shetty paired us up last year since our powers are similar,” I answered.

  “So, you’ve met Luke Riordan? Like, you’ve been in his presence?”

  “Yes,” I answered slowly.

  “And you didn’t faint or throw up from his glory?”

   “Emma, he’s a regular person. His powers are insane but he is also human, just like us.”

  “No, I’m a regular person. Luke Riordan is, like, a demigod or something. Is he better looking in person?”

   I hesitated and busied myself with grabbing my rush outfit from my closet and setting it on my bed. Then, I stared at my shoes, feeling Emma’s eyes bored into the back of my head. I closed my eyes and focused on the event tonight, the potential sounds and people. Seconds later, I got a decent image of my Si Chi sisters and I dancing in front of the house, surrounded by freshmen girls in Princess Polly and House of CB. I focused all my energy on looking at our feet and tried not to groan when I saw red high-top Converse.

   “Every time,” I muttered as I opened my eyes.

   Two more years, just two more years of going along and I would reap the benefits: a strong ranking, a decent contract, and my pick of the most eligible supes. I just had to keep playing the game.

   I grabbed my platform red Converses and set them in front of my bed, sheepishly turning to Emma. “Yes, Emma.”

     She squealed. “I knew it!”

     I laughed at her joy as she bounced in her Vans. “Go to the training today and see for yourself.”

   Emma’s expression deflated slightly as she walked closer to me. “I wish you could come, you could introduce us!”

   “There will be a next time,” I stated.

   “Promise?” She held up her pinky and eyed me as I slowly wrapped my manicured one around hers. She opened her mouth but was cut off by an alarm going off on her phone. “Shit, I have to go film a video!”

   “You’re still doing Little Cricket?” I asked.

   Emma shushed me loudly and her eyes filled with panic. “Not so loud and definitely not in this house!”

  The girls probably already know all about it, I thought.

  I flipped my waist-length box braids over my shoulder and laughed as she rushed towards the door. “You don’t know where you’re going, let me walk you out!”

  She paused for a split second and gave me some time to catch up to her. However, I led her through the quickest route back to the front door and she gave me a quick hug before she took off. I laughed as I closed the door behind her.

  “Some things never change,” I mused.

   When I got back up to my room, I realized she left her backpack and groaned. She would have to learn to be more responsible if she was going to survive more than a week here. So, I grabbed my purse and her backpack before traipsing the campus. Fortunately, Emma had texted me her dorm information before she got on campus.

   “In case of an emergency,” she’d insisted.

    The freshman dorms were not as bad as I remembered them but I cringed at a few musty speedster jocks I crossed in the hallway. A brief premonition helped me duck to avoid an ice user’s power going out of control when I finally made it to Emma’s door. First, I rapped on the door three times.

    “Emma, it’s me, you really have to keep a better eye on your stuff!” I called.

     After a few seconds of no answer, I knocked again.

     “Seriously? I can’t always be looking after you,” I teased.

     Finally, the door swung open, revealing a pretty black girl with big brown eyes and long brown dreads that were pulled partly away from her face. Her eyes widened at me and I smiled.

     “Sorry, I’m looking for Emma, she left her bag in my----”

     Emma cut me off, appearing next to the girl, “I was wondering where that went, thanks!” She grabbed the bag from me.

    “Oh, uh, come in,” the girl said, stepping aside.

    I nodded and wandered further into their dorm. It was small, like most freshman dorms, but Emma’s side offered pops of color and coziness. The other side was more basic, probably because the girl just moved in.

   “Marie, this is Y/N, my best friend, Y/N, Marie,” Emma introduced as she plopped onto her bed.

    I turned to Marie and extended a hand. “Nice to meet you.”

   She hesitated slightly before shaking my hand. “You too.”

  “Don’t worry, Marie, you’ll get used to her hotness,” Emma advised.

   My cheeks warmed as I whirled around to my friend. “Emma!”

   “It’s true!”

   The embarrassment floated in the pit of my stomach as I faced Marie, who looked somewhere between surprised and amused. “Sorry about her, she speaks without thinking.”

   “It’s okay. How do you two know each other?” Marie asked.

   “Her mom represents me,” Emma answered.

   “Oh.”

   “She’s the one who helped encourage me to make a YouTube channel and is helping me get into more commercials until my big break,” Emma continued.

   I sighed as I sat in Emma’s desk chair. “We’ve known each other since I was four and she was three.”

  “Do you want to be an actor too?” Marie asked.

   I shook my head. “I tried it when I was little but it wasn’t for me.”

   Emma’s eyes lit up and she sat up on her bed. “You should have seen her, she was so cute! She was that toddler in that one diaper commercial----”

   “Emma,” I softly begged.

    Marie laughed. “Now, I’m curious.”

    “Please don’t look it up, it’s not worth it anyway,” I insisted.

    Marie shrugged and sat on her bed. “My curiosity might get the best of me.”

    “Why did you have to mention that stupid commercial?” I whined at Emma, who laughed at my pain. “Anyway, what’s your major?”

     “Crimefighting,” Marie answered.

     I straightened up. “Me too.”

    “So, you’ve had classes with Brink? How is he? What’s he like?” Marie rambled.

    “Well, he’s really tough on first years and makes his tests almost impossible to pass,” I admitted.

     “Really?” Marie asked.

     “But, I can help you if you want; I did pretty well last year,” I offered.

     As soon as the words left my mouth, I questioned where they came from. Marie was a complete stranger, yet she was one of the easiest people to talk to. Normally, I stumbled over my words in front of new people, and this was…new.

    “That would be great, thanks,” Marie replied.

     Emma leaned forward. “Y/N, you are way too modest. She was in the top ten of the first years last year and she has a peer mentor and meets with Brink on a regular basis.”

     Marie snapped her attention to me. “Wait, what?”

     I shook my head. “She makes it sound more impressive than it is.”

    “No, I’m not; she hangs out with the Top Five all the time.”

    “Top Five?” Marie asked.

     Emma and I turned to her, stunned.

     “You don’t know what the Top Five are?” Emma asked slowly.

     Marie shook her head, growing tenser the longer we looked at her.

    “Godolkin ranks all the students based on their Q score, which is basically the strength of their powers, academics, and social media engagement. The Top One Hundred are the only ones published every day,” I explained.

   “And the Top Five are the only ones everyone really cares about since they’re the ones most likely to make it into the Seven,” Emma added. “It’s on the GOD U app.”

    “I don’t have a phone,” Marie admitted.

     Emma balked at her. “How have you gone this far in life without a phone?”

     Marie shrugged. “My parents wouldn’t let me have one.”

     “What about emergencies?” I asked.

     “Someone else always has one,” Marie countered.

     Something was off about her statement and I knew that if I focused on it long enough, I would get a premonition about her. However, I decided that it would be rude to do that in conversation and tabled it for later.

    “You’ll get through it,” I said.

    “So, what ranking are you, Y/N?” Marie asked.

    “Last I checked, I was number twenty,” I recalled.

     Marie and Emma’s eyes widened at me, and I shrunk a little under their gaze. It really was not that impressive considering how intense the nineteen other people above me were.

    “That’s amazing!” Emma cheered, leaping off her bed and hugging me.

    “How did that happen?” Marie asked gently.

     When Emma pulled away, I replied, “Well, right before summer break, I had a premonition about a case Brink had the class working on all year.”

    “You solved a crime?” Marie concluded.

     “I just helped with a tip,” I insisted.

    “Please, Y/N, don’t act like you haven’t solved cases before,” Emma stated.

     I narrowed my eyes at her and Emma smirked in reply. Marie held up her hands and shook her head.

    “Wait, as in plural?”

     “It’s really not a big deal. With all the forensics, psychology, and ethics classes you’ll take, you’ll be solving them too.”

      Marie looked unconvinced but did not push it. “So, what’s your ability? I’m sorry if that’s rude to ask.”

     “No, it’s fine. Future probability cognition, I can see potential outcomes for the future,” I explained.

     “That’s amazing,” Marie complimented.

      “Eh, a lot of times it means I get blurry images in my head but it’s helpful sometimes. What about you?”

      “Blood manipulation.”

       “Whoa, no offense, but that is such a supervillain power,” Emma thought outloud.

        “Emma!”

         “I said ‘no offense’!”

        Marie laughed. “It’s okay, I get why people would think that.”

       “Can you give us a demonstration?” Emma asked.

        Marie nodded and grabbed a switchblade from her cargo pants’ pocket. In a graceful motion, she cut one of her palms and held it out in front of her. Seconds later, a circle of blood floated in the air like water, swirling each way. Marie smiled at our expressions and the blood slowly flowed back in her palm and the mark healed.

       “That was awesome!” Emma cheered.

       “I think Brink will like you,” I added.

      “Thanks. I think it’s your turn, Y/N,” Marie said.

       I hesitated. “Well, mine is definitely not as impressive as yours and I can’t promise I’ll see anything…positive.”

     “That’s okay,” Marie insisted.

     “You can use me as a demonstration,” Emma offered.

     I turned to her and closed my eyes. My mind wandered to images of her face and the sound of her laugh. Eventually, I saw an image of her rolling around her dorm bed with some guy. Then, all of a sudden, she was small and---     “AAAH!” I jumped from my seat, both underclassmen looking at me confused.

     “Is it that bad?” Emma asked.

     My eyes looked everywhere but my best friend and my hands unconsciously flexed. “Whatever you do, do not bring a guy here in the future.”

   “You don’t want me to get laid?”

   “I don’t think you would want to experience what I just saw.” I shivered at the thought.

    “Have your powers made you respond like that before?” Marie asked.

     I nodded. “It’s rare, though, and I have help to get a handle on it.”

     Slowly, I sat down and focused on the orange circle rug on the floor. Suddenly, I wished Cate was there to wipe that premonition from my memory. My stomach churned and I swallowed thickly.

     “Oh, Marie, you have to come to the training with me today,” Emma announced.

      “What training?”

     “The Top Five have public training at the beginning of every year. This year, Luke Riordan is up first,” Emma explained with a grin.

       “Luke’s a big deal?” Marie asked.

       “Hell yeah, he’s number one!” Emma chastised.

        Marie turned to me. “Are you going?”

        I looked up at her and wondered if she seemed kind of hopeful. “No, I have to do rush tonight.”

      “On top of everything else, she is also the secretary of Si Chi, the top sorority on campus,” Emma bragged.

      “Wow, are you always this busy?” Marie asked.

     “Not always. Things calm down once rush is over.” My phone beeped in my bag and I grabbed it. “Speaking of which, I have to run and get ready.”

      “But you already look nice,” Marie commented.

      “Thanks, but I need to be up to Si Chi standards. Have fun at the training and Emma, please try not to act up too much.”

      “I can’t control what will happen once his clothes burn off.”

       “What?”        I shook my head. “I’ll see you around.”

    The next day, I was shocked awake by a series of texts from Emma.

          E: Emergency, pls come 2 my dorm.

         E: Srsly, Marie needs ur help.

    Immediately, I wondered my Marie would need my help. When I reached out to Emma last night, she was busy gushing over Luke and never mentioned any issues. Also, I didn’t see any posts about her on social media which calmed my nerves.

    After texting her I would be there soon, I slowly pushed myself to sit up in my head and pushed my silk sleep mask up over my scarf. Then, I meditated for a few minutes, breathing through all the chaotic thoughts and scenarios that included strangers and people that I knew. Just when my temples began to throb, I stopped and made my way into the en-suite bathroom.

   About thirty minutes later, Emma shoved her dorm room open and pulled me in. She was wearing a gray GOD U t shirt and matching shorts, her curly stuck up in random places.

   “Where the hell have you been?” she whispered.

   “I got here as soon as I could,” I defended. “What’s going on?”

    Marie stood from her desk, a deep frown on her face, and made her way towards us. “I’m not in any Crimefighting classes; it’s all performing arts!”

    I cocked my head to the side. “That’s weird. Can I see your schedule?”

   “It’s on my phone.” Emma handed it to me and I started scrolling through Marie’s schedule.

   “Did you register for any performing arts classes?” I asked.

   “No, I registered for all the first-year Crimefighting classes,” Marie insisted.

   The frustration was thick in her voice and I wondered what was keeping her from punching a hole in the wall.

   “Is there anything I can do?” Marie asked.

   “Sorry, I don’t know. I’ve never heard of this happening.” I paused for a moment and smiled. “But I might be able to help. I have a meeting with Brink today and if you come with me, I could introduce you and we could get this all figured out.”

   “Really? Do you know how it will go?”

   “Let me try.”

   I closed my eyes and focused on Brink, the Crimefighting building, and Marie. The images were as blurry as a Monet up close and all the audio was muffled as if everyone was speaking underwater. When I opened my eyes, I shook my head at Marie.

   “Looks like it’s up to fate,” I commented.

   Marie deflated and I did not know whether to comfort her or not.

   “I’m sending good vibes your way,” Emma offered.

   “Thanks, we’ll need it,” Marie replied.

    As much as I wanted to push back, I did not like not knowing how this would turn out. My heart drummed in my ears later that day as we walked to the Lamplighter building. At the very least, the sun was beaming on everything, making Godolkin look shinier than usual. It was the perfect day for the white cherry-printed sundress and denim jacket I wore with platform white sandals. My braids flowed freely around me under the cool breeze.

   When we walked into the building, I let out the breath I did not know I was holding in.

   “You okay?” Marie asked.

   “Yeah, why?” I replied.

   “Your heart rate picked up,” she observed.

    I paused and looked at her. “You can hear my heartbeat?”

   She nodded. “Sorry, I know that’s kind of weird.”    “Nothing’s weird at this school but, that’s good to know,” I assured.

   I made a mental note to be more intentional in meditation as I led Marie to Brink’s office. The Lamplighter building was practically empty since most students were sleeping off hangovers. However, Jordan Li wasn’t most students and was at their usual post, the desk outside of Brink’s office, eyes focused on their laptop. They were in their feminine form, hair slicked back in a low ponytail.

   A small smile etched its way on my glossed lips at the sight and I turned to Marie, whose eyes widened at Jordan.

  “Let me do the talking,” I whispered.

  “Sounds good,” she answered, nodding.

  As soon as we got in front of Jordan’s desk, I waved my hand in front of their face to no avail. With no choice, I grinned as I slammed my hands on the desk and called their name. Immediately, Jordan jumped in their seat, yanking their earbuds out as they exclaimed an expletive.

    I laughed as they rolled their eyes at me.

   “Seriously, freshie?” Jordan commented.

   “You can’t call me that anymore, I’m a sophomore,” I sang.

   “It doesn’t have the same ring to it,” Jordan teased.

    My cheeks warmed at their words and I gripped my Longchamp tote closer to me in an attempt to get a grip on myself.

   “By the way, I loved your little dance from last night,” Jordan added.

   “You saw that?” I rasped.

   “Rushtok is so big that no one can escape it.” Jordan glanced at their laptop. “You’re early, as usual.”

   “I like to be punctual but, I also have someone who might be your new favorite freshman,” I replied.

    “Impossible,” Jordan scoffed.

     I nodded to Marie, who slowly moved to stand next to me. “This is Marie Moreau. Marie, this is Jordan Li, Brink’s TA.”

    Jordan glanced at Marie, a smirk disappearing from their face. “Hi.”

    “Hi, it’s so nice to meet you. You’re so awesome; your powers are incredible,” Marie confessed.

    Jordan smirked. “I’m glad I impressed a freshman.”

    Marie looked taken aback and glanced at me.

   “I brought Marie with me since there’s been a mix-up. She applied for Crimefighting but she’s in all the performing arts classes. So, I was thinking that you’d be able to help,” I explained.

    Jordan looked back at their laptop and started typing again. “I know, I’m the one who rejected her.”

   Their words hung in the air and I could feel a lump starting to form in my throat. As smart as Jordan was, they were either unaware of how deeply their bluntness could cut or they did not care. After knowing them for a year, I began to lean toward the latter.

   “What?” Marie muttered.

   “Why?” I questioned.

   “She has no social media presence and, even though her scores are decent, she needs a following,” Jordan rattled.

   “Isn’t that a little biased? Do you know what her powers are? If you knew, I think you would be open to making an exception,” I argued gently. “Besides, she can still get a following online. With her face, it will take no time.”

    As soon as the comment left my mouth, I froze. I had no idea why I said that, maybe Emma’s tendencies had rubbed off on me.

    “Sorry, the decision’s final.” Jordan did not sound apologetic at all and I thought I saw them trying not to smirk again.

   “You can’t do that. Let me talk to Professor Brink,” Marie requested.

  “There’s no point, he leaves all admission decisions to me,” Jordan said. “You should learn from your friend. Y/N here has ten million followers across her social media and solved the Glasgow Ripper case and a twenty-year-old cold case before she got here.”

   Marie whirled around to me. “You solved the Glasgow Ripper case?”

   “I just gave them a tip and it was supposed to be anonymous,” I muttered.

    “Nothing is anonymous with Vought,” Jordan countered. “Plus, you led them to key evidence.”

    “They would have solved it…eventually,” I admitted.

   Based on my original estimate, it would have taken them three years and I always felt horrible whenever they showed the victims’ families on the news. The tension in the space was thick as Jordan and Marie glared at each other. I wracked my brain for something, anything to say.

   Fortunately, Brink took care of the tension when he burst out of his office, gun in hand, and shot at Jordan. Marie yelped as Jordan switched to their male form and absorbed the shot.

   “Wow, every time,” Brink admired.

   “If you keep it up, I’m going to run out of shirts, sir,” Jordan replied, smiling.

    Brink turned to Marie and me. “Oh, Y/N, you’re here, early as always.”

    “Hi, Professor Brink. How was your summer?” I asked.

    “Busy. And yours?”

    “Good. Um, Professor, I don’t want to take too much of your time, but this is Marie Moreau and there was a mix-up with her schedule,” I started.

    Professor Brink nodded and turned to Marie. “Is that so?”

    Marie quickly explained the dilemma, narrowing her eyes at Jordan but was able to stay as calm and professional as possible. I glanced at Professor Brink’s expression and while he looked pleasant, I dreaded his words.

   “Well, if Jordan rejected you, that’s final. I trust their judgment,” Professor Brink affirmed. “You can serve as a hero in many ways; Crimefighting is a select group of students who show high aptitude in several areas. That does not mean anyone else is less valuable. Maybe we will see you on Dancing with the Stars one day.”

   Marie’s face fell and her body tensed. I might have started crying if I was in her position but her eyes stayed dry. I gently put my hand on her shoulder.

   “We’ll figure something out,” I muttered.

   She did not look convinced and as I politely followed Brink into his office, I prayed that I would get some sort of helpful premonition. Then again, why did I want to help this girl? I knew her for less than twenty-four hours. Nothing was making sense.

    Later that day, I practically ran a hole into my bedroom floor as I ruminated over my next steps. My meeting with Brink was unremarkable and I couldn’t stop thinking about how to get Marie into crim. She was obviously a strong hero in the works, even if Jordan didn’t see it. One way to help would be to get her into a decent house on campus since that was one of the only viable routes outside of making it into the Top 100 to get noticed on campus. However, Marie did not strike me as the sorority type.

    Then again, I could help her with donors at fundraisers since they loved throwing their money to make themselves feel better. As I thought, my mind somehow circled back to Jordan. It was fun getting a rise out of them after everything last year. They were not as rude to me as they were to Marie, but they were still terrifying last year. They always had a critique for someone and had reduced numerous kids to tears before the first semester ended. Somehow, I impressed them last year and they started being nicer to me. It probably also did not hurt that I had befriended Cate.

    “Ugh, it’s hopeless!” I huffed, plopping onto my bed.

    Even when I tried to get premonitions, there was nothing helpful; just Jordan and Marie arguing while I attempted to settle things.

    What was this year turning into?

      My phone rang, jolting me from my thoughts, and I answered without looking at the caller ID. “Hello?”

    “Do you have any rush shit tonight?” Cate asked.

    I sat up and eyed her in the video call. “No, all the presidents and VPs are meeting tonight so we’re on our own.”

   “Great, so you’re free to go out with us,” Cate concluded with a grin.

  My heartbeat picked up at the thought of going out with Cate and the others. Any time I went out with them always ended in an interesting story, from the time Cate got us all out of a really embarrassing ticket to the time Andre and Luke drunkenly dueted “Never Gonna Give You Up” in a Korean karaoke bar.

  “I know that face, you’re thinking too much,” Cate warned.

  “Not in a bad way, in a good way. Where are we going?”

  “Don’t worry, just wear something hot and meet us in the parking lot at ten.”

  “Okay.”

  I hung up and set the phone on my dresser. Maybe this would help me clear my head or get me out of my head. Sometimes the thoughts could be suffocating but I would get a break tonight. I closed my eyes and wondered what would happen tonight. Slowly, clear images of a dark club and the sound of a thumping bass flooded my mind. The club was crowded but I saw myself dancing with Cate and…Marie?

[cheriladycl01]

My Job is Beach ... - Valtteri Bottas x ItalianOlympicBeachVolleyball! Reader

Plot: You spend time with your boyfriend after the Australian GP doing what you do best, Beach Barbie and Beach Ken

Valtteri had an incredible race, him and Lewis both in a fantastic car as fantastic drivers. And you’d luckily been there to celebrate with him.

You loved going to Australia with him, it was so warm at the time of year the race was and it meant you got to go to the beach.

Which of course was one of your favourite things. Growing up in a small coastal town in Italy, meant you were at the beach pretty much all the time. You went there before school, after school, on the weekends. Even during school, your school was right next to a beach which is where you picked up your sport.

At first it was just for fun, like most hobbies start of as.

But after playing in some matches against others schools across Italy, your teacher and parents realised there was something special there.

You didn’t see it or get it, you just loved the beach do anything you did there was fun to you.

So of course they ended up getting you a coach. Someone who was willing to privately train you and get you into better teams in Italy.

In 2016 you competed in Brazil. Rio De Janeiro was an incredible place and it’s actually where you met Valtteri.

He and a few of the drivers had ended up coming to watch some of the Olympics and you’d bumped into him on the beach with Lewis.

You’d recognised both of them straight away, and struck up a conversation with them.

“Oh! Your Valtteri Bottas! And Your Felipe Massa!” You’d exclaimed at the men and they’d awkwardly nodded thinking you were a fan wanting a picture or autograph.

“What are you guys here for?” You ask, knowing that the race this year wasn’t until November. They were in summer break right now.

“Oh, we are here for the Olympics. We got invited” Felipe admits and you grin.

“Oh, I’m here for them too!” You grin.

“Oh yeah, you here to watch any sport in particular?” Valtteri asked.

“Watch? No im one of the beach volleyballers! Team Italia” You smile.

And the rest was history after that. You and Valtteri got together and he got a promotion to Mercedes after Nico Rosberg left the sport.

It was early the next day, the Monday after the race and you and Valtteri were still shacked up in Australia. You wanted to spend some more time here travelling to your favourite Aussie beaches.

So you took the 1hour flight from Melbourne to Sydney so that you were on Bondi beach. You guys had rented out a place close to the coast for easy access.

You guys were with a few friends, some of Valtteri and some of yours. Somehow your friendship groups just mixed together well. You were both apprehensive at first but realised after a house party that it was fine, the language barrier at first was a little awkward but English being a common ground for most of the group worked.

“Amore mio, please come join us! Then I promise you we will go on a bike ride!” You say cuddling up to him… you’d just finished unpacking and he was laying on the bed cuddling up to you.

“Im no good. And I just embarrass myself Rakas” he sighs pulling you into him and kissing all over your face affectionately making you giggle.

At first Valtteri was very shy when it came to showing you any level of affection and your overly affectionate side thanks to your large Italian family upbringing was very overwhelming to him at first.

But soon he learnt it was your love language and the more confident he got, the clingier he got.

“It’s meant to be for fun! You don’t have to be good at it” you giggle running your finger through his hair as he looks up at you.

“But all your friends are so good!” He exclaims sitting up.

“Mmmm and now you know how I feel when you take me karting!” You laugh knowing you have the bruises to prove just how bad you were at the sport.

“Okay okay fine. But just because I love you!” He says in that gruff lower voice.

You guys play beach volleyball for the majority of the morning until the suns at full peak.

“Barbecue sulla spiaggia?” One of your friends suggest whose English wasn’t great, especially when she was tired after a long morning of playing volleyball, in the sand and under the hot Australian sun.

“She suggested a Rantagrilli?” You say trying your best to translate for Valtteri and his friends who wouldn’t have understood the Italian.

You weren’t allowed to do this on Bondi but closer to where your beach Villa was, you knew you’d be able to cook on the beach there as it was private to the Villa.

They all nod eagerly and before you know it, you guys are using two barbecue for the amount of people you are cooking for. One that’s on the back garden of the beach villa and then one that was already in the sand.

You guys spent lunch munching on burgers and salad, and chicken and hot dog. It was for sure a chest day for all of you, most of you guys being athletes and being on strict diets.

After you’d spent the afternoon cuddling with Valtteri on the beach letting lunch go down, you both went out for a bike ride. He of course had chosen the longest and steepest route to take, meaning you came back drenched in sweat and cursing at Valtteri for making you endure that.

"I want a Dolce Sorpresa!" you groan your head leaning against him and he looks at you.

"A what?" he asks. You'd learnt a little Finnish for him but he still struggled with some of you little idioms.

"Sweet Treat, I'm craving Boba, I saw a shop on the way back!" you grin, kissing him before taking his hand to drag him to the Boba Tea shop!

"Then, can we go to the beach again?" you ask.

"You just love the beach don't you!" he smiles.

"Mmmmmm, my job is literally beach..." you giggle.

y/user

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y/user: Beach, Bike, BBQ and Boba all in Bondi

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valterribottas: nice alliteration hunny!

-> y/user: thank you baby! Thought it was very funny!

fan1: say hello to our resident beach Barbie and beach Ken.

-> fan2: no because the way her job is literally beach and his job is literally car 🥲😅

->fan3: yeah not an f1 driver and Olympic Silver Medalist lmfao 🤣

Instagram Story Caption:

We attempted … we fell lots!

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[potteresque-ire]

Happy 8th Debut Anniversary, Gg! Since so many of your fans have already expressed their well wishes so beautifully, I'm just going to post my celebratory dance here 😁😁😁. (What? it's not like I can replicate any other of your or Dd's dance performances!! THIS IS YOUR (AND DD'S) FAULT.) (For those who have not seen this "dark history" gem video from Gg's X-Nine days — it's a rehearsal clip for the X-Nine Variety Show Ep4, aired December 2016 — lyrics + why this performance is in my BJYX treasure chest under the cut!!)

Okay, why don't I start with what the song is about? Published in 1997 by the aboriginal Taiwanese singer Ayol Komod 張震嶽 (Chang Chen-yue), the song is about a teenager's first heart break.

It got very popular because the tune's catchy, and because it's funny! The teenager in question.... definitely isn't the at-the-cusp-of-adulthood-YA-romance-male-lead type. Ayol admitted later that he got the inspiration of the song's grammatically Japanese name, 愛的初體驗, also known as 愛之初體驗 or 愛の初體驗 (Love's First Experience; の being the Japanese character for possessive), from a porn magazine cover in a Japanese convenience store.

(Japanese porn, more commonly known as AV, was (is?) an obsession for many teenage boys in the region, as one can imagine). Now, on to the lyrics. This poor teenager, how did he tell his heartbreak story?

如果說你要離開我 請誠實點來告訴我 不要偷偷摸摸的走 像上次一樣等半年 If you're leaving me, please honestly tell me. Don't sneak your way out, make me wait half a year like last time. 如果說你真的要走 把我的相片還給我 在你身上也沒有用 我可以還給我媽媽 If you're really taking off, give me back my photo. It's not useful on you. I can return it to my mom. 什麼天長地久 只是隨便說說 你愛我那一點 你也說不出口 What is everlasting (love)? It's just talk. What do you love about me? You can't even say. 你認識了帥哥 就把我丟一旁 天氣熱的夏天 心像寒冷冬夜 So you meet a handsome guy, and dump me to the side. Hot is the summer, but my heart is cold as a winter's night. 想要買酒來澆憂愁 卻懶懶不想出去走 想要來一包長壽煙 發現我未滿十八歲 Want to buy alcohol to douse my sorrow, but feel lazy and don't want to go out. Want to buy a pack of Longlife cigarettes, and realize I'm not yet 18. 是不是我的十八歲 註定要為愛情流淚 是不是我的十八歲 註定要為愛情流淚 Is it that my 18 years old is fated to shed tears for love? Is it that my 18 years old is fated to shed tears for love?

The "give the photo back to my mom" is usually when I burst into chuckles ... and makes sure I wouldn't place this teenager, age-wise, anywhere remotely close to adulthood 😁. The lower-end teenage age was suggested in Ayol's original music video too (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4shwLyB7690), in which toys were abundant, including Barbie and Godzilla figures representing the "girlfriend" (who probably thought of the teenager as no more than a kid) and the handsome guy.

I'd place this poor kid in early high school at the oldest, perhaps? Meanwhile, this kid was imagining himself as this tragic male lead suffering a romance-novel-worthy heart break. Hence, the use of phrases and analogies common in those books (such as everlasting 天長地久; literally, "long (in length) as the skies and long (in time) as the earth") and, more importantly, calling up "mature" imageries associated with heart break, of alcohol and cigarettes. These details, ironically, simultaneously gave away just how young he was, most telling being that he was not yet 18 years old, the minimum legal age at the time to purchase both in Taiwan. This explains Gg (and PCY's) awesomely silly moves in the dance, which matched the lyrics both in meaning and in style. While the lyrics isn't included in the video I posted, here's the shot of them playing the teenager handing his photo back to his mom after a swipe of it on his pants (0:36):

... imagining himself getting drunk (~1:13):

... and smoking (1:19):

I've gone through the performances on Youtube of this song (yes, because research is absolutely necessarily on something like this), and this is the only one in which the singer(s) accurately capture(s) the ... 小學雞 Xiao Xue Ji ness of the teenage narrator (Turtles all remember Xiao Xue Ji "Primary School Chicken", right?). Other performances tend to turn the song into a showcase of singing prowess, as is common and, as some of us may be reminded of over these last few days, necessary in performances intended for mainland China's audience (here's an example by Coco Lee (RIP): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFOCMgB7UoA). While singing prowess is much appreciated, sometimes, an audience like myself just wishes for something fun. Something goofy. For a good laugh, to shout along to (I'd never call whatever escapes my voice box "singing"), to do celebratory dances with. This video delivers for me 😊. With similar sentiments, I prefer this video over the actual performance in the X-Nine Variety Show (https://youtu.be/F1jXP2R-zy4?si=N1Hg1IKwp-dRc_vM 2:10:05), which is more prepped, less casual. Gg mentioned in the show that this song is retro (the glasses were a nod to that; Ayol's MV also had retro elements), and I find the faded colors of the rehearsal video more complementing to this retro feel. Its camerawork was also much better at capturing the fake manga fight that made up so much of the heart of Xiao Xue Ji ness (a special shoutout to whoever feigned the Qi Gong reaction, who did it better than Gg's teammates in the actual show).

Hmm. What else? Oh, maybe, since I'm feeling self-indulgent (I think I say the same thing in every post?), let me share a little something personal that cements the place this performance has in my BJYX treasure chest. Some of you may have noticed the "Longlife cigarettes" (長壽煙) in the lyrics. The very ... curious brand name aside (Longlife? For cigarettes?), this is yet another element in the song in which the teenage narrator tries to create an image of maturity ... and only made him sound young. You see, in Taiwan, cigarettes had used to be sold by the government only, until 1987 when the government opened its market for foreign imports. "Longlife", a high-end cigarette line, had made its debut in the late 1950s. So the brand name, to be fair, had been created before the health effects of cigarettes were known. Regardless, the government's monopoly on cigarette sales allowed Longlife to own the vast majority (more than 3/4) of the marketshare until the foreign brands took over in the late 1980s, after which its sales plummeted.

"Longlife cigarettes" is therefore extremely well known in Taiwan — hence, its inclusion in the song, and to the point that the Taiwanese government, in the early 2000s, got caught in a dilemma + controversy of whether to rebrand the famous cigarettes, now that they were known to work against a long life. (It didn't.)

"Longlife cigarettes" is therefore also retro, the majority of its smokers being of the parents', and grandparents' generation. That our teenage hero thought of Longlife cigarettes — he had likely picked up that image from those generations above him, the "old people" — further suggested his knowledge about cigarettes wasn't from his peers (who would likely be smoking the foreign brands), because he was too young... ... Young, like me! (Hey, I * was * young in 1997!). Longlife just happened to be my grandpa's favourite cigarettes as well. It was ... at the turn of the millenium, a year or two after the release of this song, I think? When my mom told me how she used to light my grandpa's favourite cigarettes for him as a child. Predictably, the brand name made me cackle. Soon, with the Xiao Xue Ji spirit strong in me, it captured my imagination enough that the next time I visited Taiwan, I took a photo with a box of Longlife cigarettes at the airport's duty-free shop before bothering with things like Immigration and Customs. In the same ... chickenly spirit, therefore, I've already reported to my mom that Gg is / has the intention of smoking my grandpa's favourite cigarettes ... my grandpa who passed away before I was born. She has always been amused at my curious enthusiasm over that curious brand name, and she liked that it formed a curious connection between me and my grandpa. She, of course, knows about Gg and Dd, and my curious interest in them. On this happy anniversary, therefore, I may not have a photo to return to my mom, but I have this video and I'm sending it to her. * Duck Dances *

Ah, maybe along with Gg's other performances this week. He's only a superstar now, right? Right ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️.

PS. Gg, seeing you so happy at the concert the other day makes me wonder: can it possibly mean there will soon be good news to share with fans? Just ... curious 😁.

[tiredofthehumanlife]

You know I'm something of an alt person myself

Barbie dolls: rosekiller x male! Alt! reader

Word: 1.1k

Summary: youre a pain in the ass to your two boyfriends during class

Warnings: my grammarly crashed and fucked like half the fic so it was grammar checked by a people, you're a little pain in the behind, very small amount of he him pronouns for r, it's not specific on what type of alt you are but Barty lightly bullies you, a couple of sex jokes but this is rosekiller so what were you expecting, Evan is kinda herding you and Barty in the right direction, you use Evs and Evie (ev-e) as Nick names for Evan so idk you like them or could just be trying to annoy them thats up to you, bad out of date joke that doesn't match the seventies, suck my big fat cock you absolute dweeb boofuckinghoo, mention of knives

Request: dude seriously I'm being serious stop snooping in my shit you are such a disrespectful roommate

History of Magic was so incredibly boring. Maybe it was something about the weird cold and yet hot temperature that made you feel like you should just roll over and fall asleep. Maybe it was the monotone teacher making your eyes droop. Maybe it was the frequent reading assignments that could not have more words.

Instead of pretending to pay attention, you decided to bother your two boyfriends. Unfortunately for them, they were sitting on either side of you so neither one of them was safe. You started by simply repeating Evan’s name over and over. He eventually stopped responding to you, keeping his eyes on the blackboard. You decided you had to take it up a notch, drawing cartoon penises in the margins of his work. Evan did not appreciate that. He took your pencil away, before stealing your eraser to scrub away your drawings.

You turned away from Evan to the other side. Barty was your next target. He had his arms crossed over his desk, head plopped on top. His face was hidden in his cave of nap-itude. You leaned closer to him, poking his arm over and over again.

“Babe.” you whispered, making sure the teacher couldn’t hear you even if he wanted to. Barty hummed in response.

“Babe.”

“Hm?” You kept poking his arm.

“Babe.”

“Yes?”

“Baby.”

“Yes, my love.”

”Babe.”

“What?”

“Baby.”

“What do you want, dickhead?” Barty lifted his head, shaking it to throw his hair back. You shrugged.

“Who’s hotter; Me or Evs?” You asked. Barty pouted and dropped his head back down.

"You know I can't choose, my dick stands for the both of you.” He muttered, turning his head away from you. You sighed, turning towards Evan instead.

“Evie?” Evan glanced at you from the corner of his eye.

“Are you going to ask me who I think is hotter; you or Barty?” Evan whispered, scribbling down a few notes. You scoffed.

“No.” You were. “How could you think so little of me?” Evan hummed, not giving you the time of day to entertain your ridiculousness. You tried to sneak away your pencil from Evan, earning a slap on the hand. Your hand shot back, deciding to leave it in your lap instead.

“So, my lovely Evan, what’s new with you? How are the kids? Such and Such, please entertain me?” You waved your hand in a circular motion. Evan shrugged, still silent.

“Evs, baby come on. You can’t possibly care about this class that much.” You said, poking Evan’s notebook. Evan sighed and looked up from his notes. He dropped his pencil onto his desk, before turning towards you. He reached towards your lap, taking both your hands into his.

“Please, baby. We have barely ten minutes before this class is over. Then I will entertain you to the fullest, I’ll do a full ballet routine if it means you stop drawing dicks on things. Okay?” Evan said, staring into your eyes. You sighed, rolled your eyes, and puckered your lips out in acceptance. Evan dropped one of your hands, cupping your cheek instead. He gave you a light peck before turning back to his work.

You spent the last few minutes of class annoying Barty. By the time class was dismissed, you were shooting out of your seat. Barty slowly followed after you, wiping the sleep from his eyes. Evan was the last to the door, packing up all his notebooks and pens. When he finally started moving toward you, you skittered out into the hallway. Barty waited for Evan, reaching his hand out for him when Evan got closer. Evan watched you jump up onto the stone bench. Evan's fingers intertwined with Barty’s.

“Don’t! It'll hurt!” Evan yelled after you. Your head snapped around. You waved him off, jumping from the edge of the stone bench. You might have underestimated the drop. Now that you were on the ground you were sure, that it most definitely hurt your leg. You grimaced, pretending like it didn’t hurt so Evan didn’t try to tell you he was right.

“Told you ” Evan whispered, though you still heard it. You grimaced, glancing back at him. You waited by the bench. They finally caught up with you. Barty swung his arm around Evan’s shoulders. You walked next to Evan, even though it was terribly slow at their dragging pace.

As you moved through the courtyard, you spotted a flower a few steps over. You gasped and lunged for it. You were pulled back by a magical force. You glanced behind yourself to see Evan dragging you away by your studded belt. You sighed, staying by his side again. Evan hooked his finger into your belt loop, keeping you close.

Barty slumped onto the common room couch and collapsed into Evan's lap. He didn’t get much sleep last night, he was a tad busy helping Regulus with his homework. You settled in front of the coffee table, accio-ing a stack of cards to keep yourself busy. Evan whispered your name, making you look up. He patted the seat on the couch next to him. You dropped the cards and plopped yourself into the seat next to him. He leaned towards you and kissed your temple.

“Thanks for giving me the last ten minutes of class.” He muttered, pulling you closer by slipping his arm between you and the couch.

“That class is just too boring.” You whispered, trying not to wake Barty in Evan's lap. Evan hummed.

“And yet you decided to pester Barty and not me, which I am grateful for.” You grumbled, not really wanting to say your welcome for not annoying Evan on purpose.

“Blah blah blah, that's what you sound like.” You retorted, ignoring Evan's repeated kisses on your face.

“I love you, my little pain in the ass.” Evan muttered to you, making you push his face away with your palm. Barty sat up and glared at you two.

“It is terribly hard to sleep when you two punks won't shut the fuck up.” Barty said, crossing his arms over his chest. Evan sucked his teeth. You glared back at Barty.

“You're one to talk about punks, Barty.” You pointed at him, pretending to start an argument. Even before you started dating, pretend verbal fights were a favorite pastime between you two.

“Yeah, okay. Mister ‘cut my life into pieces, this is my last resort’.” ; Barty said, holding a hand up to his face in dramatics. You frowned and clasped your hands together. Barty looked up when you didn't retort and pouted.

“No more knives as gifts for you.” You muttered and leaned back into Evan. Evan threw his arm over your shoulders, immediately welcoming you into his side. Barty groaned and flung himself across both of your’s laps. His head landed on your lap.

“I'm sorry, will you take me back? Pretty please, I didn't mean it.” Barty said, batting his lashes up at you. You hummed, scratching his scalp in response. Barty sinks into you, dropping his arm off the side of the couch.

He fell asleep not long after. You and Evan talked about your days in a quiet tone, actually trying not to wake up Barty this time., Eventually Dorcas walked through the common room and fake gagged at the pda on her way to her dorm.

[mvltisstuff]

can you pls write head cannons for dating cam Cameron ( tsitp ) if not it’s fine, thank you so much lovely xx 🩷

cam cameron hcs

i genuinely think cam would be the best boyfriend in the show

he’d def bring you flowers for no reason, just because he wants to make you happy

even though cam doesn’t drink, if you drink too much he would take care of you no matter what

he doesn’t need drugs or alcohol to be the life of the party

karaoke king 👑

he would 100% love to go to the deb ball with you. i feel like he’d get nervous and like freeze when he sees you in a beautiful dress and hair

whenever you two have heart to heart convos, he listens so intently and just takes in every word. he fs loves when people listen to him and his history because he feels trusted

he texts you right at midnight on your birthday

falls asleep first at sleepovers though and wakes up super early

if he threw a party he’d be right behind everyone picking up their trash (emma from h2o vibes)

he would love taylor swift with no shame

his favorite album is red or evermore

was def a 1d stan and freaks out when there’s reunion rumors

he thinks movie nights are the best and always lets you pick the movie

very random but i feel like he’d love going to baseball games like the red sox (same)

has screen time reminders

whenever he cuddles with you he loves to wrap his arms around you and lay his head on your chest

if you work in a cafe or a little shop somewhere he always comes to visit

literally if you forget your lunch he will make another one for you

makes a mean dessert for gatherings

people watcher!! he’s an observer fr

ik he helps his mom do chores and treats her like royalty (as he should 🙌)

he would take his gf to see the barbie movie if it means something to her and bring flowers and candy for them (if my boyfriend ever did this for me i’d marry him)

he loves swimming with you in the pool and his favorite thing to do it make a whirlpool

he would literally spend hours on it if he could

i feel like he has a color coordinated closet

had a crush on jeremiah (jam supremacy)

he loves holding your hand whenever he can

on the boardwalk he just swings your hands and doesn’t let go

he’s always kind to everyone, even if they’re not to him

he’s so passionate and loves talking about his interests

if he’s away on an internship or something he tries to contact you in any way he can, and when he comes back he wants to spend as long as he can with you

i love cam cameron and you should too!!

i’ve never done head cannons before, but i hope these are alright <3 i cant wait to write more fics for him

[eggluverz]

halloween with the hsr boys

pairing: dan heng; jing yuan; blade x reader

sof's note: guess who is in a halloweeny mood :> meee! and i'm sure a lot of y'all are as well so let's bask in these autumn vibes together LOL special shoutout to the anon who suggested dan heng would watch like 15 vids before he carves a pumpkin fhsjkghdf that is so accurate <3 pls enjoy and happy fall!!

dan heng

not big on the spooky parts of halloween, but he loves getting in the halloween/autumn spirit by watching twitches and halloween town with you

you host a pumpkin carving contest on halloween eve between the two of you and dan heng 100% takes it seriously

days of prep before the big night, hours of youtube videos in his history… he even reads up on the origins of pumpkin carving—just to be fully immersed and prepared

when the time comes, dan heng has his tools lined up in the most efficient order as he readies himself to make his design

he, of course, wanted to carve a tree with maple leaves falling in the night sky

you stare at his template with wide eyes, quickly scrapping your happy face idea to think of something more creative…

noticing this, dan heng chuckles in amusement. “you don’t have to change your design to match mine”

you shake your head. “and risk losing the competition? no way”

“then may the best carver win”

when the two of you are done, you take a photo and send to your friends to vote

it was a close call, but dan heng ends up winning by two votes

“maybe i should’ve joined your pumpkin carving research…” you pout, staring between your finished product and his

“there’s always next year,” dan heng soothes, giving you a hug. “besides, you’re always the winner in my eyes.”

jing yuan

he would make all the pies for you

pumpkin pie, pecan pie, apple pie, sweet potato pie, apple crumble pie…you name it 

he doesn’t even know how to make pie he just googled a bunch of recipes and winged it

you think something tastes off but you try to encourage him anyway 

of course, jing yuan sees right through it

“it‘s not that i don’t like your baking, i really do, but i may have some suggestions for the future…”

“there is no need to sugarcoat your distaste, y/n,” he says with a laugh. “we can redo them together.”

the pies turn out even better the next time

the two of you end up picking up pie making as your fall-time hobby this year and bake pie for all your friends

he tries to make a mimi-safe pie as well

mimi hates it (pumpkin spice is not good on the lion’s tongue) 

but you think the effort is cute :> 

he ends halloween night off by sharing a yummy slice of apple crumble pie with whipped cream on top with you

“so sweet!” you state happily as he feeds you the first bite. 

jing yuan leans forward and smiles. “not as sweet as you” 

blade

goes all in for halloween

is dead instead most of the year, comes to life for the halloween spirit

he likes to decorate the house with you, even making a mini “haunted maze” in the driveway for the trick-or-treaters

accidentally makes a kid cry in it…

really, he just went in the maze to do a quick maintenance check, but he looked so menacing in his costume that a kid saw him and started crying 

blade is too confused about what happened to feel bad 

you give the kid extra candy and apologize to their parents while stifling a laugh at blade’s blank expression

“i didn’t even say ‘boo’,” he murmurs curiously.

you just pat him on the head and give him a kiss on the cheek

after the trick-or-treat shenanigans, you and blade relax and unwind on the comfort of your couch

his definition of unwinding on halloween is watching old horror movies

[or, if you cannot handle horror like me: he watches the barbie movies with you to help you take your mind off the halloween scares and go to sleep :3]

you cuddle him as you doze off while eating leftover halloween candy 

blade carries you to bed and tucks you in for the night bc you deserve a good night’s rest <3

[persefolli]

HII!!, i just randomly thought of this, but have you watched the barbie movie? and yk the song with Billie eilish "what was I made for" like what if reader was in a toxic relationship before their relationship with this new character(could be neteyam or ao'nung, or your choice of character) where readers ex boyfriend didn't care for readers feelings, and is really toxic is all, so reader hides her emotions/trauma from her new lover, like with the lines in the song "im sad again, don't tell my boyfriend, it's not what his made for" and so readers new lover finds out about this and like reassures her that she can always share her feelings with them and ykyk, Anyways It's just a thought, you don't have to do it, oh but please do😭

𝐀/𝐧: 𝐈 𝐟𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐠. 𝐈 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐚 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞… 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐞𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐥𝐲𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐜, 𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 "𝐈 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥." 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞 "𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐢𝐭 𝐞𝐧𝐝? 𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭. 𝐈'𝐦 𝐬𝐚𝐝 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧, 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐲 𝐛𝐨𝐲𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝." 𝐈 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐢'𝐦 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐨'𝐧𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐞. 𝐀 𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐲𝐚𝐦 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐛𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬. 𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐈 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐠𝐮𝐲𝐬 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲.

𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈 𝐖𝐚𝐢𝐭 𝐅𝐨𝐫

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝐀𝐨'𝐧𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐱 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: 𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐥𝐮𝐟𝐟, 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: : @iwanttogohomeandtakeanap, @ms5m1th, @18lkpeters, @yukichan67, @laylasbunbunny, @jakesullyscocksleeve, @neteyamyawne , @fanboyluvr , @myheartfollower , @letsloveimagines , @xylianasblog , @papichulo120627

𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞 | 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

You watched as Ao’nung soared through the water with his friends, riding their skimwigs as they passed a ball back and forth, playing a traditional game of water polo. You would’ve been playing, or at least in the line with the other girls who were bound to play the next round but a nauseating feeling has been bothering you for the past few days. 

It had been at least half a year since you and your family sought Uturu in Awa’atlu. Being raised in a forest and suddenly being stripped of your home in a matter of hours made it hard to adjust. Yes, you should’ve been used to it now, but even after all this time you just…couldn't connect. 

You connected well with Ao’nung, and you loved him, but not everyone supported the relationship. He was the Olo’eyktans son, and you were the demon's daughter. Safe to say it caught everyone, including you, off guard when he began to pursue you. It also caused a little drama between you and the other girls on the reef. You didn’t know much about his dating history, but allegedly there was a singular girl he was supposed to court. Especially since he would be Olo’eyktan in the future if not Tsireya. That girl hated you, and she didn’t try to hide it either.

You felt them staring, the girl and her clique staring as you sat alone in the sand watching your boyfriend. Their eyes made the sun beam harder, and the heat of it all made your head pound. You wanted Ao’nung to come over. To whisk you away or to tell them off, but you repressed yourself. 

After all, you were probably being emotional. Just like your last boyfriend said. It was normal for him to berate you after pulling him away from his “duties”. He dumped you after a year or so for being “too clingy” and “too emotional” and said that it was probably your fathers demon blood that made you "do that stuff" since the Sully family was full of “freaks”. 

This did not slide with your parents at all. You begged them to not escalate the situation but they just couldn't help it. Jake began putting the boy through more rigorous training and your mother became more vocal with her distaste of making him a warrior. In the moment, they might have thought they were helping, but in reality it only supported your exes claims. 

So when you got here to Awa’atlu and got labeled as ‘freaks’ and ‘demons’ it brought you back to what you already were back at home.

You stood and began walking away from the beach, feeling more self conscious than usual. You hated the feeling, and when you were left alone for too long your mind began to wander. The subconscious thought of you and Ao’nungs relationship not ending on good terms haunted you, and you were desperate to rid yourself of those thoughts. You found yourself lingering and strolling over to the tropical first of Awa’atlu, the closest to home you could get. Your fingertips brushed over the coiled flowers and brushes, giving you that sense of fulfillment. 

You and Kiri had a similar connection and love for nature, but lately she’s been getting her stimulation from the sea. 

Sitting on the ground, and laying against the damp grass, you looked at the sky that was bordered by palm trees and distant birds flying. You tried to manipulate your reality by imagining the thicker forestry and the sounds of animals hooting and hollering in the distance, but you couldn't. 

The trees felt like a dark hole. A circle of a place you could never call home. You sighed deeply, and tried to make most of what you had.

Not even an hour in, you heard the crunching of grass get louder. You internally groaned, knowing it was Ao’nung. 

Without a word, he laid next to you, staring up into the sky as you were. 

“You gotta stop running off on me like that.” He said silently.

“I didn’t mean to…I just…got distracted.”

Ao'nung felt a pit in his stomach himself. He knew you were lying. Even though he teased and joked around with you a lot. He knew it was time to sit and talk to you. 

“You’re lying.” He said bluntly. “You’re depressed.”

You said nothing, letting his words sink in. You’d come to that conclusion a while ago, but you avoided saying it out loud. 

“Is it because of me?”

“No.” You said immediately. 

“It's the reef. Isn't it? You miss your home.”

“I do miss my home.” You nodded.

The both of you fell silent again. Waiting for the other to say something. Neither one of you were good with stuff like this. 

“Why do you never talk to me?” He asked. “You never talk about your life in the forest.”

“It would be just as bad as talking about my experience here. I don’t fit in anywhere.”

Ao’nung let out a chuckle. “Without the angsty teen typical ‘I don’t fit in” bullshit.” He started, which caused you to let out a genuine laugh. Maybe it was corny. “I want you to tell me. Life before the reef. Life before me.”

“Are you sure you want to hear it?”

Ao'nung rolled over to turn to you and you did the same, looking over at him.

“Of course I want to hear Y/n.” He said with furrowed eyebrows. “I want to hear every little stupid idea and thought in your head. You need to let me in. I want you to let me in.”

You felt a pang of guilt surge through your body. This was the first time he…or anyone has said anything like that to you before. Here you were, treating him like your ex where you could share nothing personal, and this entire time he wanted you to. 

“Well now I feel bad.” You mumbled.

He whirled his fingers around a strand of your hair and smiled. “You don’t need to. I know how anxious you get.”

With a deep breath, you began rambling. Talking more than you had in the past year. You told him everything, from sleeping in bioluminescent gardens and very public fights with your ex. You talked about the events leading up to arriving at Awa'atlu, along with a sprinkle of your dad’s backstory. 

You told him about how you felt ashamed to be his girlfriend, especially with how the other people on the reef felt about your family. 

In all, you probably talked his ear off for an hour. But the craziest thing is that he sat and listened to every word. Nodding along, even interjecting a few times to validate your feelings and thoughts. 

With each word and look of affirmation you felt a large weight lifting off of your shoulders, even relieving pressure you didn’t even know was there. Your chest wasn't tight, and you didn’t feel nauseous.

“See? That didn’t kill you.” Ao’nung said with a soft smile. “We’re not all dicks you know.” He placed his hand on the dip of your waist. “You just got paired with a shitty first boyfriend…and it sucked.”

You bit your bottom lip to stop it from trembling, listening to Ao’nung give you the much needed reassurance. “I may not be able to save you or help you with every issue you come across on the reef, but I'll do my best to protect you from anything I can control.” He patted your waist. 

After talking, especially now. You felt pretty stupid that you had pre-judged your boyfriend and thought that he wouldn't care. This whole time, all you wanted was someone to understand you. He most likely noticed you were falling into a pit before you did yourself. 

“Hey,” He poked your forehead. “We build from here. We both have no idea what we’re doing.”

“You definitely don't.” You giggled. 

He flicked your nose before standing and pulling you upwards, pulling you to god knows where.

[bimbosanddolls]

State of the Bimbo - New Year, Same Kiki

Hi Barbie!

A new year is approaching and, after the emotional roller coaster that was 2023, I’m deciding to dedicate 2024 to being the best version of myself because honestly… I deserve it. 

With that in mind, there is something that I've been debating telling you all for a long time. I’ve hinted at it in asks and such for a while, I’ve talked openly about it with people in DMs, but I’ve never actually said it outright on my blog.

I am a trans woman. I have always been a trans woman. I am also a bimbo. This isn’t just a kink for me; it’s a big part of who I am and who I'm becoming more and more every day.

So why did I wait so long to say something? Time for a quick history lesson and some Kiki lore. When I started this blog like 10 years ago, there was a super popular bimbo creator named Summer (also known as @bimboisbetter) and there was a huge controversy because Summer came out as a catfish. She was a man pretending to be Summer. Looking back, part of me wonders if Summer wasn't also trans… but it really isn’t my place to speak on that. (Also, that being said… Summer, if you’re still out there somewhere and reading this, I hope you’re doing well) Anyway, people were super upset because Summer deceived them. I, despite early accusations of being a woman, claimed I was a guy because I was masc-presenting and not even sure if I was trans or not at this point. I also RPed frequently as a tgtf (transgender transformation) that would get bimbofied. And playing a girl just… made sense. In retrospect, it felt more authentic to who I actually would realize I am way more than the masc person I believed I was “supposed” to be. But all I knew for sure that I didn’t want to face the same criticism Summer did, even if our situations were super different. Flash-forward a few years, a couple hiatuses, and a whole lot of soul-searching later, I’m now very comfortable with my identity. I know who I am. I know I was always her, even when I was making awful jokes like this. I’ve always been KIki; it’s just in the last few years that I’ve truly let her emerge from her cocoon. And I can’t wait to keep growing and becoming the best bimbo barbie I can be!

xoxo,

Kiki 💖🏳️‍⚧️

[balioc]

Thoughts on the Barbie Movie

Hoo boy. Here we go.

This is long. Spoilers abound.

I

The movie is not, in any normal sense, a Barbie movie (like this or this or this or whatever). It is not a story of Barbie doing the kinds of things that Barbie does in stories. It is an endlessly postmodern and self-referential movie about Barbie, which is to say, about the Barbie franchise and its role in culture. Which is, at least plausibly, an interesting thing for a movie to be.

You probably knew all that already. But it does give us a baseline of "this movie kind of had to be political and discourse-y, one way or another." Or even, to be more specific: "to some large extent this movie had to be about feminism, explicitly, if it was going to exist at all." How could you talk meaningfully about Barbie's role in culture without touching on that stuff?

II

The evaluative TLDR:

Barbie is very ambitious, and in many places very fun. It is also deeply confused, and fragmented, about what it's trying to say and do. Often it raises genuinely interested problems/scenarios and then totally fails to address them, or else addresses them in ways that are incoherent. The text knows that it's doing this, and on several occasions kind of apologizes for it; a couple of times it more or less looks into the camera and says "sorry, we're not going to deal with this properly;" but, well, that's not a substitute for dealing with things properly.

There is also a streak of genuine political nastiness running through the film, in a place where the story really cannot afford it. It...doesn't match up, tonally or thematically, with some of the surrounding material. I have no background at all in cinematic stratigraphy, but I would be fascinated to learn about Barbie's editorial history, because I have the vague sense that a more-cogent (and more-interesting) story got hacked apart and then Frankensteined together into something much cheaper and worse.

III

The opening sequence of the movie is wild. You've seen most of it -- or you can, if you haven't, and you want to -- because it is the film's first teaser trailer. Girls are playing listlessly with baby dolls; a giant Barbie appears like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey; and then the girls enter a frenzy of destruction, bashing their baby dolls' heads against the ground.

I don't know whether I would have found it as disturbing as I did, if I didn't actually have a baby of my own. But speaking from the standpoint of a parent...yeah, wow, it's more viscerally horrific than most actual horror I've seen recently. The narration says some stuff about Barbie providing a new and more rewarding set of imagination games to play, but the visuals by themselves tell a message loud and clear, which is: Barbie will turn your daughters into infanticidal maenads. It wouldn't need any editing at all to be part of a shock-you-silly Reefer-Madness-y moral panic film.

Which is really good! And really interesting! It starts us off on an undeniable thematic note: there is something primal and powerful and very dangerous about Barbie.

IV

The very best part of the movie is probably the part that comes right after the opening, when we explore the movie's depiction of "Barbieland" by going through Barbie's Typical Day, before we get into any of the notional plot or metaphysics. It's joyful and charming in a consistent way. The gags are (mostly) great. The movie is in love with its base premise, and that love is palpable.

This sequence makes one thing very clear:

Barbie treats Ken like absolute dogshit. She is a bad girlfriend.

And it's taken seriously. I mean, it's played for laughs, almost everything in this movie is played for laughs, but...it's not mean-spirited, not here. It's not, like, "ha ha, Ken, what a contemptible loser." He's Pierrot, asking for very basic forms of affection and attention and respect, and getting the door slammed in his face over and over. It's honestly kind of heartbreaking.

That colors everything that comes later.

The movie doesn't forget this, or fail to acknowledge it. At the end, after everything, Barbie does apologize to Ken for her treatment of him. It's a halfhearted and supremely unsatisfying kind of apology, especially in context, but...it's there, in so many words! I'm not making it up! This thematic foundation was laid down, not-very-subtly, right at the beginning!

V

This movie, which is at least trying to be ambitious, is juggling a million themes. Many of them are dumb at their core, and have no real promise; many of them lack any kind of narrative synergy with the others. But there are at least two which, I believe, (a) are genuinely worthwhile individually and (b) work well together in a story.

One is: What does it mean to be a symbol rather than a person? To exist, not for your own sake, but for the sake of influencing the dreams and culture of entities that you don't know and can't really understand?

The other is: What is the proper ordering of the relationship between Barbie and Ken?

I've seen a number of Takes in which people say, essentially: Couldn't this have ended with the Barbies and the Kens just being decent to each other and treating each other like humans? Couldn't there have been equality and mutual respect, instead of the weird uncomfortable girlboss-supremacist stuff that we got? And I sympathize with that impulse tremendously, but the honest answer has to be: No. We cannot have simple equality and esteem between Barbie and Ken, not in a movie like this. That would be a lie. Because this is a movie about Barbie-as-symbol, and when you're looking at Barbie through that lens, it is true and unavoidable that Ken is an appendage and an afterthought. You can have toys for boys; you can have dolls for boys (even if you call them "action figures" or whatever); for that matter, you can have dolls of boys for girls, so that girls can tell stories centering on male characters; but that's not what Ken is, and never has been. There are no Ken stories, and no one particularly wants them. Ken exists to be Barbie's boyfriend.

(One of the most painful moments of the movie comes during the resolution wrapup. Ken wails to Barbie that he has no identity outside her. She says, basically, "you have to find one, because I'm leaving you." And he...acts like he's had an epiphany, and does a little silly celebration. But his "insight" is just literally "I'm Ken," there's absolutely nothing there, and of course it's the most hollow and awful thing in the world because he really does have no identity outside her.)

VI

The movie's metaphysics are not even slightly consistent. The nature of Barbieland, and the ways that it affects and is affected by the real world, are completely different in every scene. In large part because the film can't ever pass up a gag, whether or not it's funny, no matter how much damage it does to the narrative and the theming overall.

The worst part is that the movie is not capable of saying anything remotely coherent about the real world, because its version of the "real world" is as weird and fake as its Barbieland. Will Ferrell's CEO of Mattel character is more of an absurd cartoon than any of the Barbies or Kens. Mattel HQ is some kind of surreal labyrinth tower out of The Matrix. A random receptionist can handle herself like James Bond in a car chase, for reasons that are [handwaved in a gag].

VII

So. Yes. There is the sequence in the third act where Ken takes over Barbieland with the power of patriarchy. This is pretty much as bad as it can be. And I say this as someone who thinks that the movie probably did actually need a plot thread doing roughly that kind of thing.

Almost as bad as it can be. The wannabe-patriarch Kens are gleefully goofy in a way that you can't help but love, or at least, I couldn't help but love it. Which has something to do with the writing and something to do with the charisma of all the Ken actors. The main Ken, Ryan Gosling's Ken, really seems to believe that being a successful patriarch has a lot to do with riding majestic horses and wearing a giant fur coat without a shirt, and when he takes over Barbie's Dream House he names it Ken's Mojo Dojo Casa House -- that kind of thing.

But. Apart from that, it's real unfortunate. The justification for Ken's ability to conquer Barbieland with patriarchy, instantly and effortlessly, is -- in almost so many words -- they had no defenses against it, it was like the American Indians encountering smallpox. I...don't think I need to spell out the problems with that.

Worse yet, the whole sequence is soaked in, uh, let's call it "2014-era upper-middle-class social-status-oriented feminism." The real bad behavior on the part of the Kens, the stuff they do when they're not being adorably weird, is: mansplaining their extensive opinions about cars and movies, and wanting to show off how helpful and knowledgeable they are to "damsels" who are having trouble using machines or computers. Apparently that's the real problem at hand, the causus belli of the gender wars. The way that you deprogram a patriarchy-brainwashed Barbie is by...ranting to her about the stereotypical social irritations of upper-middle-class women (e.g. "you have to keep yourself thin but not act like you care about being thin," "you have to be a confident leader but also be nurturing and supportive," etc.) [note that the Barbies of Barbieland have never encountered these irritations, at least not at the hands of men]. And the girlboss victory montage consists of having the Barbies put on deceptive manipulative bimbo acts to stroke the Kens' egos, which sure is one way to depict girlboss feminist victory.

But the most unforgivable thing of all is the depiction of the patriarchy-brainwashed Barbies. They're lad-magazine caricatures, endlessly offering their Kens "brewski beers," dressing up as French maids, gazing on in cow-eyed adoration as their Kens mansplain stuff to them.

Barbie does, in fact, have a problematic history with the patriarchy. And it does not look like that.

VIII

@brazenautomaton:

Barbie isn’t someone who had to fight through the patriarchy to be seen as good enough to be an astronaut even though she’s a woman. Barbie’s a fucking astronaut because she’s fucking Barbie of course she’s good enough to be an astronaut.

That is...one aspect of the deep Barbie lore. It is the Barbie-nature that Mattel was trying to push, as far back as my own childhood; it's certainly the Barbie-nature that Mattel is trying to push in this movie. But there is another side to Barbie, even older and even more fundamental than Senator Astronaut Veterinarian Barbie, and you can't make a postmodern movie-about-Barbie without addressing it.

This is Barbie the fashion doll. The Barbie who is an icon of ultra-consumerist teenage girlhood, whose life is defined by her fancy clothes and her fancy car. The Barbie whose most salient traits are her hourglass figure and her long blonde hair and her feet that are always posed to fit into high heels. The Barbie of "math class is tough!" The Barbie who is kinda vapid and shallow and, yes, boy-crazy.

How can you tell a story about Barbie wrestling with the culture of patriarchy, and not talk about that? How can you depict Barbie falling victim to the patriarchy and have it look nothing like that?

...the movie does bring up the specter of Vapid Consumerist Barbie, briefly. When Margot Robbie's Barbie first comes to the real world and meets with the sullen teenage daughter character, she has a litany of That Thing thrown in her face, and it makes her sad. But nothing is ever done with it, and it goes nowhere.

IX

And it could all have fit together so well. That's the hell of it.

You can imagine the version of the story in which Ken conquers Barbieland with patriarchy, because the Barbies are actually vulnerable to patriarchal narratives, because Vapid Consumerist Barbie is the chthonic serpent that gnaws at the foundations of Senator Astronaut Veterinarian Barbie civilization. He successfully makes them all forget that they're senators and astronauts and veterinarians, and turns them into airheaded teenage fashionistas who think that math class is tough.

And this avails him, and the other Kens, nothing. Even within the "patriarchal" version of Barbieland, Ken is still an afterthought and an appendage. He still gets treated like dogshit, just in a different idiom.

Because the thing that has always been true of Barbie, though every age and every phase of her mythos, is: she is the main character of her own story.

This is what the movie was telling us all the way back in the horrific 2001-pastiche prologue, right? Even when Barbie was just a swimsuit model, the point was that she let girls tell stories about themselves (or idealized/aspirational versions of themselves), not about boys or babies. That is a truer, and more powerful, feminist message about the meaning of Barbie than any message the movie actually bothers conveying.

The gag scene practically writes itself: the brainwashed Barbies are sitting around in a giggly slumber-party huddle talking about how dreamy Ken is, and actual Ken cannot get a word in edgewise, he can't even get them to notice he's there, because even Vapid Consumerist Barbie is fundamentally centered in her own life. Her narrative is not about a boy, it's about the experience of being a girl (mostly engaging with other girls) who likes thinking and talking about boys. Which is very much beside the point, if you started out with the complaint that your girlfriend never paid any attention to you.

Patriarchy hurts men too, indeed.

X

The movie ends, as I've intimated, in a disappointing squidge of thematic confusion. Barbie announces that she never really loved Ken, and leaves him, because...well, because these days the smart-set target audience is allergic to romantic narratives that Produce the Couple, as far as I can tell. Then she goes to the real world and becomes a real girl, a move that means nothing and is nonsensical even by the standards of the Barbie metaphysics, because the storytellers don't know how to end her arc and Becoming a Real Girl is the sort of thing that feels like a meaningful conclusion.

The Kens...sigh...the Kens ask for equal rights in Barbieland, more or less, and get told, "nah, but we'll throw you some bones." And they're happy with this, more or less, because they're dumb and don't really care. The narrator says, approximately, "maybe someday they'll make as much progress as women have in the real world." Haw haw.

It's probably too much to hope for a movie like this to be willing to say something substantive about responsibility and kindness in relationships. It's almost certainly too much to hope for a movie like this to be willing to say something about the nature of love symbols and love narratives. But all the pieces really were there, laid out very conspicuously. The movie could have wrapped up with: Ken doesn't need to be more important than Barbie, he doesn't even need to be as important as Barbie, he just needs to be treated with human decency. And if little girls are going to play with Barbies, and fantasize about having cute guys hanging all over them -- maybe they should have functional models of romance and human connection in which to root their fantasies, and not terrible ones.

[prettygrltatum]

A Pretty Necklace for Pretty Lady

Simon ' Ghost' Riley x hyperfem!reader

a/n: I saw this super cute gif(the one at the end, credits to for this!) and I just want to make a story for me and my man :33

when you and simon first met, they both of you were at a gym. you were on the mats, stretching and moving you limbs with some weights in your hands. you were so different from him. always showing up in natural make-up. always in soft colors, wednesday were for pink only. such cute outfits for such a cute girl. meanwhile he was blasting rock and metal songs and wearing all black with his black surgical mask as he benches.

one day, you were passing by when you saw his phone playing Sonne by Rammstein. you tapped his shoulder and asked him about his music. and the rest was history. he took you out on the best and amazing dates, treating you like a queen.

and now with a pink, shiny rock on your finger you couldn't wish for anymore. but yet simon seems to only give you more. as the husband he is, he takes you on his bi-weekly dates. right now, your in the most fanciest restaurant. his hand holding yours. ever since he met you, he's been wearing his mask less often. he still wears it but he's less afraid of what people think when your around him.

"babe, you don't have to take me out every week! I don't want to hurt your pockets." you cooed as you rubbed the veins on his hands. simon chuckled as he raised your long manicured nails, covered in pink charms and jewels, kissing your soft skin. "please doll, I've nothin' better to spend my money on. only you." his chuckles on your hand.

you giggled as you blushed hard. "but I can never do anything for you! you never let me!" you whined playfully at him. it's true. why give so much to me when your presence is already enough? that's what simon thought about every time you tried to please or show him any affection in the terms of gift giving. he's basically made you a trophy wife by accident. making enough money in S.A.S to support you and your feature children.

simon knew you loved every color, but if there's one color you loved the most? wore the most? adored the most? it was pink. your always covered in pink in some way, somehow. Pink heels, pink shirt, pink pants.

pink car, pink ring, pink everything. you were his living barbie doll. you were his everything. so to show you his love, he has your second favorite thing. Jewels. You were always covered in shiny rocks. from earlobes to fingers. even your piercings.

"so, I found somethin' you'd love." simon started off. you chuckled, swaying your head side to side. "again? you give me so many things simmy! I can't keep up!" you laughed. simon smiled, his lip scar lifting up and crinkling. "why not?"

"because! I never know how to pay you back!" you whined. "well, I've got you somethin' you might like!" simon pulls out a red velvet case and pulls it out in front of you. "oh my god-simon..."

he opens it, showing a silver necklace with a beautiful hand-crafted gem shaped into a heart, guarded by the sliver.

you audible gasp as you carefully reached for it. simon could feel your warmth, radiating from your smile and cooes. "oh my god!! I love it!" you squealed. you clamped your necklace around you neck.

simon adored your smile and squeals, loving every single emotion that you're feeling right now. that he does the things he do. to get this reaction. not only does it make you happy and important, but the fuzzy feeling he gets. knowing that his girl, his wife is happy and pleased.

"do you like it?" simon asked, knowing by your reaction that you adored the gem. "of course I do! it's beautiful.." you cooed. you kissed his cheek and rubbed his veiny hand.

"anything for you darling. anything."