#Like we understand constructive criticism is good for a lot of movies but this is going to do what Godzilla x kong couldn’t

[himbovillain-anon]

VENOM THREE TRAILER LETS GOO

[allisluv]

this is definitely not inspired by a recent dream of mine

if you had a wet dream about finnick odair. GOD IF YOU HAD ONE ... the first thing you feel when you wake up in the semi-darkness of your room, your eyes squinting at his still sleeping figure, would be SHAME. you just feel miserable because you feel like you're like these capitol's citizens who are unable to see past his divine beauty </3

you go to get a glass of water, and wake up with finnick, half asleep, in the doorway, concern on his face. you don't want to tell him directly what is the cause of your awakening but we all know that he will manage to get the words out of you.

he does not blame you for a moment. "you should see my dreams about you", he says without a care and leaves you speechless. and then ... the dream becomes reality <3

he wears the most smug look after + says something like "i bet it was better than that dream"

— 🫀

dreams.

summary: finnick takes care of you after an... imaginative dream

a/n: hi hi hi! i've never written smut before so constructive criticism is welcome just please don't be mean because i will cry (fr) thank you anon for your request + i hope this lived up to expectations <3

content warnings: established relationship, porn with a little dash of plot, oral (fem!recieving), praise kink, use of the phrase good girl, unprotected p in v (please wrap it before you tap it), lots of consent and finnick being cheeky as always. oh and not proofread for the time being

pairing: finnick o'dair x fem!reader

It takes a while for you to register your surroundings when you shake yourself awake. It's dark in your room and you have to squint in order to make out Finnick's sleeping figure next to you. His chest rises and falls in shallow breaths and you're relieved that you didn't wake him.

As the dream runs through your head like an old movie, you squeeze your thighs together to get rid of the ache between your legs. Shame bubbles in your chest and bile hits the back of your throat.

Wasn't this exactly what the people in the Capitol did? Got off to the thought of him kissing his way up their bodies? You bite the inside of your cheek until you can’t focus on anything other than the metallic taste of blood flooding your mouth.

You pull the covers back and swing your legs over the side of the bed, padding across the wooden floorboards in your bare feet. Flicking on the light switch in the kitchen, you grab an empty glass before filling it with cold water from the faucet.

A pair of warm hands sneaking their way around your stomach is the first thing that you manage to register in your hazy mind. Finnick presses a kiss against the shell of your ear before asking, "What’re you doing up this early, honey?"

"Couldn't sleep," you murmur, setting the glass back onto the marble countertop. “Did I wake you?”

Finnick presses a kiss to the crown of your head as his fingers trace patterns up and down your arms. “Your side of the bed was cold. Was wondering where you'd gotten to, that's all," he shrugs and turns you around to face him. "You gonna tell me whats going on in that head of yours? Was it a bad dream?"

You slide onto the countertop and Finnick's hands instinctively fall to your hips. "Something like that," you mutter. "It's nothing."

"Doesn't sound like nothing," he prompts, gently using his thumb and index finger to tilt your head towards him. Your gaze remains glued to the wall behind him but he angles his head to catch your eye. "I need you to use your words, baby, cause I don't understand."

You shift uncomfortably on the countertop, praying that he'll drop it, (which isn't likely to happen, because Finnick O'dair is the text-book definition of stubborn). "I didn't have a bad dream."

"Then what was it?" Finnick asks, his eyebrows knitting together in a blend of confusion and concern. Warmth creeps across your cheeks. "Oh."

You try to bury your face in your hands but his reflexes are quick and he catches your wrists in between his fingers. "There's nothing to be embarrassed about, baby. You should see my dreams about you," he grins proudly. "Why didn't you say something sooner, honey? Are you gonna let me take care of you?"

Goosebumps rise on your skin as your tongue runs over your lips. You nod without making a sound.

Finnick's fingers skim the lace at the bottom of your nightdress. He's teasing. "Gotta hear you use your words, baby." His hand trails higher and higher until he's tracing feather-light touches along the outline of your black underwear. "Come on, use your words for me."

Your heart beats against your ribcage as he leans down and presses a gentle kiss to your stomach. It's hard to think when your thoughts are consumed by him. He pulls your nightgown up to your hips, exposing your damp panties. His thumb toys with the hem. "Please," you whine breathlessly.

"Please what baby?" he peers up at you through his lashes. "You know I'll give you whatever you want, just need to hear you say it."

"Please fuck me."

He gives a satisfied hum and sinks to his knees in front of you. "Good girl. My gorgeous, needy girl. Am I gonna find you soaked under here?" His fingers work the soft material down your thighs. "Can I?"

"Please touch me." Your hips chase forward in search of his hand and he runs his fingers through your folds. Your eyes squeeze shut, hand balling his white shirt into your fist. "Oh my god."

He drops his hand and buries his face in your cunt, tongue easing you open as he tracks his way to your clit. Your hands find purchase in his hair and you tug hard.

"You feel so good," you scratch his scalp with your blunt nails and he moans into your cunt. Finnick reaches between your legs, his fingers feeling between your folds as he sucks on your sensitive clit. Familiar tightness was coiling in your core and, as if he could sense it, Finnick stood up.

You whined at the loss of contact but he swallowed it with a kiss. His warm hands smooth your hair out of your face and back behind your shoulders. He was always so gentle with you.

You threw your head back and he obliged by trailing wet kisses down the expanse of your neck. He hummed against your skin as you tug at the hem of his t-shirt desperately.

Finnick chuckles as you strip him of the thin cotton. You toss it to the side, not bothering to look where it lands. All you can focus on is how much you want him to fuck you.

Finnick kisses you lazily and pulls down his sweatpants and boxers in one go. You palm his bare cock and he twitches in your hand, hot and heavy. "Are you sure you're ready for me baby? I don't wanna hurt you or anything," he frowns.

You kiss the crown of his forehead and pull your nightgown over your head. The cold air nips at your bare breasts and Finnick's eyes darken at the sight. "I can handle it. Please, need to feel you."

Finnick grips your hips in his gentle hands and lines himself up with your entrance. His tongue slips into your mouth as he pushes into you with such force that the breath is knocked from your lungs. No matter how many times he fucks you, it always takes a while for you to accommodate to his size.

He presses gentle kisses to your nose and your cheeks before finally brushing his lips against yours once more. "You still with me, honey?" He brushes a hand across your forehead, wiping away the strands of hair that had gotten stuck from the sweat. "Being such a good girl for me, sweetheart. Always so good for me. Stretching me so well."

Your pain soon morphs to pleasure and as your hips cant forward, he thrusts to meet you. "Feel so full, Finnick," your nails drag against his bare back, no doubt leaving marks.

"Yeah?" Finnick smirks, lifting one of your legs and wrapping it around his waist. The angle drives him deeper inside you, and to make it even more impossible to string together a coherent sentence, he drags his tongue over your sensitive nipples. "Are you getting close, baby? Yeah you are, I can feel you squeezing me."

He kisses you slowly as he pushes his hips to meet yours again. Your mouth leaves his and you kiss along his jawline, moaning into his ear as he fucks you. "Finnick," you whine, clinging to the space between his shoulder blades. It's the only word you can think of. Your thoughts are consumed with him.

"I've got you, honey," he hisses as his hips slam into you. "Come for me. You're beautiful, baby. Come for me, I know you can do it, I'm so close--"

Finnick surges up to capture your mouth in a kiss as your orgasm washes over you like the waves outside your house. Finnick's hips still and you can feel his warm seed pumping into you.

Too exhausted to hold yourself up, you collapse against Finnick, who holds you close as you both come down from your high. Your kisses are sloppy and languid but you feel so warm, so full, that nothing else really matters.

You whine when he pulls out but it's not so bad when he's soothing it better with soft kisses and gentle caresses. He whispers that he loves you and offers to carry you to the bath but not before getting one smart remark in. "Bet I was better than in the dream, huh, honey?"

[a-edgar-allan-hoe]

Fade Into You

ResidentEvil4Remake!Leon Kennedy x FemScientist/Pathologist/!Reader

Resident Evil x The Last of Us crossover

A/N: Just a little idea I had lying around. The timelines are a bit jumbled up since the Last of Us and Resident Evil take place in different eras so I made this story takes place in modern time so bear with me here. I hope y'all like it and let me know what you think! 💜

Summary: Imagine being a scientist set with the task of finding a cure for everything that has happened, assigned to return the world to how it once was only to become an assignment for someone else, an agent named Leon S. Kennedy tasked with making sure you are transported safely to your destination.

Warnings: language, some potential suggestive content, blood and gore and violence.

Notes: angst, some comfort and fluff and Leon’s terrible dad jokes and some trauma sprinkled in there.

Time. Time is a strange thing. Nonphysical and always there, always changing, from beginning to end. At the same time, it comes in cycles, repetitions and patterns. A metaphysical figment of creation, a concept constructed and molded to the understanding of the human species. An entity bigger than ourselves, spanning across millions of galaxies, and yet can fit within the palm of our hands. What is time, other than of what we know of it. Often times you found yourself wondering the same thing.

You don't know how long it has been since the outbreak, since the virus that started to plague the earth was first heard on the news, since well..........everything. So much has happened since, you had trouble remembering a lot of it, or any of it for that matter.

You used to work for the CDC, you still do, or what’s left of it, before you were taken against your will................there's not much left of anything anymore. Back then, you were the leading scientist in the department of Cancer Prevention and Control. 'New and upcoming young scientist leads the fight against cancer', titled the articles that were written about you, some of them far too promising and others harshly criticizing and objectifying. You're pretty sure you still have those articles stashed away somewhere, the good, the bad, and the ugly. What for? You’re not sure. Motivation perhaps, if there was any still left in you.

You were the best at your field, nearing a breakthrough for finding the ultimate cure for cancer that targeted the cells at the earliest and even latest stage, diminishing the illness completely as if it had never even existed in the host. You had even been featured on the cover of Life Magazine and the Smithsonian magazine for your work, the photos taken of you wearing your lab coat and standing over your microscope or interacting with your team and your patients. Boy was your father proud, his little girl on the verge of revolutionizing the medical world, he almost always had a hard time believing it, still picturing the day he held you bundled in his arms when you were first born. You were still ever his little girl to him. You could still remember the look on his face, the way he beamed when he found out, buying a copy of both those magazines just to frame it up on the wall as if there wasn’t already enough pictures of you and your little sister throughout your years.

You almost accomplished your mission, almost. You were close, so close. And then the virus took over, the Plagas and then the Cordyceps brain infection. Cancer became the least of worries.

Since the epidemic, you tried to save as much of your family photos as you could. After all, they were the only things left as a reminder of the past, of how things were. It's been so long the pictures almost don't seem real, like something created out of the mind of a delusionist, taken from of the pages of a science fiction novel, an imitation of an alternate reality. Never in you right mind did you think all those flesh-eating zombie movies you snuck out to watch with your sister at the local theater as a teen would feel more true to life than the actual past, the history of the human race.

Every night before you went to sleep, you'd pull out the storage box from under your bed, the one containing your family's photo albums, flipping through each page and staring at the photos of your parents and little sister as a way of forcing your brain to remember them. You believed this was your way of keeping them in your memory, recollecting the moment behind when each photograph was taken as if they were pieces of a broken vase meant to hold all that was you, pieces that sliced at you whenever you tried to put them back together. Truth was, you were afraid, desperate to cling on to the echo of their existence. And so you looked at those photos in a ritualistic manner, each and every night before bed. Truth is, you were starting to forget their faces, their voices, and you knew it.

In the beginning there were many; scientists, doctors, or pathologists or whatever you wanna call them, working on the task that was given to you by the government, each and every one of them fighting for a life of their own and the lives of many. Now they were just names on the diplomas that hung in their offices, names printed under an achievement of the institution they attended, just pieces of paper left to gather dust and be forgotten. Sometimes you wondered if you were the only one left; in your state, your country, the world? Who knows. In the building you worked, there used to be seven, then there were six, then five, then four…………….now there was only you.

Time seems to be nonexistent to you. The clocks on your walls meant nothing, nothing more than some numbers and a bunch of little gears that turn the hands to display the hour. A symbol of endless nothingness. The white walls of the building you worked in were just a place that they happened to hang on. And god you hated those white walls. You’ve lost count of the days you spent locked up within them, with nothing to keep you company except for the lab rats and your own thoughts. It's a wonder you didn't lose your sanity. A time came when you’d question if you’d ever see another human again. It seems as if your prayers were answered.

You were currently sat on the makeshift bed of a small base hideout, staring ahead at the fabric of the military tent that blew slightly against the wind, the makeshift tent that you stayed in after you were rescued, if you would call it that. Being the only woman at a base full of military men had its own fears, and you'd almost rather be out with the infected than here. You don’t know what it’s like anymore, being free I mean, you only remember being held hostage, held in one place to work for the government only to be taken away to work for another before being taken again for your so-called expertise, like an almost endless cycle, as if you were some goods that needed to be traded off and transported from one destination to another until you could no longer be of use.

You couldn't remember much after you were taken by the cult in an attempt to bring back Umbrella Corp or whatever they wished to call themselves, the memory of it all was still as fuzzy as when you first arrived under their "management". Now what would you even call your current circumstance? A formal and civil hostage situation under the label of U.S. personnel? You were only being held for the time being before being sent back to the states to work for whatever was left of the government. And as much as you wanted to go back home, or what's left of it if we're being honest, you've only heard of how worse it has gotten since you left.

“Y/l/n.” One of the soldiers called for you as he opened the flap entrance to your tent, his form casting a shadow across the floor in front of you. “It’s time.”

You gave the soldier a quick nod, grabbing your backpack from the floor and the small pocket knife that you kept under your pillow, stuffing the folded blade in the back pocket of your jeans as you got up and walked out of your tent. You followed the soldier as he led you through the open area where other soldiers were gathered, some of them standing guard, some eating their meals and others standing around leisurely as they conversed with each other. You could feel their eyes on you, watching you tag behind the soldier that was in front of you as he led you to the bigger tent on the other side of the field, the tent where the officers and higher ups held their meetings to discuss important matters.

You heard some voices coming out from inside the tent, two to be exact, discussing something important apparently. It’s all they ever did around here. And as you stepped in after the soldier, you saw the colonel speaking to a man you had never seen before. Tall, blond hair, wearing civilian yet practical clothes with tactical gear over it, unlike everyone else here who donned the military uniforms. He's definitely not military-

“Sir-“ the soldier that led you spoke, alerting the colonel of your presence.

“Ah. There you are.” The colonel turned towards you with a smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling from his old age as he gestured you over to where he stood at the table that was stationed dead center of the larger tent. “Was beginning to think you wouldn’t show.”

You looked between the two men across from you in the tent once the soldier that was by you had left, allowing you a better view as you only watched with slight uncertainty before approaching the officer. The man whom you did not recognize had looked your way as well, his face not showing a single shift in emotion upon your arrival, but you had managed to notice the slight curious quirk of his brow at seeing you. Who the hell was he?

“Say hello to your assignment,” the colonel gestured towards you as he spoke to the blond man. God you hated being called that, assignment. “Dr. y/n y/l/n."

“Leon S. Kennedy.” The man outstretched his hand, to which you stared at with the blankest look possible.

"............Pleasure." You gave the man a short smile, completely disregarding his offer for a handshake before turning to the older officer and pulling him aside as if the young man wasn’t even present in the first place, watching from the side of your eye as he awkwardly pulled his hand back, a look of hidden puzzlement on his face. You didn't want to seem rude but this was not what you had signed up for, being alone for who knows how long with a man you absolutely did not know.

“Agent Kennedy here is to ensure that you are transported and arrived safely to your destination.” The colonel answered after seeing the silent but scrutinizing look on your face.

So an agent huh. He’s probably as stuck up as the rest of those shit heads you've had to come across. Agent or not, who's to say he isn't like the others.

“What does that have to do with me?"

"Well he's been hired as your bodyguard."

You tried your best not to laugh. "What, some washed up reject of the Backstreet Boys?” You lowered your voice, knowing damn well the agent a few feet away from you could hear everything.

Leon couldn’t help but cock his head back with a slight scoff, not sure if he should be offended by your insult or impressed by the creativity behind it.

“Agent Kennedy is the best in his field. And our job is to make sure you end up safe back in America. I’m afraid you’re much too valuable to be left to wander back on your own.”

You let out a small huff, crossing your arms over your chest with a stern look of contemplation as you eyed the ground beneath your feet before finally folding. He had a point there, it was dangerous out there. But who's to say you should trust him? You had trouble trusting anyone for that matter. "Do you trust the guy?" You looked up at the colonel, knowing better than to trust a man's word but who else was there. There wasn't really anyone here to protect you but yourself.

"Agent Kennedy is a good man, reliable, I assure you."

You don't know that. "............then I suppose I have no choice but to take your word then." You sighed, knowing there wasn't really a way out of this.

“Good. Go easy on him alright.” The colonel straightened up, placing his hand on the back of your shoulder as he led you back to where the other man stood.

"Agent Kennedy, I trust you'll keep Miss y/l/n here safe."

"Yes sir." Leon nodded his head, attempting to send you a kind smile as if to say you were in good hands but you only stared off into the distance, still unhappy with the decision made. As long as it meant you went back home. Home. Jesus. You don't even know what was awaiting you there.

"She can be quite stubborn at times but you'll get used to it." The older officer added with a chuckle to which you shot back with a quick glare.

"Well that's fine by me." Leon smiled. "I'm a patient man." If only he knew how much you were going to drive him up the wall.

"Well here is the location where she needs to be dropped off." The officer handed Leon a piece of paper. If you have any questions, you know who to call."

"Copy that."

"Can I have a handgun-"

"No." The colonel was quick to interrupt your question. "That won't be necessary."

"Fine." You mumble to yourself. "Guess I'll just use my butter knife then."

Leon quietly watched the interaction between the two of you, slowly getting a clue about the personality of who he was going to be spending the upcoming days with, and he wasn't quite sure how to feel about it. He too would have opted for the same response as the colonel since you didn't look like the type to have ever fired a gun, much less used any weapon at all. And what exactly did you mean by butter knife? Should he be worried?

"Well you'd better get going, you don't want to be traveling at night, not with what's out there."

"Yes sir." Leon nodded his head at the colonel before heading out of the tent.

You turned to follow the tall blond but were stopped by the officer who held his hand up. "Not just yet. I have something here for ya."

You watched as the colonel pulled out a large black case, clicking open the clasps before opening it to reveal a hunting rifle nestled safely inside.

"I thought you said I couldn't have a gun."

"No, I said you couldn't have a handgun."

The colonel stepped aside, allowing you room to take a step closer to examine the rifle better. Was that? You'd recognize that wooden stock anywhere.

"My dad's rifle. How?"

"Had someone retrieve it from your old place. I'm guessing you know how to use it, judging from the way you recognized it so quickly."

"I-Thank you....sir."

"Just make sure you get your ass back to the lab in one piece." The colonel pulled the rifle out from the case before handing it to you, along with a box of some ammo.

"Of course." You sent the colonel a short smile, putting the box of ammo into your backpack before taking the rifle from his hands, feeling the weight of the thing within your grasp, recognizing each scuff mark and scratch that lined the wooden body, the little signs of wear and tear caused by your own clumsiness, each of them reminding you of the times spent with your father at the range when he taught you how to use the thing. It even smelled of him, after all this time. If you weren’t in a public setting you would have curled up into a ball and cried, holding the rifle close to your frame as if it were the remnants of your father, the man who raised and protected you for the majority of your life. And in a way, it was.

"Stay safe out there kid."

“Sure thing.” You gave a nod, slinging the strap of the rifle over your shoulder as you pushed the memories and emotions away, heading over to the entrance of the tent until the colonel called out again.

“Hey kid.”

“Yeah?” You turned back to face the older gentleman. It wasn’t long, the time that you’ve known him, but he seemed to be the only one that looked out for you, the only one that stood up for you when the other soldiers harassed you and uttered vulgar things in your direction.

“Try not to get separated from Agent Kennedy.”

“Can’t promise that.” You turned back around, raising your hand to send him a wave goodbye before pushing aside the flap of the entrance and stepping out into the sunlight. Well, this is it. Another day, another journey.

You were met outside of the tent with Agent Kennedy, who seemed to have been waiting outside the whole time, hopefully not eavesdropping, not that there was anything important or personal said back there but you just didn’t like people listening in on your conversations.

Straightening up, Leon gave a quick glance over your form before eyeing the rifle on your back. That definitely was not there before. “Where the hell did you get that thing?"

Christ this man talks too damn much and you just met him.

Rolling your eyes, you ignored his question, or rather his whole presence as you headed towards the truck that was set out for you. As much as you didn't want to be rude, you were anxious to get the hell out of this place and return to a place that you at least knew.

“Never mind I guess.” Leon muttered to himself before trying to catch up with you ahead. Jesus you walked with purpose.

Opening up the passenger door of the truck, you threw your backpack and rifle in the backseat before seating yourself in the passenger seat, putting on your seatbelt as you watched Leon walk up to the truck, still a couple feet away.

“Can this dude be any slower?” You muttered under your breath with a roll of your eyes, propping your elbow up on the door window as you stared out of it.

“Someone’s eager to get out of here.” Leon chuckled at the way you had situated yourself so quickly along with the obvious impatient expression that sat on your face as he opened the driver door before getting in himself, putting the keys into the ignition to start the car.

“So uh..........” Leon adjusted the rear view mirror before placing a hand on the back of your seat as a way to back the car out of the parking spot while you only studied his movements from the corner of your eye before glancing out the widow again. Why did you have a gut feeling this guy wasn’t the best driver. “where to huh? My place or yours?” Leon cracked a smug grin, hoping to lighten the mood judging from the unease you must have felt to be left with a complete stranger but quickly changing his mind after seeing the absolute foul, confidence-shattering side-eye that you just threw him.

If this man doesn't shut up-

"Right-" Leon cleared his throat, his expression changing back to his usual resting one as he looked back ahead, changing the gear to reverse as he backed out of the parking spot. Not even a minute with you and he could already tell you were going to be a blast to be around. You were the complete opposite of Ashley. And as much as he preferred a quiet atmosphere, he'd rather take his chances with Ashley all over again.

Some silence had passed between the two of you once you hit the road and left the base behind, the only sounds being the humming of the car and the wind outside. The drive was scenic in a way, if it were not for the situation at hand. But watching the trees and landscape blur by through the car window almost reminded you of the drives you went on with your father and sister, transporting you back to the road trips where the three of you would listen to the radio while fighting over who's turn it was to play the next song.

You missed your father softly singing along to his music that you at one time used to be annoyed by, your sister and you referring to his taste in music as the "Ancient Ballads of Babylon". And oh how he used to get defensive over it, calling it the "good stuff unlike todays junk", though he was never able to hide back the smile from your little slanders. What you would do to listen to his music again, to be in his truck sitting in the passenger seat reading a book before crawling to the backseat to take a nap with your sister, her head resting on your lap while your rested yours against the window.

Due to how quiet you were, Leon couldn't help but to glance over in your direction to make sure you were still alive, noticing the way you had become lost in thought, your gaze seeming to reach miles away. His eyes traced down to the subtle movement of your hands, watching how your fingers toyed with the dainty beaded bracelet that sat at your right wrist. There were a couple white beads situated together, printed with small black letters that formed a word, or rather a name, but before he could have a chance at reading what it was, you had noticed him looking, causing you to swiftly pull the sleeve of your loose sweater over your wrist. The sudden movement from you had caused Leon to clear his throat as he snapped his head back to the road, as if embarrassed at being caught before clearing his throat. "So uh, are you some bigwig's daughter? The president had requested you specifically."

The president? There was still a president? Well shit.

"Look. I'm just trying to know what I'm dealing with here." Leon put his hand up in defense after the annoyed expression you gave him.

You shook your head lightly at his behavior, heaving out a released breath as you propped your arm up once more, resting your head against your hand and discretely wiping away the tear that was starting to fall down the corner of your eye.

"Doctor huh. What are you, UCLA grad? You strike me as a LA city kind of girl-"

"Harvard." You interrupted.

"So you do speak." Leon shot you a quick smirk, surprised at your sudden input before staring back at the road. "Thought it was just me but....looks like I struck a nerve here. Sooo......Harvard huh? You must be pretty brainy then, surviving a med school like that."

"............" Dear god please.

"You know, you look a little young to be a doctor."

Geez, if that isn't the first time you've heard that one. You wished the man would just shut up and focus on the road. You swore that if he somehow ended up sending the car off a cliff you were going to personally strangle the blond yourself. Actually, come to think of it, if he talked any more you just might take the wheel and drive off a cliff yourself.

"I take it you're not much of a talker." Leon commented on the way you so obviously tried to ignore him. Jesus, did he rub you the wrong way or what. Or was it just the Ivy League attitude? He had heard the talk amongst his old colleagues back at the station about the Ivy League folk that would sometimes come through the town. Overly-educated and stuck up, some of the officers would call them.....if you consider calling someone overly-educated an insult. Perhaps this was what they meant? Seems like you didn't want to even be associated within the same proximity as him.

Rolling your eyes, you twisted around in your seat to reach for your bag, pulling it onto your lap and opening up the zipper before digging into the contents inside.

Leon watched you with curiosity, opening his mouth to ask just what it was you were up to before seeing you pull out a pair of headphones and a portable CD player that looked like you stole right out of the 90s. Keeping the backpack on your lap, you slipped the headphones onto your head, pressing play on the device before pulling your feet up onto the seat and turning towards the window so that your back faced the man in the driver seat.

Leon couldn't help but to shake his head with a light chuckle, taking this as a sign to shut the hell up and let you be in your own little bubble. Maybe you’re just shy. Or maybe you just don’t like him. Or maybe you’ve been through a lot. Who knows.

You watched the trees once more, listening to the song that played through the speakers of your headphones, Fade Into You by Mazzy Star, letting the soft tunes soothe your nerves. And as much as you tried to force yourself to stay awake in order to stay alert for your own safety, you couldn’t help the drowsiness that took over you. The music playing through your headphones, the blur of the trees out the window, and the subtle vibration of the moving car only added to that effect. And slowly, you let yourself slip, your eyelids growing heavy as you finally shut your eyes.

The drive had felt like hours for Leon, but he didn't mind as much. In fact, this was sort of relaxing, just driving, listening to music he enjoyed as it played softly from the radio, the volume lowered as means to not disturb you. This mission was turning out to be less stressful than the others. Or maybe he shouldn't speak too soon.

The young agent would occasionally find himself glancing over in your direction, perhaps to make sure you were okay and weren't dead. He had a bad habit of making sure the people under his care were alive and well and not breathing their last breath….if you would call that a bad habit. As much as this man hides it behind his cold exterior, I am positive he is just as panicky as the rest of us.

Your lack of movement had started to worry the blond, seeing that you have stayed in that position for a couple hours now as he began to wonder just what the hell you could have been doing the whole time in order to stay in the same exact position. (He has his himbo moments.) But the slow shifting of your form had relieved the young man as he watched you turn over on your other side to now face him, getting a glimpse of your closed lids behind the strands of your loose hair that almost covered the look of calm on your face, hearing the small moan that came from your chest in your state of sleep as you shifted around while your brows furrowed together at the center in a look that he could only describe as discomfort from your curled up position on the passenger seat.

One thing he had noticed though, if he listened close enough, he could hear the slight and faint whistle of the air rushing through your nostrils each time you breathed, a sign that usually meant a deviated septum. He didn’t know why, but that tiny detail had somehow set his mind at ease…something so insignificant…so barely noticeable unless you really paid attention to it…almost as if it had made you more human. And the thought of it was comforting to him.

As he looked over your sleeping form, he couldn’t help but to take note of the details that made you: of your hair that looked as if it had not been brushed through, or the dark circles under your eyes, or the little bump on your nose at the bridge, or the faint signs of hyperpigmentation and small little acne scars that lined certain areas of your face, or the light dust of freckles on your nose that were barely visible unless you really took a closer look. Even down to your wardrobe, your oversized navy blue v-neck sweater and the white tee you wore underneath, and your loose-fitted jeans, and your worn in black doc martens. Leon did not know how to describe it, but there was something comforting about you, something that made him feel…at ease. And maybe…just maybe, this mission might not be as bad as he once thought.

Part 2?

[reviewinghiccup]

Hey!!! I’ve gone through your entire list of posts and loved it. There’s a lot of psychoanalysis which makes the work a fun read.

Though I’m curious, what is your biggest inspiration or take-a-way from Hiccup? Do you have any other HTTYD character that equally inspires you. What about the franchise that speaks to you the most?

Sorry if the questions are loaded, but I’m curious, you dissect and approach the franchise in a detailed, humanistic way, I wonder if that’s kind of how you also view the universe.

HELLO DEAR!!! Sometimes I wish you guys weren’t anonymous so that I can find you and thank you for filling up my Inbox with such amazing words of encouragement.

To hear that anyone has just read this blog and enjoyed it really makes my day. I pour my heart into my writing and I just want to say I love answering these questions and I am sorry I took over a year to reply. Before I get to why lemme answer you first.

My biggest inspiration and take-away from Hiccup is:-

He is different

I grew up with Hiccup. When the first movie was released I was the same age he was and going through my own season of not fitting in and awkwardness. I wanted so much to be noticed and recognised. Physically I was also very different. I didn’t fit in anyone’s mould.

Peers are precious about certain things and kids with many friends usually meet their criteria - but I couldn’t. Not even close.

I know how it feels like to be alone and misunderstood, even by my own parents.

but he is always kind…

Hiccup doesn’t subscribe to revenge, at least not around his immediate peers like Snotlout who sometimes, I really do feel he deserves it. He believes that there’s always something, to understand, to fix or to improve. That industriousness actually makes him the perfect leader to propel his people forward into the future. In a world where everyone focuses on what’s on the outside, he hyper fixates on what’s on the inside and if we really start listening to why people say what they said instead of just taking their words literally you hear so much more.

he stewards his gifts well.

He can invent. He’s been inventing before meeting Toothless. He’s good at it. And he meets every physical challenge he has with an invention.

He is also a natural born leader - though he never fit the mould of what a Viking should look like, he fits the mould of what a leader should be. A leader needs to earn his respect, and though still the smaller male Viking, he is very well respected.

He is fearless.

Push comes to shove, Hiccup is reliable, courageous and quick thinking. He does not back down from a challenge. Yet, he isn’t intimidated by others strength - he allows everyone else to hone their skills and be their best selves as he has allowed himself to be.

HICCUP inspires me because his growth and leadership and story comes from him first accepting himself and in time, he becomes everything he was suppose to be. My biggest take-away from him is, you will never lose if you give yourself time to see the bigger picture of why things are the way they are.

Of course I love Hiccup for so much more, but I don’t know how much you’d wanna read 🤣 Nonetheless, on the top of my head, that’s what I think he means to me.

The other HTTYD Character that Equally Inspires me is, of course, ASTRID

To be fair, we know her significantly more than the other characters so it’s natural to fall in love with her.

But they have created a very beautiful character to love.

Astrid is strong and independent, but nothing about that takes away from her femininity. Sometimes I feel like movies/shows about strong independent women make those women so unfeeling and hard.

Astrid feels real to me. She’s driven, self-disciplined and honourable, but she can also be condescending and harsh - and instead of getting defensive about it, she actually listens to that constructive criticism when it comes and changes.

She knows she is born to lead (though not in the same way Hiccup is - which is also admirable because she humbly gives way to him to do his thing) so she needs to learn how to inspire her soldiers, help them improve and make them better. She can’t do that if she always thinks she’s right. That’s what brings about toxic leadership. And she is not toxic.

I admire her dedication to improve. It’s something I love in Hiccup as well, but Astrid just works on herself and her performance. It’s inspiring.

While there’s more, I’ll keep it to these two things for now.

What about the Franchise that Speaks to me Most

Friendship. Trust. Becoming. Young Adulthood. Reality Check. Being lost. Finding Yourself.

So much really. So much.

When I first started writing this blog, I actually lost my grandmother. I loved my grandmother so much. She was warmth, love and life personified.

After she left, I was lost for a very long time, failing exams and switching careers. I couldn’t focus.

This show helped me piece together a lot of my own personal feelings. It helped me think through certain problems. When I synthesised those thoughts into this blog space, I felt like I was dealing with them.

And when I watch Hiccup and Toothless glide in the sky, it made me feel like I am there with them. The soundtrack itself is also very transportive.

I think my favourite thing about the franchise was/is that it made me feel again. At least on the rewatch leading to the creation of this channel.

The franchise when I first watch those movies, when I was really young made me feel “found”, if that makes any sense to you. Because, it talks about not being alone - like how the loneliest dragon could find the loneliest boy Viking. And that these two in turn, found a lonely girl looking for something to see herself in.

Each step of Hiccup’s life was mine. Even when he didn’t want to “take on the family business” and desired to be more than he and the world he’s in is built - that was me, still is me.

This franchise has something for almost everyone. And every which way you turn Hiccup, you will see a small glimpse of yourself in him.

In essence, I think the franchise just speaks and that’s what makes it so damn good.

[your-oddities]

Marble Hornets headcanons !!

but 1/4 of this stuff are just habits i have.

this is due to the fact these characters are literally me.

Jay:

-If a fast food employee gets his order wrong, he’ll do everything in his power to make sure it’s not fixed. Not because he doesn’t care. He just hates having to bother minimum wage workers.

-When he was young he used to cough obnoxiously whilst walking past smokers to make them feel bad. He did this a handful of times with Tim in a couple hotel rooms. But Tim didn’t notice. Or ignored him. Jay never knew which.

-He bumps into EVERYTHING. No spacial awareness at all.

-He has quite few jackets in his closet. Most of them are the exact same because he found one he really liked then just bought like five. neurodivergent boy say what!??!!1!1!

-If you give him pointers or constructive criticism he’ll take them way too personally and feel like he did something wrong. Like really wrong. It’s really not a big deal. To him it is.

-Isn’t superstitious at all. That being said, that one lucky charm he got from an old friend always seems to find itself in his pocket.

-Very sentimental.

Tim:

-Definitely had to be a “he ordered no pickles” kind of guy when he and Jay were out sharing hotel rooms.

-Avoid confrontation at all cost. Unless it’s completely necessary, he just won’t do it. Someone could cuss him out and he’d just stand there wondering how to get out of the situation.

-Honestly… love you Tim, but I imagine his personality to be pretty stale. He never had real good social interaction until Brian came along, meaning not until college. He finds it hard to get past small talk with people he’s recently met.

-If you take him to a Starbucks or something and ask him what he wants he’ll say “uhh.. coffee??”

-Says his favorite band is something like Metallica or Green Day. And don’t get him wrong, he likes those. But he’ll die for The Smiths.

-Never cared about style. Ever. Did you see what he had on in entry #9??

-Still loves his mom. He places some blame on her of course, but he could never bring himself to hate his mother. He knows he was and still is messed up mentally. She handled it best she knew how.

-Uses reading glasses whenever he’s trying to read something on his flip phone. That was until iPhones came out and he got rid of his old phone.

Alex:

-Everybody knows that during Marble Hornets man couldn’t for the life of him chill. He was always angry. But that’s definitely the influence of The Operator. He was actually a really sweet and funny guy pre-MH. Yes, he had his angry moments, but who doesn’t??

-Unless you’re using the most sarcastic tone ever, he can’t understand it. But he’s extremely sarcastic himself. Of course he always tries to make it very clear.

-THICK LENSES. Like bro. Took his parents until he was about five and bumping into absolutely everything to go get his eyes checked.

-Living standing emoji. He didn’t discover putting his hands in his pockets until after he dropped Marble Hornets.

-Watches fiction movies then criticizes the parts that aren’t realistic.

-“Why would you pull that piece of glass out of your leg?? Keep it in until you can see a doctor!” “Alex we’re watching a movie about an alien invasion.”

-Did I mention he speaks to the characters on screen like they’re actually there?

-Denies he’s the dad of the group (he is).

Brian:

-The silly. But we already knew that.

-Extremely social. Extrovert to the max. Doesn’t love parties, but he’ll go to just about any other social event.

-He doesn’t have any idea what personal space is. He’ll hug, pat your back, or just give you small bits of affection every three seconds. Unless someone asks him to stop, of course. It’s just his go-to.

-Actually, Brian’s openness to physical affection is the main reason Tim became good friends with him. He didn’t get a lot of love when he was a child, so it’s something he’s come to crave. And Brian welcomes it with open arms, literally!!

-Loves (most) bitter food. He’ll defend dark chocolate with his life. But he can’t handle black coffee.

-He bit his nails for years on end. When he learned how insanely unsanitary it is, he stopped immediately. Now he just picks at them.

-He’s never not had a dog. Except for that one time he had a ferret.

-Feeds the alley cats. He just loves animals so much. That’s why his parents thought he was gonna be a veterinarian when he grew up.

lil extra stuff abt their sexualities and whatnot!!

Jay - Gay, though that’s basically canon. Aroace but he’s not repulsed by relationships by any means. Romantic or sexual. He’s had his fair share of boyfriends and girlfriends before he found out he dislikes titties. He/him.

Tim - Doesn’t really bother with labels. He knows he likes girls as well as guys, so he just tells everybody he’s queer. He also doesn’t exactly announce this to anybody but his close friends, but he’s demisexual + romantic. He/him but he won’t correct you if you use anything else.

Alex - Born a girl. He was a girl for years because that’s just what everybody called him. Then he watched SheZow when he was like seven and went “whoa… people can change genders??” Years down the line and a bunch of long conversations with close friends lead him to identify as a boy when he was a junior in high school. Of course he got bullied relentlessly for it, so he didn’t actually transitioning until after school. I mean, literally. After the last day of senior year he picked up testosterone for the first time ever. He/they.

Brian - To me, he’s definitely pansexual. He doesn’t care about the parts. Personality is the one thing that matters to him. When he first got into college, he learned what non-binary means and he experimented with a couple different gender labels. But he settled on being demiboy. Any pronouns.

[michellemisfit]

WEEKLY TAG WEDNESDAY - FIRSTS!

Tagged by @suzy-queued @deedala @darlingian @heymrspatel @lingy910y @energievie @mybrainismelted @blue-disco-lights

Name: Michelle

Age: Currently getting a kick out of telling people that I’m nearly 40 and having them go ‘NO WAY!!!’ - It’s funny and flattering :)

First Pet: Siberian gerbils called Tom & Jerry

First Word: No idea. Turns out my parents kept a baby book for my older brother where they painstakingly recorded all of that stuff. I found mine a few years ago and it’s got a grand total of 3 entries, one of which is talking about how chubby I am, and how I am yet to find a food I’ll say no to, and let’s hope that’s not a sign of things to come… after which it was abandoned. Thanks mum.

First Celebrity Crush: Leonardo DiCaprio

First IRL Crush: Dominik. We hung out basically every day after school. I would go round to his house and he would play me the latest Michael Jackson tape and show me new dance steps that he’d taught himself. I thought he was so cool.

First Kiss: Age 14 with my first boyfriend. He was 20 years old. We were in a relationship for over a year. Shit was fucked up. At the risk of repeating myself… Thanks mum.

First Car: Bebop 🚙 He’s my baby and I bought him this year and I love him! He’s a turquoise 2013 Toyota Yaris Hybrid.

First apartment/house/dorm/whatever away from your parents: Heh. I moved straight from my childhood bedroom to a different country. If you’re gonna do something, do it right! lol

First Time on a Plane: I was… 18 months old? Parents went on holidays to Florida. I have about 3 memories from that trip.

First Cellphone: Nokia 3210 😎

First Concert: David Hasselhoff. I was maybe… 6? And I got very tired and slept through the second half, but my parents woke me up for Looking for Freedom, which was my favourite song of his.

First Foreign country you visited? Italy or France most likely. Pure proximity, and most of our family vacations were done by car from Switzerland so…

First sport you ever played? Hmm. I did competitive swimming when I was very young. And then gymnastics. And after that… about five minutes of football (the only sport I to this day do not understand. How do I run AND kick a ball simultaneously?!?), then 3 years of tennis, 2 years of basketball, 8 years of roller hockey, and a whole smattering of other sports on and off.

First career aspiration? I mean… I basically wanted to be a Disney Princess, purely for the Animal Best Friend aspect! And then any form of Animal Whisperer would have done the trick. I watched all the TV shows and movies where characters had magical bonds with animals, and I wanted that. And then I realised that the characters in the shows and movies aren’t real, but the people training and handling those animals *are*. However that wasn’t something realistic to aspire to, being Swiss, so instead I became a bookseller (somehow that made sense at the time… 🤷🏽‍♂️). And then 15 years later, in a different country and a different life, I did end up training animals for TV and film. So that’s kinda nifty.

And finally… tell me about the first time you wrote/drew/created/whatever something that made you think “wow”

Hmmm. I dunno. I thought I was really fucking talented when I was about 12. I wrote a novel and sent it to publishing houses and literary agencies. One of them invited me for an interview, because they thought my writing was great and they wanted to meet the kid that had sent them a manuscript aged 12/13. They ended up giving me a job, working as a admin/secretary/slush pile reader. They also gave me lots of feedback and constructive criticism on my writing. I scrapped the novel I had sent them in favour of writing a different, better novel. I still think that novel was pretty fucking good. I tried to get my mum to proof read it and give me feedback so I could do any necessary corrections before I spent my pocket money on photocopies, C4 envelopes, and a whole bunch of stamps so I could attempt to get it published again. She was dragging her feet and I tried to explain the urgency, because I was clear that it needed to happen before I turned 14. That was the goal in my head. I had huge ambitions and dreams. I was also convinced that if it happened after I turned 14 it wouldn’t be special anymore. Like anyone could do it after 14… 🙄 In response to this my mum told me that she’d had ambition and dreams, too, when she was my age. But not to worry, that’ll go away, and once you’ve put away the fanciful notions of being talented then you can just get on with your life…

Not sure if this actually answers the question, but that was kinda the first and last time I remember feeling uncomplicatedly good about and proud of something I created. After this anything creative I did was always immediately followed by the doubt of ‘is this actually good, or is this just a fanciful notion I have about being talented, when in actual fact it sucks?’ 🤷🏽‍♂️

Wow. Ended that on a downer, didn’t I?

…

Erm… I wrote Tell me we’ll never get used to it,

They’re the only two people left that know what it’s like to have loved and to have lost a Lightwood.

And it’s a good story.

There.

I said it…

Tagging @crossmydna @palepinkgoat @too-schoolforcool @vintagelacerosette @heymacy @loftec @mikhailoisbaby @rereadanon @the-rat-wins @tsuga-of-mars @ian-galagher @andthatisnotfake @francesrose3 @faejilly @jrooc @creepkinginc if you fancy playing? I’m just very exited I’m actually posting this on a Wednesday still! Whoop!!

[rollercoasterwords]

PLEASE tell us your barbie opinions!!!!! pls pls i also have opinions

happy 2 share but i will be putting it under a cut bc. a lot of people seem 2 think this movie is god's gift 2 earth and i am not in the mood 2 deal w barbie evangelists lol so if u do not want 2 see barbie movie criticism just scroll away

will preface by saying i enjoyed the movie i thought it was fun etc + i don't think there's anything wrong with enjoying it or finding it fun or even feeling very personally empowered/seen by what the movie had to say. that's all very nice on a personal level and i understand why so many people are finding the movie cathartic.

that being said i do not think the movie was feminist or subversive by a long shot and seeing so many people talk about how radical it was makes me feel like i'm being gaslit!!! like. did we watch different movies lmao. maybe i'd understand a little more why everyone was being taken in if barbie had like, gone to the real world and fought patriarchy in the movie--but she didn't even do that! they introduce the concept of real-world patriarchy only to have barbie go back to barbieland and destroy fake barbie patriarchy (which is rooted simply in one man's insecurity and easily resolved by gently encouraging him to seek self-worth outside his relationship--not exactly a cutting examination of the material investment that men have in patriarchy which makes it so difficult to challenge) and leave real-world patriarchy intact at the end (the big #feminist moment for real women is...mattel's sexist ceo saying he'll use a woman's idea for the next barbie, since he can make a lot of money off it? he doesn't even say he's going to pay her for the idea lmao).

so all in all the whole "barbie destroys patriarchy" bit of the movie just. did not feel particularly feminist to me beyond a very surface level acknowledgment that sexism exists and is bad. and like--i get that it's the barbie movie, and people could say "well of course it can't be that subversive but it did a good job for what it was!!" but i'm just like. ok yeah then let's call it what it was...instead of calling it subversive?? also every feminist message the movie tried to champion was immediately undermined by its fundamental investment in gender essentialism, which remains unchallenged throughout the whole film. like--barbies are literally canonically sexless and so u can't even try to argue that the gender binary which their society is based around is anything but 100% socially constructed, and we see that that gender binary affords privilege to some and not to others and also leads to ostracization of those who fail to conform to it, yet the happy ending of the movie is barbieland just...staying that way. and i feel like the movie then kinda says the quiet part out loud when barbie becomes a "real woman" by getting a vagina like...ok. lol

so like. even the interior politics of the film i struggle to understand how it could be considered groundbreaking feminism; and then when we zoom out and look at the material impact of the movie that just cements it as un-feminist to me. this is a really good article about the beauty standards being pushed + perpetuated by barbie marketing, and of course as with basically any hollywood movie the rich (and mostly rich men) will be getting richer, cycles of consumerism will be perpetuated, etc. honestly the "feminist" aspect of the film almost feels insidious to me in this context, as if it's meant to provide the catharsis of feeling like there's been some big challenge to patriarchy while quietly reinforcing the systems of oppression it publicly decries.

and like. at the end of the day i was not expecting barbie to be a subversive feminist film nor do i think it like...has a responsibility to be one. and it's nice that so many people feel like they're getting something out of it! but i think it's important to evaluate both the personal and societal impact of the media we're critiquing, and in that context it just seems silly to me to claim that barbie is subversive. i also find the amount of rhetoric i've seen about how the movie "encapsulates the female experience" so fucking irritating lmfao like...i am sorry but the idea that watching a group of hyperfeminine women flirt with men as a method of destroying patriarchy (<- not an exaggeration that is literally the plot. flirt with each other's boyfriends to make them jealous so they fight each other. zero lesbians in barbieland i suppose) is THE quintessential experience of #womanhood...well alright then.

anyway. there is more i could say but i am going 2 get dinner w a friend so. stopping here <3 not gonna post the link but i do have a full/in-depth review on my substack if u wanna poke around over there!

[donnerpartyofone]

We have all this baggage around the ideas of creativity and originality, and I think that the situation would be better understood in terms of consumption and production. Like, in what proportion do you, the individual, consume versus produce something new. There is usually a moral flavor to the word "consumerism", and like obviously abject materialism has a lot of problems and it really matters WHAT you consume. You can be a major consumer of all kinds of arts and crafts and things that are good for you and/or your community, and there's nothing wrong with that. You can also be a curator or scholar of things, which is kind of a hybrid consumer/producer status where you're constructively shedding light on and guiding the consumption of certain things. Similarly I think the idea of "creativity" is poorly understood, or at least it's a term that gets used in a limited way that has something to do with being abstractly "artistic" and "thinking outside the box" and having originality--concepts that can distract unfairly from whether a product is actually GOOD or not. I mean you can make something very novel just to find out that it's rare because it's not a good concept; you can also make something that doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it's really finely realized and either emotionally or physically useful and inspiring. It seems to me that instead of speaking glibly about "consumerism" and "creativity", it's more interesting AND less morally onerous to talk about consumption versus production. The pleasure of consumption is probably pretty universal, where the pleasure of production can be impeded by self-criticism, the limits of your personal perspective, and your limited ability to surprise yourself. You'll think I'm joking but when you're trying to make something that you yourself find exciting, you can run into the same type of problem as how you can't tickle yourself, or like, that joke about masturbating with your non-dominant hand and calling it "the stranger". It's totally understandable that it's rarer to be productive; skill at any given craft is not universal, and the ability to generate an exciting idea is not universal--and it could be that you have both but it's too hard or confusing to get your own approval. I think about this a lot while I'm doing serious fictional writing for the first time. I have stories that I'm totally committed to, and that excite me in some unique way, but the pleasure of production will never compare to the pleasure of consuming someone else's products. If I could get away with it I would do nothing but watch other people's movies and read other people's books until my body is done living, but I feel this compulsion to at least try producing something myself, no matter what becomes of it or how hard it is, just because I feel like I might be able to. But I don't sense a hierarchal relationship between consumption and production. It's all just a matter of what you feel like you can do.

[majaloveschris]

Sorry but I think Chris actually is good and very handsome man however not a good scenario picker. Even his many fan accounts on twitter are like “chris evans finally chose some good scenario” “fuck pain hustlers and ghosted” “i think he changed his agency” and many like these. Like even his own fans don’t think his movies are being something hit except few ones so yeah I am also his fan and support him not his “marriage” but people also need to see that the fans can judge his career or be realistic about it even if they support him

I mean, we all have different tastes and opinions, and to be honest with you, I like both Ghosted and Pain Hustlers. He obviously was way better in PH, but I think Ghosted wasn't that bad either.

I know a lot of people dislike Ghosted for understandable reasons, but I think it's a lighthearted, fun movie that isn't supposed to be taken seriously. I liked it, and I occasionally rewatch it when I want something to distract me from my problems.

I also really like Pain Hustlers. I think he did a great job in it, and I liked his acting. It's not a movie I would rewatch several times due to its heavy theme, but I really liked it, and I think if they were able to promote it, it would've made much more noise. But it still didn't perform that badly.

Maybe I'm the only one, but I don't think he needs hit projects after hit projects or that it is a reasonable expectation. I think it's better if you have generally good-performing movies than one big one.

Everybody has a different idea about a good project or movie, so he won't be able to make everyone happy with his choices, but he doesn't have to. But I definitely agree that people are allowed to let their opinion be known; just do it with respect. He is a public figure, and yeah, he has to deal with constructive criticism, whether it comes from critics or fans. But, as I said before, respect is really important.

[oftlunarialmoon]

No Expiration Date on Fun!

originally posted to www.onlyfunthings.org on February 22, 2017

Ciao lovelies! Today I have an opinion piece for you about societal expectations, breaking the norm, and having fun!

This post was inspired by many anonymous comments criticizing my hobbies. Their main argument is that I am too old to enjoy things like dolls and Monster High.  So I’m here to explain my opinion on this matter! And, acknowledging that I am putting my opinion on the internet, I know that somehow, some anonymous person will find fault with it. So forewarning, I’m not answering any “trolling” comments, meaning if your only commentary is “lol ur lame for liking dolls” you’ll be respectfully ignored. Let’s get into it!

Part 1- Acknowledging Societal Influences

I’d like to begin by acknowledging the depth of influence that society has on the individual. To understand this, we must understand the different levels of society. Every country is a society, states inside that country are also societies within the main society, then counties and cities, etc, etc.. Where someone comes from will influence what societal norms they were affected by.

A common societal expectation in American society (and the one we’re focusing on in this piece) is the idea of what it means to be an adult, and that adults can’t enjoy “childish” things.

In the earlier days of American society, there were very rigid expectations and ideas on what it meant to be a bonafide adult. But around the 1960’s-1970’s, this rigid construct became a lot more flexible, and as time moved forward, different lifestyles became legitimized for the “American Adult.” Fun became not only allowed, but encouraged, and not just the boring kinds of fun either. The ideas for what was a legitimate recreational pursuit for the American Adult were wildly diverse and interesting.

But even though we have come so far in terms of these ideas, society has still maintained a talon grip on certain biases and ideals for “true adults.” The main  ideal that is still foolishly upheld by society that I want to open dialogue about today is this old-world notion that things marketed towards children can’t be enjoyed by adults.

Part 2- On a Personal Level

To bring things back to the point of the piece, let’s make it personal. I enjoy many “childish” hobbies. I unironically like Monster High, the show, movies, and merchandise. The message behind it is really great; celebrating diversity and being yourself, and being proud of your heritage. 

They even have an episode teaching viewers not to be patronizing towards people with disabilities.

Something like Monster High, with such a good message and great lessons, shouldn’t be limited to children! I think some adults need these lessons too.

Part 3- A Return to Generalization

To continue, let’s return to a general sense. There are many “Children-oriented” things that can be enjoyed by adults. One of these is the hobby of collecting dolls!

Despite how common it is for adults to collect dolls, there is still a social stigma attached to it. Many different media portray adult doll collectors as creepy, mentally unstable, possibly violent or predatory people. Just look at Criminal Minds, where they had an episode where a woman accidentally kills other women trying to make herself new dolls. (Not that I’m saying I dislike Criminal Minds, but they do perpetuate some mental illness and societal stereotypes.)

In reality, adult doll collectors are usually quite normal. Some may collect dolls for photography purposes, some are parents who collect dolls with their children, some repaint the doll’s faces to create beautiful works of art, some may just enjoy dolls.

Similarly, video game use by adults used to be heavily stigmatized, adults who played video games were seen as nerds, shut-ins, or losers: Now, there are many jobs in the video game industry, and a legitimate possibility of success via playing video games on platforms like YouTube or Twitch.

Thinking of changing standards brings me to…

Part 4- Breaking The Norms

To think about breaking a societal norm/expectation scares most people, and for good reasons. Society is very protective of its norms, and has developed methods to protect them, much like a mama bear with her cubs.

But we shouldn’t fear backlash from expressing ourselves! Society is crafted, controlled, and run by those within the society, meaning that WE, you reading this, your friends, your family, me: We have the power to change society, and we should.

What do you all think? Do you agree that adults shouldn’t be stigmatized for liking “childish” things? Do you think hobbies shouldn’t be labelled based on age? Let me know in the comments! I love hearing your opinions, or even if you have other ideas, links, articles, etc!

Thank you for reading!

 I have found that I really enjoy writing opinion pieces. Do you all enjoy reading them? Let me know!

[casp1an-sea]

Thoughts on Rey Standalone film?

OK I’m trying to be more open minded than I previously was. Do I think it’s going to be a good movie? No. Am I mad they’re making the movie? Kind of. Is that just for petty reasons? Mostly. I’m not going to sugarcoat it.

I dislike Rey. I have explained before why that is and I’m trying to be a bit more civil about it especially now that I have friends that are Rey fans. I personally think if they are making a standalone movie, they should explore the characters that have more potential for growth. Of course they could introduce a character flaw in this movie but I feel it’s a bit late and I don’t really see A very compelling story from Rey considering the canon that we have. Because you know, Palpatines granddaughter to me is not really something I want them to explore more, and we’ve already seen Jedi’s struggling to teach their powers to someone else before, so that isn’t really unique to me. That is all I can really think that they could do with her character. Aside from like romance and I am not a FinnRey shipper, even though I know that is a very popular ship. I’d probably only be interested in the relationship mildly if it was a lesbian one, and God knows Disney is not gonna do that. (they should confirm it and rebuild the galaxy though evil Rose x Darth Rey is cool.) and even then I would only be interested in it because I appreciate lesbian representation that doesn’t necessarily mean that I would be invested in the ship because I simply just do not care about Rey’s relationships and honestly, it would be equally cool if they revealed her as being Ace Aro which they also won’t do (she does give Ace vibes though). Anyway, I went on a tangent.

Now a stand alone movie about Finn I would understand, Poe even though I feel like Finn would make more sense. In fact, I think a flashback movie dedicated to Kylo Ren, and how he fell to the Darkside and his first days in the order would be great. Arguably the most interesting option. And I’m not just saying that because I like Kylo a lot. (I know logistically getting Adam driver to reprise The role is probably a lot harder than getting Daisy Ridley to. I’m just saying it would be cool.)

now that brings me to the petty reason, you know aside for me just not liking her character. It’s just gonna remind me that Kylo is dead. And I don’t think he should be dead, and that angers me. And then it’s just a pipeline because if I start thinking about Kylo, then I start thinking about Hux and how I’m angered about what happened to him. Which will also intern, make me feel angered about how they treated the entire first order in general, when in my opinion, they were far more interesting than the republic and resistance. So I’m just going to spiral for a bit. And I’m also going to be thinking about how the movie would be different if those people were alive and how I would probably like it better. And also how I’m just mad at Disney, and Disney, Star Wars in general, which will lead me down a rabbit hole of being depressed about acolyte cancellation again.

anyway all of this to stay if you are excited for the movie and you want to watch the movie then good for you. I’m glad you can be excited about something Star Wars even if I don’t share the same sentiment. And if they make the movie and I hate it, I’m not going to come attack you I’m not going to harass, you with hate comments and constantly talk directly to you about how I feel it’s bad just because I know you like it, and I’m not going to say how I think it should be removed from Disney. Because just because I don’t like some thing does not give me the right to ruin it for the fans. If it’s not for me, I just will not watch it Again. And I will share my criticism in constructive ways towards people that want to hear it and asked for it. (yes, this is me being passive aggressive to acolyte haters) And I will, by no means come for the Actors. Poor Daisy, Ridley has to deal with enough from all of the male fans getting pissed that she said she couldn’t change the way how SOME men saw a women. Like come on people we are adults.

[finniestoncrane]

OH I DIDN’T KNOW WE COULD DO MORE THAN ONE. Okay so I will also send in a blind date request :)

I’m not sure how much info you need so I’ll give you the basics

- I consider myself to be pretty quiet? Not intentionally I just happen to stumble over words a lot so :P I’m pretty detail oriented and everything in my house is either super ultra organized or an absolute mess, no in between. When it comes to dating I really just like someone who I can watch movies with (and have like a pretty interesting conversation about what we’re watching) AND someone who will give me good art feedback. More basic info is that I’m a tattoo artist, about to turn 22, and I have a relatively thick southern accent!

This was fun, I hope I gave you the info you needed :D

💜 blind date 💜 the kitchen is now closed! 🔞minors dni🔞 • masterlist • kofi link • tag: finnie1500 (to follow or to block) a/n: is it a blind date when you know who i'm putting you with??? lmao💚

“Welcome to the Vill-Inn! You're lucky to get a double date, or at least... a date with two handsome guys!”

There's only one man at the table you're pointed towards, but as you take a better look on your way over, you realise you know exactly who you're going to be seated across from.

"Harvey Dent. Although, I guess the work I've done as Two Face has superceded the fame I got as Harvey, doing what good I could do."

He seemed slightly bitter, but he warms up quickly. Especially when he realises he's spent the first fifteen minutes of your date talking about himself and his past as the district attorney, and then a further fifteen minutes arguing with himself about how much more important his work in the criminal underworld is, without you interrupting once.

"You're quiet. Or we're loud. It's one of the two, but it works, right?"

When you finally do say something, he's completely enamoured with your accent. Harvey finds it charming, he makes a joke about how Southern lawyers always seem more wholesome and trustworthy. Harv chimes in with a comment about how it makes it sound like you might be up for getting rowdy and dirty. You roll your eyes with a smile.

He asks where you live, and mentions the apartments there are nice. His interest is piqued when you mention that yours is a bit nice, a bit messy. That you can be cluttered an organised. That your space reflects both sides of your personality. With a wink and a chuckle he tells you he understands that all too well.

At one point, he excuses himself to take an important call, and when he returns to find that you've been doodling on the napkin he requests to take a closer look.

"Is that... is that me? Is that us? Wow. It's amazing. Always nice to see how you look through the eyes of someone else, and I like the way I look through yours."

Two Face is... less impressed with how you've drawn his side of Harvey. He offers some 'constructive criticism' as he puts it, and though Harvey apologises, you tell him not to. It's nice to hear feedback, positive and... 'constructive'.

At the end of the meal, Harvey refuses to let you pay. He tips the waitstaff with a crisp $100 bill and stands up, pulling your chair out for you. Ever the gentleman. Although, it's nice to have his other half leaning in close to smell your neck, a bit more forward than Harvey, but a nice contrast.

Outside, you say goodbye and move to grab a taxi, but Harvey waves the one who stops off. You're confused, but intrigued.

"Dinner and a movie, huh doll? There are two of us, you owe us a date each."

[heavencasteel420]

Maddie - Yay, great! 👏🏼

Here are the questions! Looking forward to reading your responses… 😊

I mostly have ideas for multi-chapter fics, especially when it comes to Jancy, but I think I like writing one-shots more.

I usually do a very rough outline before starting a chapter (a list of scenes/plot points/goals) but revise it a lot as I go (like deciding to combine two scenes or insert a new one).

Usually I have a couple of vague ideas about plot points and vibes first. For example, with Drive All Night, it occured to me that the S1 Jancy scene where they practice shooting in the woods had Bonnie and Clyde vibes, and then I saw the 1932 movie Wild Boys of the Road and liked how it escalated from "teen comedy set during Depression" to "bleak chaotic Depression Era social drama with really satisfying violence." I let those ideas percolate a little and maybe ramble about them on Tumblr or to my IRL friend who's never watched Stranger Things. Then I write a first chapter to see if it has legs. If I'm having fun and feel intrigued about what's going to happen next, I continue. With one-shots, I usually have a specific idea I want to convey, so I think more about the overall arc I want and how each scene pushes towards that.

I get a lot of ideas from watching other media and deciding that I want to put characters in that kind of situation. I have a Jancy-Byler idea (pretty low on things that I'd actually write) where Jonathan, Will, and El are siblings who have powers (mind-reading, being a medium, and telekinesis, respectively) during the 1930s and work for carnivals before deciding to run a con on the town of Hawkins (particularly the Wheeler and Harrington families, about to unite through the marriage of Nancy and Steve). This came about because I love the movie The Brothers Bloom and had recently watched the remake of Nightmare Alley. Sometimes fandom discourse provides inspiration. For Tonight, Tonight, for example, I got annoyed with people not understanding why Jonathan initially thinks Joyce is losing her mind re: the lights and so decided to write an AU where his worst fears come to pass; exploring the consequences for Nancy kind of followed from that.

I've participated in a lot of writing workshops and really appreciate constructive criticism in the right context, but on a fanfic I've already posted, from someone whose tastes/goals may be very different from my own, is not that context. People are entitled to their opinions, but at that point I'm probably not going to change anything.

I don't have my work beta'd.

I have two dual POV WIPs going right now (Tonight, Tonight and my not-yet-posted Robin-and-Jonathan friendship fic) and two fics (Drive All Night and Ugly as Sin) with a single POV. It depends partly on who's the main character (Ugly as Sin is way more about Chrissy than Eddie or anyone else), who's going through the more dramatic changes (Nancy in Drive All Night), and how much information I want to convey.

I like the middle of a story, because that's when everything gets complicated. Endings are the hardest to write.

Yes, I comment, but not as much as I would like to!

“Look, I get it,” she said, blinking rapidly. “Robin’s the pretty one. But she’s also really immature and flaky, and she’s never going to go out with you.” [Spoken to Jonathan by one of Robin's friends; he knows she's a lesbian and does not in fact want to go out with her, but he's like "hey" on her behalf.]

Off the top of my head: already wise, already worn by throttlegainwell; How Do We Get to There from Here? by nyctanthes; and where the hours bend by fakelight.

I don't need a ton of feedback, but just one person saying that they like or want to see more of something makes all the difference.

Don't get too attached to your vision of how a scene/chapter should go if it's not working in the moment. Also, if I want to do something weird or risky or gross, it's probably actually a good idea.

Sometimes emotional scenes come really easy, but other times I have to sit down and outline everything the characters might be feeling so I can decide how much to reveal/describe. There's always a decision to be made how direct to be about a character's feelings; there's a time to convey it really subtly through how the character perceives their environment and their body language and all, but there's also a time to go "he felt like shit." And I do feel what the characters feel, quite often! I cried a lot writing Tonight, Tonight, let me tell you. I also draw from personal experience a lot, although it's not always super-direct.

There's so much pressure in writing smut scenes! I generally don't try to make them "sexy" so much as I try to convey what the characters are feeling (i.e., that they like looking at each other and enjoy what they're doing). How graphic I get usually depends on the character's attitude and the pacing of the story. I value sexual frankness in writing in general, though.

Three active WIPs (two posted) and twenty other ideas, roughly. My two big ideas are (a) a slice-of-life No Upside Down AU centered on Nancy, Jonathan, Mike, and Will and (b) a film noir homage with some Gone Girl stuff going on.

I leave it for a little while. Then I go back and try to figure out where I stopped getting interested, or I skip to the "good part."

I usually come up with a title towards the beginning of the writing process and then change it a million times. Mostly I get titles from song lyrics.

Looking at "additional tags" only, "Child Abuse" and "Minor Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler" are in the lead. Jonathan and Chrissy are both going through it usually, and I do like writing Steve and Nancy as a temporary romance.

For some reason, "Jonathan buys a used car from Lonnie" is a scenario that comes up a lot? I like writing about food, clothes, and money. I like putting in random stuff that isn't really part of the current pop culture vision of the 1980s, like holdovers from the 1970s or how much awful TV everyone was watching.

Probably! I used to write stories with my best friend when we were in middle school (mostly original stuff) and that was always really fun.

I probably wouldn’t write a crossover with a work that’s already shown up a lot in the fandom (like It, The Black Phone, or Scream).

If you cut a passage from a story, save it in a separate document because it could be useful later.

So many people insist that “cum,” not “come,” should be used as a verb for orgasming, but that’s not true unless you’re going for the sleaziest vibe possible (no judgment).

I've been happy with the response on all my fics, but Tonight, Tonight, the Highway's Bright has a special place in my heart because it's so weird and sad.

Drive All Night, due to all the murders and crimes.

My favorite part is when you get a really good but unexpected idea, either out of the blue or after mulling things over for a while. My least favorite part is getting stuck on a scene because you can't figure out how to say that a character got up from a chair or something really silly like that.

250-500 hundred words, probably.

I'm a slow writer but I edit pretty fast. I check for typos and I take out unnecessarily wordy bits.

I share bits of rough drafts but not the whole thing.

[forthoseinterested]

Anime reviews

I’m not that into anime, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense for me to rate and review every anime series that I’ve ever seen, but I’m going to do it anyway. There were a few on TV when I was young that I got into watching (Inuyasha, Sailor Moon); the rest I didn’t see til my mid 20s. In total, I’d say I’ve seen 11.

If you’re not into anime, the brief glimpses you get into the anime world can make it seem strange and off-putting. The characters all talk weird, they yell certain lines at random, everybody is an exaggerated stereotype, that girl’s breasts are weirdly big and everyone’s skirts are weirdly high and those camera angles are really unnecessary. Then somehow the writing and dialogue feels like it was made for kids. It’s like a whole made by and for horny teenagers.

But as with anything, you have to find the good stuff. Most of any category of thing is going to be bad. Like, most books are bad, most movies are bad, most music sucks. Our idea of what’s good is relative, and we only ever really like the best of a given category that we find. I say that I like metal music for example, but out of all metal music out there, how much have I heard? I’m probably just listening to the top 5% of it I’ve come across or something.

I’ve been pretty careful about what anime series I waste my time with. I try watching one episode, and if it’s bad then I just quit. These are all series that were at least tolerable enough for me to keep watching. And then some of them ended up being really good.

Little Witch Academia (2017)

rating: 3/5 — length: 25 episodes

It has the vibe of the early Harry Potter movies, but if Hogwarts was an all-girls school. Then it goes off in a totally different direction, in terms of characters, theme, and story. The show is often super cheesy, but it’s also just one of the most wholesome things I’ve ever seen, and fortunately it has none of the pervy weirdness featured in a lot of the other anime with teenage girl characters (don’t lewd my akko!).

The protagonist is Atsuko (pronounced ‘ought-sko’) Kagari, known by her nickname Akko (‘aw-koh’). I first watched Little Witch Academia shortly after it came out during a fairly bad time in my life and this character warmed my stupid heart. She’s adorable, guileless, and kind, somebody with a childlike wonder and innocence and curiosity about the world. It’s a personality-archetype that many other shows try to pull off, but none as well as this one.

Akko’s dream was to attend magic school, and she gets in, which makes her very happy—but then it turns out she’s not good at school. She falls behind in her classes and she struggles at things that seem to come more naturally to her peers. But she remains positive and perseverant and just keeps trying. I loved her blossoming friends-turned-enemies dynamic with Diana, the uncovering of mysteries about their intertwined past, learning about her hero Shiny Chariot, and the great introduction of a central villain half-way through the series.

For me, a great protagonist is often enough to carry everything else, and I did just love Akko as a protagonist. She makes this show. Diana and Croix are great characters too, and the general world that LWA creates is also enjoyable—but overall, I suspect that if you don’t appreciate Akko the way that I do, LWA wouldn’t be that great critically speaking. Just solid.

Death Note (2006)

rating: 5/5 — length: 37 episodes

This series is so ubiquitously praised that I wonder if there’s anything more I need to say about it. I feel like everybody who’s aware of it probably already understands it’s good.

Death Note is a well-constructed drama with a fascinating premise, and it doesn’t fail on the execution. It starts strong, it ends strong, it’s strong all the way through. I was truly impressed the first time I saw it, and that’s still how I feel now. There’s so much back-and-forth intrigue and things change up frequently enough that it never feels stupid or stale. The character’s motivations make sense, they do a good enough job answering or covering potential plot-holes for suspension of disbelief, the rules of the world are consistent. It’s just incredible.

I’ve heard some people didn’t like the character of Misa Amane because she just felt too unreal, too crazy, too hard to believe and take seriously—but girls like that exist. Hell, I bet a lot of girls who watched Death Note would’ve done what Misa did. Some people are crazy.

The low point of the series is probably that brief window right after that one character’s death, and some people say they stop watching at that point. In my opinion, it picks up and ends up being interesting again soon afterwards, and the entire series is worth watching. I think this was the only time I was so hooked by an anime that I binge watched like a dozen episodes at a time on first viewing.

Fullmetal Alchemist (2003)

rating: 4/5 — length: 51 episodes

This was an interesting series. It felt expansive, so many characters and stories and places. What genre do people consider this? It’s like those video games that are just called ‘action-adventure’ for lack of better term. It’s ‘kid-friendly’, but apparently all that means is there’s no sex or swearing. It explores some pretty dark and disturbing themes, and I know adults who quit after the chimera dog-girl plot over on. They also really tried to hit us in the gut when Hughes died and we had to listen to his daughter crying at the funeral. Like, the fuck?

Edward and Alphonse are well-conceived protagonists, the world felt so varied, and the rules and structure of the fictional world were clearly thought out. There’s lots of great twists (like their dead mother’s body still being around as a villain because failed attempts at human transmutation are what create homunculi), great characters (Roy, mon cœur), but centre stage in what made Fullmetal Alchemist excellent was its excellent overarching story, as their search for the Philosopher’s Stone leads them to delve into the history of conflict between their country of Armestris and the neighbouring region of Ishval.

The manga the TV series is based on hadn’t finished yet by the time the anime was wrapping up, so the people making the show just had to wing it and make up an ending. And what they came up with was actually pretty good. They added a character named Dante to serve as the final-boss villain, and the plan and motivation that gets revealed is satisfying. Then it gets wild and they leave the anime world and go interact with real-life historical Nazis for some reason, which was surprisingly well-done for how stupid that sounds on paper.

They ended up completely remaking this series in 2009–2010, which was called Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, incorporating the ‘real ending’ instead of that Nazi arc, and generally following the manga more closely. That went on to become one of the most highly rated anime series of all time. Maybe I’ll watch it someday.

Inuyasha (2002)

rating: 3/5 — length: 167 episodes, then 26 more, and 4 movies

First of all, Inuyasha has some of the most painfully cringe-inducing dialogue ever. Nearly every time the main cast is talking to each other, I’m dying of second-hand embarrassment. There’s always an awkward, pseudo-romantic tension that you’re waiting to break, and it just never does. They’re always saying the wrong thing, falling on their face socially. It’s just all fucking awkward. That may be partly the localization team’s fault, but part of it also feels intentional, because it’s part of how we get more invested in the Inuyasha–Kagome ship that always feels just over the horizon. They must like each other, but neither of them will say! They’re both embarrassed! How long can it go on? Fucking hell.

This is also one of those shows that probably accidentally gave a bunch of the audience fetishes without them realizing it. Inuyasha sort of has a female-dominant pet-play dynamic going on with Kagome, with the brilliant excuse that neither of them signed up for it. In the pilot, Inuyasha is a powerful hanyō (a Japanese word basically a spirit or demon?), but wears a special artefact called the beads of subjugation, allowing Kagome—and only Kagome—to topple him over just by saying ‘sit’ (get it? because he’s a dog). So Kagome, an ordinary and by extension physically weak human with no magical powers or whatever, is the only one who can dominate the otherwise powerful and dominant Inuyasha, and it’s important for plot reasons that Inuyasha do anything he can to protect her. Also, they lowkey have feelings for each other, but the writers are just going to go ahead and tease you with that for another 160 episodes.

The world of Inuyasha is awesome. It goes through so many different acts and locations (the Gang of Seven, Mount Hakurei, the whole story about Ninmenka—the demon-tree that turned people into fruit). They did a great job not only capturing the aesthetic and feel of ‘feudal Japan’, but making the world these characters inhabit feel enormous. I don’t think it’s an easy feat for shows to make their worlds feel big. (For an example of a series that fails at this, look at Star Wars. In universe, the world is way bigger than almost any other media, but the stories they tell within the Star Wars franchise makes the universe feel very small, because you don’t see that many different settings, the same small group of characters all just keep bumping into each other, and travel happens off-screen or in an instant.)

I thought about this for a while before committing to this: I really do think Naraku (left, with black hair) is the best villain that I’ve ever seen, ever, in anything. His aesthetic is perfect. He’s ominous, manipulative, mysterious, you don’t even know who he is at first. And whenever he was around, there was an amazingly iconic and sinister track that would play, which has been etched into my memory ever since.

Here, listen to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSzVNoX57mA

Inuyasha’s older brother, Sesshōmaru (right, with white hair), is the coolest wandering anti-hero ever. He’s extremely stoic and arrogant; he reminds me of a vampire. But he’s a peak example of ‘anti-hero’ as a concept. He’s not evil, he’s not really good, but he has conflict with Inuyasha, and he spends almost the entire anime basically just wandering around doing his own thing. He has his own personal journey of self-reflection, pondering the purpose of his existence and his place in the world, after his father died and left him an object of healing instead of killing (which he left to Inuyasha—why, father?). He ends up sort of ‘adopting’ this little girl he saves named Rin, in his own confusion, and they develop a funny relationship where she follows him because she has nowhere else to go and she thinks he must be a great guy because he saved her, and he doesn’t even really understand why he’s taking care of her, he just does.

There’s also too many characters for me to go over them all. Kikyo, Sango and Miroku, Shippo. My god, Shippo is great! I love Shippo!

At the end of the day, I don’t recommend Inuyasha. Like I said at the start, it’s a really awkward show, the dialogue is painful, albeit in sort of a fun way. The story is very expansive, but could also feel drawn out. It’s by far the longest anime I’ve ever sat through. It’s a show that I remember positively and its fantasy world and characters have meaningfully stuck with me ever since I first encountered it, but I predict that most people would rate it as ‘just okay’ and not really worth the time investment given how long it is.

Cowboy Bebop (1998)

rating: 5/5 — length: 26 episodes and done (though there’s also a movie I didn’t see).

This is another series that receives what feels like universal praise. I went in with high expectations and—after a few rocky episodes near the beginning (that weird enviro-terrorist episode? and the child who never ages??)—by the ending I wasn’t disappointed at all. The pieces came together, and overall they managed to pull off something fantastic.

The world of Cowboy Bebop is often described as a ‘space Western’. The space part is because it takes place in a pseudo-futuristic world of 2071, where any normal person can buy a small starship and fly to Mars if they feel like it, but our television sets are still bulky and full of vacuum tubes. It’s like the Star Wars approach to tech, except there’s no such thing as ‘warp’ or faster-than-light travel, meaning nobody is ever getting out of our solar system. The world is realistically gritty and dirty—not dark and dystopian, but balanced, like if there’s been relatively little social change from the 1990s (when the series was made).

This type of world has similarities to the early American westward expansion. The structures of our society are spread thin because we’re suddenly exploring all this new space and we haven’t got a great handle on the available technology yet, so we’re suddenly awash in opportunity and resources but also crime and chaos. To compensate for their limited resources while trying to get a handle on organized crime, the police issue bounties for known criminals—and the starting main characters, Spike and Jet, are bounty hunters. They ride around in their small spaceship, which they call the Bebop (‘bee-bop’). That’s the episode-one premise.

The music and animation of Cowboy Bebop contribute to its unique aesthetic. It has a distinctly artsy, jazzy feel with a wide range of pace, from slower, more solemn moments to action-oriented fights or chases with fast energy. So much effort went into the landscapes and environments, the city streets, and score that Cowboy Bebop ends up being impressive purely as a work of art, like the 1988 anime film Akira.

As with many shows, Cowboy Bebop starts off more episodic, but then after getting comfortable it introduces more overarching elements. Its major theme is one that fits well with the cowboy analogy: the misfit, the wanderer, the person who has nowhere to go, nowhere to go back to. They’re lost in the world. That’s what the main cast all have in common. And after their paths cross, all they have is each other. For a time, the Bebop becomes home.

Eventually, we learn Spike was once a member of the Red Dragon Crime Syndicate, but after getting into a conflict with other members, he ran away and can never go back—their policy is that anybody who leaves the Syndicate must be killed, and he’s therefore (to them) a wanted man, indefinitely. Jet, meanwhile, is a former cop who became disillusioned by corruption on the force, leading to other police members betraying and attempting to murder him (he survived, but lost his entire left arm, now replaced with a mechanical one).

A few episodes in they encounter Faye, a woman on the run with no memory of who she is or where she came from. She has nothing to go back to. Then they meet Edward—who’s less of a main character than the other three—a strange teenage girl (who’s often mistaken for a boy) who was abandoned by her family and then ran away from the orphanage, with no clear plan for the future and, like the others, nothing secure she could fall back on.

Something else Cowboy Bebop does excellently is the characterization of its two male protagonists, Jet and Spike. They’re both strong, competent guys with their own ups and downs. I loved their personalities and their enduring friendship.The world Cowboy Bebop depicts is rather diverse. I think in the 90s, everybody assumed there would be less racial division in the future, because humanity would all move around and intermingle more. There’s a lot of random black and other racial minority characters, and they’re all different from each other and overall portrayed reasonably.

A brief part that some people would say hasn’t aged as well is in the two-parter Jupiter Jazz, when Spike encounters a gay male drag queen or crossdresser named Julius. Faye also meets somebody named Gren, who reveals he’s gay, and then later it’s revealed he has female breasts due to having been forcibly subject to experiment in the past.

If a Western animation studio were given a script like this today, they would likely have played it more sensitively or delicately—but there was nothing really negative about this episode, and I like how it ended up. It wasn’t sugarcoated or walking on eggshells. Neither Gren, Julius, nor the couple other crossdressers you briefly see are intended to be transgender, at least there’s no clear sign of that. It’s a guy who was given female hormones against his will, and some gay guys who are crossdressing in a gritty industrial setting. The show doesn’t encourage the audience to have a problem with these people. They’re simply portrayed.

In the late 90s, the concept of a trans person didn’t really exist yet in popular culture, and especially not in Japan, which is why in some cases there’s a lot of discourse and articles about whether a character from some old anime should be understood as trans or not. Let’s just appreciate things for being good in their time.

That said, this isn’t a big part of the show. What makes Cowboy Bebop great is the exploration into the depth of its characters. Spike’s, Jet’s, and Faye’s past lives all come back to haunt them, and they all have to reconcile and decide what’s really important to them.

It’s beautiful.

The Promised Neverland (2019)

rating: 4/5 — length: 12 episodes (first season)

I personally found it a little difficult to suspend disbelief about how young these characters were—but if you’re willing to tell yourself going in that what you’re about to see are the a bunch of genetically engineered super-kids with the intellect, ingenuity, and personalities of gifted university students, The Promised Neverland presents an interesting hypothetical scenario with a compelling story therewithin.

Don, Ray, and Emma live in an orphanage, which is in a pastoral setting, out in what seems like basically the middle of nowhere. They don’t remember life before the orphanage, and they’ve never left, so this is the only thing they know. Then, in the first episode, they stumble upon a secret: the orphanage is actually a human-breeding compound, which some kind of demons are using to farm them for consumption. The whole show is about how to escape.

I’m not the only one whom it reminded of Death Note. I also noticed the person who voices Emma in the English dub is the same voice actor who plays Akko in Little Witch Academia, and she just talks the same way in both roles, so it’s like, oh, hi Akko. (I only ever watch English dubs. I can’t stand listening to Japanese. No, I don’t want to argue about it.)

I really appreciate shows that just tell a single, self-contained story and end. It only takes 12 episodes for the kids to escape, and that’s it. But then actually they ended up making sequel seasons, which I never watched, so I have no idea how good those are.

Sailor Moon (1992)

rating: 2/5 — length: 45 episodes for the main series everybody knows, plus god knows how many more

I don’t know the whole Sailor Moon expanded media franchise, only the series that originally broadcast in the West. There were like 45 episodes that introduced the main Sailor Scouts everybody knows (Moon, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter).

The themes and aesthetics of Sailor Moon have been crazy influential; she’s the quintessential girl-boss girl-power nonsense that predates most other examples you can think of, and it embraces all its own silliness and immaturity. Usagi (renamed ‘Serena’ for the English version) dresses up and becomes a super-hero thingy that fights evil because a magical cat showed up one day and told her “hey, you have powers” and she kind of just goes “ok, cool” with not nearly as many questions and concerns as I’d have had. Then at the beginning of encounters with baddies she shouts a bunch of lines that don’t sound off-the-cuff, and it’s like, girly, who taught you any of this? Was it all in the back of your head, like a sleeper agent waiting to be activated? Spoilers: yes, basically. She’s the reincarnation of the Moon Princess, so it’s like on some deep, subconscious level she already knows all of this from a past life; it all just clicks for her.

But Usagi is also just a teenage girl, so she’s lazy, whiny, irresponsible, and more like she’s playing at being a superhero (even though she literally is one and it’s not just in her imagination). It’s all dumb and cheesy but also a lot of fun, but then for a lot of us it’s just 90s nostalgia, and one of the first tastes of ‘anime’ that many people are ever exposed to.

The first English dub was done by DiC Entertainment (‘deek’), who made all their own music (and got voice actors who sometimes just shamelessly phoned it in). The result is that when the show was re-dubbed in 2014 by Viz Media (‘vizz’), they couldn’t use the music from the version that most of us saw on TV growing up. Which is terrible! It actually changes the feeling and energy of the show so much if you just put in a score with a different mood. The only other bad changes were:

Naru (‘Molly’), Usagi’s best friend at school, the one with red hair, was given a totally random Brooklyn accent in the DiC dub, even though it’s set in Japan and none of her friends or family or anyone else sound remotely like that. It was such a dumb quirk, but it was one we all got to know, and in the Viz dub, they just made her sound like any other random Japanese girl. It felt so wrong to take it away from her.

Luna, the cat, also had a unique voice in the DiC dub, which gave her a distinct, unique sound, sort of like an old sorcerer or something. In the Viz redub, she, like Molly, just ended up sounding like any other random Japanese girl. This is probably even worse, because at least Molly just sounding like some random Japanese girl made sense, because she is literally a random Japanese girl. Luna is a magical talking cat.

The other loss I hated was the loss of the iconic Crown Arcade Theme, which is reused in many episodes of the DiC version. It was amazing—it screamed trouble and hijinx, let’s go hit the town and start some mischief or something. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64Cnu9nIzzo

In addition to being girl-boss girl-power female friendship representation, Sailor Moon pushed the envelope on queer representation way before it was cool. There was a lesbian couple and a gay male couple and they both got censored in the Western version. The lesbians came a lot later in the show, Sailor Neptune and Uranus, who were clumsily changed to instead be cousins instead of female lovers, which just resulted in these scenes with obvious romantic tension that made no sense in context and just ended up making it seem like they were cousins and lovers.

Earlier in the series, two of the male villains, Kunzite and Zoisite (pictured below), were very obviously gay for each other, which American broadcasters didn’t like. But Zoisite had long hair that was often styled in really feminine ways, so somebody came up with the clever solution of just cast a woman to do his voice, effectively gender-swapping him and making their romance heterosexual. The character looked so effeminate that it worked and many Western viewers didn’t realize this tall, flat-chested villainess was a guy.

A minor gripe is that Lita (Sailor Jupiter) was supposed to be noticeably taller than the others (it’s explicitly talked about), but Zoisite towers over her and nobody says anything. They should’ve added a long where one of the girls says “who was that really tall lady” or something.

It also sort of breaks the backstory of the show. Princess Serenity, the Moon Princess, was guarded by the (all-female) Four Guardian Deities and Prince Endymion, of the Earth Kingdom, was guarded by the all-male Shitennou (Four Heavenly Kings). Usagi and Mamoru (‘Darien’ in the English version) were the reincarnations of Serenity and Endymion, and after the moon cats discover them, they became Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask. The Sailor Scouts (changed to ‘Sailor Guardians’ in the English version) are the reincarnations of the guardian deities, while Queen Beryl’s generals are the reincarnations of the heavenly kings.

If you didn’t know any of that, I guess maybe you wouldn’t think about it while watching, but it’s so wrong they ruined the five-versus-five male-versus-female dynamic that was set up, turning one of the four kings into a woman just because they didn’t like how flirty Zoisite was.

I loved Lita. My favourite girl.

Anyway, Sailor Moon is goofy and fun and there’s a reason it was so goddamn influential and still has so many people who remember it and are actively fans of it today. But if you’re a dude and you’re not generally into anime, then you’ll probably just find it dumb? Unless you find it funny. Because it is dumb, and it is funny, and I love it. But critically speaking it’s a show with a lot of problems—shallow plots, stupid writing, bad dialogue, bad voice acting, etc.

Blue Exorcist (2011)

rating: 2/5 — length: 25 episodes (first season)

I only realized recently they ended up making more seasons of this. It was originally only one season, but then in 2017 they went back and made more. I only know the one.

In some ways, the soul of this show is very typical. It’s like somebody made a mash-up by putting all the other anime in a blender. The writing, pacing, animation—like if you coded a game and you just used all the default engine assets.

The main character is a hothead teenage guy named Rin (like the little girl who travelled with Sesshōmaru in Inuyasha). Rin discovers that he’s literally the son of the devil. No, like, literally. But he wants to fight against that and become an exorcist, so he has to go to exorcist school. It’s called True Cross Academy. He gets there and it turns out his better-behaved twin brother, Yukio, is already ahead of him and literally a teacher at the school, even though he’s also just a teenage guy.

The head of the school is also a demon, but who chooses to side with the church despite being a demon, so I guess demons are usually bad, but not always? And yeah, the side of good in this show is literally the church, like, the Vatican. There’s a handful of personality-archetype side characters. I liked Izumo Kamiki, whom the other characters called polkabrows, because of her weird eyebrows that are like dots.For the most part, this show was alright. Nothing about it was really bad. It just felt unremarkable, so I don’t know why you’d watch this when there’s so many other better series to watch.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011)

rating: 3/5 — length: 12 episodes

This looks like it’s going to be a typical girl-power show, but then it turns around and puts an actually-dark spin on the whole genre. A little creature approaches Madoka, the titular protagonist, with her meek voice and pink hair, to ask if she wants magical powers—reminiscent of Luna approaching Usagi to give her the magical locket that turns her into Sailor Moon.

This has the aesthetic of a dumb girl-fantasy with an annoying meek protagonist, but then turns out to be a dark spin on the whole genre. There’s a magical little creature that approaches a schoolgirl in Japan and asks her if she wants magical powers, reminiscent of Luna approaching Sailor Moon, but then it goes in a whole other direction. It’s unique and ominous, the twists are great, and the story has very little fat—finishing up in only 12 episodes, after doing everything it set out to do. I don’t even think I should say anything more!

Fate/Zero (2011)

rating: 2/5 — length: 25 episodes

This is one part of the broader Fate series, and the only part I’ve seen. The background is laughably contrived and strange, so there’s some set-up in that first episode, but once you get what the hell is going on, it tells a decent story. There’s a magical object called the holy grail, and in addition to it being a wish-granting artefact it seemingly has a soul and will of its own, and it creates this weird rules-based competition between a bunch of noble houses, who fight amongst theirselves and the winner is granted a wish, and this only happens once every couple generations. The way they have to fight is by choosing an historical figure of some kind and summoning them to command, so it’s like a weird large-scale Pokémon battle, except you’re bossing around Genghis Khan or something.

The thing this show does really well is juggling around a large case of characters who are all interesting and distinct and have to be ‘balanced’ in some way, since it’s an ongoing contest. There’s a kid who’s basically a deranged serial killer who enjoys gore but somehow they make him likable. The main plot is then all about how this fight plays out. The people who end up standing out most are Kirei Kotomine (a corrupt priest) and Kiritsugu Emiya (who’s not even a direct participant, but an assassin hired to help Irisveil—the master of ‘Saber’, the spirit of King Arthur—who’s a woman, for some reason?). I can’t be fucked remembering so many different Japanese names, so I just called Emiya ‘smokes’ and Kotomine ‘priest guy’. The longer the show goes on, the more it seems like the central conflict is about those two. They’re both fucked up and you gradually learn they have more backstory than the other characters.

I really liked the side character called Ryūnosuke Uryū, this younger guy, like a teenager I think, who’s a literal serial killer and loves blood, guts, gore, killing, and cruelty. It gets him excited and gleeful like a normal kid seeing candy. There was also Waver Velvet, a nerdy kid who gets dealt the most caveman-like of all manly heroes, called ‘Rider’, the spirit of Alexander the Great. There’s a bunch of other things I’m just not going to bother mentioning.

Oh, and then it turns out that Irisveil literally is the holy grail, whatever that even means. Fate/Zero is ambitious—but overall, its story, characters, and dialogue end up being just okay. I liked some aspects of it, but when all is said and done, it wasn’t that entertaining, and your time isn’t unlimited, so it’s not one of the ones that I’d recommend.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End (2023)

rating: 5/5 — length: 28 episodes

This show exceeded my expectations by a lot. I don’t even know what I was expecting—I guess something average, and it was far beyond that.

The world of Frieren isn’t super-exciting or action-packed. It’s more existential, contemplative. It reminds me of Cowboy Bebop in that way, but happening in a more open fantasy setting, like if that kind of story was told in Inuyasha. I actually sort of like how these days we all understand the concept of a fantasy setting with goblins, elves, dwarves, dragons, and dungeons with chests in them, so now shows are just taking that for granted as their starting point and moving right along. Why reinvent the wheel?

Frieren (‘free-ren’) is an elf mage, and her life far exceeds that of humans—as in we know they can live for thousands of years, at least. This results in a problem, which is outliving almost everybody you get to know. Once upon a time, Frieren went on a typical adventure-quest: a party of a monk, a mage, a warrior, and a dwarf travelled north to beat up the demon king in his ice palace or something. Victory and glory all around. Now it’s 80 years later and almost all the humans alive back then have died, and within the first couple episodes, Frieren’s human friends die of old age as well. So it’s like, okay, now what?

Frieren wanders around in a world of people who all know of the band of heroes who saved the world a couple generations ago, but none of them recognize that one of those heroes is standing right in front of them—and though she’s not in hiding, Frieren doesn’t chase that glory by going around proudly announcing who she is.

After Himmel, the warrior guy from Frieren’s adventuring party, dies, Frieren cries, overcome with the realization that for as much as he meant to her, she never adequately got to know him, due to not valuing her time like the short-lived humans do. She vows that she wants to learn as much about humans as she can, and in the process she comes to realize just how much the humans she’s encountered mean to her—especially Himmel.

She then befriends Fern, a young human mage, whom she brings along with her as a travelling companion. This time she does it differently, and her mentorship and friendship with Fern ends up feeling more like two sisters. It’s all very endearing.

There’s a fair amount more I’m not getting into. The point is Frieren captures something very special and that I enjoyed very much. This is the first time in my life that I’m looking forward to a new season of an anime coming out.

Some noteworthy series I watched for one episode and then quit:

Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid.

Himouto! Umaru-chan.

Attack on Titan.

I watched the whole first season of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure with a couple friends and just didn’t find it interesting enough to continue.

I remember watching episodes of the original Dragon Ball, when Goku is a kid, that seemed charming, though I’ve never gone back and watched all of it (and if memory serves, it’s long).

I also watched the pilot of that delicious dungeon anime that everyone is crazy about right now. I might end up watching more, but it has that contrived anime awkwardness I normally don’t like, so I don’t know.

[rookie-critic]

Fast X (2023, dir. Louis Leterrier) - review by Rookie-Critic

Here we are... at the beginning of the end of the road. This, for better and for worse, might be the fastest and most furious of the films to date in the sense that you are being constantly bombarded with cameos, callbacks, crazy action, and cars for the entire 2-1/2 hour runtime. This means that anyone who isn't already familiar with the intricacies of the character relations of the franchise at this point will most assuredly be lost during a good portion of the film. Which isn't necessarily a knock against it, what do you expect from the tenth (eleventh if you count Hobbs & Shaw, which you should) installment in a franchise. We're neck deep and sinking at this point. Chances are if you're still with it this deep into the story, you know what you're getting yourself into and you're in it for the long haul, and I most certainly am. As a new convert into the Fast & Furious cult, I love these things. They're dumb, largely nonsensical, and overly sentimental to a fault, but those are all pieces of this messy web of a puzzle that endear the fans to it, myself included. Fast X is no different, it gives you everything you've come to love about and expect from the franchise, but as far as where it ranks amongst everything, I'd put it more towards the middle of the pack. Yes, it is very fun and I will talk about the things that I liked in a bit, but it also has a lot of issues that are impossible to ignore.

The first, and biggest, detriment to the film is the Justin Lin-shaped hole in the director's chair. Longtime Fast & Furious director Justin Lin (who directed Tokyo Drift, 4, 5, 6, and 9) takes a backseat in this one, opting to just be a co-writer on the film, and the style of the film suffers greatly as a result. This film just looks strange. Obvious and poorly constructed green screen backgrounds are used in places they have no business being in, lines of dialogue have been noticeably dubbed in during post-production, and the entire vibe of the visual style feels very non-Fast & Furious. It just doesn't mesh visually with any of the previous films. Also, and this is a problem I had with the eighth film, too, they never really give a good reason as to why Brian (Paul Walker's character) isn't there. Yes, I understand that Paul Walker is dead in real life, but Brian is 100% still very much alive in-universe, and everything the fans know about who he is as a character knows that he wouldn't be sitting by and allowing this to happen to the people that he loves. In F9, the story of the film allowed a pathway for a very reasonable and believable excuse for his absence, and this film just didn't have it. Fast X also continues the time-honored tradition of this franchise having next to no clue about how to use Mia (Jordana Brewster's character) effectively. She's almost always a part of the top-billed cast, and she's almost always relegated to a glorified cameo appearance. Outside of the first film, 4, 5, and 9 are the only ones that have been able to use Mia effectively (I would like to point out that those are all Lin-directed entries). She's an interesting character, and I'm tired of seeing her get sidelined. All of this on top of the fact the the story of this movie feels a lot like setup for the actual endgame that will happen in the next two films and not like an actual film story in its own right.

However, even with all of that, the movie is still insanely fun, and a lot of this is due to Jason Momoa. The villains in this franchise haven't ever been the strong points of each installment. Most of the time, they're are a template of a stereotypical, hyperbolic bad guy archetype with little personality and next to no motive. Momoa's character, on the other hand, has a motive and more personality than this movie even knows what to do with. He's Marvel's Kingpin mixed with Heath Ledger's Joker à la Fast & Furious and it's a pretty marvelous sight to behold. He injects so much fun and humor into the film that we might have lost otherwise as a result of the central family being split up for the entire film. We get Tyrese's Roman Pierce bringing the comedic relief to his sequences, and in the scenes that focus more on what Vin Diesel's Dominic Toretto is up to, Momoa steps in to pick up the slack (not to mention the pieces of the film following John Cena's Jakob Toretto, who fits like a glove into this franchise). On that note, the segmented nature of this film is handled way better than any time this kind of thing has happened in previous installments. We're following three or four storylines at any given moment in the film, and, for me, it never once felt disjointed. We also get some classic Fast & Furious car-action setpieces (including one truly inspired sequence involving a gigantic bomb rolling its way towards the Vatican) that fully deliver on the promise these movies have set up for the fans. It's not without some heavy issues, but I gotta say, there's something about these movies that is just infectious, and even the worst installments have redeeming qualities that keep me coming back for more.

Score: 7/10

Only in theaters.

[fruitydreamlandlight]

Midnight movies

(a/n) So this is my first fanfic and I'm a bit nervous cause I haven't wrote one in forever and I never posted one of my fanfics on here so if anyone has any advice on writing or something I could do to make it look better please tell me, I'm very open to constructive criticism.

This is a merther fanfic because it the only thing on my mind

(side note I have no Idea what in doing so bare with me on this (I'm also doing this on my phone))

Desc: future au! Where Arthur comes back and Merlin has to teach him about the future and stuff and this is Arthur first time watching a movie

Tags: oneshots, first kiss, movie night, discovering gay ppl? (I'm going of a limb for this fic) slight homophobia, one POV (I don't like changing povs), fluff, not proofread!

I hope you like it

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Merlin POV:

It's been better since Arthur came back, I'm super happy, but him being the prat he is he is the worst person to teach.

I try to reach him stuff about this world! But no! Im still his lowly servant who can't do anything but clean!

So tonight instead of a lesson, I'm going to take a break and show him a movie. He's still perplexed by today's technology and he has a lot to learn. But he'll be happier if I just relax with him and have some popcorn and act like we don't have years of otherworldly experiences that no one will ever understand...

Anyways I don't have to struggle to get him to understand tonight, easy peasy lemon squeezy. The movie I picked out was a newer one, I didn't want to go into the theater and embarrass myself by confusing him even more, and possibly disrupting other people. So we're just staying at my house to watch the movie

I get the popcorn started and Arthur is startled by the sudden noise

"what the bloody hell is that?!" He exclaims

"its a microwave" I say and he only looks at me even more confused

"it's used to cook stuff, I'll tell you another night, the food inside it is popcorn, which is popped corn" I speak, not even having to stop for him to ask more questions

"how do you pop corn?" He says, I let out a little sigh and think, 'whatever it's just a simple explanation'

"when corn kernels are heated to a point they pop" the microwave beeps and I open the door, wincing a little at the heat of the bag as I pull it out

He nods and I assume he's only pretending to know half what I'm saying.

"so what is this whole movie thing about?" He says sitting at one of the stools at my counter.

"well people have movie nights where the sit in a theater or on their couch, like us, and eat popcorn" I lift up the bag as I say that "and sodas but I think you would go into a coma if you soda, so just water for you, but I have some Dr.pepper in the fridge, if you really want to try some" I grab my dr.pepper, a water, and the pop corn. I walk over to my living room and put the stuff on the coffee table and grab the remote. I fiddle with it before finally getting everything set up "Arthur!" It still feels weird to say that after so many years. "You can get in here, everything's ready!" seconds later he walks in and sits down on the couch.

"so these people are 'actors'?" He stretches out the word, we never had many performer's in Camelot because of Uther and his insanity. "Yes" I start the movie and oprn my Dr.pepper with a satisfying hiss and I take a sip.

I swing my arm over the couch and the movie gets past the long intro and reach over and grab one of my blankets and drape it over my legs and one arm, leaving my other arm for grabbing. My arm takes it place back to the back of the couch.

Arthurs eyes never leave the screen once for the first 40 minutes, I don't even think that he blinked once, so I put my arm around him to slightly wake him up, "you good, not gonna explode on me are ya?" I whisper, which sets him free, "yeah yeah, I'm fine" he sits up, he still acts like prince, I chuckle

"what's so funny?" My attention is brought back Arthur "this person is almost dead and you are laughing" I look to the screen and sure enough the main character is on the ground fighting the villain "their only characters it's fine" he sighs with a huff and crosses his arm

I look to the movie again and the main character defeats the villain, the protagonists friend walks up and grabs her hand, confessing her love, they share a kiss. I look over to Arthur who is baffled. His mouth hangs open a little bit

"b-but they are both girls." He looks up to me confused and I share the same look "and?" I say

He pause "but it's two girls, it's supposed to be a male and a female, not this" he motions to the screen. I roll my eyes "people really don't care about that anymore"

(a/n I don't really know what's the situation on homophobia in Britain or in Europe for that matter, I live in a America so I'm just going off of what goes on here)

"but that's wrong" he turns his whole body as he speaks "it's really not, people love who they live Arthur" he looks at the screen then me

"what is it called?" he whispers for whatever reason, i think he still wants to hide from his father's wrath

"it's called homosexuality, when to woman love each other it's more specifically called lesbian and when it's two men it's called gay" I turn my body to face him as well

"this world is ...so ... different" falls against the couch

"are you angry?" The dramatic music from the end credits start as I say that

"a little... I don't know what to expect anymore" he runs a hand over his face and let's out a small scream. I rub my hand up and down his side

"would you be angry if I..." I pause

"if you what?! Speak Merlin"he yells impatiently

"if I kissed you?" He stops and grabs my hand, he sits up and we just stare at each other.

"I-" before he says anything else I push my lips to his and he seems to freeze, I pull away and he's stuck

"i-i-"he mutters

"I'm so sorry, I should've let you speak" my hands cover my face, I want to curl up and die.

Suddenly I feel his hands peeling my hands away from my face

"that wasn't... terrible" he looks at me holding my hands and we don't say anything for a while, he starts to slowly lift my hands to my face and places a small kiss to them. I let my hands free and caress his cheek as he does mine and we start to lean closer

And closer...

And finally and lips collide again. It's more passionate and sweet. I let my hands fall to his waist. His arms wrapped around my neck. We pull away from each other and our foreheads lean against each other.

"i-i love you" he says sounding almost unsure

"I love you too" I smile and we both chuckle a little

He hugs me, which doesn't feel right so I lean back my head to kiss him again

I don't want to ever let go

Tonight he won't sleep on the couch, he slept right next to each other, we held each all through the night. I couldn't even fall asleep

I didn't want this moment to end, I didn't even realize the sun coming up

"are you still awake?" he whispers

"yeah I couldn't fall asleep" I whisper back

"me either" he whispers again

I peck his lips for what feels like the thousandths time

I don't think I'll ever get tired of this...

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So that's the end! Tell me your thoughts and give me some tips if you can

I dont really have a sign off so just bye for now!