#also every time we argue instead of addressing what im actually saying he tells me to chill out. FUCK OFF

[incohorace]

im genuinely so fucking upset rn because my little brother decided to tell me that sciences are overall more important than humanities and then argue about it (and hes awful to argue with for so many reasons) and frankly i am so sick of being told every fucking day of my life that the things im passionate about are useless blah blah blah and especially when its my own LITTLE BROTHER and hes TALKING DOWN TO ME despite not knowing what hes talking about

[xiaq]

Hi, I have a question re:sex and Christianity. Small background: I still go to church, and I still live with my parents even though I'm not much younger than you, because housing is very very expensive where I live (pretty common here, I would say about 2/3 of my friends live with their parents and we are decently privileged kids)

Anyway. How does one get over purity culture? To be clear, I've never been told in church not to have sex, I've never gotten the gendered lessons that you got. But I am terrified of having sex. My first real, multi-year relationship just ended and while there was hand stuff etc, there was never any p in v sex (lol I feel 12). But I still had insane anxiety about being pregnant despite being on bc. And I think its because I know my parents would be so disappointed if I had sex. And if I was pregnant I could imagine all the gossip. And honestly I think im from a pretty open church, b/c one of our previous ministers kids recently got married at 8 months pregnant and lots of church people were at the wedding and supportive and her parents were there and everything.

I dont even think I particularly like sex, i might be on the ace spectrum, but how do I remove it from all the anxiety that's tied to it so I can even give myself the chance to find out???

(Asking because it seems like you've been pretty open about purity culture/removing yourself from it)

CW for sex talk (again)

How does one get over purity culture?

Oh man. That really is the million-dollar question, huh? Obviously, I can only answer re my personal experiences, and this is something you should talk to a therapist about, but I can tell you how I’ve tackled it with my therapist at least.

Purity culture is, at its core, an ideology that is perpetuated by shame. If you’re indoctrinated into purity culture when you’re a kid, the concepts become baked into the way you construct your identity, your perception of self, and your perception of your sexuality. It’s practically intrinsic, by the time you’re an adult, to feel shame any time you’re reminded you have a body, much less a sexuality.

According to the chapels I sat through every week as a kid, a girl's body could be 3 things: an intentional stumbling block for men, an accidental stumbling block for men, or unnoticeable. Women were to strive for the third option so as to keep their (and their male friends/authority figures) purity intact. After all, if a boy, or even your male teacher, had impure thoughts about you, it was your fault for tempting them (which, holy shit. I still can’t believe that was a thing I bought into for so long. If my 45 yr old grown-ass teacher had impure thoughts because he could see my 12 yr old collarbone, that sure as hell wasn’t my fault. But I digress.) The Only time a woman’s body can be something else, is when she gives it to her husband, at which point she must suddenly flip the switch in her brain that she is now allowed to be a Sexual Being and she must perform Sexual Duties despite living in outright fear of her own body and sexuality for years (decades?) up until this point. Jesus take the wheel.

Purity culture isn’t a thing you can just decide to walk away from if you’ve grown up in it. Because its ideology is insidious and internalized. So first you need to submit to the fact that you’re going to be fucked up about sex. It sounds like you’re there. Second, you need to interrogate what you believe. If you’re leaving religion behind entirely, you’ll approach removing yourself from purity culture differently than if you still identify as a Christian. It sounds like you might be the latter, which meant, for me, separating what’s actually biblical and what’s shitty, contrived, doctrine that I was told is biblical but is actually more political than spiritual. This helps you address the shame issue.

You need to throw away I Kissed Dating Goodbye and Lady in Waiting and all those ridiculous books you read and reread in the hopes of somehow obtaining impossible marriage perfection and look into actual scripture interpreted within its historical context. I could write a book on this, but the TL;DR is that the text of the Bible was written, translated, curated, and changed multiple times over thousands of years by human beings with human biases and, often, personal and/or political agendas. It contradicts itself! Reading it as it is—a flawed historical document—rather than some sort of God-breathed perfect document—is incredibly freeing. When you do, you’ll probably realize that purity culture is bullshit on a spiritual level. Which is a good start, if that matters to you. Because any time you start to feel shame or guilt you can ask yourself: does God actually care if I wear a bikini or touch a dick I’m not married to? Probably not. Wear the bikini. Touch the dick.

The most important therapy session for me was when my therapist asked what I would do if I got to heaven and God was actually the God I’d been raised to fear. What would I do if he condemned me for being bisexual and having premarital sex and becoming educated, for arguing with men, and failing to isolate while menstruating, and wearing mixed fabrics? If Montero had come out at the point, I probably would have said I’d pole dance down to hell. Instead, I said I would spit on heaven’s gates. If a god that cruel and that pointlessly demeaning really exists—a god who would create in me condemned desire—I won't worship him. The good news is, I’m 99% sure he doesn’t exist. At the very least, he isn’t supported by scripture.

Okay. The final thing you need to do is figure out what you actually want, sexually speaking. This bit is probably the hardest. I’m still in the early stages of this myself. You say: “I dont even think I particularly like sex, i might be on the ace spectrum, but how do I remove it from all the anxiety that's tied to it so I can even give myself the chance to find out???” Bro, I wish I had an easy answer for you. For me, whenever I’m feeling anxious about Sex Things, I tell myself: 1. My God does not equate my worth to my sexual habits. 2. My partner does not equate my worth to my sexual habits. 3. I do not equate my worth to my sexual habits. It seems silly, but reminding myself of those three things is massively helpful. If, after I’ve sorted through those, I’m still anxious or uncomfortable, I stop doing the thing. I evaluate. Am I overwhelmed and I need to try again some other time? Do I just not like the thing? Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Sometimes you change your mind. Sometimes you just don’t know. That’s why having a partner who you trust and who’s willing to patiently explore your interests (and respect your disinterests) is so important. Half the battle, for me, was having a partner who told me they’d be ok with no sex at all. Because that took the pressure off me. If the bare minimum they need is nothing, then anything more than that is a bonus! Hooray! This is maybe TMI, but let me tell you. I thought I was asexual* right up until I was able to have moderately non-anxious sex. Never in my life did I think I would initiate a sexual situation but… I do now. It’s a fun thing to do with a person I love and, holy shit. I am furious that I nearly missed out on it.

Finally, re birth control: I don’t know how you can approach that fear in a way that works for you. If you don’t want to ever have penetrative sex, that’s fine! If that’s a point of anxiety you can’t get rid of, then don't push yourself to do it. If you find out you like other sex things, do the other sex things! If you don't like doing any sex things, don't do any sex things! Also, have you considered sleeping with people who can’t get you pregnant? Always an option if it’s an option you want to consider. ;)

Okay. I hope this was even a little bit helpful. Sorry if it’s a little convoluted, I typed it up in bursts during my work breaks.

*This is not at all to say that asexuality can be “fixed." Rather, it’s to say that things like purity culture can drastically confuse your sexuality in general. If you’re asexual, then this process is still important to discover what you like/dislike. Then you can be explicit about those necesities and find a partner who’s a good fit (if you want a partner at all, that is).

[burnedbyshoto]

the marriage contract

chapter one: [begin this journey.]

— Just because your soulmate is Bakugou Katsuki doesn’t mean that he’s the one meant for you; in fact, he’s your worst enemy. With trouble brewing across the way, and with no one able to complete this job except you and Bakugou, there’s nothing you can do except go along with the mission. But wait, what?! You’re supposed to be married?!

pairing: pro hero!bakugou katsuki x pro hero fem!reader

chapter warnings: cursing

word count: 4,093

a/n: in this enemies to lovers story, only you get to decide whether you remain enemies, or if you succeed in becoming lovers. the choice to make is at the end of the story, good luck :D also, background on your quirk (sorry, I had to give you a quirk in order for this to work the way i see fit.) I won’t lie, im really nervous about all this... hopefully this is fun and won’t come and bite me in the ass.

Quirk: Water Sprout - using water from your body, you are able to extract and then use the water (that comes from your body or has come in direct contact with your fingertips) freely. Drawbacks include constant dehydration, dizziness, headaches.

bolded choice is the answer. ~ {masterlist}

[Begin this journey.]     [Turn back now.]

relationship status: enemies.

“You’re fucking with me, right?”

Cosmic and gods, there was nothing in this world that proved these existed.

Nothing.

Nothing in this world could show the nonbeliever that there was an outside force in the world that made people suspect that there were otherworldly ties. Not the appearance of quirks, which was proven to be a genetic mutation as part of humans' evolution, and even the sudden and ancient appearance of The Contract did anything to solidify this - well, at least to some.

Quirks were easy to understand.

Powers, drawbacks, uniqueness.

Oh, it was something that was still so new to the world that people enjoyed it so, but for The Contract, oh how that was different.

The Contract was what was the name of the world wide know phenomenon more known merely as soulmates. Everyone had a fated one, and you would know who they were because every once in a while, a simple choice would appear before you.

A this or that situation.

You would pick one of the options, and somewhere out in the world, there was a person who, despite their own free will, would succumb to your choice. It was as simple as choosing to make someone double knot or single knot their shoes, or sometimes as hard as pulling the plug on a stranger, you had no idea existed. But it had been generations since it had first appeared, and people had grown to accept the inevitable. Which, in turn, brought out new problems.

Soulmates, while fundamentally and theoretically excellent and good, seemed to shock people by the work that needed to be put into them to succeed. Two souls that were perfect for each other didn’t guarantee two people were perfect for one another. The blind, false, true love these people bragged and teetered on was ridiculous and often led to horrible breaks within soulmate bonds. People did not understand that soulmates - just as any other relationship - needed time to fester and grow. It wasn’t an over the counter remedy, it was two people trying to find similarities other than the gods and the cosmics wanting this.

It was rather rough, to say the least.

Most people didn’t mind the growth, waiting for their soulmate to become the person meant for them. Others, well, you were the perfect example of it.

Your entire life, you had thought your soulmate was an asshole, well, scratch that, he IS an asshole. Every chance he got, he would always pick the worst of the two options. He chose for you to reject pursuers in your school days, to trip your siblings, to yell at your parents when you were upset. He picked for you to get up early in middle school and train, to study for tests right when you were about to go out with friends. He was obviously picking the worst things for you (not that you were any better), and so by the bitter age of fifteen when you were put into Shiketsu High School, you were glad to pledge to be someone who wouldn’t accept the soulmate shit for anything.

If he was your soulmate, so be it, but he would never be your lover.

Things in high school and your last year of middle school went reasonably well, the choices the two of you had to make were simple enough. The worst one you remember seeing late one night at the beginning of summer break during your last year of middle school, two options illuminating before you.

[Accept his offer.]     [Decline his offer.]

There was no context for your choice.

But there had been a pit in your stomach, something telling you to chose the bottom one, and you did. Nothing consequential came from that, and you forgot about it with time.

High school went on with usual choices; both of you continue to choose the lesser of two options from what you could tell. The worst thing was rejecting your senior who had asked you out on a date (something he had told you to keep a secret from the school officials), and you had really wanted to go on a date with him… but nonetheless, you survived. Fresh out of high school with your official Hero License under your belt, you had been accepted into Rising Agency, a very new agency founded by a class older than you over at Yuuei - Class 1-A.

The prominent faces being hero Deku, Ground Zero, and Shouto.

Somehow you had passed the interview selection and had been accepted, and your first day went horribly. On account of your quirk, Water Sprout, you had woken up with a mouth drier than a desert, and like you always did, you grabbed your liter bottle and went to chug.

Only two options popped before your eyes the moment you moved the water to your parched mouth.

[Spill the water.]     [Safely drink the water.]

You had tried your hardest to get your lip to the opening, but you knew better. During the time The Contract appeared, time literally froze. Your soulmate was given up to fifteen seconds to choose the answer before the first choice was automatically selected. You had tried to suppress the scream at the back of your throat when the cold, cold water came splashing down on your chest. Spraying all over your bed.

The scream you made when you were soaked to the bone no doubt made your soulmate smile wherever he was.

So you were glad when his options appeared before you a few minutes later.

[Break the sink faucet.]      [Turn off the water.]

With a sniff, you held no remorse when your hand jammed out and hit the option he deserved.

You had arrived at the agency's front door within the next hour, your most formal business clothes were worn fresh and sharp. Your hand held your case with your hero costume and nerves at your stomach. This was it, you had thought, your hands sweating profusely, your mouth so dry you felt faint, and with a quick chug of your water, you entered the facility.

The agency smelled like Pine-Sol and sweets, and you found the front desk immediately but were off-put by a man who was already there. His back hunched over, arms crossed, and placed onto the counter as he seemed to be arguing with the receptionist.

Nearer and nearer you drew, and the more you began to recognize just who the man was: Ground Zero.

Calm down, calm down, calm down.

Your heart hammered viciously in your chest as you were finally in earshot of the conversation - it seemed that he was fighting over his new time slots for his routine patrols. But you were no stranger to his… vivacious temperament, and instead of addressing him first, you figured it was in the best interest to simply ask the receptionist what your first steps should be.

But as you opened up your mouth, your internal monologue of what to say blaring on repeat so that you wouldn’t mess up, the world froze, and you panicked.

[Ace the introduction.]      [Fumble the introduction.]

The world was still for five seconds, but never did you ever once experience someone moving within The Contract. So, when Ground Zero’s hand moved and punched in an option that was mirrored right in front of your mouth, you immediately felt the blood in your cheeks from seeing him recoil back to your heart faster than you could blink.

“Hi, I’m Hero, and I’m new? I’m looking for the y/l/n room?”

Horror struck through you immediately at the realization.

Ground Zero was yours...?

He was your…?!

You saw red.

“Hah? What kind of introduction was -- WHAT THE FUCK?!”

Your fist throbbed pathetically still curled near his face, and Ground Zero’s blazing, burning red gaze matched the blood pouring from his busted nose as you panted like a corned animal.

“YOU MADE ME WET MY BED, ASSHOLE!”

So went your first interaction with your soulmate.

Your fist connecting and shattering his nose. Three of his friends holding him back, and three trying to escort you away quickly. It was indeed one for the books.

But that was three years ago, and at the age of twenty-one, you could still not handle the sight, or the presence of your soulmate, and vice versa. The both of you were like oil and water, conflicting and fighting whenever left together for too long, unable to get along. He was not meant for you, and you were not meant for him - it was evident like night and day.

Right decisions were made, however, once knowing who the other one was. The both of you taking track of each other’s patrol schedules to make sure good choices were made at that time, just in case, but as soon as the other was off, payback was a bitch. The entire agency had learned that both of you were soulmates the same day the both of you found out, and there were actual looks of sorrow given to you from his friends?!

Not to mention that his nickname for you was bedwetter now, something that both infuriated and embarrassed you to this day.

Both of you were separated at all times, never once having to work together, that is, until today. A time where we find ourselves back in the beginning.

“You’re fucking with me, right?”

A part of you wanted to roll your eyes at Bakugou’s quip, but in all consideration, you agreed with him ultimately.

“Unfortunately, I’m not,” Yaoyorozu sighed, her mouth pinched and her hands passing both you and Bakugou a small stack of documents for you to read over. You took your file after placing your water bottle down and opened it immediately as Yaoyorozu continued to speak. “Kane, Bryan is an American man who has recently been on Japan’s watchlist. He is highly dangerous, evasive, and a hard man to pin anything on… all we know is that innocent people are going missing when they enter his land, and undercover heroes end up in the sea with no memories, or worse, dead.”

That took you by surprise, and your stomach twisted at that thought.

Heroes have turned up dead?

“I don’t doubt the seriousness that this Kane man brings, but no offense, Creati, why does it have to be a mission for Ground Zero and I?” you asked, your eyes flittering from the blurred photo of the man on your page onto the slightly frowning commandeer of this agency. “We aren’t exactly… a good fighting duo? If what I think you’re asking is correct, why not send in Deku and Ground Zero? They have the best duo track record, I’m sure that they’ll be able to apprehend this man better and faster than we can.”

Yaoyorozu sighed, her teeth tugging at her bottom lip while her fingers drummed on the table, obviously not comfortable telling the full explanation.

“Well, to be honest, he stays on a remote island nearby, and it’s very exclusive.”

You owlishly blinked at Yaoyorozu, who straightened in her chair, a new air of confidence flowing through her that made you almost ask if a choice had been made for her.

“Kane owns a private island that is known for its resort, and to enter the resort, there must be two truths to this,” her eyes were holding yours for a moment, they were deep, so dark that for a second you felt fear tickle at the back of your spine before she turned her attention over to Bakugou. “One: those who may enter must be in a romantic relationship.”

What?

“Two: they must be soulmates.”

“WHAT?!”

You blinked, your head snapping over at Bakugou, who had yelled the same words as you did, obviously not impressed with what they were now enforcing. Oh god, this was not what you were thinking at all!

“Why the hell does it have to check off those two boxes? I’m not going somewhere obviously dangerous and in the middle of nowhere with bed wetter!” Bakugou growled, his feet planted onto the floor as he had his upper lip pulled into a sour face of sorts. “I’ll do it with literally anyone else, ponytail!”

“Unfortunately, that’s not an option,” she sighed, her hand pushing through her bangs with a sad shake of her head. She looked tired, and her exhaustive eyes rose to meet yours, and his, and her voice was weak and oh so pleading. “There is some way they can tell if you’re soulmates, and those we sent out who weren’t already soulmates never made it in. You two are quite literally our only option, without the two of you, we don’t stand a chance.”

“So, can we act as estranged lovers then?” you questioned, your stomach twisting in the thought of having to display any sort of romantic displays with the man sitting right next to you. “We can be a couple trying to work on our relationship?”

Yayorozu gulped.

“W-We actually made profiles for the two of you…”

“And?” came Bakugou’s near whisper.

“Y-You’ll be acting as a, well, a newly married couple. This is your honeymoon… I know you two don’t have a good history, and your on field teamwork has never been tried, but I’m pleading to you two now, please consider. You have until tomorrow to tell me if you accept.”

If there had been a choice that appeared for Bakugou to make you slam your head through the desk, you would have thanked him for choosing it.

[Carry all the bags]     [Take only his bags.]

“Thank you!” you chirped with no pity for the situation you had just placed him in, the glint of a sneer flashing across Bakugou’s face was fierce as he took the bags of luggage the two of you had been given from your agency. This was it, it was starting.

The weight of what was to come of this was now starting to hit heavily, the importance of the diamond ring on your finger - a symbol of the fake marriage contract between you and Bakugou felt like a ton. There was no hiding the discomfort the both of you held when you had to act in love, your hand itching to leave his clammy, abnormally warm hands, and you never realized how he mumbled under his breath until you were forced to sit next to him on the private plane. But as you were given two days to prepare for this mission, it didn’t hit you what was happening until you unloaded from the plane.

From the initial observation of the island, you immediately recognized just why the owner was so elusive and able to keep his agenda hidden. The island's natural barriers were bright as day, the rocky mountains seemed entirely inhabitable, and the entire resort was located where the mountains met the beach. Tropics and natural waterholes existed in those parts before slowly blending into the white sand beaches with water so blue and clean that you genuinely wished you would be having a good time.

You hated having to remind yourself that you were here for the sake of a mission and not to simply lay out, well, it was easy to forget that until Bakugou was beside you, and you fought the instinctive reaction to scowl at him. In fact, with your gaze falling onto the blond-haired hero, you didn’t notice the small woman appearing from nowhere, a bright smile on her face and white linen clothes on

“Welcome to Hibani Island!” she chirped, her eyes closing in well-practiced greetings, she spoke with an accent, and with her appearance, you assumed she was American. “My name is Jane, and I’m here to welcome you to our wonderful island! May I please have your names and the choice you had upon arrival?”

Your greeting smile disappeared at that point, your head tilting in confusion, “I’m sorry, our choice?”

“Mhm!” Jane nodded enthusiastically, the same bright smile plastered on her face. “Our wonderful island works in mysterious ways! As you both know, our beautiful resort is only for those who are soulmates; after all, we would never wish to poison her beautiful nature with impure love! Upon entry, with the help of the island, I am able to procure a choice for you and your soulmate to make! Since I posed the question to you,” her glazed over eyes focused on you, “I would appreciate it if your partner answered!”

There was a silence, and it couldn’t have lasted any more than a few seconds in all reality. But in that still, you could feel the hair on the back of your neck stand straight up, there was obviously something entirely wrong here.

“A choice about who would carry the luggage in,” Bakugou calmly, smoothly answered, his voice somehow not picking up on any suspicion. “Be -- Y/n chose that I would carry them all.”

The way your name passed his lips made your spine stiffen, it felt weird, unnatural, fake.

Well, this entire thing is fake, you reminded yourself, grateful that Jane was at the moment impressed by Bakugou’s correct statement.

“Well, wonderful! I’m so glad that our island can greet two beautiful soulmates today! Your names? So that I may check you both in?”

“Nakamura Katsuki and Y/n.”

“Amazing! Let’s get you to the main lobby, and they’ll set you two love birds up!”

Thankfully, Jane was a woman who didn’t mind talking to herself the entire way over to the resort’s main lobby, she spoke wonders of how the hot springs were especially “magically” at night, and promised that a trip during that time would lead to “the best of fantasies.” The resort itself was oddly busy. Couples were everywhere, each in their own world, yet all orbiting around one another, never once mixing.

The white sundress you wore suddenly felt too simple, especially with the stupid designer wear most people were wearing.

Jane escorted you to the front desk, and with one last overenthusiastic smile, she disappeared.

“Check us in, Joo Dee just about made me fucking lose it,” Bakugou grumbled, his patience hanging on a much thinner thread than yours apparently.

“Glad to know it takes only one super smiley person to ruin your day,” you couldn’t help but snip, the rolling of your eyes only stopped when the front desk clerk began to walk over, a bright smile on his face, and his hand waving in greeting.

You opened your mouth, ready to begin talking when his welcome rang clearly in your ears, but just as it happened all those years ago, the world froze.

[Ace the introduction.]     [Fumble the introduction.]

The prideful, arrogant smirk on his face seemed to burn into your back as he stared from behind you.

“Hi, I would like it.”

Your voice gave out, and with burning cheeks, you and the front desk clerk stared at each other, the awkward silence biting into your throat. The clerks’ smile, breaking slightly in his second-hand embarrassment and wonder as to why you stopped talking, but despite wanting to continue speaking your voice refused to work again.

Bakugou Katsuki was an asshole.

“Are you here to check in?” he asked, his eyes searching yours in hopes that was what you were here for.

With a burning face, you nodded, and the check-in proceeded.

The clerk, who introduced himself as Ryan Locke, quickly checked you and Bakugou into your rooms. He pulled out a simple paper map and circled the small house - yes, small house - that the two of you would be residing in. Just as the package the two of you purchased, both of you would be here in two months, and the entire time everything would be included. Name it, and it would be brought to the room, well, house. You nodded, trying to take everything he was throwing at you in, not at all relying on Bakugou, who was standing by the window staring at the other guests with a frown on his face.

PDA was not something either one of you were comfortable with.

“Well, that’s it from me! Should you need any assistance, please do not hesitate to call!” Ryan smiles, the crinkles by his eyes creasing, even more, washing you over with ease despite the tension in your body. You heard Bakugou approach the two of you, and with him beside you, Ryan seemed to remember something as he rubbed the back of his neck. “And, there is a couples event tonight, should you and your husband want to join! Most couples do, and by the look of it, it may help re-spark things?”

A sour rancid taste crawled at the back of your throat as you awkwardly laughed, your fronts were weaker then you thought, and shook your head, “Oh no! That’s no issue! We’re actually here on our honeymoon,” your fingers pressed to your chest, your eyes trailing to where Bakugou was standing in hopes that it somehow looked romantic. Pet names were a thing, right? But what to call him? “Uh, K-Kacchan is actually super shy with PDA!”

You froze when the only nickname you’ve ever heard used toward Bakugou fumble clumsily from your tongue.

Kacchan?!

KACCHAN?!

WERE YOU SUDDENLY DEKU?!

“Oh! Yes, I understand now!” Ryan laughed, waving off his mistake, the apples of his cheeks dusting in what you could only pray to be embarrassment. “Well, if you want to help your Kacchan here express his love for you without care of the world, tonight’s session is the place to be!”

He turned and walked away with a final smile, most likely retreating to the ringing phone in the back room.

“I swear to god, do not ever call me that shitty nickname ever again, or else I’ll explode your ass,” Bakugou hissed, his hand grabbing you by the elbow as he had you in close.

“I’ll call you whatever I damn please!” you hissed back, ripping your elbow out of his hold.

You watched as his upper lip twitched, and he moved to go grab your luggage, something The Contract still held over him. You stood with the papers that Ryan had given to you, the stack of itineraries and options of what the both of you two could do while at your stay taking far more room in your arm then you thought was acceptable. Your concentration on your fake husband - as you kept vehemently reminding yourself - broke when the door opened and in walked a woman who was alone, and headphones on her ears. You offered her a smile when eye contact was made but did nothing more.

Bakugou leaned down, his hands lifting up the luggage, most definitely annoyed with rolling the large suitcases. But with the woman’s course and the way that Bakugou’s back was towards her, having not noticed her entry at all, you could see that they were going to collide. Essential items were in that suitcase, and you had no idea if they could break if Bakugou managed to drop them after crashing with her. But again, it would be payback for the embarrassing first encounter with Ryan!

But before you could make up your mind on what to do, the world froze.

[Crash into her.]     [Avoid her.]

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

(make sure to vote for the choice to be chosen!)  poll closes august 30 8am pst

[stereostevie]

A brutal childhood, a traumatic marriage, decades of racism: the singer has overcome it all on her way to the top. She lets rip about the people who have wronged her and the self-belief that sustains her.

It is a rainy Thursday afternoon and Mariah Carey is talking to me from her home in Los Angeles, her voice coming through my laptop. Is this the real life or is this just fantasy? (Sweet, sweet fantasy …) “Hello, good morning, good afternoon, this is a little unusual,” says a gravelly voiced Carey. You’re telling me, Mariah.

We are talking by video chat, but – as specified by Carey – without the video turned on, so it is pure chat. Despite her ability to hit the high notes, Carey has always described herself as an alto. Yet even taking that into account, her voice today sounds pretty husky. Is she feeling OK?

“It’s 6am here, and I’m awake in the bright light and it’s fabulous and I love it,” she says and makes an exaggerated groan.

I’m sorry you had to get up so early for this interview, I say.

“Well, darling, then let’s not book interviews at 6am if you’re worried! But please, it’s not you,” she says, and indeed it isn’t. The time and date of our interview have moved around so many times to accommodate Carey’s ever-shifting schedule that, for a while, it looked as if it wouldn’t happen at all. But at the last minute, it was decided we would talk at 6am her time, which I was promised would be fine because Carey is a self-described “nocturnal person”, so that would be 6pm for her. Alas, for reasons too complicated to get into, for one night only, Carey was a non-nocturnal person, so now 6am is just 6am.

“Typically I would have been working [all night] until now, but we had a situation and I couldn’t. Then I tried to get some sleep, but actually I watched the interview I did with Oprah. But it’s OK, it was just one night [of no sleep] and here I am,” she says. You don’t become one of the most successful singer-songwriters of all time – she has sold more than 200m records, and only the Beatles have had more US No 1 songs – without being a trouper.

Carey, 50, has spent lockdown with her nine-year-old twins, Monroe, named for Carey’s hero, Marilyn Monroe, and Moroccan, named partly for one of her favourite rooms in one of her houses, the Moroccan room, “where so many creative and magical moments have happened, including Nick presenting me with my candy bling”. Nick is Nick Cannon, the twins’ father, and “candy bling” is Carey’s term for her engagement ring, which Cannon hid inside a sweet before proposing. Carey liked Cannon’s proposal so much that she even wrote a song about it, called Candy Bling. The marriage proved less enduring and the couple divorced in 2016.

“Honestly, I don’t miss anyone outside, so I don’t care about lockdown,” she says with a throaty laugh. “But it’s difficult for the kids, because they’re used to three-times-a-year Disney World moments and stuff like that, and that’s just not the current state of affairs.” It is not. So Carey is conducting the promotional tour for her memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, from her kitchen table, and if she has her way – and who would dare to argue? – this will be the last round of interviews she ever does.

“No offence to doing interviews, but what would be the point? I can’t articulate it better than I already have [in the book]. From now on, I’m like, ‘Please refer to page 29,’ you know what I mean?” she says. Carey’s deliciously shady put-downs are legend: her “I don’t know her”, when asked almost two decades ago about Jennifer Lopez is still the internet’s most beloved diss. Speaking of Lopez, her name is notably not in Carey’s memoir. Instead, when recalling the hoo-hah that led to their fallout, when a sample Carey had planned to use on her single, Loverboy, appeared on Lopez’s I’m Real, Carey refers to her as a “female entertainer (whom I don’t know).” So is her official position still that she has never heard of Lopez?

There is a pause, then stifled laughter. “Oh my gosh, can you hear that music in the background? It’s Sam Cooke! It’s fantastic!” she giggles.

Not only has Carey not heard of Lopez, she cannot even hear questions about her, it seems.

Carey’s memoir is about a lot more than score-settling (although she makes time for that, too.) “I don’t think anyone could have known where I was coming from, because I was always very, I don’t know if it was protective, but I was cryptic about the past, let’s say,” she says. No more. The youngest child of an African American father and a white mother, Carey was three when her parents split up. Her childhood was threaded through with neglect and violence, not least from her older siblings. When she was six, she says, her older brother knocked her mother unconscious; when she was 12, her older sister allegedly drugged her and left her with creepy men.

“I think my staying up all night started from having such a dysfunctional family. Oftentimes, whoever was in the house was doing whatever it was that they were doing, and that felt kinda unsafe to me, so I started staying up,” she says. Another legacy of this time is Carey’s obsessive adoration of Christmas, because her childhood Christmases were so miserable. When she wrote the monster hit All I Want for Christmas Is You, she wanted, she says in her book, “to write a song that would make me feel like a carefree young girl at Christmas”.

As a child, her biracial identity made her feel she did not belong anywhere: she was so self-conscious about not being black enough that she wouldn’t even dance, as she associated that with black culture; meanwhile, white girls at school taunted her with the N-word. In one of Carey’s – and my – favourite chapters, she describes how her mother did not know how to look after her young daughter’s textured hair, so it was often matted. Carey would look enviously at the white women in shampoo adverts on TV with their flowing hair. “I am still obsessed with blowing hair, as evidenced by the wind machines employed in every photoshoot of me ever,” she writes.

One of the most painful moments in the book comes in 2001 when Carey is having what the press described as an emotional breakdown. (Carey writes that she did not have a breakdown, but “was broken down by the very people who were supposed to keep me whole.”) During this episode, she rages at her mother, who calls the police. The police take her mother’s side: “Even Mariah Carey couldn’t compete with a nameless white woman in distress,” Carey writes. Is that how she experienced it at the time, or is that how she feels generally, that not even she is safe if a white woman complains?

There is the briefest of pauses. “Those are my words, so please refer to page 29,” Carey says.

Race is very much the running theme in Carey’s memoir. This might come as some surprise to those who know her solely from the mega pop hits such as Hero and We Belong Together, as opposed to the more revealing songs, such as 1997’s Outside, which addressed her feelings of racial ambiguity (sample lyric: “Neither here nor there / Always somewhat out of place everywhere”). “I can’t help that I’m ambiguous-looking,” she says, “and most people would assume that it’s been to my benefit, and maybe it has in some ways. But it’s also been a lifelong quest to feel like I belong to any specific group. It shouldn’t have to be such a freaking thing – and please edit out the fact that I said ‘freaking’. I’m not very eloquent right now.” I ask if she was at all influenced during the writing of her book by the rise of Black Lives Matter. She dismisses the question: “Interestingly, this book predates everything that’s happening now, and the book just happened to be very timely.” In other words, Carey hasn’t caught up to the times, the times have caught up to Carey.

Despite her omnipresence over the past three decades, it is possible that you have not thought about her ethnicity. This, Carey says, has been part of the problem: from the start, she was marketed by “the powerful corporate entities” in a way that played down her racial identity. What made this even more complicated for her was that the most powerful corporate entity in charge of her career at the beginning was her first husband, Tommy Mottola, then the CEO of Sony Music.

Carey’s discovery by Mottola is the stuff of music industry legend. The then unknown aspiring singer gave him a tape of her music at a party in 1988. Mottola tracked her down, signed her and, a few years later, married her. She was 23 and he was 44. Within just a few pages in her memoir, she goes from wearing her mother’s busted shoes to work to living in a $30m mansion with Mottola, which she decorated with enthusiasm: “Though by no stretch do I like a rustic look, I do have a preference for tumbled marble on my kitchen floors,” she writes. Adjusting to the high life was not difficult.

The hits – I’ll Be There, Emotions, One Sweet Day – were unstoppable. The Mottola-Carey marriage did not fare as well, imploding in 1997. Carey expands at some length on her previous allusions to Mottola’s controlling tendencies, claiming he would spy on her and that she was effectively a prisoner in the house. In his 2013 memoir, Mottola admits his relationship with Carey was “absolutely wrong and inappropriate” and adds: “If it seemed like I was controlling, I apologise. Was I obsessive? Yes, but that was also a part of the reason for her success.” Carey points out that she went on to have nine hit albums without Mottola’s controlling obsession. She writes that Mottola tried to “wash the urban” off her, recoiling at Carey’s increasing leaning towards hip-hop and collaborations with African American artists such as ODB. “I believe I said ‘urban, translation black,’ just in case anyone thinks I don’t know,” Carey corrects me. Does she think that was just for commercial purposes, or was something else going on with Mottola? “In my opinion there was a lot of other stuff going on there,” she says.

It must have been pretty upsetting to revisit that period during the writing, I say.

“Yes it was traumatic, but was it harder than some of the other things I’ve gone through? Maybe yeah, actually,” she says with a rueful laugh. “I don’t know if I’ll ever fully recover from the damage of that emotional abuse. But in my school of thought, you have to be a forgiving person.”

Carey is extraordinarily honest in her memoir, but the book is almost as striking for what she does not include as what she does. A lot of attention has focused on her confirmation that she did, as long rumoured, have a fling with the former baseball star Derek Jeter (“I’m not being shady, but he had on pointy shoes,” she recalls a little shadily of their first meeting.) But there is no mention of other boyfriends, such as her former fiancé, the Australian billionaire James Packer.

“If it was a relationship that mattered, it’s in the book. If not, it didn’t occur,” she says.

But you were engaged to Packer, I say.

“We didn’t have a physical relationship, to be honest with you,” she says.

And that is that.

Carey’s singing voice made her famous, but her penchant for being thrillingly, hilariously high-maintenance played its own part in shaping her legend. On an episode of MTV Cribs, she explained that she had a chaise longue in her kitchen because “I have a rule against sitting up straight”, and she has talked about bathing only in milk. Does she think she is high-maintenance – and, if so, does she think it is because she came from nothing?

“You know what? I don’t give a shit. I fucking am high-maintenance because I deserve to be at this point. That may sound arrogant, but I hope you frame it within the context of coming from nothing. If I can’t be high-maintenance after working my ass off my entire life, oh, I’m sorry – I didn’t realise we all had to be low-maintenance. Hell, no! I was always high-maintenance, it’s just I didn’t have anyone to do the maintenance when I was growing up!” she says and cackles with delight.

By now it is almost 7am for her and she is wide awake. I tell her I enjoyed all the references in her book to her enjoying “a splash of wine”.

“Oh, do you? Do you love a splash for yourself?” she asks, pleased.

I do, but I was intrigued by her description of a night out with her friends, including Cam’Ron and Juelz Santana, when they were all “high” on “purple treats”. What were these “purple treats”?

“A legal substance in California known as mari-ju-ana. It’s called purple because that’s the particular weed they liked,” she says.

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And did she like it?

“Are you enquiring for yourself or are you asking if I enjoyed it?” she says, mock coy.

I am asking if you enjoyed it, Mariah.

“No, I hated it,” she deadpans, then laughs. “I’m sorry, but it’s obvious!”

I have been interviewing famous people for a long time, but talking with Carey is the closest I have come to how I imagine it would have been to spend time with Bette Davis or Aretha Franklin. There are lots of ridiculous modern celebrities, but Carey is not like that. With her mix of slightly self-parodic ridiculousness undercut with no-messin’, true-to-herself honesty, she is a proper grande dame of the old school. A diva, in other words. It is a term she has laboured under throughout her career, and it is unlikely she will escape it, even if people now finally know where she is coming from. Does she mind the D-word?

“No! Who the fuck cares?” she laughs. “Honestly! ‘Oh my God, they’re calling me a diva – I think I’m going to cry!’ You think in the grand scheme of things in my life that really matters to me, being called a diva? I am, bitches, that’s right!”

The Meaning of Mariah Carey (Macmillan, £20) and The Rarities (Sony Music) are out now.

• This article was amended on 5 October 2020 to clarify that it is in the United States where Mariah Carey is second only to the Beatles in terms of having the most No 1 singles.

[taexual]

HOLIC - 18 | jb x reader

pairing: Im Jaebum x Reader

genre: enemies to lovers au | roommate au

warnings: some angst + bits of strong language

words: 4.3k

disclaimer: i do not own the gif, please let me know if it belongs to you, so i can give proper credit

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Once Friday came, you could not decide what to wear to Jiho’s show. You’ve had nearly a whole week to prepare for it and yet you’d chosen to spend your time worrying about all of the things you’d have to say to him once you got there instead. Obviously, you’d have to address the issue of him using your photograph without your permission – although, you had a feeling that the severity of your reaction depended a lot on how you thought the picture looked; despite it being unfair to you, you didn’t want to tell him off if you ended up loving his exhibition, after all – but you also debated if you should have confessed the truth about your feelings—or, the lack thereof—for Jiho.

You and Jiho have known each other for a short while and—as you couldn’t get the conversation you’ve had with Jaebum out of your head—you were starting to realize that the romantic feelings that you should have felt towards him just weren’t there and, at this point, it wasn’t likely that they’d come at all. You did think Jiho was attractive and you admired him greatly – well, aside from the few slips he’d made as a professional – but you didn’t think your admiration for him was ever going to grow into anything more. Now, it was possible that you only felt this way because Jiho was rather slow—or non-existent—with his own affection, never giving your heart a chance to properly flutter, but, perhaps, there was also something—or, well, someone— else that your attention was focused on.

In the end, you decided you weren’t going to talk about your feelings tonight – that conversation might have ended up being far too loaded for a setting like this and, besides, you’ve already had enough confrontations for one week – and instead, you chose to concentrate on something that was less emotionally-draining. Fashion.

In the few other private photography shows that you’ve gone to, people usually dressed in a laid-back, casual chic way – jeans with blazers, dresses with sneakers, et cetera. The shows were also dark most of the time, with all the lights dimmed or completely turned off – since the pictures were usually projected onto the wall – but you didn’t know if Jiho was going to do the same. Perhaps the restaurant he’d rented was light. Perhaps it was a five-star one. Or perhaps it was traditional.

You didn’t think you had clothes that fit each of the different scenarios you came up with in your head, so you figured you’d call Hyojin – who’d graduated with a degree in fashion design – and ask for her help.

Right as you prepared to dial her number, though, you heard the door of Jaebum’s room open.

“I’m going out with my friend!” he called out to you from the hallway. “I’ll probably be back late.”

You approached your door and stuck your head out. “Cool. Have fun.”

“You, too,” Jaebum nodded. “Text me how your... thing went and let me know if the loser finally dared to kiss you.”

“Fuck off.”

“Gladly!” he replied, laughing, as he unlocked the door of the apartment and – after giving you another smile – left.

Shaking your head, you retreated back into your room. You and Jaebum had managed to reach the middle ground – it only took a new bed, a solved problem with a problematic ex, and fixed hot water – and you haven’t had a proper argument in three days now, which had to be a record since you moved in together. Sure, you argued about whose turn it was to buy the groceries or why one of you–Jaebum–had left the milk on the cupboard the whole night, but all of this was child’s play in comparison to what you two had argued about before.

It was nice like this. You were finally getting used to each other’s routines, and even creating a routine of your own – you’d eaten breakfast together every morning since you made up, and you’ve even cooked food together, which was something you’d never imagined doing with Jaebum.

You couldn’t help but smile as you sat down on your bed. When you’d first moved in, you’d thought you’d only manage to live together if you avoided each other as much as possible. But you’ve seen Jaebum every day since you moved in and, – since both of you were still alive, – you had to admit, you weren’t doing as bad as you might have initially thought.

A part of you knew that a serious fight was inevitable – that was who you were – and the two of you might even go back to all the words you haven’t said to each other because your last fight was relatively anti-climactic in comparison to what you’d expected. But you were alright now – genuinely and truly – and your mind chose to stay in the present for as long as possible.

The future would come eventually, you didn’t want to bother about it now.

Hyojin had found you an outfit to wear – that girl probably had your entire closet memorized – and you arrived at Jiho’s show, feeling more excited than nervous. That was the power of clothes that you felt good in. If you didn’t end up having a good time here tonight or if you had to physically throw the projector out of the restaurant’s window because Jiho wouldn’t remove your picture from his exhibition if you’d asked, then at least you would look nice while doing it.

You were positive that tonight was going to go well, though, and you couldn’t help but smile as you entered the restaurant and noticed Jiho greeting guests. He looked good—really good—and, for a moment, you forgot all about your conflicted feelings.

“You came,” Jiho smiled, noticing you, his voice thankful. He took your hand in his as a way to say hello – you weren’t really expecting him to hug you since you’ve come to learn that Jiho obviously wasn’t overly affectionate – and nodded his head towards the restaurant. “Come in. Almost everyone is here already, we can start soon.”

You nodded, entering the cozy place he’d chosen for tonight. The first thing you noticed was the brightness – clearly, Jiho wasn’t going to use a projector to showcase his photographs. Then, you took a moment to acknowledge the number of females in the restaurant – as well as how beautiful all of them were – and the actual photographs themselves, hanging in frames on the walls of the restaurant.

That was when reality hit, completely ridding you of every hopeful thought you might have had about tonight.

The place looked like an exhibition already, even if it was supposed to be just a rehearsal for it, and, while it somehow felt much cozier when you could actually see the copies of the pictures and not just the reflections of them from a computer screen somewhere, you couldn’t help but freeze as soon as you started to walk down the restaurant.

Every single photograph hanging on the wall had a girl in it.

As you turned around the restaurant, you felt your stomach sink. Your picture – the one that Jiho had taken on the night the two of you met – wasn’t anything special. It was black and white just like the rest of them, and you looked caught off guard in it just like every other girl in the rest of the pictures. There was absolutely nothing different about yours.

You thought you were going to get sick. Demanding to get your picture taken down seemed so unexplainably stupid now because not one other girl in this room seemed as shocked about this as you felt. They all seemed to know what Jiho was doing and, even if he hadn’t warned them he’d use their pictures, they obviously did not mind.

As you glanced back at Jiho, who was greeting another girl that had just come by taking her hand into his – just like he’d done with you, – you realized that perhaps you and him have had a huge misunderstanding. You tried not to jump to conclusions just yet, though. Perhaps Jiho just found a whole bunch of models to pose for him and you were really different. Perhaps he’d used a picture of you without asking you simply because he couldn’t help not featuring you in his exhibition of so many other girls and he did actually consider you special.

But even your naïve mind couldn’t really believe that after having seen how similar the photographs looked to each other. All of them were obviously pre-planned, they were all a part of a sequence and not one photograph was more special than another one.

It was starting to look as though you’d end up not achieving anything tonight: you couldn’t talk to Jiho about your scary lack of feelings for him – because, apparently, he never even had the intention of catching feelings for you, so you spent all of this time worrying about your heart being elsewhere while you could have just confronted him earlier – and you couldn’t demand to get your picture taken down because of how obvious your expectations for this non-existent relationship would end up being.

You didn’t want to lose what little dignity you had left. No matter how great you felt in the outfit Hyojin had chosen, you knew all of your confidence would escape you if you’d cause a scene in the middle of a restaurant full of beautiful women – models, by the looks of it – who were all—probably—aware of Jiho’s real intentions. And if they weren’t aware, then, at least, they seemed to be completely fine with his decision to create a photography exhibition, completely made out of pictures of surprised girls, accentuating what you could imagine was supposed to be their natural beauty.

You may have thought you could use a great outfit to your advantage as you caused a huge dramatic scene, but you could not utter a single word without your voice shaking in shame.

“Hey,” Jiho’s voice was suddenly by your ear. After getting over the initial surprise of him appearing next to you, you decided you had to clear up the possibility of another misunderstanding and then get out of here.

“The pictures are looking great,” you said, starting off slow. Your voice sounded surprisingly steady. “Do you know every girl in them?”

“Yeah, more or less,” Jiho shrugged his shoulders, his hand moving to your waist. “They’re all wonderful. Have you talked to anyone? Let me introduce you.”

“Actually,” you stopped him, taking a step away so he wouldn’t be touching you anymore. Jiho seemed confused by your move so you tried to give him a polite smile. You were feeling far too embarrassed to explain yourself but you went ahead anyway, “I’m going to get a glass of water, okay? I took a taxi here and I got a bit carsick.”

“Oh, sure, sure,” he nodded, pointing in the direction of the kitchen. “A waiter will greet you there. Would you like me to come with—”

“No, it’s fine,” you cut him off, already walking away. Your entire body was starting to burn up the longer you stared at the photographs around you. “Thanks.”

You weren’t sure if you really needed a glass of water or a whole bottle of any type of alcohol you could find. You’ve been here for five whole minutes and you realized that you, not developing feelings for Jiho fast enough, wasn’t the biggest problem in your life.

You’d assumed you and Jiho were dating. Meanwhile, he must have been using you as a temporary muse of sorts so he could complete his exhibition. The only reason why he’d called you beautiful in that bar where you’d met him wasn’t because he was genuinely attracted to you – and that’s what Jaebum and your friends have been hinting at since the very beginning – it was because he was already looking at you from behind a camera.

You stopped by the exit of the restaurant – you were certainly not sticking around for longer, this was far too embarrassing – and glanced back to look inside again. There was this small, stupid little part of your brain nagging at you for overreacting and insisting that perhaps this wasn’t that bad. Jiho had every right to talk to other girls. You lived with another guy yourself, after all. Maybe Jiho would even understand if you told him to get your picture taken down and he wouldn’t consider it weird or ask you for an explanation – although, certainly, “you’ve used this photograph without my permission” would have been a good enough explanation had you not waited this long to say it.

But then, as you watched Jiho go around, chatting with the other guests, you saw him interact with every girl in the same way he’d interacted with you and the essence of your “relationship” with him was suddenly even more clear to you. You weren’t dating. You had a strictly bussiness-related relationship.

No wonder he’d never kissed you. No wonder he’d never specifically reffered to what you’d assumed were dates as “dates.” He always asked you out for a bite of food, never specifying the occassion. It was just you making conclusions about everything he did, really. Jiho was never dating you. At least, not in the usual sense of that word.

It didn’t hurt as much as it probably should have and, in a way, you felt almost relieved about not having to tell him that you didn’t see him in a romantic light, but, at the same time, you couldn’t help the embarrassment. You’d gotten so excited about finally getting a chance to date someone – and to rub it into Jaebum’s face, of course – that you couldn’t even differentiate an actual date from whatever this with Jiho was.

You were sure Jiho wasn’t going to notice if you’d left the restaurant. There was not much else that you could have done here without letting Jiho know of the delusional ideas you’ve gotten about him and you after you two had met.

Jaebum had told you it took people less than five days to display their feelings for each other. Well, your and Jiho’s five days were up and it was clear as day now – there were no feelings between the two of you whatsoever. Perhaps you were the one who went too far – you really needed to go on a date to prove a point to yourself and, partially, to Jaebum – and misunderstood Jiho’s intentions but, in your defense, he was never clear about what he wanted from you, either.

You still didn’t want Jiho exhibiting that picture of you at your gallery, but you couldn’t deal with it tonight. There were far too many people to witness your shameful confession here. You could already hear their spiteful words, calling you stupid for even considering the possibility of Jiho being interested in you romantically.

You were leaving now – you weren’t sure if Jiho would notice your absence so you didn’t bother with goodbyes – but you knew you’d have to come find Jiho later so you could talk to him before the actual exhibition. Perhaps, by that time, you would manage to convince yourself that Jiho was the one to blame for the false expectations you’ve been given, and you shouldn’t have felt embarrassed—or guilty—about anything.

Another five minutes later, you were already in a cab, feeling glum and disappointed in yourself. You gave the driver the address of Mark’s bar, since Jaebum had told you he was going out with a friend and you’d assumed you’d find him there. Aside from some familiar company, you also really needed a drink or two. Or five.

As you sat down by the bar and immediately ordered “one of everything,” – genuinely surprising the bartender, – you began to scan the place for Jaebum and Mark. You caught sight of Mark first – he gave you a nod and a sign, indicating that he was going to serve you tonight instead since the other bartender was still confused about your order – and then proceeded to look for your roommate.

Jaebum wasn’t by the bar so that meant he was either in a booth at the very back, or on the dancefloor. You’d have paid good money to see Jaebum’s drunken dance but you didn’t think he was there. There weren’t enough people dancing to form an actual crowd and Jaebum didn’t strike you as the type of person who’d love being the center of attention in a place full of people who were relatively sober.

“You look like you stepped into something not particularly pleasant,” Mark spoke, suddenly appearing in front of you.

You snorted, turning around to face him. “You could say that. I think your bartender friend must have thought I was joking when I ordered everything. But I mean it.”

“What happened?” Mark asked then, ignoring your order and instead getting a wine bottle off of the shelf behind him.

“Oh, nothing serious. I’m just overreacting because I’m dumb,” you replied, waving your hand dismissively. “The guy I thought I was dating turned out to be—what do I call this?—fifteen-timing me.”

“Fifteen—that’s a lot of people,” Mark raised his eyebrows, pouring you a glass and filling it to the brim. “Was he seriously seeing that many people at the same time?”

“He wasn’t seeing them per se,” you explained, sighing. “And he wasn’t seeing me, either. I just thought he was. He’s a photographer so he went out with all of these different girls so he could take pictures of them or something. It was all platonic, I guess. I don’t know why I’m acting like this, though. I was almost considering breaking up with him tonight and now I don’t have to do that because—surprise!—we were never even together.”

Mark pushed the wine glass towards you, leaning against the bar top on his elbows. “Wait, so is he the guy I introduced you to the other night?”

“Oh. Yeah. That’s the guy,” you nodded, remembering how Jaebum refused to be your wingman. Clearly, he had a better time recognizing people’s true intentions than you did, even though you weren’t sure if even Jaebum could have guessed that the reason why Jiho valued you was simply because he needed a picture of you.

“He never told you he was seeing other people?” Mark asked. “Because Jaebum mentioned that you’ve gone on a few dates with that guy.”

You didn’t know Jaebum talked to his friend about you and realizing that finally allowed some warmth into your chest after the endless streams of cold ever since you saw Jiho tonight.

“He never told me he was seeing me,” you replied. “I just assumed he was because, in my mind, the only reason why a guy would ask a girl out for dinner was because it was a date.”

“That’s usually the way it is.”

“Oh, not with photographers, apparently,” you said bitterly as you finally raised the wine glass to your lips and finished nearly half of it in one gulp. “Anyway. Is Jaebum here somewhere?”

“I don’t think so,” Mark shrugged. “He didn’t tell me he was coming.”

“Oh,” you voice deflated. “He said he was going out with a friend and I assumed he meant you. Nevermind then.”

“No, actually, I haven’t seen him since you two came to my bar together,” he said, noticing a customer staring at him aggressively from across the bar. “Hold on for a moment, will you?”

You nodded, letting him go off to work as you did calculations in your mind. Jaebum had told you he was going to stay over at a friend’s place after he found out you met up with Suji, and then he said he was out with a friend again tonight – all of those times you’d assumed it was Mark he was talking about.

You didn’t know why you felt so upset that it wasn’t. Knowing where Jaebum was specifically was somehow calming – you knew where to find him if you ever needed him for whatever reason and you’d thought the two of you have gotten into a habit of always letting the other person know where you were. But now you came to learn that Jaebum obviously had friends you didn’t know about.

God, there were so many things you learned tonight. Most important of which was that you needed to stop making assumptions about everything. Clearly, there was a lot you had no clue about. Like the way guys’ minds worked, for example.

“Alright,” Mark announced, coming back to stop in front of you behind the bar again. “Sorry, that guy insisted he’s been waiting for his whiskey for thirty minutes now, even though there’s no way because I saw him come in five minutes ago—anyway. What do you need Jaebum for?”

You looked down at the reflection of the ceiling lights on your wine glass.

Your mind had returned to the night you’d gotten back from seeing Suji and accidentally climbed into Jaebum’s bed with him. You were upset about making Suji cry with your words – however honest they were –  and Jaebum managed to make you feel better by barely doing anything. He didn’t even know the reason why so many different emotions had been brewing inside of you that night, but he didn’t ask. He just threw his arm over you and forced you to go to sleep.

Maybe he had a feeling that you just needed comfort and he was so tired that he was actually willing to provide it for you. Or maybe he just wanted you to shut up and let him go back to sleep. Either way, sleeping next to him did wonders for your exhausted mind.

Maybe you were looking for that kind of comfort again.

Sighing, you looked up at Mark again, finally answering him, “I don’t know.”

But Mark was smiling at you as if he knew the answer even though you said you didn’t.

“I could call him,” he suggested. “He might be with Jackson but I don’t think either of them turns their phone off.”

“Thanks, but there’s no need,” you replied, finishing the rest of your wine and putting the glass down as you replayed Mark’s last sentence in your mind again. “Who’s Jackson, though?”

“One of Jaebum’s friends,” Mark explained, “he’s from the sort of family that has the money and the intelligence to be into all different kinds of art, so, naturally, Jaebum and him are friends. I think Jackson does something with photography,” he had to pause because you groaned, already having had enough of photographers for one day, despite being one yourself. Mark chuckled at that, continuing, “I won’t elaborate on that then. His family also owns a recording studio. I know Jackson lets Jaebum record there for free.”

This made the wine you’ve consumed fizzle and die down as you raised your eyebrows in surprise, not getting a chance to get drunk because this news seemed to sober you right up.

“He’s recorded songs before?” you asked.

You had thought Jaebum was just dreaming of making it as a singer, not actually actively pursuing that dream. When he’s told you he’s written a couple of songs back in the day, you’ve assumed that this was where it ended. You didn’t realize he actually recorded those songs in a professional studio.

“Yeah,” Mark confirmed. “I never really asked to listen to his songs and he never really offered. He only talked about them because I brought it up. He’s kind of weird about his music like that.”

“He is,” you nodded, already knowing that Jaebum never gloated about his songs, always feeling almost shy whenever the topic turned to them. “I never knew he had recorded actual music, though. Wow. That’s good. I’m proud of him.”

A smile appeared on Mark’s face. “Tell him that and maybe he’ll let you listen to them.”

“Oh, I intend to bother him about it until he plays me something,” you promised, making Mark laugh. You felt yourself smile as well, the excitement of hearing about Jaebum’s music making you postpone your worrying about all that had happened tonight. “Maybe that’s exactly the reason why he never told me about it.”

Another few wine glasses later, you were almost ready to share your entire life story with Mark, so you figured it was finally time to get home. You didn’t feel too drunk to walk – you never really did – but Mark insisted on calling you a cab, telling you that Jaebum would kill him if he let you walk home in a state like this although you didn’t see why Jaebum would care about something like that. You were sure he’d get a good laugh if he found out how you crawled home on all fours.

Your mind cleared a little in the cab ride back to your apartment and by the time you climbed up the stairs to your floor, the only after-effect of alcohol that was left was the giddiness. You couldn’t help the smile on your face as you unlocked the door, excited to tell Jaebum how proud of him you were. Maybe you’d even hug him while you begged him to let you hear his music.

The apartment was completely dark and you were starting to worry Jaebum was sleeping already. You didn’t think you were drunk enough to claim to accidentally get into his bed again.

Carefully stumbling into the kitchen, you turned the light on there, deciding to get yourself a water bottle while you came up with your plan of action. You might have to wait until the morning to tell Jaebum how happy you were that he was doing something with his passion because the longer you stayed in the apartment, the more you got convinced that he wasn’t asleep, but, actually, hadn’t even gotten home yet.

When you checked your phone – and noticed that it was just minutes before midnight – you found one text from Jaebum, letting you know that he was going to stay out for longer than he’d planned and telling you that you shouldn’t wait up for him.

And then, as you stood there, all alone in your kitchen, a water bottle in your hand, the excitement you’d felt slowly started to morph into anxiety. It was like the worries you’ve neglected after Mark had mentioned Jaebum’s music all poured down on you again. It was almost unfair how, as soon as you allowed yourself to get comfortable in the false sense of security, the real world always smacked you right in the face like heavy rain did after you’ve spent hours walking under a protective bridge.

You knew you couldn’t have expected Jaebum to always be there for you, he had plenty of problems of his own – none of which you were going to be dealing with, by the way; you were truly done with intervening -- even if he didn’t tell you about them. However, now you were starting to wonder – basing your assumptions completely on the tone of his voice despite knowing how wrong it was to judge someone’s feelings based on written text – if you’ve made Jaebum feel responsible for you. Perhaps he felt as though you’ve trapped him and now he was forced to listen to your issues and help you deal with them and, clearly, he didn’t want to do that hence why he told you not to wait up for him.

You didn’t want to depend on him that badly and you didn’t want him to think that you constantly needed his reassurances and comforting words to survive whenever something seemed to crush your very soul. You wanted your friendship with him to come naturally. You didn’t want to force him to talk to you, you wanted him to want to talk to you.

But perhaps this was just you and your inherent assumption-making accompanied by an alcohol-induced paranoia. Perhaps, after getting so scared you’d lose the connection you’ve had with Jaebum after you met up with Suji, you never got over that even after the two of you had made up and now your fear was starting to manifest itself everywhere. Perhaps your analysis of his message was just another form of overthinking – maybe Jaebum just had other plans tonight and that was it. He wasn’t trying to stay away from home on purpose. He really had no way of knowing about how wrong your meeting with Jiho went, after all.

But, perhaps, just like you’ve been wrong about Jiho’s real intentions and had convinced yourself that he was dating you, now you were convincing yourself that all was fine between you and Jaebum when that just wasn’t likely. Was Jaebum really the kind of person who forgave easily after all that he’d experienced with his ex-girlfriend? Would he really just forget and move past something that was, more or less, a betrayal of his trust?

You didn’t know anything anymore.

Sighing, you put the water bottle down and allowed yourself a moment of pointless staring into the darkness outside of your window, listening to the last few beats of your heart before you headed to bed, ready to forget everything about today.

Worrying about the future was too exhausting so you didn’t want to think about what you’d have to say to Jiho when you saw him again. Similarly, staying in the past was too unhealthy so you didn’t want to keep on replaying your last conversation with Jaebum to see if you’d catch glints of doubt and suspicion in his words.

But living in the present was not much better and -- with Jaebum not here -- you did not know where to go.

    chapter directory

[golgoterror]

Alright, this is ungodly long, but I just wanted to talk about something regarding Jake. 

A lot of this fandom -- at least, from what I’ve seen -- label Jake as stupid. Some may even say Jake and smart are antonyms. This could not be further from the truth. It almost irritates me how much the fandom places this mischaracterization on him. Also, I get to talk about The Lad™ for about ten pages worth of words on Google docs, which is always very, very fun for me.

Well, first things first, let’s talk about the child genius and multi-billionaire polymath that is Jake English.

Puzzle Modus.

Let’s begin with something small. Jake’s modus is of puzzlekind! This is described as:

It's quite a handy modus, allowing you to captchalogue objects of any size, as long as you can fit them all in a finite space by maneuvering the cards around like a big game of Tetris. You like it because it keeps you sharp for solving any puzzles you might find when you go out raiding hallowed tombs, which is never. (x)

He likes puzzles! This is a huge headcanon I absolutely adore that has a basis in the comic: He’s a puzzles guy! This is just sort of a neat little fact about him that I adore to the moon and back. Just the idea of Jake fiddling about with a Rubik’s Cube is kind of adorable.

This is how he goes about doing everything every day of his life. I think that’s just amazing! And incredibly smart of him, I might add.

Skaianet. 

Jake is shown in the credits to take over Skaianet after the game ended. For those unfamiliar, Skaianet made many things for the game, including but not limited to: the interstellar travel we see, transportalizers, the lab by Rose’s house, all Jake’s fancy-schmancy computers, and Sburb itself. In the beta timeline, Grandpa Harley founded Skaianet. In the alpha timeline, Grandma English did. I know Jake didn’t start it up and trying to pass off his alt-timeline self as him is a bit far-fetched at best, but he had the spoons to take it over. I think that speaks volumes for Jake’s intelligence -- this implies, at the very least, he can understand mathematics and physics at a high level. Remind you of someone we already know?

It is also important to note that Jake does, in fact, build the company back from the ground up, because it went to shit before his grandmother died:

GT: Pretty sure her company made a tidy fortune til it went belly up. At least i still have a few of her knickknacks for keepsakes. (x)

So he built an interstellar company back up -- using what his intelligent grandmother had once used -- to being very useful and practical once again. 

As someone with a degree in mathematics and about to finish a degree in physics, I can say this sort of work would for sure require at the very least a decent understanding of quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, electrodynamics, calculus (vector and differential forms), ordinary and partial differential equations, and perhaps other things like topology. I don’t know about you -- and I’m probably tooting my own horn a bit by saying this -- but I think that’s pretty nifty, if I do say so myself. 

Actor.

Once again, I’m reaching into the credits to show that Jake has become a movie star after the game ends. Memorizing all those lines, slipping into characters... Being an actor is no easy feat. 

( Side note: This leads into my headcanon that Jake can imitate accents and voices on a whim. No more arguing about whether he has a British, American, or Australian accent -- you’re all right! )

And I would like to add he has two jobs! Skaianet and being a movie star! This guy’s a fucking polymath for Christ’s sake.

Reading People.

Let’s start of simple: Brain Ghost Dirk. I can hear the outcries now of Dirk’s powers being the cause for this. And, yes, I can’t ignore Dirk’s influence in this, but Jake’s hope powers were also needed for the projection to come alive. And the fact he was able to make such a startlingly accurate projecting of Dirk in his own mind is astounding -- even BGD himself thinks so!

TT: You could view me as a projection of the real Dirk within your mind, as expressed through all of your thought patterns about him. TT: So I'm kind of a splinter of his corporeal self who happens to live in your awareness. TT: I'm a startlingly close approximation to the real thing, for all intents and purposes. GT: Just how startlingly close are we talking? TT: I'm not going to give you a bogus percentage like the glasses cause that's not my shtick. TT: But pretty damn close. (x)

A very deep understanding of the other is needed for Jake to do this. That is pretty fucking incredible. He can clearly read people really well -- he had a few times where he was cluing in on Jane and Dirk have feelings for him:

TG: its one of those things jane likes about u so much GT: It is? TG: which TG: errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr im not supposed to talk about 2 u evr so nm GT: Talk about what? TG: nope GT: You mean how um... GT: Well a way in which i suppose... TG: no nope GT: Jane is prone to looking upon me with what i fathom to be more than just friendly affection? (x)

TT: I guess call it an extra birthday present. But instead of a present that's awesome, consider it more like a weird confession that may change the way you feel about me. GT: Whoa uh... GT: Dirk are you... uh... GT: Saying what i think? (x)

He’s not completely clueless on people! In fact, he seems to have a really good understanding of his friends. That’s something a lot of people seem to forget because of the incident that I will be getting to later on.

Fending For Himself.

I’ve already written quite a bit on this, but I’ll sum it up here: Jake is exceptionally good at living in the wild and taking care of himself. Sort of like a wild garden; he doesn’t need to be taken care of. Survival skills, especially around fighting and fending off things, aren’t something everyone has. This, once again, counts in his favour, even if it doesn’t line-up with “book smarts”.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

That’s five things! It’s clear Jake is, in fact, a polymath and incredibly intelligent. So, what’s with the fandom painting him as being dumb? What’s with people actually thinking he’s stupid? I think we can all take several wild guesses as to why that’s the case.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Takes things literally.

This is something that plagues Jake quite a lot. Case in point:

GT: Wow like the epic kevin costner film? TT: Almost exactly. Especially by the same degree of shittiness. GT: Oh man does that mean you have to drink your own pee?????? TT: You get used to the taste. Welcome it, even. TT: That takes about 15 days in a row of hard piss drinking though. GT: Ewwwwwwwwwwww no dude. No ew. :( TT: Relax, I don't drink any goddamn piss, ok? GT: Oh ok. Whew. (x)

But, well, let’s address the elephant in the room. The chat I laughed so hard at when I read it the first time due to pure, unadulterated second-hand embarrassment: Jake asking Jane if she had feelings for him.

Let’s analyze this, shall we? Jake starts off by being vague as all Hell, and I’ll spare those details, until finally...

GT: Just come out and say it. Do you fancy me? GG: No! GT: I see. GT: Very well then. GT: Jeez i mustve really misread that one! I feel like kind of a bone head now. (x / x)

Okay, she says no, and he backs off. That’s fine and dand--

GG: No!!!!!! GG: Oh my God, what am I saying here? GG: Jake, I didn't mean it! I didn't want to make you feel that way! GT: Now jane lets not backpedal here. GT: Youve spoken the truth and i greatly appreciate and respect you for that. GT: But now that i think about it you know what? GG: ... GG: No? :( GT: Please dont take this the wrong way but your answer is actually kind of a relief! (x)

... Oh, right. Yeah. It keeps going. It just keeps--

GT: Actually since youve made your feelings apparent and only see me as a friend that makes it a lot easier! GG: Haha, yes! GG: Friends!!!! GT: Maybe you could help me sort out some stuff that has been weighing on me lately? GG: Well what are friends for Jake!!!!! (x)

Sweet Jesus, Jake.

GG: Me? GG: HOO HOO HOO! GG: I'm just GG: Terrific! GG: I'm feeling so... GG: Friendly!!! GG: I clearly just want to be a good friend and bring all my AMAZING FRIENDLINESS to bear on your problems. GG: Friendlystyle! Ahahahah? GG: Shit I mean GG: Ahahahah! GT: Thats aces. Jane youre a sweetheart. (x)

Alright, alright, enough! You all remember the fucking chat. 

Regardless, it’s very apparent Jake takes things at face value. I also will cite him talking to Jane before her birthday, but not list examples, because what happened above will just happen once again. 

Okay, so he takes things at face value. What’s wrong with that? He trusts people to not lie to his face -- to not sugarcoat things or beat around any bushes. Perhaps I’m projecting a bit, but I do the same damn thing. I think a lot of people do! I don’t think reading things as fact over text is a good measure of someone’s intellect. All it does is show he has issues with communication. Okay, so he struggles with one thing. Sue me.

Doesn’t catch things right away.

Yeah okay I’m just gonna dump a few examples of this.

GT: Haha wow. Must have been a hell of a guy. TT: So... TT: You're not making any connections there? GT: Where? Huh? TT: Famous comedian, about the age of your grandma, inheriting the family name of the Baroness... TT: Not ringing a bell? GT: What are you talking about! Dirk stop speaking in riddles and keep telling the story i am on tenterhooks here! TT: Ok, well it's not like it's that important. Just a super obvious thing that'll probably occur to you later when you're looking in the fridge you don't have, at which point you'll feel like an idiot. GT: Oh my god you can be one opaque motherfucker just clue me in bro! TT: Nah, it'll be funnier this way. GT: STRIIIIIIDEEEERRRRRRRR!!!!! TT: Moving on. (x)

GT: Whats going on? TT: Took you long enough to figure it out. TT: Pages really are a slow burning class. Damn. GT: Figure what out! TT: You're asleep. (x)

This leads into the point above. His mind doesn’t work that way -- but that doesn’t mean he’s not intelligent. He needs everything laid out in front of him so he can make the connections and understand what’s happening, but there’s no real harm in this, and it certainly doesn’t dictate whether the guy is “intelligent” or not.

There are many, many more examples in canon depicting Jake as having difficulties with communication and you all can open most of his pesterlogs and probably find one. I’m not going to list anymore. But, hold your horses, I swear I’m getting to a point!

Difficulty reading.

A lot of the media Jake consumes is picture-based. Movies, comics, even the puzzles are most likely spacial and probably not riddles. It’s not far to imagine Jake might not be a terribly good reader, considering nobody was really around to make him read. Of course, his grandmother was around when he was little, so he can read -- and he can read just fine. But he probably isn’t very good at it simply from lack of practice. He also has terrible grammar, something Jane picks on him for, so it’s entirely possible that’s a contributing factor. He may just have trouble reading and writing.

Speaking from experience, I have dyslexia. As such, reading and writing are incredibly hard for me. I never read the books in my literature classes -- both in English and French -- but I did get the gist of the books (enough to get a decent mark in the class at least) by watching a movie adaptation of the novel. I don’t think it’s that far-off to think Jake may, indeed, do the same thing.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

NOTE: This next part is a bit hard for me to write, because I don’t want to vilify any of you. It might not have clued in on anyone or maybe you just saw Jake as a sort of comic relief and meant no harm by it. And I hope shining a light on this will make you all think twice about the guy. However, I can’t really avoid this next part, and I may get a bit emotional in it. Just a bit of a warning.

All of the above points are just me trying to say Jake probably has undiagnosed learning disabilities and perhaps autism. I don’t think I need to go into detail about how those don’t make someone “stupid”. If you think that’s the case, fuck you. I can’t argue with ableists, much less do I actually want to. 

NOTE: I wrote a thing on his speech impediments. That may be of interest too. I don’t really know, but here it is nonetheless.

My take-away message here is: just because someone struggles with socialization or other things doesn’t mean fucking anything in terms of their intelligence. Jake is very clearly smart and has the ability to read people incredibly well -- to the point of making copies of them! Perhaps it’s just a bit easy to underestimate the guy compared to other characters, though.

There are other things that muddy this up a bit, unfortunately.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Trolling.

Jake is such a fucking troll. Jesus shitting Christ, does he get a kick out of acting stupid just to make the other person look silly. Or perhaps even to make himself laugh in the process. Case in point:

uu: I WILL JUST BE YOUR PATRON DUDE. uu: OR MAYBE. YOUR PATRON MANBRO. GT: Sounds pretty gay. uu: WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? GT: Whats what? uu: GAY. WHAT'S GAY YOU IDIOT FUCK. GT: Oh right. GT: Forgive me i forget you arent familiar with all of my earth lingo. GT: Its like... GT: How do i explain. GT: You know. Its a rather old fashioned term for being jolly and festive together. GT: Like "that rollicking time we had scrumming the other eve sure was gay." uu: I SEE. uu: THEN YES. YOU ARE CORRECT. uu: THIS IS GOING TO BE GAY AS HELL. (x)

Look at his goddamn face during this exchange:

That little bastard knows exactly what he’s doing. 

And these aren’t stand-alone events! Jake is very, very silly and will use the fact others see him as stupid to have a little fun. May as well, right? And, in the process, he makes others look pretty damn stupid. 

But sometimes it’s a bit hard to tell when he’s acting stupid against when he’s genuinely not getting something. I think he even fools himself sometimes! So you have to be a bit careful about fake-outs. I’m sure even the other alphas have trouble deducing when he’s doing this -- which only adds to the myth of him actually being “stupid” when viewed on first-glace.

He probably also does this with crushes, purposefully ignoring the signs because he doesn’t want to deal with it or may not believe anyone could like him that way. After all, if he’s wrong, he may think himself to be conceded and having a big head. So, he ignores the signs, thus convincing himself the feelings aren’t there. Then he gets absolutely fucking bamboozled beyond belief to find out they actually do like him. But that’s just a little side-note.

Thinks he’s stupid.

This one is just a bit... Sad. Very sad. Jake genuinely does think he’s stupid. Quite a lot, really. 

GT: I shoulda asked where he fit into the picture if you were raised alone. I can be dumb as a bag of penny candy sometimes. (x)

Just... Man, he’s been called and treated as stupid so many times, he’s at the point where he believes it. If you asked him, he’d say Dirk is a genius, Roxy is always smart and sassy, and Jane is brilliant. (I don’t have a source for that last one but... Come on. She lectures him about grammar. Don’t fuck with me.) But when it comes to himself? He can’t say the same. Of course he then acts that way. He sees himself as a burly adventurer who is also a gentleman and tries to live up to that. No where along those lines does he think he’s intelligent. And that’s just... a little heartbreaking, really, all things considered.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Can’t believe this blog is just me going, “Wanna see how fast I can talk about Jake?”, and a shit-ton of people all nodding before I talk for six hours straight. Anyway, take-home message is: Jake’s smart. Jake’s very, very smart. He’s also a himbo, but he’s incredibly smart. Just because he has learning disabilities doesn’t mean fuck-all. 

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk. There are drinks and refreshments in the back. Have a safe trip home. Remember to tip your waiters and waitresses. Jesus fuck can I run this gag any harder into the ground? Giving me language was a mistake. No but, really, if you read this whole damn thing, thank you! I hope this was as fun to read as it was to write.

[awkward-child-of-satan]

Alrighty! I know this took FOREVER and I apologise for that @ihalfandhalfbastardi so I made it a bit longer. I hope you like it!

Patton was tired. Tired of the butterflies, tired of the way his heart pounded in his chest and tired of not getting anything back. Most of all, he was tired of grading these papers. He sighed and looked at the time: 11:56. He still needed to teach his first period tomorrow at 9:15 and he wasn't even done with the day's lesson plan.' I'll just go in early and finish, if anything I can always show a video. ' he thought to himself. He had wanted to get everything done tonight but he just couldn't focus. The thoughts of the English teacher next door kept invading his mind. But could you blame him? Patton loved everything about him. From his deep blue eyes to the way his laugh made Patton's heart flutter. It was all of this and more that made him absolutely in love with his best friend Logan.

Logan was fustrated, to say the least. He was supposed to be reading his book, The Great Divorce, for his class tomorrow but somehow got distracted. He didn't even notice his change of thought until the book fell from his lap. He usually finished the book by now having read it multiple times, but he couldn't get the bubbly teacher out of his mind. His smile that seemed reserved just for him and his baby blue eyes that saw the best in every student and teacher alike. He was caring and helpful to everyone he came across. Logan's heart began to beat faster and faster the more the other teacher was thought about. He didn't know what to do. Patton and him had been friends for 3yrs and he'd never thought that he'd feel this way for him. He didn't even expect to become friends with someone as goofy as him. But that's the thing with Patton, he just had this thing that drew you to him. Logan was in over his head thinking that Patton would be just another coworker. The man sighed. He needed to finish the book soon if he wanted to be. Prepared for the next day.

Patton woke up with a start, " Ah! I'm late for school!...wait! I'm 27....IM THE TEACHER!" He had run to his car so fast , he almost forgot to change his clothes. With 15 mins to spare Patton pulled up to the school and went immediately to the teachers lounge where lo and behold, there he was. The man that has been invading his mind for the last year. Logan Sanders. Patton could already feel the blush from his cheeks starting to spread. "Good morning everyone! How are you guys?" Logan looked up at the sound of his voice and began to walk over to him until he was in Patton's space. "I am well Patton, but there is something that I wish to speak with you about later on, if you could spare a few minutes?"

Patton couldn't help the blush that formed on his face as he nodded slowly, afraid of his voice not working properly. Logan smiled at him and walked away as if the whole conversation had no effect on him. How did he do that? How could he just ignore the tension between them like it didn't matter! Patton had then decided that he would bring this to Logan's attention the next time they talked. It was now or never. It was then that he heard someone clear their throat next to him. Patton jumped. There next to him with a biggest shit eating grin to exist was no other than Virgil Storm. "You know you talk out loud when you're really focused. It's quite entertaining actually."

Patton felt his heart drop. Had the head of his department head just hear him confess that there was something going on with his coworker? He felt nothing but panic, what is he was homophobic? Or what if he was interested in Logan and hates me now? Patton didn't know what else to do but stare as he waited for the inevitable "You're gay?" But it never came. What he heard instead was: " If you're going to argue about your relationship don't do it in front of the students, then they know too much about your personal life. Also keep the bedroom eyes for outside of school."

Patton wasn't sure what to say but," You're not mad?"

Vigil just scoffed," Why would I be mad? Did you not finish your lesson plan for the week? What or who you do outside of work is none of my business. And I'm not homophobic, I'm actually gay myself."

Just as Patton was about to reply that he was NOT in fact sleeping with Logan the bell decided to ring signaling that there was 5mins until school officially started. Patton grabbed his stuff and walked to his classroom.He couldn't help but glance over at the room next door, Logan's English 3 classroom as he let his first period students in. His eyes were met with those of Logan's as he winked and went on into the class. Patton could do but try and un-red his face before addressing his class.

It was after school and no student was to be found in his classroom when he heard a knock at the door. Logan looked up and was greeted with the smiling creative writing teacher from next door. His heart pounded against his chest as he cleared his throat. "Ah Patton, I was just about to order some food, would you like some?"

The other teacher shook his head,"No thanks! I'm going to dinner tonight so I'll eat then."

Logan felt his heart tear a little, he wasn't sure why, but it hurt to hear that Patton wouldn't eat with him. "Of course, no problem. I just had a question for you. It's about our classes. I was thinking that we could do a little collaboration of sorts. My students our learning about editing others work. So I was thinking your students could write a story of sorts and I would have mine edit. What do you think?"

Patton felt his heart sink to his stomach. That's why he wanted to talk? "Sounds great! I'll ask Virgil about it. So,... is that it?"

Logan blinked. "Is there anything else you'd like to discuss?"

"Uhm, no th-that's all I guess."

He turned to leave but stopped. He needed to do this. Patton was going to go insane if he never got the chance to tell him. "Wait, that's not all actually, there's something that I need to tell you. "

"Oh, ok, go ahead Patton."

Patton took a deep breath trying to calm down. He needed his voice to be steady. He looked into those deep blue eyes and just said it. "Logan, I... I'm in love with you. Like a lot. So much actually, that I can't focus, and my heart beats faster and, I can't help but think that you like me too. And it's ok if you don't I just had to tell you befo-"

"Patton."

"Y-yes Logan?"

The other teacher stood up from his desk and walked toward the mess of a man that was Patton. He grabbed his hand and brought it to his heart. Patton could feel his heart, even through his clothes, he could tell it was beating as fast as his. "Like this? Is this what your heart feels like? I don't understand it but it seems that I feel the same way."

Patton couldn't help but smile, "This is love Logan, this is what it feels like."

"So this is love.

This is what makes life divine

I'm all aglow and now I know

The key to our heaven is mine. "The teacher smiled, "I get it now."

Patton blushed. Did Logan seriously quote a Disney song? Before he could question it, Logan's lips were on his as they began to-

"Woah ok! I did not expect that to go that far. Great writing, though, Roman! Maybe just a little too explicit?"

Patton handed the paper back to the Disney obsessed student as he went back to his desk. What was he thinking when he thought of the prompt? He didn't think that asking his student to write about what they thought happened when his husband and him got together would be this exciting. But here he was reading another paper.

Fin~

[inyournightmares97]

GOT7 AS: Managers in a Company

Just a few thoughts about what GOT7 would be like if they were managers/Head of Department in a company. Totally inspired by the fact that I’ve been watching the kdrama Chief Kim lately and corporate politics fascinates me. 

Mark

Mr. Tuan is the head of the IT Department. 

He works with computers and is the acknowledged technological genius of the company. It takes Mark Tuan exactly two minutes to scan a software and he can suddenly use it as though he designed it himself. 

At the insistence of the employees from other departments, he regularly conducts tutorials and FAQ sessions to help employees better utilize the office software but nobody ever attends those. Instead, they just summon the IT Department to their desks whenever they can’t figure out something. 

It makes Mark furious. 

Sometimes there isn’t even any problem with the software. It’s just the female employees who have nothing better to do and want the chance to flirt with the cute guy from IT. 

He was even slipped a man’s number once. 

Mark finally ended up going to the CEO and making his tutorial sessions mandatory for all employees, So now on the first Tuesday of every month, all the employees have to gather in the auditorium for an hour and listen to Mr. Tuan give a lecture on the latest updates to the office Intranet and  explain how to use the software. 

He knows it’s a waste of his time since people will keep calling the IT Department for help anyway, but Mark figures the least he can do is waste some of their time in exchange. It gives him a small sense of achievement to look at all their bored and miserable faces.

Mark is a silent genius when it comes to IT, but his managerial skills are... non-existent.

The IT Department essentially does whatever they feel like because Mark has never scolded his employees or even told them to get back to work.

His only strategy is non-interference. He doesn’t care if the employees are playing games during office hours (he often does so himself, with the door to his office locked and his secretary warned to send all visitors away) and even if he catches them in the act he never says a word. 

But the employees know better than to completely neglect their work, because if they do, somebody from another department might file a complaint about them and that complaint would get forwarded to Mr. Tuan. 

Complaints = Paperwork

There is nothing Mr. Tuan hates more than paperwork. The only time his smiling and handsome face turns dangerous is when somebody comes up to him with paperwork. He would rather install the intranet software into a hundred office computers than file a single report. 

Mark doesn’t even remember the names of all the people who work underneath him in the department. So during performance reviews, everyone just gets a good/decent review because who knows how much work is being done by each employee? Certainly not Mark Tuan. He couldn’t care less. 

Mr. Tuan has never worked a minute of overtime in his life. 

He leaves the office at 5 pm sharp, every single day and he does not come in on weekends under any circumstances. I’m sorry, the company is about to fall to pieces and you need someone to fix the software? Sure, remind me first thing on Monday morning. 

Orders pizza and coke for the entire Department whenever it’s somebody’s birthday (his secretary slides him a note to remind him whenever that is the case). 

He’s a little absent-minded and clueless at times, but the entire IT department agrees that they pretty much lucked out getting Mark Tuan as a manager. They wouldn’t exchange him for the world. 

Jaebum

Mr. Im Jaebum manages the Production Department

Production and manufacturing isn’t easy work. There are deadlines to meet and quality standards to maintain. Production is the lifeblood of the corporation. 

The quality of the products is extremely important to the company’s reputation and Im Jaebum does not compromise on anything. Everything has to be done perfectly and he expects his employees to come up with flawless results. He comes up with numbers and his employees have to bring them into existence. 

But his expectations come with a responsibility of his own.

Jaebum takes excellent care of his employees. Even though the production goals he sets seem a little high at times, he also makes sure that every single employee, right down to the lowest factory worker is well-taken care of. 

The company hasn’t faced a single worker’s strike since Mr. Im took over the Production Department. He can often be found arguing with the Directors and higher-ups to ensure better working conditions and benefits for his employees. A healthy workforce makes for a healthy company. He genuinely believes that his workers need to be happy for the department to function efficiently. 

Mr. Im is both feared and respected. 

He sometimes goes down the factories himself and conducts surprise inspections, so the warehouses and production facilities are always on high alert. But if the inspection goes well, then he treats all the workers to drinks after working hours end. 

Jaebum sometimes gets a little drunk himself and does a really good impression of the CEO which gets everyone cracking up. But if anyone tries to take a video of him doing it, they’re going to be treated to a death glare. 

Jaebum also secretly really adores kids, even though he doesn’t have any of his own. So he organizes a ‘bring-your-kids-to-work’ day twice a year. All the employees of his department can bring their kids to work to see what their parents do. Jaebum places a huge jar of candy on his desk and blushes whenever the kids come up to him. He’s too awkward to actually entertain them but he thinks they’re really cute. 

He even let a particularly adorable five-year-old girl sit in his large, swirly leather office chair and wheeled her around like a rocket until he noticed the other employees were looking at him weirdly. 

Even though Jaebum works them hard and enforces a lot of strict rules, everyone in the Production Department agrees that you can never find a manager more fair or just than Mr. Im Jaebum. 

Jackson

Mr. Jackson Wang is head of the PR Department: Public Relations is his natural calling.

Jackson is that guy who constantly has a little Bluetooth mic in his ear; it’s really hard to tell whether he’s addressing you in front of him or he’s just talking to somebody through the Bluetooth. He likes to pace up and down the main office while taking calls in a loud voice. It makes him feel important. 

Jackson takes a lot of phone calls. Most of them aren’t even work related, he’s just chatting with people in high positions but he claims that “maintaining contacts” is what he’s getting paid for.

Mr. Wang also uses the company card a lot. He submits receipts for various clubs and restaurants that he took some big politician or journalist to. Jackson can often be found in the Finance Manager, Park Jinyoung’s office towards the end of the month, begging him to clear all sorts of absurd expenses made in the company’s name. They usually have an hour-long meeting in Mr. Park’s office and Jackson ends up paying for the events by himself. 

He’s not the best problem-solver. Jackson’s solution to just about any problem is “let’s call for a press conference.”

- “Mr. Wang, it’s actually very important that we keep this information away from the press for the time being-”

- “Yeah, yeah, I get that. But don’t you think we should hold a press conference? I’ll set one up right away!”

Somehow, he’s extremely hurt and surprised whenever he finds out that he’s been kept in the dark about confidential company matters. 

Whenever there is a press conference though, Jackson makes it the most flashy and extravagant event possible. He hands out imported care packages to all the journalists and gives them free hampers with company products.

Every minuscule charitable contribution the company makes is on international headlines the next day. Pictures of the CEO visiting orphanages and making donations to starving children in poor countries can be found all over the internet. Jackson put them there. 

He has a special team of people dedicated to leaving nice comments about the company on all sorts of internet fora. Sometimes he logs on himself and responds to haters just for the hell of it. He also manages the company’s social media presence; they have an Instagram page, a Twitter page, a Facebook page and exist on pretty much every social media platform ever. 

Jackson has an excellent employee incentive scheme. Friday mornings are brainstorming sessions and anybody who comes up with a good idea to boost the company’s image gets a special gift; usually an expensive bottle of wine Jackson scored from a guy he knows, or a little bonus. The Finance Department severely disapproves of this scheme, so the funds come directly from Jackson’s own pocket. 

He also likes a comfortable and bright environment. The PR Department’s office spaces are all painted in colorful shades, with beanbags and funny-looking chairs and fluffy rugs. He tried to get a cafe installed but the Finance Department put an end to that nonsense very quickly. 

Although Jackson can be a little wild and loud at times, everyone agrees that the PR Department is undoubtedly the most fun department to work in. 

Jinyoung

Mr. Park Jinyoung manages the Finance Department.

Before he turned up, the department was a corrupt mess. There were accounting scams everywhere, people at all levels of the corporate structure were siphoning off money whenever they pleased. Jinyoung personally tracked every single one of these people down and found proof that they’d been embezzling company funds. 

Let’s just say that a lot of employees got arrested during the first two months of Mr. Park’s appointment. The PR Department was in panic (the only time Jackson Wang was forced to actually work overtime to ensure the entire company wasn’t labelled as corrupt by the media), but it worked out in the long run. Now the company is clean and Mr. Park does not compromise on integrity. 

Jinyoung has one golden rule, which is written in bold letters and pasted on his office for everyone to see as they arrive. The sign reads ‘No Wasteful Expenditure’. There is nothing Jinyoung hates more than useless expenditure. Every penny spent must bring in some solid, traceable returns and that is how he runs the finances of the company.

He can regularly be seen arguing with Mr. Wang of the PR Department in his office. “Taking the journalists to a strip club is NOT a business expense! I refuse to sanction your reimbursements! Pay for your own entertainment!”

Jinyoung is also extremely stingy about allocating budgets to the Research and Development team. Kim Yugyeom can often be found in Mr. Park’s office as well, pleading for more funds while Jinyoung ignores him completely. “When is the last time your Department ever designed anything worth selling? All the money we’ve allocated you in the past is a sunk cost. Do you know what that means, Mr. Kim? It means it’s sunk to the bottom of the fucking ocean and we’re never getting that money back!”

Mr. Kim Yugyeom doesn’t ask for money anymore. R&D make do with what they have. 

Jinyoung is extremely anal about his office space. The entire Finance Department is stuck with posters like “Reuse and Recycle” and there are reminders to turn off the lights when not in use. Jinyoung also insists that the air-conditioning be switched off for at least two hours every day. Even in summer. Sweating is good for your body. 

The prevailing system is tough love. Jinyoung is harsh with employee performance reviews and getting a bonus is not easy if you work for the Finance Department. He’s also a micro-manager, requiring that every small thing be passed through him for approval. 

Delegation is not a term well-respected in Mr. Park’s vocabulary. He doesn’t trust people to do things themselves. Sometimes he wanders around the employee’s desks for no reason, hovering over them like a schoolteacher trying to make sure the students aren’t cheating on an exam. 

Whenever the auditing season is over, though, Jinyoung makes sure to throw a huge party for the accounting branch and invites the entire Finance Department. Work outings aren’t often but when they do take place, they get wild. 

Overall, the employees of the Finance Department work hard and long hours, but they can’t really complain because Mr. Park works just as hard as them and he never sets any standards that he doesn’t follow himself. 

Youngjae

Mr. Choi Youngjae is the friendly Human Resources manager. 

The HR Department is a very calm and peaceful place. Youngjae has strategically placed potpourri all over the Department office to disseminate calming fragrances and he keeps scented candles in his own office. It’s his way of relieving stress after a long day of dealing with people screaming at him. 

“Yes, sir, I understand that you booked the conference room in advance and that the PR Department should not be allowed to play loud music and disturb your meeting. Yes, I’ll have a talk with Mr. Wang about this.”

“It does make sense that an executive of your level should be allowed to travel in business class, but it’s up to the Finance Department to allocate budget and sanction your... yes, I understand. I’ll talk to Mr. Park.”

The HR Department is essentially the anger management center for all the other employees. Many of the managers like to come and walk into Mr. Choi’s office at all times of the day to vent their problems to him. He’s often dealing with noise complaints filed against the PR Department and the Marketing Department. 

His only friend in the office is Jaebum, who often comes to talk to him about employee benefits and payroll issues. Youngjae admires how passionate Jaebum is about worker’s rights and he generally backs him when trying to beg the Board to allow for an increase in wages or additional holiday bonuses for the employees. It’s the only time Youngjae’s job feels worthwhile. 

Youngjae is also required to hold seminars and training courses on conflict resolution and workplace ethics every quarter. The sessions are largely pointless because they usually just end in Jinyoung making snarky remarks about how all of the other departments waste the company’s money and Jackson’s cellphone goes off every five minutes because he refuses to keep it on silent. Bambam and Yugyeom are usually entirely absent from the seminars completely; they translate seminar day to mean holiday. 

Youngjae is extremely grateful to Mark and Jaebum for being the only two people who actually pay attention to his seminars, but they’re never involved in any conflict anyway so it makes no sense. 

Youngjae also regularly has to talk to Bambam about taking too many vacations days. Somehow, the man turns up with perfectly valid medical certificates stating that he was ill even though everyone knows he went on a trip to Bangkok with his new girlfriend. Youngjae doesn’t really know how to deal with the problem. He chooses to ignore it. 

On slow days, Youngjae brings his dog into work and spends the afternoon playing with Coco. 

Overall, he’s an extremely sweet HR manager who secretly hates his job but puts up with it because he doesn’t know what else he would do. Also leaves work at exactly 5 pm sharp and sometimes runs into Mark in the parking lot. 

Bambam

Bambam runs the Marketing Department.

The Department is largely a mess. It’s meant to be a hub of creativity, and the office is filled with drawing boards and sticky notes and all sorts of scribbles all over the place. 

A clean environment does not get one’s creative juices flowing. 

Bambam also has dartboards with pictures of their major competitors set up all over the office. Employees are encouraged to use them often. 

The job of marketing is to get products to sell and Bambam firmly believes that there is one foolproof way to do that; glamour. 

He makes the company sign endorsement deals with almost every single famous celebrity in town; actresses, sports-persons, singers... Bambam knows them all and they’re all endorsing his products. If his team can’t come up with a good enough marketing strategy then they can just take their pick of all the celebrities Bambam has signed deals with and use one of them to endorse the product.

It’s not easy convincing Jinyoung to part with millions so that he can pay some famous actress to advertise their cosmetics line, but Bambam is better at wearing Jinyoung down than the other managers. Also, sales figures have been skyrocketing ever since Bambam took over so Jinyoung has a soft spot for him. At least he brings in results, unlike the R&D team. 

Bambam maintains a very casual work environment with his employees. The moment their workload decreases, he’s usually off visiting some exotic foreign country. It’s surprising how he manages to get work done despite almost never being in his office; but Bambam parties hard and works harder. 

He probably would have been fired by now if he hadn’t been bringing in so many sales, and if Youngjae hadn’t been too soft to bring up the matter of him overstepping his allocated vacation days.  

All the same, all his employees love him. 

Yugyeom

Mr. Kim Yugyeom manages the Research and Development team

The R&D team was one of the biggest spenders in the company until Mr. Park Jinyoung was hired and slashed their budget in half. They’ve been struggling to operate since then, but their productivity hasn’t increased much. They still produce next to nothing. 

Yugyeom always encourages his employees to share their wild and insane product ideas. Since the R&D department don’t actually have to show any concrete results, they can often be seen slacking off. Most of their ideas are insane from the start and could never have been implemented anyway.

The only productive research that was taking place through the R&D Department was in the cosmetics line, but Yugyeom had that research shut down after he found out that they were testing the cosmetics on little bunnies and mice. He spent the rest of the day locked up in his office watching PETA videos on the horrors of animal testing and crying himself to sleep. 

It took the combined efforts of Youngjae and Bambam to reassure Yugyeom that he wasn’t responsible for the deaths of hundreds of animals and that he should just shift his focus to products which didn’t need to be tested on living things. 

The biggest achievement of Mr. Kim’s career was convincing the company to start a line of chocolate milk-based products. It was a line of research that Jinyoung firmly refused to fund but that didn’t matter because Yugyeom and his employees were fully willing to test the product on themselves. They drank nothing but chocolate milk for an entire month before the product was finally approved for sale. 

Nobody complained because Yugyeom looked so hopeful. 

Bambam was so proud of his friend for having finally developed a successful product that he hired one of the most popular actresses to endorse it and the chocolate milk sold like hotcakes. It’s still one of the most popular milk brands. 

On days when they don’t need to work because Youngjae is holding one of his workplace ethics seminars, he and Bambam go to the amusement park or the bowling alley and have the time of their lives. 

Most of the employees in the R&D team love Yugyeom because, well, nobody every really does any work there and he doesn’t care either. Who wouldn’t love a manager like that? 

[chopper-witch]

SPOILER REVIEW, ALL SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

Okay spoiler review: 

I. Fucking. Loved. It. 

I will address the complaints of certain things as they come up. 

Things I think could have been improved:

Including the scene that was the mid-credits of CM. A lot of people didn’t go to see it so their context was off when she saved Tony and Nebula. 

Almost no one knew who Harley was, now that he was all grown up, during Tony’s funeral. Most people just said “who the hell is that?”. Give him a crushed Dora watch that he is holding/looking at and everyone will know. 

The gay character was Joe Russo sitting in Steve’s support group. STFU that isn’t even a side character. 

I wish one more OG6 Avenger had died. I figured one of each pair would (and I was right for 2) but I didn’t think four would survive. Idk if I’d choose Thor or Professor Hulk but one of them. 

That’s it. 

Okay, now to things I fucking loved:

That cold opening. Clint having a good time and then his whole family just…. goes. Then when they reverse the snap his phone ringing and it being his wife was an amazing way to finish the arc. My lord.

Karen Gillan deserves an Oscar for her acting. Holy shit. Confused killer robot playing games with Tony and then making sure he is okay and then also having to re-play evil Nebula from before. God, amazing. 

The Nebula plot was one of the best parts of the movie. It shows how even if you make time travel easy and clean there is also a possibility of something going wrong. The fact that her past consciousness blended with her current when she went back in time was an amazing detail/idea that could only work with her. It was just so fucking fabulous. 

Them going and killing Thanos literally 10 minutes in.

Natasha running point on all the Avengers stuff - keeping tabs on Rocket, Rhodey, Carol and others as they try to at least help based on what’s going on.

Oh my god, Tony losing it at all the Avengers. Amazing 10/10. “You promised!” “Liar!”. Ripping our the arc reactor and just shoving it into Steve’s hands. Fantastic. Tony deserved that moment. 

The rat, the true hero

Scott/Cassie reunion after Scott finding his own name on the list of the Vanished. He was so relieved, his daughter was so relieved. Movie deities have blessed us. 

Scott (while distracted by a sandwich), explaining time travel was hilarious and fantastic. He admits he doesn’t know enough. 

I liked what they did with Thor. He lost absolutely everything… his entire family, all of his friends, at least 3/4 of his people. To have be a drunk who gave up and is now fat was fantastic. If anyone felt like they failed, it truly was him. He spent two years just looking for stones while the rest fought in a parking lot. 

Morgan Stark!!! I better see more of her in future movies, oh my god. Adorable. Smart. Sassy. I love you 3000.

When Tony looked at that photo of Peter, I knew that was what changed his mind. Cause he knows he needs to try.

When Tony nearly falls backwards in shock at the time travel simulation working I nearly shrieked. And then of course Morgan was there. “Shit!” “No, no. (something I forget) shit.” “Shit.” “No, that’s (Pepper’s?) word.”

Pepper letting him know that its alright if he goes and tries to help. That she understands that he won’t rest if he doesn’t. 

I really liked how they did the time travel stuff. It was careful and still a mess. (I’ll get to the Loki part last)

Cap V Cap, hilarious and AMAZING 

Rocket and Thor sneaking past Loki while he sits in his cell. Genius. Thor knows that if Loki finds out future Thor is there, Loki is going to gladly time travel whether they like it or not.

Thor being unable to do the mission correctly because he sees his mother. That conversation with his mother where she knew it was future him. “I was raised by witches” (this will tie in to my Loki thing later)

Peter Quill getting knocked out.

Clint and Natasha. We all knew only one of them was getting out of there. Them actually fighting over who should go was amazing. I know there are complaints about how Natasha deserved better and hm, they killed the only OG female avenger. No, it was amazing. Natasha, for the first time her life, truly knew what she wanted. She was grateful for Clint til the very end. (This also ties to her dream, but I’ll explain all the AOU dreams at the end)

Loki just yeeting himself the fuck out of there when Ant-Man gave past stark a heart attack was hilarious, in-character for 2012 Loki, and VERY IMPORTANT. 

Going back in time even further and Tony talking to his father, Steve seeing Peggy. It was a great section. I loved it. Tony getting closure, Steve realizing what he wants when all of this is over. 

All of them losing their collective shit in different ways over Natasha death; Clint telling Thor off about how it can’t be undone, so stop being an asshole. Amazing. 

Arguing over the gauntlet. Drunk Thor trying to say he can use it. Hulk using it. Thor yelling to take it off, Steve asking if Hulk is okay (this is very similar to the CA:TFA moment where Steve is getting beefed up).  Amazing.

From here on, everything was fantastic, every bit. The compound being destroyed, the heroes trying to stop Thanos and all that; Steve using Thor’s hammer after his shield is half broken (and he saves Thor by using the hammer); 

“Hey cap, can you hear me?” While Cap is staring down Thanos. “Uh…” “Cap, it’s me Sam. On your left” AND THEN THE PORTALS OPEN AND HOLY FUCKING SHIT. FIRST THREE ARE OKOYE, SHURI AND T’CHALLA. People were screeching in my theater, shouting “Wakanda forever”. 

All those portals opening up was so hot. And then when Dr Strange opened one up and the Guardians came out that was cool and all, but Spiderman made everyone yell and holler and hoot. 

VALKYRIE ON A PEGASUS HOT DAMN

Hot gauntlet instead of hot potato. 

RESCUE!!! Pepper in armor, lord almighty. Amazing. 

Danvers destroying all of his ships. 10/10. Like she didn’t show up and save the day, she came to help. Cap - “Danvers, we need an assist down here” once she finishes destroying the ships. 

Peter getting hella beat up was reasonable. CM coming over him and he says “Oh, Im Peter Parker” “Hi, Peter Parker, you got something for me?” He hands her the gauntlet. And then asks how she is going to get through all of that. “She has help” - Okoye. All the female Avengers surround him to protect my smol child and then charge at Thanos’ army. Please love oh love, that was fantastic. 

“I don’t even know you” “You will”. I swooned. Amazing, amazing, amazing. Go Scarlet Witch

When they are going at Thanos and trying to get the gauntlet off, wow. That scene was crazy good. The main 3 trying, Carol trying (and then again and when Thanos headbutts her she doesn’t move, amazing). 

Tony switching the stones without Thanos noticing. 

“I am inevitable” says Thanos. He snaps. It fails; he can’t create a new universe where no one remembers what they lost, only what they gained. 

Tony, holds up his version of the gauntlet, “And I… am…. Iron Man.” Snap. Whole theater erupted. 

All Thanos’ stuff is gone, as is he. I would have preferred Nebula to cut his head off during one of her two opportunities, but I was satisfied with this. 

Rhodey finding Tony and just smiling at him. People complained that Rhodey should of said something, but Rhodey is his best friend, the person who is still alive he’s known the longest. Rhodey understands. Rhodey knows he is dying and knows no words are going to help it or stop it. He’s an Air Force colonel for crying out loud, he gets death. So he just stays there for him. 

Peter begging Tony to get up and telling him “We won, we won Mr. Stark” was so heartbreaking. I loved it, but it hurt. 

Pepper telling him “It’s alright, you can rest now”. That shit HURTED. Great completion of the “but will you be able to rest?” 

Tony’s funeral was possibly the best scene to show just how much he meant to everyone. “Proof that Tony Stark has a heart” laying on a bed of flowers, floating in the lake in the backyard of where he and Pepper and Morgan have been living. 

Wanda and Clint moment - “I just wish there was a way I could tell her we won.” “She knows, they both do” I loved it so so much. 

Morgan asking for a cheeseburger and Happy getting all teary eyed about how her father loved cheeseburgers “I’m going to buy you all the cheeseburgers you want”, bruh, I was in tears. 

Tony Stark’s voice over while everything else is happening - people going back to their lives: T’Challa, Shuri and Ramonda looking over Wakanda; Cassie cuddling Scott while Hope is there too; Peter and Ned seeing each other at school; Clint going home; all these different little moments while he talks, only for it to end as a video recording he made before he left to fix everything. “I love you 3000” is what he ends it with. 

Thor handing over Asgard to Valkyrie while he goes with the Guardians. I loved it. He acknowledge he wasn’t fit to be king but could still do good. 

Steve returning all the stones. When he and Bucky said goodbye (“It’s only five seconds”) they both knew what he was about to do. “Don’t do anything stupid til I get back.” Bucky smiles, “How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.” 

Sam and Professor Hulk freaking out that he isn’t back, only for Bucky to point out Steve sitting on a bench near where they are. He’s old now. He hands the shield off to Sam. I loved it. There is no way Bucky and Steve didn’t have a conversation about Steve staying in the past and who he would pass the mantel on to. (this also means Bucky probably told Steve’s ass that trying to save him/prevent HYDRA would have created a disastrous effect. “I’ll be alright, punk” or something like that).

Seeing Steve with Peggy made me really, really happy. I understand the complaints but it was a beautiful moment and such an amazing way to end the movie. If you watched Agent Carter you know she struggled getting over Steve. While she did eventually, she never stopped thinking about him. I mean, in the 70s, his photo was still on her desk! 

Things I forgot to add originally: 

“So you can get another haircut?” (or something like that); AKA Rocket making fun of Carol’s lesbian cut. 

Professor Hulk. Hilarious, amazing, and a great idea. 

“That’s America’s Ass” oh my god, Tony Steve and Scott. Best comedy trio. 

Extended NY 2012 scenes... including Loki pretending to be Steve, amazing

the Budapest reference while Nat and Clint were flying off to Vormir. I loved it. 

Thor suddenly in his old costume with braids in his beard and hair when they go to beat up Thanos when he attacks the compound. Crowd went crazy. 

EVEN MORE I forgot:

The OG shot from the OG Avengers in NY. Hot hot hot. The crowd was losing it. I was losing it. 

“Hail Hydra” cap you sneaky bastard. 

Scott’s storage unit is labeled 616. MCU really loves hiding 616 in plain sight. 

—

Okay, now for the AoU dreams. 

They all came true. 

Thor: “See where your power leads us Odinson” and Heimdall talks about how they are going to be lead to Hel. More than half of Asgard was destroyed by Hela. 

Steve: The movie ends with him dancing with Peggy. 

Natasha: hers was more of a flashback, but still came true. “I have no place in this world”. Her dream sequence showed the horrors she endured and how she tried to seem weak so she wouldn’t have to do certain things. It shows how she has always felt like she has no home, it showed faceless children with no identity. Her dying was her finding her place in the world. 

Tony: Everyone is dead except him. “And the worst part is you weren’t”. He reversed his dream. It came true (it wasn’t the OG6 who died) but then he spun it around. 

—

other time travel stuff: 

At one point there are two Steve’s since he decided to go back. At first I was like, thats gonna create some problems but the more I think the more I realize it doesn’t. Peggy is smart, genius and an amazing agent and could have easily found a way to ‘hide’ Captain America. 

Also, most things stopped functioning after the decimation. A lot of schools were shut down most likely. So Ned and Peter to see each other again at school was reasonable. 

__

Loki:

I LOVE WHAT THEY DID WITH LOKI. In the movie it shows at least two iterations of him alive: 2012 Loki who gets the fuck out of there; 2013 Loki stuck in prison. Both are alive by the end of the movie (2013 didn’t disappear even though 2012 noped out of there). Even though Steve put the stones back to make the timelines clean again, they show that even though one version of Loki left New York, he still ended up in Asgard’s prison. So one is out there with the Space Stone, and one is posing as Odin. Then, when time catches up, it’s unlikely Ragnarok Loki will just die spontaneously. Regardless, there are at least two Lokis still existing within the current timeline. He’s smarter than letting himself get stuck once he escapes, but he still gets locked up. 

If there are two versions of Steve living for a time, why not two or more Lokis?

This brings me back to Frigga. She knew it was definitely Thor from the future almost immediately. Loki is much like his mother and knows that time travel is possible and that people have crossed timelines. There is no reason for him to not be out there in the universe, several different versions of him working at once. And there is no reason for him to not know that.

“The sun will shine on us again”, something tells me Loki knew some version of himself would survive. Whether it be 2012, 2013, or even now 2018, he knew he was going to make it… or he already knew he had.

I don’t know what is going to happen. I’m sure the Russos wrote the Loki getting out of there thing as a joke/plot inconvenience but Feige is smarter than that. He knows what that opened up, and honestly, that might be why the Loki show isn’t going to come out for a while. Imagine having a great idea only for the most recent movie to come along and have multiple Loki’s still alive. 

Even better, I hope he has a small scene in the next Guardians movie. Thor could try to sway them towards looking for his brother and maybe they do - but it’s NY Loki. 

[mandaloriangf]

reasons why detroit become human makes no goddamn fucking sense beyond just the shitty allegory (aka i nitpick the fuck out of this game)

captain allen refuses to give connor any information about daniel despite this being a hostage situation and connor is there to diffuse it

also allen says that if connor doesnt take care of it he will and if he could why didnt he??

connor can reconstruct crime scenes with so little information that theres no way he could come to his deduction. for example in the first chapter he figures out that the father was holding something when daniel shot him despite there being NO WAY he could know this

theres segregation despite the fact that androids are servants to humans??? how are androids supposed to work for humans if they’re barred from entering certain places??

TEMPORARY PARKING????????????

unemployment is at 35% yet the economy is booming????

unemployed people blame androids for stealing their jobs despite the fact that androids did not get a choice and were made to do certain jobs. their anger should be directed toward cyberlife

markus shows emotion and has a distinct personality before becoming deviant like why does he even need to become deviant when he clearly already is??

carl’s on the nose monologuing. 

carl says lets see where we left off and when markus takes down the tarp theres a finished painting. carl makes like five strokes lol. 

he also makes the same “oh my god” no matter what markus paints

PRESS X TO SADNESS

how does todd afford kara and alice when he doesnt have a job

and why does he live on ethan mars’ street 

and the biggest issue - ALICE IS AN ANDROID??????????

seriously how do android children work? whats the point???? if people hate androids why would they pay money to take care of one????????????????????

honestly how do they work? because alice can sleep but she doesnt eat????? and shes not gonna age so what happens to child androids? do they just have their memories wiped and get bought by another parent????

and if alice is an android, why does todd say kara needs to help with alice’s homework? she doesnt go to school! its addressed in the same fucking chapter!

and why doesnt alice saying anything to kara like hey stop trying to ask me if i want food i dont eat because im a fucking android

also kara figures out that alice is an android at the very beginning yet just ignores it?? i guess??????

and alice has a picture in her keepsake box of todd, his wife, and his biological daughter?? why???????? kill me

todd leaves his drugs in the laundry detergent, makes kara do the laundry, and then gets mad when she finds the drugs

HE MAKES HIS ROBOT TURN ON HIS ROOMBA LSAKDJFLKSJDFLKJSDF

no one does anything when connor enters a bar that doesnt allow androids

also its never explained in game (i think) why connor does the coin trick. i suppose it can be up to the player (i see it as a nervous habit/fidget device but you could also argue its for recalibration)

no one checks the attic of carlos’ house??? and his android hid up there for THREE WEEKS????????????

connor is designed to work “harmoniously with humans” but they gave him a forensics lab on his tongue so he literally just puts blood in his mouth in a crime scene alsdjflsjflajsdlfjdlj

kara serves alice dinner and alice actually sits there but she wont eat BECAUSE SHES AN ANDROID

the guy that comes on the bus doesnt bat an eye when he sees an android in the human section of the bus (i almost threw up typing that)

leo can survive that????????

carl doesnt try to reason with the cops before they shoot markus

why do deviants self destruct in stressful situations? we dont know. we dont fucking know. 

connor can show genuine compassion to carlos’ android but doesnt seem bothered by it????

why is there such an extensive android scrapyard? first of all theres android resale shops (yuck) and parts are probably expensive, plus androids have existed for what? ten years at the most? theres no way cyberlife would just allow perfectly good android parts to be thrown away this makes no fucking sense

MARKUS CAN JUST PULL OFF HIS LED LIKE ITS A STICKER

A STICKER

seriously if its that easy whats the point? they already dress androids a certain way, why have the led except to know what androids are thinking? and if theyre thinking dont they have some level of free will?? (for example kara’s turns red when todd threatens her)

no one recognizes kara despite being a relatively common model like yeah she eventually changes her hair and clothes but she’s still got the same face lkadjfalsjdfljsdlfj

connor is unfazed when he’s shot but looks like he’s in pain when gavin punches him??? 

connor is able to get a confession from carlos’ android but can’t make small talk asdjflskjdfljdf

the whole chapter where markus finds jericho doesnt like have a lot wrong its just REALLY tedious

though the jump scares are stupid

ra9 is constantly referenced (particuarly in connor’s story) but doesnt go anywhere. at all. unless i missed something. but as far as i know its never explained who ra9 is. 

(i think its markus)

the deviant in the pigeon filled apartment is just chilling in the attic? why do androids always stay in the same place instead of escaping????

the androids in jericho are really just hanging out in an abandoned, rusting ship doing nothing. like theyre shutting down bc they dont have blue blood and incompetents but no one thinks to go get any until markus rallies them. 

also what is up with lucy? why does she talk like she can see the future

THE ENTIRE ZLATKO CHAPTER HAPPENS AT ALL

no seriously!!!!! you expect me to believe kara would just go to the address given to her by some random garbage collector android in the middle of the night which leads to a creepy house with a creepy guy with BLUE BLOOD ON HIS FINGERS who wants to take kara into the basement alone to remove a tracker she clearly doesnt have??????????????????????? she would’ve just booked it

KARA ACTUALLY GETS IN THE MACHINE AND IS SURPRISED ZLATKO IS GOING TO ERASE HER MEMORY

that android that says “whos the real monster” PLEASE MR CAGE MY NOSE IS SORE

connor just fucking breaks the window and jumps in alflskdjflskjfljsdljfkdsfljldsafskdf

putting hank under cold water sobers him up somehow

the game thinks it needs to spell out for me in actual letters on the screen that hank is suicidal despite the fact that you find him unconscious on the floor with alcohol and a gun AND he says he was playing russian roulette. 

connor petting sumo is cute but sumo looks like he’s from a ps2 game

markus magically develops the ability to “convert” androids so to speak. 

im telling you, he’s ra9

the whole eden club thing is very...icky

like the androids are literally put in tubes like wtf

the tracis have a relationship despite club policy of wiping memories every two hours

also im pretty sure they have the same face...?? why is this not addressed more 

hank hates androids but likes it when connor spares them?

kara, luther, and alice dont just stay in the car for the night

luther brings up that theres something off about alice but gets interrupted. this is not the first time it happens. it happens THREE TIMES in total before the reveal she’s an android

the jerrys break the windows like zombies and then are like “dont shoot we come in peace”

the carousel scene is cute but where did the power come from???

connor starts showing signs of deviancy but doesnt notice it??? and amandas just like “stop it” and does nothing about it saljdflsjdflsjkdf

markus does the fake phone call right in front of the person he’s calling

who brought the box up to the bathroom? was it the deviant that connor can interrogate???? explain pls

pick up the bag. carry the bag. put down the bag. open the bag. kill me. 

THEY GET OUT ONTO A WINDOW WASHING LIFT BUT THEN RAPPEL UP?????????????????

a giant screen that says rise as markus and north are going up the building

markus removes his skin for the broadcast (ew) to conceal his identity BUT IT REVEALS HIS SERIAL NUMBER THAT CONNOR LATER SCANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

north straight up wants to murder other androids for android freedom

no one finds simon on the roof unless connor goes up there

no one hears connor and the deviant fighting in the kitchen and no one hears connor calling out for help

rose is literally just 2038 harriet tubman

she compares what is happening to androids to what happened to black people in the past yet david cage expects me to believe this game isn’t about racism

kara believes that they will find refuge in canada because there are no android laws there, however the reason they dont have android laws is because CANADA HATES ANDROIDS JUST AS MUCH AS THE US

she has literally no reason to believe they’ll be able to survive in canada. theyd have to act like the cullens and move around all the time. 

ntm if androids and their parts aren’t being manufactured, if anything happens to kara, alice, or luther theyre fucked!

markus had to choose between two very black and white options: violence or pacifism. i have a HUGE problem with how this is done bc being peaceful results in the “good” ending while being violent results in the bad “ending 

(and for the record, going with a violent revolution can still result in freedom for androids. its just a LOT harder to keep everyone alive)

basically it completely misunderstands how real life oppression works and assumes that if a marginalized group is peaceful, public opinion will go up

thats not how it fucking works dipshit cage

kamski is literally just a weird combination of oscar isaac in ex machina and jared leto in blade runner 2049

like he’s left so ambiguous that you can’t even come to your own conclusion

connor can remark that chloe is pretty and seems sincere but doesnt question himself????

if you choose not to shoot chloe, you get nothing. you either have to replay the chapter and shoot her or look it up yourself. and im not fucking shooting her.

markus and north become “lovers” during a normal conversation 

seriously. when it happened my mom and i were like ???????????????

yet markus can’t romance simon despite having more chemistry

and on that topic why can’t kara romance luther???? they have a lot of chemistry too.

the freedom march. just. ugh.

like markus really leads a bunch of androids down a street shouting “EQUAL RIGHTS” lkjasldfjlakjfjldf

markus evolves to the point where he can just look at androids and convert them like what

north and josh clearly both have a death wish

if i have to hear “we were going to crack the case” one more time i will kill david cage myself. do cops even talk like that?

gavin just straight up tries to murder connor????

THEY START PUTTING ANDROIDS IN CAMPS?????????????????? AS IF THE REST OF THE GAME WASN’T BAD ENOUGH????????????????????????

kara finds out alice is an android and luther has to spell out all her feelings for her??? like why would she stop loving alice skalfsjdlfkjdlfj theyre both androids

the fact that connor even has a machine story line

carl just straight up dies while markus is venting about his oppression asdjfsjflskjflkejiofjeijfoejflkjsflsj

we dont get any kind of resolution to connor going deviant. he just suddenly is. how does he feel about it? who cares!

“ask us something only the real connor would know”

why is that human couple with the baby so upset about not getting out of detroit? theyre human. they’ll be fine. i feel no guilt in taking their tickets.

alice can arguably forgive todd as he explains he just wanted to prove he’s a good dad. boo hoo. he’s still a dick. 

connor can suddenly wake up androids too???? 

markus can really save the androids by kissing north or singing. 

like

that actually

happens

KILL ME

the president looks like hillary clinton but has a “was a celebrity with no political experience” trump like background

[wreathedinscales]

(This hardcore got away from me)

Summary: For all that they love each other, it takes a kidnapping for Ray to move in with Leo.

Leo collapses onto his bed, making Ray literally bounce awake.

"Roy rescheduled my morning meetings," he mutters into the pillow.

Ray flops onto his stomach too, throwing his arm around him. "That's because he's a good secretary."

Leo heaves a full-body grunt.

"Come on, Leo. You've been working nonstop arguing taxes with the state. You need a break that lasts longer than scarfing a sandwich."

Leo sighs, turning his head. Ray traces the dark circles under his eyes.

"I'll text Marjorie, tell her I'll be there at lunchtime."

"Think you'll get away with that?"

Ray scoffs. "Are you kidding? She adores you. Plus, you're the mayor. I told you that's a good excuse."

"Ah, so you just want me for an excuse."

"Well I'm definitely not here for the puns."

They kiss, slow and sweet, pressing their forehead together afterwards.

Leo sighs again. "I suppose I can take one morning."

Ray smiles, stroking his cheek. "Go back to sleep."

Leo gives him another savoring kiss before he rolls over. Ray gropes for his phone, lost somewhere under the bed 'cause it's a dick. He texts Marjorie, citing last month when he'd taken on Don and Dawn for a whole day for her. She replies that he's lucky she likes him. She doesn't specify which him.

When Leo tugs at him, he follows.

At 10 am, Ray feels like a new man. Holy shit.

With a spring in his step, he bounds to the kitchen and gets some scrambled eggs going. His computer science degree didn't leave much room for cooking, but he can at least make breakfast without the smoke detector tattling on him.

He's about to plate them when Leo wraps around him, sleep soft, swaying them a little.

Ray laughs. "Ketchup?"

"Always," Leo says, lips pressed against Ray's throat.

Leo doesn't say much as they eat. The nap clearly only made him realize how exhausted he is, interrupting his bites with long yawns and eye rubs. Ray occasionally caresses his face with the back of his hand, eliciting a tiny smile.

"Okay," Ray says when they're done, "back to bed."

Leo offers minimal protest, letting himself get dragged. Ray gently pushes him down.

"Need anything?" Ray asks.

Leo flicks his eyes over him. He licks his lips.

Smirking, Ray crawls on top of him. Leo locks his hands behind his head and kisses him soundly.

As Ray drops to his elbows, Leo kisses up to his ear and whispers, "Fuck me?"

Ray nuzzles the crook of his shoulder. "One condition." He looks up at him. "You lie back and let me take care of you."

Leo's pupils blow wide. He quickly nods.

Ray pecks his lips and sits back on his heels, fumbling for the nightstand drawer.

"Get two," Leo murmurs, snuggling into the pillow, "Don't feel like changin' the sheets yet."

Ray chuckles. "Sure."

He fucks him slow, what Leo likes best, one of Leo's legs on his shoulder and the other around his waist. Whenever Leo tries to lift his hips, Ray holds him down with a murmured reminder to relax.

He kisses his knee and adds, "You tell me what to do."

Leo shudders. "Faster."

Thank God, 'cause Ray doesn't know how long he'd've been able to keep the slow pace.

Leo clutches the sheets, moans harmonizing with Ray's balls slapping against his skin.

"Kiss me," he hisses.

Ray bends him in half to reach his lips. Leo cries out, muffled by Ray's tongue. He claws Ray's back, leaving red marks.

"Touch me," he growls.

Ray barks a laugh. "Thought I was."

Leo scrambles for his hand, wrapping his fingers around his cock as best he can between them. Ray pushes up a little for a better grip. Leo's moans pitch higher.

"I'm gonna―"

"Mhm," Ray whispers, licking up Leo's throat, "Let go, Leo." He presses his lips to his ear. "I love you."

"Ray," Leo whines.

Ray lets him buck into him as he comes, stroking him through it, murmuring sweet nothings against his cheek.

Then, through dazed eyes, Leo breathes, "Fuck, Ray, come inside me."

A few more thrusts, and Ray's keening Leo's name.

"I love you," Leo says, voice absolutely shattered, "I love you, I love you."

He smells like sweat and sex and Leo.

The room's filled with their breathing and kisses.

Slightly hoarse and slurred, Leo drawls, "I should take more mornings off."

Marjorie gives Ray a Look when he arrives humming a light tune. Ray beams at her.

"You're especially sunny this morning," she remarks, in the midst of coloring with Katie. Or, for Katie, scribbling yellow all over everything with Marjorie trying to stop her from covering the table too.

"Yeah, well," Ray says, following Nelly Dean and Sammy's cajoling, "I got to stay in bed longer."

Marjorie rolls her eyes.

At five, Mr. Allen picks up Don and Dawn, swinging them out of their sprints as fast as the Flash herself. He thanks Marjorie and Ray kindly as ever on his way out.

Ray stretches before joining Marjorie in clean up.

"You got a party tonight?" Marjorie asks.

Ray groans. "Always."

"Mayor gonna be there?"

"No, actually. Though it's at Palmer Inc's Central hotel again, so I'll be seeing Chef Rory."

Marjorie smirks. "Say hello for me."

"He's married," Ray reminds her again, "To two men."

"What? I'm just saying hello through a friend. What were their names again?"

"Ray and Nathaniel. Ray as in not-me-Ray. Apparently he insists on Rory calling him Ray instead of Raymond."

"And you've never met either of them?"

"No. Rory and I don't see much of each other. But I've heard enough of his Ray and Nathaniel that I feel like I've met them. Ray's always busy, Nathaniel writes articles. They both like to ramble, and they call each other 'bro' every other second. Also they try to give him vegetables, and he hates vegetables, even though he cooks with them."

Marjorie hums.

Ray pauses by the cubbies. "What?"

"Nothing, just―sounds like Raymond Palmer and his husband Nathaniel."

Ray pulls a full stop.

"...wow, I'm such an idiot."

Marjorie's eyes are widening too. "Well, don't feel too bad. I only just figured it out myself."

"Yeah, but you don't work with him."

"Well, like you said, you don't work with him that often. Doesn't sound like he's given many specifics outside their habits either."

Ray scrubs his face. "I guess I'll ask him tonight, just to be sure. Be subtle about it."

"Oh, honey," Marjorie says, "you don't have a subtle bone in your body."

Ray points to her. "Excuse me, who was able to get Don and Dawn to play with those blocks today?"

"How's the mayor, Ray?"

Ray opens his mouth. Closes it and reaches for the paper towels.

Ray probably should've factored this in when he started dating the mayor.

"This" being grabbed and pistol-whipped on his way to his second job, then waking up bound in the backseat of an old car.

Shock proves to be one helluva drug when all Ray can think about is how he hopes they didn't mess with his uniform. Also he cries a little.

There's no creepy warehouse, but an apartment. They put a jacket over Ray's shoulders to block his zip-tied hands. One guy puts an arm around his shoulders and tells him between his teeth that if Ray tries to struggle or scream, they'll put a bullet in his head.

Ray thinks they're bluffing, since there's gotta be a reason they kidnapped him. Fear freezes him under his captors' arm.

A woman is waiting for them, brown skin wrinkled and slightly sun-spotted.

"Sorry for this," she says flatly, "but we gotta get the mayor's attention. Nothin' against you."

Ray's ushered to the one beaten couch. He can't stop staring at the guns in the others' twitchy hands.

"Stay there, nice and quiet," the woman says, "and you'll be fine. Understand?"

Ray nods shakily. Shock makes him think of his waiting job again. He wonders if Rory or Jax will notice his absence enough to ask. Jax is a good friend; he might. Ugh, he'll have to wait to ask about Ray and Nathaniel now.

One of the guys carries Ray's duffle bag in. He takes out Ray's phone while the woman manhandles Ray to cut his ties.

"Now you're gonna send a text," she instructs, "One to a co-worker sayin' you're sick, and one to the mayor with this address." She relays it. "Add whatever lovey-dovey shit you want. Make 'im desperate to find you."

Ray clenches his fingers, willing them to stop trembling. He takes his phone.

Jax tells him to get better. Despair tightens Ray's throat.

It's Leo's turn.

>>Ray 40th and 1st, apartment 1E. I'm cooperating so they promised not to hurt me. Don't come here half-cocked. I love you.

Relief trickles through the fear when Leo takes a few minutes to reply. He knows him. It means Leo's planning―or someone forced him to stop and plan. Lisa, probably. He'd told Ray he was going to dinner to meet her new girlfriend tonight.

Unfortunately, the interim makes the others twitchier and the woman's eyes narrower.

Finally, Ray's phone vibrates.

>>Leo I'll be there.

The guns relax. Ray breathes out.

Leo walks in calmly. His nostrils flare when he sees a gun pressed to Ray's head, but he otherwise remains composed.

"So," he deadpans, closing the door behind him, "I assume you have complaints bureaucracy wouldn't let you state."

The woman nods. "Call me Janice, Mr. Mayor. These are my sons, Jimmy, Connor, and Dan."

"Pleasure," Len says curtly, crossing his arms. "But before we start this conversation, I'd be obliged if you―"

"Took the gun outta your boyfriend's face? Go ahead, Jimmy."

Jimmy steps away. Ray swallows. He must look like a mess, but he forces a relaxed nod to Leo.

Leo scrutinizes him a second. Janice sits at the tiny table in the corner. He joins her.

Next, Leo takes out a small notepad and pen and hands it to Janice. "Tell me while you write it all down. I promise to do my utmost to meet your points."

Janice stiffens in surprise, but starts listing. She takes up two and a half pages. Ray has no sense of time, so he doesn't know how long the meeting lasts.

Leo takes the notepad, peruses it, then puts it back in his pocket. "One: I've been working nonstop haranguing the state on taxes. Two: would you and some people be willing to attend one of those meetings? Three: would you and those you represent also be amenable to my appointing a committee to serve as a direct line to me?"

The family's eyes pop out of their faces.

Leo glances at Ray. "I'm not gonna lie, Janice. I want to disarm one of your boys and knock all of you bloody for what you've done. But the fact is, I would've done the same thing. I was almost a criminal, you know, until my dad got mixed up with the Families and was gunned down. My sister and I went into the system, held onto each other. My mother Constance fought and fought until we got to go home. My brothers Mickey and Terry helped my pick-pocketing habits and we all got to graduate college. All because of one event in my life.

"I don't want this event to change your lives like mine could've been changed with my dad still in the picture. So you let my boyfriend come over to me, and I'll get my sister and her girlfriend to tell the police that you went to him without guns and asked him to contact me nice and peaceful."

Janice's eyes are shining, but her spine is straight. "I'll hold you to your word, Mr. Mayor."

Ray stands on jelly legs. Leo stands to meet him. They clutch each other's hands with white-knuckled grips.

Without looking away from Ray, Leo says, "Come to my office in two days with whoever wants to join my next meeting. I managed to haggle for next week instead of next month. Me and my secretary are pretty good at political jargon. We can help you state your case in a way that'll make them listen. Select a few honest people to propose members of the committee. I'll arrange a walk-in appointment for them."

The three brothers keep swiveling their heads between their mother and Leo like they don't know what's throwing them off more.

Janice stands as well, folding her hands in front of her. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Mayor."

Leo glares at her. The room goes cold.

"If this happens again," he snarls, "I will not be so merciful."

Janice clenches her hands nods.

Softer, Leo says, "Come on, Ray. Let's get you home."

Ray can't look at anyone but him.

A car's waiting outside. Lisa and a black woman are in it.

"Dr. Shawna Baez," the woman says. Ray gives her a shaky handshake. "Count your breaths, okay? You're out."

She helps Ray with the counting while Leo gently presses his hand to his abdomen, breathing with him. Ray chokes a few times, leaning heavily against Leo. Meanwhile, Lisa knocks twice on the barrier and the car pulls away from the building.

The moment the car fades into focus, Ray collapses against Leo.

"I almost killed them," Leo says. Suddenly Ray realizes he's shaking too. "I almost killed them, Lise."

Lisa reaches across to squeeze his arm. "But you didn't, Lenny. Right?"

She's looking at Ray.

Ray shakes his head. "Even let 'em off easy."

Leo sighs. He pulls him closer. "I'm sorry. What they did to you was terrible. I didn't―"

"Leo. Just for a second, could you. Shut up?"

Leo kisses his hair.

"Well," Shawna says, "I hope I'll have more time to butter you up on our next dinner, Leo."

Ray snorts.

There are not two, but six people in Leo's apartment when they get back.

"Ray!" Mr. Allen cries, devastated, "Are you alright? I'm so sorry this happened to you!"

"Don't worry," Detective West-Allen says, "I've got a squad car coming. And if it's alright with you, I'll stay the night."

Most surprising, though, is Chef Rory calling from the kitchen, "You good, Sunshine?"

Ray blinks. "What...?"

"Hi!" Raymond Palmer says. Ray recognizes him from television and from a distance in a few parties. "Ray Palmer. I've got guys coming too. They'll be outside the door."

"And I'm Nathaniel," the floppy-haired guy from countless tabloids says, "Sorry we kinda tagged along."

"Pleasure to have you," Leo says. He sounds like it's not a pleasure at all.

Jax rushes to Ray. "I can't stay long. I just wanted to see if you were okay. I'm sorry I didn't do anything when you texted me, man."

"It's okay," Ray says. He tries for a smile, but it feels wrong on his face. He goes for a shoulder pat instead. "I, um. I had to keep it inconspicuous."

Jax looks far from assuaged, but he nods.

"Mick," Leo calls, "you better not be burnin' anything."

"Oh, Lenny," Lisa says, "as if he'd dare."

Ray rubs his eyes. "You two...you know each other?"

Rory grunts. "Met in the system. He was a twig. You're gettin' soup, by the way."

Ray's heard enthusiastic things about Rory's soup. He decides to focus on that for now. Well, that and―"So you're really married to that Palmer and Heywood?"

Raymond and Nathaniel grin. "Yep!" Ray chirps, "We met at―"

"Ray," Nathaniel says, rubbing his Ray's arm, "Somehow I don't think he's in the mood for our backstory tonight."

Ray's still clinging to Leo's hand. "Yeah, I'll―I'll hear it some other time."

"Of course," Raymond quickly replies, "Sorry, yes."

"I'm Shawna, by the way," Shawna says, giving Raymond the chance to change topics.

"Come on," Leo murmurs.

The bedroom door closes on Rory's, "So you're the new girlfriend."

Ray's legs can't hold him anymore.

"I'm sorry," Leo whispers from the edge of the bed.

Ray, now with comfy sweats and a tray of heavenly soup, shrugs. "Not gonna lie, I'm a little upset that you brushed it off so easy―"

"I didn't want to," Leo snaps. "As soon as I walked in there, I had a plan to break one of their wrists and take their gun. I know how to shoot someone, Ray. I know where to aim. How to make them scream."

Ray sits in silence.

Leo looks at the wall. "My dad liked to teach me lessons. Well―he called 'em lessons. When he was assigned a target that wasn't money or jewels, he'd show me things. I never shot anyone―" Ray blows out a sigh, "―but it's all still there. Eidetic memory, you know."

"Yeah," Ray croaks, "I know."

Leo closes his eyes. "He would've tried teaching Lisa, too." Quieter, he adds, "My baby sister."

He turns back to Ray. "So no, I didn't wanna let 'em off easy. I didn't mean to minimize what happened to you." He leans forward. "But I wasn't lying. If someone takes you again, I won't fucking hesitate."

Ray sees real, cold murder. The hardened criminal Leo could've been if his father had taken one more measure to protect himself.

He kisses Leo until the look is gone. Though something in him, something he never thought was there, had relished in it.

The next morning, Ray calls Marjorie. She curses and yells at Ray's kidnappers and commands him to take the week. She's pretty awesome.

"You've been early since we started dating," Leo says, "I'm sure your dedication helped."

Ray hums, unwilling to leave the bed. "Well, commute's easier."

"...you could make that permanent, you know."

Nevermind, Ray's up.

"Come again?"

Leo's eyes wander around him the way they do when he's nervous. "I gotta spare key. You spend so much time here already, and you keep telling me how much you hate your apartment."

Ray really does hate his apartment. His landlord is a jackass and everything breaks at least twice a day. Ray's pretty sure he could make a living as a repairman now.

"Plus, you could do a better job search. I know you like the daycare, but. You could put those computer skills to work, and Central's got plenty of opportunities. Would help if you lived here. And after...after last night, I realized―"

"Leo."

Leo finally looks at him.

Ray smiles, head tilting. "That's a great sales pitch, but if I'm gonna move in, it's because I want to live with you."

Leo smiles back.

In between kisses, Ray says, "I don't think I'll be able to offer much for rent, though."

"Well," Len says, "consider the offer revoked."

They laugh.

Then Ray sits on the bed. "...shit. I was kidnapped."

Leo's expression hardens. "It won't happen again."

"You don't know that, Leo. And I know what you're thinking. You're not gonna assign me a guard, either."

Leo glowers.

Ray sighs, gripping the edge of the mattress. "I don't want you to shoot anybody. If you killed because of me, I don't know if I could bear it."

Leo cups his face. "I can do a mean pistol-whip too. But Ray―if you're so sure about this, then next time it might not be a handful of citizens just wanting their voice to be heard."

Ray hugs his waist, burying his face in Leo's stomach. "I know."

"...if you don't want to―"

Ray snaps his head up. "I'm not leaving you because somebody stole me off the streets." Leo's shoulders relax. "I'm just. I'm scared, that's all."

Leo kisses him. "I wish you didn't have to be."

"Comes with the territory, I guess. Really, I should've seen it coming. You don't date the mayor without putting a target on your back."

Leo closes his eyes. He looks as haunted as before, when he'd talked about his dad.

Ray takes a deep breath. Fiddles with the hem of Leo's shirt. "But."

Leo opens his eyes.

Ray looks up at him. "But I can deal with that. You're worth it."

Leo's face crumples. Their next kiss tastes like salt.

"I'm gonna sign up for self-defense classes," Ray tells him.

Leo kisses him again. "That'd been my next question."

[daveyjacobss]

unbelievable : part two

reader x racetrack higgins

[newsies]

previously: “I caught Kath’s eye and she winked at me. No way. Absolutely no way. I sprint away while they’re talking about a girl secretly being a newsie and they still don’t figure it out?

‘Unbelievable.’”

a/n: guess who’s making this a series (whoops?) tbh i just found it really unrealistic that race and the reader would get together so quickly and since the idea has a lot of potential i’ve decided to continue and make it several parts. i can’t guarantee how long it’ll be, but i’m excited for it (i also can’t tell you how often it’ll be updated because i have no idea)

__________

I watched as all four boys’ jaws dropped and Katherine’s eyes widened.

“But you - you….. you can’t - you said you couldn’t - ” Race spluttered.

“I didn’t say anything, you idiots. And you know what? You’re all stupid. Like, insanely stupid. And I’m so sick of not saying anything, because there have been so many times when I just wanted to scream because you were all being so miraculously stupid. And, another thing? I’m so sick of wearing this hat.” I took off the cap and threw it down, yanking out the pins Katherine had used to tame my hair and letting it fall down. I’d forgotten how nice it was to not have my hair tucked away.

“I cannot believe you just did that, I spent so much time putting your hair up like that!” Katherine pouted a little, earning an eye roll from me.

“You knew about this?” Jack turned to face her. Her eyes went wide once more as she tried to stutter out an explanation. I let out a small laugh at the frightened look on her face.

“A little help here?” She asked me, eyes going back and forth between me and Jack.

“Nope. If I’m going down, so are you,” I crossed my arms as she let out a breath.

“Fair enough,” she mumbled.

“I’m sorry, but could we please address the fact that I’ve been selling papes with a girl?!” Race was in an obvious state of distress, and as cute as he looked I couldn’t help but be offended.

“You got a problem with girls?” I questioned, glaring at him, as I put my hands on hips. His face went red and he looked away sheepishly. Oh, okay, that was new. I’d never been the one to make him nervous before, it had always been the other way around. Interesting.

“So you’ve been lying to us this whole time?” Davey spoke up. He looked slightly confused, but not angry. If anything, he appeared to be amused.

“I mean, like I said before, I never said anything, so technically I didn’t lie.” Davey let out a small noise that resembled a laugh while Jack gave an exasperated grunt.

“Y/N,” Katherine started.

“Your name’s Y/N?” Jack asked incredulously.

“What, did you think it was actually Mute?” He opened and closed his mouth, but no words came out. Eventually he just stopped trying. He turned to Davey and Race and they all started to talk quietly (except not really all that quiet, because it was them after all). They were arguing, and Katherine sent me a troubled glance. I looked over to find Crutchie sitting on one of the beds, grinning while he watched his friends bicker.,

“Crutchie, what do you think about all of this?” Davey asked, turning all attention towards him. Crutchie shook his head, smiling.

“I think it’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in weeks.” He looked at me and gave me a smile, and I couldn’t help but smile back. Race may have been the ‘you’re so attractive please marry me’ kind of cute, but Crutchie was the ‘you’re like my adorably pure little brother’ kind of cute.

“See?” Davey grinned with us, “it’s not that bad. She did what she had to do to support herself, just like all of us do every day.” I mouthed a thank you to him and he nodded at me. 

“Well, I say we let her stay,” Race said, addressing Jack.

“Oh yeah? And why do you say that?” Jack raised an eyebrow at his friend and Race gave me one of those smirks that made my knees feel weak.

“Because, she’s kinda cute.” Oh dear lord this boy will be the death of me. Who the hell gave him the right to say something like that? Katherine gives me a knowing look, and I roll my eyes to mask the fact that I am quite literally screaming inside. Jack lets out a loud laugh, but nods, agreeing that I should stay.

__________

Eventually, we had discussed the terms of me continuing to be a newsie. This included me keeping up the charade of being a mute boy in public, but being able to talk with the boys with all of them knowing that I was a girl. This obviously meant that the rest of the newsies would have to find out. Since we all agreed that I wouldn’t be selling papes for the day, I headed back to Katherine’s place and promised that I would return towards the end of the day when all the boys would be done selling.

Kath insisted that I leave my hair down and wear one of her dresses, which I really didn’t mind at all. It felt normal and comfortable. Looking in her mirror I could almost convince myself that I was still the girl I was a little over a year ago. I wonder if any of the boys would put it together if they heard my full name - it had to have been one hell of a headline. Memorable, to say the least.

We walked back to the lodge, talking the whole way. Mostly, we talked about the fact that Race had called me cute and that if he pulled something like that again I was going to punch him or kiss him. When we arrived we were laughing and I felt ready to go in and face the boys, but we’d been told to wait outside. After a few minutes, Jack came out, smiling at us.

“C’mon in,” he said, motioning for us to follow him. As we walked through the crowd of newsies I could tell that a lot of the attention was on me. I had expected that though, it’s not every day some girl waltzes into the lodge. Plus, Katherine had said that I looked good in the dress, and these boys could flirt with a wall. “Alright, quiet down!” 

Everybody quickly hushed, gathering around where me, Kath, and Jack were standing. I found Davey and Crutchie in the crowd and they smiled reassuringly at me. I smiled back, glancing around once more, but not seeing Race.

“As you all know, we had a little run in with the Delancey brudders this morning.” Shouts followed Jack’s words and he hushed them swiftly. “They scared Mute real bad, putting their hands on ‘im and talkin’ ‘bout us hidin’ a girl.” People were starting to whisper and I felt my stomach knot, suddenly nervous. Subconsciously, I swept over the crowd again. This time, though, I spotted Race in the back, leaning against the wall. He must’ve seen how nervous I was becoming, because he gave me a quick nod and mouthed ‘breathe.’ I took a deep breath and nodded back at him.

“Well, boys, I’d like to introduce you to Y/N,” he motioned for me to step forward and I moved so I was standing directly beside him. There were a few wolf whistles and catcalls. “Or, as you know her, Mute.” The noises died down as all the boys stood in shock, trying to process.

“Ya mean she’s been sleeping two bunks away from me and I didn’t know it? I’ve been missing the opportunity of a lifetime!” The boys went crazy at Romeo’s words all laughing and cheering.

“Imagine if you’d met them on the street instead of becoming a newsie, you might’ve ended up with Romeo,” Katherine whispered in my ear. I let out a loud laugh, slapping a hand over my mouth to muffle it. She giggled relentlessly beside me and it took me a minute to realize that the noise had stopped again.

“You can talk?” Albert called out incredulously.

“Oh, yeah, that too,” Jack said, half smiling. I rolled my eyes at him, brushing my hair out of my face.

“Hi,” I said simply, giving a little wave. 

“I need some sleep,” Elmer groaned, collapsing onto one of the bunks. His remark was followed by laughter, and soon everyone was joking around with me the same as they had when they thought I was a boy, except this time I could actually join in. As I was walking to get to Davey and Crutchie at some point during the festivities Mike and Ike had decided to start in my honor (though mostly it was an excuse for the boys to stay up and fool around), I bumped into Race.

“Sorry, Y/N,” he mumbled. I tried to stop it but it was no use, I started blushing. That was the first time he had ever said my name and, wow, did it sound good when he said it. He took notice of my slightly red face and smirked.

“Little warm in here, yeah?” He asked. I just nodded in response, looking away quickly. When I glanced back he was staring directly at me, eyeing me up and down and - oh god the way he was looking at me. It felt like he was undressing me with his eyes and I was starting to think that Katherine had been very, very right when she said her dress looked good on me. By the time he made it back up to my face he licked his lips and smirked at me again. I was pretty sure that if I tried to move I would just fall on my face, so I stayed put.

“Seeya tomorrow, partner.” He grinned, walking away. I took a few moments to compose myself before going to join Davey and Crutchie, all the while thinking of the way he’d been looking at me.

[groundramon]

I’m bored and I cant focus on my drawing so...

Since I’ve been ratting on Teen Titans all week even tho I insist I like the show (I SWEAR TO GOD I DO...I was off-put at first but? its okay, its hard for shows to immediately hook me), I think it’s only fair to list some of my major problems with some of my all-time favorite shows and some other shows that are currently on that aren’t really my favorite, but I still think are objectively decent and arguably pretty damn good.

I’m not gonna go in order from best to worst but here we go: (keep reading tag because this is going to get really fucking long and ik i dont usually do this with my rants but i feel like i should this time, idk im inconsistent this is a personal blog sorry)

Steven Universe: - I sometimes feel bad critiquing SU because it’s not too far into its run.  I love the show, some of the moments and even full episodes are legitimately mesmerizing, but it...has quite a few problems, yeah.

- The one I bitch the most about is the pacing.  Steven Universe tries to combine serialized storytelling, which is telling an overarching story over the course of several episodes (IE Avatar: The Last Airbender, most anime, ect), and episodic storytelling, which is telling several smaller stories that each fit in one episode with little to nothing connecting them besides the characters (IE SpongeBob, We Bare Bears, most cartoons honestly).  But emphasis on “tries”; Steven Universe, unfortunately, is not very good at blending these two styles.  Steven Universe ridgedly adheres to the idea of having a season that is half filler/”townie” episodes and half “cool alien”/plot-related stuff - and this is something that’s been confirmed, by the way.  So while this was fine in the first season (where the only true overarching plot-related episodes that weren’t just worldbuilding were at the end of the season) and the second season (where the plot episodes can be summed up all-together as “they catch and befriend Peridot and learn, not stop, the Cluster”), it isn’t in the later seasons.  Season 3 has the following plot points: the Cluster is defeated, Malachite is found and defeated and defused, Lapis joins the Crystal Gems, more homeworld gems (rubies) find earth, Jasper is corrupted and bubbled, its revealed that Rose Quartz shattered (killed) someone, and Steven gets lost in space because of a plan gone wrong with the Rubies (and he’s rescued in the last episode).  That is a paragraph worth of plot points.  And, being generous (IE including plot-forwarding episodes that feel more like filler than actual plot, like the baseball episode) that is 13 twelve-minute episodes worth of content.  All of those plot points are addressed in 2.6 hours time.  That is not long enough to visit all those episodes.  And there are a few more I didnt count that /are/ related to the aliens, but Bismuth and Centipeetle currently irrelevant and weren’t related to the plot points I listed so I didnt mention them.

- I’m also still waiting somewhat impatiently for resolution on certain character arcs.  Pearl’s behavior hasn’t been properly addressed for a while and I’m really hoping they dont wimp out of addressing what a piece of shit she can be sometimes.  Like, I love Pearl, but get the fuck outta hear with your Pearl stanning shit.  She’s unintentionally awful and I lvoe her for it.  I’m more patient about Bismuth but.......crewniverse, im starting to get a little impatient with her too.  Bring her back.  You should’ve brought her back in the next episode, because her friends shouldn’t have left her bubbled, but whatever.  It’s fine.  I’m fine.  (I’m not fine).

- Also, Lapis’s character arc.  Wasn’t properly addressed.  One episode she was saying she deserved to be with Jasper and the next she seems fine.  One episode she hates Peridot and two episodes (well several episodes, but two episodes as far as they appear) later they’re buddy-buddy with one another.  I get that there was probably a time gap where they developed closer with one another, but fuck, I would’ve liked to see that instead of Future Boy Zoltron but okay :) (and i dont even hate future boy zoltron, its just one of the few “meh” episodes I bothered to remember the name of)

- SPEAKING OF UNPROPERLY ADDRESSED CHARACTER ARCS I swear to god Crewniverse, if Amethyst was being sincere when she said she didn’t have self esteem issues anymore, I dont think I can call this one of my favorite shows anymore.  Where.  Where did she find the resolve to get over her self esteem issues.  The last time we saw her talk about them was when she broke down in Sardonyx’s room, but, she was speaking through Smoky Quartz (btw, where the fuck has Smoky been? I literally forgot about her because its been so long...).  But still, even if she WAS speaking through a fusion, before then she displayed the same self-destructive mindsets and she was never given the resolve to better herself.  All she did was wallow in her own pity with Steven (which? relatable, but not constructive).  Show us her getting the resolve to better herself.  Show her positively reinforcing herself.  Have her whisper “you can do this, Amy,” under her breath right before she kick’s a bad guy’s ass.  Have her high-five herself, have her cheer for herself, have her be sincerely proud and acknowledging her accomplishments.  Because that’s how you fix self esteem issues and kids should be taught that by someone other than a therapist or the internet.

- Just because a lot of these issues could be fixed with time doesn’t change where they are at this moment.  The past pacing issues might not ruin the show for me depending on the direction they go in, but I feel like they’re going to continuously make the same mistakes over and over - and with the intense direction this show is going now, the idea of having five filler/townie episodes in a row while Lars is in space is terrifying because of how awful that pacing is.  I do not care about Onion, please go back to Lars.  But even if they fix it and the rest of the series is near-spotless, what’s done is done, you cant fix the rushed pacing of the past seasons’ stories and the dumb filler that padded out the seasons in the wrong areas.

- Also, another problem with combining episodic and serialized storytelling is that SU’s story gets WAY too serialized for an episodic show.  There’s so much going on that you can’t just sit down and watch a random episode of the show and start watching the show from there, which is a huge problem when you have episodes like Onion Gang and Future Boy Zoltron that take up 30% of the episodes and offer literally nothing to the story and honestly arent usually even that great as far as episodic stories go.  You cannot have 30% of your serialized show be 100% filler.  That’s bad writing.  And SU is in denial of the fact that it’s too serialized to be episodic.

Gravity Falls: - I generally cite Gravity Falls as one of the best combiners of the traditional episodic and serialized styles.  It��s what Steven Universe dreams of being; it becomes serialized when it counts (the final half of the last season), but up until then, it’s episodic with just a few clues/reoccuring things sprinkled throughout.  However, this show is far, far from flawless.

- Some of the episodic shows, and I mean a lot of the episodic shows, have a tendency to feel rather generic.  Ah yes, a girl whose obsessed with boys and boybands.  Okay.  Seen that.  A nerdy, whimpy boy who has a crush on a cooler older girl.  Again, seen that.  I’m not saying that’s all there is to Mable and Dipper; clearly not.  But a lot of their traits encompass many different stereotypes, and while the characters themselves aren’t bad, the situations they find themselves in aren’t always the most original.  Sometimes I feel like Gravity Falls is a PG-rated Scooby Doo meets Disney Sitcom.  Which is okay if you like Scooby Doo and Disney Sitcoms, but it doesn’t always make for the most eloquent storytelling.  Which is fine for a kids show, but less fine for one of the cartoons heralded as a harbinger of the current cartoon renaissance (then again, I’m not into hardly any of the other harbingers of the “current cartoon renaissance” and I’d argue that we aren’t in a renaissance at all; we’re just finally, finally getting some decent cartoons after the awfulness that was the late 2000s)

- I’m gonna say it; we should’ve learned more about Ford’s adventures in the other dimension.  It’s possible some of the non-animation related materials (namely books) have information about his travels, but as it stands, I havent got a clue what happened to him during those years.  And I want to know.  I should know.  Its a glaring plot hole in all honesty, because we should know what happened to him and how it affected him.  Or maybe im overreacting idk.

Voltron: Legendary Defender: - Hoo boy, where do I even start with VLD

- VLD seems like a show that wants to be character-driven but somehow refuses to.  It wants you to be emotionally attached to the characters, but either it does that and does nothing with it, or it doesn’t even bother to do that.  The only characters whose struggles I care about are Pidge, Shiro, Allura, and only as of season 3, Keith.  Allura I was kinda on the fence about until season 3 but thankfully, if season 3 did one thing right, it was Keith and Allura (and yes I know people are complaining abt Allura’s treatment but I like watching my faves suffer).  That leaves two paladins - and Coran, but I’ll give him a pass because literally the only show that’s done a comedy relief right is ATLA so I’m not expecting him to be superbly well-developed - that I dont give a shit about.

- Lets start with Hunk.  GOD I want to love Hunk so much.  So FUCKING much.  But every time a new season comes out, I feel more and more disappointed.  This show is so obsessed with melding him down to “the fat kid who eats a lot and makes a lot of dumb jokes” and it’s....so disappointing, because there’s so much potential here for something more.  In the first episode of the series, we see Hunk display cowardice (which isn’t an uncommon trait for a fat stereotype) and a prowess for engineering.  Yes he’s a bit of a fat stereotype, but you know what?  I dont care if a fat character is cowardly, makes bad puns, likes to eat, throws up a lot, all that jazz.  I care that they’re more than that.  I hate the idea that a character having a stereotypical trait (assuming its not straight-up a caricature) makes them automatically stereotypical.  Sorry buddy but smart asian people exist.  Preppy blondes exist.  And food-loving fat people exist (hi! i know that last one is true because I am one).  But they’re so obsessed with ignoring Hunk’s other traits - his love of cooking and his engineering skills.  I dont even remember if he used his engineering skills in season 2 and I know he only used it once in season 3.  He didnt even cook in season 3.  And I think the most telling thing in this show is how the show described Hunk’s relationship with Shiro.  As Keith was expressing grief over loosing essentially his big brother figure, Lance thought back to when he viewed Shiro as a legend and a hero, Pidge reminisced about how her father and brother used to praise the guy, and Hunk?  Hunk basically said “uhhhhhh he taught me to pilot my lion.....that counts right.”  Because Hunk has no relationship with Shiro.  Because Hunk has no relationship with any character.  He doesn’t even have that much of a relationship with Lance, and the two seemed to be best friends - or at least friends - prior to the formation of team Voltron.  At best, Hunk is friends with Lance and Pidge.  But all Hunk has done with Keith is make bad jokes while Keith acted all loner-y, and Hunk hasn’t even interacted with Allura and Shiro.

- Now, speaking of Lance, lets talk about him.  While Hunk gets points from me because he’s a sweetheart who deserves better, Lance is a flirter whose too high on his own horse and makes even worse jokes than Hunk does.  Considering Lance is the one we follow in the first episode, I would’ve expected him to be the most centric member of the team.  But first off, fuck me for projecting anime stereotypes/tropes onto a western cartoon (even though voltron was originally an anime kinda but shhh), but secondly he actually is...the most forgettable of all the Paladins.  Yeah I said it.  I legitimately dont like Lance at this point.  Yeah, I said that too.  I basically cant remember anything about him besides the fact that he flirts and jokes around a lot and that Klance is inescapable (like, not that its inevitable that you’ll ship it, but you’ll never escape the fandom for it).  He’s Sokka with all the charm, intelligence, and depth taken out of him, and also bi but that’s the only improvement.  Seriously, what...draws you all to Lance?  I dont want to judge, but he’s just....so stereotypical.  So boring to me, despite being the most lively paladin.  And the development cockteasing.  Oh, the development cockteasing.  I cant tell you how many times I’ve gotten my hopes up specifically because of something the show said about Lance/Lance seeming to be insecure about something, only for them to immediately shoot it down and replace it with more bad jokes or...nothing at all.  Because did Lance even do anything in season 3?  He pilots Red now, he had a funny bit with Blue during the “breakup”, he comforted Keith, Keith comforted him, uhhhh ??? did he even have a line in episode 7??  I feel like there might’ve been episodes where he literally had no speaking parts.  The only good things I can say about Lance so far are: 1. sometimes hes really fucking funny, and 2. it looks like they COULD be building up to something.  But if they’re just cockteasing me all the way through, I’m disowning dreamworks entirely.

- The tone of the show? also shouldn’t vary as much as it does.  The tone of a show varying is fine, but it shouldn’t vary in the way it does in Voltron prior season 3 (I’ll get to what I mean by that in a second).  In season 1 and season 2, the heavy moments of the show were almost entirely carried by Shiro; there was something for Pidge and something for Keith, but even then, Shiro got involved or was there for the entire time.  Shiro, by merely existing, brings the tone of this show down to something almost too serious for a kid’s show (emphasis on almost).  During the light-hearted parts, he just has to keep his mouth shut, because the only time he’s done anything funny (besides ironically funny like with his new outfit and haircut) was when he was yelling at Sven.  Yelling should not be your only source of humor.  But the rest of the show?  Was pretty goofy, yeah it took itself seriously sometimes but it also knew how to have fun.  Which is fine, a show should be able to have fun sometimes.  But that means all parts of the show, including Shiro.  Shiro is physically incapable of having fun and that’s kind of sad.  Season 3 was better about this though; nothing in season 3 felt fun and goofy, like at all, besides Lance taking selfies with girls in the first episode, and that was just one scene.  So I mean, they didn’t fix their problem, but the tone didn’t vary as much.  And I’m not saying the tone shouldn’t vary.  No, it should; you shouldn’t have all serious moments or all goofy moments.  Have some fun, but also take yourself seriously sometimes.  The problem is that parts of the show can’t take themselves seriously (Lance, Hunk) and other parts of the show can’t take a joke (Shiro, Zarkon/any villain too but they get a pass since they’re villains).

- Also we REALLY should know all of the Paladins’ backstories by now, ESPECIALLY Keith’s.  I know his is a mystery, but we need to know what he knows or else we cant get invested in the mystery.  If we dont have the same facts as the characters, we dont know where to start or what to expect.  We should’ve also seen flashbacks to Lance and Hunk’s families - ESPECIALLY Lance’s, since he seemed to care so much about them, but welp now that’s gone :).  We should’ve also seen more flashbacks to Pidge’s family but at least she’s trying to find them.  Nobody else gives a shit about their families and I just.  Aaaaaaaaaa this show infuriates me sometimes.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: - There’s nothing wrong with ATLA, move the fuck along

- I’M JOKING IM JOKING SWEATS okay but it’s no surprise I like ATLA and think its near flawless.  But still, it’s near-flawless, not flawless.

- If you cant stand a little kiddish cheese, you wont be able to stand ATLA.  ATLA takes itself super seriously for something on Nickelodeon, especially something on Nickelodeon in the mid-to-late 2000s (god I wish I watched this show as a kid, my standards would’ve been so much higher and i would’ve known what animation could actually do if you tried) but it’s still written for kids.  Which is fine!  I actually prefer things written for children over things written for adults.  But if you can’t handle something with content that’s clearly written for children, ATLA isn’t for you.

- Ozai fucking sucks.  There’s no other way to put it, his character fucking sucks.  He’s meant to be the embodiment of pure evil, he’s not meant to be sympathetic like Zuko, but for fuck’s sake, we needed his backstory.  And no, The Search doesn’t count; love that comic book, but that’s not enough backstory on Ozai (unless I’ve forgotten an important scene in the comic, idk its been a while).  Azula isn’t a sympathetic villain but we see her reasons and backstory.  Give us something like that for Ozai.  Show us a character that was emotionally neglected and then grew up in a society where killing and genocide were encouraged and praised.  THATS the backstory for Ozai I want.  I want to know where he came from to fuel my hatred for him, to see him as a real person but not as someone who should’ve done what he did, and I want to hate him BECAUSE he feels like a character.  Right now he just feels like the embodiment of evil and that doesn’t make for a good, truly intimidating villain.  A truly intimidating villain is one that you understand and can possibly relate to.  Not...whatever the hell Ozai is.

- Katara and Aang’s romance plot fucking sucks.  I am ace/aro and cannot write romance for shit nor tell when characters have chemistry, but I can still tell this.  It’s not...forced?  It’s not...rushed?  But it’s unnecessary and poorly written and it’s just puppy love and honestly if it was real live I couldnt see their relationship lasting.  Also the idea of seeing someone as a brother and then dating them later is verrrry .... poorly worded to say the least bUT ANYWAYS NEXT BULLET POINT

- Toph and Suki could’ve been developed more.  Like, they were okayly developed, they were great characters, but idk.  Toph didn’t grip me nearly as much as Sokka, Aang, and Katara and I feel kind of bad about it, but thinking about how much development the others got compared to her, it’s not really surprising.  I also am not the hugest fan of rude characters anymore, but I digress.  Also Suki.  Suki had like, little to no development.  I want Suki to be part of Team Avatar.  Can we do that

- General Zhao also fucking sucks.  He’s so generic that the first few times I watched the show, I forgot he was even a significant reoccuring villain.

- Sokka could’ve also been more developed but they could’ve all been more developed honestly?  You can always add to perfection.  I shouldnt complain about Sokka tho, he was finely developed and I love my nonbending son

The Legend of Korra: - Uhhhh the first season’s ending?  0/10 bad, rushed, not good.  I wanted to see Korra deal with the loss of her other elements.  I wanted to see her cope with that.  But no, because Nickelodeon kept screwing over LOK, they had to rush it because otherwise it wouldn’t have been a happy ending for the series if they potentially had to end it after one season.  Fuck Nickelodeon :) but I’m still going to critique LOK for it even if it is Nickelodeon’s fault.

- Bolin and Mako were horribly underdeveloped.  Especially Bolin.  It’s so sad how underdeveloped “Team Avatar” was in this series compared to the last series.  I feel bad complaining about Toph, Suki, and ESPECIALLY Sokka in comparison to LOK.  The only one even comparably as bad is Suki, but she got half a season to be developed and these two got an entire series.  We got some of their backstory and then...that was it, besides the love triangle that Bolin was barely part of.  I guess they were kinda irrelevant for season 2 and season 4, but they had no reason to be missing in the later half of season 4, plus they had season 1 and season 3, so....  God, poor Bolin.  It would’ve been nice to see a nice (fat) comic relief guy like him get the same treatment as Sokka, but whatever....its fine.......ill just sit here patiently waiting for my good representation coughs.  Also all Mako did was do the love triangle and I Do Not Like Him for it.  Keith is a better Mako than Mako ever was because Keith dont need no love triangle and also he already has more development

- Asami also should’ve been more developed, but it looks like there’s potential for more development in the comics so thats good.  From the series alone though, she was pretty flat; better than Bolin and Mako for sure, better than Suki from the original series, but not nearly as good as Toph or the others.  At least she did have some development and a likeable personality that’s relatively original.

- I hate saying this but...Korrasami should’ve been more developed.  I wouldn’t like, take points off of a rating for this point because I mean it was the first lesbian/gay representation in a kids cartoon (from my understanding) and Nick might not’ve even known they were sneaking in something romantic at the end, not to mention they completely subverted the love triangle plot so it actually gains back favor in that way and its great.  Also, I mean, they had that buy-curious joke lmao.  And I’m pretty sure its expanded upon more in the comic; there wasn’t really room to expand upon it in the show because it was just starting.  But they probably could’ve done better than that.  It was still okay though and also, the subverting of the love triangle trope is the greatest thing ever and i long for the day that I can do that plot twist in one of my shows lmao.

- The Villains could’ve been more developed.  Besides Ammon (who is FUCKING AWESOME and you can FIGHT ME) they all had the same problem as Ozai; we dont have many reasons to see them as human or relatable and it makes it hard to hate them as much as we should.  I mean, they do show /some/ human qualities which I appreciate, but I dont entirely understand their motivations half the time and I want to know how they came to view the world the way they do.  But at least unlike Ozai, they do feel somewhat human.  (Except maybe Unaloq, I didnt like Unaloq very much)

And that’s like half of what I could say about each of those shows, and those are just some of my favorite shows I watch.  Dont ask me to go off on like, AOT or something, because I’ll be writing for another three hours lmao (actually feel free to because i wanna INSULT this PIECE OF GARBAGE ANIME that looks rlly pretty but otherwise IS BAD AND IDK WHY I WATCH IT lmao [idk if im joking or sincere sorry])  No show is flawless so I’m going to insult whichever flaws I see.  Fight me.

[wolfliving]

Janit0r the BrickerBot guy

*He’s a vigilante. So he says, anyway.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/brickerbot-author-claims-he-bricked-two-million-devices/

(...)

At this point, we had to confirm that Janit0r was indeed BrickerBot's author and not just some guy bragging on Hack Forums. This is how we spent the next two days, scraping through the Dark Web, underground hacking forums, and getting in contact with a few threat intelligence analysts we knew.

By Wednesday, we didn't manage to find any other clue of Janit0r's existence, or anybody else claiming to be BrickerBot's author, with some solid proof on his side. That's when we just gave up, and launched a desperate tweet, asking BrickerBot's author to reach out.

BrickerBot's Author reaches out

Lo and behold, this was exactly what happened. The same day, we received an email from a person claiming to be BrickerBot's creator.

The email contained lots of details about BrickerBot's operation and internal structure. Nevertheless, at this point, we knew that there could be the possibility that someone was pulling a prank.

Chance had it that someone else had also seen our tweet. That person was Victor Gevers, a security researcher mostly known for tracking the destructive ransom attacks against MongoDB and other databases.

In the Bleeping Computer article that broke the news of BrickerBot's existence, we asked Victor for his expert opinion on this new malware's behavior and repercussions. Victor not only put BrickerBot in perspective for our readers, but also asked BrickerBot's creator to reach out and discuss an alternative method of dealing with unsecured IoT devices, instead of blindly destroying people's property.

Unknown to all was that BrickerBot author had reached out to Victor hours after our article went live. The two had shared notes and Victor was acting as an intermediary between Janit0r and various CERTs. All the operational details shared with us on Wednesday were the same Janit0r shared with Victor in the previous three weeks, confirming we were speaking with the same person.

"Yes, I am janit0r"

"Yes, I was janit0r on Hackforums," the BrickerBot author started his email, which then continued with Janit0r showing his anger at the sad state of affairs in the realm of IoT security.

Like so many others I was dismayed by the indiscriminate DDoS attacks by IoT botnets in 2016. I thought for sure that the large attacks would force the industry to finally get its act together, but after a few months of record-breaking attacks it became obvious that in spite of all the sincere efforts the problem couldn't be solved quickly enough by conventional means. The IoT security mess is a result of companies with insufficient security knowledge developing powerful Internet-connected devices for users with no security knowledge. Most of the consumer-oriented IoT devices that I've found on the net appear to have been deployed almost exactly as they left the factory. For example 9 out of every 10 Avtech IP cameras that I've pulled the user db from were set up with the default login admin/admin! Let that statistic sink in for a second.. and then consider that if somebody launched a car or power tool with a safety feature that failed 9 times out of 10 it would be pulled off the market immediately. I don't see why dangerously designed IoT devices should be treated any differently and after the Internet-breaking attacks of 2016 nobody can seriously argue that the security of these devices isn't important. I hope that regulatory bodies will do more to penalize careless manufacturers since market forces can't fix this problem. The reality of the market is that technically unskilled consumers will get the cheapest whitelabel DVR they can find at their local store, then they'll ask their nephew to plug it into the Internet, and a few minutes later it'll be full of malware. At least with 'BrickerBot' there was some brief hope that such dangerous devices could become the merchant's and manufacturer's problem rather than our problem.

BrickerBot allegely wiped over two million devices

I joined Hackforums in January mainly to see if my activities had been noticed by the botnet kids. Back then 200,000 bricked units seemed like a lot and I was sure I was close to the end of it. Now when the count is over 2 million it's clear that I had no idea (and still have no idea) how deep the rabbit hole of IoT insecurity is. I'm certain that the worst is still ahead of us. I hope the unconventional actions by 'BrickerBot' have helped in buying another year of time for governments, vendors and the industry in general to get the current IoT security nightmare under control. Many other people have also done important things to combat IoT malware (Team White, Hajime author, @packetcop and his fellow sinkholers, etc) so I'm by no means claiming credit for Mirai being weak in Q1/2017, but if Imeij and Amnesia have suffered a little recently then it's probably mainly my fault ;)

Janit0r's email then goes on to detail a few operational details regarding BrickerBot's infrastructure, also dispelling the notion that he's a madman set on the random destruction of IoT devices.

In reality, Janit0r wants to be considered in the same class as the White Team, the self-proclaimed white-hat hackers behind the Wifatch malware, and the author of the Hajime malware, another vigilante who created a new malware family last October that tries to secure IoT devices by force.

The Radware writeup made 'BrickerBot' sound simplistic, but it actually carries 86 protocol and device-specific payloads and is relatively successful at mitigating commonly exploited devices. The bot's every action has a statistically determined purpose and what might've seemed like buggy behavior in the honeypot really isn't. As a preference 'BrickerBot' will try to secure units without damaging them and the bricking behavior is a 'plan B' (yes the B stands for brick :) for units which are unlikely to be securable. A blogger on the net wondered about 'BrickerBot' simply trying to change his honeypot's login and this would've been due to the bot assuming the device had a persistent user db. Because the honeypots are often quite different from any actual devices the behaviors in them are usually weird. If security researchers made their honeypots look more like actual devices (that one could actually find with default credentials on the net) and hosted them on dirtier networks they would find even more interesting things going on..

Victor Gevers, who confirmed Janit0r's bricking statistics also believes this person is only misguided, and hopes to convince him to abandon his ways. "The writer of the email does not strike me as a bad person," Gevers told Bleeping Computer based on his own communications with Janit0r. "Just some young guy who was too eager to solve a problem."

Janit0r wants a change in IoT security standards

For the time being, Janit0r doesn't seem interested in stopping BrickerBot attacks, or at least not until officials and hardware vendors take a look at IoT security and start changing things with a hurry.

Authorities have been talking about IoT security standards for years, but in the meantime, some of the same vendors participating in those discussions have continued to ship out insecure devices with the same ol' default passwords. In a follow-up email, Janit0r wrote the following.

I consider my project a form of "Internet Chemotherapy" I sometimes jokingly think of myself as The Doctor. Chemotherapy is a harsh treatment that nobody in their right mind would administer to a healthy patient, but the Internet was becoming seriously ill in Q3 and Q4/2016 and the moderate remedies were ineffective. The side effects of the treatment were harmful but the alternative (DDoS botnet sizes numbering in the millions) would have been worse. I can only hope hope that when the IoT relapse comes we'll have better ways to deal with it. Besides getting the number of IoT DDoS bots to a manageable level my other key goal has been to raise awareness. The IoT problem is much worse than most people think, and I have some alarming stories to tell.

Janit0r is a wanted man

Nonetheless, the actions of BrickerBot place this malware in the same category as other destructive e-threats, such as ransomware and banking trojans. Janit0r already knows he's a wanted man and has taken many precautions.

Tracking down Janit0r's real life persona may also be a little harder than going after teenagers that rent DDoS botnets with their father's credit card. While he signed his Hack Forums posts with the name "Rob," Janit0r also used different names within each email, said he never intends to log into his Janit0r Hack Forums account again, and has consistently changed email addresses every few days.

For what's worth it, Janit0r has been very careful with his OpSec, compared to many of today's hackers, who, according to a Flashpoint report released yesterday, prefer Skype as their main communications method, an IM service known to give up data on its users to law enforcement.

Janit0r: I'm not a security researcher

Current clues like Janit0r's reverse engineering skills, in-depth knowledge of the malware scene, and a desire to do good, point to the fact that we may be dealing with another security researcher or network engineer that has decided to do something about the ever-increasing number of unsecured network and IoT devices.

"For what it's worth I'll state that I've never actually worked in networking, systems administration, information security or anything of the sort, but I have a hobby interest in all of the above. I believe that basic knowledge in such things is good self-defense in the 21st century," Janit0r wrote in an email.

Right now, all users and companies can do is to follow Radware and ICS-CERT's recommendations, and block access to Telnet and SSH ports, and also change the device's default password. Otherwise, they may get a visit from BrickerBot, and it might reach Plan B....

[mllemaenad]

Personally... I feel that WEaWH tries to remove itself from TME because it realizes that TME is fucking irredeemable garbage, and tries to make its WLW representation less appalling. So I'm entirely willing to overlook continuity errors for the sake of one relationship between women in the entire series that can go well.

I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that. I’m not going to argue with you on the merits of The Masked Empire, as you’re entitled to like or dislike any media you choose, but I don’t think Bioware is trying to distance itself from the novel. I also don’t think their motive is positive representation, or that they’re seriously suggesting a happy ending. However, even if they were I would call the choice to reunite Celene and Briala without any serious examination of the issues that drove them apart … disquieting.

1) On distancing themselves from the novel.

To begin with the obvious, several of the Dragon Age novels provide not only context for the quests in Inquisition, but also promotional material maintaining audience interest between games.

It’s hardly an accident that Asunder is a prequel to In Hushed Whispers/Champions of the Just, The Masked Empire is a prequel to Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts (as well as giving you a roundabout introduction to Solas) and Last Flight provides you with some context on why Weisshaupt is just no help at all during Here Lies the Abyss.

They do kind of want you to buy all their stuff. And if you started with Inquisition and liked what you saw, they want you to run back and buy all the earlier stuff for context. Video game tie-in novels aren’t generally considered high art, so they’d need serious reasons to want to reject the novel as part of their canon. Just in case, I checked The Masked Empire’s Amazon page, and it’s currently got 4.4 stars – so it doesn’t look like something they’d be particularly desperate to ignore. They’d rather you bought it and gave them money.

To move more to the specific, the game references the novel constantly. In addition to devoting a whole main quest to resolving its plot, it also includes cameos from Mihris, Michel and Imshael, which really serve no other purpose than to provide a bit of closure to the people who read the novel and wondered what became of them. This is actually more than it provides for, say, the characters of Asunder: Rhys and Evangeline appear only in a war table mission, Adrian doesn’t appear at all – and who knows where Shale has wandered off to.

It also references the murder of Briala’s parents directly:

Cole: She’s still behind the curtains in the reading room, watching the blood pool on the floor.

Briala pulled the red velvet curtain aside. Her hands shook as she did. There was a pool of red on the floor of the reading room, staining the rich Nevarran carpet. It had spread almost to the curtain.

At the other end of the pool were Briala’s parents.

– The Masked Empire

If they really wanted to distance themselves from The Masked Empire, they wouldn’t put that in there. If they wanted to say that that this didn’t happen, they’d have retconned the story – or at the very least not mentioned it.

In fact, the choice of words is particularly distressing. Cole senses pain. When he says Briala is ‘still behind the curtains’ he’s emphasising that the trauma and anguish are still very much with her, making a reconciliation, particularly a reconciliation that utterly fails to address a thing that they have confirmed happened, even stranger.

 I would say that one motive for their choice to reconcile the two characters is simplicity. I like parts of Inquisition, but honestly it’s over ambitious. They set up a series of continent-wide catastrophes, each one intensely political: the mage rebellion, the Orlesian civil war, the collapse of the Chantry.

Each one probably requires its own game for a satisfactory solution. I realise they were probably going for something similar to the galaxy-wide political collapse in Mass Effect 3, but the Dragon Age games are at a serious disadvantage because they lack continuity of characters.

Mass Effect 3 had its own problems, of course, but for example – I think most people have fun curing the genophage for the krogan. But what they remember is Mordin Solus and ‘There’s a reaper in my way, Wrex!’ When it worked it was able to build on characters who were present across the series.

Inquisition is faced with trying to find resolutions for groups of people that have no direct connection to each other, and whom the protagonist has never seen before (even if they player has). This is hardly the only time their attempt to fix everything in a single quest ends up making no sense.

2) On positive representation

I’m afraid I don’t think what we get in Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts is especially positive. I think it’s … kind of infantilising, really, and has a whiff of sexism about it. I mean – again, I’m not asking you to like The Masked Empire. But this:

“It would have been a locked suite in the palace for a few years, nothing more!” Celene kept her voice low, aware that Michel and Felassan had stopped planning and were looking their way. “It would have changed nothing for us.”

“Your hair still stinks of the smoke from the people you burned,” Briala said. “That is a change.”

The dead leaves crackled under Celene’s feet as she stepped forward. “How many wars can our empire survive in such a short time? I wanted my legacy to be the university, the beauty and culture that made us the envy of the world. Instead I may be known as the empress under whom Orlais fell. You have the luxury of mourning Halamshiral’s elves and holding my heart hostage. Sitting on my throne, I see every city in the empire. If I must burn one to save the rest, I will weep, but I will light the torch.”

Briala swallowed. “You’re not weeping, as far as I can tell. Nor are you sitting on your throne. She stepped away, her movements fast and jerky. “With your permission, Your Radiance, I shall go indulge myself in my luxury.”

– The Masked Empire

… is at least an argument between adults, with the details of what they believe laid out. Celene honestly believes that the empire and her legacy are worth 'a few thousand elven lives’: she believes that maintaining the strength of Orlais is worth thousands of lives in sacrifice, as is the vision she has for the country’s future. Briala is facing up to the fact that this is the bargain she’s made: stay with Celene and she might see an elven scholar graduate from the university – but she’ll likely also see elves burn every time there’s a crisis, because elves are the most expendable people in the empire.

Briala wavers throughout the novel, obviously, because there is genuine feeling between herself and Celene. But the discovery that this has all happened before, that this is not the first time Celene has shed elven blood to impress her rivals and gain power, and that her own parents were among the victims, brings her to a decision.

You don’t have to like it, but these women are serious about what they want and believe.

But in Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts we get stuff like this:

Sera: Elves-elves-elves, but it’s really a pissing match with an old lover. Don’t know the rest but that explains a lot.

It’s hardly coincidental that they chose Sera to say this. Sera the commoner, who despises the nobility. Sera the Red Jenny, with contacts in every corner of Thedas. True, Sera’s background has led her to reject a lot of elven culture, but her biggest objection is usually to ‘moping’ about the past. This:

Briala thought for a moment. “Celene and Gaspard saw an army, but that would be fighting their fight. With the paths, I could get food to alienages where elves would otherwise starve. They would let me move ahead of an oncoming army and warn the target, or move behind them and attack their supply lines.”

– The Masked Empire

… sounds more like the practical stuff she favours: she’s said getting revenge would be a preferable option, and this is getting food to the poor, terrorising the nobility and giving little people a shot at being part of something bigger. But now we can’t take it seriously, because Sera has reduced it to a lovers’ tiff.

That isn’t meant as a criticism of Sera, to be clear. They do this when they want a mouthpiece. This is the equivalent of having Cole approve of Cullen.

And as for it going well, this is their epilogue slide:

Where once war raged, there is now a shaky peace. Orlais is resurgent, the empress a patron of arts and culture.

Many attribute this recovery to her lady love, though others wonder how long their reunion will truly last.

– Epilogue (Inquisition)

I mean – maybe they’ll forget about this. They have been known to forget their epilogue slides. But it doesn’t read as though the intent was to write a strong and loving partnership. Rather it looks as though they are selling the relationship as tempestuous.

That’s one place where I am very uncomfortable. This is the revolt of an oppressed people, and the politics an empire. And there’s a sense that they’re saying ‘Oh, those women and their emotions! Today they love each other; tomorrow they’ll hate each other; the day after they’ll probably love each other again. You never know, with women.’

I appreciate that Bioware is fairly progressive, for a game company: the character choices, the romance options, the NPCs – they are trying to represent a variety of races, genders and sexualities. But it doesn’t mean they never fuck up. I mean, there’s a bit in Mark of the Assassin where Isabela tells Hawke that Gamlen has been sexually harassing her and two responses blame her (You find something inappropriate?/Break him. And wear pants.).

Given that they are already struggling to resolve a massive plotline in a ridiculous amount of time, I’m not surprised they fell back on this. It’s narrative shorthand, and that can be handy for desperate situations. But it’s still sexist shorthand, and I very much wish they hadn’t done it.

3) Removing The Masked Empire from the equation doesn’t solve the problem

I mean, it makes some of the bigger issues like Briala’s dead parents a little easier to miss, sure, but it doesn’t make the problems go away.

I appreciate that representation is important. I do. But romantic relationships between women are not the only representation issue at stake, here. There’s no single source for the elven people, of course, but it’s easy enough to see that Bioware has borrowed from the experiences of Jewish, Romani and aboriginal peoples living under empires and/or colonialism.

And have we ever established that it is shit to be an elf. The city elf origin story in Origins is an abduction/rape/murder combo. The Dalish clans in Origins and DA2 can be slaughtered. It’s terrifyingly easy to kill off clan Lavellan in war table missions, and even though this is the protagonist’s family the game doesn’t make a thing of it. There’s a whole side quest in DA2 about a serial killer who targets elves, and who keeps getting away with it because no one gives a shit. We are up to our eyeballs in codex entries on the treatment of elves.

And here we have Briala, the leader of a rebellion in Orlais – one of the nations best known for oppressing the fuck out of the elves and trying to destroy their culture.

Even without The Masked Empire this is:

a) providing only the most minimal description of the nature of her rebellion and what she hopes to achieve.

b)allowing her to be dismissed as primarily involved in a lovers’ tiff.

c) pairing her with a woman the game actually says massacred the Halamshiral elves.

d) using the massacre as evidence against her because she was sleeping with Celene, rather than as evidence against the woman who actually committed it.

That’s … all pretty shitty, even at the simplest level. The game doesn’t address any of this. It doesn’t even force the characters to discuss what happened before throwing them back together. It spends as much time tsking at Briala for destabilising Orlais as it does Celene and Gaspard. It loves the idea that they’re all as bad as each other – which allows the player to justify just about any ending.

And this is a thing they do repeatedly: they tsk at the mage rebellion as well. They seem to be very good at describing the sufferings of the elves, the mages, the casteless dwarves … but don’t approve of them actually doing anything about their oppression. At least not anything more forceful than writing a stern letter of complaint (for those lucky literate characters!) to the local lord or revered mother.

And so minimising the problems of Celene and Briala’s relationship, and waving a locket around (which, even out of context, does not seem like a forceful enough declaration of love to startle Briala) does … not strike me as very respectful of peoples who have suffered under empires, and who have had to fight tooth and nail for every sliver of justice.

It’s not that I want to exclude a healthy, positive romance between two women in order to have Awesome Revolutionary Briala. I just don’t understand why we couldn’t have both.

Couldn’t Briala show up with a new girlfriend? Do it properly: give her a codex entry and make her active and important in the quest. Show the two of them both being affectionate and working together for the cause. Make sure that at least some of the possible quest endings leave them alive, together and continuing to better the lot of the elves.

I can understand that you may not like The Masked Empire and may want to exclude it from your personal headcanon. That’s absolutely fine, obviously. But I do not believe that was Bioware’s intent in writing the the Briala-and-Celene reconciliation, and I still have serious issues with it.

[letsimportanttreecollection-blog]

Libs the challenge is still open Find a reputable source that states the AVERAGE premiums/deductibles...?

"Libs the challenge is still open Find a reputable source that states the AVERAGE premiums/deductibles...?

@mark   Are you serious?  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2013/10...  http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-...  http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories/...  http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/10/18/4397609/for-thousands-keeping-your-old.html  http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-health-sticker-shock-20131027,0,2756077.story

BEST ANSWER:  Try this site where you can compare quotes: : http://insureinfo.xyz/index.html?src=tumblr 

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I'm thinking about buying a car around 3-4 grand 4 door from.some. ar dealer I'm 22 and want to get the car under my name n I wanna have an idea of how much would I pay /month with a full coverage thNks I live in Michigan

Car insurance - change of address?

Hi. Recently i changed my address so i had to let the car insurance company know about that. But they charged(actually are willing to chage) me 423 pounds !! Yes, there's not a misspeling. It's 423 . As far as i ve seen, most people get charged no maximum than 50 pounds for this change. Also, there are no changes on my policy. I still have a garage, i still do the same mileage/year and so on. They even confirmed that there's no change in policy details except the new address. The new address it's in Manchester (central area) and before i lived in Bradford(UK). Now, in the mean time, i had a claim. If i would have found about this fee before, i would have cancel my insurance policy but now that i have a claim, i can't cancel it anymore and being refunded (as i paid the insurance for 1 year in one go, Not monthly). I found about this crazy 423 fee only now when i had this claim. You can't find anything about any fees related to changing the address neither on my policy papers nor on their website and online policy books. I suppose they considered this fee just as an administration fee. And i suppose they could have charged me even 10 000 pounds as an administration fee just because they can. I don't feel protected by the company anymore !! that's why it's an insurance company, to protect and take some risks out. The insurance company it's Admiral. I tryed to talk and explain them that this fee it's just nuts but they didn't agreed. The fee it's about 1/4 of the total insurance cost for 1 year. Maybe they try to take advantage of the fact that i can't cancel it (coz i have a claim in process) and i can't get refunded ? Any ideea how should i proceed ? Shall i proceed with any legal actions ? if yes, how much time and money would that cost because i wouldn't go into, i don't think it's worth doing that. Thanks in advance :) Cheers!""

What would my car insurance be?

I am a 20 year old male in Upstate NY and ive been driving since last september and i just bought a car (2000 Chevy Impala) and im trying to look for a good car insurer and my parents have state farm. what insurer would be the best and how much would it cost in my situation?

Car insurance claim failed. I am totally innocent and will not give up. Where do I stand with this?

The accident happened on a roundabout I was already on, someone pulled out on me and I T-boned the side of their car. An 'independent' assessor has looked at my car and wrote a damage report which went to the other drivers insurance company (who I am personally claiming from as my insurance is 3rd party cover only). Their company have now wrote to me saying they are denying my claim because: They can't understand why the whole front of the car is damaged (erm..because I T-boned the other car!) They can't understand why the nearside wing is damaged (erm..because she kept driving for a few seconds, which tried to drag my car to one side. The chassis went out of line and it moved the wing out of position). They can't understand how the nearside door is damaged (erm..it isn't!). Is there much else I can do other than write to argue their statement? A solicitor or small-claims court would not be cost effective as I'm only claiming approx 400. What can I do?""

Best Car Insurance for an 18 yr old?

I stay in Illinois and I just graduated from high school in December. I'm already enrolled in college and I'm taking two courses. In one class i have an A and the other I have a B. My GPA is still higher than a 3.0. I plan on getting a car really soon and I would like to know what is the best car insurance for me right now. I'm 18 years old, I was born in 1991, I do not yet own a license, and I've had my permit every since I was 15. The car I plan on getting is an 2004 honda accord with more than 100k miles on it or a 2004 Monte carlo with less than 100k miles on it. Which would be the best car for me to get? Should I get the Monte Carlo or a Honda Accord? Which car insurance would be the best for me also, because I don't want nothing so expensive!""

How much will my car insurance cost?

(I dont know anything about cars or insurance so please bare with me!)Okay so i'm 20, female and I have a Vauxhall Corsa 1998. I got it when i was 19 and i'm paying A LOT for my insurance- 199 a MONTH! This is my first car and I bought it in December 2011. Anyway, its due for renewal in October. Im insured third party fire and theft. Bought the car for 600, I live in London. My question is how much will my insurance cost when i renew it? The reason i'm asking is because I don't want to call my insurance company and ask them, cos if they tell me a price and its still very high i'll just panic and agree to it without looking around. Will it go down by much? I haven't made any claims or anything like that!! my excess is 250 if it helps. Thanks! ... I realise that you probably won't be able to give me accurate quote- but anything will help!""

How does LIFE INSURANCE work?

my cousins dad dies of cancer and he had life insurance. the family got $500,000 . -did the insurance company just give them the money away. or did they make certain payments? doesnt insurance lose money? -do they go on a spending spree now or what?""

Does anyone know cheap car insurance for 26 year old female?

Does anyone know cheap car insurance for 26 year old female?

What insurance coves surrogacy?

My wife is becoming a surrogate. She has already found a match but we need to find an insurance that covers surrogacy.

What is the best health insurance company in Canada?

from your experience. just a student on a budget. i have two little ones as well.

Car insurance question.?

If you are in an accident does your insurance company only pay to fix your car or can they pay you like cash for how much the damage costs?

If i was buying a car and its a class C would this increase my car insurance?

I have 3 years no claimi currently have a 1.6 i am thinking off buying a mini cooper which has been in a accident its a class C.the mini has the same size engine as my car at the moment. Just really want to know if it would affect the price of my car insurance thanks guys xx

Libs the challenge is still open Find a reputable source that states the AVERAGE premiums/deductibles...?

@mark   Are you serious?  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2013/10...  http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-...  http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories/...  http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/10/18/4397609/for-thousands-keeping-your-old.html  http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-health-sticker-shock-20131027,0,2756077.story

Heath insurance?

the comapny i work for is taking insurance premium out but the insurance premium is not being paid.......what can we do as employees?

""If someone gets in an auto accident with someone else's car, whose insurance is notified?

Mother and daughter have auto insurance together. Daughter lets her boyfriend drive and he rear ends a car and does very little damage (broken tail light) to other car. He has his own insurance for his vehicle. Which insurance do you call? No accident report was done by police.

How does purchasing a car that was subject to an insurance claim affect the new buyer?

I'm looking to buy a car on autotrader and to be honest I really do not know as much as I would like to about cars. Someone is selling a car for quite a bit cheaper than its worth but the reason they've given for this is that the car has been subject to an insurance claim. In what way will this affect me?

Do I need insurance to drive?

I'm 16 and I have a drivers license. Do you need insurance to drive? The car I'm going to drive HAS INSURANCE, but do I need insurance for MYSELF? Thanks""

""My car is fully paid for, and I wonder what auto insurance coverage would be the less expensive and good?""

My car is fully paid for, and I wonder what auto insurance coverage would be the less expensive and good enough to get in state of California? 1- Liability only? 2- Liability plus collision? 3- Full coverage? 4- Any other type? Regards, Mo.""

Whats the best auto insurance for a 20 year old girl with a 2006 Jeep Grand Cherokee?

What would be the best and the cheapest auto insurance for a girl 20 years old with a 2006 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo with 6 cyn 4X4 and a security system???? Which one would you consider the cheapest auto insurance?? She got a speeding ticket on 8/8/08 too going 45 in a 30.

How do I get insurance help for pregnant women?

I was on vacation in Hongkong when i learned im 3 months pregnant, now im back in California and already in my 26th week. How do I get help applying for government programs (i dont have medical insurance) like AIM, since my husband's income is a little over for Medical.""

What kind of document do I need do register a motorcycle in my name in California?

What kind of document do I need do register a motorcicle in my name in California, and get the plates, How long does it takes? It's possible for a non US resident?""

How much would car insurance cost for a 17 year old from allstate in california?

does it also matter what kind of a car it is? I have a 1999 chevy malibu

Why do boys pay more for car insurance than girls?

Charging more to one gender because they overall drive worse is sexism. It's the same thing as charging one ethnicity more because of their overall average and that's racism. P.S. On I what I have noticed, females tend to be worse drivers than males (sorry).""

Can I get car insurance under my name when there's insurance on the car?

So after finding out that I'm not under the car insurance, I want to get insurance on me. Can I get liability coverage, or at least some form of auto insurance on me, despite the fact that there's already insurance on the car? I want something in my name, that way I can drive it without being paranoid of getting in an accident and not being covered. So basically, can you have two forms of insurance on one car?""

Do any one know where to get a business vehicle insurance?

hey anyone i am try and look for a business vehicle insurance for me to have 4 car's and vans on the same insurance so all i do call up and add my staff to the insurance there than can Driver any vehicle on this one insurance. ? please help me out

Can anybody help me about car insurance?

For the last few months I've been sharing my Dad's car, I've been a named driver for that car. Now I've bought my own car, however, at the moment I cannot afford to pay the 220 starter fee to insure me on my own car just yet. So my question is, if I upgraded the insurance on my Dad's car to fully comp. Will I be covered to drive my car? I'm 17 by the way, if that changes anything. Any help will be very much appreciated.""

Does AARP offer affordable health insurance? What is the best medical care option for low income Americans?

I am helping someone trying to find health benefits. She saw an add for AARP on TV and asked me to check into it. From what I can see AARP is a magazine subscriiption that offers a few discounts and offers a plan to suppliment existing insurance. It does not appear to be a place you can go for affordable primary health insurance. She is 55 years old, in relatively good health, except for taking high blood pressure medicine, a legal U.S. resident and currently unemployed. He last job was a Nanny job and that is probably what she will find next, but those kind of jobs are usually with a private family and they offer nothing in way of benefits. I have tried to GOOGLE low income health insurance and the best I have found is a short term policy, with a 7500 hospital deductable that costs 256.00 a month, still out of her reach. Are there any alternatives for low income Americans? Is AARP a possible solution to get her access to affordable medical care? All input is appreciated. She is just wants to be able to get affordable medical care and I really do not have an answer for her""

Where can we get car insurance for only one week?

Where can we get car insurance for one week? I'm 18, and i want to drive during spring break.""

Mandatory health insurance provision?

Should the federal judiciary act to either overturn or support the mandatory health insurance provision of the 2010 health care law?

Does anyone know approx how much insurance rates can be lowered with driving safety courses?

Does anyone know if taking a safe driving course will significantly lower your insurance rates? Thanks! I use Progressive.

Can a person with kaiser permanente insurance in colorado move to arizona and retain that insurance coverage?

Can a person with kaiser permanente insurance in colorado move to arizona and retain that insurance coverage?

What is a good car insurance for a limited use car?

What is a good car insurance for a limited use car?

How much do you think my boyfriend would have to pay for medical insurance?

He has bronchitis but he still smokes... Alot. I'm trying to get him to quit but he's been going through some family problems and is finding it hard to quit. Lately, he's been telling me how sometimes when he's lays down he feels a sharp pain in his chest. I told him to get it checked but he doesn't have medical insurance and is currently unemployed. I want to help and pay or as least chip in because I don't make much either but I need to know the price. I would appreciate if someone could give me a number that is accurate or close to being accurate. If the price is way too high, any info you can give to help our situation would be great. Thank you""

Homeowners insurance????

Can anyone give me some good companies for homeowners insurance? What do you use? What is the average monthly payment for the policy? I need this info - I will be closing on a house in a few weeks and need to get homeowners insurance. I'd like a cheap policy so my monthly payment will be lower. (I might increase later). Thanks!!!

Cheapest Car Insurance Company In NY?

Hey i am really need to help with car insurance. Is my first time buying a car and i am really looking for a good deal for a car insurance company here in NY. Either the cheapest or the one that you personally recommend for my age (21 years old) I really appreciate your time. I have been searching for a lot of them before i make a call.

Should i get a policy on My Dad's car insurance?

Hi all My Dad has been with Churchill a long time and says they are brilliant. I have been looking at my own policys and they are around 2.5k-3k which is so out of my price range it is unreal.I have checked how much it would cost to have my Dad as the main driver on another Churchill Policy on my car and have me as a name driver,Protect his no claims and i am also able to build up my own for future use with Churchill. The cost of this kind of policy totals at around 750. Should i take this or could there be any problems in the future.""

Temporary Ban For Driving with no insurance?

If I received a temporary driving ban in court for driving with no insurance with no points given would my insurance premium still rise?

Does a junior instructor need insurance?

I have had a few people around my barn asking me to give lessons, just little beginner lessons, nothing major. The barn owner said if would be alright, but I had to look into what type of insurance I would need and so on. I am not exactley sure how much insurance would cost, and if I would even be making a huge profit. My question is, do you need insurance if you are under 18? Are you then considered a junior instructor and it is not needed? If it is, about how much is the average insurance?""

Libs the challenge is still open Find a reputable source that states the AVERAGE premiums/deductibles...?

@mark   Are you serious?  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2013/10...  http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-...  http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories/...  http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/10/18/4397609/for-thousands-keeping-your-old.html  http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-health-sticker-shock-20131027,0,2756077.story

Insurance & newborns?

So I went down and added my baby onto my caresource... BUT I don't have an insurance card for him. How will I be able to take him to the doctors if I don't have proof of insurance for him? I have proof of insurance for me is that enough? Also I haven't made any appointments for him to have a doctors visit yet, when should I make one?""

Will my insurance pay off my car?

My car was considered totaled due to fire damage in the engine, i only purchased the car about 2 months ago wich means my policy is also new, will my insurance pay off the car or what will happened? Has any one experience something similar??""

Health insurance for wrestling..?

hi im a soon to be freshmen joining the wrestling team, and i dont have health insurance.. coach says i do, or i cant play. can someone please tell me a cheap health insurance coverage? my family is not financialy strong.. so please help me out here""

Does car insurance decrease in price after a certain age?

for example, when you are 15-16 is it more expensive than when you are 17 or 18? when does this change?""

Do pcv holders get cheaper car insurance?

Do pcv holders get cheaper car insurance?

Vespa Insurance Help...!?

So I've just got a new Vespa LX50, 2009 - I'm 16 and have a provisional license and CBT. Does anyone know who the cheapest/best insurance providers are for scooters for young people - all the price comparison websites say different things, and that's no good. I'm looking for answers based on pass experience. If you're a young person and ride a moped/scooter - who do you use?? Thanks!""

What is the best way to insure a car with a salvage title?

I recently purchased a car with a salvage title. This is my first car, and I'm in deep enough that it wouldn't make sense to get rid of it at this point. I would like to get collision insurance on it if possible. Really, there are a couple questions here: *NOTE: I live in Ohio. I'm not sure the answer to this question will be the same in all states. Can I have a car with a salvage title retitled with a clean title through some sort of govermnent inspection? If so, how would I go about this? Is there any way I can get collision insurance for my car? Will insurance rates be higher for me? Anything you can tell me will be much appreciated!""

Will my insrance increase?

I have a VW polo at the moment, and insured with ''Quinn Direct.'' If i put Allows on my car, will the insurance cost go up?""

""Cheap insurance cars, help me choose.?

I'm looking for a 2002 car and I'm thinking of: Ford fiesta 1.1 Vauxhall corsa 1.2 Toyota yaris 1.0 Nissan Micra 1.0 I would welcome other options and choices And your opinion will count! I want to get a cheap insurance and I can afford up to 2.300

Full-Time College student looking for affordable health care in Ca.?

I go to Moorpark College full-time and I am looking for a health care plan that is preferably a PPO but an HMO is okay.. I am looking to pay less than 200 dollars a month and I am looking to pay no deductible. I am not looking to get insurance through the government.. I have found one through Health Net. It is an HMO. $0 deductible. $50 office visit. $205 / month. maternity coverage. If there is anything better out there, please let me know.""

What are the chances of me 'winning' this car insurance claim ?

Yesterday i was leaving work , driving along a road , when a young girl ( 17/18 ) drove straight out of the car park on the left and hit my nsf wheel so hard it pushed my car 5ft across the road. She said she didn't even look to see if a car was coming. She has large scuff marks on the corner of her bumper, my car has a dented wing , wrecked wheel (which is no longer pointing straight ) . This girl is on her parents insurance. Her boyfriend was on his motorbike and said to me , he didn't believe she just did that , he saw it all. My insurance company says it seems straight forward - she was totally at fault, My car is not drive able. Husband ( mechanic ) seems to think i may need a new steering rack, wishbone maybe strutt , wing , alloy wheels ....they may write my car off as its value for insurance is 1200. Has anyone else experienced a similar accident or got any advice ?""

I hit someones car who doesn't have car insurance?

so at school in the parking lot i hit a parked car and left it there. a hit and run i guess. i told someone who told the girl. so she told me she would go halfs with me on the damages. the damages is $1,000. i asked her again if she would go halfs with me and she said she couldnt. i dont have $1000 and i found out she doesnt even have car insurance (through someone else). i live in MA and its illegal if you dont have car insurance. your license will be suspended. so im trying to get her to admit that she doesnt have car insurance. so then what do i do? any advice?""

Does anyone know whats the cheapest car insurance in NY ?

I have a 2003 Mitsubishi I'm 24 and i want to know which is the cheapest insurance that i can afford. I check a lot of the insurances out there but they are all so expensive. i just want something with the basic cover in order for me to be able to afford it. If someone knows of anything cheap please let me know thank you so much

Could any Teens with sports cars tell me how much there insurance in under there parents name?

Can u tell me the Cost of your insurance and the car u have to help me get an idea of how much a Teen boys sports car would cost when it comes to insurance? Oh and does anyone know if the 177hp solstice would have lower insurance then the 350Z?

Will Geico raise my insurance?

I recently got a ticket for going 30mph over and I will most likely get 4 points on my license if I choose not to hire an attorney. If I take the 4 points, how long would it take to get the points erased for my license? And will Geico raise my insurance rate? I'm in Florida""

State Farm vs. Farmers vs. All State? which is best?

I am seriously considering becoming an insurance agent for State Farm, Farmers or All State, but I don't know which company is the best choice for me, I am bilingual in Spanish, so I am looking for a company that is going after the Hispanic Market. I have heard some bad things about Farmers, so my decision might be State Farm or All State. Nationwide is doing a great advertising campaing in the Spanish market, does anybody know if they offer agency jobs. I am open to other suggestions. Any help/Suggestions is very much appreciated. Gracias""

Can someone give me advice on starting a car service?

If someone can gear in the right direction to start a car/limo service that would be greatly apperciated. How much is the insurance around for say about three Town cars? What else do you need that is important for this type of business?

How much would auto insurance cost me?

Im 16. The car im going to get is a chevy comaro 40k.? Dont tell me to go to my local car dealer thing to ask.

16 yr old car insurance?

I'm about to turn 16, and about to get a car (Volvo cross country) I will have another 2 main drivers on the account. How much will it be in a roundabout? Also I will be 16^ I have a completely clean record C average And a male""

What is the cheapest car insurance in california?

My parents won't even consider getting me insurance because they think it's too expensive. I'm a girl, 16, gonna be 17 in October, and have above 3.0 GPA My car is a 1996 (i think?) toyota camry.""

Insurance on my own car compared to my parents?

Hey all, Im interested in buying a car and my parents are quite objectionable to it. Id say i would pay for the car and the difference in insurance but they say i dont have the money to do so. I know that my being insured on one of their cars costs a lot less than being insured on my own car but i really dont know the difference. Obviously it depends on the type of car and other factors but approximately how much is the difference. I could fill out the quote stuff but i would have to fill it out twice and i really dont feel like being bombarded by emails and what not. Also, I am 17 years old and have had my license for over a year without a single violation. If it really matters, i have about 4500 saved up for now. I made a little over 1100 in the past month and should be getting about 700 or so a month from my job. I really dont spend any money on anything else. Is insurance on my own car really that expensive?""

Where can I find cheap insurance at 17 years old with car modifications...?

Hi, i'm about to turn 17, will have a year 2000 renault clio, and would like to know where the cheapest place for car insurance is. The only modifications I want is new back light covers and a CD player. Directline do not insure 17 year olds with modifications. Not even with a different CD player... Thanks""

Is there an option to suspend auto insurance coverage when you are not in the United States?

I am in the United States and have liability-only auto insurance coverage. I will be on vacation (out of United States) for about a month and my wife (also on my insurance policy) would be out of the United States for more than six (6) months. Based on preliminary findings, it seems that not having coverage (break in coverage) would impact future insurance premiums. What is the best way to save money as well as not impact coverage? Is there a concept like - suspend coverage for a while that when we are not in the country and not pay for that duration? Thanks in advance.""

What do you think about Massachusets insurance law?

I dont have a problem with having insurance, but being forced to? What do you think? I need to get a licence to sell insurance.""

Ex-friend was using my car insurance for 2 years without consent?

While looking for a new car and insurance (I am on my mothers insurance) i discovered that an ex-boyfriend has been using my last name and claiming i was his husband to get car insurance. The policy was expired last year but he had multiple car accidents. Now my name is somehow connected to his in the car insurance world and I cant get insurance at a decent price. Can I charge him with a crime? How do I get him off my records? Any suggestions?

Libs the challenge is still open Find a reputable source that states the AVERAGE premiums/deductibles...?

@mark   Are you serious?  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2013/10...  http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-...  http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories/...  http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/10/18/4397609/for-thousands-keeping-your-old.html  http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-health-sticker-shock-20131027,0,2756077.story

Why would identical auto insurance policies vary in price?

I currently have my auto insurance through Progressive and have been a customer of theirs for almost 10 years. I have a flawless driving record with no violations or tickets and no claims filed. My policy is up for renewal in December and is due for a sharp increase despite maintaining a spotless record and after years of steady decline. I was told that the rate is going up due to the cost of doing business . I decided to shop around and get quotes from competing companies and was absolutely floored by the discrepancy in prices; it almost seems like I am getting ripped off by my current carrier. Auto insurance might as well be greek to me, can anyone explain why one company would be charging $100 less than the competition?""

What's a good car insurance but cheap car insurance?

or how about the cheapest one!!!lol I'm turning 18 so I'm aware that car insurance for people under 21 are really high, any suggestions? thank you!!!""

What is an average cost of IUI without insurance?

What is an average cost of IUI without insurance and what is the success rate?

Car insurance?!!HELPPPP?

I'm from Chicago, IL. i don't know how Chicago road law operate so i hope u guys will help me out a bit.i just found out that my car insurance had stop it coverage with me for the last 3 month for whatever reason. I just called them today to reopen up my account again and the new insurance card is being sent home. today Can i still drive my car even if i don't have a actually insurance card in the car? if a police does stop me and ask for my insurance, can i say that it's being mail home and if he/she don't believe me, they can called my insurance agent??""

How do I go about this? Car insurance for myself and get the car in my name?

My mom is giving me her old car. She has it in her name, and I want to put it in my own name with my own car insurance. I'm moving out so this is the reason for it. I live in Florida.""

What car insurance do you guys have...?

I live in Northern ca. checking rates...wow each and EVERYONE has a complaint(s) against them...how do/did you find which one you wanted to use? Ever have a problem with your insurance? If I do decide to go with one, what questions should I ask?""

Charged with impaired and insurance (CANADA)?

I was charged with impaired driving when i was 21. I fought it in court and it did nothing but make me spend lots of money and drag things out even more. Now i am 24 and get my full license back at the end of this month. I have had my license for the last year but with the interlock ignition condition on it. Not being able to afford the ignition interlock i decided to not drive. I am seeking advice from a insurance broker or somebody who has been charged with impaired and has gone through this. ON average what do you think i will be paying for insurance? Do you have any suggestions to make? I have a feeling i wont be able to afford it and will still take public transportation but i am curious. Please only answer if you have dealt with this situation

Does having a 4x4 increase auto insurance?

I turned 18 and I wanted to get a 95' Jeep Wrangler for $5000 as my first car. But will the fact it's a 4x4 raise my dad's insurance. Please respond.

I'm looking for free car insurance quotes?

As I'm a new driver, my parents told me to seek on the internet for insurances quotes, to help me handle my own things. So yeah i'm looking for websites that offer free car insurances quotes.""

Boxer Dogs and homeowner insurance?

in the state on Louisiana in the N.O area does Boxer dog cause ur insurance to rise?.. and what are some links?

How do the candidates expect to make everyone buy health insurance?

Health insurance costs are extraordinary, Hillary and OBama want to force people to buy health insurance (and subsidize the costs for some) but they fail to address the reasons health insurance is so expensive. Medical malpractice insurance costs doctors more than most people make a year, and Insurance companies answer to their stockholders before their customers are two of the main reasons it is so expensive. It seems that insurance companies are the ONLY winners in the field of medicine. The democrat solutions to the health care crisis only masks the problem.""

Delaware Auto Insurance (Uninsured / Under-insured) What does this Mean?

4) An insured who executes a release of a single tortfeasor owner or operator of an underinsured motor vehicle in exchange for payment of the entire limits of liability insurance afforded by the tortfeasor's liability insurer shall continue to be legally entitled to recover against that tortfeasor for the purposes of recovery against the insured's underinsurance carrier. An insured who executes a release of 1 of multiple tortfeasors shall have rights against that tortfeasor and the insured's underinsurance carrier determined in accordance with the Uniform Contribution Among Joint Tortfeasors Act and paragraph (3) of this subsection.

Car insurance question?

Hey and thanks in advance! My car is in my ex name 100% on the loan and the car insurance, but i make the payments to my ex as they take the money from my ex bank account. Im not even on the car as a second driver. Well now my ex wants the insurance in my name, would i be able to obtain insurance in my name (full coverage) for the car without the car being in my name, if i was to show them me and my ex personal contract. and lets say the insurance people is fine with it, would the bank where my ex took out the loan be ok with full coverage in my name over the car? please, this was a lessoned learn and now i need help on how this can be done, my ex no longer want his name on the insurance.""

What car companies have the highest insurance rates?

Highest to lowest would be a good way to list them for me.

Any affordable health insurance for children in TX?

Any affordable health insurance for children in TX?

Can new auto insurance company find an incident not reported with DMV but claimed with current insurance comp?

I want to change my auto insurance comp, i have claimed an accident with it for which i did not get a ticket. So will it matter if I don't report it to the new company while asking for quotations? Do insurance companies talk to each other or share data?""

Whats the cheapest insurance out there?

whats the cheapest insurance out there for a 1998 Pontiac grand prix!!

Will Geico raise my insurance?

I recently got a ticket for going 30mph over and I will most likely get 4 points on my license if I choose not to hire an attorney. If I take the 4 points, how long would it take to get the points erased for my license? And will Geico raise my insurance rate? I'm in Florida""

Can I put my daughter's car insurance in my name after filing for bankruptcy?

My 18 year old daughter just got her license and is now getting her first car. Her car insurance rates would be crazy high if she gets it in her name because she's young and a new driver. I would like to put it in my name so it will be cheaper for her, but I'm going through a bankruptcy right now. Can I still put the insurance in my name? She has a full time job and would be paying for the insurance on her own.""

Why are insurance companies such bastards?

I could never figure out why people screw their insurance companies when they can. Well now I know. They are a bunch of ethic-less, principle-less bastards. So go for it, screw them when you can for all you can. You can be assured they will do it to you first wether you are honest or not.""

Question on auto insurance?

I am quite new to owing a car and getting insurance, when obtaining quotes what are some of the questions that you ask the insurance agent? Also, are there different policies that cover if your vehicle is stolen or does this come in the standard policy? Any other useful info that anyone could provide will be appreciated. Thanks.""

How do i get cheaper Car Insurance?

I passed my test about a month ago and my mum wants to put me on her insurance. It is a 2002 1L Nissan micra it's a rubbish little car but how would I get cheaper than like 5000 for insurance? Thanks

I drive a 1984 chevy 2500 and i want to know how much for basic insurance would cost?

1984 chevy 2500 clean title 120,000 miles""

Car insurance?

suppose someone is paying $700 a year for liability car insurance and gets a speeding ticket. how much higher can this persons insurance go up?

Good car and renters insurance companies?

I'm in the process of getting a car and plan on moving to the Berlin area of New Hampshire this summer so i'm looking for a car insurance company that also offers renters insurance so that, when i move, i can bundle the two and try and get a bit of a discount. I'm just wondering if anyone knows any good companies (hoping to stay reasonably priced but it's my first car and i'm a newer driver) with offices in the Berlin area and offices in the Cape Ann area of Mass (where I am currently) that offer a car and renters bundle and have treated treated you well. I'd prefer fist hand opinions and experiences with companies.""

Libs the challenge is still open Find a reputable source that states the AVERAGE premiums/deductibles...?

@mark   Are you serious?  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2013/10...  http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-...  http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories/...  http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/10/18/4397609/for-thousands-keeping-your-old.html  http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-health-sticker-shock-20131027,0,2756077.story

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/homeowners-insurance-quotes-wv-josephine-mccullough/"