#also i think he would make crazy fashion decisions i mean this man switched his normal hand for a silver one and absolutely loved it

[harrys-strutting-dad]

[nightwingmyboi]

Your top Nightwing artists for cover and for interior? You can say colorist-penciller teams too!

Okay, I just kind of made a list of my favorite Nightwings? Probably missing some good ones, but, hey, this is all very subjective. This is in no particular order, here we go: 

Jim Lee 

I love the body type that Lee gives Nightwing--muscular, but lean. Seems very fitting. I also like the energy and mischievousness that Dick has because of the way Lee drew his posture and expressions. From what I’ve seen, Lee’s very good at balancing making Dick look approachable and sympathetic at the appropriate times, while also making him menacing and fierce when he’s up against criminals. 

P.S. Nice hair man.

Jerome K. Moore 

Ok, so I’m pretty sure this is one of the only times Moore drew Nightwing, during what was at best a mediocre run in Teen Titans history, but you know what? He’s on my list. This is the only artist that has truly managed to capture the teenage angst inherent in the discowing look, and he deserves a spot here for that alone. And look at how beautifully he drew Dick’s hair, all windblown and tousled! A+ man. 

Guys, Dick’s wearing a leather jacket with discowing. That is freaking innovation. Give the man a medal. 

George Perez

This one might be my fondness for 80s Titans talking, but even though it’s pretty old fashioned, I really enjoy Perez’s Nightwing. Sue me. The way he depicted Dick gave him a lot of leadership vibes...but Perez also took the time to draw Dick with a softness too, especially when he was with Kory, which served as a great reminder that no matter how on top of things Dick might have appeared he was still young and in the process of growing up and figuring things out. Very fond of this Nightwing. 

Also, Perez always drew the collar for discowing at an appropriately ridiculous but respectable length--unlike later artists who drew it so high that it was above Dick’s head! Disgraceful. This is how it’s done fam. 

Joëlle Jones

Jones’ art across the board is just really nice to look at. Specifically, I really like the maturity and understanding she was able to give Dick. It fit, especially in these issues when he was going full on family therapist lol. For some reason the line work on this was really appealing to me too. I also really appreciate the way she drew Dick’s arms--this man looks hella strong! Bet he gives great hugs. 

For some reason I am obsessed with the nuance of this expression in particular. Dick’d spent the whole comic joking around and explaining/justifying Bruce’s reasoning for leaving them behind and excluding them in order to comfort Damian. But briefly, while Damian is distracted by Bruce’s approach, we get this look, this brief glimpse of Dick’s own pain and disappointment and love and resignation, the complicated cocktail of emotions that Dick’d kept hidden for Damian’s sake this whole time. Drives me crazy how much one panel can tell you. 

Travis Moore

Do I even need to explain this one? Moore’s Nightwing is spectacular! Love the hair, love the expressions. Very charming and pretty. List would not be complete without him on it fam. Can even make Ric look nice. 

I don’t pay as much attention to cover artist or colorist as I should, but I will say that I was super impressed with Yasmine Putri’s Nightwing variant covers: 

Really stunning, jaw-dropping work. I also think about the coloring for Batman: Black Mirror all the time. I think it was Francesco Francavilla and/or David Baron? They did something really interesting...usually, Batman comics tend to primarily deal with darker colors, and have Batman becoming one with the shadows of the city. But, since it was Dick Grayson under the cowl instead of Bruce Wayne, the colorists decided to switch it up and have Batman be on predominantly white backgrounds. 

This was such a bold choice, because I feel like having so much white space means you run the risk of pages looking empty, but they pulled it off so well! And thematically this was a brilliant decision! Dick was a different type of Batman; he didn’t stick to the shadows like Bruce did, he stepped into the light. And the comic itself showcased and reflected that idea. The symbolism of it all...incredible. The sort of attention and care that was given to the smallest details in Black Mirror is just one of the many reasons that that run of comics is one of my favs. 

Anyway, thanks for the ask anon! Really had fun answering this one ;) 

[firstofficerwiggles]

Dress Code, Part 3

Links to Part 1 and Part 2

Pairing: Din Djarin x female reader

Rating: M (T version here if you prefer no sex)

Warnings: SMUT, attempt at romantic smut, but still descriptions of unprotected sex (be safe in the real world, please)

Summary: You and Din are back on the Razor Crest after the party and things get romantic. Confessions of feelings and lots of fluff.

Word Count: ~3800

Author’s Note: This was heavily inspired by Perfect by Ed Sheeran and that’s the song they are dancing to. If you’re familiar with the lyrics, you’ll note that Din uses one of the lines from the song. Also, I don’t really know how the holopads are supposed to work, so I’m treating it like a space iPad that can play music. Again, shamelessly stolen planet names from Star Trek. Also here’s the necklace from the story, in case you were wondering what it looked like.

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

You whisk your cloak off of you again, headless of the cold, wanting Din to see you in the dress again.

“I’ll make you a new deal,” he says, his helmet moving up and down as if he is looking you over. “I’ll take you to some warmer planets and I won’t complain about your clothing, but only if you promise to never wear that dress in public again.”

The dress has served its purpose, better than you could have anticipated. “Alright, it’s a deal,” you tell him with a smile.

“Although,” Din drawls out, “if you want to wear it again when we’re alone together, I’d like that.”

“Wait, so you do like this dress?” You ask the Mandalorian surprise coloring your voice. “It’s just earlier, you seemed so angry about it,” you figured it was too much for him, too risqué for him to really like it.

“Sweetheart, when I saw you in that dress, looking so beautiful,” Din sighs, “all I could think was that I didn’t deserve to see you looking so perfect.”

“Oh Mando, that’s… thank you… that’s the most romantic thing any man has ever said to me.” You feel stunned by his words. You’ve been dreaming of hearing him say something like this to you, but the reality is so much better than anything you could imagine.

His voice gets a little sterner when he says, “But I wasn’t crazy about all those other men seeing you like that too.” Then, more gruffly, he tells you “I am sorry though if I acted like a jealous idiot,” he tips his helmet down a bit, slightly ashamed at his rudeness this evening.

“Mando, you don’t have to be jealous,” you tell him, “I’m not interested in other men. I was thinking about you when I chose this dress.”

“Is that true?” he asks. Din really wants to believe you, but he’s still not sure how a woman like you could ever be with him.

“Yes, it is. I only cared about you seeing me in it.”

“What about Guy?” Din says his name like it’s a curse, “You seemed to like his attention too.” His voice has a teasing tone to it, but you can hear the undercurrent of a need for reassurance in his statement too.

“Who?” you say innocently, “You’re the only man I remember from tonight, Mando.” And you give him the most flirtatious look you have, trying to show him that he’s the only one for you.

“Well, good.” His visor seems to stare at you for a beat before he looks you over again and notes the small goosebumps that have arisen on your arms, “Let’s go up to the cockpit, it’s warmer up there.”

You follow him up the ladder to the cockpit, where it is noticeably warmer, but honestly, you’re so overwhelmed with everything, with him, you had forgotten about the cold. In fact when you look over to your armor-clad bounty hunter and remember how you danced together, you feel heat spreading through your whole body.

Din doesn’t notice the cold either, how could he with the way you are looking at him, eyes full of desire? He had to bring you up here just to stop from dragging you straight to his bunk. When you said you only thought of him when you bought the dress, he felt a primal urge to claim you right then, but he wants to show you how much you mean to him first. He needs you to understand how deeply he cares for you.

You watch as Din goes over to the console where he has a holopad and he switches on some music. Different from the fast-paced dance music of the party, this music is soft and slow. Before he turns back to you, you watch with wide eyes as he takes off his pauldrons, followed by his chest plate, and so on until his helmet is the only beskar remaining. He looks more relaxed now in just his shirt and pants and you feel like you are getting a glimpse of the man underneath the warrior’s armor.

“Will you dance with me again?” Din asks, holding out his now gloveless hand to you. You feel a jolt of energy when your fingers touch his warm skin for the first time as you take his hand. He pulls you in to him holding your right hand up to his chest and then placing his other hand in the small of your back in a more old-fashioned dancing style. You let your left arm wrap up around his shoulder, amazed at being able to feel more of his body without the hard metal in the way. You sway with him to the music, dancing under the light of thousands of stars in the sky, and it’s perfect. You listen to the lyrics of the song as the singer croons,

Baby, I'm dancing in the dark with you between my arms

Barefoot on the grass, listening to our favourite song When you said you looked a mess, I whispered underneath my breath But you heard it, darling, you look perfect tonight

“Mando, I love this song, but I thought you hated it?” you ask astonished, “You always huff when I put it on.”

“I don’t hate it,” he says, “but it makes me frustrated, or it did, because,” he swallows, “well, because it’s- it’s everything I want to say to you, but I don’t know how. And I don’t know how I could ever deserve to be with someone like you.”

“You’re doing a pretty great job of showing me how you feel now,” you reply your eyes shining at him. Yet one thing bothers you about what he said, “But why don’t you think you deserve it?”

“I uh,” he seems a bit awkward and he turns his visor away from your gaze for a moment, “I’m not proud of some of the things I’ve done in the past. I know I’ve made bad decisions; there are choices that I regret.” He turns back to you, giving your hand a squeeze “And you are such a good person, the way you care for the child, and for me, it’s so kind and sweet, I don’t know if I’m worthy of it.”

His words are breaking your heart, how can he not see what a wonderful man he is? “You are perfect to me,” you tell him honestly. “I’ve never known a better man. You show me every day how important the child and I are to you. I don’t know any other man who could protect us so fiercely but then also take the time for stories and blanket forts. Even when you’re annoying me by arguing about my clothes, I know you’re only doing it out of a desire to keep me safe. We’ve all made mistakes in our past, but I see who you are now, who you want to be, and I like that man, I like him very much.”

Din lets out a contented sigh and brings his helmet down to touch your forehead. He hugs you tight against him as he whispers, “Do you really, sweetheart?”

“Yes, I do,” you reassure him softly as you tip your head up and place a kiss on his helmet right where you think his mouth would be.

“I would like to really kiss you,” Din tells you, “but I don’t know how,” he admits shyly.

“It’s alright,” you say, “I understand you can’t remove your helmet.”

“No, I mean, I- I’ve never, um, never kissed anyone… before.” He stammers out. “If you can’t see me, if you kept your eyes closed, I could take off my helmet.” You smile at the hopefulness in his voice.

“You would trust me to do that? Not to peek?” A wave of affection sweeps over you at his willingness to remove his helmet so that you can be his first kiss.

“Yes,” Din replies, “you’re the only one I trust to do this.”

“I promise I won’t open my eyes until you tell me that I can.” You squeeze your eyes shut and wait with anticipation, your heart beating so loudly you are sure he can hear it. He steps away from you for a moment and you hear a soft shuffle followed by a dull thunk. Then you feel him come back towards you as he grasps your hand and brings it up to touch his cheek for the first time. You let your palm graze over the stubble there, marveling at the feeling of finally touching him like this. You gently run your hand across his jaw and into the hair at the nape of his neck, bringing his face closer to your own until you can feel his breath across your lips. Even though you can’t see him, you can feel his nervousness, and so you whisper, “It’s ok, you can kiss me.”

The feeling of your hand on his neck and the sweet pressure of your body against his is almost overwhelming for Din. He looks at your lips, so tantalizing and so exactly what he has been dreaming about for months now, yet he hesitates unsure of himself. But when you whisper those words of encouragement to him, it’s all he needs. He softly touches his lips to yours, trying to move them the way he’s seen in the romantic holoprograms he watched in an attempt to learn how to kiss. It’s a little bit clumsy at first, but you don’t care at all. You tip your head to the side and slowly guide him with your own lips, showing him what you like and parting your lips a little as you do. He follows your movements and when he parts his lips too, you gently slide your tongue inside his mouth and deepen the kiss. He makes the most adorable sound of surprise as your tongue touches his and then he kisses you back enthusiastically. When you finally break apart, you are both breathless.

“I had no idea kissing you would be this wonderful,” Din tells you between breaths, “If I did, I would have taken the helmet off months ago.” You smile, but before you can reply he pulls you back into another passionate kiss. He is a fast learner and his kisses are making you weak in the knees. As Din starts to feel more certain of himself, he lets his hands explore your body. His fingertips graze over your nearly naked back causing a delightful shiver to run down your spine. When his large hands reach your waist, he grips you tighter and brings your hips to grind into his, the sensation making you moan with pleasure. Your own hands entwine into his soft hair, letting his curls swirl around your fingers, and as he kisses you more intensely, you tug lightly on his hair eliciting a groan from him. His lips leave yours but only so he can place hot kisses along your jaw and then down your neck. He reaches a particularly sensitive spot causing you to whimper and he gets bolder still, nipping you and then sucking there to create his first love bite.

“Mando!” you cry out surprised, although secretly you have to admit that you love the idea of him marking you as his.

“Din” he tells you before soothing the bite with a soft kiss.

“What?” you ask confused, it’s hard to think when he’s touching and kissing you like this.

“My name is Din,” he clarifies, “I’d like you to call me by my real name.”

“Din” you repeat almost reverently, honored that he trusts you enough to share his name with you. “I like it, it suits you, Din.”

“I like the way you say it,” he replies warmly and then returns to your lips with another searing kiss. He feels like he could kiss you forever if you would let him. Although you are the first woman he’s ever kissed, he’s had plenty of other sexual encounters in the past, but nothing has ever felt as intimate as this and he’s never felt so connected to another person before.

You feel wonderful in his arms, kissing him just like in your many daydreams. Yet, the reality of keeping your eyes closed this whole time is starting to get harder and it makes you nervous that you might slip up. You pull back from him so that you can ask, “Is there anything I can use to cover my eyes? It’s getting harder to keep them closed and I don’t want to ruin this.”

“You want a blindfold?” Din asks both touched and aroused at the idea. “You trust me enough to do that?”

“Din, you’ve trusted me to keep my eyes shut this whole time,” you point out, “I think the blindfold would just make it easier for me. But, yes, I trust you.”

“Give me a moment,” Din steps away from you and you hear fabric ripping as he tears part of his cape to make the covering. He returns to you and places the fabric around your eyes and head, quickly securing it at the back. Although you keep your eyelids closed beneath the blindfold, you feel a sense of relief with the extra layer protecting his creed. Din hears you let out a small sigh and relax a bit and it makes him smile at the level of confidence you have in him. He takes your hand and leads you over towards his pilot’s chair, “let’s get a little more comfortable.”

You hear a slight shuffling and then feel Din pull you into his lap, guiding your legs until you are straddling his thighs, your knees on either side of his hips. As you reach up to put your hands on his shoulders, you gasp as your hands meet warm skin and you realize he has removed his shirt. You bring your hands down the front of his chest to caress and explore his body. As your fingers discover every dip and curve of his muscular frame, your lips follow with soft kisses that make Din shiver and groan. You work your way back up to his neck and then decide that turnabout is fair play giving him your own love mark. The sound he makes as your teeth graze the base of his throat goes straight between your thighs.

“Can I touch more of you?” He asks with his fingers hesitating near the fastenings of your dress at the back of your neck; even now he’s still respectful.

“Yes,” you tell him between kisses, “touch me everywhere.”

He carefully unhooks your dress so he can ease the straps off of your shoulders. The material falls away, revealing your breasts to his eager eyes. He takes a moment to watch you as you anticipate his touch. You expect to feel his large palms cupping you, but he takes you by surprise as you feel his hot mouth on your skin instead. His lips and tongue drive you crazy as he lavishes attention on each sensitive peak, bringing his hands up to push your breasts together so he can tease both at almost the same time. The divine pleasure makes you groan out his name and push your chest forward encouraging him further. His hands drop down to your hips and he tugs you to him until your hips are flush with his. You can feel the evidence of his desire for you hot and needy against your core. You can’t resist grinding yourself up and down his hard length causing you both to moan.

Din returns his lips to yours and holds you tight to his chest. He loves the feel of your soft breasts against his skin. His hands are eager to feel more though and he drops them from your hips to reach under your skirt to palm your ass. He grips you tightly as he helps you move against him making you cry out his name.  

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he says encouraging you, bucking his hips up into yours, “want you to feel good, let me help you feel so good.”

The friction is delicious and you throw your head back and call out his name as you continue to grind yourself on his lap. You can feel your pleasure mounting with each pass of your hips, but as good as it is, you know it won’t be enough to get you all the way there.

“I need more,” you tell him, “I need all of you.”

“You can have it,” his voice sounds rich with promise, “I’ll give you whatever you need.”

You slide off of his lap and let your dress drop to the floor followed by your panties. His breath comes out in a whoosh followed by a contented hum and you know he is admiring the sight of your nude body. You hear him unfasten his trousers followed by the sound of him yanking them down out of the way. He reaches for you and guides you back on to the chair, straddling him again. You let out a moan as you feel the tip of him glide over your wet folds. Without being able to see him, each touch feels heightened.

“You’re so wet for me,” Din groans out, spreading your arousal on his shaft. “Not even inside you yet, but feels fucking amazing.”

He positions himself at your entrance and brings his hands to your hips to encourage you to ease down on him. “You set the pace, sweetheart.” You may be the one blindfolded, but he’s giving you the control you need so you can trust him. You slowly lower yourself, letting him stretch you open. It’s been a long time since you’ve been with anyone else and even though you can’t see him, you can tell that he is large. He almost makes you feel like a virgin again.

Din can’t believe how tight you feel around him, it’s better than he imagined. He grits his teeth to keep from driving into you, wanting you to adjust to his size first. Still he can’t keep from begging you, “more, please,” but he holds himself still, continuing to let you be in charge.

You slide down further, spreading your thighs wider until he is fully seated within you. “Din, you feel incredible,” you tell him breathlessly as you gently rock back and forth on his lap, feeling him deep inside you as your internal muscles tighten and release around his cock. It provokes a deep rumbling groan from him, a sound you are eager to hear again and again. You lean in to find his lips, kissing him passionately as you constrict around him again.

“Please, sweetheart, don’t tease me,” he pants out, “Need you to move.”

Wickedly, you can’t resist giving him one more squeeze before you oblige and begin raising and lowering yourself, riding him. You set a steady pace and he begins to move with you, thrusting up into your body with a roll of his hips. As he plunges deep within you, he hits the sensitive spot on the top of your walls every time and it feels fantastic.

“Yes, Din, so good, just like that,” you encourage him, “I’ve wanted you for so long.”

“Me too,” Din groans out, “Dreamed of you all the time.”

Din’s hands dig into your hips helping to guide you each time you rise and fall on his cock. He watches your face, stunned by how beautiful you look and wishes he could see your eyes. The blindfold is worth it though, because now he can pull you to him and kiss you the way he’s always wanted to all the while feeling himself pulse inside of your velvet heat. He only breaks away from your lips to tell you, “So wonderful, never been like this before.”

“Please, Din,” you cry out, the sensations starting to overwhelm you as you chase your climax, the pressure mounting within you. “Yes, sweetheart, let yourself go, I’ve got you.” Din tells you before he leans in and captures one of your nipples in his mouth, sucking hard. It pushes you over the edge making you cry out his name over and over as you dive and fall into sheer bliss. As he feels you grip him even tighter as you come, his thrusts become more erratic and stronger, his control slipping away. He moans out your name loudly before following you into his own release and pumping himself even deeper within you.

You pull back from him slightly, as you both catch your breath and come down from your highs. Din’s hand comes up to play with your necklace, tracing the shape of it on your chest. “I love seeing this on you, especially when it’s all you have on,” he says, “it’s like you’re wearing a little piece of me all the time.”

“That’s how I feel too,” you tell him, bringing your hand up to his “I can feel you with me wherever I go.”

Din kisses you again, softly this time, before telling you, “Wherever you go, I will be with you, if you want me to be.”

“I’ll always want that, Din.”

He brings his arms around you and you cuddle into his chest, feeling more happy and content than you ever have before. You feel him place a kiss on your forehead and then he asks, “Where do you want me to take you next?”

“How about a planet with a warm sunny beach for once?” you grin at him with a sassy smile.

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

The rest of your visit on Alastria passes pleasantly with the child, Davi, and Isa. You introduce the child to sledding and you all have an epic snowball fight for the ages. Isa and you also manage to have a second shopping trip, where you are sure to pick up something special. Although you are sad to leave your new friends, the promise of a warmer climate has you eager for your next adventure.

About a week later, you are landing on the planet Velara near a beautiful coastline with a wide sandy beach. Fortunately it’s very secluded and private with no other people in sight, so it will be perfect for your plans. You ready yourself and the child for your day in the sun, both dressed in new swimsuits all ready for the sand and surf. As Din comes down the ladder from the cockpit, he gets an eyeful of your very sexy beach look for the first time, and although you know he likes it, he lets out a groan and says, “You’re determined to drive me crazy, woman.”

“Yes, but you love it,” you tell him saucily. “Oh, and by the way, I bought you a swimsuit too.” You toss him his own pair of sexy trunks like you’ve thrown down a gauntlet, “You do want to make sure you’re properly dressed, that is, if you’re up for it.”

Din tilts his helmet at you and could swear he’s smirking as he says, “Oh, I’m definitely up for it.”

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

The End! Thank you for reading, I really hope you enjoyed it.

@sleepwithacommunist @im-the-nerdiest-of-them-a11 @rueblogsthings @mackycat11 @tv-zepeda @remmyswritings @dee-rosemary @boomtownboy @mandosboobiez @hoodjarin @haley7242​ @mudhornchronicles​

[famej]

Model

Mammon x Reader

Camera flashes filled the room, capturing the demon’s face. Poses after poses, from cute to extra hot and with or without clothes, every little patch of Mammon has been immortalized.

I was sitting on a bench, far away from all  the lights, on the side of the shooting spot. Mye yes were glued to the handsome demon, unable to understand how this man who always made bad decisions for himself and getting himself in trouble most of the time, coudl also be a model for the most famous fashion brandin all the devildom.

Apparently, his thirst for money could make him do anything and «  anything » meant becoming hot to the point he’d make you wanting more.

The flashes died down and the photographer put his camera down.

-«  Five minutes break and we’ll do the swim suits » he said before the crew scattered around in the studio.

Mammon looked in your direction and waved before leaving his spot and trotted twoard you.

He stopped right in front of you with a bright smile, you stood up.

«  How was it ? Did I make your heart melt with my beauty ? » he teased, flexing his muscles exageeratingly.

After rolling my eyes and chuckling at his antics, I answered :

You were really good ! Honestly I have trouble admitting that the Mammon I kno can be that good looking and charismatic »

«  Ah thanks ! I knew you… Oi ! What does that mean ? I’m always good-looking and charismatic ! And you forgot smart as hell ! »

«  Sometimes more than others… » you teased «  Want some water ? » you asked, grabbing the bottle of fresh water you’d kept especially for him.

He accepted your gift and took a big gulp ; he didn’t even finish drinking that a member of the staff came to take him to get changed.

«  See you later, MC, don’t take your eyes off me  or you’ll miss one of my glorious pose » he shouted through the room before running off.

I shook my head and let myself fall back on the bench.

While Mammon was in the changing room, the background completely changed . The color whent from white to night blue  and on the floor was a sort of low pool of water . Going with this set up came hoses placed above the water. Only with the materials before your eyes, you had a brief idea of what could be the incoming photoshoot.

Next thing, Mammon re-appeared, wearing a white swim trunk, matching his hair and fitting perfectly i ncontrast with his tanned skin. Oh and were those abs I was seeing ? Yeah they were ! It definitely wasn’t the same person you were living with ! The one doing stupid things, who stole his brothers’ stuff to buy ridiculously luxurious items, and who ended more often than not hung by his feet from the chandelier. But this Mammon walked past you, throwing yo a wink over his shoulder before settling in his previous spot. He stepped in the water while the photograph ordered two of his minions to work the hoses.

 « This one will be for summer, you’ll make all the girls fawn over you and the other demons will be crazy jealous ! Give it your all and you’ll be our next face, Mammon » he told his model

The staff turned the hoses on and the avatar of greed received the water from above, switching to super model mode. Arms extended and head lighlty thrown back, eyes closed with a satisfied smile. The water poured down on him, drops glistening on his exposed skin.

«  Yeah ! Just like that ! »

Mammon brought his hands to his hair, pushing his wet mane back, then gave a seductive look at the camera. Followed, was a cliché of him sliding his hands from his neck down to his lower belly, stopping a few seconds on his defined abs. The photographer was capturing every bit of his sexiness as, well as you, trying to immortalize this image in your mind forever.

«  For the last one, be sexy as hell, we want our readers to drool »

The demon grabbed the hem of his swim trunk and lowered it enough so the white hair of his happy trail was exposed. He lowered it even more to show off the very last few of his pubes before his engine. V-line perfectly shadowed and garanteed to please all Majolish fans.

The photographer let out a bunch of satisfied noise and obscene onomatopeias before putting his camera away.

«  Perfect ! Mammon, dear, you will be Majolish next man model, you’re amazing ! »

The latter looked at you and gave you thumbs up, punctued by a wink, with an exaggerated mouth movement. Yeah, usual Mammon was back.

I waited quietly until he came back from changing, all the previous sights of Mammon clear in my head.

« Y/N are yo uready ? »

I shook my head, chasing my impure thoughts away and followed him out of the studio, eager to got my hands on a copy of that magazine.

**

Two weeks later, Majolish had published their new edition of their ashion magazine and on the cover was an unknown handsome demon.

Knwoming the release date, thanks to that unknown demon who kept throwing hints your way, in case you forgot, you decided to wait for the morning opening and buy as much as you could.

When you left, a bunch of girls were gushing over Mammon’s pictures and you thanked yourself for being so well organized, ‘cause the news had spreaded and all the copies have been sold out within the first minutes of the shop’s opening.

The house of Lamentation was rather quiet at this hour, weekends meant that the inhabitants, except Lucifer would sleep in, leaving the household in utter quietness.

So, itw as easy to trottle back to your room without been seen. Arrived there, you sat on your bed and spreaded all the copies on your blanket. Your took one and admire dit. The picture was beautiful, Mammon’s skin was wet, his hair pushed back and trunk low on his hips. Sooooo hot !!! You couldn’t refrain a squeal of happiness. Yo uhad to keep those copies somewhere safe where no one especially the second born, who has the curious habit to rummage through your stuff like a raccoon, would find it.

Speaking of the devil, he bursted through your door, screaming, terrorizing you in the process.

«  MC ! Have you seen the cover ?! I received the picture by e-mail a minute ago. I’m so hot ! »

He speed walked to your bed, not caring that he was still in his pajamas, his hair looking like a bird’s nest.

Before you could do anything, his eyes fells on the numerous magazines.

«  Ugh… »

None answer came to your mind due to the embarrassement you were feeling.

«  How many of these did you buy ? Damn, this picture is amazing ! What do you think ? »

He looked at you intently, his self pide evident on his face.

«  Why do you think I bought some many ? You look marvelous ! »

It was too much to look at him, you kept your eyes on the magazine, hoping that not seeing his face would prevent the incoming blush. The silence became heavy, normally Mammon would blabber nonsense to fill the blanks.

«  AHAHAH Of course I am ! I always look fabulous , I’m the great Mammon after all ! »

It shoulve have sounded so confident but the stutter and blush didn’t make it very convincing.

«  You’re right. I’ve seen you during the photoshoot and it’s not surprising, you’re a really good model. Here, take one as a souvenir, I keep one for myself and distribute the others to your brothers, I bet they’ll be proud of you » you smiled at him, handing him one of the copies.

He seized it and looked at the cover, before lowering the magazine, and looking at the floor.

«  Do…you really think that ? »

He looked adorable when he was flustered. Oh Mammon…

«  Of course ! And if you ever get the other pics I can make an album so you’ll have you own professional book that we can look at whenever we want »

He perked up at your words and dared to show you his flushing face.

«  Well, thanks, I’ll think about it. But… you know, you have the real me to look at right ? »

That made you get off your bed and walk up to him. And got on your tiptoes and kissed his cheek, which made him blush even more than he already was.

«  I know that . But I’m just showing how proud of you I am, Mammon »

And then you wrapped your arms around him, hugging him tightly.

The avatar of greed was speechless, his arms laid at his side,  under  his disbelief. But he slowly  encircled your little frame, letting himself slump against you, even burying his face in the crook of your neck.

«  Thank you » he whispered , holding you thight

«  Don’t thank me for pointing how amazing you are, Mammon »

That was the only thing he need to start tearing up in their embrace, thanking whoever decided to send you to him.

[relaxedreptile]

My House

Pairing: Bang Chan X Reader

A/N: This was slightly inspired by Chan’s rude cover of 2PM’s “My House” from the other day... I was considering a different setting but I thought this would be more fitting.

Hoping all is well.

-

“You look hot.”

You made eye contact with your best friend Felix in the floor-length mirror you and your roommate shared, smiling as you glanced over your body a final time.

“Can you help me decide on a pair of earrings to wear?” All of your allotted energy for fashion had been drained putting your outfit together; you couldn’t make one more decision.

When Felix stood up to walk towards your jewelry stash, you gasped dramatically, slightly scaring the poor thing.

“Forget about me, look at the legs on this one!” He was wearing a pair of tight black jeans that complimented his slender figure and making him look slightly taller than his actual 5’7” stature. A little bit of chest was exposed too, allowing for a tiny necklace to shine against his smooth skin. 

Felix brushed off your comment with a nervous laugh. You were each other’s hype-man and had been for years, but that doesn’t make accepting the compliments any easier.

“You do look really good, though. The belt was a nice touch,” you reassured him, nudging his hip with yours to bring attention to the aforementioned accessory.

He nudged you back with another laugh and started leafing through the available earrings you had brought to school. 

The two of you decided on a pair of silver hoops that you knew would cause regret in the form of tender red ears by the end of the night. Fuck it.

Both you and Felix were freshmen at your university and after spending what felt like years cramming for the final exams you had just completed today, it was a no-brainer when Jisung asked you two if you would consider coming to his frat house for a party to celebrate. The aspiring rapper was known for his crazy “gatherings” and while they may not usually be everyone’s cup of tea, a chance to unwind was desperately snatched up by anyone who was graced with an invitation.

“I still don’t understand how Jisung managed to charm his way into this frat.”

Felix shrugged. “One of the juniors heard his stuff on Soundcloud and snatched him right up apparently.”

“What?” You started walking backwards to be able to face your best friend. “Jisung never mentioned that to me.”

“I got it out of the cute guy in my French class, you know Changbin? He’s a rapper too. They’re thinking of making a rap trio for the showcase at the end of the year.”

“Who’s the third?”

“The junior. Name’s Chris or Chan or CB whatever-the-fuck… Jisung switches up constantly when talking about him.”

You turned back around, matching Felix’s pace as you trekked up the hill to the brick house. 

“Felix! Y/N! So glad you could finally make it to one of these!” Jisung greeted, making a slight jab at how unfamiliar you guys were with college nightlife.

A drink was shoved into each of your guys’ hands as if Jisung was waiting for you before you were ushered into the living room.

Purple LED lights allowed you to see the absolute chaos that was this party. Empty cups discarded on the floor, at least three couples getting acquainted against the wall, and a haze of smoke that escaped the bathroom any time the door opened. You and Felix scanned the crowd  for familiar faces, not really sure who to expect.

Your eyes fell on the guy in the corner, typing away on a laptop and seemingly supplying the huge speakers with the music that was rocking your body. His fingers bounced across his keyboard, face scrunched in what must’ve been the cutest concentrated face you had ever seen. The lights made his hair look like a bright magenta color and the silver ring curled around his bottom lip shine. 

You gulped as your eyes trailed up the rest of his arm. His white button-up was rolled up to his elbows, exposing his veins with every moment of his hands. The shirt just fit around his broad shoulders, stretching to do so in a way that left his collarbones available for your viewing. This guy’s skin was so pale that it basically blended into the fabric covering it.

His jawline was sharp, his nose strong, and his eyes were looking right into yours.

You spun around as quickly as possible to express your embarrassment to Felix only to find that your “best friend” had disappeared. You couldn’t help but smirk when you saw him practically cuddled into Changbin’s side on the couch, a muscular arm tossed around his waist. 

Betrayal forgiven.

Knowing you couldn’t turn back around but also couldn’t continue standing there alone like an idiot, you took a sip of whatever Jisung had given you and pushed through the crowd of people. You hoped this would make it harder for the super cute DJ to find you again and remind himself of your pervy moment of weakness.

Finding yourself in the kitchen that was fortunately better lit, you strolled over to the stack of pizza boxes and started to look for one that wasn’t empty yet. Before your lips could meet the slice of pepperoni you had been graced with, a body was slammed into yours and the pizza slice was barely kept off the ground.

“Shit. Sorry, Y/N!” Jisung, a pretty girl clinging onto his arm, was already halfway across the room before you could string together the perfect insult.

You leaned back into the countertop in defeat, promising to get back at your clumsy friend later.

“Y/N, was it?”

You groaned internally, ready to face some college kid who was as greasy as the pizza in your hand. Thank god you hadn’t been able to take a bite, because you definitely would’ve choked once you saw who was talking to you.

“Uh, yeah. Hi.”

The DJ from before— you know, the one whose shoulders you were staring at?—was standing right in front of you, leaning on the counter to his side.

“I saw you looking at me in the living room earlier.”

Not one for subtlety, are we? “Yeah, sorry about that. I couldn’t put a name to your face and was trying to figure you out.”

The boy shifted so his back was resting against the kitchen counter.

“I don’t think it was my face you were looking at. At least, not at first.”

Your eyes dropped down to his arms that were still exposed, completely giving yourself away.

“You’re the one in charge of the music?”

The boy’s eyebrow quirked, unsure of where this was going. He nodded.

“What’s with all the Jisung I’ve been hearing? Are you a fanboy or something?”

The boy’s eyes scrunched and his plump lips formed a smile as he laughed at your assumption. 

“Not quite. His voice isn’t the only one on these tracks.”

“I recognize Changbin’s too,” you admitted with a tilt of your head. “But the third…”

The boy stretched his arms out, a smirk on his face.

“…is you!” You finished.

You thought back to the conversation you had with Felix on the way to the party.

“You’re the guy with like… a million different names.”

Your ears were blessed with his laugh once again.

The boy stuck his hand out, “I’m Chan. It’s nice to meet you, Y/N.”

You shook his hand, a smile on your face to match his own. He squeezed your hand lightly before letting go.

The two of you found a spot on the staircase at the front of the house to chat, having to shift closer and closer together every time a couple rushed by you two to find an unoccupied room on the upper level.

“So, you run this thing? The frat?”

Chan, looking a bit shy, rubbed the back of his neck with the hand that wasn’t resting on your thigh. 

“Not really. I mean, I play a part in picking out new guys but I don’t do it alone. My dad studied here too, was a part of this frat actually,” he nodded towards a class photo to his left, “so when I got accepted… he donated this building.”

Chan looked at you like forcing those words out of his mouth was the hardest thing he’s ever done. 

“And… you’re helping pay it off by DJing at college parties?” You joked.

The boy next to you laughed, obviously relieved, and squeezed your thigh before speaking again.

“No, no… I just don’t like to waste time that I could be using to work on music. It used to be just me making shit on my computer but now that I have Changbin and Jisung by my side, I don’t want to keep them in the shadows any longer.”

Even in the dim lighting you could see how his eyes sparkled when talking about the other boys.

“They’re so passionate about it. Changbin can rap as fast as Jisung can get an entire song’s worth of lyrics on the page. I feel like an old man working next to them sometimes.”

You both cracked up at that.

After talking back and forth about your respective majors and comparing embarrassing stories of Jisung (or, J.One, as you learned from Chan). The new drink in your hand was long forgotten and still practically full, time with Chan was too precious to waste.

“You know, when I caught you looking at me a couple hours ago, I was relieved.” Chan confessed. “When you walked in the door with that guy… I basically had to peel my eyes off of you.” He glanced at your body pressed into his for emphasis.

“Do you know how hot you look right now?” He had leaned in close enough to whisper in your ear, his breath sending sparks down your spine.

His finger hooked itself in the belt loop of your jeans, teasing you with a slight tug.

Your hand came up to rest on his exposed chest. It slid from his collarbone down to the first button that wasn’t undone. 

You used the slight leverage you had on his shirt to pull him closer to you, his head still tucked into the side of your neck. With a slight turn of your head, the two of you were kissing.

Chan’s lips were twice as soft as they looked and you dropped any doubts of him being a rapper when his tongue started moving against your own. One of his hands was wrapped around the back of your neck, holding you in place as his lips slotted against your own. 

You pulled his body into yours, alternating with grips on his collar and light tugs of his curly hair to get what you needed.

Chan pulled away suddenly, lips full, hair disheveled, and shirt shifted completely out of place. In other words, anyone would be able to tell that the two of you were just making out.

“There’s a guesthouse out there,” he explained. “My room is in there since it doubles as our studio.”

He placed another quick kiss on your lips.

“What do you say? Wanna go to my house?”

You smirked, rewarding his perfect idea with a kiss of your own.

[alittlefrenchtree]

I feel so conflicted about Timmy. I loved the sweet, humble guy he was, but now he acts like the biggest diva, going to fashion shows, only hanging out with famous people. I miss the old Timmy, what I see now I don't like. And I don't like that he left earlier and didn't care about Armie, but can stop rehearsing to show his face at fashion weeks. I feel at the beginning it was only about his talent, now it's more about his fashion choices. I don't want to hate, I just feel different about him.

Me @ everyone who will read this answer : Please be kind?

Seriously, just be kind. That’s not a question, just be kind.

More important, unless you’re Nonny and looking for an answer of mine you really don’t have to read all of that. It’s mostly an observation on how Timmy’s career and image is handled right now and nothing groundbreaking at all. There a little bit about his relationship with Armie towards the end. Honestly even you, Nonny, you weren’t probably asking for an answer this long. I just love to hear myself thought, apparently. Sorry if it’s boring as hell for you 😅

I choose to believe that this ask isn’t coming from a wickedness place and doesn’t want to be mean. That’s the main reason why I’m answering this ask, instead of deleting it.

The second reason is because I’ve been contemplating the same kind of questions and the same kind of issues about Timmy for a while now. And since I’m now mostly at peace with all of it, and with the way I see him, I thought it could be interesting to share around that.

By sharing my view on how things are at this moment, I don’t want to invalidate your feelings, dear Nonny (or anyone who feels the same way). Like I said, I understand where they come from. I only hope that, by reading a different point of view, you’ll managed to feel a little bit less conflicted and maybe go back to enjoy some Timmy content like you used to. I hope I won’t sound to harsh or anything. This isn’t my intention at all.

I think the most important thing to remember is that 99% of what we see of Timmy is work. The work of an actor is not only acting. Especially when you have the ambition to become and to stay the kind of actor Timmy wants to be. Every time you see him at a public event, he’s working. Networking is working. Existing in the media eyes is working. Attending as fashion shows is working. That doesn’t mean that, in the case of fashion show for example, Haider isn’t also his friend. Of course they’re friends and of course he’s also showing support for his friend’s work. But it’s also a work relationship. That’s why it needs to be public. Haider is the one dressing him for the premieres of his movies. Haider is one of those who helped build his fashion reputation. Being seen together and publicly supporting each other work, it’s good for both of them, professionally speaking. What I mean is, when you see Tim at a fashion show or at a Hollywood party, it’s not free time for him. It’s a scheduled event on his work schedule. So when you said that he stops rehearsing to go to fashion show, that’s not entirely true. Firstly because it’s on week-end. Secondly, it would be like saying that he stops acting to do promo. Both things are work. Attending to Haider’s fashion show is also work.

Beside the London-Paris journey is hardly an effort. It would take me almost the same amont of time to go to Paris using public transports and I’m living like really close to Paris. And beside bis Timmy has seen SWM within the window of two days that was allowed by his work schedule so it’s not like he has never managed to make things work for Armie either.

For me, the problem is that Timmy has three jobs at the moment. He’s ‘one of the best actor of his generation’, the ‘most influential man in fashion’ and ‘a heartthrob for teenagers and young adults’. I’m phrasing things this way on purpose, because it shows how much weighs on him at the moment. All of this means a lot of expectations on him, a lot of judgements but also a lot of money depending on him. Even if all of his current statuts has been happening in a more or less natural way (he’s one of the best actor of his generation because he’s good at acting, his interest for fashion seems genuine and… well… He’s damn cute so of course he’s a teenage dream), my main concern is the fact that, right now, his public image is handled to encourage these three status at the same time. As long as his acting career is doing fine, it’s not a problem. If his acting career starts to be on the skids, or if one of his parts on a movie is suddenly having very bad reviews, the whole world will start to look at him and at his fashion/heartthrob statuts with different eyes.

But that moment hasn’t happened yet so I think it’s unfair to call him out on that now. He has shown nothing but hard work on the acting part of his career, and he has great things aligned for the next year. He’s a lead on the Dune remake by Denis Villeneuve, he’s starring on a Wes Anderson movie, he has that Bob Dylan thing who he seems really committed to and he’s about to do a run of a promising play. I think his choice on going back to theater, where everything is about acting, is really relevant of how focused is still he’s on acting.

I think it’s also interesting to notice the timing. For the past two years, Timmy has always been disappearing around that time of the year. So much that the Timmy drought has become a thing in the fandom. In the past, Timmy has expressed his need of disappearing and ‘going back in the mud’, both literally and figuratively, after being exposed to public eyes at this extend and for a long period of time. Truth is, I believe that Timmy is not allowed to disappear anymore. I don’t think you’re allowed to disappear for a while when Legendary Pictures is betting a lot amount of money on your pretty face. Because to disappear means media and social media will talk less about you and, in this industry, if people stop talking about you it basically means you’re dead.

So he can’t disappear. But somehow he found a way to focus on acting through theater, even if he has to do it in front of the public eyes. To be honest, I think it’s the least bad solution. I think the need to disappear for him (or anyone for that matter) for a decent period of time is really crucial for mental health and he hasn’t had this opportunity for a while, and I’m afraid he won’t have it either for the near future. Don’t get me wrong, I love that he’s doing theater again. I love having the opportunity to see him live perform I just wish he has a little bit more time to stay off the radar before going back for a whole year of craziness.

I understand that it can be frustrating to feel like most of the talks about him are about something else than his roles or his movies or his acting skills. Like I said, it’s part because of his/his team’s fault because they’ve been feeding the talk so it can keep going and going. It’s also part because the world works this way and is superficial as hell. Movie talks last a few months with the pre-promo/the premieres/the actually promo. A little bit more if you’re lucky enough to get nominations and awards. Then it becomes old news. Timmy’s persona exists every day. He’s doing and wearing new things every day and people are always more excited by what’s new. And the media will keep on using anything to have him as click-bait. It’s a win-win situation for both sides.

Except you never know when people are going to switch. One day they keep on waiting more and more of someone and the next day, they already grew tired of thi person. It’s been too much. They over did it. I sometimes use a tag that say something like « when can we say that too much is too much? » to react to what people and media sometimes do/write/say about Timmy to express this kind of feeling. Of course Tim and his team can’t control everything that is being said about him but I believe that the decisions they made in the past year? year and an half? have lead to this kind of craziness. This makes me think of that french paper, which was basically saying ‘why don’t we stop to consider Timmy as a kitten and make a fuss of everything he did and why don’t we start focusing on how he acts, because that is the real interesting thing to talk about.

Despite everything I can’t hold all of this too-much-ness against him when he’s still working so hard on his roles. I can’t blame him when I think of him giving so much on himself in that before-the-battle speech in The King that I want to go fight with and for him. I can’t blame him when I see him giving so much of himself for Laurie that he’s making me laugh and melt in the middle of a cinema room full of people when I’m usually pretty stoic in public. I just can’t blame him when I hear him talk about Dune and being so excited that he literally can’t stop himself for bouncing on his chair. I just can’t.

What I can do is not not pay attention to everything. I know it’s not an easy thing to do on tumblr and on social media when he’s everywhere and people are retweeting and reblogging the same things over and over again but if I’m not interested, I try to not pay attention. Back during CMBYN and BB era, I think I was looking at and reading everything. I’ve stopped shortly after. I didn’t read the article you’re referring to, for example. Because what’s Timmy is wearing interests me but not the shallow and irrelevant articles people will write about it. Most of them will say the same thing, that it’s Timothée Chalamet world now and us peasants are just humbly living on it. It’s going to be said over and over again until something newer, younger comes along. It’s ok. Being a teenage heartthrob will pass. Being the most influential man in fashion will probably also pass. I mean his fashion choices will probably keep on arousing interest but the world is going to catch up. Eventually.

But acting will stay.

And if in the meantime, he manages to enjoy a little bit of more superficial things and take a shot or two of confidence along the way without regretting too many decisions he made, I say why not let him do that? It’s not like we have a word to say anyway.

I understand what you mean about missing him being sweet and humble even if I disagree with you. I’m not saying that he’s not sweet and humble anymore but I felt something shift between the BB era and TK era. It’s also frustrating because it’s more a feeling than something I can prove or explain. I just don’t think he’s changed, I think he’s a little bit more guarded than before. And if I look at things from an human perspective, it makes sense?

The more people are watching me, irl or online, the more I’m going to be cautious about things I said and how I behave. The more guarded I’ll be. And in my case, we’re only talking about dozens from a few hundreds tops of people tops. Can you imagine living your life in front of millions people? I’d put some distance and some defenses between me and the world as well. He has to if he wants to survive.  

We’ve been lucky to have witnessed something as precious and rare as what we have witnessed during the CMBYN and a little bit during the BB era. It was something beautiful but it wasn’t meant to last. Not in the same kind of proportions anyway.

So I don’t think Timmy is acting like the biggest diva. Like I’ve said, what we see of his life is 99% work-related and we see about 10% of his time? Less of that?

Like for example, he’s been in London for what? 10-12 days now? And if I’m not mistaking, we haven’t seen him anywhere except from fans meeting him briefly outside of the theater and him picking up food? Whatever he’s doing, if he has a wild life or if he’s in bed at 9pm every night, he’s being discreet about it. Like he’s always been discreet about his private life, his close friends and his family. Just because he’s discreet about it doesn’t mean he doesn’t see them — old friends and people who aren’t famous. He just doesn’t feel the need to post their face on social media or meeting them in front of paparazzis.

Of course if I wanted to see him as a diva, I could. I’d look at him wearing sunglasses inside and declare that he’s a diva. When there could be thousands of reasons for him to wear sunglasses inside. I wouldn’t surprise me to learn that flashes during fashion week are painful for the eyes, especially for people with color eyes as light as Timmy’s. Especially if you’re tired. Or hangover. Or maybe he’s just thinking of sunglasses as an integral part of his outfit. Like shoes or socks or jewelry or backpacks. Or maybe he just feel safer that way and it helps his anxiety. I tried wearing sunglasses all day long at a couple of occasions when I was particularly tired and it was kind of amazing. Plus it allows you to avoid eye contact with humans which is also amazing.

I wanted to touch a little bit on the fashion topic before moving on to the Armie one. I’m guessing you’re not really passionate or fond of fashion. It’s ok. You’re allowed to and fashion and haute couture don’t do much to help themselves. Or didn’t do much. I guess things are slowly changing like everywhere else. But there are a lot of ego, of superficiality, a lot of changes and improvements that could be made. A friend who has worked for designers and still work in the fashion industry once told me that the industry wouldn’t be that bad if designers stop acting like they were saving the world with their clothes. My point is, just because something has a reputation, doesn’t mean every person who takes part of this thing has the same reputation. There are people in fashion who are truly passionate about what they’re doing and teach you things about fashion that make you look at clothes as wearable pieces of art. Because when you look closely at haute couture, you can see that fashion can take its influences in architecture, sculpture, painting and in many many others artistic disciplines. It has its own history, its own revolutions, its own movements. It tells something about our time and ourselves as a society. All of that goes without even mentioning the close relationship between fashion, high fashion and movies, which I’m sure is very interesting from a Timmy perspective. (I swear I wrote all of that before reading the Dazed itw. Like pinky swear).

At this point, Timmy could have a seat in the first row for every fashion show of every brand. He could attend to all of them, with a different outfit for each, make a show every time and take all the clothes that designers would sell their cat to see him wearing. He doesn’t. He shows up for about two designers and communicate about one more and that’s all. It’s work. Something related to his red carpet premieres. It’s fun and something he uses to express himself and his personality. I think he said something in the Dazed interview among these lines. That fashion is fun but is main focus in on acting.

Here :

“With the development of my career, I also slowly entered the fashion industry. I can feel that fashion and movies are similar to a certain extent. For me, participating in a movie or wearing a suit is about the people I work with, not the brand or money. That's why I keep working with Haider and Virgil. I also maintain good relationships with many brands, but I will not be overly tied to fashion for this. Because my career is an actor, my dream is to be an actor, and I am very satisfied and very happy to be an actor.”

Regarding of Armie… Honestly I’m kind of tired of the debate. Because I’m tired of what the debate says about how we see relationships these days, without even talking about Armie and Timmy.

I’m still trying to understand at which point we has started to need public proofs of private relationships. Likes, Facebook statuts, pictures shared publicly, couple selfies… I mean what the point? How have we become so insecure about relationships and ourselves that we’re now feeling the need to share proofs of private relationships with the whole world to believe it? And to the point that we are now projecting our own insecurities on relationships of others? It makes absolutely no sense to me.

If I wasn’t talking with/seeing my close ones for a whole year or a whole decade for whatever reason, they would still be my close ones. I believe the same thing about Armie and Timmy. Except these two idiots seems to be talking to each other all the time and seeing each other pretty regularly. But because Armie isn’t about work anymore, we don’t have to see it.

Over the past four years, they’ve done nothing but showing and saying how much they care about each other and know about each other and how much they’re still close. Timmy literally said I love you to Armie in a damn public speech. Name me another person for whom he said that. The three words, plane and simple.

If you’re willing to believe that liking each other post on social media or showing up at a public events or pose in front of photographers are better proofs of closeness that what they’ve been doing so far, that says something about how you see relationships, not about how they really are.

Loving someone is not always about rubbing it off publicly for everyone to see. More often than not, loving someone is about answering your phone in the middle of the night, because the person you love and care about can’t sleep or is on another time zone and needs you. That something you can show off on social media or get papped. And maybe we need to start to believe that it’s even more valuable exactly because of that.

[penninstitute]

CASE #0140719

Statement of Emma Livingston, regarding her colorblindness and her artist neighbor. Original statement given July 19th, 2014.

Everything I see is a shade of grey. Trees are grey, the sky is grey, et cetera, et cetera. I was born like this, unable to experience color from the moment I was born, but it never hindered my ability to function as a human being. 

I can tell colors apart by the different shades, but it truly is quite hard to when some are so similar. I know yellow is lighter than red, but in my eyes, red and blue look almost completely the same. Well, looked. 

I’ve come to learn what colors look like. I know red is warm and blue is cold. But I came through to this knowledge in quite a… strange and rather scary encounter. I mean, I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t think it was that bad. But I saw color. And not with those fancy glasses that they make nowadays. But with my own eyes. 

I recently moved to New York for a job. I’m just a simple temp, but I wanted out from my parent’s home in Alabama and to move in with my girlfriend, who my parents despised. I think they despise me too, especially now that they know I have an interest in women.

My girlfriend and I lived in a surprisingly decent building for the price of the rent. It was homey but a little tired looking, but nothing a little bit of redecorating couldn’t fix. We had a neighbor to our left, a little old woman named Belinda, who was probably more of a mom than mine ever was. She made Ari and I cupcakes every other week. Ari is my girlfriend, by the way. Belinda was a sweet woman. She isn’t dead or anything, but Ari and I don’t live there anymore. I’ll get to that soon.

The apartment to our right was empty for about six months after we moved in. Apparently a single mom lived there, but moved out to live with her family in Florida after the death of her nine year old son. Tragic accident, I heard. But this isn’t about that woman, but the man that moved in.

He was weird. I don’t like to be rude, but he really was. Ari told me his pale skin had an almost green, sickly tone. She said his hair was a strawberry blond, whatever that means, and had blue eyes that were puffy and red as if he was always crying. He looked like a disaster to her, and also to me. I felt pity for him.

Oh, I should mention his name too, shouldn’t I? I think it was Frank. Frank Cyrus. Or Sylvester. But I’m pretty sure it was Cyrus. From my limited interaction with him, I learned he was an artist. He worked as a curator at the Met, he said, and was often so inspired by all the works there that he incorporated a lot of things in his own work.

I appreciate art as much as I can. I can look at a painting and appreciate the handiwork or realism gone into a piece of work. But I can’t exactly appreciate the use of color in something like the Mona Lisa or whatever.

Frank would show Ari and I whatever knew creation he’d make whenever we’d see him. It wasn’t very often, but we’re good neighbors, and we try to communicate as much as we can with our neighbors to let them know that we’re good people.

But something about Frank made me want to not be nice to him. I know, I know, it’s really mean of me to just dislike someone because of their vibes or whatever, but God was he unsettling. One time, I was coming home from work, tired and in pain from my new heels I got for my birthday. 

The hall was quiet, the fluorescent light illuminated the decades old carpet and the paint that began to peel from the walls. A light that was just above Frank’s door was burnt out which unsettled me even more.

As I pulled out my keys, movement in the darkness caught my eye. I blinked and shook my head. It was nothing, probably something in my head. I fumbled with placing the key in the lock, now that my hands began to shake with unease. 

The voice from the darkness is what made me drop them. It sounded like Frank. But… different. Something was off. 

“We should call Edward to fix this light, shouldn’t we, Emma?” Frank asked. 

“Y-yeah, we should,” I said, in an attempt to not sound alarmed. But I was pretty alarmed. I bent over to pick up my keys, only to see them not there. There was a familiar jingle to my right. 

I turned to see Frank holding my keys in his hand. It looked wrong. It.. It looked like how in movies, hands look when smashed by a hammer or something. It was so strange. It made me feel nauseous. 

“You dropped these.” He smiled widely and stretched out his arm. I heard a sickening pop in his elbow. His wrist made a soft click as its fingers bent unnaturally to dangle the keys between his thumb and index finger. I gingerly accepted them from him. 

“Thank you, Frank.” I gave him a quick smile, shoved the key in the lock, and bid him a good night. My heart beat thunderously in my chest as I closed the door behind me. I’d never had such a peculiar encounter before in my life. When I told Ari about it, she almost got up to go have a very strongly worded conversation with Frank, but I stopped her. Maybe I should have let her. 

A couple weeks passed and I hadn’t seen him. I was thankful, but there was something in the back of my mind that made me feel bad for Frank. I don’t know why. 

It was about two weeks ago when it happened. I had a day off that day, one that I was going to spend lounging around the house as I awaited Ari to come back so we could have a date night. There was a soft knock at the door around five. It was odd, as Ari didn’t get off until five-thirty. I guessed she might’ve gotten off early, and I eagerly hopped up and headed to answer the door. But when my hand closed around the doorknob, turned, and pulled the door open, no one was outside. I blinked and furrowed my brow. 

I leaned my head out of the doorway and looked around. Nothing looked amiss. Then there was a creak of a door slowly opening. Frank’s door. I don’t know what came over me in that moment, but with a sudden urge I stepped out of my apartment and walked to the entrance of my neighbor’s apartment. It was pitch black in there, and I know that this next thing sounds so stupid. Something an idiotic horror movie protagonist would do. It’s a decision I don’t even remember making.

I walked into the apartment. As my foot touched against the wooden floor the dim lights flickered on. I didn’t touch a switch at all, it just… happened. I looked around the living room of Frank’s apartment, which seemed so strangely bare. Only a television and a couch, nothing more. I remember I called out for Frank, but I didn’t get a response. Every feeling flowing through my body was telling me to get out of there but I just… couldn’t. My body was almost moving on its own. I slowly drifted towards the bedroom, my heart pounding heavily in my chest. When I pushed open the door, my eyes almost popped out of my skull.

Color. It was full of color. I don’t know how else to explain it. There were canvasses everywhere, on the floor, on the walls, even on the ceiling. Colors. I felt nauseous, it was so… overwhelming. But it was beautiful. There’s no other way I could describe it, I’d never seen anything like this before. Can you imagine going through life without seeing such beauty?

My eyes flashed across the room, taking in each grotesque, surrealist painting. The imagery itself was unappealing to me, hideous bodies bent in unfathomable ways, patterns covering all of them or behind them in the background. But the use of color astounded me and left me sobbing in the doorway. I don’t know how long I spent standing there, crying, trying to name all the colors I saw. But my attention was interrupted as I saw him.

Frank. On the floor. I don’t know how long he’d been there, I didn’t notice him. He was naked, every inch of him covered in that colorful paint, his body bent in unhuman angles. His spine was twisted, his legs tied into a knot. His face was long, distorted, the jaw crooked, almost resembling Picasso’s “the Scream”. He was still breathing.

I screamed. I ran out of there as fast as I could, my fight or flight, finally kicking in. I sped to the phone and dialled 911.

Ari came home soon and helped me through the police’s questions.

They did find Frank’s body in a similar state as I did, but dead. They said there were no paintings, though. The only paint was the stuff on Frank’s body, painted in patterns. They still don’t know how it all happened, I’ve called the station a few times but never got a word. Nothing on those paintings, either.

I feel like I’m crazy, but I’m not. Ari and I moved to a new building later that week. We’re fine now, I’m fine now. Got a therapist and everything. Ari bought me those colorblind glasses after I’ve rambled about the colors for hours on end. I haven’t touched them. I don’t think I want to see any other colors but those impossible ones again.

FOLLOW-UP NOTES

- Quite obviously, a colorblind individual cannot just suddenly start seeing color like this, which makes me doubt the statement to an extent.

- Ms. Livingston refused our request for a follow-up interview.

- Frank Cyrus did exist, although records on him are minimal (save for an extensive criminal record). He seems to have dropped off the face of the earth.

ARCHIVIST’S NOTE: This statement was rather difficult to digitalize. The scanner refused to work properly, and had to be transcribed the old-fashioned way from paper to computer. When the scanner was used, flashes of headache-inducing, swirling colors would appear on the screen of the computer. Blair and I had to unplug the scanner and the computer to get it to stop.

[atinytokki]

Here’s my first impressions (aka this is what 2020 is gonna sound like folks)

Alright so I’m really behind today, as some of you know I literally just got back from vacation and it’s also my first day of classes this semester and it’s just craziness. Yes I’m posting the first chapter of Yeosang’s spin-off today. But people seemed to like my first impressions of the last album so I’m going to do them again. Thankfully (?) this album is a lot shorter so I can pause and talk about stuff.

Warning! a loooong post, squealing, incoherent thoughts smashed together, and crying ahead. A lot of crying. Keysmashes included.

Post-MV thoughts before I listen to it again: There’s way too much to focus on and I’ve watched it many many times to look at the choreo and the storyline stuff that’s happening, but this is my first time listening without the video so I’ll notice more musically this time. But first I wanna say; YEOSANG’S LINES!!!! I’ve been screaming for forever that he has a beautiful deep voice and needs to be given parts that compliment it. And wow it finally happened :’) Anyway here we gooo

건배하자 like a thunder!! Can you believe they literally spoiled the entire hook of their next song in Beginning of the End? *flashbacks to my utter confusion when that happened* San sounds amazing and I like the little echoey thingies. Gives it a real nostalgic feel. Jongho already popping off vocally barely 10 seconds in. Mingi’s rap here and the transition to Hongjoong’s— rap line goals. The attitude in that mm-mm made me smile ngl. This prechorus might be my favourite part of the song. Seonghwa sounds heavenly. An EDM drop bringing back that hook, good decision and again it kinda feels nostalgic?? Especially the oh-oh-ohs which are also giving me a pirate drinking song vibe wow 0.0 Wooyoung with that 불러 불러 lol. Yes the Yeosang part!! I love a good post-chorus switchup and he. handled. it. perfectly. There’s even harmony, yall know how much I love harmony. And SINGING RAPPERS AHAHDJAHAK YESSSSS. Back to that glorious prechorus but it’s Yunho’s turn. This chorus is just such an anthem. I’m bopping rn. San in this bridge— he said I am a VOCALIST listen to my beautiful VOICE. Yay the rappers going back and forth again!! It’s like If Without You. Man I can’t believe I get to replay this song forever. 2020 is gonna be lit. You hit those notes Jongho! I’m always blown away by this kid, and that scoop earlier mmmm. Just nodding very energetically right now. Perfect end to the song. 100/10!!!!

Okay I’m pausing before the next one starts because no I am not prepared. It’s just like last time; I know Hongjoong wrote this and I know it’s gonna ruin me but I have no idea how and when and what it’s even gonna be like but anyway, too bad, let’s just go.

Oh kinda futuristic sounding opening with the synths? Yooo the vocal thingy in the background, sounds like a sample of some kind, that is super cool and I hope we get more of it. Ok I paused just to write that, let me unpause. This is gonna be a long one, I can already tell, sorry guys 😅 And the beat changed right before the vocalists came in. definitely a back and forth thing here in two registers, very sweet. Wow. WOW MINGI WOW. This rap is?? It sounds super mature and idk just full of confidence. I’m shook. Ok the chorus. Holy cow this is LIT lit. Nope nope I need to pause and go back. This is so chaotic, I feel like I’m missing things?? I’m listening to that chorus again because there were so many elements there. I just wanna take this song and break it down second by second to hear every single sound hahahah. I’m only catching an odd word or two here as far as lyrics go. Oml harmonies 💆🏻‍♀️ Alright Hongjoong’s rap. OMG if he sounded sassy in Answer this is a whole new level and I LOVE IT. Flow is 100/10. The “are you gonna take me there” gives me chills. This song needs a dance this chorus is TOO LIT. Am I at a rave rn??? Oh thank God the bridge took it back a level. Ok I’m pausing because I think I caught some of the lyrics this time. If I’m not wrong I heard 난 궁금해 저 끝이 궁금해, 더 가까이 조금 더 가까이 ? Which is something like “I wonder, I wonder about the end. Closer, a little bit closer” if I heard correctly. I need to look up the lyrics in full later because Hongjoong has a big brain and his lyrics are always 🤯🤩 Ok unpause. Final breakdown! Yep this is going on repeat the rest of today. Jongho yussss with the ad libs. No it’s over ㅠㅠ Alright this one is already vying for top spot this album. We shall see. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. HONGJOONG GENIUS.

Um so yeah I saw them perform this live for their anniversary thingy and cried so this should be fun. At least I already know the song so how much can it hurt me? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Smart of whoever put this album together to stick this song right in the middle and make us cry between head banging to the other songs. Mingi in the beginning is just 💖💕💘💝💓 San ballad king. I need more ballads from him. Jongho, of course, with perfect vocal control. Oh Seonghwa too, I need more ballads from him. Wooyoung with T H A T part. A tear is forming, I just love this chorus. People are saying the song should be in a drama and I 100% agree. Everyone together FOREVER YOU ARE MY STARRR. The little drum frills it’s so cute :(( Yay Hongjoong, and his cute little voice I’m UWUWU. Wooyoung with the high note and I’m ascending........... Chorus again and this is the real meaning of crying in the club. It just occurred to me that the second verse seemed really short. Yeosang + Hongjoong + that guitar in the bridge is *chef’s kiss*. This is so emotional, do we really need to do this at 4am?!? I’m just gonna vibe for a sec, it’s the last chorus. The ad libs were so perfect and the way it ended— wow. I need a moment.

From my understanding this is a full version of the Precious Overture they gave us last album. Tempted to go back and see my first impressions about that one, but either way i have a distinct feeling my wig is about to be snatched. Let’s GOOO

So far, it’s starting the same. Creepy humming and all. Okay scratch that, we have a vocal melody. Yunho sounds great ugh I’m so proud. Sorry, San’s voice just takes me to another plane of existence or something, how can it be that smooth and gorgeous, someone please explain. Building to something now... Oo. OO?! Hongjoong’s rapping. This is so cool oh wow, and into this vocal part which I believe is the chorus?? wOW wow it’s amazing to hear this having already heard the bgm, this is like a new level of appreciation. It really all goes well. Ah we have a switch up now with Seonghwa. guys GUYS GUYS you know how I feel about switch ups. Sorry I’m going back to catch something. The tempo changed here and really grabbed my attention. The bass is also super cool, it’s actually the same melody as the treasure opening (and the opening of this song) but much lower, I believe. Uh oh guys this might be vying for top spot too. Let’s continue. Ok Mingi’s rap which I’ve already heard. Um I’m confused now. It’s Hongjoong’s rap again? Is this the chorus?? Woah woah hold on I gotta pause. Because. Wait, what?? This is the chorus??!? Yoooooooo bold move! I have no idea what is going on but I love it. Continuing on. Ah yeah ok the vocal part with Yeosang again, so I guess the rap + vocal part is the chorus? Also I neglected to mention but Yeosang is killing this song. Ooh okay this bridge is building some suspense. Feeeelingggggg.... And now a shouted version of the rap for the final chorus. Okay wow I’m impressed that they took it this direction. And Jongho with the ad libs is PERFECTIONNNN. Oop okay they’ve added the revised-lyric Treasure part to the end here. And the lyrics are the same as in Precious (Overture) so I’m guessing we still didn’t find the treasure, good grief. How long is it gonna take to find this treasure 😅. And it ended like that. Well. WOW. Again, I could listen to this on repeat all day. Again, I am deceased. Instant fave.

I’m pretty sure this is the exact same as I already heard on the trailer thingy but we are gonna react to it anyway.

The orchestra really loosens my tear ducts like nothing else. It’s beautiful, who else is doing it like them?? “Did you find your treasure?” Yes, I found ATEEZ 🥺. The way he says “finally found it” . This is Maddox btw. Also about Maddox, hang on I’m gonna pause for a PSA: guys if you don’t know Maddox please PLEASE check him out. He’s doing the amazing narration on this (and Intro too), he’s a soloist under KQ and one of Ateez’s hyungs who they look up to. In addition to his superior narrating talents, he is also an amazing vocalist. If you like R&B and lo-fi music I would definitely recommend him, he just dropped a single called Color Blind, his insta is xxmaddox, he’s a great guy and YEAH that’s all for my plug but go stan him, he is deserving and proof of the fact that KQ artists are talent through and through. Unpausing! The way the orchestra swells and then goes into a piratey sounding theme is so motivating and familiar :))) “Can you hear those voices?” HNGJRKSNDN WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE SCARY. This is the Epilogue, it’s supposed to be like the denouement, the falling action!! The bad guys should be gone now! What’s next?? Treasure Ep: Answer to Question? Because that’s what I have after this album! More questions!!! Anyway, the bass here and the humming 👌🏻 100/10 for the instrumental. And in ATEEZ fashion, they leave me thirsting for more.

So that was my first impression/live reaction to the mini album! I think it’s Horizon and Precious fighting for #1 currently. Maybe I’ll reblog with second and third and fourth impressions... Thanks for reading if you got this far! And tell me what your first impressions were and if I missed something big while I was keysmashing. TTFN~

[iol247]

Flashback: Unabomber Publishes His ‘Manifesto’

Ted Kaczynski was a madman who killed and maimed innocent people – but did some of his worries for the future come true?

By 2017 standards, a bearded man ranting in his manifesto about how “one of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world is leftism” might, at best, have a chance ending up name-checked by Alex Jones. Most likely, he’d become the hero of a thousand faceless message board posters. His 35,000-word diatribe against technology titled “Industrial Society and Its Future” might be suitable for a personal blog, but a national newspaper? Surely not.

Of course, more than 20 years ago, when Ted Kaczynski mailed out what would come to be known as the “Unabomber Manifesto,” it was huge news. After over a decade spent living as a recluse without electricity or running water in a cabin in Montana – sending mail bombs to university academics and corporate airline executives – Kaczynski sent letters to the New York Times and the Washington Post demanding they publish his manifesto and agree to print an annual follow-up for three years. If they did, the bombings would cease. If not, the Unabomber hinted at more bombings to come. 

It had started in May of 1978, when a package exploded and injured a Northwestern University security officer. A year later, another bomb was sent to the same college, injuring a graduate student. Also in 1979, Kaczynski snuck a bomb into the cargo hold of an American Airlines flight. It went off mid-flight, causing an emergency landing and afflicting 12 passengers with smoke inhalation. In 1985, he switched things up, and sent a shrapnel-loaded bomb to a computer store in Sacramento, California, claiming the owner as his first victim. By the mid-1980s, the Unabomber had become a real-life American boogeyman. A killer who would strike without warning, and without much reason. Why was he doing what he did – and when would he do it again?

The publication of the manifesto would end up being his undoing. Members of Kaczynski’s family had a slight suspicion Ted could be the person behind the terror campaign. His brother David was one of the thousands of people who called the FBI tip-line after the manifesto was published and a million-dollar reward was offered for information leading to the capture of the Unabomber. After a long search, FBI agents arrested an unkempt Kaczynski in his Lincoln, Montana cabin on April 3rd, 1996. They found bomb making components, over 40,000 journal pages and the manifesto’s original typed manuscript.

There’s no defending the actions of a person who mails bombs with the intent to do serious harm. But Andrew Sodroski, executive producer of the new Discovery mini-series, Manhunt: Unabomber, thinks there is plenty to take away from Kaczynski’s words. As he said in a phone conference with reporters leading up to the show, “What the manifesto has to say about our relationship with technology and with society is more true right now than it was when Ted published it.”

Not many domestic terrorists convicted of murder get called prophetic by television producers – and there are scholars from different sides of the political spectrum who agree that the the Unabomber’s anti-technology stance was ahead of its time. “His work, despite his deeds,” wrote Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist and member of the Fox News Medical A-Team, “deserves a place alongside Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, and 1984, by George Orwell.” Ray Kurzweil, noted author, computer scientist and futurist, quoted a passage from the manifesto in his 1999 book, The Age of Spiritual Machines. Some believe he’s a murderous modern-day Henry David Thoreau, while others say he’s a genius and a prophet. So what, exactly did he get right?

Kaczynski opens his manifesto with, “The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.” The technology he goes on to rail against, keep in mind, was mid-1990s – before smartphones, before Twitter, before “Likes” on Facebook and algorithms helped pick out things for you to buy and experience. Although the word “dystopia” never shows up throughout the essay, Kaczynski believed (and you have to assume still does so from his prison cell) that the future wasn’t some Philip K. Dick or Handmaid’s Tale scenario; the dystopian future started happening a long time ago. Computer networks, the mass-communication media, the modern health care system, pesticides and chemicals, all products of the Industrial Revolution, are destroying the planet, he writes. As one portion of the manifesto is sub-titled, “The ‘Bad’ Parts of Technology Cannot be Separated From the ‘Good’ Parts.” 

In point number 49 the manifesto, Kaczynski writes, “In the modern world it is human society that dominates nature rather than the other way around, and modern society changes very rapidly owing to technological change.” One of the big problems, he believed while writing his manifesto, was the inevitable growth of artificial intelligence and how humanity will cope with it. “First let us postulate that the computer scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do all things better than human beings can do them.” As one Wired article explained in 2015, “A manufacturing device from Universal Robots doesn’t just solder, paint, screw, glue, and grasp – it builds new parts for itself on the fly when they wear out or bust.” From checking you out at the grocery store to flipping burgers, robots are being designed to integrate into the labor force and cut costs.

He goes on to write in point number 172, “In that case presumably all work will be done by vast, highly organized systems of machines and no human effort will be necessary. Either of two cases might occur. The machines might be permitted to make all of their own decisions without human oversight, or else human control over the machines might be retained.” When Kaczynski’s thoughts were published, we were still dealing with the Terminator version of the robots overtaking humanity and destroying it – it was a nightmare scenario, fiction. But Kaczynski wasn’t writing speculative fiction; he was stating, from an academically-trained point of view, where he saw technology headed.

Technology overtaking humanity was only one of the scary possibilities. The rise of the “one percent” super rich and corporations controlling everything, was another. “Human freedom mostly will have vanished, because individuals and small groups will be impotent vis-a-vis large organizations armed with supertechnology and an arsenal of advanced psychological and biological tools for manipulating human beings, besides instruments of surveillance and physical coercion,” he wrote. 

Tech companies have untold amounts of data on every person that logs online for everything from shopping for cat litter to ranting on Twitter. How to understand that data – and what to use it for – is an industry in itself. Could it be used to manipulate us? See the 2016 U.S. election and the rise of fake news spread through Facebook. “Hyperpartisan Facebook Pages Are Publishing False And Misleading Information At An Alarming Rate,” as one 2016 BuzzFeed article put it, showed up in feeds even if the people didn’t follow those groups. Some of the false news was spread the old-fashioned way, through word of mouth; but, as John Herman of the New York Times explained, misinformation on the social media service thrives or dies, “at least in part, on Facebook’s algorithm.” As Kaczynski believes, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. All of this seemed farfetched when Kaczynski’s words were put in front of a mass audience. In 1994, audiences were being told suave cyberterrorists like the ones in the movie The Net were the ones looking to steal your information online and do whatever they please with it.

After all this, however, calling Kaczynski a prophet might be a stretch. He’s a highly intelligent person who wanted to try and stop where he saw humanity headed by any means necessary – including murdering people. Yet he routinely points out throughout his manifesto that there very well might be no stopping the inevitable. The entire point of his manifesto, as he states, is revolution, anarchy: “Its object will be to overthrow not governments but the economic and technological basis of the present society.” Kaczynski, who has stated admiration for the eco-anarchist movement (“but I think they could do it better,” he also said in an interview in 1999), takes aim at both leftists, including “socialists, collectivists, ‘politically correct’ types, feminists, gay and disability activists, animal rights activists and the like”). He also writes, “conservatives are fools,” and that they’re, “just taking the average man for a sucker, exploiting his resentment of Big Government to promote the power of Big Business.” Kaczynski even engages in some gaslighting: “Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women are as strong and as capable as men. Clearly they are nagged by a fear that women may NOT be as strong and as capable as men.”

All of this reiterates the point that Kaczynski is no hero whatsoever. The person who wrote “Industrial Society and Its Future,” is a fanatic. And as is sometimes the case, fanatics can take things to the tragic extreme. Yet there is something to be taken away from his words if you read closely; it’s that we give up a piece of ourselves whenever we adjust to conform to society’s standards. That, and we’re too plugged in. We’re letting technology take over our lives, willingly. It’s the sort of thing that doesn’t take a madman dressed up like a prophet to tell us; it’s all too evident. Kaczynski, to steal a phrase from the tech world, was just an early adopter of these thoughts. Yet his warning will probably forever go unnoticed because of the horrific deeds he carried out to get his message across.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/flashback-unabomber-publishes-his-manifesto-125449/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

[vipers-hat]

johnnic + 27 ("kiss me.") uwu

Blood Dragon 2 1/2 

Deputy Nic Raylan hears something she’s not thrilled about while working with Guy Marvel and figures out that maybe making a deal with the devil is better than dealing with an asshole. 

“Hey, get back here. I think Guy wants to make out with you.” 

Deputy Nicolette Raylan groaned. She had helped Guy Marvel clear out the angels around that set because back in the day she had loved his movies. They were absolute disasters and therefore cult classics as far as she was concerned. But spending as little as twenty seconds with the man shot all that adoration in the face and buried it. 

He was one of those directors. Arrogant and sleazy and gross. Her film major friends in college had been privy to a few of those jerks in the making. And now she got to deal with them herself. And there was no way in Hell that he was going to leave her alone if she just ignored him. Men didn’t work that way. And now she was within walking distance of the set. And sure, the PAs seemed decent enough considering they wanted to murder the man, but she still didn’t like her chances. She needed somebody, but the Ryes were across town, Sharky and Hurk were off melting angel faces somewhere and probably couldn’t hear a radio over explosions and fire, Jess and Grace had gone hunting that day- there were next to no options if she wanted to deter the creep. 

Until she got an idea. A horrible, no good, stupid, very very bad idea, but it would probably work. And be the fastest option. But also open a brand new can of Yikes worms. Fuck. 

It had taken her ten minutes and three radio calls from Guy in the span of five of those minutes to make her decision. 

Stomach in knots, she switched to a different frequency and leaned in. “John? I need a favor.” 

The response was nearly immediate. “Deputy…” came John’s distinct purr. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

“What are you doing right now?” she asked. Because right, what she was about to suggest wasn’t going to inflate his ego enough, she just had to go with suggestive phrasing. 

“Why repairing all the damage you caused around these parts the last couple of days, my dear. Why do you ask?” 

“I need you to meet me at the Guy Marvel set in ten minutes.” 

“Now why would I-” 

“Because, and I can’t believe I’m about to say this- I need to make a fucking point to this fucker, and you’re the only person around who I could make this work with. And I mean, considering you’re both interested in me, out of the two of you you’re the one I trust not to shove his hand down my pants mid-conversation.” 

“… … … What?” 

“Just get here.” 

She made her way back to the set and waited. Minutes ticked by like hours until she saw the cherry red Pygmalion speeding down the road. She saw him pull up to the lot, she and John made eye contact and she delighted in the confused look he gave her. She coughed obnoxiously loudly so Guy would hear it a few yards away nd hurried over to the car. She yanked the door open and climbed inside. Her stomach lurched one more time before she decided to sell her soul to the devil. “Kiss me.” 

John’s eyebrows shot up, but he recovered quickly enough and smirked. “Lust is a-” 

“Sin. Yeah it is, that’s part of the fucking problem. Kiss me.” 

“Why the-” 

“Jesus,” Nicolette hissed before she leaned over him and yanked the lever to tilt his seat backwards. She tried not to enjoy his yelp of alarm too much before she tossed a leg over his lap, crushed her mouth to his and ground her hips down into his for good measure. 

And of course she felt him respond below the belt within seconds and she almost groaned in disgust- and then annoyance when she felt that he was packing. Of course the guy who, in any other circumstance, she probably would’ve jumped into bed with immediately if not for the whole psychopath thing, was hung. It wasn’t fair. 

“BABY! What the fuck is taking you so long?!” 

And there he was, the asshole of the hour. Showtime. She grimaced internally for a moment before she grabbed John’s headrest in order to scoot higher into his lap, then took his hands and put them on her ass. Well, now she was the hypocrite, considering that ‘hands in my pants’ comment she had made when she was practically assaulting him- except he was hardly complaining.

Still, thankfully John’s brain caught up with what was possibly going on- or caught up with his dick, who really knew- and began to kiss her in earnest, giving as good as she did- and pulled her ass closer to him. 

God, the man could kiss- it really wasn’t fair.

She moaned into his mouth as loudly as possible, giving it an overdramatic touch that would make pornstars roll their eyes. 

“BABE- Oh!” Guy cut himself off from just outside. 

Nicolette tore her mouth from John’s and blinked innocently. “Oh! Guy! Hi!” she perked up. “Uh… sorry…” she stroked John’s chest for a moment. “Got… distracted.” She bit her lip and smiled.

“I’ll fuckin’ say,” Guy agreed with a strange tone. Probably turned on. Asshole. “Who the fuck is this?” 

Nicolette blanched for a moment. Did he seriously not know who John was? She had hoped he would fuck off if he thought she was fucking one of the Heralds of the ‘noisest motherfuckers out there’ but to not know John at all? Well, on second thought he probably didn’t bother getting to know any of the people involved in the cult- his head was up far too deep in his ass to do that. Loving yourself and yourself alone would do that.  “This is my boyfriend. Sorry, we just… haven’t seen each other in so long. Just got carried away.” She looked at John. 

John, to his credit, just went with it. He moved his hand up to her hip and stroked it. “Can’t keep my hands off her. She… slips away from me so easily…” he dug his fingers into her hips pointedly at that, and he contained a cringe when she dug her nails into his chest in retaliation. “Sorry, who are you?” he asked. 

Nicolette nearly sighed out loud. The bastard was playing along. Thank fuck. 

Guy immediately went red in the face. “You’re looking at Guy Marvel, pal. Maker of Dead Living Zombies and Blood Dragon 2 and 3, which I’m making now.” 

“Huh. Never heard of them,” John commented drily. 

Nicolette firmly bit her cheek at the sight of the ghost of a smirk that John got in his face that gave away that he knew exactly who the man was. 

Guy went even more red in the face. “Never heard of…” 

John offered him a polite smile. “So my girlfriend here is helping out?” 

“Keepin’ my production safe and secure from those inbred fuckin’ cultists, Hell yeah,” Guy replied. 

John’s smile widened and something changed in his eyes- it was an absolutely predatory look, not unlike the one he had given her in the bunker during her botched confession. “Fucking cultists…” he agreed. 

“Well, you gonna let her come work for me again?” Guy asked. 

Nicolette sharper at that and went to get off Johns lap to give him a piece of her mind.

John dug his fingers into her sides again to keep her still.

She gave him a puzzled look.

The dark edge came back into John’s eyes. He stroked Nicolette’s hip again and leaned closer to him. “Listen, Mister Mabel-” 

“Marvel.” 

“Whatever. My girlfriend does as she pleases. I don’t let her do anything because it’s not my call. If she wants to do something, I say yes, because I don’t own her. And she makes her own choices, as… … disappointing as some of them are,” he cast her a look, and she arched a challenging eyebrow.  “That said…” he looked back at Guy. “I’m…  very proud of her and her exploits. And I like keeping her all to myself.  I’m not one to share. So if I hear you call her ‘Babe’ or any variation, I will find you, and you will not like the outcome. However, that’s provided that she doesn’t get sick of you first and… take matters into her own hands. She can be quite rough when she wants to be.” He pulled his shirt aside to show the edges of the ‘Sloth’ scar. “Do we have an understanding?” 

Guy paled a fair bit and looked like he wasn’t sure whether to look at Nicolette, the scar, or John. “Yes sir.” 

“Good,” John grinned. He opened the car door. “I’ll see you back at the house, Dear. Go on, do your thing.” 

Nicolette looked from him to Guy, only to see that the spot was vacant- and he was a few feet ahead, already booking it back to the set. She sighed in relief. “Can’t believe I’m saying this either, but thank you, John. Don’t know why I didn’t think of just straight up threatening him in the first place.” 

“Most men need the additional push, unfortunately. Especially when they’re ants who think they’re gods in the greater scheme of things.” 

“Okay, Hypocritical Crazy Person. Think long and hard about that one and think about yourself. See you next time I blow up a couple of silos.” She went to dismount him. 

John caught her wrist. “That wasn’t for free,” he pointed out. 

She sighed. “What, you’re not the ‘seal a deal with a kiss’ type of demon?” 

“No. I’m a confession for a favor kind of guy,” he countered. 

Nicolette searched his face for a moment, but found he looked entirely serious. Again, deal with the devil- out of the frying pan into the fire- you made your bed, lay in it kind of things. Besides, she had escaped one Confession. She could escape another. “Fine. Tomorrow. The Ranch. Noon. No one else is there.” 

“Deal,” John agreed. 

Nicolette got off of him the rest of the way and hurried back towards Guy. She hoped the pay was good. If he even paid her. Well, what was another fucking favor at that point. 

———————————–

At 12:30 the next day, Nicolette was sitting in the basement of Seed Ranch, strapped to a chair near identical to the last one. She had been ‘fashionably late’ by a few minutes. By some miracle he had allowed it, but made sure to strap her in as he went on about Confession again. He eventually ended his spiel, and then pointed the tattoo again. “So… we know you’re Wrath, but… any other of those delicious little sins left in you, Deputy?” 

“Plenty, Seed.” 

“Do go on then…” 

Nicolette opened her mouth to respond, and then was immediately cut off when her radio gave a crackle, and then- 

“Hey! Baby! Baby! Get your beautiful ass back here! I need you again! All my people left me like the cheap little shits they are, and you’re all I got!” 

Guy. Again. Are you fucking kidding me? She went wide eyed at the intrusion and tried not to laugh at how indignant John looked. John went to take it off her hip and she raised them and scooted back to get it out of his reach. “Uh uh. You break it or turn it off, I can miss any other bullshit that your people or your siblings pulled. I came here willingly, trade or not. We do this on my terms. I keep the radio. Only fair.” 

“Fine,” John hissed. He moved back. “So, what e-” 

“Baby, come on, don’t be like that!” 

John snarled and launched himself at her radio. He unclipped it from her belt before she could protest. “Mister Marvel. I do believe we had a discussion about that name, did we not?”

“Shit. Uh, sorry. Just need that - uh-” 

“Yes, well, the Deputy and I are a  little… busy at the moment,” John reached over to her hip, pinched and twisted the skin there.

Nicolette yelped- then all but slammed her mouth shut when she realized just what sort of sound John had been aiming for with that sound. ‘Dick’ she mouthed. 

John merely smirked at her and then sighed a little too dreamily. “You catch my drift, Madel?” 

“Marvel.”

“Do. You. Catch. It?” John repeated. 

“Yeah, yeah I catch it.”

“Good. Goodbye, Mister-” 

“WAIT!” 

John groaned. He went to switch the radio off, only for Nicolette to give him a pointed look. He sighed. “What?” 

“Look, I might as well give up the ghost with this thing. It’s doomed from the start. Weak ass location, week ass production staff, weak ass budget. I have to branch out.” 

John and Nicolette exchanged brief looks of morbid confusion. 

“I mean, both of you guys are hot. You clearly don’t mind an audience. Ever consider doing porn? With each other of course, I’m not some cr-” 

“Ooooh my God,” Nicolette concluded, the same time John immediately turned the radio off and all but shoved it back onto her belt. “… That might have actually taken the cake for worst thing I’ve ever heard out of anyone’s mouth here. And that’s saying a lot. That was worse than you guys. But honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t take him up on that because of the way you were the last time with my shirt and that camera there for some reason and-” 

John stared at her for a few seconds, then wordlessly walked over to the chair and unstrapped her. “Get. Out.” 

“Fine. Wonder what Joseph would think about tha-” 

“OUT!” 

“You got it.” 

——————————————————

John radioed her the next day with the offer of a redo. And for some reason unbeknownst to her common sense, she had accepted. 

John had immediately taken the radio off her hip when she arrived, though. 

To both of their surprise, she had played nicely- as he had. He had gotten her out of a potential bind, even if it was just another part of their cat and mouse game. She had cited Pride, named a few instances of it, and he had just finished tattooing the first line of the ‘P’ in her side when one of his men bustled in and commented that someone ‘was on the Deputy’s frequency, calling and asking for her nonstop.’

“And who is it? Sheriff Whitehorse, all gallant up on his white horse, eager to come to the rescue?” 

“No, sir. Some weird name. Guy something. Marvel, maybe?” 

“… God DAMN IT! Get him off the radio! Cut our own fucking frequency if you have to.” 

The Peggie bustled out quickly. 

There was dead silence for a while. “You know, Johnny Boy. New deal.” 

“Oh?” John hissed. 

“A trade. Hudson for Marvel. Because it’s a win-win for everyone. And a favor to the fucking Universe. And he’s probably got all sins in droves compared to her. He’s gonna take a while.” 

John stared at her, and then got that predatory smile on his face again. “Why Deputy, that might be the smartest thing you’ve said yet.” 

“Thought you might like that. So, deal?” 

“Deal.” 

—————————————————————————————–

Two days later, a very confused Joey Hudson was nudged past the Falls End sign by none other than John Seed. She had asked why, and he had responded that “a little blood dragon” had told him to do it. Whatever that meant. 

It was equally puzzling when Nicolette gave her the exact same answer. 

She wanted to get to the bottom of things, but she had learned not to ask questions as of late in this town. 

After all, sometimes it was best to leave well enough alone. 

[afraschatz]

Leverage - The Nigerian Job

It’s been a while since I watched “The Nigerian Job” and wow, what a joy to do that again. Because there are so many things I love about it. Here are just a few: I love...

... the introduction of Nate - so much exposition is needed and that’s always difficult to deliver without it seeming clunky and, well, like exposition, but Rubinek and Hutton just DELIVER.

... Dubenic. One of my favourite villains of them all. So fucking ruthless, he makes NATE seem like a choir boy in comparison, and that’s saying something.

... Nate’s reaction to “Steal them back”. Yes, he’s interested because of the money and because of wanting to stick it to his old boss, but that look? Yeah, Nate, keep kidding yourself. You WANT to be a thief ;)

... ‘No, but Parker is in-sane.’ And Nate’s look to accompany that, hahaha. Where is the lie.

... the music of this show. The intro music but also the signature “the game is on” music. I have it as my ringtone and my alarm and really, it’s just so awesome. Because right here at the start, a very dark and gritty start, the music sets the tone and tells us: This is gonna be a clever show and a fun show and KEEP WATCHING <3

... Hardison’s first words on the show being “No. No, no, no, no, hell no.”

... Hardison calling Nate ‘Brah’ and talking back at him right from the start

... “This is not the room you’re looking for.” - Also, I know that Hardison can’t possibly actually TELL this story to Nate and the others at this point, but we all know that he will eventually. And I LOVE that this is his mind’s go to story for being the ultimate hustler. Oh, Hardison, how I love you and your geeky priorities.

... “You can hear everything.” - “Not as useless as you look.” - Instant love. Also: HI ELIOT. And hi Eliot’s glasses. What happens to you later on? And seriously, Eliot, why did you decide to wear them for this job? I mean you clearly don’t need them, so is this a fashion choice? Where you reading while you were waiting for the others to set up?

...No but seriously, I LOVE the outfit choice for Eliot here and in the flashback. He looks like he just got up from a coffee with Sartre and Camus and I cannot stress enough how I LOVE how that (aside of course from being funny) already sets up how he is NOT just the muscle <3

...Eliot not even putting down his mug. Yes, he is that badass

...the baseball card

... “You can have the whole box” (Flirty!Hardison - and yes, of course he is fascinated and turned on by Parker instantly, but I think what I love most is how this is different to how he sees her later; he is overall more aggressive, edgy, pushy pre-team)

... “Age of the Geek, baby. We run the world.” - “Hm. You keep telling yourself that.”

... Thief.

... Parker’s flashback being so fucking DARK, even in comparison to Eliot’s who just put down 10 thugs

... the tell-tale ages of their flashback selves - Hardison the teenager, Eliot the adult, Parker the kid. Talk about what shaped you / who you are

...Eliot and Nate being professionals vs. Parker and Hardison being the brats <3

... Parker taking such obvious pleasure in her work

... Nate’s background images being the cold blue schematics

... Hardison being SO TURNED ON by Eliot’s speed / his efficiency / his dislike of guns (love the emptying of the magazine) / his smile

... that shared smile when the door opens. STOP IT, YOU GUYS

... Nate’s I-am-in-command-here voice. Later on he uses that to play generals and higher ups - his favoured role aside from ‘the annoying one’ - but here it’s no game, no play acting. This IS Nate right now

... technically that would be Plan G

...the OT3 working so perfectly together during the burn-scam sequence

...the almost-morning-at-the-end-of-an-obviously-fucking-cold-night atmosphere when they split. Talk about symbolism here. And lovely light

... Dubenic. Seriously. He dupes us, the viewers, fair enough. But he also does this with Nate, Parker, Eliot, AND Hardison. And can we just take a moment and appreciate that because we know how insanely smart they are. - And there is just that HINT of Dubenic playing them in the way he picks up his cup and sips, like he has no care in the world

... the way Hardison holds his gun

 ... the fact that Eliot hasn’t taken it away from hm yet. Because sure, he could. But he actually WANTS Hardison to BELIEVE him, doesn’t he

...Hardison and Parker having brought guns. Which makes sense. Eliot not bothering. Which also makes sense. But Nate? He just doesn’t give a fuck at this point, does he? Dangerous man, he who has nothing left to lose. And that maniac’s laughter when he figures it out? Holy shit, there is something very, very wrong with him

... Eliot helping Hardison up (already the protector <3)

... the reason why Hardison fell in the first place - looking back to check where Eliot is <3<3

...the reflection of the fireblast on Nate’s face. The whole explosion. Damn, that is some fine pyro work there.

...Parker switching so effortlessly between razor-sharp logic and crazy aloofness

...the ever changing dynamic during that conversation in Hardison’s flat. Like, Hardison keeping Eliot from finally losing it and taking it on with Nate and all the other little shifts and changes. Like, Nate already knowing Eliot’s and Parker’s different priorities (Payback and Money / Money and Payback); Parker and Hardison being hooked straight away, Eliot being the cautious one

...Eliot’s FACE during Sophie’s acting

...Nate being so FASCINATED by Sophie

... that flashback - Nate, like the OT, has a very... interesting way of remembering things

...Parker’s super aggressive popcorn reading

... Eliot’s continued ‘Parker is crazy. CRAZY. Am I the only one seeing that?!’ Possibly, yes, Eliot

...Nigerians. I mean, not only is that THE con. But it’s also the con that works because it targets people too stupid to not know better. The fact that Nate uses that on Dubenic. Because they were double-crossed and now HE gets double-crossed with a con that he SHOULD have seen coming because no one in their right mind would buy Nate Ford trying to pull of the ACTUAL Nigerian Scam

...Sophie just walking out on Dubenic

...Eliot’s outfit as an IT expert. That is so offensive, Eliot, even BEFORE the Klingon. I love you. Also? I love the reaction of the secretary as he walks in. Like, damn, he’s fine. She’s not wrong

... the bridge in the background of Sophie’s and Dubenic’s scene outside. God, that is SUCH a perfect metaphor and so pretty

... “I take it to Pierson.” - Sophie is not just a great actress, this little decision here already shows how she will have no problem taking over from Nate when he is in prison

... the Eliot/Nate conversation at the pool table. Easily my favourite scene of the whole episode. I wrote about how I love all the characters’ relationships in an earlier entry (http://afraschatz.tumblr.com/post/175521619189/afraschatz-i-think-the-reason-why-i-love), but Eliot’s and Nate’s is one of my favourites. And this scene breaks my fucking heart EVERY time. I want to be angry at Nate for being so harsh to Eliot reaching out and I want to weep for him at the same time. And Eliot. Oh, Eliot. All of the others so wrapped up in the current con (and Nate in his pain) that they can’t see what he can already sense and what he already sees and understands. Why else would the hitter, the “I work alone” man, Moreau’s former right hand man reach out like that? This isn’t the hitter checking whether the insurance man might turn on him /them; this isn’t even the man set out for revenge trying to make sure that the mastermind behind the plan can focus properly. This already is Eliot caring. And Nate being unable to accept that at this point. Ah, I love them so much

... the hospital flashback. Oh Tim Hutton <3...

... Sophie and the earpiece. Sure, Sophie, you need help. Sure.

... locked up comedy frame. Hardison hahahaha. Love that chair-roll

... Dubenic’s smug expression in the elevator

... “I can take your underpants”

... “This particular project has a different revenue stream” - Ah, eloquent!smug!Nate

...Sophie’s reaction to the HUGE cheque. Like, WHAT?!

...Hardison starting to explain what he did - I kinda wanted him to continue explaining that to me because a. maybe he could actually shed some light on some stock stuff that I really don’t get and b. competence porn

...Eliot wanting to kiss Hardison :)

...the slow round-and-round of the camera during the team’s talk outside. I need to write a separate LONG post about how great the camera work on this show is

... Eliot looking at Hardison while Hardison waits for Nate to suggest that they should do that again, then, when Nate doesn’t, immediately trying to get his defences back up and his hopes down. Oh, Eliot <3

... Black king, white knight. Aside from me being very much in love with Sophie’s SHAMELESS flirting (and Nate’s reaction to that), this is such a pretty description and fits him so well

... that last scene and the way they stand / sit. I mean, man, thank you, Sophie, for being kind to the victims while the rest of your team plays a very weird mashup of Reservoir Dogs and Godfather in the background

... NATE, YOU ARE SO CREEPY, I LOVE YOU.

[serendipitouscontaminant]

@intearsaboutrobots asked oh g o s h, how bout forgetting to eat and ray (he's very busy ! doing science !)

This is for Bad Things Happen Bingo. This is my card. 

Bingo square: Forgetting to eat 

Content notes for grief and canon character death. Strangely enough, this is 70% comedy.

____

Guess We’ll Never Know

Ray is doing science.

Normal.

Ray is doing science in silence, literally locked in the lab.

Less normal? That's debatable, apparently. 

Nate is convinced there’s something fishy going on here. Sara agrees. Zari and Mick both say to just leave Ray to do his thing. He’s a scientist, of course he’s going to lock himself in the lab sometimes, it’s not that weird. Nate and Sara counter that, yeah, that might be a stereotypical scientist thing, but it’s not a Ray thing. Ray loves spending time with other people, and he’s gung ho about living healthy, and when he gets really, possibly unhealthily, into something science-related, he usually at least tries to talk someone’s ear off about it.

He’s not the kind of guy who locks himself in his lab for nearly a week when there’s absolutely nothing even vaguely life-threatening going on, other than the Legends all living on the same ship, which might count.

Zari says that they’re being overbearing and they should just let Ray do what he does best, he can take care of himself and she could swear that she’s seen him in the halls a few times, probably going to get food or something.

This leads to the whole team trading Ray sightings and arguing as to whether they’re actually just making things up, right until Nate points out that they’re acting like Ray’s Bigfoot or something, and once you can switch out a conversation about your teammate with a conversation about a cryptid just by changing a single detail, in this case said teammate’s name, there’s a good reason to worry. He has a point, Constantine, who has no dog in this fight and has been playing both sides for a lark, says.

Mick says that this is all stupid, and walks away. Classic Mick.

However, in spite of Mick’s unceremonious exit, it can comfortably be said that at this point all opinions have been swayed towards ‘we should be worried.’

Well, not Constantine’s, because he cannot emphasize enough how he has no dog in this fight. He saves dogs for people he really cares about, and none of the Legends are there yet other than Sara. He quite likes Sara.

In spite of this doglessness, Constantine is the one to check on Ray, mostly because everyone else is debating on how to best check on Ray even though they could always just ask Gideon how he’s doing or go down there with no fanfare, two options that they have helpfully forgotten—much like how they have forgotten to be reasonable or efficient over what should quite frankly be low-stress decisions for a prolonged length of time—in the name of the continuation of the narrative.

Besides, they’re stir crazy without any actual missions. They’ll argue about anything at this point, and since Ray hasn’t been around (a pressing issue), there’s nobody to, say, arrange a catastrophic game night, which would at least get out everyone’s pent up energy.

…This is mostly because, while Constantine is a surprisingly affable and competent board gamer, he wins every game, and Mick is a terrible loser, Sara is a terrible loser, Zari is easily frustrated and also a terrible loser, Ray has the rules to literally every board game in existence memorized word-for-word and will not budge on them, and Nate, for all his ability to remember every single major fire in the United States since its inception, secretly still doesn’t really know how to play Monopoly, and is not above knocking the entire board to the floor to keep anyone from finding out his dark secret, even though fessing up would possibly spare everyone from having to play Monopoly, which would quite frankly be one of those acts of everyday heroism the Huffington Post is always on about.

(Mick knows about Nate’s Monopoly problem, though. How? Unclear. Mick just knows a lot of things. Why does Mick not tell? A mystery.)

Anyway, Constantine goes to see how Dr. Palmer’s getting on, mostly because he, like everyone else on the game nightless ship, is very bored and has nothing better to do. He is also a bit curious. He also feels a vague sense of doom about the whole situation, though that may just be the vague sense of doom he feels roughly one hundred percent of the time.

When he steps into the lab, he finds papers tossed everywhere, three whiteboards (well, ‘whiteboards’ is a little generous for what are more large plexiglass rectangles covered in scribbles, but that is not an issue at the front of John’s mind), and no less than thirteen empty cans of a drink called ‘Monster’.

He takes a step inside the lab (a can of Monster crunching underfoot), meaning to make his presence known to Ray, who currently has his back to him and is writing some equation on a fourth and comically large high fashion not whiteboard. (Too long, John has better things to do than think all those words over something so stupid.)

John is not sure when exactly this whiteboard was created or whether it did in fact exist before Ray went into this fit, because it really is excessively enormous, given that Ray is standing on a stool to scrawl mumbo jumbo on it, and Ray is six foot three.

“Hello, Dr. Palmer,” John says genially, only not fazed by this situation due to the fact that he consistently deals with different, more life-and-limb-threatening situations that border on the absurd, or catapult over the border and into the wide field of ‘what in the bloody fucking world is even happening, look like you know what you’re doing, John, you fear nothing’. He gauges that to be genuinely fazed, the cans of Monster would have to become actual small monsters.

Ray jumps and yet somehow doesn’t fall from his perch, even when he twists around to look at John, though he does sway dangerously, and John steps forward experimentally, wondering exactly how squished he will get if he tries to catch Dr. Palmer once the man inevitably loses his battle with gravity.

Ray’s hair is mussed and unwashed, his fetching chin is covered in stubble, his clothes are several days old, he’s shaking, and his eyes are full of the pure manic energy of a man who does not consistently drink large amounts of caffeine, and yet has made the unfortunate and currently inexplicable decision to replace half his blood with energy drinks.

“Constantine!” he says, voice both welcoming and edgy. His smile is so wide that John can see just about all of his teeth. The smile, paired with the general mad scientist vibe he’s emitting, makes him look like a serial killer, the kind that dresses his victims in fun outfits and then poses them in a whimsical manner while leading the police on a wild goose chase. He will never be brought to justice. “How’s it going?”

“You’ve been here for nearly a week,” John says. “Your friends are both worried and being utterly inconvenient about it.”

“A week,” Ray says, vibrating. “Wow!”

These are the last words he says before his eyes roll into the back of his head, and he falls to the floor.

John is briefly on high alert, given that eyes rolling into the back of the head is not a good sign in his line of work, but he quickly realizes that the good doctor is lying quite still and is happily unpossessed.

Wow indeed.

John wanders over to him to see if he’s just out cold or dead. He is thankfully just out cold, because even John would feel bad if Ray were dead. His gluten free cupcakes really aren’t so bad, and he very much enjoys winning all the games. He never wins against Gary.

Ray’s pulse is impressively fast. “Gideon, dear,” John says, “I think the others may want to see this.”

“Way ahead of you, Mr. Constantine,” Gideon says.

Of course.

It takes a matter of minutes—more than one, but less than five—for the others to rush in. Well, Mick doesn’t rush in so much as amble, brow furrowed in what might be annoyance and might be concern. (It’s both.)

Ray wakes up in under five minutes, which is good. He’s bleary-eyed and rubbing his head, and he’s discombobulated enough that he doesn’t really protest when Nate and Mick bodily drag him out of the lab, though he does give his enormous whiteboard a sad look, as if saying goodbye and promising to come back soon.

John stays behind, surveying the lab. He suspects that whatever happens in the medbay will involve feelings he’s not particularly interested in, so his work here is done.

In the medbay, Ray has finally found his voice again, and his voice isn’t happy about the saline drip he’s getting. He and his miraculously nonexistent concussion would rather take some laps around the ship.

“Actually, Dr. Palmer, I would suggest you eat,” Gideon says.

“Pish posh!” an actual human being named Ray Palmer says with zero irony. “You keep telling me that!”

“Because it keeps being true,” Gideon replies, dry as the toast that Ray could at least have tried to force down the past several mornings.

It turns out that, much like Bigfoot sightings, the Ray sightings were the product of wishful thinking. He really had not existed outside of the lab for all that time except to go to the bathroom. He even had Gideon make him seven six packs of Monster before going in.

And yet no food or water.

When Nate points out that astonishing oversight after hearing that Ray did prepare himself for his science fit, sort of, Ray shrugs sheepishly. “I forgot.”

“You, Mr. Three Square Meals a Day, just straight up forgot?”

“Yeah. There’s...I don’t have another answer, I really did.”

“Okay, so why did you go full absent-minded professor?”

Ray doesn’t answer the question, though a troubled look does flit across his face for about five point two seconds.

Instead, he decides to go back to the food thing.

“I’m not hungry anymore,” Ray says, clearly in a vaguely dreamlike and yet incredibly awake state. “I’ve transcended it.”

There is a beat as the others process the non sequitur and general insanity of that statement, and then chaos as everyone starts talking over each other about how stupid that very thought is, right up until Zari’s voice manages to break through.

“You’ve transcended hunger?” Zari parrots for about the third time. “Ray, take it from someone who knows—you’re just starving.”

“I feel kind of sick, actually,” Ray says in a polite rebuttal. “So there’s that.”

“Raymond, of course you feel sick, you’ve been overworking yourself and living off caffeine,” Nate says, all long-suffering hypocrisy.

“Oh, as if you don’t do the exact same thing, Mr. Do As I Say Not As I Do.”

“Yeah, I’m vetoing that nickname. And seriously, this isn’t really like you.”

“Actually, I was totally like this. I mean, I’ve been totally like this before. I missed work because I was so focused on work.”

“Yeah, but you’ve kind of...grown out of that. Or at least you weren’t like this about it other than when you were all imposter syndrome about your suit. I mean, buddy, I get being obsessed with your work, but you fainted. You’ve been mainlining energy drinks. It’s been six days. Even when you get weird and obsessed, you usually at least interact with...anyone. And energy drinks are like...caffeine and sugar. You somehow think both of those things are bad for you. Also, it’s been six days. This isn’t Ray behavior.”

“Oh, like you really know me,” Ray snaps.

His outburst causes only vague confusion. “...I do really know you, Ray. We all do.  We’re on the same ship and the same team. We have literally met you as a child.”

Ray flounders. “Okay, you might have a point. But I’m just...this is important! I’m brushing up on nuclear physics! I mean, not that I’m not good at nuclear physics, I’m possibly amazing—it’s healthy to recognize your own talents—but I’ve really been leaning on the engineering side lately, not so much the theoretical, and now without...” he trails off and swallows hard. “Without Marty, I’m catching up. There are some questions I never got to ask him and now...” his voice breaks, and he runs a shaking hand through his greasy hair, “I have to figure them out myself.”

Silence settles over the room like a shroud, and Sara, without even thinking, looks over at the corner of the room where no one is, half expecting to see a familiar form sighing in a put upon way and pacing back and forth like a ruffled chicken.

Maybe Stein could’ve talked some sense into Ray.

Sara clears her throat and Nate looks down at the floor and Zari looks up at the ceiling in the way people do when they’re trying not to cry and Mick just stares at nothing because he’s staring at memories instead—he and the professor made a weird amount of memories in this medbay—and Ray swipes at his eyes.  “If he was still alive, I could just use the temporal communicator to ask him, but he’s not, and I never got to ask him, and I don’t know if I’ll ever figure it all out.”

“He had more...time, Ray,” Sara says, and the words sound so ridiculous (he didn’t get enough time, he didn’t) she wants to laugh until she cries and then probably never stop crying, for Martin and Rip and Leonard and Laurel and even Jax, so far away and with half of him dead and gone. She doesn’t do any of that. She soldiers on. “He had more time to get it all figured out, and when you have...more time, so will you.”

And eventually, she absolutely does not say because no one says it, you’ll have even more time than he did, if everything turns out right.

Ray laughs a little. “That implies that I’ll ever be as good at theoretical nuclear physics as Marty.”

“Maybe you won’t be,” Zari chimes in. “But that doesn’t mean you’re not a genius and it doesn’t mean you’ll, what? Let us all down because you’re not him? You’re not him. You’re you.”

“He’s never coming back,” Mick offers in a grumbling undertone from where he’s leaning against the far wall. “You can’t replace dead people, and you suck at trying.”

He meets Ray’s eyes, and Ray remembers that time that they tried. He manages a smile. “I know.”

He sighs heavily and says, “I really went off the rails for a second there, didn’t I?”

Sara shrugs. “Happens to all of us.”

“I should eat,” Ray admits. “I can’t believe I forgot. I mean, I can, but that’s why I have alarms.”

“What happened to those?” Nate asks.

“I think I spilled Monster on my phone.”

“That checks out.” Nate heaves out a sigh. “Okay. Let’s go to the kitchen, big guy. You can go back to bothering us about three square meals again. And water intake.”

Ray agrees, because hydration is very important, no matter what the Ray who’d forgotten that Marty wasn’t actually just a call away seemed to think, and he only sways a little on his feet when he stands up after getting the saline drip out.

Constantine is in the kitchen when the rest of the team traipses in, sprawled on a chair and reading some kind of velvet-bound tome with his feet propped up on one of the other chairs. He looks up at the other Legends and says, “Ah, you’re back, then?”

Ray attempts one of his usual smiles, but it takes more work than usual. “I’m back.”

He wanders to the middle of the kitchen and just kind of stands there while the others wait for him to have a cardiac event or maybe pass out again.

Instead:

“What should I eat?” Ray asks the world at large, waffling. He really is not hungry, and he really does feel kind of sick to his stomach, like one might after drinking eighteen cans of a brand of energy drink he remembered seeing on a billboard in Star City.

“Waffles?” Nate suggests. “It’s breakfast.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, bro. Six days after last time you ate breakfast.”

Ray sighs and murmurs, probably to himself, “I just haven’t been able to figure it out without him.”

Nate and Sara share a look. It’s not a happy look. Trace amounts of the absences on the ship have traveled into every part of it, including the oxygen, and sometimes it hurts just to breathe.

“Grapefruit,” Ray says decisively, distracting everyone from their separate waves of grief for just a moment. “I want grapefruit.”

Very suddenly, everyone realizes that they also kind of want grapefruit, even though none of them can remember the last time they had it. Still, all of them—other than Constantine, who’s feeling a bit odd about the whole vibe in the kitchen right now, from Mick’s surprisingly glossy eyes to the way that Gideon’s already prepared a giant bowl of that infernal fruit even before Zari comes around to ask for it—know exactly where the craving is coming from.

(It’s an attempt to at least calm that empty ache in their stomachs that isn’t hunger, the one for Martin, because grief makes everything revolve around what—who—just isn’t anymore and somehow still is everything, like all of them have become planets orbiting a black hole, only surviving getting sucked in and pulled to pieces by a miracle of metaphorical pseudoscience, or maybe just each other.)

Zari plops the huge bowl of grapefruit halves down on the table, and Ray’s the first to take one. He digs his spoon into the fruit and sighs in pleasure when he takes a bite, clearly coming to the realization that his miraculous lack of hunger paired with queasiness is indeed actually the feeling one gets when starving. He gets through two grapefruits before he slows down at all.

All of them realize, while eating their breakfast, that, objectively, they don’t like grapefruit.

It’s still somehow delicious—though, Mick says critically, his is a little tart.

(They would all be horrified if they knew that somewhere on their Earth lives a woman—one they know and love, even!—who eats her grapefruit with salt, but there’s no one here who can share that particular little anecdote, and so the story goes untold.)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14898194

[thefilmsnob]

Glen Coco’s Top 10 Mega Man Themes of All Time!

Can you think of a game that has better music than Mega Man? You can’t because it doesn’t exist. Well, it might, but I’m not really thinking it through. Let’s just say the people who composed the music for Mega Man should all be billionaires and knighted.

Because of my love for Mega Man and the songs that accompany him on his robojourney, I thought it would be swell to list the absolute greatest 10 theme songs from the classic series. It wasn’t easy narrowing the field to just 10 tracks considering this music is better than anything Mozart put out, but I feel like I’ve chosen the best songs and supported my decisions well despite having absolutely no experience in music criticism. You’ll see. 

But, that’s neither here nor there. I now present the 10 greatest Mega Man themes of all time. I’ve added links under the entries, so you can drool over the music, as well as three runners up. Omitting these three songs is torturing me, but making tough decisions like this is why I get paid so much for this job hahaha just kidding, no one gets paid to write. Here’s the list:

Runners-Up

Flash Man (Mega Man 2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_osNdk1mKRs

Spark Man (Mega Man 3)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP-Yjn1E05M

Tomahawk Man (Mega Man 6)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz-3Xd43OGo

Top 10

#10. Cut Man (Mega Man)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAeIMQierX4&t=1s

Cut Man’s theme is a great example of early Nintendo music that was more chipper and grainier in a charming way. This song makes you feel excited to control Mega Man and see where the adventure takes you. It’s uplifting, yes, but with a hint of darkness that says, “You can do it, but be wary.” The opening seconds of this song are really choppy, too, which is appropriate for this choppy kind of villain. In fact, the whole song brings to mind a pair of scissors flying around chaotically, slicing the air as they go. The original Mega Man had some great tracks, but this was the most lively and, indeed, the  best one of them all.

#9. Plant Man (Mega Man 6)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN_7Wy0RT00

This song from Plant Man’s rather unique forest stage is pretty complex. It starts out as a pleasant and optimistic tune as if it’s the soundtrack to an afternoon cruise on your day off. You think this carefree lifestyle can last forever, but then reality sinks in and the song breaks down to a very different tune as if the music is telling you, “Hey, listen, it’s not all fun and games. You have work to do.” And then it starts all over again, but now you feel even more prepared to take on the challenges that await.

  #8. Shade Man (Mega Man 7)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxSWjJmz1Dk

Shade Man’s theme is both scary and epic. I mean, when is something ever scary and epic? It’s almost unheard of. The song plays in a graveyard/haunted house themed level and it fits perfectly. It starts out slow and eerie, but as it progresses it becomes more upbeat, providing  you with that extra boost you need to get past the monsters. If this song isn’t called ‘Mega Man Faces His Fears’ then I feel sad for the creators. You just know this is the anthem Mega Man has in his head while exchanging blows with ghouls and goblins. In an installment with mediocre music and no other entries on this list, ‘Mega Man Faces His Fears’ shines through.

  #7. Flame Man (Mega Man 6)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKHVUupbqx0

For a Mega Man theme, Flame Man’s has an unusually long build up. Most of these songs sound like they were written by someone on crack; they start fast and insane and stay that way for 20 seconds until they repeat. This one progresses slowly and it doesn’t seem entirely thrilling at first. It gets a little more exciting and you start to think, “Okay, I’m biting” and then all of a sudden this magnificent chorus hits you like a punch in the face providing an immediate blissful high...much like the high the crack head composers felt while writing the music. The song also has a delightful Middle Eastern influence that matches the level and boss designs.

  #6. Splash Woman (Mega Man 9)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7qcJwJfyyk

Splash Woman’s music isn’t an instant hit. In fact, its merits were really only recognized by this observer when he was doing his research for this unnecessary article. But this song gets you right in the heart and soul. It’s a rare Mega Man song that is actually gentle and soothing, but also entirely motivating. There’s even an unusual poignancy during the flute section that produces an unreasonably strong emotional response. After the flutes, the song continues in a similar fashion as the opening, but with a little more urgency. This is a perfect song for an underwater level or if you need to feel like you’re being nurtured by a dear friend or loved one. 

  #5. Galaxy Man (Mega Man 9)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdDbbzuq1vY

This song is crack cocaine. It’s crack cocaine in music form. It may be the most frantic song in Mega Man history. There’s just so much energy in this one short minute of sound and it takes you places you never thought you’d go. As soon as you’re accustomed to a section of the song and feel like it’s reached its prime, it switches on you instantly and becomes even more intense, constantly pumping you up to battle more spaceships in this crazy outer space level. And, obviously, Galaxy Man requires a theme that sounds futuristic, so guess what? That’s what you get, friend. Just try not moving your head to this sound cocaine. If you say you can, we’re not friends because I’m not in the business of associating with liars.

  #4. Wood Man (Mega Man 2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvAAOmoEftg

That drum solo. That drum solo that opens this song is pure bliss. This is the sound of my childhood as well as the childhoods of about 92% of North Americans and 107% of the Japanese population. If you don’t like that drum solo...you’re an asshole. This gets you pumped up to kill robot tigers in the woods before you even have the chance to move Mr. Blue Boy. Following the intro, there’s a sharp, but exquisite breakdown leading into some of the most pleasing, memorable and inspirational music of the series. Near the end of the loop, the same great melody plays but in a higher pitch with an incredibly crisp sound that feels like it’s coming from the heavens. Ya, it’s slightly repetitive, but beauty on repeat is A-Ok in this guy’s books. 

  #3. Wily’s Castle: Stage 2 (Mega Man 9)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K9-SwNBMSY

Where did this song come from?!? Is this Mega Man? This is more of a symphony for crying out loud. The theme has such a different feel and is far more complex than any other song in the Mega Man catalogue, but it’s entirely welcome. A song like this could only be found in Wily’s Fortress. It’s so urgent and magical and screams Nintendo. And, whereas most Mega Man themes repeat after 30 seconds or so, this one keeps going for days and changes drastically throughout as if telling an epic story. There are so many moving parts to this anthem it’ll blow your mind. Fans might overlook the song because it’s tucked away in the ninth game in the middle of Wily’s crib, but this is one of the most unique pieces of music from the series. Who wrote this, a wizard?!?

#2. Metal Man (Mega Man 2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y82DgpgrC0

I’m sure many fans would agree, but I consider the first Mega Man as more of a prelude to the rest of the series. It’s a good game, but highly difficult and unpolished, feeling more like an intriguing prototype. To me, Mega Man 2 is the true start of the series and any fan who knows anything about anything knows that you play Metal Man’s stage first. Ergo, this is the theme that introduces you to the world of Mega Man. When you hear this theme, you know you’re about to go on an epic adventure and it sets the tone perfectly, especially if you’re looking forward to playing all the subsequent games. In many ways, it’s the theme that produces the most excitement. At first, it feels like a fairly straightforward tune, but then you start to notice all these delightful nuances beneath the surface. Like metal (ahem) this song is both smooth and choppy and the shifts between the two qualities work perfectly. Altogether, this is an energetic, inspirational and complex tune that’ll pump you up for what’s to come. 

  #1. Wily’s Castle: Stage 1 & 2 (Mega Man 2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJRoRt155mA&t=92s

This should be no surprise to fans of the series, not only because it tops so many lists of best Mega Man themes, but because this is quite possibly the greatest song known to mankind. You’ve just defeated all eight robot masters and now it’s time to battle your way through Dr. Wily’s fortress. It’s the beginning of the endgame for the boy robot and this music adds a giant exclamation point. It’s the real deal. The music starts aggressive and maintains that relentless fast pace throughout. There are undertones of doubt in the song that threaten to surface, but the optimism within casts a shadow on any negativity and wins the day. And the frequent shifts in pitch just add to the epic nature of this musical equivalent of intercourse. This truly majestic work of art is inspirational, catchy, complex, and just plain awesome. If this doesn’t pump you up for the rest of the game or series or even life itself, you’re a shell of a human being. I want this theme played at my wedding. Would it be wildly inappropriate? You bet. But this song is so good that I’m willing to ruin my wedding and countless lives just to force it upon the people I love most.  

[firstofficerwiggles]

Dress Code, Part 3

Link to Part 1 and Part 2

Pairing: Din Djarin x female reader

Rating: T (M rated here if you want the smutty version)

Warnings: kissing, touching, mentions of sexual arousal, innuendo, no actual sex

Summary: You and Din are back on the Razor Crest after the party and things get romantic. Confessions of feelings and lots of fluff.

Word Count: ~2800

Author’s Note: This was heavily inspired by Perfect by Ed Sheeran and that’s the song they are dancing to. If you’re familiar with the lyrics, you’ll note that Din uses one of the lines from the song. Also, I don’t really know how the holopads are supposed to work, so I’m treating it like a space iPad that can play music. Again, shamelessly stolen planet names from Star Trek. Also here’s the necklace from the story, in case you were wondering what it looked like.

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

You whisk your cloak off of you again, headless of the cold, wanting Din to see you in the dress again.

“I’ll make you a new deal,” he says, his helmet moving up and down as if he is looking you over. “I’ll take you to some warmer planets and I won’t complain about your clothing, but only if you promise to never wear that dress in public again.”

The dress has served its purpose, better than you could have anticipated. “Alright, it’s a deal,” you tell him with a smile.

“Although,” Din drawls out, “if you want to wear it again when we’re alone together, I’d like that.”

“Wait, so you do like this dress?” You ask the Mandalorian surprise coloring your voice. “It’s just earlier, you seemed so angry about it,” you figured it was too much for him, too risqué for him to really like it.

“Sweetheart, when I saw you in that dress, looking so beautiful,” Din sighs, “all I could think was that I didn’t deserve to see you looking so perfect.”

“Oh Mando, that’s… thank you… that’s the most romantic thing any man has ever said to me.” You feel stunned by his words. You’ve been dreaming of hearing him say something like this to you, but the reality is so much better than anything you could imagine.

His voice gets a little sterner when he says, “But I wasn’t crazy about all those other men seeing you like that too.” Then, more gruffly, he tells you “I am sorry though if I acted like a jealous idiot,” he tips his helmet down a bit, slightly ashamed at his rudeness this evening.

“Mando, you don’t have to be jealous,” you tell him, “I’m not interested in other men. I was thinking about you when I chose this dress.”

“Is that true?” he asks. Din really wants to believe you, but he’s still not sure how a woman like you could ever be with him.

“Yes, it is. I only cared about you seeing me in it.”

“What about Guy?” Din says his name like it’s a curse, “You seemed to like his attention too.” His voice has a teasing tone to it, but you can hear the undercurrent of a need for reassurance in his statement too.

“Who?” you say innocently, “You’re the only man I remember from tonight, Mando.” And you give him the most flirtatious look you have trying to show him that he’s the only one for you.

“Well, good.” His visor seems to stare at you for a beat before he looks you over again and notes the small goosebumps that have arisen on your arms, “Let’s go up to the cockpit, it’s warmer up there.”

You follow him up the ladder to the cockpit, where it is noticeably warmer, but honestly, you’re so overwhelmed with everything, with him, you had forgotten about the cold. In fact when you look over to your armor-clad bounty hunter and remember how you danced together, you feel heat spreading through your whole body.

Din doesn’t notice the cold either, how could he with the way you are looking at him, eyes full of desire? He had to bring you up here just to stop from dragging you straight to his bunk. When you said you only thought of him when you bought the dress, he felt a primal urge to claim you right then, but he wants to show you how much you mean to him first. He needs you to understand how deeply he cares for you.

You watch as Din goes over to the console where he has a holopad and he switches on some music. Different from the fast-paced dance music of the party, this music is soft and slow. Before he turns back to you, you watch with wide eyes as he takes off his pauldrons, followed by his chest plate, and so on until his helmet is the only beskar remaining. He looks more relaxed now in just his shirt and pants and you feel like you are getting a glimpse of the man underneath the warrior’s armor.

“Will you dance with me again?” Din asks, holding out his now gloveless hand to you. You feel a jolt of energy when your fingers touch his warm skin for the first time as you take his hand. He pulls you in to him holding your right hand up to his chest and then placing his other hand in the small of your back in a more old-fashioned dancing style. You let your left arm wrap up around his shoulder, amazed at being able to feel more of his body without the hard metal in the way. Your body sways with his to the music, dancing under the light of thousands of stars in the sky, and it’s perfect. You listen to the lyrics of the song as the singer croons,

Baby, I'm dancing in the dark with you between my arms

Barefoot on the grass, listening to our favourite song When you said you looked a mess, I whispered underneath my breath But you heard it, darling, you look perfect tonight

“Mando, I love this song, but I thought you hated it?” you ask astonished, “You always huff when I put it on.”

“I don’t hate it,” he says, “but it makes me frustrated, or it did, because,” he swallows, “well, because it’s- it’s everything I want to say to you, but I don’t know how. And I don’t know how I could ever deserve to be with someone like you.”

“You’re doing a pretty great job of showing me how you feel now,” you reply your eyes shining at him. Yet one thing bothers you about what he said, “But why don’t you think you deserve it?”

“I uh,” he seems a bit awkward and he turns his visor away from your gaze for a moment, “I’m not proud of some of the things I’ve done in the past. I know I’ve made bad decisions; there are choices that I regret.” He turns back to you, giving your hand a squeeze “And you are such a good person, the way you care for the child, and for me, it’s so kind and sweet, I don’t know if I’m worthy of it.”

His words are breaking your heart, how can he not see what a wonderful man he is? “You are perfect to me,” you tell him honestly. “I’ve never known a better man. You show me every day how important the child and I are to you. I don’t know any other man who could protect us so fiercely but then also take the time for stories and blanket forts. Even when you’re annoying me by arguing about my clothes, I know you’re only doing it out of a desire to keep me safe. We’ve all made mistakes in our past, but I see who you are now, who you want to be, and I like that man, I like him very much.”

Din lets out a contented sigh and brings his helmet down to touch your forehead. He hugs you tight against him as he whispers, “Do you really, sweetheart?”

“Yes, I do,” you reassure him softly as you tip your head up and place a kiss on his helmet right where you think his mouth would be.

“I would like to really kiss you,” Din tells you, “but I don’t know how,” he admits shyly.

“It’s alright,” you say, “I understand you can’t remove your helmet.”

“No, I mean, I- I’ve never, um, never kissed anyone… before.” He stammers out. “If you can’t see me, if you kept your eyes closed, I could take off my helmet.” You smile at the hopefulness in his voice.

“You would trust me to do that? Not to peek?” A wave of affection sweeps over you at his willingness to remove his helmet so that you can be his first kiss.

“Yes,” Din replies, “you’re the only one I trust to do this.”

“I promise I won’t open my eyes until you tell me that I can.” You squeeze your eyes shut and wait with anticipation, your heart beating so loudly you are sure he can hear it. He steps away from you for a moment and you hear a soft shuffle followed by a dull thunk. Then you feel him come back towards you as he grasps your hand and brings it up to touch his cheek for the first time. You let your palm graze over the stubble there, marveling at the feeling of finally touching him like this. You gently run your hand across his jaw and into the hair at the nape of his neck, bringing his face closer to your own until you can feel his breath across your lips. Even though you can’t see him, you can feel his nervousness, and so you whisper, “It’s ok, you can kiss me.”

The feeling of your hand on his neck and the sweet pressure of your body against his is almost overwhelming for Din. He looks at your lips, so tantalizing and so exactly what he has been dreaming about for months now, yet he hesitates unsure of himself. But when you whisper those words of encouragement to him, it’s all he needs. He softly touches his lips to yours, trying to move them the way he’s seen in the romantic holoprograms he watched in an attempt to learn how to kiss. It’s a little bit clumsy at first, but you don’t care at all. You tip your head to the side and slowly guide him with your own lips, showing him what you like and parting your lips a little as you do. He follows your movements and when he parts his lips too, you gently slide your tongue inside his mouth and deepen the kiss. He makes the most adorable sound of surprise as your tongue touches his and then he kisses you back enthusiastically. When you finally break apart, you are both breathless.

“I had no idea kissing you would be this wonderful,” Din tells you between breaths, “If I did, I would have taken the helmet off months ago.” You smile, but before you can reply he pulls you back into another passionate kiss. He is a fast learner and his kisses are making you weak in the knees. As Din starts to feel more certain of himself, he lets his hands explore your body. His fingertips graze over your nearly naked back causing a delightful shiver to run down your spine. When his large hands reach your waist, he grips you tighter and brings your hips to grind into his, the sensation making you moan with pleasure. Your own hands entwine into his soft hair, letting his curls swirl around your fingers, and as he kisses you more intensely, you tug lightly on his hair eliciting a groan from him. His lips leave yours but only so he can place hot kisses along your jaw and then down your neck. He reaches a particularly sensitive spot causing you to whimper and he gets bolder still, nipping you and then sucking there to create his first love bite.

“Mando!” you cry out surprised, although secretly you have to admit that you love the idea of him marking you as his.

“Din” he tells you before soothing the bite with a soft kiss.

“What?” you ask confused, it’s hard to think when he’s touching and kissing you like this.

“My name is Din,” he clarifies, “I’d like you to call me by my real name.”

“Din” you repeat almost reverently, honored that he trusts you enough to share his name with you. “I like it, it suits you, Din.”

“I like the way you say it,” he replies warmly and then returns to your lips with another searing kiss. He feels like he could kiss you forever if you would let him. Although you are the first woman he’s ever kissed, he’s had plenty of other sexual encounters in the past, but nothing has ever felt as intimate as this and he’s never felt so connected to another person before.

You feel wonderful in his arms, kissing him just like in your many daydreams. Yet, the reality of keeping your eyes closed this whole time is starting to get harder and it makes you nervous that you might slip up. You pull back from him so that you can ask, “Is there anything I can use to cover my eyes? It’s getting harder to keep them closed and I don’t want to ruin this.”

“You want a blindfold?” Din asks both touched and aroused at the idea. “You trust me enough to do that?”

“Din, you’ve trusted me to keep my eyes shut this whole time,” you point out, “I think the blindfold would just make it easier for me. But, yes, I trust you.”

“Give me a moment,” Din steps away from you and you hear fabric ripping as he tears part of his cape to make the covering. He returns to you and places the fabric around your eyes and head, quickly securing it at the back. Although you keep your eyelids closed beneath the blindfold, you feel a sense of relief with the extra layer protecting his creed. Din hears you let out a small sigh and relax a bit and it makes him smile at the level of confidence you have in him. He takes your hand and begins leading you over towards his pilot’s chair, “let’s get a little more comfortable.”

You hear a slight shuffling and then feel Din pull you into his lap. As you settle against him, your arm brushes his warm chest and you gasp as you realize he has removed his shirt. You turn in his lap so you can face him and bring your hands up to caress and explore his body. As your fingers discover every dip and curve of his muscular frame, your lips follow with soft kisses that make Din shiver and groan. You work your way back up to his neck and then decide that turnabout is fair play giving him your own love mark and causing him to moan out your name.

You pull back slightly, letting both of you catch your breath for a moment. Din’s hand comes up to play with your necklace, tracing the shape of it on your chest. “I love seeing this on you,” he says, “like you are wearing a little piece of me all the time.”

“That’s how I feel too,” you tell him, bringing your hand up to his “I can feel you with me wherever I go.”

Din kisses you again, softly this time, before telling you, “Wherever you go, I will be with you, if you want me to be.”

“I’ll always want that, Din.”

He brings his arms around you and you cuddle into his chest, feeling more happy and content than you ever have before. You feel him place a kiss at the top of your head and then he asks, “Where do you want me to take you next?”

“How about a planet with a warm sunny beach for once?” you grin up at him with a sassy smile.

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

The rest of your visit on Alastria passes pleasantly with the child, Davi, and Isa. You introduce the child to sledding and you all have an epic snowball fight for the ages. Isa and you also manage to have a second shopping trip, where you are sure to pick up something special. Although you are sad to leave your new friends, the promise of a warmer climate has you eager for your next adventure.

About a week later, you are landing on the planet Velara near a beautiful coastline with a wide sandy beach. Fortunately it’s very secluded and private with no other people in sight, so it will be perfect for your plans. You ready yourself and the child for your day in the sun, both dressed in new swimsuits all ready for the sand and surf. As Din comes down the ladder from the cockpit, he gets an eyeful of your very sexy beach look for the first time, and although you know he likes it, he lets out a groan and says, “You’re determined to drive me crazy, woman.”

“Yes, but you love it,” you tell him saucily. “Oh, and by the way, I bought you a swimsuit too.” You toss him his own pair of sexy trunks like you’ve thrown down a gauntlet, “You do want to make sure you’re properly dressed, that is, if you’re up for it.”

Din tilts his helmet at you and could swear he’s smirking as he says, “Oh, I’m definitely up for it.”

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

The End! Thank you for reading, I really hope you enjoyed it.

@sleepwithacommunist @im-the-nerdiest-of-them-a11 @rueblogsthings @mackycat11 @tv-zepeda @remmyswritings @dee-rosemary @boomtownboy @mandosboobiez @hoodjarin @haley7242 @mudhornchronicles​

[cashmierathoughts]

Riding With Casey - Indy Stars Edition

“If you run yellow lights, you have raw sex!!”. Coming to the stage, please welcome CASEY THE ICON! Do I have your attention? Good, because I need it for about five minutes; assuming you read at a normal pace. Excuse the shade, I don’t mean any harm. 

I had the pleasure of meeting up with the oh so talented Casey Ross to discuss his show. Perhaps you’ve heard of it, ‘Riding With Casey’? This impromptu show features friends of Casey’s who hop in his ‘06 Sebring to discuss various topics led by the Icon himself. The show got its start when Casey and his friends were riding around, smoking, and they decided it would be funny to record themselves talking about everyday affairs. Prior to this bright idea, Casey had previously been a success on Vine, getting hundreds and thousands of re-vines and being recognized by people in the city for his videos as well as having a show called ‘The Funny Casey Show’ in college.

 My goal was to get to the heart of the show; I really wanted to dig deep at the core of ‘Riding With Casey’. How did it get it’s start? How does he choose who comes on the show? Are topics pre-planned? Is there anything he won’t touch as far as discussion goes? Do’s and don’ts in the whip. What’s up!?

“I was with my friends smoking one day and I was like ‘bro, lets make some videos and record ourselves’. This was a long time ago. My ex motivated me to do SOMETHING. She would say, ‘Just do it, you’re wasting time just sitting around.’ My ex is a big reason why I pushed my show. So I did it.”

Behind every man, is a strong woman.. but I digress.

I must admit, I was watching a clip of ‘Riding With Casey’ and your guest mentioned he would rape KeKe Palmer. Rape is a serious thing, that’s not up for debate. So I got to thinking, ‘What won’t this nigga talk about? Is there no topic that remains untouched?’ So tell me, is there anything that you just absolutely will not talk about?

“We will talk about everything. I want riding with casey to be the realest show you’ve ever seen. If people wanna say “fuck the bee-hive” they can say that. If they want to say they don’t want no faggot ass son, they can say that. I want people to feel like they can say whatever they want to say. This is what will bring the attention. Most questions I look up on the internet in compilation with things I thought of myself. As time went on, people brought topics to me. I have a game called views. I ask them questions about their views on current events. Politics, the grammy’s. I just like to get the full person. [This is] All improv. I tell them that this is an interview but I don’t want you to be tense as if this is an interview. It’s just niggas in a car talking. But some people, I do prep and do research” 

‘Riding With Casey’ is an inclusive, no holds barred show. Discussions range from: sports, sex, music, everyday life, celebrity drama, current events, etc. as well as a sub-show called Views. On this segment of the show, Casey throws out random topics to get a holistic feel of the person he’s interviewing. When I asked Casey what was his favorite topic discussed, I must admit, I was a little shocked by his answer. One of the most historically controversial topics in the black community, outside of the OJ verdict is the question of sexuality. Mainly that of the black man. Casey reported that his favorite topic on his show to date was the discussion on whether or not his interviewees would rather have a ‘hoe daughter’ or a ‘gay son’. When asked why, this is what he had to say,

“Having a gay sun or a hoe daughter really brings out people’s bias’. I’d rather have a hoe daughter though, with a gay son, I'd feel like I did something wrong.”

Via Casey, he’d rather have a ‘hoe daughter’ because if he were to have a gay son, he would feel the burden of his sons’ decision. As if his daughter being a hoe would have nothing to do with her upbringing..? Hmm. I do agree with Casey about one thing; this subject does bring out the bias’ we carry around with us when it comes to gender roles and what is and is not acceptable in our society. Sure, being a hoe is taboo to some, but being a gay black man is still deemed as debauched in the black culture. 

Many people want to know how they can get on the show - including myself. I mean, I literally went as far as interviewing the interviewer just to get a sneak peak of what being on ‘Riding With Casey’ is like. In case you’re still waiting on that invite, from my perspective, it is worth the wait! But the process is still a little unsystematic if you ask me. 

“A lot of people ask, ‘How can I get on the show’, ‘Why haven't I been on the show’. I don’t really have a list of people that are getting on the show. There are certain people that I know I have to get. It depends on how serious they are about getting on the show.” 

“This season I have to show more of myself too. I’m not just some nigga asking questions.” 

Switching gears, everyone is inspired by something or someone that preceded them. In Casey’s circumstance, it was comedian/actor Martin Lawrence. In high school, Casey watched every episode of Martin and now knows every word. According to Casey, 

“...Martin is my biggest inspiration because of his show. I love the spotlight. In high school, I started to watch Martin every day after school. I know every episode word for word. His relationship with Gina – he was fun with her. He was on TV, he had the girl and had his friends. [Even though we don’t care about relationships in 2017]” 

Most comedians find joy in making light of current events, whether they’re “hot topics”, controversial propositions, race issues, politics, etc. For them, it’s an avenue to educate their audience on what’s going on it the world. It prompts them to formulate an opinion about societal issues all while laughing their asses off. I can’t think of a better way to stay woke. Casey and I talked about what it is about comedy that he finds joy in and it really boils down to him wanting to make other people happy.

“People have literally walked up to me and told me that they watched my vines over and over just to laugh because they were having a bad day.. It’s shit like that. People see the talent and it inspires them”.

While on the topic of other comedians, I wanted to get Casey’s opinion on black comedians, specifically black males, who dress up as women as part of their “act”. A few years ago, comedian Dave Chappelle sat down with Oprah to talk about why he felt the industry was flawed and how they – the industry – always push the “cross dressing” agenda on black comedians. In short, Dave would argue that the conspiracy to emasculate the black man and reduce his/their [the black men] creative freedom within the industry is one of the reasons he left that 50 million dollars on the table and moved to Africa. When asked about his thoughts on dressing up as a woman for shits and giggles, Casey said that growing up watching ‘Martin’, he didn’t see it as a problem. He would mimic scenes featuring Sheneneh [Ref: Martin] and Wanda [Ref: Jamie Foxx] to make people laugh. But my question to him was, would you do it now? Plenty of comedians and actors have done it, and still do it. i.e Tyler Perry, Eddie Murphy, Martin, the Waynes’ brothers, etc. Do you find it necessary to dress up as a woman as part of your act for laughs? Casey looked me in the eye, leaned back in his water stained scrap metal Starbuck seat and said,

“Hell na. When it comes to being on camera, I don't think I could take it that far. Now, I just feel like there’s something behind it now because of what Dave said and the Hollywood world.”

Despite the inspiration Casey receives from legendary comedians that paved the way before him, Casey channels a lot of his influence from his estranged father. It’s funny how the people who we have less contact with shape us. I always like to remind myself that the broken are the more evolved. I also find this to be true for Casey. When I asked him who was the most influential person in his life, he responded, 

“As crazy as it sounds, my dad. I don’t have a good relationship – because I don’t want to be shit like him and it pushes me to be better. Sometimes I see myself in him and I know that I have to change that shit. Now, I turn that hurt into motivation and it makes me want to grind hard. When I get rich, I know he’s gonna want to come back around and I’m going to embrace him. Something gotta make them love me. Just like women.”

Casey admitted to me that he will know when he has truly made it because he will then be genuinely happy in life. Know yourself, then grow yourself. With the help, love, and support of family and friends, doors will open, windows will be left cracked, and ceilings will be no more.  

Casey has a promising future ahead of him. My third eye senses this. Not only is he a comedian and producer of his very own show, but he is also a fashion designer, cartoonist, and creative director of three different clothing lines. [Shout out: Trust God, So Sick, Cheatah, 7House, and Silent Hustle]. Be that as it may, I would advise that he stays positive and learns to neglect the bullshit on his way to the top. It’s easy to get sidetracked by the things going on around us, but we have to know our focus and maintain just that. I had a blast working with this young man and I advise you to check out his show! 

Final thoughts from the Icon:

“Believe in yourself and chase your dreams and do what you wanna do in life and it’s yours. Its not anybody elses, not your moms, your dads, or your friends ‘cause when they die, its up to you. And stop being nice to these bitches. The good guy always loses.”

If you would like to get in contact with Casey about his show, follow him on Twitter @CaseytheIcon or on Snapchat @itsfunnycasey or E-mail him at CaseyTheIcon@icloud.com 

[cinedave]

REVIEW: Split - Welcome back M. Night Shyamalan!

Although the initial 2007 live action incarnation was good, I still rate the original 1986 animated feature as the best Transformers movie (sing it with me..... “You’ve got the touch”). Thinking back on it some more it was also my surprising childhood introduction to notions of schizophrenia and multiple personalities; aka the spinning 5 faced Quintessons Judges. Many years later I can even remember being told about the psychological condition and having a cartoon image of them flashing into my head.... and yes, this was way before Dr. Splitz in Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys in the late 90s. Does every generation have a mental disorder explaining cartoon? Anyway, the idea of one being many (DID - Dissociative Identity Disorder) is an idea that’s long fascinated many forms of fiction and now Mr. “let’s twist again” M. Night Shyamalan becomes the latest to utilize it and in very successful fashion. It’s official, Shyamalan has turned his career around and Split this is year’s 10 Cloverfield Lane.

While leaving a teen birthday party the 3 friends of Claire (Haley Lu Richardson – Edge of Seventeen), Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy – Morgan) and Marcia (Jessica Sula – Skins) are kidnapped by Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy – X-Men franchise); a troubled man with 23 distinct personalities known as The Horde.

They must escape before the 24th “Beast” personality emerges to kill them all. The Cloverfield Lane comparisons are more than a statement of quality as Split replicates many successes of Dan Trachtenberg’s bunker busting thriller; such as periods of captivity, claustrophobia and tension punctuated by sharp bursts of release. It also works a rushed introduction very well, skipping the typical early character building chapters that are instead told throughout the film via memory flashbacks. The quick abduction places the audience within the same state of fear and confusion as the victimized girls and in these sections Shyamalan nails the pacing; slowing things right in points of suspense and uncertainty before speeding things up as panic induced escape scheming unfolds. The teen trio has a good dynamic too with Claire as the self appointed leader, Marcia as the follower and Casey as oddly composed outsider. The three of them reluctantly combining for a combine goal makes for nice imagery of Kevin’s identities doing the same. The film is also a lot funnier than many will expect dealing primarily in dark humor and shock reactions to Kevin’s switching between identities. The undisputed comedy king is his 9 year old Hedwig persona. McAvoy makes nearly his every line into a laugh, not to mention his dance moves.

Yet the film’s masterstroke is its bi-polar nature. It’s simultaneously a claustrophobic mystery thriller while running a separate story of exposition focusing on the Kevin and the condition itself via interactions with his therapist Dr Fletcher (Betty Buckley – Carrie). The later subtly becomes the more fascinating and delivers a delightfully complex and warped examination of Kevin’s inner workings as a balance of order and chaos between his personalities. That each does not only exist as an entity but can carry jealousy and animosity towards each other or even states of conflict. It also delivers notions of Kevin’s identities being conceived through necessity than desire as his way of dealing with aspects of his reality which all builds towards the idea of The Beast being born to out of a need to show the world Kevin’s mind is really capable of. Sadly that ultimately becomes the film’s biggest weak point as said emergence builds towards a more action-thriller climax. There’s some good science fiction and supernatural ideas in the mix over Kevin altering his physical condition by will and thought (“We are what we believe” – Frank Turner approves) but it takes it too far. Everything that precedes it is engaging because it’s presented in a very believable manner and switching things into a more of a creature feature feels very out of place. However there is still some good story work involved as Casey’s childhood hunting flashbacks culminate well in the final showdown and overall it’s another trip down Cloverfield Lane; I wasn’t crazy about that alien fighting ending either but it didn’t spoil the rest of the film for me and it’s the same with Split.

It must also be noted that (as some may expect), this film isn’t James McAvoy playing 20+ different characters (for that see Sharlto Copley in Hardcore Henry) as only half a dozen feature for anything more than mere moments. That’s absolutely the right choice as it allows those few to feel solid and developed but some may feel they’ve been undersold on the film’s concept. While we’re splitting hairs, although they have a payoff, some of Casey’s flashback scenes do feel more filler than content and one or two could certainly have been cut.

It quickly becomes clear why an actor such as McAvoy would be attracted to playing this role(s). The scope and range of his multiple performances is incredible. He feels like a force of nature on screen from his wild mad eye grinning by stern sedate composure. The girls impress too. Anya Taylor-Joy spends most of the film playing it very cold and closed yet still gets across her thoughts and emotions well. Haley Lu Richardson makes some excellent switches from fear to confidence and following on from Edge of Seventeen looks like a promising young talent. By contrast Jessica Sula is the least memorable of the three but by no means bad.

A surprising end link to the Shyamalan back catalogue feels odd but doesn’t do any harm and overall split sees the director delivering his best film since 2000s Unbreakable by favouring consistent quality rather than betting everything on a twist. If you’re looking for an interesting and thrilling watch this an ideal choice and despite some jump scares it is safe for the squeamish. This is no split decision, it’s a clean win.